Robert W. Walker (16 page)

"You see it."

"It takes some staring, but yes ... I saw it."

"Like the souls of men on the head of a pin."

"And something wants us all to join it in its private hell."

She went about shutting down everything, including lights, putting away instruments, when Mark came in wearing protective wear and telling her that he would see to the "drone" work. She didn't argue, just cautioning him about the dispensation of the strange, gummy material that had seeped from two human beings, one dead and one alive. Stroud and Kendra Cline went through the decontamination unit and were soon on the other side of the isolation chamber. From outside, she said to Mark, "Be very careful in there. This thing is lethal."

"Go," he told her.

"So," she said to Stroud, "you still offering to take me home?"

"Absolutely, and on the way you can give me an update on Leonard. I don't suppose I could see him for a few minutes tonight?"

"He could still be contagious. We're watching him closely, and seeing you will only complicate our work.
Maybe tomorrow."

"Fine, then perhaps you can tell me what happened between you and Leonard earlier to bring you around to a better understanding of why I was attacked by
Weitzel
."

"That I'd like to talk about, yes."

"I've got a car waiting downstairs."

She said her good-nights to the staff, telling them that by tomorrow she would be replaced, a bit of sourness in her tone. "Be good to the new
man,
or men in this case. They're both top-notch men on bacteriological and viral infections."

The others thanked her and wished her well. Everyone told her to get some sleep. Soon they were in the backseat of the squad car, whizzing to her hotel. Along the way, between yawns, she told him what had occurred moments before Leonard received his final dosage of a metal-plated shot. Stroud found the story very interesting, and when she finished he said one word.

"Mephistopheles."

"No, mephitis, I said mephitis before."

"I'm talking about the medieval legend of the demon that purchased Faust's soul," he explained.

Sleepily, she replied, "
Ohhhhhh
."

"The same demon gave his name in a play by Marlowe."

"Goethe," she corrected him.

"Marlowe as well."

"But that's stories, literature."

"It has always been curious to me that both Marlowe and Goethe gave their demon the same name, and he spoke in German when he needed to and English when English was called for."

"Literary figures," she mumbled.

"Or so it has always been supposed. I recently learned that Dracula was more than just a literary figure. Think of it ... before a few days ago who would have ever dreamed that an Etruscan ship lay beneath the largest city in the country, below Manhattan?"

"Yeah ... yeah..." She was dozing.

Stroud said, "Suppose for a moment that something of hellish dimension did visit Goethe and Marlowe, and did call itself Mephistopheles? Could such a creature have existed since the dawn of time?
Another Mephistopheles?
Alive since early Etruscan times?"

She started, her body twitching with a sudden violent reaction. She'd seen the trapped souls when she closed her eyes and it had shaken her.

He put an arm about her and she did not resist.

"What are we going to do, Stroud? What?"

"We're going to do what we've been doing; we're going to fight this thing with everything we have."

"But what if it's not enough? What if we're not
--
"

"
Shhhhh
!
We're a great deal further along than we were this morning. Your serum saved Leonard, no doubt of that. It may save the others."

"Leonard fought it ... so many of the others have given up."

"Well, we're not giving up."

She snuggled into the crook of his arm, sobbing quietly. He held her close. "You've earned some rest. Come on, take it easy."

"Don't leave me tonight," she quietly asked.

"I won't," he promised. "I'm here."

-9-

Stroud sent the squad car on its way and he helped Kendra into the elevator and up to her room. She dropped her keys at the door and he picked them up. He let the door swing open. She stood there a moment, her eyes meeting his, blinking back the fatigue. She looked vulnerable, he thought.

"I've got a large room," she said, "with a view of the Hudson ... very nice."

She stared into his eyes as she spoke. Stroud bent to kiss her, bringing his lips to hers with a tentative, tender gesture. She quaked a bit before returning his kiss.

A bell rang, signaling that people would be getting off the elevator across from them. She pulled him inside and closed the door, covering his mouth with hers.

"Hey, hey, Kendra," he tried to protest. "You're beat, and it wouldn't be fair of me
to
--"

"Who asked you?" she said, covering his mouth again, filling it with her tongue.

"Whoa, easy, girl," he said, gasping. She had tasted wonderful, and she felt great in his arms.

"You talk too damned much, Abraham Stroud." She began unbuttoning his shirt, plunging her hands into the muscles of his chest. Stroud lifted her and carried her to the bedroom.

"I'm putting you to bed," he told her.

"Just as I wish."
She kissed him and the fire within her, the smell of her, overwhelmed him. He returned her passion with his own as he knelt to cushion her where he placed her on the bed. She'd gotten his shirt completely open, and now Stroud removed her blouse.

He wanted to hide within the white texture of her skin, hide from all that was bad in the world,
escape
the evil, if for only a night. She pulled his head down to the center of her breasts, her body squirming, heaving below him.

"I need you," she repeatedly said, until Stroud joined her in a chorus of the three words.

After the lovemaking she fell into quiet, calm sleep, both spent and refreshed. Stroud lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling fan that had kept them cool, and in the rotating blades he saw no ghosts, no swirling dervishes,
no
bizarre shapes. He saw only darkness and movement and he felt only calm and warmth beside Kendra, listening to the sound of her breathing, his hand taking stock of her heartbeat. For the first time in recent memory, someone had stilled his own nightmares.

Dr. Samuel Leonard was fit to be tied. He wanted out. He wanted news and information. He wanted to talk to
Wisnewski
. He wanted to talk to Stroud. He was shouting these things when Stroud walked in and said, "Samuel, it's so wonderful to have you back!"

"Get me the hell out of here, Abe!"

"Processing it right now.
Dr. Cline's seeing to the details."

"Where are my clothes?"

"Brought you some things from your home," said
Wisnewski
, who stepped in.

"Arthur! It's so wonderful to see you. I'm so anxious to get back to work," Leonard said as the two embraced.

"Put these on. We're breaking you out of here," Wiz told him, smiling.
"So good to see you, Sam."

Downstairs they found Kendra Cline, who had finished processing Leonard. She told him that he was a free man.

"Free, yes," he agreed. "Free from hell."

He had recalled nothing beyond a horrid, overwhelming and engulfing feeling of being held down, trapped, the entire time he was under.

Stroud told him that he knew the feeling, and this made Kendra Cline look askance at him, trying to determine his meaning. She hadn't spoken very much to him about the previous night,
nor
he to her.

Wisnewski
grabbed some flowers that were on a nurse's duty desk and began to give them out one at a time to patients along the floor. Save for this, he showed no tendency toward his earlier "madness." He greeted each patient with a large smile and a big "How
are
you, today?" This turned a lot of heads.

Stroud meanwhile brought Leonard up to date, ending with the fact that the parchment and the bones confiscated from the death ship were waiting for his examination.

"You don't propose we go back into that ... into that hole, do you?" Leonard said, trembling, his first sign of anxiety since coming out of coma. "Is that what you all have planned for me? Is it? Well, you can save yourselves the trouble. I'll be damned and gone to hell before I'll go back to that ... that ship."

This made
Wisnewski
rush to Leonard. "You old bird, these people, this city is counting on us to--"

"I'm no hero, Simon. Neither are you!"

"We must do what we can."

"It could come again for us anytime ... anytime!"

"All right, take it easy," said Stroud.

Kendra also tried to calm him. "You will not be forced to go anywhere, Dr. Leonard. You've been through quite enough already."

"Yes," he agreed, "through hell and back."

"Will you at least come to the lab?" asked
Wisnewski
. "To look over the items we brought back?"

Leonard looked from one face to the other, biting his lip. "All right ... all right. But no, I will not go near that place again."

"Agreed," said Stroud.

Wisnewski
made a muttering sound as he left ahead of them for the waiting car, not hiding his disappointment with Leonard.

"Come along, Dr. Leonard," said Abe Stroud, ushering the other man, who nodded and allowed Stroud to guide him.

"I'll be along later," said Kendra. "I don't want to leave things in a mess here, and I want to break in the new guys."

"Sure ... sure," said Stroud, "and about last night."

"Yes?"

"I ... I hope we can do it again sometime."

She smiled warmly.
"Me too."

Dr. Samuel Leonard's expertise was philology: ancient written documents, hieroglyphics and symbols. He had unraveled and unlocked more secrets of past civilizations than anyone living on the planet.
Wisnewski
brought him the parchment in a protective cover, flattened out to its worn edges, looking like an Arabic treasure map of bizarre origin. The paper was a yellowish gray, stony-looking. It told a full tale, the strange Etruscan symbols spilling over the edges, and there were no margins at either the top or the bottom.

Wisnewski
told Leonard that he had worked up a theory to the meaning of the cryptic letters and numbers, working as best he could with his more limited knowledge of ancient lettering. He pointed out that the figure of 500,000 seemed to refer to the number of human lives that must be sacrificed to the
Overlord,
some creature of the Dark Side that threatened to destroy all Etruscan life if its hunger for human life was not fulfilled.