The Blood Artists
- Автор: Хоган Чак
- Год: 1998
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-688-15622-0
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Blood Artists». Краткое содержание книги:
Maryk said, “You treated the traps with a chemical?”
Freeley shrugged. “Information is the cheapest commodity. You can access everything you need to know about flying to Venus and back. It’s having the resources that counts.”
“I’m impressed,” he said.
“You’re supposed to be. Finally, Lancet himself I believe I’ve found a pinprick in post. A tiny premortem breach along the base of the hairline, just back of the lateral surface of the neck, and well hidden. But, toxicologically, his system is clean.”
“A needle stick.” Maryk’s mind ran back to the footprint. “Medical personnel?”
“Impossible to tell. Consider the wrist lacerations. Two deep, neat incisions without any hesitation marks. Depressed or not, he was serious about destroying himself and causing some pain in the process. And it is a messy procedure for someone else to perform, with the rest of the place showing otherwise clean.”
“But an unmatched sneaker print in the bathroom. A palm print at the sink. A pinprick.”
“These are unexplained. And then there is Blossom.”
“What about her?”
“I had hoped to resolve this before coming to you with it. We lost her yesterday. This is not unusual, as you know. It’s difficult trailing someone who doesn’t seem to know where she’s going herself. But we activated the trace on her car, and late yesterday pinpointed it in a garage across from the CNN Center downtown.”
“Near the church.”
Freeley nodded. “Naturally.”
The Enterprise Church was a cult movement derived from the works of twentieth-century science fiction writer Gene Roddenberry and popular Star Fleet conventions. Its members awaited the coming Rendezvous whereby an alien landing party would arrive on Earth to mete out justice for their murdered comrade, Jesus Christ. Blossom had been a devoted follower ever since her recovery.
Freeley said, “She wasn’t there, but a member said some of them were out recruiting, or whatever they call it, for their church’s ten-year Star Date anniversary gathering here in Atlanta, this New Year’s Eve.”
Maryk frowned. “Then Blossom remains unaccounted for? What about Milkmaid?”
Freeley shrugged dismissively. “Milkmaid is fine, the same.”
“You’re certain?”
“I saw her yesterday. Mystified as ever. Paranoid, hypochondriacal. She nearly walked into a Boston streetcar yesterday morning. But she is accounted for. Nothing going on there.”
Maryk mulled things over. “Tell me exactly how we lost Blossom.”
“Early-morning traffic. She jumped a red by accident and wriggled away from her tail, then didn’t show up where we had expected her to.”
“I’ve told them a dozen times,” he said, “follow the person, not the car.” Maryk stood. “I want Blossom located by sight. I want that immediately. I want an exact position on her until we can get to the bottom of this Lancet situation.”
Freeley nodded. “I’ll get on it myself”
Maryk was alone with Stephen in B4. Stephen’s vitals had crashed overnight but his brain activity never flat-lined and Maryk had successfully revived him. Stephen had been plateau for vitals since then and was starting to retain some IV meal. Pupil response evinced further improvement.
Maryk had prepped another 500 ml dose of Milkmaid serum. He was administering it when Stephen began to speak.
The nurse that morning had detailed occasional moans and a few instances of trembling in each arm. But nothing could have prepared Maryk to see Stephen stirring beneath him. Stephen’s diminished facial features were like the features of a prototype of Stephen Pearse awaiting more cosmetic girth. His hands were the thin speckled hands of a man twice his age. The tube between Stephen’s lips drew his head leftward and formed his dry mouth into an emotionless smirk. His lips opened and his whispered voice broke the controlled silence of B4.
“Bobby.”
Then his eyes opened. Maryk stepped back and nearly dropped the empty glass ampule to the floor. Stephen’s eyes were blood-red around the pale blue irises and distended inside depressed sockets.
Maryk reapproached the side of the gurney. He watched as the word again worked its way up Stephen’s gaunt throat like a cartridge sliding into a rifle chamber.
“Bobby.”
Stephen’s dull eyes reached around the bright lab. He bared his thin lips around the tube as though he were sounding out the letter e. His teeth were yellow-gray like cheap ivory and too large now for his jaw. He was staring at the ceiling.
“Where am I?”
His pupils drifted subtly. He was going to pass out again.
Maryk said, “The BDC.”
Stephen’s throat was raw from the infection and the tubes. The words came out in gasps. “Sick?”
Maryk stood stiffly over him. Stephen’s revival was nothing short of extraordinary. Maryk’s success surprised even himself.
“Peter Maryk is treating you,” Maryk said.
Stephen’s eyelids closed. His brow went slack but his lips around the tube remained tense. He was still conscious. His blind eyes opened again and gazed up at the piped ceiling. There were full breaths between rasps. He still believed he was speaking to Bobby Chiles.
“Don’t. Let. Maryk. Take over. BDC.”
His jaw relaxed then and his lips parted with a sigh. His eyes closed again and he was out.
Maryk stood over him smiling harshly.
The console screen behind him beeped twice. Maryk went away from Stephen and turned to the keyboard.
A window opened on Freeley. She was standing before a cement wall under dusky sulfurous light. She was inside a parking garage. She spoke quickly but was otherwise composed. “Blossom is down,” she said.
Maryk gripped the console. His gray eyes burned.
Freeley went on, “She was in the backseat of the car the entire time, slumped down. A day, at least. Same way: both wrists.”
“Milkmaid,” Maryk said at once.
“At work. Just confirmed it. Should I go?”
Maryk glowered at the console.
“Should I go?” she said again.
“No. You stay on Blossom. Tell them to stick tight to Milkmaid and don’t let her out of their sight. I’m going up to Boston to bring her in myself.”
The Alley
Melanie stood in the doorway to the narrow alley adjacent to the Penny University. It was raining, nighttime, but early still, and too early to be out already on her second cigarette break. Melanie didn’t actually smoke. Her scarred lungs couldn’t take it. But at the Penny University you had to work eight and a half hours in order to be paid for eight: healthy people were assigned their thirty-minute dinner break in one lump sum, meaning four hours of nonstop customers on either side, whereas nicotine junkies were rewarded for their disgusting habit with a fifteen-minute dinner and three floating five-minute smokers. Smoking breaks were impossible for the managers to monitor, so it was far and away worth the artless deception in order to be able to stretch five minutes of peace and quiet into ten or even fifteen minutes of pure customerless joy. These fake breaks were the only thing that kept her going. The alley was thick with exhaust from the cars on the street, and because of that she wound up sucking in some noxious fumes anyway, but as far as Melanie was concerned, sacrificing long-range health for short-range sanity was really no sacrifice at all.
The Penny University was a four-story brick tower that dominated the wide city corner of Commonwealth and Harvard avenues. It served anything brewed — coffee, tea, beer — and the fare that went with it. Melanie had been employed there as a barista — which, she had come to learn, was Spanish for “coffee jerk” — for a record four straight weeks now.