“I’m fine,” Stefan said. He tried not to wince when he put weight on his injured leg. “Come on.”
After he pulled himself up a few feet, Nuri followed.
The roof was a treacherous slope of corrugated steel. The troughs were slick with ice, and parts were buried under a foot of snow. The roof angled up to a wall where Stefan could see windows, windows that weren’t whitewashed.
There was a narrow wooden catwalk laid on the roof. It led from the ladder to where another catwalk hugged the wall ahead of them. It was snowless, and the only place on the roof where he could step without being certain of breaking his neck.
Stefan walked nervously onto the narrow strip of wood. Even though it was covered with tar to help traction, it was as icy as the roof around it, and it had no guardrail.
“Be careful,” Stefan said to Nuri as his partner cleared the edge of the roof. Slowly he began ascending the slope to the wall ahead of them.
Nuri joined him on the roof, his breath coming out in an even fog. “What are we doing here, Stefan?”
Stefan edged up on the wall. The wind was sharper up here; the cold cut into the skin of his face, his hand, and especially his wounded leg. He looked back at Nuri, who was edging gingerly to follow him. “Anything more concrete than we have,” Stefan answered him. “A connection to Andrassy. Some indication of who the other victims are. Maybe the killing ground.”
Nuri lurched up to the wall and hugged it. “Killing ground?”
“Our killer has someplace private he can do his work. Where he kills, mutilates the bodies, drains them, cleans them off, stores them.”
Nuri looked around and nodded. “He could do it here. It’s private enough.”
Stefan nodded. “I’m wondering why the windows downstairs were whitewashed.” He edged along the wall until he found a window that had been damaged by the ice. It sat crooked in its frame, and after he’d kicked the ice and snow away from it, it opened freely.
He peeked through the window, into the darkened warehouse. He saw no sign of movement. The floor was a mass of darkness marked only by the blocky shadows of shipping crates. Below the window, Stefan could see a catwalk following the length of the warehouse. He looked over at Nuri and waved him forward. “Looks like no one’s home,” he whispered. “Give me the flashlight.”
Nuri handed it to him, and Stefan slipped in through the window, dangled a moment, and dropped onto the catwalk. He listened for a moment for any movement in the warehouse, and all he heard was the echo of his own steps. He waited until he was certain that no one was walking around in the warehouse before he turned on the flashlight.
He shone it down the catwalk toward the front of the building. A ladder led down from that end.
Stefan inched away from under the open window and waved Nuri through. After a moment there was a grunt, then a loud crash as Nuri dropped onto the catwalk. The sound seemed to echo forever in the open space of the warehouse.
“Could you try to be a little more quiet?” Stefan whispered.
“Sorry, it’s icy up there. Lost my grip.” Nuri wiped his hands off on his jacket, then pulled out his gun.
Stefan waited until they’d both reached the floor of the warehouse to pull his. The longer he was in this place, the more dead it seemed. The air hung still, musty and cold. Nothing moved in the darkness as Stefan shone his flashlight around. Even the rats seemed to have abandoned this place.
Nuri walked up beside him as Stefan shone the light on the crates stacked on the floor of the warehouse. There were dozens of them, oblong crates eight feet long, stacked like bricks. Black German Gothic was painted on the sides of the crates.
“Coming or going?” Stefan wondered aloud.
“Coming,” Nuri said, placing his hand on top of the flashlight so the beam moved down a few inches. It now illuminated more writing on the side of one crate, this time in Spanish.
Stefan moved down an aisle between the crates, sweeping the flashlight over them. “Any sign what’s in these?”
“Nothing in English.”
Stefan looked over the crates, dozens of them, all the same size, the same proportions. He felt the unease attack him again. The subliminal wrongness striking him full force.
“We have to open one of these,” Stefan said.
Nuri stepped in front of the flashlight. “Are you sure?”
“Look at the crates, look at the proportions. We’re looking for a killing ground.”
Nuri looked around. For a moment he didn’t seem to know what Stefan was talking about. Then recognition seemed to strike him. “My God. They’re just like coffins.”
“Slightly bigger,” Stefan said. “We should check this out.” He stepped up to a lone box near the edge of the main piles. It lay by itself on a wooden pallet, the top coming up to a little less than waist height. “See anything we can pry this open with?”
“There’s a fire ax on the wall over there.” Nuri pointed at the near wall. Stefan swung the flashlight over to illuminate an ax and a fire bucket hanging on the wall. He handed the flashlight to Nuri and walked over to retrieve the ax. Freed from the hooks holding it to the wall, the ax was heavy, handle cold and damp to the touch.
He stepped up next to Nuri. Stefan wondered how close he came, at that moment, to feeling like the murderer—weapon in hand, the burning feeling of fear in his gut, the tension.
Nuri swept the flashlight so the beam illuminated the crate. The wooden lid was nailed shut and held fast by two thin metal bands. The edges were splintered and chipped. The surface was stained by oil and grease. The crate had been on a long journey.
Stefan hefted the ax, and brought it down on the side, where the top met the rest of the crate, over one of the thin bands. The band snapped and whipped away from the ax with an eerie vibrating sound. It echoed through the warehouse long after the sound of the ax’s impact had died. When the band stopped moving, Stefan took the ax to the remaining one. That one snapped just as easily.
Stefan then wedged the blade in under the lid of the crate and began prying it open. The nails slid free with a screech of the damned. He had to move around, prying at every edge. When he’d opened it an inch or so, he had to adjust his grip on the ax and open it with the flat of the blade.
Eventually the lid was free, and he could slide it off the edge.
Nuri stepped up to the box and shone the flashlight in. All that was visible at first was a layer of straw packing. Stefan reached in with the ax and pushed the straw aside with the flat. Underneath was a polished wood surface, slightly curved, dark, reflecting the flashlight.
“My God,” Nuri whispered as Stefan reached in with his hand, scooping the packing away from the object buried inside the crate. “It is a coffin.”
Stefan stared at the head of the coffin. It was relatively plain, dark wood with little embellishment. But there was no mistaking what it was. He told himself that this was beyond what he expected, but somehow it wasn’t. The fear and unease were growing in his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to leave now, have his questions safely unanswered.
Instead, he looked across the coffin at Nuri and said, “We have to open it.”
“This is macabre,” Nuri said. But he nodded.
Stefan cleared all the packing off of the top of the coffin. He walked around to Nuri’s side, the side that opened. There, he saw something that his knotted fears didn’t expect.
Centered in the flashlight beam was a latch and a padlock. “Who locks a coffin?” Nuri asked.
Stefan didn’t know. But now they had to know what Dietrich was shipping inside this box. Stefan brought the ax down on the padlock. He had to do it three times before the lock gave, springing open, falling into the packing around the side of the coffin.
The two of them stood there for a long time, making no more moves toward the coffin. Stefan told himself that he was just waiting to hear if all the noise they’d made had alerted anyone else in the warehouse. The warehouse was silent as ever—the air heavy,
cold, and unmoving.
Again, he felt the impulse to abandon the coffin unopened. There was a feeling he didn’t want to know what was going on here.
Stefan leaned the ax against the crate and wiped his palms against his legs. Despite the cold, a drop of sweat stung the cut on his leg like a bee sting. He looked at Nuri, who held the flashlight and his gun.
“Here goes,” he told Nuri. As he leaned over the coffin, he said, “Cover me.”
Stefan was glad that Nuri didn’t ask, “From what?” Stefan didn’t have a ready answer for that question.
Stefan took hold of the lid, expecting resistance from fused hinges, expecting the sound of protesting metal. Instead, the lid flew up silently, as if the coffin had been made the day before.
The smell hit him first, making his eyes water, obscuring his view of the occupant. There was a heavy perfume that almost burned, and underneath a festering corruption that matched any corpse he had ever come across. He had to back away from the coffin.
“This is incredible,” Nuri said. He held the flashlight trained inside the coffin. His gun was pointed at its tenant as if it might suddenly start moving.
Stefan blinked his eyes clear. The body inside the coffin was an old man. He was bald and had a long white beard and mustache. The flesh had sunken on his face and the hands folded on his chest. The skin on the skeletal body was white and papery. The funeral suit he wore was loose and baggy. The satin on which the corpse lay was marred by dark stains.
Nuri raised the flashlight to point at the rest of the warehouse. “Dozens,” he whispered. They had found evidence, beyond what Stefan had ever expected.
“Why ship corpses into the country?” Stefan asked.
“Maybe he is a maniac,” Nuri said. “This is insane.”
Stefan nodded. “But we have something now. We can box this body back up, call in Ness, and get everything cleaned u ...”
Stefan trailed off, because a sound had intruded into the silent warehouse. A rustling noise, very close by. Then a voice, barely above a whisper—
“Du bist nicht der Meister.”
Nuri swung the flashlight back to the coffin. The corpse was gone. He kept swinging until the light landed on the dead old man, standing next to the coffin.
“God save us all,” Stefan whispered.
“Es war schon so lange ... Ich kann das Leben riechen.” The thing spoke, grimacing. Its face distorted, the jaw shifting, the teeth growing longer. Its nostrils flared as it stared at Stefan. Stefan wanted to move, but his gaze was locked on the thing’s cloudy gray eyes. Despite the core of panic that raced through him, igniting every nerve in his body, he was unable to move.
The thing had become bestial, the face twisted almost into a canine form. Nuri shouted something at it, but Stefan couldn’t hear it through the blood pulsing in his ears.
It leaped at him.
In the moment eye contact was severed, Stefan could move. He only had time to stumble backward, away from the thing. It wasn’t enough. Clawed hands, smelling of perfume and decay, seized his legs, toppling him.
It sank its teeth into his left leg, above the wound. Its teeth were like a brand searing his flesh. He might have yelled in pain, but he didn’t hear himself over the gunshots.
Nuri fired at the thing as soon as it had leaped, and he kept firing until the gun was empty. Stefan saw the shots hit. He saw blood splatter from the thing’s chest. He saw the thing lurch with the impact. He saw tattered flesh hanging from the exit wounds.
It remained on his leg. Stefan was starting to feel cold and fatigue. As if all the warmth in his body, all the life, was draining out the wound.
Stefan grabbed the thing’s head. He tried to pry it away. His fingers tore at the thing’s flesh, digging long bloody grooves in the sides of its face, but Stefan couldn’t move it.
“Stefan, move!” Nuri’s voice shouted from above him.
Stefan let go and collapsed. He felt as if all the solid matter in his body had liquefied. He was losing the feeling in his hands and feet. He looked up with a darkening vision and saw Nuri, partially illuminated by a flashlight that had fallen somewhere, facing the three of them. Nuri was raising the fire ax.
Nuri brought the ax down on the back of the thing’s neck.
It did more than every gunshot, and all of Stefan’s struggles put together. Its back arched, tearing away part of Stefan’s flesh as its face pulled away. Stefan used the last of his strength to pull away from the thing. He pushed away with his arms, sliding on a slick of his own blood.
The thing made a sound, a screech that tore through Stefan’s chest as if one of its putrescent claws was wrapped around his heart. It tried to turn to face Nuri, but Nuri pulled the ax free and brought it down again. Its body stopped moving as its head was turned on a half-severed neck at an impossible angle.
A final blow separated the head completely from the body.
Stefan tried to push himself upright, even though he felt consciousness slipping from him. Nuri dropped the ax. He was shaking his head, looking at the thing that was a corpse again. Not only had it stopped moving, it had returned to being the same skeletal old man that had lain in the coffin. The hands were just hands. The face was human again. If not for the blood covering the thing’s lower face, it looked as if they had just removed a body from the coffin to mutilate it.
Nuri grabbed the flashlight from the ground and walked over to Stefan, shining it at his leg. Stefan wished he hadn’t. His lower leg looked like a piece of raw hamburger. It was still bleeding, and Stefan felt as if all the heat in his body was spilling out the wound.
“We have to get you to a hospital.” Nuri set down the flashlight, stripped his jacket and tie, and tore off his shirt to wrap up his wounded leg. The white shirt turned red instantly.
“Call in,” Stefan said, his voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. “Ness was right.”
“Yeah,” Nuri said. “After we get you to—” He looked up from the makeshift bandage. “What’s that?”
A sound filled the empty air of the warehouse. It was soft, almost subliminal. It wouldn’t have been noticeable if it wasn’t for the silence that had greeted them here. The sound was a scratching, almost ratlike.
Nuri picked up the flashlight and swept the beam around, searching for the source of the sound. It illuminated nothing that wasn’t there before. Meanwhile, the sound grew louder. It grew louder until Stefan could tell where it was coming from.
“God save us,” Stefan whispered. “The crates ...”
Even in the dark, behind the flashlight beam, Stefan could see the color drain out of Nuri’s face. There were dozens of crates, and the sounds were coming from inside, as if in each one, something had awakened.
Nuri got on Stefan’s left side and slipped an arm under him. Nuri was only in an undershirt now, and where his skin touched him, it felt hot where his own was cold and clammy. Nuri pulled him upright fast enough to make him dizzy.
They stumbled together, as around them the scraping turned into pounding. They were accompanied by mumbled voices. Incomprehensible whispers. Stefan could feel the things in the crates now. More horrors like the old man thing. All half-dead, but animate. Animate and hungry.
Their progress toward the front was too slow. The noises increased in volume the closer they got to the entrance. Stefan felt panic that one of the crates might explode open, and that one of these things would look upon him.
Stefan feared that if he fell under that stare he wouldn’t be able to move.
Nuri managed to drag him all the way to the front door. Stefan leaned against the doorframe as Nuri fumbled with the latches holding the human-sized door shut. “What is this?” he said as he pulled at the bolt locking the door.
Behind him, the warehouse was dark without the flashlight. But the silence was only a distant memory. The scraping and pounding had stopped, but now the warehouse was filled with the sound of dozens of voices whispering to each other in several languages.
S
tefan clutched his wounded leg, but blood still spilled from between his fingers. His awareness of everything other than the voices was fading. He seemed to be falling into a dark, whispering void. When Nuri pulled him through the door, Stefan fell into darkness.
20
Sunday, March 22
Stefan woke up in a hospital bed. He knew it from the smells and sounds before he had opened his eyes. When he did open his eyes, and saw the face of the public safety director, he immediately wanted to close them again.
“How do you feel?” Ness asked him.
Stefan almost responded by asking, Where are the reporters? But, instead, he told Ness, “I feel like my leg’s been torn open.”
There was a ghost of a smile on a face that looked younger than Nuri. “I suppose so. You lost a lot of blood. You’ve been unconscious for nearly forty-eight hours.”
Stefan leaned back and groaned. After a few minutes he said, “Did you get him, at least?”
“Who?”
“Dietrich. Who else? We connected him to Polillo and his warehouse is filled with—”
“No, we don’t have him.” Ness turned away. “Your partner’s crazy story aside, by the time he got you to the hospital and called in this whole mess, the warehouse was empty.”
“But the connection to Polillo?”
Ness nodded. “Hotel manager’s gone missing, too.”
Stefan closed his eyes. It was almost as if he could still hear the polyglot babble from the crates in Dietrich’s warehouse.
“—until I could talk to you.”
“What?” Stefan asked, opening his eyes.
“I said I’ve put Detective Lapidos on leave. I need to talk to you about what happened in the warehouse.”
Stefan shook his head. “I’m not sure I believe it.”
“Whatever happened put one of my men in the hospital, and I want to hear it.”
Stefan looked at his boss and wondered if it was a good idea to tell everything. He decided it wasn’t, but he told Ness everything anyway. He retraced their steps from the hotel manager’s office until the point where he’d lost consciousness.
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