Aboud smiled with self-satisfaction. “We are making great strides.”
Abraham edged forward in his seat. “I am glad to hear it. This has been a week of victories for the Nephilim. God surely blesses our endeavors.”
The doctor chuckled inwardly at the old man’s choice of words. He wondered what sort of god would look kindly on the type of work he had been tasked to accomplish. Maintaining a bland expression, he began. “As I mentioned to you in our last meeting, my efforts have been directed toward developing a form of the plague which could be delivered via the respiratory system. This is known as pneumonic plague and is the most deadly of the various forms of the disease. When human populations are exposed to the airborne bacteria, they quickly develop headache, fever, nausea, and chest pain. A severe cough accompanied by bloody sputum is followed by pneumonia. The victim eventually succumbs to shock and respiratory collapse. All these symptoms can emerge within two days and, if left untreated, death occurs within three days. The beauty of pneumonic plague, as opposed to its cousins which attack the lymph system or the blood stream, is its survival rate.”
“Why is that?” Abraham asked, shifting around in his chair, apparently trying to find a comfortable spot.
“Bubonic plague and septicemic plague, alas, leave far too many survivors even among an untreated population. In contrast, the mortality rate of pneumonic plague approaches one hundred percent.”
“That’s excellent,” the old man murmured approvingly.
“Since last we met, I have endeavored to develop the most lethal strain of pneumonic plague known to man.”
“How quickly can it kill?” Metcalf asked eagerly.
Aboud shrugged. “It depends very much on the species we use as test subjects, you understand. Thus far, we have worked through rodents, larger mammals and finally primates. Our current estimate is that death will occur within twenty-four hours.”
“Really?” The old man’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. He appeared impressed. Then he scowled as a new thought struck him. “Of course, that remarkable result can only be achieved if the victim doesn’t receive the proper antibiotic treatment.”
“Quite so,” Aboud inclined his head in agreement. “A later phase of our project will, of course, be to develop a strain of bacteria that is impervious to all known treatment.”
“Why aren’t you starting to work on that now?” Metcalf challenged.
The doctor remained unruffled by the question. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “Because we have a more pressing issue before us than the antibiotic question.”
“What could be more pressing than that?” Metcalf leaned forward in his chair, fixing Aboud with a searching stare.
The doctor looked away briefly. He took another sip of coffee. Now was the critical moment. “We are approaching a delicate stage of my research. One which you may not be ready to approve of.”
“Oh?”
Aboud tapped his fingers on his armrest. It was time to broach the topic uppermost in his mind though he dreaded the consequences. “While I can guarantee the performance of the bacteria in terms of the subjects which have been infected, I’m afraid I don’t have enough data to ensure the strain will behave as you wish in the field.”
Metcalf squinted at him. “I don’t understand what you’re driving at.”
The doctor took a deep breath. “Since it is your goal to use this plague on human targets, I need to test its efficacy on...” He paused and swallowed hard. “On human subjects.”
Aboud waited stonily for the inevitable refusal. None of his earlier experiments overseas with biological weapons had ever progressed to this stage. Given the religious beliefs of his benefactor, he expected a reaction of moral outrage. The old man might become irate and terminate the project. When he hazarded a glance at Metcalf’s face, the response wasn’t at all what he’d been anticipating. The diviner hadn’t even blinked.
“Yes, I can arrange that for you,” the old man answered readily.
The doctor wasn’t sure Metcalf understood. He rushed to clarify. “Sir, I will need you to provide me with humans whom I can infect with the bacteria. They will not survive the experiment.”
“Yes, I know.” Metcalf appeared surprised at Aboud’s elaborate explanation. “How many do you need?”
“Half a dozen for now,” Aboud replied in a dazed voice.
“Very well.” The diviner heaved himself out of the chair. Obviously, he considered the meeting over.
Aboud sprang to his feet. He hastened to add, “I... I may need more at a later stage of the research.”
“Of course,” Metcalf agreed calmly. “That won’t be a problem. Send me word when you want the first six subjects delivered.” In an uncharacteristic move, he extended his hand and shook Aboud’s warmly. “I’m quite pleased with your results thus far, doctor. I look forward with great anticipation to the next phase of your research.”
Chapter 50—Fugue in the Key of M
Cassie parked her car next to the curb in front of Maddie’s home. Faye had already arrived. The old woman stood next to her station wagon, waiting for the trio, who climbed out to greet her.
“So glad to see you returned safely, my dears.” Faye hugged Erik and Griffin in turn. “Has Cassie told you the situation?”
The two men nodded tensely.
Erik looked up at the white two-story townhouse which belonged to Maddie. “Seems like everything’s quiet inside,” he observed. “Shades down. No sound of TV or radio. She has to be in there because her car’s here.”
They all glanced dubiously at Maddie’s vehicle, parked askew between the driveway and the lawn.
“Maybe she’s asleep,” Cassie suggested.
“Let us hope so,” Faye warned ominously.
The party advanced to the front door.
“Since you report to her, perhaps you should try first,” Faye proposed, nudging Erik forward.
He gave her a slightly apprehensive look. “What if she bites my head off?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened, would it?” Griffin said. “I should think you’d be used to her bad side by now.”
“There’s her bad side, and then there’s her other bad side,” Erik muttered. He cracked his knuckles and rapped on the door.
Nothing stirred inside the house.
“Maddie, it’s Erik,” the paladin called. “Let me in.”
Still no response.
Erik shook his head. “No dice. I think we need to pull out the big guns.” He looked pointedly at Faye.
As she moved forward, he ducked aside.
Tapping almost imperceptibly, the old woman said, “It’s Faye, dear. Please open the door. We’re very worried about you.”
All was silence.
Erik jiggled the handle. “It’s locked,” he reported.
“Allow me to try,” Faye said. She twisted the knob once, and the door instantly yielded.
“How did you...” Erik trailed off in wonder as they all followed the memory guardian into the dark, quiet house.
The first sensation to assault all their noses was the smell of cigarette smoke. It burst through the open door in billows, trailing out into the street.
Cassie wafted the air around her furiously as if she were being attacked by an invisible smog monster.
Ignoring the thick atmosphere, Faye advanced a few paces. “Maddie?” she called out tentatively. “Please come out, dear.”
All four of them stood uncertainly in the foyer, their eyes unadjusted to the dim interior. A few seconds later a shadowy shape emerged from the living room and lumbered toward them.
“I’m not exactly dressed to receive company,” the figure mumbled.
That was an understatement. The chatelaine had wrapped herself in a ratty flannel bathrobe which was slipping off of one shoulder and only partially-secured by a half-knotted sash. The nightgown beneath was stained with what appeared to be red wine. He
r hair, frizzy to begin with, was matted like the pelt of a shedding buffalo. An unlit cigarette dangled from her lower lip.
“What are you all doing here?” Her voice sounded uncharacteristically soft. She seemed confused by their presence.
Undeterred, Faye stepped forward. “We were concerned about you, dear. No one could reach you for the past two days.”
“Two days,” Maddie repeated. She seemed wonder-struck. “Has it really been two days?”
“Why don’t you sit down, dear,” Faye suggested. “Will you two help her?” She turned to Griffin and Erik who rushed to prop Maddie up on either side and guide her to a seat. She didn’t resist their efforts which was, in itself, strange.
The living room was set up as a conversation pit. Two couches opposed one another across a massive square coffee table. Between the couches on the far side of the room sat an imposing armchair. Griffin and Erik steered Maddie to the chair and took seats on the couches on either side of her. Faye took the remaining seat next to Griffin and Cassie sat down next to Erik.
“What happened to you?” Cassie blurted out, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.
Maddie regarded her strangely as if recognizing her for the first time. “Hi, Cassie.”
“Hi, yourself. Why did you drop off the radar?” the pythia persisted.
“Oh, that.” The chatelaine nodded sagely. “Well, it all started with the filing.”
“Filing?” Erik echoed suspiciously. “You lost your marbles because of filing?”
Maddie didn’t appear to take offense at the observation. “It wasn’t so much the filing,” she continued vaguely. “I suppose it was really because of the tyro.”
“Which one?” Faye asked. “I counted a dozen when last I visited the vault.”
“Oh, you know the one,” Maddie said. “Chalky complexion. Long nose. Looks like an albino ferret?”
She turned questioning eyes on the memory guardian who shook her head helplessly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recall meeting him.”
“No big deal,” Maddie waved her hand feebly. “Anyway, every week for the past six weeks this kid comes into my office to announce that he’s lost the paperwork for an artifact transfer.”
“What’s an artifact transfer?” Cassie interrupted.
Griffin spoke up. “We occasionally need to transport an especially valuable artifact from one trove to another. Without the transfer paperwork, we have no way of knowing where the artifact was taken. It could potentially become lost in transit. Irretrievable.”
“That’s huge!” Cassie exclaimed. Turning to Maddie, she asked, “So, you say this kid kept losing transfer paperwork?”
Maddie bobbed her head slightly. She squinted in an attempt to remember her train of thought. “Yeah, at least once a week for the past six weeks. Every time, it’s the same routine. The kid can’t remember what he was working on, so I have to call a red alert. I order a search of the department from top to bottom. By the end of the day, we always find the missing transfer. It’s usually stuck to the tyro’s shoe, or stuffed in his back pocket. One time we even found it wadded up in his lunch bag.”
“If he’s such a screw-up, why don’t you just get rid of him?” Cassie asked.
“Can’t. I owe his dad a favor.” Maddie sighed, the forgotten cigarette still suspended from her lower lip. “Two days ago was the end of week seven. The tyro came into my office, as per usual, to tell me that he’d lost another transfer. Except this time was different. He went into his spiel when all of a sudden his head turned into a softball.”
“Excuse me, dear,” Faye intruded cautiously. “You said his head turned into a softball?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Maddie affirmed hazily. “A talking softball just wobbling in the air in front of me. It was flapping its stitches ‘blah-blah-blah,’ but I wasn’t listening. Instead, I felt this uncontrollable urge to grab a bat and give that softball a good hard swing. I saw it all play out in my head. I swung, and the ball ricocheted off the back wall in my office and bobbed right out the door.” She smiled with dim satisfaction at the memory. “That was the last thing I remember until my secretary yanked the club out of my hand.”
“What club?” Cassie asked in surprise.
“A replica of a Haudenosaunee war club that Grace Littlefield sent me as a present. I keep it propped in a corner of my office.” Maddie scratched her head, temporarily baffled. “Somehow, the war club had gotten into my hands, and the tyro had locked himself inside my supply cabinet, and he was shrieking. The next thing I remember after that was my secretary bundling me into my car and telling me to go home and get some rest. She got a couple of guys from Security to drive alongside as an escort. I did feel kind of tired plus I figured that when softballs start talking to me, I ought to go home.”
“A wise decision, I’m sure,” Faye concurred.
“I see you’ve started smoking again,” Griffin noted quietly.
Maddie smiled absently. “Yeah, that and drinking. I think it helped. It made the furniture stop singing ‘It’s A Small World After All.’” She paused to glare at the sofa to her right. “That couch is pitchy.”
“You know, chief, this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t tried to quit smoking in the middle of a crisis,” Erik remarked.
The chatelaine regarded him through bleary eyes. “I guess you’re right. It was a mistake to go cold turkey. Too much going on. Always DEFCON One. I’m no good in a crunch without my smokes.” She reached into her robe pocket to retrieve a pack of cigarettes. She shook the paper container and turned it upside down. “Empty,” she murmured wistfully.
Erik gingerly removed the unlit cigarette from between her lips and placed it in an ashtray. Maddie seemed not to notice.
“I’m sure you’ll feel much better once you’ve had a shower,” Faye hinted. “Our team has returned, and they’re eager to tell us both everything that’s happened. You want to hear about that, don’t you?”
With a supreme effort, Maddie temporarily pulled herself out of her stupor. “Did they get it?” she asked weakly.
“We sure did,” Cassie answered readily. “And what a time we had. It was epic!”
A feeble spark glimmered in Maddie’s eyes. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely,” Erik affirmed.
“We can’t wait to tell you all about it,” Griffin added enthusiastically.
The chatelaine seemed to rally slightly. She struggled to sit forward.
“After you’ve had a shower and changed your clothes, of course.” Faye’s voice was more insistent.
“Sure, sure,” she said nebulously, struggling to her feet.
Erik and Griffin leaped up to assist her.
Faye conducted her to the bathroom while Cassie dug through the closet for a clean change of clothes.
Once Maddie was safely deposited in the shower, the others sprang into action. Cassie ran around the house raising blinds and opening windows to release the residual smoke.
Griffin and Erik found a supply of garbage bags and began collecting used food containers and wine bottles. They emptied all the ash trays and cleaned up the other detritus of Maddie’s fugue state. Faye washed the dirty dishes in the sink and tidied the kitchen.
By the time the chatelaine lumbered back into the living room, she looked almost human. Her hair had been combed, and she was dressed in a clean sweat suit and gym shoes.
“I’ll start a load of laundry,” Cassie suggested, scampering upstairs to collect Maddie’s cast-offs and any other clothing she found strewn on the floor. When she returned to the living room, Faye was already pouring cups of freshly-brewed coffee.
Nobody uttered a word of objection when Maddie asked, “Mind if I smoke?”
Erik dove for the lighter on the coffee table and held it under her nose. “Let me get that for you,” he offered.
“How do you feel now, dear?” Faye asked gently.
“I’m fine. Thank you for asking,�
�� the chatelaine replied in a sing-song voice. “How are you?”
Her four visitors looked at one another in dismay. Cassie could read their minds. They had all secretly hoped that Maddie would have revived by now, but she still seemed disconnected.
Erik leaned over and whispered confidentially in the pythia’s ear, “Relax, toots, I got this.”
The paladin slid to the end of the couch next to Maddie’s chair. “I’m glad you’re feeling better now, chief, because there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Oh, what’s that?” Maddie asked dreamily.
“Well, you see, there was this car chase in Cairo when we were trying to outrun the Nephilim. I crashed a rental car right through the plate glass window of a butcher shop. Live chickens flying everywhere. The owner was really mad. I told him we’d cover the damages. He said it would cost, what was it, Griff? Something like fifty thousand dollars US?” The paladin looked to the scrivener for confirmation.
Catching on, Griffin replied, “Actually, I think the bill was closer to one hundred thousand dollars.”
Erik turned to Maddie. “I told him it would be no problem. You’ll cover it, right?”
For the first time that day, the chatelaine seemed to focus. She sat up straight, her eyes burning holes into Erik. “A rental car?” she growled.
“That’s right,” he replied innocently.
“Was the car totaled?” Her voice held a menacing tone.
“Totally.” He mimicked puzzlement. “That’s not a problem, is it?”
“Not a problem...” she echoed through gritted teeth, grinding out her half-smoked cigarette and reaching for a full pack on the table. Immediately lighting up another, she continued. “If you think I’m gonna cover yet another one of your reckless escapades, think again, kiddo! I’ll be docking your pay until the day after Armageddon!”
Instead of flinching at the onslaught of Maddie’s wrath, Erik beamed at his teammates. “She’s back!”
Maddie, not realizing that Erik had fabricated the incident, continued to berate the paladin for several more moments. He took it all with a relaxed smile.
The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set Page 105
