“No activity, but markings on the walls. There’s a lot of debris. Some of it looks like bones. Some . . .” She stares into the monitor, studying the scene. “It could be more human remains, sir. Wait. Damn.”
“Watch your language,” says Wells. “What do you see?”
“I think it’s a light switch. And wires. There’s power in there.”
“Who has functioning night vision?” Wells shouts.
A few seconds later a marshal comes over and hands Wells a set of goggles. He puts them on. I try to see past him into the dark.
“You’re not going in there alone, are you? I just said there might be Diggers around.”
“No,” he says. “You’re coming with me. If you’re that het up about it, you can go first.”
A marshal hands me a set of goggles.
“Thanks. But you can go in first. I have this thing about getting my head bitten off.”
I reload the Colt and put on the goggles. The world goes green and flat and very bright.
“You ready?” says Wells.
“Hell no.”
Wells gets down on his knees. The hole is only waist--high, like something crawled out of it. He goes through and I follow. The bite on my neck hurts like hell. The last time I got bit by a dead man bad things happened. Like I almost went zombie. This time I’m going to see Allegra before anything interesting happens.
The inside of the cave is extremely nondramatic in the sense that nothing comes out of the shadows to eat our faces. Wells finds the light switch and turns it on. The cave fills with light and we take our goggles off.
He was right. The subway line runs right next to one of the old walking--dead tunnels. The area where we’re standing is about fifty feet across and stretches into darkness at both ends. The walls are hacked out of raw stone. The lighting fixtures are made of human bones. Skulls and other bones are cemented together on the walls, making elaborate shapes. Thirteen of them. Angra sigils, I’m guessing.
There are a -couple of hospital gurneys on one side of the room along with the same kind of gory surgical scene like we saw at the hospital. Only this one is old. The blood on the instruments and ground is dry and dusty. The body parts are shriveled and so far gone they don’t even smell bad.
“Still think I’m Saint Nick?” I say.
“Odds are you’re not.”
“What would be my motive?”
Wells looks around the tunnel.
“You’re insane. The pressure of the Angra threat has pushed you over the edge, so you’re acting out your murderous Hell fantasies.”
“The Shonin doesn’t think I’m Saint Nick.”
“He doesn’t know you like I do.”
“I’m a bastard. I’m not insane. There’s a difference.”
“We’ll see.”
“Sir?”
It’s Sola’s voice.
“Is everything all right?”
“Send in the forensics team. I want this place examined down to the micron. Record the scene, then bag every single piece of evidence and bring it back with us.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s get out of their way,” says Wells.
“Just a minute.”
An old wooden box sits in a niche in the wall.
“I haven’t seen one of those in an Angra scene before.”
Wells follows me over.
“Don’t touch it,” he says.
“Okay.”
I don’t use my hand, but I flip the latch and push open the top of the case.
“Dammit,” says Wells.
“Watch the language.”
Inside is a skull on a deep blue velvet pillow. Its metal teeth glitter and it has lips and a nose made of hammered gold. Its eyes are like elaborate silver brooches, each set with a blue stone in the middle. Rubies flow down the top of the skull from an old head wound, each ruby smaller than the one before it, so they form a line of blood down to the eye sockets.
“Ever seen anything like it?” I say.
“No. And that’s the last playing around you get to do today. Get out of the tunnel. Grown--ups have to work.”
We crawl out of the hole and back into the subway. Wells stands and brushes dirt off his pants. The forensic team pushes past us, wrapped up in sterile white Tyvek suits. Julie Sola comes over to me.
“I guess no one’s in there.”
“No one’s used that place in a while. Those chop--shop crazies sure weren’t working in there. And they sure didn’t make that skull.”
“Whose skull?” says Sola.
“Good question.”
“I’m disturbed,” says Wells. “After the hospital, this isn’t what I was expecting.”
“This was probably their rehearsal space.”
Wells shakes his head.
“No. It’s more than that. Maybe forensics will tell us what. DNA. Dental records for the skull.”
“Forget that. The teeth were gold too.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“That’s not what bugs me.”
“What does?” says Sola.
“That the place was abandoned awhile ago. That means whatever the Angra groupies were doing in there—-assuming it was them—-they finished.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” says Wells.
He looks back at the hole.
“We need to seal off this whole part of the tunnel.”
“You don’t need me for that, right?”
I turn and show him the bite wound on my neck.
“I’d like to go and get fifty tetanus shots, so I’m taking off.”
He looks at the wound, but doesn’t say anything. Just nods.
“Be at headquarters early tomorrow. We’ll have work to do.”
“Sure.”
Like today wasn’t work.
I head back down the tracks and up onto the train platform. I wonder what the watercooler talk will be like tomorrow, now that -people know all the gossip about me is true. That I’m not entirely human and I’m really good at killing things. Too bad I don’t have a car. I bet I could get a really good parking space now.
I take a quick look around to make sure I’m alone and step into the shadow of one of the concrete palm trees.
I COME OUT of a shadow in the parking lot by Allegra’s clinic. It’s in a strip mall next to a nail salon and a pizza delivery joint. A sign on the clinic door says EXISTENTIAL HEALING. I knock on the glass. Fairuza opens up.
“Hey, Stark,” she says. “Candy already went home.”
“Good. I’m here to see Allegra.”
I touch my neck and show her the blood. She just opens the door. Everyone here is pretty used to seeing me bleeding.
Allegra comes out of the examining room, wiping her hands on a towel. Her café au lait skin contrasts with the bright white medical lab coat.
She comes over and gives me a loose hug, trying to not get rain from my coat all over her.
“He’s fucked up again,” says Fairuza.
Allegra’s brow furrows.
“What happened?”
“A dead man bit me. Sort of dead. Walking around dead, but not a zombie. I just figured I should get it cleaned out or something.”
“Look at you being sensible for once. Come on in.”
“Need any help?” says Fairuza.
“No. I’ve sewn this one back together more times than I can remember.”
She has me take off my coat and shirt and sit on the exam table.
She cleans off my neck with Betadine. I hate the smell of hospitals and clinics. They make you feel like you should be sick just stepping inside.
“That hurts.”
“Baby,” says Allegra. “I’d ask how the new job was working out, but you walking in here voluntarily tells me everything I need to know.”
“They make me get up early too,” I say. “It’s pure abuse.”
“The good news is that there’s a lot of blood, but the wound itself isn’t bad. I have a salve that will help the healing.”
“I’m good at healing all on my own. I just don’t want rabies or lockjaw or diaper rash. Whatever a corpse bite can give you.”
“I haven’t had a lot of experience with this, so I’m going to take some blood and give you a wide--spectrum antibiotic.”
“I hate needles.”
“You really are a baby today,” she says. “Which makes me think you’re not just here because you scraped your knees. I’ve seen you hurt worse than this and you didn’t come in.”
“You got me, Perry Mason. I’m worried about Candy. What can you tell me?”
I can’t see Allegra, but I hear her draw a long breath.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t worked on many Jades. I’m running some tests on her now. I should have something in a day or so.”
“Call me when you do.”
“You know, even though we’re not a regular hospital, there’s still this thing called doctor--patient confidentiality.”
“I know. But call me anyway.”
“We’ll see.”
“The clinic looks pretty quiet today.”
“That’s why Candy went home. We don’t have that many patients these days. Still, we’re doing better than the regular hospitals.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are more Lurkers staying in town than -people. Cedars--Sinai, big hospitals like that are pretty much empty. Even the doctors are gone. It’s critical--care patients only with a skeleton staff.”
“So, it really is only us funny -people left.”
“No, and that has me worried. I think -people have been watching the clinic. There was a pickup truck in the parking lot across the street all day yesterday. A van the day before that.”