by Fox, Stephen
“Are you all right, Captain?” Detective Sergeant Hurst helped him to his feet. His hat had blown off in his haste and his hair blazed even in the rain.
“Yes, thanks to you guys. Lucky for me you were here.”
“No luck involved, Captain. Just following your orders.”
Hamilton checked for signs of life as the mourners began to arrive. Marie and the pale man appeared, followed by the policeman assigned to guard her. “Get her out of here! Get them all out of here. There may be others.” Underwood barked the orders, then turned back to the scene just as Hamilton rolled the body over. Incredibly, the face of a sweet little woman appeared, State Senator Maggie O’Mullens.
Hurst looked down at the tiny form. “You know, she looked a lot bigger with a sword in her hand.”
Hamilton started to walk back the way they came. “I’ll call it in. And get a meat wagon.”
Underwood shook his head. “No! No coroner.”
Hurst looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“We need to keep this quiet. Besides she may not be dead.”
Hamilton frowned. “Captain, no disrespect intended but I put at least three slugs in her myself, and my partner checked her out. He wouldn’t make a rookie mistake like that.”
“Nonetheless, Detective, cuff her. If she isn’t completely gone, I sure don’t want to give her another crack at me. That thing is sharp!” He rubbed the back of his neck, which was still oozing blood.
Hurst moved to help him. “Let’s go to the car and get a towel on that neck.”
The captain shook his head. “No. This is a dangerous creature and I don’t want it left alone. I’ll be okay. Bring your car as close as possible. We’ll use the trunk.”
The two detectives looked at each other. Hurst spoke first. “That’s completely against procedure.”
“Damn the procedure. You can file a protest later. We’re not dealing with normal here. We’re dealing with creatures that would kill you as soon as talk to you. Now let’s get this body out of sight, and get it where we can interrogate it.”
The detectives looked at him strangely as he talked about interrogating a body, but they followed orders.
The two detectives drove toward the GRIL building, with Underwood following in his car. They had just pulled into the parking lot when the pounding started. Underwood watched in fascinated horror as the lead car’s trunk buckled, then popped open as the car braked hard to a halt. The captain followed suit, and was out of his car in a flash, shotgun in hand. The petite figure, still handcuffed, struggled to get to her feet when he clubbed her on the side of the head with the rifle butt and she went down again. He hit her twice more as the detectives got out of the car. Motioning the two back into their vehicle, he jumped back in his car, and both cars continued to the morgue’s ambulance entrance. An attendant emerged with a gurney. Underwood met him and took control of the cart. “Thanks. Now get lost.” The attendant started to argue, but one look at the detectives coming out of their car with shotguns at the ready made his eyes expand to saucer size and he vanished quickly. The detectives helped Underwood place the unconscious woman on the gurney and fasten the restraints, including handcuffing each arm and leg to the metal frame of the cart. She started to come around again so the captain bludgeoned her into submission one more time. A call ahead had emptied Morgue #2 and they wheeled her in. The officers found more restraints and immobilized all four limbs. Underwood found several rolls of surgical tape, and they wrapped her in several layers. The detectives were in awe. They had not seen first hand what one of the Chosen could do, but they had heard the rumors, and now this display had confirmed every warning Underwood had given them. More importantly, they had witnessed the woman come back to life after they had pumped at least five shots into her tiny body. Once Jim was satisfied that even the superhuman strength of the woman could not break free, he dismissed the detectives. He neither needed nor wanted any witnesses to whatever he had to do next. He did however keep the shotgun.
It took another ten minutes for O’Mullens to return to consciousness again. That gave Underwood a chance to find a video camera and set it up. As the senator began to stir, the captain turned on the camera. He sat in a chair near the bed, shotgun on his lap, and watched her shake off the effects of five gunshot wounds, at least one a fatal shot to the heart, and multiple blows to the head. Four bloody holes adorned her blouse and the side of her face was brown with crusted blood, but she opened her eyes and looked around. He waited until she had completely come to her senses before he spoke.
“Welcome, Senator. I apologize for the Spartan accommodations. I know you’re usually accorded more regal surroundings, but I felt we needed to talk without interruption.”
“Without witnesses, you mean.” She tried to move her arms, without success.
“Yes, well, privacy was one consideration in my choice of meeting places, but I felt that you also wouldn’t really want any media coverage of your role in the events of the last few days.”
“Do you know what the media and the Governor will do when they find out you have kidnapped a state senator? Release me at once.” The fear in her eyes belied the anger in her voice.
“Not kidnapped, Senator. We merely took into custody a suspect caught in a terrorist act.”
“But you’re violating my Constitutional rights. I wish to see my attorney immediately. I won’t answer any questions until then.”
“That’s fine, Senator. Just give me his name and phone number.”
She realized the trap. He wanted names of more members of the Chosen. “I demand to be given a phone. I don’t have to tell you anything. You must let me see my lawyer, any lawyer. Let me speak to a court-appointed attorney.”
“I’m sorry Senator. You fail to understand your situation here. You’re not entitled to speak to anyone except me.”
“You obviously haven’t read the Constitution lately, young man.”
“Actually I have, but that’s not really the issue here. The basic concept you don’t seem to grasp is that the dead have no rights in our government. Well, it seems a great many of them seem to vote in every election, but I believe that is the extent of their rights.”
The woman looked uncertain. “What do you mean?”
Underwood shook his head and chuckled. “Very simply, Senator, you are dead. A doctor at the funeral examined you and declared you dead. He’s probably filling out the legal forms as we speak.” She had been lifeless at the cemetery, so she couldn’t know he was lying.
She paused to consider the impact of his words. Clearly it was a situation she hadn’t anticipated. When the senator spoke again, it was with the uncertainty of someone trying to find a loophole somewhere. “But if I am considered dead, it wasn’t a natural death, and I have to be examined as soon as possible by…” An even longer pause.
Underwood’s smile grew broader as he spoke. “You’re absolutely right, Senator. And I believe you now remember who would be the person that would examine you. The daughter of the man you murdered just a few days ago.”
She tested her bonds again. “You have no proof of those charges.”
Raising his right hand to his face, he wiggled his index finger at her. “Senator, when you were gunned down in front of at least twenty people, you were carrying a large sword, which you have used to behead at least three victims in the last few days. As smart as you people are reported to be, I can’t believe that you haven’t realized that knives leave a signature just like bullets. Knives and other sharp weapons all have microscopic irregularities. A knife that inflicts a wound can be traced back to that weapon by the pattern these irregularities leave. And Senator,” He paused for effect, “a sword is just a very large knife.”
O’Mullens licked her lips. “You’ll never be able to convict me.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps not. We will never be able to prove that you are probably hundreds of years old, or that you have killed scores of people throughout the years. But we have witnesses t
o your attempt on my life. We can tie the weapon you used to the commissioner’s death. And one more thing will get you life without parole. There was one more piece of evidence you overlooked when you killed Commissioner Williams. There was a videotape taken from a hidden camera overlooking Patrick’s cell the night you executed him. I made copies. You got one of the copies when you killed Bell, but there are plenty more. We have the whole thing on tape for a jury. By the way, I’ve sent several copies to various people. You would never be able to find them all. They go to federal authorities all over the country upon my death.”
She mulled this over for a time. Finally she whispered, “I won’t betray them.”
“Excuse me?”
“Look if you just wanted to arrest me, I’d be in a cell already. You want something and I assume it’s information. So ask your questions. If I can answer without betraying the Chosen, I will. But I won’t betray them. You’ve seen what happens to those who do.”
He nodded. “I get the picture. But it would help us if we could find out more about your group.”
She shook her head, with a grimace. “Ask your questions. I’ll answer any that I feel aren’t violating my trust.”
“ Okay. For starters, who are you and how old are you?”
“I was born Katerina Vladinski in what is now Czechoslovakia in the year 1402. I guess that makes me nearly six hundred years old.”
“Wow. And you don’t look a day over two hundred.”
A grimace. “Please. Save your banter for a more willing recipient.”
He shrugged. “Tell me a little about yourself. Your childhood perhaps.”
“I don’t remember much about it. My memory is spotty. I remember having a black-and-white dog when I was a child, but I don’t remember its name. In fact, I don’t even remember my parents’ names.”
“How can that be? I thought that your ‘superior mind’ could remember everything.”
The Senator laughed bitterly. “My mind is much superior to yours, thank you very much, but time erodes the memories.” Another laugh. “Look at you. You probably can’t remember what you had for dinner last night, and yet you expect me to recall 600 years of events. As we get older, sooner or later our brains finally reach the capacity of the data that can be stored. In order to store one fact, another older fact must go. Usually that fact is insignificant, and may take years for you to even realize you’ve lost it, like the name of your kindergarten teacher. Maybe you’ll never know the fact is gone, like what you were doing at seven o’clock on the night of June fifth in 1978. Unless something significant occurs, your mind stores the data in a temporary file. As time marches on, and your senses bring in more and more data, these temporary files are wiped out.”
She paused to look deep in herself. “Even the important data can be lost over the decades and centuries. Remember, we age normally until the regeneration. Like you our brains lose about a million brain cells per day throughout our lives.”
The Senator shrugged her shoulders and continued. “Anyway, the older we are, the more regenerations we go through, and the more information is lost. Any head injuries we suffer can be repaired physically, but the lost information cannot be restored.”
Underwood nodded in understanding. “You must have seen some incredible changes through such a long lifetime.” As he was sitting and talking to her this way, he could forget that just hours ago she was swinging a sword at his neck. He could even get to like her.
“Changes?” she said. “Well, yes and no. The technology and shape of things from buildings and transportation keeps changing, but the people really don’t change much. You have the people who are satisfied with their lives and happy, and you get the ones who always want what someone else has. Most of the people who are happy with their lives can adapt to the changes that life brings. It’s the people who aren’t satisfied with themselves who long for the past. It’s always easy for people to remember the good things and bury the bad. In truth, every age, every time has its share of good and bad. But going back is never an option.”
Underwood nodded. “Time waits for no man… or woman.”
“Precisely. And diplomatic, too. Anyway, over the years I watched London grow from whale oil to kerosene to natural gas to electricity.”
Underwood’s curiosity was becoming aroused. “What brought you to America?”
Her voice softened as she thought of events long gone. “World War II caused us a lot of problems. We had a large group of us living in London during the war. During the London Blitz, a German V-2 rocket leveled our house. Several of our members were blown apart beyond any chance of regeneration. Others were pronounced dead, and could not stay in the same area where somebody might recognize them and question how they came back from the dead. I was living with a man who had to leave. He had heard a lot about the United States and wanted to go. I thought I loved him so I decided to go with him. We tried Boston and New York, but found them to be too rough. The South, Savannah especially, offered a cultured atmosphere in many ways reminiscent of Victorian London.”
“Then it’s true. You people can actually come back from the dead?”
“You watched me revive, didn’t you? We can be killed, but the bodies of the Chosen are much more resilient than yours. Even if the heart or lungs stop working for a time, our bodies can still begin repairs. If not deprived of blood for too long the body can repair enough of the damage to begin the heart beating again or the lungs working. That’s why we usually sever the head. It is the only way to ensure death. Even then there has been at least one case where the head was reattached to the body quickly enough and the victim was saved.”
“How does the body do that?”
“I’m not a doctor, so I’ve only got the vaguest idea of the science behind it. The cells in our bodies are more efficient so require less air and food. With any injury to the body, repairs begin immediately and work much more quickly than yours. Our bodies can create new blood almost as fast as it can be lost, so it is nearly impossible for a Chosen to bleed to death. As long as the heart, lungs and brain remain intact the body can usually return to normal within a few days. If one of the main organs is damaged, it may take longer.”
“Are you talking about regeneration? You mean you can actually regrow a lost arm or leg?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve seen it done. It would probably take ten days or so, but it happens from time to time. The person has to stay in seclusion, of course, while the regeneration takes place.”
“Incredible. What other powers do you have?”
“Most of our powers were discussed by that traitor whose execution brought us to this situation. Not being a doctor, I can’t add much to what he told you.”
“You seem to know everything that Patrick told us and what he didn’t.”
“Yes, well you forget that I am the one who killed your Commissioner of Police. It was I who stole the tape. I watched it once before I destroyed it. I failed to take into account your making copies of the tape earlier.”
“Speaking of Patrick, he seemed to recognize you in the tape just before he died. Had you ever met him?”
O’Mullens gave a hearty laugh at this question. “Did I know him? My dear man, it was I who made him what he was. It was I who chose him.”
Chapter 9
“I forget the exact year - maybe 1670 or a little before.” The senator’s face seemed to lose twenty years as she went back in her mind. “My house in London had just been destroyed during the Great Fire in that city. The city was devastated! People were living in the street or out in the woods. I lost nearly everything, but the Foundation stepped in. They have a fund for helping us when we need it.”
“What Foundation? The Walachia Foundation? Is it run by the Chosen?”
O’Mullens seemed startled by the interruption. She was so wrapped up in her memories that she had forgotten that she needed to watch what she was saying. “How did you know … ? Never mind! Where was I? Ah, yes, London.”
Her eyes
grew far away again. “I had just gone through regeneration, so I was young, beautiful and sexy. I was also homeless. Being three hundred years old, moving in with family was not a viable option - my family had been dead for centuries. Neither was living alone an acceptable choice - young single ladies just didn’t do that in those days. Not if they were ladies.”
“I approached the Foundation and they put me in touch with another member of the Chosen who had been burned out. She proved to be an older, supposedly widowed lady, who was nearing regeneration. I posed as her niece. This masquerade proved a blessing for both of us - it gave us both respectability. We found a nice house in a small town near London. I can’t remember the name of the town now, but it was a pretty little place about an hour out of the city. It’s probably part of London now, with the way everything has grown over the years.”
She tried to shift her position but the tape shackles were unforgiving. “We had just gotten settled when the boy came along. Oh my, he was such a hunk! Tall, dark and handsome, with strong shoulders and arms. His father had a farm just down the road from our house. He used to walk past our house every morning on his way to the blacksmith he was apprenticing for and how I used to look forward to his tousled head passing by. I had the hots for him the first time I saw him. But he was young and shy. He wouldn’t even talk to me, let alone do anything else. Remember, I was recently regenerated again after being middle-aged and past my prime sexually. The change had awoken my sexuality again. My body went into heat every time I saw this boy. I took to lying in wait for him and positioning myself to show off my best features. I’d watch for him and, when he came into sight, bend over as if to pick up a tool or weed a flower. One time I would be facing him and give him a view of my cleavage all the way down to Singapore. The next time I would be facing away, letting him admire my taut little ass. And make no mistake about it - my ass is great when I’m young.”
