Piercing the Veil

by Guy Riessen

  Oddly there were symbols on the inside of the cover, and tracing the angular forms with his finger, Derrick could see that the writing went behind the stacked sheaves of papyrus. “Text goes behind the pages—this isn’t the original cover. And,” Derrick said looking closely, “it’s not from the same time period as the papyrus pages, right? Doesn’t even look like it was originally a book cover at all?”

  “Nope it carbon-dated to the Protodynastic Period. I think it was originally a single scroll on leather. And look here.” Howard closed the book and turned it over. The back cover had been torn diagonally in half. “I’m still working on the full translation of course, but the front side appears to be the full spell to summon and bind a Black Djinn. Any guess what might be on this torn half of the back?

  “Part of the bone golem spell?” Derrick asked.

  “Bingo! And it gets even creepier. See the leather?”

  “Don’t tell me, H. The leather is actually human skin?”

  Howard nodded. “Kind of, but worse. Leather isn’t great for DNA extraction, but it can work for species identification. Get this—the leather had indicators for both human and reptile DNA.”

  “All one contiguous piece of leather?” Derrick asked.

  Howard nodded.

  “So, you’re saying it’s from some sort of a human-reptile hybrid?”

  “Straight out of a nineteen-seventies nuclear disaster movie, right?”

  “Or perhaps the skin of Sobek himself?”

  “Precisely my thought,” Howard said, nodding. “And, get this, the actual writing on the leather? The letters have been stained, which is why they appear darker than the rest of the leather. But see how they’re raised? It’s scar tissue, dude!”

  “Scar tissue?” Derrick said. “You can’t make scar tissue on leather.”

  “Nope.”

  “The ritual would have been branded or cut into the body of a still-living god. Then they skinned the god?” Derrick said.

  Howard nodded.

  Derrick continued, “Then at some point, they bound a bunch of spells and rites in the skin of a dead god, stuck it on a dais, and sealed the whole thing in a tomb. Freaky.”

  “A tomb protected for thousands of years by man-eating Nile crocodiles.” Howard leaned across the desk and said, “And mummies, and ... crocodile mummies.”

  “No way.” Derrick shook his head.

  “Way. Unfortunately, the Egyptian dig that followed-up on the ground radar at the Kom Ombo site was relatively big—Sarah says there were a few different University teams working the excavation. She’s pulling all the names from the respective universities.”

  “Where’s the other half of that bone golem spell? The Frenchman, or someone he’s working with, obviously knows how to cast it.”

  Howard shrugged, sitting back down in the wooden chair.

  Derrick’s stomach growled loudly in the silence that followed. “On that note,” he said, picking up his phone and checking the weather. “It’s supposed to rain tonight, should we hustle out of here before it starts and play some SEW at your place?” Outside the window, the sky was growing steadily darker, and Derrick could see clouds stacking up over the roof of the building across the quad from Howard’s office. “Wanna order a pizza? I’m buying.”

  Howard nodded, and Derrick flicked his thumb across his phone, “Hang on, I’ll get us an Uber.”

  Mary poked her head through the door. “Hold on just a pea-pickin’ second, boys... Did I hear pizza ... and Derrick’s buying?”

  “Wait, did you say Derrick’s buying?” Sarah’s voice came from just past Mary.

  “It’s Gamer Pizza though, we’re gonna play some SEW,” Howard said.

  “What’s gamer pizza?” Sarah said, looking around Mary’s shoulder as she pushed the door open wide.

  “Pepperoni, pineapple, jalapeno, and red onion.” Derrick smiled.

  Sarah cocked a hip and said, “Derrick, that’s just Researcher Pizza with jalapenos added.”

  Howard said, “My car’s in the shop until Wednesday, and Derrick’s is well, you know.” Derrick gave a little moan for Galileo, and Howard continued, “So if one of you is driving ... and the other’s buying the beer ...”

  “Sure, no problem, I’ll just requisition the VW bus,” Sarah’s grin turned wicked, “or, no wait, the school bus!” Derrick’s moan turned into a groan of despair.

  “Buckle up boys, I’m drivin’!” Mary said jingling her keys.

  “Yes!” Derrick said, swinging his braced leg down off the desk.

  He screamed as an unbelievably blistering pain wracked his foot.

  Derrick slipped from the office chair, his head smacking hard against the marble floor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “WHAT THE HELL?” HOWARD shouted.

  Sarah and Mary dashed into the room, sliding the chair out of the way. Derrick had slipped straight down and cracked his head against the floor. Mary checked his neck quickly, then lifted and felt under his head.

  Howard grabbed the desk lamp and set it on the floor, then with one arm, Howard swept all the papers, pens, and books from his desk. “Hang on, man.”

  “H, your secretary is going to be pissed,” Derrick said. The back of his head hurt, but the pain in his foot had passed. A couple pieces of paper floated down, landing on his chest and stomach.

  Howard squatted next to Derrick and slid his arm behind his neck and shoulders. “I’m gonna get you up on the desk, buddy. Ready?”

  Derrick said, “Yeah, man.”

  Howard lifted Derrick’s shoulders then slid his other arm under his knees. “Wait, Howard, we didn’t say our ... wedding vows yet,” Derrick said, pain straining his voice. The weight of his leg hanging over Howard’s arm was putting stress on his broken femur. Howard stood and a moment later, Derrick was laying on top of the desk, sweat beading on his brow.

  Mary moved down to his foot and used both hands to press on the sides of his heel. Derrick was squirming from a bizarre sensation in his foot. The intense pain was gone but now it felt like his foot had gone to sleep and his heel was waking up with pins and needles.

  “I can feel something,” Mary said, “It’s a small lump, but it’s slipping out from under my fingers when I apply pressure. Dang thing is squirrelier than a catfish when the creek don’t rise.” She let go with one hand and traced a path around the back of Derrick’s heel with her fingertip.

  “What kind of something?” Sarah asked.

  “I can’t tell. It’s not soft, it resists pressure ... something rigid.” Sarah palpated his heel. “The heel itself feels pretty dang strange as well—there is some softness I wouldn’t expect in a normal, healthy heel. Like a flexible tube of some sort—very soft. Not near the skin surface. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it feels almost like a shunt for a dialysis patient.”

  “Yeah,” Derrick squirmed as Mary continued to manipulate his foot. “Great. Mary, when you press on it like that, it itches like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Mary rotated his leg slightly which sent a sharp pain radiating out from where the femur-break was. He groaned in pain then said haltingly, “Easy, there, Mary. I’m only held together by a handful of screws.” He hissed as a burning sensation ripped through his heel.

  “Screws? I figured with you it’d be duct tape, buddy.” Howard squeezed his shoulder.

  Derrick could feel the cold sweat trickling along the small of his back. “Nah, man,” he panted. “That’s only when ... my surgeon runs out of ... screws,” He said through gritted teeth.

  “Whatever this thing is, I can feel it move faster than a whore in a church whenever I rotate his foot. It has enough awareness to keep the heel bone vertically above itself,” Mary said.

  Sarah said, “We have x-rays that checked for additional fractures further down the leg from the femur fracture. If this thing can move like that, would it stay hidden as they shot the diagnostic plates?”

  “Yeah if it moves to stay under the bone. Our x-
ray camera is top-down.” Mary nodded, then said, “Howard, get down to the garage and get the med kit and the immobilization board out of the bus. Make sure there’s some a’them chem-cold compresses in there too. We need at least three.”

  “You got it,” Howard said. He gave Derrick a soft punch, “Hang in there, D, Mary’ll get this figured.” He turned and jogged out the door.

  Derrick’s eyes were squeezed shut, but he said through clenched teeth, “I still want gamer pizza.”

  Sarah turned to Mary and said, “Go to your lab and get the CT scanner up and running, Howard and I will get Derrick and his passenger immobilized and down there ASAP.”

  “Yeah, hurrying is good,” Derrick said, opening his eyes and nodding at Mary. It felt like someone was dragging a hot poker across his heel now.

  Mary quickly left the room.

  “Derrick, has your heel felt like this before?”

  “No. It’s been itchy. But no pain. Sometimes the pins and needles feeling—I thought it was normal healing. You know how scar tissue feels when it’s healing?”

  Sarah nodded, one hand on her cheek. She seemed to come to a decision and pulled the leather belt from her waist. She started unbuttoning the soft white sweater she was wearing over her sheer blue blouse. Derrick realized he was staring, tried to look away, but his gaze drifted back.

  “This is going to hurt like hell until Howard gets back with some morphine, but I don’t want to take any chances—that thing could try to move to another part of your body,” she said. She undid the brace on his leg and slid her belt under his leg and slipped the end through the buckle. She climbed up on the desk and straddled his legs between her thighs.

  Sarah grabbed the end of the belt, and squeezing his legs between her thighs for leverage, she hauled back on the leather strap.

  Derrick screamed but cut it off, clenching his jaw and panting quickly.

  “Sorry, Derrick, it’s got to be tight enough to cut off the arterial blood too. Try not to move too much until we get a real tourniquet on you.”

  “Oh. My. God. They don’t show this part in the movies, do they? Am I gonna ... lose my leg?” Derrick gritted between panted breaths.

  “Nah, we won’t leave it on that long.”

  Howard came back into the room at a run, orange immobile-board under one arm and the large black suitcase-sized med kit in the other hand. He pushed the door shut with his foot. “Hey, man, that was quite the scream. I could hear it from the quad.”

  “Me and Leroy Jenkins, man. We don’t do half-assed,” Derrick said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His vision was cloudy and tinged with black around the edges. He didn’t feel so hungry now.

  Sarah looked wide-eyed at Howard, “Did he just say ‘assed? I’ve got the next spot in the pool.”

  Howard said, “Yeah, that’s a no-go, though. Half-assed is the non-vulgar version of half-arsed.”

  Derrick grunted, “You and that dumb-ass pool need to get your asses in gear and get me scanned or whatever, man.”

  Howard pulled a few white packages from the med kit, cracked the cold compresses and shook them to mix the chemicals. “On his heel?”

  “Yeah. Do three so we can chill the whole heel-ankle area to freezing.” She grabbed a roll of bandage and began wrapping around the compresses as Howard held them in place.

  “I can’t even feel the cold, but the tourniquet still hurts like all heck,” Derrick said.

  “Yeah, your nerves may not respond below the tourniquet.” Sarah held the bandage while Howard wrapped medical tape around everything.

  Derrick laid his head back, his eyes half-lidded.

  Howard moved back to where he set the black bag. “We should replace your belt with a real tourniquet before we move him.”

  He rummaged in the kit, and Sarah said, “That was my plan.”

  Derrick heard the tourniquet zip closed and felt it above the makeshift one. He felt the pressure building again there when they spun the windlass. He groaned in pain as the pressure became intense. It felt an awful lot like they were moving the fracture in ways they shouldn’t.

  “Here you go, buddy. Little bit of ol’ Auntie Em. Take the edge off.” He felt the jab of a needle in the middle of his thigh.

  “What?” Derrick croaked.

  “Street slang for morphine.”

  “Of course.” The warmth spread out from Derrick’s leg and he started to breathe easier again as they continued to crank the tourniquet tighter. He was warm and fuzzy as they slid him onto the orange board and strapped him down.

  “Tourniquet’s good,” Howard said.

  “Gotcha. I’m removing the belt then, Derrick,” Sarah said.

  Derrick nodded but didn’t feel much as Sarah pulled the belt loose and tossed it away.

  “On three,” Sarah said, gripping the board handles at the end by his feet. At three, they lifted him off the desk. The muscles in Sarah’s shoulders and upper arms looked really nice, and the highlights on her hair from the stormy afternoon sun streaming in through Howard’s window were magical. As she stepped out into the hallway, pulling Howard’s door closed and turning the key while she rested the board on one raised knee, her breasts swayed slightly beneath her blue blouse.

  Howard’s face suddenly appeared upside down, filling his vision. “Dude, you’re staring,” Howard whispered. “And humming ...”

  Derrick cleared his throat and Howard’s face moved back out of view. He hoped Sarah hadn’t noticed. Then he realized she was looking at him. In an instant, his ears felt hot.

  Sarah smiled at Derrick as she dropped the key in her pocket and adjusted her grip on the board, rotating around so she wouldn’t be walking backward. In the fluorescents of the hallway lighting, Derrick noted her skin was slicked with sweat, and a pleasant wave swept through his body.

  It wasn’t entirely the morphine.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “CAN WE GET 3D IN REAL time?” Sarah asked as she and Howard set Derrick down on the CT scanner table. A computer and monitor were on a rolling stand several feet away from the large beige semicircle monolith they slid Derrick’s feet into. She had to speak loudly because the lab room was filled with the deep thrumming of the scanner. The CT scanner in Mary’s lab was built differently than a hospital scanner so she could reconfigure it for different sized objects and beings.

  Mary said, “Once we get enough initial scans, it’ll build like fire on the mountain and continue to update as more scans and data are acquired.” She waved a hand at Sarah and Howard and said, “Y’all can step into the other room if ya want, but if rads don’t bother ya none, throw on one of those lead aprons.” She tossed a thumb toward the blue x-ray aprons that hung from a hook near the door.

  “You know me, I can never get enough rad, man.” Derrick’s speech was slurred, but he twisted his head, so he could look at them.

  Mary frowned at Derrick over the top of her glasses, then pushed them back up and grabbed a blue apron and laid it across Derrick. “Lay flat, Derrick”

  “OK to leave the ice packs on? We want to try and freeze whatever it is in place until we can formulate a plan,” Sarah said, trying unsuccessfully to tuck a bit of flyaway hair back behind her ear.

  “Yep, packs won’t be a problem,” Mary said.

  “Slide the monitor over?” Derrick said, nodding his head to the left. “I can’t see what’s going on.”

  Mary pushed the cart over, typed on the keyboard and the sound in the room grew to a dull whine, like the sound of a jet turbine spinning up from inside a gangway. “Hold the leg still.”

  “I don’t have a choice. Thing’s just a dead stump with that tourniquet on there,” Derrick said.

  “How long will it take to get the images?” Sarah asked, then stopped as images appeared on the screen.

  “Resolution will improve as each x-ray image is incorporated into the 3D image,” Mary said as she used the mouse to rotate the blurry, rough image of Derrick’s ankle. The ice
and bandages began to be clearly imaged and Mary rolled the middle wheel on the mouse. The view slid through the bandages and into Derrick’s ankle. Bone and veins and tendons became visible as images were added. She clicked buttons on the side of the screen and the contrast improved. She clicked again, and the anklebone was colored white, the veins blue, and the primary artery red.

  “What’s that?” Derrick asked, “That darker tube thing?”

  Mary manipulated the orientation of the image. It looked like a black gopher tunnel with plant roots hanging down into the open area. “Looks like some kinda tunnel in your heel. Hang on.”

  “What, like a vein?”

  “No, the things hanging down like drying cattails are nerve fibers, axons, from your medial plantar nerve.” Mary zoomed in further, the walls of the tunnel looked scraped, like a freshly peeled carrot turned inside out.

  “What would cause that?” Derrick asked. His voice didn’t sound slurred anymore, it sounded cold and clear.

  Mary swung the view around again, following the tunnel through Derrick’s ankle. The image continued to sharpen and clarify.

  Sarah leaned in close to the screen, “Oh my god. That is what would cause it.”

  On the screen tucked up into one end of a tunnel burrowed into Derrick’s flesh was something that looked like a beetle. It had short, wickedly jagged pincers and a squat body. Its six legs were tipped with equally jagged claws burrowed into the flesh of what looked like the top of the tunnel in this view. It wasn’t moving at all and appeared like it was stopped in the middle of tearing a large chunk of flesh away from the end of the tunnel.

  “Holy crap! That’s in my foot?”

  “Yeah. At least it’s not eating ... er, moving,” Howard said.

  “If it is a beetle, the cold has stopped its metabolism,” Mary said. “Good call on the tourniquet. Normally, even with the cold pack, the interior blood flow might be enough to keep the dang thing mobile. It could have continued gnawing away at the tissue there.”