Mercury Retrograde (4 page)

Petra's brow wrinkled. That was less than five miles from where the dead campers had been found. She wanted to believe that it was a coincidence.

A picture of an attractive young woman flashed on the screen. She looked like a girl next door, with bits of pink chalk in her hair and flashing a peace sign to the camera.

“If you've seen Amber, please call the county Sheriff's Office or Park Police. Stay tuned to Channel 4 for more updates on this breaking news.”

Petra leaned back in her chair. She wasn't inclined to believe in anything she couldn't touch and measure. In all likelihood, the snake was as real as Bigfoot, and the illnesses had been brought on by whatever they'd been smoking or drinking.

Still. She wondered.

And shuddered.

T
here was dead, and then there was
really
dead.

Gabe flipped on the overhead light at the hospital morgue. The fluorescent lights buzzed to life in the chill, illuminating a small basement room covered with glossy olive-­colored tile and battered stainless steel tables. He remembered an earlier time when bodies were dressed and carried downstairs, around coffin corners cut into the stairwells. They were taken to the parlor of a house to be laid out until they started to reek or the last relatives had shuffled through—­whichever happened first—­but times had changed. Not that he could remember the exact year he'd last seen it. But it had been awhile.

He reached to the counter for a pair of latex gloves. He glanced at a body on a table, tugging open the zipper of the body bag to reveal the wizened face of an old man, peaceful in repose. Gabe guessed that the corpse was probably half his own true age. After a moment's hesitation, Gabe zipped him back up. Not what he was looking for.

He crossed the room to a wall of stainless steel cabinets with six doors. He opened one, pulling out a drawer containing a nude body decorated with a toe tag. Wrong body—­a middle-­aged woman missing a leg from the knee down.

Third try was a charm. He yanked out a drawer that crinkled with plastic. Shrouded in a bag, the body was wrapped within several layers of plastic tarp. Gabe dug into the plastic. The coroner clearly hadn't gotten to these bodies yet . . . or was planning on shipping them away to the state lab.

It didn't smell right. Dead bodies had a particular unforgettable smell about them, soft and final. This smelled acidic. Dead, but chemical. Gabe stared into the bloated face of the man his raven had seen at the campsite. The corpse's eyes were blood red, open. Gabe pulled back the eyelid. Dark liquid had begun pooling at the back of the cavity, and the eye wobbled like gelatin. The nose and mouth were bright red inside.

The body's skin was soft, leaving dents where Gabe's fingers prodded. He traced a tire tread pattern that had eaten through the corpse's shirt into the flesh. It had a rough texture, like abraded road rash. He poked the ribs, where bones should be, but could feel nothing solid beneath the skin. That small amount of pressure yielded a black, viscous fluid that pressed out of the corpse's mouth.

Gabe's mouth thinned. If the coroner didn't do something with these bodies soon, he suspected that any usable evidence would liquefy. No one would ever know what really happened to them. Not that it would be a bad thing.

The woman and the child looked to be in a slower state of decomposition than the man. The woman's fingernails had fallen off, and the child's teeth were loose in her palate. The interiors of their noses and mouths were the same vivid crimson. Gabe guessed that the poison had been inhaled by those two, and that the man had come into direct contact with it. That could explain why he was turning into sludge a bit faster than the others.

Gabe wrapped the bodies back up and closed the drawers. Stripping off his gloves and discarding them, he glanced through the files in a wire basket on the desk. Very preliminary notes. They'd been identified as the Carrollton family: Rob, Sue, and their girl, Melanie.

Gabe closed the folder and dropped it back in the basket. The raven he'd sent had tasted magic at the scene of the crime, and his observations here had confirmed it.

Something murderous was loose.

He slipped back into the hallway and took the freight elevators to the patient floors. He limped by the nurses' station, pretending to be reading a sign while he eavesdropped.

“Have you seen that guy's throat in three? It looks like that carnie who got admitted last spring.”

“Finn the Fire-­breather?”

“Yeah. It's like he inhaled a tank of napalm or something.”

“Is he one of the giant snake guys?”

The nurse snorted. “Oh, the tox panels came back on that. Looks like a winning bingo card.”

Gabe frowned. There was no way that he could sneak in to see them—­new patients were always tightly observed. And uniformed police milled about the halls. Perhaps he could try tomorrow.

He made his way to the bank of main elevators to leave, but paused.

In the waiting area near the floor nurses' desk, a motionless figure lay curled up in a chair. Dark blond hair had fallen over her freckled face, and her arms were crossed over a hospital gown. Her eyes were closed, and by her breathing, she seemed to be asleep.

His heart hammered.

What was
she
doing here?

A bright shard of memory bubbled up in the back of his brain, sharp and blistering as a bullet.

No. He couldn't remember that. She'd hurt him, hurt him badly. It wasn't safe to go near her. Deep in his undead bones, he knew that she would kill him.

Gabe noiselessly stepped beside her. He reached out to touch her hair, but stopped an inch above her temple. Fear and fascination twisted in his gut. He forced himself to stop, to take a step back, and walk away.

 

“T
he beginning is the end. The end is the beginning.
”

Voices rose in a hypnotic chant, through flickering firelight and smoke scented with white sage. Darkness enfolded a circle of shadows gathered around a bonfire. The shadows turned in the light, seething, seeming less substantial than the fire.

“
In the mouth of the serpent lies the tail of time.
”

Fire picked out faces surrounding the flames, eyes closed, lifted to the ash and stars in the sky above. All thirteen were women, dressed in dusty motorcycle leathers. Sparks glistened, intermingling with bits of ash drifting to settle on the shoulders of their jackets. The women pressed their hands toward the fire. Flame reflected in the chrome of motorcycles clustered just beyond them in the desert. It was an eclectic collection of bikes: a handful of ex-­military KLR650 bikes in matte paint, a Triumph Tiger 800, a BMW F800GS, a pair of S13 Suzuki DR-­Z400S motorcycles, and a ­couple of Yamahas that had begun life as more dirt bike than street bike, but had been customized for the road. There was good metal there, and fine coin in all of them to make them road and dirt machines that chewed up the landscape. But they'd been carefully painted with low-­key finishes to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. Someone who knew bikes would be impressed; a casual onlooker would walk on by. And that was what they intended: to be invisible on the street and the forest.

“
As above, so below.
”

“
As within, so without.
”

The fire burned swiftly, the blue of gasoline at its core, acrid when the wind pushed the smoke just right. Tangled in bits of a broken pallet, scrap wood, and scrub brush was something that hissed like fat. A human skull popped off the stem of its neck and sizzled in the heart of the fire, flames rimming an eye socket. This was a fine sacrifice that had fallen into their laps. The man had attempted to attack one of the women at a gas station restroom. She'd broken his hand, and the others had fallen on him like a swarm of bees. He was dead before the toilet had finished flushing. A worthless human being, but a fine sacrifice.

Belinda lifted her hands to the sky. Her arms, bared by a tank top, were covered with massive tattoos of snakes spiraling from her shoulders to her hands. The tail of each snake wrapped around her throat, with the body of a snake curling around the length of each arm, like a black caduceus. The heads of the snakes were inked into the thin skin on the backs of her hands, and her silver-­ringed fingers flashed like fangs. The heat of the fire pressed close against her skin, summoning a sheen of sweat that glistened on the ink.

Bel's voice lifted above the others, beseeching the dark sky above and the still ground below: “The Sisters of Serpens ask for the blessing of the Great Serpent, the Great Mother of all things hidden, in all her guises.” As she spoke, long silver earrings brushed her shoulders, and wisps of long dark hair worked free of a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She closed her eyes, feeling the sear of the fire on her eyelids and the palms of her hands as she reached up. Her boots pressed deep into the dust, and she felt her soul taking root in the land. Her fingers tickled the stars, and the power of night formed a complete circuit, flowing between her hands, down her spine, into her feet. The warm energy of the fire uncoiled along the base of her spine, crackling along her vertebrae. She was conscious of the shadows of her sisters around her. They were paler shadows than the long, dark shadow she cast, but still stronger than any ordinary man or woman; their black auras radiated night.

“I summon thee, with all thy names: Medusa, Ariadne, Astarte, Python, Wadjet, Renenutet, Tanit, Manasa, Melusine, Ishtar . . .”

She sucked in her breath and closed her eyes. Her head lashed backward on her neck, lifting her chin to the sky. Power buzzed between her shoulder blades, vital and alive, as the kundalini energy of an ancient and powerful goddess snapped her awake. Behind her eyes, red shadows seethed and boiled.

“Priestess?”

One of her sisters called for her, but they dared not touch her. Bel shivered, and the energy cascaded down her arms like snow shaken from a coat. Her eyes opened, falling upon her followers. A joyous smile filled her face, and she lowered her hands, shaking, to the level of her shoulders.

Bel found her voice, deep behind her ribs. “She is here. She's calling. The Great Serpent has awakened.”

Something deep within the bonfire collapsed, sending a twisting finger of fire roaring toward the sky. A bystander might have thought it a log breaking, or a pocket of gasoline immolating the last bit of marrow in the bones of the body that burned within it. The bones had gone black, splintering open in the heat. But Bel knew it for what it really was: magic.

Whispers circled around the fire, sobs of joy, and brilliant smiles flashing white in the darkness.

“
The Great Mother is here!
”

“
She has returned to Earth.
”

“
What shape do you think she's taken?
”

“
She will be a force to be reckoned with!
”

“What now, boss lady?” Tria, her lieutenant, asked. Petite and blond as a doll in a toy catalog, her waist was circled with a belt full of knives. When she crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers unconsciously dipped down to trace the hilts. A twitch formed above her right eye, as always happened when she was anxious. The man who had attacked her at the gas station was not the first to have done so, and it had opened an old wound. Still, it had been cathartic for her to cut him into pieces to be carried away for the fire.

Bel reached out and touched Tria's chin, activating a decade-­old hypnotic suggestion that she'd implanted in Tria's psyche. The magic in Bel's touch crept up her face and sank deep into her brain. The twitch softened and faded, and Tria smiled.

“Better?”

“Better. Thank you.”

Bel turned to the space in the sky where the sun had set hours before. She pressed her hands to her heart to contain its racing.

“West,” she said, with certainty. “We head west.”

“M
s. Dee?”

Petra jerked awake, nearly falling out of the hospital chair. She'd been dreaming—­dreaming of a shadow too remote to touch stretching over her like a storm cloud. It smelled of grave dust and sunshine and made her chest ache.

She struggled to hold on to her plastic zipper bag of personal effects and twisted around to see the doctor from the ER sitting down in a chair opposite her.

“Yes?” Petra tucked the hem of her gaping hospital gown around her knees and leaned forward. “Dr. Burnard?”

“We have your lab work.” She flipped a page on her clipboard. “No traces of heavy metal poisoning, so you're clear.”

Petra nodded. “Thanks. That's a relief.”

“You should make an appointment with your primary care physician at your earliest convenience, though. Your white blood cell count is abnormally high.”

Petra's brow crinkled. “What does that mean?”

The doctor shrugged listlessly, and Petra thought that this must be the time of night that nothing got sugar-­coated. “Might be nothing. Most likely a routine viral or bacterial infection. But you should get that checked out, just to rule out immune disorders.”

Petra nodded quickly. “Okay. But . . . how is Cal?”

The doctor's left eye twitched. Petra wondered how long she'd been on duty. Her scrubs looked like they'd been slept in, and there was a rusty stain on her pant leg that Petra chose to assume was coffee.

“He's not well. We found mercury in his system . . . so much that I don't know how he's still alive.”

“But can you help him, can't you?” Petra hugged the plastic bag to her chest.

“No. I can't. We've done all we can to stabilize him, and we're going to transfer him to the university. There are some experts who deal with heavy metal poisoning there, who might be able to properly filter his blood. But we just can't do that here.”

Petra nodded. “I understand. Can . . . can I see him?”

Dr. Burnard seemed to hesitate. “Yes. But only for a few minutes. MedFlight will be here for him soon, and we have to be ready to move him right away.”

“Thank you.”

She led Petra through a warren of green-­painted halls with swinging doors. Personnel in scrubs scurried right and left, pushing wheelchairs, linen carts, and stacks of paper. The doctor weaved around the flow like a fish in the water, while Petra clutched her plastic bag and tried to ignore the sticky feeling of her slipper socks on the waxed tile floor.

Dr. Burnard paused before an open doorway. “He's here.”

Petra's heart dropped down into her slipper socks. Cal lay in a cocoon of plastic. A clear plastic tent surrounded him, head to foot. Hoses and tubes snaked from IV poles into his scrawny arms. A tube had been installed in his throat, taped to his mouth. He lay motionless, eyes taped shut under the glaring fluorescent light.

“Can I go in?”

“You can, but don't open the isolation tent.”

Petra went inside. She stared down at Cal. His skin was grey, pallid as canned tuna left in a refrigerator too long. The machines whirred and buzzed and beeped around him, and his chest flexed in a mechanical rhythm.

She brushed her fingers against the plastic, swallowing hard. “Cal. I don't know if you can hear me. It's Petra.”

Cal's artificial breath continued its regular rhythm, with a
whoosh
and a
click
.

She went on: “They're going to take you to the university hospital, where there are ­people who can help you. They're
going
to help you.” She bit her lip and her vision blurred. She didn't want to lie to him. But she kept going: “It's gonna be okay. Really.”

She didn't believe it. But she wanted him to.

If he didn't, if he didn't believe enough to fight, he was good as dead.

S
omething was choking him.

At first, Cal thought it was something out of a bad hentai movie. A dark, viscous tentacle had wrapped around his neck. He struggled, gasping, trying to unwind it from his throat. But the creature had his body enveloped in its cold, slimy grip. The tentacle around his throat slipped up over his lip, and he whimpered, fingernails clawing into its slick skin. As his fingers dug into it, the flesh congealed like concrete. The viscous substance forced itself past his teeth and crawled down his throat, frigid and twisting.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Cal gagged, trying to hurl it back up like bad sushi. But it wormed deep in his throat, behind his ribs, rising behind his eyeballs . . .

He tried to howl around the arm in this throat, but couldn't make a sound. A flash of silver dribbled over his vision—­the mercury—­loosening the tape over his eyes. Bright light flashed over him—­fluorescent lights, and a murmur of voices. He was lying down but moving, moving fast, and a dozen tubes and wires and hands were digging into his skin, jammed down his throat.

Oh, God.

He struggled and thrashed, but he couldn't move his hands and legs. He rolled his eyes downward, and he could see Velcro restraints around his wrists. Someone was shouting at him, over him, and hands were pressing against his shoulders. A woman in green was struggling to uncap a needle. The cart on which he was tied clattered along, through a hallway and into darkness, deafening darkness.

He smelled fresh night air, felt the roaring of a machine and impossibly strong wind. He thrashed again, panicked, trapped, and helpless. It was the feeling he'd had at Stroud's Garden, at the mercy of the drug-­dealing alchemist who'd made him his errand boy. It was the first feeling he woke up with in the morning and the last one at night.

Something cold twisted within him. The mercury.

He could feel it unwinding in his veins, seeping through his pores. It leaked through his hands, soaking the Velcro restraints. Cal whimpered, flopping like a fish.

And one of the restraints popped free.

He reached up for the tube in his throat. Someone was screaming at him, and bodies in green and blue scrubs were struggling to pin him back down. But the mercury climbed over his arm. A woman shrieked and backed away.

He gagged and spat out the tube, gasping in pain. Jesus . . . how had they gotten something like that down him? Someone had let go of the gurney, and it spun at a lazy angle, pushed by the wind from what he saw were helicopter blades.

Jesus. They were gonna take him away. Away to . . . where? A military base? Like in Area 51 or something? Experiment on him? A guy dressed in black hopped down from the helicopter bay.

Oh, no. Nonononono.

Panic flooded him. He ripped open the last of the restraints and jumped down from the gurney. He was conscious of gloved hands trying to shove him back, but he popped free of the wires and tubes in his arm, stumbling and bleeding.

A man in green scrubs tried to grab him. Cal howled. The guy was much stronger than he was, and tackled him to the ground hard enough to drive Cal's breath from him.

This was it. Tears leaked from Cal's eyes, blurring his vision. He was caught, and he was doomed. He could lie here and wait for them to wrap him up in a nice package to be delivered to the Men in Black, or . . .

. . . or he could fight.

Cal wriggled up his right hand, coated in silver. He reached up to claw at the guy's face, hoping to startle him into letting up . . .

. . . but the mercury had a mind of its own. It leapt from his fingers, reaching toward the nurse's face. His face twisted in horror, and he opened his mouth to shout. Like a snake slithering through a forest floor, the mercury slid into his mouth. It poured into the man, overflowing from his lips. He gagged, flung his head from side to side.