Within two months, Boros was getting so close to a cure that Daniel started postponing his visits to the doctor. Cancer wasn’t going to be a death sentence, not for him. Even if it ravaged his body tomorrow, Boros was far enough along that Daniel could take the temporary cure and then wait out the final one.
He didn’t know how many subjects they’d gone through. Shana kept him updated every week, when Boros put in his requisition, but he paid no attention. It was during one of those weekly updates that she said, ‘We can’t keep this up, sir. He’s demanding ten more in the next week. There’s a limit to how many transients can disappear from a city before someone starts investigating—’
‘Then send the team to another city.’
‘We’re doing that. But it’s a slow process. He needs healthy, clean subjects. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find them among that population? We test them, but he still rejects a third of the ones—’
‘Then we need to come up with an alternative.’
A soft sigh of relief. ‘Thank you, sir. Now, I’ve done the calculations, and if you were to take his cure in its present form, we could slow the testing, meaning we could cut back the number of subjects significantly and—’
‘I’m not taking a substandard cure unless it’s an absolute last resort.’
‘I understand, sir, but we
are
reaching that stage—’
‘No, we aren’t. I want you to comb through the employee files. Find anyone with a terminal illness. Offer two years’ salary to their families in return for their participation. Emphasize the benefits of the procedure and minimize the side effects.’
When she didn’t answer, he looked up from his computer golf game. She was staring at him.
‘Employees, sir?’
‘That’s what I said. If we don’t have enough with a terminal illness, make it a general offer and increase it to triple salary.’
She continued to stare.
‘How’s Lindsey, Shana?’
She blanched. When Shana came into his employ, her eleven-year-old daughter had been suffering from a rare liver disease, on a transplant list and failing fast. As her signing bonus, Shana got that liver for her daughter and all the care she’d needed to make a full recovery. And Daniel got the perfect assistant - one indebted to him for life.
‘I-I think we can fill this latest requisition with transients, ’ she said. ‘I’ll split the team and send them farther afield.’
He smiled. ‘Thank you, Shana.’
She started to leave. He called her back and handed her a check for ten thousand dollars.
‘A bonus. Buy something special for yourself and Lindsey.’
She stared at it, and, for just a second, he thought she was going to hand it back. After only that brief hesitation, though, she murmured, ‘Thank you, sir,’ pocketed it, and left.
Finally, the day came. And not a moment too soon, as Daniel struggled to get into work every day, ignoring his wife’s nervous clucking, ignoring the little voice inside himself that said, ‘Take the cure as it is, before it’s too late.’ Boros was close, though, and Daniel willed himself to hang on. The pain and exhaustion were simply more obstacles to overcome.
And then it was ready.
Daniel made Boros go through the final stage twice - two batches with four subjects each time. When he was assured of the results, he ordered six of those subjects killed, the other two left alive and stored for long-term monitoring and potential future tests. He wasn’t sure what Shana objected to more - killing successful subjects or holding the other two captive. He had assured her, though, that once he’d been treated, all the failures could be terminated and sent on to their afterlives. That satisfied her.
Killing the successful subjects and keeping two for testing was but one of the precautions he took. He knew he was heading into the most dangerous phase of the testing. He was about to die and put his rebirth in the hands of others. It would be the final test of loyalty for his assistant, and while he trusted her more than anyone in his life, he took precautions with that too, guaranteeing she wouldn’t decide at the last moment that he could stay dead.
Then he let Boros kill him by lethal injection. Not pleasant but, according to his research, the quickest and most reliable method. The next thing he saw was Shana’s face, floating above his, her pretty features drawn with concern, worrying that the cure might have failed. While he’d like to think she was worried for his sake, he knew better.
‘Sir?’ she said, when he opened his eyes.
He blinked hard. ‘Yes?’ He had to say it twice. When he spoke, the relief on her face . . . there was a moment there when he wished it was for him.
He tried to sit up. She helped him. She gave him a glass of water. She wiped his face, made him feel more himself, and he was grateful.
Daniel had undergone surgery a couple of times in his youth, and this reminded him of that, coming out of the anesthetic, slow and groggy. Boros bustled around, administering tests, checking his reflexes and responses to visual and audio stimuli. Shana kept him comfortable.
At last, Boros declared the conversion a success. He had Daniel get up and move around, do a few tasks on his laptop, make sure his physical and mental capacities were normal.
‘All right, then,’ Boros said. ‘Go back to bed.’
Daniel didn’t want to go back to bed. He felt fine and he needed to relocate to the safe room in the basement, where he’d remain for a few days, presumably ‘on vacation’ until he was fully recovered.
When he tried opening his mouth to refuse, though, he couldn’t. Instead, he found himself walking back to the bed. And, as he lay down, he realized with no small amount of horror that he’d been tricked.
Boros walked over. ‘Did you really think I’d give up the chance to have a man like yourself as my personal puppet?’
Daniel started to sit up.
‘Lie down.’
He did.
Boros smiled. ‘Yes, I know, you checked and rechecked, making sure I gave you the right formulation. And I did. You can ask Ms Bergin. Unfortunately, it appears there is no way to remove the control a necromancer has over his zombies.’
‘But—’
‘I know, I demonstrated it to you. With subjects raised by my assistant, meaning they would have no reason to obey
me
.’
Daniel tried to look at Shana, but she’d disappeared behind Boros.
‘Don’t bother appealing to her. She’s been paid well for her cooperation. Yes, you’re holding a chit on her, but considering that you’re under my control, that’s a problem easily remedied. So let’s start there. Please release—’
The muffled hiss of a silenced gunshot cut him short. Boros slumped forward, a small-caliber bullet through the back of his head. Shana was behind him with a gun. As Boros lay on the floor, blood oozing down his balding scalp, Daniel sat up, slowly, eyes on the barrel. She lowered it to her side.
‘I trust you’ll make that call now, sir?’ she said.
He did, having her daughter released, then giving the phone to Shana. Out of Daniel’s earshot she spoke to her daughter.
‘You’ll be well compensated—’ he began when she returned, and for the first time since they’d met, she interrupted him.
‘I know. I’ll be very well compensated. And, as soon as I’ve set you up in the safe room, my employment is at an end.’
He understood and said as much. She called a pair of guards to come for Boros’s body and to detain his assistant. Then she called in two shamans who’d been part of the research team and, as such, knew Daniel’s secret and would be tending to him during his recovery. The four of them set off for the room that would be his temporary home.
‘There’s one last thing I’ll ask,’ Shana said, as they took the elevator to the basement. ‘You promised to release the other subjects—’
‘Excluding the two successes. I may still need them.’
She nodded. ‘The others, though . . .’
‘. . . can have their souls released immediately. And there won’t be any more. I presume that’s why you killed Boros?’
She nodded, and he felt a small prickle of disappointment. Had he really thought she’d done it to protect him?
She handed him a form authorizing the subjects’ release. He arched his brows, surprised at the formality, but she met his gaze with a level stare. She didn’t trust him, and he’d earned that mistrust, so there was nothing to do now but make a clean break of it. When they reached the basement lab, she faxed the signed forms to the records department.
Outside the safe room, Shana slid her card through the reader, coupled with a retinal scan. The electronic door
whooshed
open. Daniel walked in and looked around. He hadn’t seen the work they’d done to prepare it. He hadn’t even told Shana what he’d wanted. But it was exactly as he’d expected - a storage room converted into a luxury hotel suite.
The shamans hurried in to help him sit, then retreated behind Shana. She hadn’t said a word since the elevator. He supposed he couldn’t expect more, under the circumstances, so he made a call, wiring a million dollars into her account, and she waited in silence until she received confirmation on her cell phone. Then, with the shamans flanking her, she closed the door.
Daniel was just settling onto the bed when the speaker overhead clicked on. It was Shana.
‘The records department has received the fax on releasing the zombies. I’m going to do that now, before I go.’
Daniel smiled. There was no need to tell him that, but it was obvious she couldn’t bring herself to walk away. As angry as she was, she had a good job, and she’d hoped - expected - he’d try to convince her to stay.
‘How much, Shana?’ he asked.
‘Sir?’
‘To stay. What do you want? More money? A bigger office?’ He chuckled. ‘An assistant of your own?’
‘No, sir. I was simply calling to confirm that it’s all right for me to release the zombies.’
He sighed. She was going to be difficult. ‘Yes, yes. Release them. Now about—’
A
whoosh
cut him short. He glanced at the door. It was still shut.
‘You!’ snarled a voice behind him.
He wheeled to see that a section of the wall had opened. One of the zombie subjects stood in the opening, squinting at him with its good eye, the other shriveled.
‘You did this to me,’ the zombie said, struggling to speak through rotting lips.
‘No,’ Daniel said slowly, carefully. ‘A scientist—’
‘You don’t even remember me, do you? But I remember you. Sitting there, barely paying attention, busy talking on your cell phone as you sentenced me to this.’ He waved at his rotting body.
Daniel looked up at the speaker. ‘If this is your idea of a lesson, Shana—’
‘No, sir,’ her voice crackled. ‘
This
is my idea of a lesson.’
Another zombie appeared behind the first. Then a third, crawling on stubs of arms. A fourth slithered past him. They crowded into the doorway, grumbling and grunting, all glowering at Daniel. Then the first stepped aside, and they rushed forward, zombie after zombie, running, lurching, dragging themselves toward him.
Daniel ran to the door. Pounded on it. Screamed.
‘Don’t worry, sir,’ Shana said. ‘Your procedure was a success. No matter what they do, you can’t die.’
A click, and the speaker went silent as the zombies swarmed over him.
DELICE
BY HOLLY NEWSTEIN
The grinding sound of stone on stone was muffled by the hot, still air. Moments later a heavy stench so foul as to be almost visible filled the night like an exhalation. A white-clad figure leaned into the opened tomb and pulled something bundled in a stained sheet out into the moonlight. It slid to the brick pavement with a thud.