Dead Mann Running (9781101596494) (32 page)

All at once there was something different in her eyes, something deep, old, and dark, like those gods Colby kept on his mantel. It felt like her gaze was cutting me up as surely as any blade. Much as I tried not to show it, she’d gotten to me. I had to walk away.

A stone archway, part of the original construction, hung over the front steps. It was undergoing repairs, or a politically correct makeover, but a few words still visible said it all: L
UNATIC
A
SYLUM
. An ambulance and some guard vehicles pulled up to meet us. Good thing the driveway had plenty of space. Two medics grabbed Green and steered him toward the ambulance. He stared dully at the sky and building.

“So sad and beautiful,” he said.

A salt-and-pepper-haired tank of man in a khaki uniform came up to Booth. From what I could make out, the
tank was in charge of the guard and Tom wanted them to cover the perimeter and search the building.

The newcomer, not grasping the gravity of the situation, laughed. “It’d take two hundred men at least,” he said, pointing at the stone behemoth.

“Then get them.”

We went in. Someone had phoned ahead, because the staff had already gathered in the reception area. Even so, the doctors, nurses, and interns were surprised by our small army, more so at the sight of chakz in their private hospital.

Booth slapped his hands to get their attention, then looked at me. The crack echoed in the wide space.

“Describe Misty for them.”

I made one last guess. “I think it’ll be faster if we ask if they have any patients named Maruta.”

“No!” Maruta said. Pay dirt.

“Do it,” Booth said.

The Queen of Hell shivered. “Please…don’t look.”

“Who is it?” I asked. “Got a mother hidden away in here? Father, sister, brother?”

The receptionist clicked some keys, and keeping her eyes on the screen, read, “Asteria Maruta in the dementia ward. She’s in a private isolation room.”

Furious, Maruta lunged for the receptionist. I wrapped my arm around her neck and pulled her back. “There a picture?”

After a nervous glance at Maruta, the receptionist turned the screen our way. The girl in the photo wore a vaguely diffident expression that made her look like a healthy teenager, except for having half her face missing.
Fun facts from beyond the grave: Asteria’s the name of a Titan, mistress of, among other things, necromancy—magic from the dead. I could see why she preferred Bad Penny. A live feed to the security camera in her room showed a small figure curled up in a bed.

Seeing the face, Maruta broke her silence. “She was my b-…”

At first I thought she was going to say something uncharacteristically affectionate, like “baby” but the shape of her mouth quickly changed. The word that came out was “daughter.”

“She’s my daughter.”

We headed for the room en masse. A doctor called after us, weirdly asking all sixty of us not to upset the residents. The corridors were mostly empty, but a few patients with long gowns and vacant stares wandered freely. They froze when they first saw us, but as we passed, they howled. Moisture aside, the sound was different from feral moans, more tense, not quite as sad.

At the stairs, Maruta tried to fall behind again. I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. “I’m not even going to ask why you kept your secret daughter locked up here. A lot of mental illness is genetic, but you want to tell me about the chemical burn on her face? That happen before or after you and Travis experimented on her?”

She stumbled on the steps barely bothering to pretend it wasn’t an accident. I put my foot into her back and held her there.

“Does she even know what that stuff will do?”

“You’d have to ask her. I’m sure I don’t know. Tell me, Detective, are you going to eat me before or after you kill me?”

Not trusting myself, I let two officers drag her the rest of the way.

“Private isolation” sounds like something you’d do voluntarily at a Buddhist retreat. This was closer to solitary confinement. We went through so many empty halls and passages modified with thick, locked doors, it looked like Penny had the whole floor to herself.

The only time I slowed was when we passed a gun case. Through the glass I saw handguns, rifles, and small boxes. The name A
STERIA
M
ARUTA
and a date were scrawled on the top of each box. They were tranquilizer darts, just for Penny.

A peek in a stinking garbage bin near the last door told me at least a week’s worth of meals had been stuffed inside. As we entered her room, where the figure on the monitor lay, old movies and cheap novels flit through my head. I thought we’d find a dummy, makeshift, like Penny’s weird weapon, but there really was someone there.

Just about the right size and shape, she shivered as we crowded in. When I flipped her over and the wig tumbled off, it wasn’t just half her face that was missing, it was her nose, both her ears and part of her skullcap.

A raggedy was in Asteria’s bed. A real one.

Booth screamed into a phone, demanding security camera footage.

I knelt and looked her in the eyes. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Don’t know if I should say.”

“Okay, let’s try something else. I happen to know the usual tenant’s been out for a few weeks. How the hell did you pull this off for so long?”

“She said they were afraid to come up here, so they
stayed away, and if I kept throwing the food out, kept my back to the cameras it’d be fine.” She looked around at the crowd in the room. “It was until now. I only wanted a bed. You’re not going to put me in the camps, are you?”

“Not up to me. Do you know where Asteria is?”

“She was here a while ago, waiting for someone. I have to stay under the bed when she’s here. But when she saw all the lights she left early.”

“Lights? When we showed up, maybe a few minutes ago?”

“No, out there.” She waved at a barred window. “Same way she always comes and goes.”

The curved bars looked formidable, but there were scores of little scratch marks in the cement where each bar met the wall, covered over with what looked like white crayon to match the paint. The whole thing would probably fall off if I pulled on it. But I didn’t, I was too busy taking in the view. Maruta said the blue stuff loved water.

Cupped by trees, still as a mirror, maybe half a mile away, was the center of the conservation area, the Fort Hammer reservoir. Even if the local authorities were idiots, the feds weren’t. Like I said, an army regiment had gotten involved, and they knew which potential targets to cover. Choppers hovered above the water, klieg lights illuminated the troops patrolling the area.

If the raggedy was telling the truth, the previously scheduled meeting had been interrupted. But Penny was smart and fast, and Misty wanted to see Chester again.

T
he road to the reservoir had more curves than an intestinal tract. No time for seat belts, I was thrown around so hard only dumb luck kept bones from breaking. Outside, flashlights carried by the guard sliced up the woods. We’d made good time finding the cell and reaching the room, but it’d been at least half an hour, which meant Misty could have walked to the reservoir and back by now. As for where Penny was, that was anyone’s guess.

I turned to Maruta and tapped my wrist. “Tick-tick-tick. Can your baby see in the dark?”

“No,” she said dismissively. After she thought about it a moment, she added, “At least I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know?”

Avoiding my gaze, she looked at the light show outside the window. “Asteria was my husband’s doing.”

“What, so you had nothing to do with it?”

“He was being very naughty.”

Again with that stupid word. “Like an affair? She was someone else’s kid?”

“Nothing so crude. She’s mine, genetically, but I didn’t participate. When he wanted to be punished, he’d tell me by doing something naughty. That time…he crossed the line.”

“You mean like
he stole an egg
from you?”

“He wanted to surprise me. I was surprised.”

No wonder I couldn’t figure them. The Marutas were a species all their own. In Penny’s case, literally.

The beam from a helicopter searchlight passed directly above us. It seared the cabin of the car, then burned the dark ahead just in time for Booth to avoid colliding with a tree. As he cursed, a voice came over the car speakers.

“We’ve got an adult female near treatment center six. Blue Raven has a clean shot.”

Adult female. Misty.

Tom shouted, “Don’t shoot! You could hit the vials! Tell your commanding officer to coordinate with the CDC. Take us there.”

The search beam steadied, then led us a few hundred yards off the road. Its harsh light penetrated my feeble eyes like a strobe, freezing a still image in my brain: We were along the edge of the reservoir. A small concrete building sat below the line of earth that held back the water. Misty, the contours of her form washed nearly to nothing, her hair and clothing whipped by the chopper blades, was crawling along a stone floor toward the building. The foam and duct tape had been torn off. The blue vials glowed naked in the crook of her arm.

I saw the image for less than a second. Booth slammed
the brakes and I nearly went through the windshield. He was already out of the car while gravity was still throwing me back into my seat. I fumbled with the door lock and fell out after him, my dead hands and brittle knees hitting dry twigs and cold earth.

I pushed myself up. The second copter had joined the first, making the scene too bright for me to see a thing. I squinted as I forced myself forward, blinking rapidly, hoping that might help my chak-eyes adjust.

Forms wavered in the light. Smoky edges seeped into rough shapes. Misty was no longer alone. As if by magic, a hooded figure had appeared a little more than yard away from her.

Booth reached the edge of the circle. His gun was out and aimed. Misty’s back and Penny’s chest were both clear shots. “Don’t shoot, for God’s sake!”

He hesitated, but then said, “Fuck this.”

As he squeezed the trigger, a glint of silver flew into his ribs. He grabbed at the wound and fell.

A rifle crack rose above the rush of the chopper blades. A sniper in one of the helicopters had fired, but Penny had stepped sideways, and now a puff of concrete dust rose at her feet. Another glint of silver appeared in her hand.

“Misty!” I screamed. “She’s not Kyua, she’s Asteria Maruta, a genetic freak and a killer. A psychopath raised by psychopaths!”

Penny hmphed loudly, reminding me, for the first time, of her mother. “I like to think I adapted to my parents experiments rather well.”

“Yeah? Show me. Stop this now. Those vials will turn everyone into chakz.”

She laughed. “Did Rebecca tell you that? She’s lying. It’s the Cure. Her final present from my father. Everyone will be alive again. All that we love will be restored.”

She reached her hand toward Misty. “I’ll prove it.” She wriggled her fingers. “I’m not a chak dead, am I? Look how pink and supple the flesh is.” She raked her makeshift blade across her palm, leaving a line that wept red. “See? Real blood.”

Misty looked astounded. “You were dead?”

“I died when I was born. I died at home. I died in a lab strapped down to a table. My mother tried to destroy me with acid, but my father brought me back. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t painless, but
that
,” she said, pointing to the vials, “…
is
.”

I stepped toward the light. Penny raised the blade in warning, aiming not at me, but Misty. “She’s lying. You can’t ever see Chester again. That’s what death is.”

Misty’s lips curled. Even in the spotlight her pupils were dilated. She was high as a kite. “You really going with that, Hess? If death was death, you wouldn’t be standing there at all.”

“Good point. But you’ve glued enough of us back together to know what we’re like. That stuff won’t let anyone die, but it won’t let them live, either. Misty, please, don’t trust her. She’s crazy, she’s…she’s
the reason Chester died
. He swerved the car so he wouldn’t hit her.”

I thought I heard her gasp. “That was a raggedy.”

I shook my head. “No. Costume. It was her.”

Misty turned her head sideways like I’d slapped her. Two fat tears fell, disappearing into the whitewashed ground. Misty wavered. Maybe it was from the freezing
wind, or maybe she was about to back away from Penny. I’ll never know.

Shaking her head in judgment, Asteria threw the second blade. Misty grabbed at her neck and fell. By the time she hit the ground, both vials were in Penny’s hands. She sidestepped another rifle shot.

I rushed up to Misty, tore off a chunk of my shirt and shoved it at the deep wound. The blood had waited for me. Now it was everywhere.

At the edge of the light, Penny said to the air, “Wish it had been you, Mom.”

“You know what it is, don’t you?” I said. “You’ve known from the start.”

She nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

“Why?” I asked.

Something whooshed past my head. I ducked, then heard the muffled crack of gunfire. Booth had fired at Penny and missed. Sneering, she ducked a third sniper shot, then vanished from the light like a liquid shadow slithering down a drain.

I put Misty’s hand on my balled up chunk of shirt. “Press down hard. I don’t think she cut the jugular. There are paramedics. They’ll be here in a second.”

She grabbed me. “Chester left me, Hess. Don’t you leave me, too. Not again.”

I cupped her hand then forced it onto the wound.

“Misty…I have to…”

I left her behind to run in the dark. If she died and I didn’t stop Penny, she’d be back.

I
ran alongside scores of people, but felt completely alone. Worse, keeping track of Penny was like chasing a new moon, dark against dark, always out of reach, showing only a shy edge if you happened to look at the right spot at the right time. Despite all that, I did see her, often enough to keep heading in the right direction, often enough to call to the others when they, much faster, headed the wrong way.

If
I
was leading the way, something was wrong, but it wasn’t until the seventh time I spotted her that I realized what it was. She was waiting for me, letting me catch up. Did it mean there was some hope I could get the vials back, or was she, like her mother, enjoying any little extra pain she could cause?