The Mysteries of Holly Diem (Unknown Kadath Estates Book 2) (6 page)

Sumire.

Judging by the brightening sky and quiet buildings around
us, it was very early morning. I had lost hours, perhaps the majority of the
night. We occupied an alley between rows of identical three-story buildings,
each with a retail operation on the ground and residences above. The buildings
were in poor repair, but clean and recently painted. The chemical odor of the
nearby factories made me suspect we were somewhere in the main residential
neighborhood of Sarnath, across the river from the Empty District, probably no
more than a long walk from the Estates.

I checked my hands and found no injuries, nothing
beneath my nails. I knocked myself down on my list of suspects, and forced
myself stiffly to my feet.

There were bloody smears on the back of Sumire’s
T-shirt, but nothing as convenient as a fingerprint. I rolled her over, feeling
unaccountably sad and making a small involuntary noise in the back of my
throat.

I guess I liked Sumire better than I ever let on.

There was nothing for it. It would not be long before
the early risers stirred, to find me bloody, crouching beside a dead girl. In
my tenure in the Nameless City, I had not yet personally encountered a police
officer, or even confirmed the existence of such civilized niceties, but this
was the sort of situation that might force them to make an appearance.

If I had not been involved in a struggle, then Sumire
had. Her hands were a mess of gashes and defensive injuries. If she was taken by
surprise, then surprise alone had not been sufficient. Sumire, as I might have
expected, fought like a cornered wildcat.

It did not appear to have been an even battle, which
was unsettling. Sumire was deceptively strong and tough, and a master of pretty
much every fighting style and martial art that can be learned by sincere and regular
imitation of online video. Whoever had done this was formidable – and didn’t
mind making a mess.

There were contusions on Sumire’s face and lacerations
across her chest and abdomen, including several deep wounds around the
breastbone. The assailant had been knowledgeable and supernaturally skillful,
threading the knife carefully between ribs and around bone, to puncture and
maim a laundry list of internal organs – the left lung, both kidneys, the liver
(twice), the stomach, and the heart (three times). The blade was big for the
work, maybe a folding blade or jackknife. Judging from the cuts on her forearms
and hands, Sumire initially had some success warding off the attacks, but the
accumulated wounds and loss of blood overwhelmed her.

The killer slit her throat from ear to ear, likely
while she was unconscious, because the cut was steady and even. That was the
source of some of the blood that soaked my clothes, and likely the injury that
killed her. It wasn’t the end of Sumire’s indignities, however.

They must have brought tools, because the knife wouldn’t
have cut it. It’s hard to slice through bone, and even more difficult in the
dark, probably injured from the struggle. Her assailant needed some sort of
saw, and time to employ it.

Sumire’s arm was crudely severed at the elbow,
ruptured tendon and exposed cartilage protruding from the joint.

The street was beginning to stir around me, and lights
had already come on in a few of the windows. I needed to take some sort of
action, but instead I just sat there, next to Sumire’s body, feeling something
uncomfortably close to guilt, until it was too late.

The first thing around the corner was Dunwich, hackles
raised and yowling. Behind the cat, a girl in a sticker-covered gasmask rounded
the corner and then came to a sudden halt. The gas mask was an oddity, somehow
simultaneously antiquated and high tech, and I had never seen anything like it.
The windbreaker the girl was wearing, however, was quite familiar.

Yael peeled the mask off slowly, her face flushed and
aghast beneath. She gave me a wary look, and then crouched beside Sumire,
checking her throat for a pulse. When she looked up from the body, there were
tears in her eyes, which was somehow unexpected.

“What did you do, Preston?”

“Wait. I know this looks bad, but I didn’t...”

“You have blood on your hands.” Yael pointed at the
body with a trembling finger. “What did you do?”

“I’m just as confused as you are. I woke up here and
found her this way.”

I was so out of it I didn’t actually notice when Holly
Diem arrived, the enormous mangy cat she calls Snowball trotting along beside
her. Both gave me a puzzled look before rushing to Sumire’s side.

“Poor Sumire.” Yael slumped to the sidewalk beside the
body. “She’s dead.”

Holly put her fingers to Sumire’s lips, and then the
color left her face.

“That’s not it,” she said, her voice faltering. “Not
exactly.”

A bargain made in currencies of contorted possibility and
pliable manifestation. A nest of unblinking eyes, the sluggish waters of the
abyss. Need is a stark arithmetic; desire abstract and mutable. A shared
nightmare, negotiations with private and inscrutable demons.

They sat around me in a half-circle, pinning me against the wall in an
uncomfortable plastic chair. It must have looked like they were holding an
intervention for someone they didn’t like very much. I was exhausted and in a
black mood, but none of my interrogators were sympathetic.

Incidentally, the group included a rather large cat,
but neither the staff nor the patients at the aged hospital seemed to care.
Traffic flowed through the waiting room and around our little kangaroo court
without a glance. At least they had the courtesy to take April elsewhere –
though the look Kim Ai gave me before leading her off to the enclosed garden
left me with no doubt as to her opinions.

“You say you got lost...”

I nodded in response.

Yael sat as far from me as possible, and I got the
distinct feeling that if I were to move too fast, she had something unpleasant
planned for me. I resolved to keep my hands visible and my movements slow and
reassuring.

“...and then you were attacked.” Yael gave me a very
hard look. “You don’t look as if you were beat up.”

I opened my mouth to disagree, and then I closed it. Yael
was right – I didn’t have as much as a knot on my head. At the moment, the
worst I could claim was a sore throat and a case of the sniffles.

“Preston?” Yael’s demeanor was surprisingly apologetic,
as if she regretted her own suspicions. “Are you telling us the truth?”

“I’m trying.” I shook my head tiredly. I had been
parrying accusations for the better part of an hour already. “I don’t know how
to explain it. I never get lost.”

“What?”

Confusion put a dent in her composure.

“It just doesn’t make sense. I felt like I walked
around for hours, but I was just outside the Empty District. I don’t have a
clue where I was when I got jumped…”

“Assuming that actually happened…”

“…or who did it, or what happened after. Did they move
me, or Sumire?”

“Judging by the blood,” Yael said, turning a little
pale, “I would guess that Sumire was in her original position.”

“When you woke,” Holly said, crossing shapely legs and
resting her hands on her knee, “it was just you and Sumire, correct?”

I nodded.

“You don’t remember anyone else being there?”

I nodded again.

“Did you notice any sort of evidence as to the killer
being there? Footprints, for example, or maybe tire tracks...”

“No. I looked.”

Holly turned her attention to Professor Dawes, who was
worrying the handle of his umbrella and looking so distraught that I thought he
might be ill. He was devoted to his students, and Sumire was among the old
ghoul’s favorites.

“What about you, Professor? You inspected the scene
while Sumire was transported. Did you find anything of note?”

The Professor was slow to answer, moving as if only
partially roused from sleep. His eyes never left the mundane pattern of the
tile floor, and his voice came across as ragged as a transoceanic cellular
connection.

“Very little,” he said slowly, rubbing his head as if
struggling to recall. “The scene was as Preston described. A great deal of
blood, along with abundant signs of struggle, but no weapon, or evidence of another
party’s presence. At Lord Snowball’s request, the Cats of Ulthar are hunting
the area for spoor, but they are not optimistic.”

Who would be optimistic about using cats as trackers?
That was dog work, but there are no dogs in the Nameless City.

Well, okay. There is
something
that at least
looks like a dog. There are, however, strings attached to the particular
creature. Big ones.

“Professor,” I asked gently, “would you say that
Sumire fought with her assailant?”

For a bare moment, Dawes raised his eyes from the
floor to glance at me. To his credit, I saw no suspicion, only aggravated
sadness.

“Very much so. Sumire’s assailant had great difficult
subduing her.”

I held out my hands for inspection. They had allowed
me to clean up in the hospital bathroom, and to change clothes, shortly after
arrival at the hospital – though Yael did take custody of the bloody clothes –
but that was it. I rolled up my sleeves, lifted my shirt to display my stomach
and chest. Holly and Yael gasped at the scars, while Dawes shook his head and
sighed, but it seemed they got my point.

“I didn’t fight with anyone,” I said firmly,
rearranging my clothes. “Do you honestly think I wouldn’t have a mark on me
after doing that to Sumire?”

“He has a point,” Professor Dawes said, with a nod. I
figured an appeal to reason would bring him over to my side. “It is extremely
unlikely, given Sumire’s abilities.”

“I agree,” Yael said, her eyes lingering thoughtfully.
“I would feel better, though, if Preston could explain why he was there.”

“I’d feel better, too,” I said. “If I could.”

“I called Elijah,” Yael said quietly. “He says he
talked with you on the roof around seven.”

“It seemed like later, but I’m sure he’s right.”

“That leaves nearly twelve hours unaccounted.”

“I really don’t know.” I shrugged. “I told you what I
can remember. I realize it’s not much, but that’s what I’ve got.”

“Let’s consider this from another perspective,”
Professor Dawes suggested. “Does anyone have any idea why Sumire might have
been there?”

Holly cleared her throat apologetically.

“Actually, I do,” she said, the words trickling out
reluctantly. “She was running a bit of an errand for me. Nothing terribly
important, though.”

We were interrupted by an exhausted Sikh in blue
scrubs and matching turban. He gave us a perfunctory smile and then leaned
close to whisper to Holly. She smiled, nodded, and thanked him. He hurried off
through one of the hospitals many swinging doors, and we were left to stare at
Holly, who was too busy fiddling with a strap on one of her shoes to notice.

“Holly?” Yael prompted, swallowing frustration. “What
did the doctor say?”

“Oh, yes,” Holly said brightly, standing up and
smoothing wrinkles from her horizontally striped dress. “Sumire is awake. We
can go see her now.”

***

“Preston, calm down.”

“I am calm. I am super fucking calm, given the
circumstances. I thought you said Sumire was murdered. Hell, I saw her. She
was
dead!”

“Yes,” Holly said gently, one hand on my sternum. “She
was. You have to remember, though, that Sumire is invulnerable.”

Holly smiled beatifically, as if everything were
explained. I felt such tremendous pressure behind my forehead that I thought my
eyes might protrude. I didn’t shout, but judging from Holly’s face and then
stern looks I got from the staff in the hallway, I wasn’t using my inside
voice.

“So? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Sumire was murdered,” Holly explained soothingly,
“but it didn’t take.”

I threw up my arms in exasperation.

“How does that make sense? She’s supposed to be immune
from harm, not death. Make up your mind – is she invulnerable, or immortal?”

“Oh, invulnerable, definitely. Immortality is a rarer
and choicer affliction.”

Holly offered me a chipper smile, while I choked back
a howl of frustration.

“Then she didn’t die?”

“She did.” Holly nodded. “A sad situation, though
fortunately transient.”

“Wait – is she undead or something now? Like Dawes?”

“No, no, not at all. She’s just as alive as ever.”

“I don’t –”

“She wasn’t resurrected, Preston,” Holly said, with
the demeanor of a mother soothing an upset child. “It was more of a reset.”

“That isn’t helpful!”

Glares from passing medical staff. I did my best to
calm down.

“What about her arm, though? They cut it off, Holly.
How did they do that?”

Holly blinked several times, then frowned and looked
away.

“I’m not sure, Preston. With a knife, probably?”

“No,” I said, firmly and quietly, allowing Holly to
take me by the arm and led me down the hall. “They probably used a saw, but
that isn’t what I mean. If Sumire is invulnerable, how did they injure her at
all?”

“Given sufficient time, we are all injured, Preston,”
Holly explained, patting my shoulder. “If it makes you feel any better, then I
am certain that you had nothing to do with it. We both know that your tastes
are altogether too…particular. Now, do try and behave, won’t you?”

I followed Holly through the door feeling concussed. The
recovery room was crowded, though two of three beds were vacant. Sumire’s bed
was surrounded by a small grove of IV stands, in turn surrounded with anonymous
medical equipment mounted on rolling casters. At the base of the bed, Professor
Dawes, Yael Kaufman, and Kim Ai stood in a tight group, the television mounted
so low on the wall that Dawes had to duck his head. Sumire was propped with
pillows and punctured by two IVs, wearing a hospital gown and an expression
that indicated she thought we were making a big deal of nothing.

A confusion of bandages and medical tape swaddled her
right elbow. Her neck and chest were similarly cocooned, and her left hand was
swollen and purple. Both eyes sported deep purple haloes, and her lower lip was
split wide enough to accommodate traffic.

April lay beside her, curled like a cat beside
Sumire’s ribcage. Sumire’s remaining arm wrapped around her possessively, and
despite the circumstances, she looked rather pleased with herself.

“Will it get better?”

April pointed gingerly at Sumire’s stump.

“I don’t think so,” Sumire said, waving it about and giggling.
“I think it’s a goner.”

“I thought you were invulnerable?” I offered what I
hoped was a sardonic grin, but I couldn’t be sure. Seeing Sumire hospitalized
shook me, brought back bad memories. “How did all this happen?”

“I don’t make the rules.” Sumire’s smile was straight
out of a dental advertisement. April lay her head across Sumire’s thighs, and
Sumire stroked her hair affectionately. “I just do my best, every day. How
‘bout you, Preston?”

“Oh, please,” Kim Ai said, with a sigh and a poisonous
glare aimed at me. “Let’s cut to the chase. Sumire – Preston did this to you,
right?”

“Hey!”

“It is the most likely scenario.” Yael looked as if
she wanted to apologize for her suspicions. “There aren’t any other suspects.”

“Not fair!” April shouted, coming up on her knees to
confront Yael. “You don’t know Preston. He’s actually okay. I know he doesn’t
seem that way, or act that way, but...”

My only defender. Sometimes I’m not sure it helps.

“Guys, guys,” Sumire said, laughing. “Calm down, okay?
This is a hospital. Some of these people are really hurt.”

You
are really hurt, you monster, I muttered to myself.

“Sorry,” April said, flopping back down beside Sumire.
“I’ll be very quiet,” she added, in a stage whisper.

“I still think he did it,” Kim said sullenly. “Come
on. Who else would?”

“I don’t mean to upset you, Sumire,” Professor Dawes
cut in apologetically, “but I must ask – do you remember anything of the
attack, or your assailant?”

Everyone turned toward Sumire, secretly hoping to
confirm their pet suspicion. People are morbid that way.

“Sorry!” Sumire chirped, rubbing April’s head as if
she was a kitten. “Not much. I remember leaving Carter – I was running an
errand – and now that you mention it, I’m pretty sure I got lost on the way…”

Yael’s expression was sharp enough to cut.

“You got lost?” Yael shot me a look. “Where?”

“I’m not really sure,” Sumire said, laughing
nervously. “Not far from the Estates. Weird, right?”

“Go on,” Yael encouraged. “Anything else?”

“Total blank.”

“Your arm,” April cut in, running her fingers along
the exposed strip of olive skin that constituted the boundary between the
bandaged stump and the rest of Sumire’s body. “It really won’t grow back?”

“April!”

I was mortified, or I did a good imitation of it.

“I don’t think so, sweetie...”

Holly was sad all over, her eyes moist and huge.

“It
is
biologically impossible, so...”

Dawes was mournfully exact.