Eternal
Authors: H. G. Nadel
ETERNAL
H. G. N
ADEL
Copyright © 2012 by H. G. Nadel
All rights reserved. Published by Sourced Media Books. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information contact Sourced Media Books, 29 Via Regalo, San Clemente, CA 92673.
ISBN 978-1-937458-19-5
LCCN 2012910465
To Abelard and Heloise. May their love live forever.
ONTENTS
PROLOGUE
J
ulia sprinted through the dark, stumbling on sharp I rocks that bit into her feet and ignoring the shooting I pain from the deep gash in her right hip. A thick stream of blood ran down her torn knee and mingled with her sweat. A woman’s body holds about eight to ten pints of blood. How much could she lose before she blacked out? Her heart beat uncontrollably. She was on the verge of hyperventilation, and blood loss was making her dizzy. But she could not stop—she
must
not stop. Sweat dripped into her eyes, but she couldn’t spare the energy to wipe it away. Every extremity throbbed. She wanted nothing more than to sink into oblivion, to succumb to the weariness in her bones.
Ocean waves crashed at her feet, urging her to pick up her pace.
Almost there.
As her legs pumped harder, the blood that oozed from both her hip and her knee pulsed faster, leaving a distinct trail in the sand. With luck, they’d be able to follow it to find her body.
Don’t you dare pass out before you get there!
The moonlight blurred and faded—or was that her dimming sight? She could just make out the rough outline of the pier in the darkness. Her final destination.
“Nadia!” she cried in desperation. Her voice was so cracked with fear and fatigue that she didn’t recognize it as her own. She stumbled and fell. She’d lost too much blood. She couldn’t go any further. The world turned gray.
ONE
J
ulia looked at her watch for the third time in five minutes. She was eager to see her dad, despite the reason for tonight’s visit.
So glad this long day is almost over.
That thought was immediately followed by guilt—the guilt of surviving. At least she still had long days to contend with. Her mother no longer had that luxury.
What is taking him so long?
Julia shook her head and smiled in spite of herself. Her father, Morton Jones, was one of those absent-minded professor types, who could tell you the 24th digit of pi but still got lost in his own pharmacy.
Kind of like Dr. Bertel,
she realized.
Who knew I’d have a boss so much like my own dad?
Julia sighed, rubbed the back of her neck, and pulled open the top button of her white lab coat, revealing a Beatles T-shirt underneath. She killed a few minutes tidying up her workbench, arranging the test tubes and slide trays that represented the day’s work. She plucked a strand of hair from the test tube tray and dropped it on the floor. It matched the haphazard blonde locks that hung around her face, escapees from the rubber band she’d found in a drawer of utility clamps. She caught her distorted reflection in the chrome table and wrinkled her nose at the wide-set green eyes she’d always thought of as too far apart. She assumed the only reason the boys stared at her was because she was such a geek.
She wasn’t sorry to be a geek. Her diligence had allowed her to graduate at the top of her class, and her science smarts had landed her this summer job straight out of high school—in Dr. Caleb Bertel’s forensic pathology lab at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Bertel had tapped Julia as his research assistant after a single interview, much to her surprise. She’d taken a number of AP science classes and had been offered scholarships at several stellar universities, but she still considered herself lucky to be there. There must be more qualified girls already in college who’d kill for this opportunity.
Then again, maybe the pool of applicants wasn’t as large as she thought. Dr. Bertel’s scientific reputation wasn’t what it once was. He had apparently “retired” from his position with the FBI. All Julia knew about the reason was that he’d been caught working on unauthorized research. But to Julia it seemed like a minor blemish on an otherwise successful career. Bertel had done breakthrough research in the use of DNA to solve cold cases, and he’d published three books—one of which sat on the shelf of almost every serious forensic scientist in America. Yet many of those same scientists would prefer to forget the book for which he was better known.
The Devil Takes a Body: When Science Can’t Explain Superhuman Behavior
was an expansive tome on demonic possession that brought him far more criticism than praise.
The criticism didn’t bother Dr. Bertel. In fact, Julia suspected that he took pleasure in it. In her eyes, it simply made him more interesting. She didn’t put much stock in spirits, but she was intrigued by the idea of a soul. In any case, Julia was eager for the opportunity to develop a close working relationship with such a brilliant scholar. Plus, she needed an apprenticeship that would look good on her application to medical school, since she had some deficits to overcome. She wrinkled her nose again at the thought of her recent fiasco at the science fair.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a large ladder floating past the lab’s open door.
“Do you need some help, Dr. Bertel?” She suppressed a smile as her mentor struggled to keep both the ladder and a carton of light bulbs suspended off the floor.
“Oh, hi Julia,” Dr. Bertel flashed a friendly grin as he set down the ladder with a thud. “I thought you left for the cemetery.”
“Still waiting for my dad,” she laughed. “There is a good chance he’s wandering the parking lot right now looking for his misplaced keys.”
“You know, I did that once,” Bertel said. “Found them half an hour later in my coat pocket.”
“Where was the coat?”
“I was wearing it!” Bertel’s uncommonly light-hearted banter was infectious, and they both laughed.
“You’re in a good mood today, Dr. Bertel,” Julia said. “What’s the occasion?”
“Oh, no occasion,” he said mysteriously. “Just going to change a light bulb in my supply closet, then I’m off to dinner. Have a good night.”
“You too.” Julia heard his footsteps echo softly as he walked down the hall to his office. She waited a few more minutes for her dad then decided to go upstairs and meet him by the entrance to the building.
Julia grabbed her purse and started down the basement corridor of Research Building Three, where the pathologists kept their offices. Although the sun stayed up late on summer evenings, the corridors were cast in a perpetual bluish glow made creepier by the insect-like hum of the few working fluorescent tubes. Pathologists needed no reminder that they were at the bottom of the medical food chain, which made her all the more aware of the office location.
As she walked past Dr. Bertel’s office, the lights suddenly flickered and went dark. Then she heard an explosive sizzle and bang, like a large firecracker or maybe an M-80—the kind her boyfriend, Tyler, bought last Fourth of July. When she heard the loud thump following the sizzle, she panicked.
Julia’s heart raced as she tried to push open the door, but there was something in the way. She shoved as hard as she could. As the shadowy object gave way in the dark, she realized the obstruction was Dr. Bertel’s body. Then the lights turned back on, and she could see everything.
Dr. Bertel had been thrown across the office. The ladder was lying across his legs, and tiny shards of glass were scattered everywhere. The track lighting on the ceiling over his desk was ringed in black. The room smelled like a cross between barbecued ribs and burned metal. Bertel’s face and hands were covered with splotches of charred black skin and blood-red flesh. But what freaked her out the most were his eyes, wide open and unblinking. Bertel was dead, the victim of an electrical shock.
But how?
Her widening eyes mirrored his as she whispered in horror, “Dr. Bertel, what did you do?”