“OPG?” I asked Paul.
“Yeah.”
“Inhaled or injected?”
“Both.”
“Bastards.” I could smell the stuff in the air, although it was the propellants rather than the gas itself that I was smelling.
OPG itself is too volatile to linger for longer than a couple of seconds after it’s been used. It was produced as a weapon—a
nerve toxin derived from the less potent Tabun—but was banned for military use decades ago. You could still use it on the
mentally ill, though, because of a sweet little legal loophole. In tiny, almost homeopathic amounts, it had been proved to
slow the onset of Alzheimer’s and to have a sedative effect on manic patients. I was willing to bet that the amounts we were
talking about were more in the bulk-haulage range.
“I’m gonna leave you to it,” Paul said. “And if anyone asks, I’m gonna lie and say I never saw you. Sorry, Castor. Bastards
they are, but for now I still work here. We’re meant to be wheeling him out to the front in a few minutes, so you’d best keep
it short.” He stepped out and pulled the door almost shut behind him.
“Hey, Castor,” said Rafi, his voice crystal-clear despite the zoned-out stare.
“Hey, Rafi,” I answered, giving him the benefit of the doubt until I could be sure. I came in a little closer, but not too
close. I wasn’t sure how much give there was in those elastic straps. “Asmodeus in there, too?”
“Yeah, he’s here. He’s not happy with you.”
“I bet. Can I have a word?”
There was a long silence. I waited it out, knowing from past experience that there was no way of rushing this. Asmodeus rose
or fell under his own steam and at his own pace, and the massive OPG hit, whimsically cross-connecting the circuitry of Rafi’s
nervous system, wouldn’t help much, either. But slow ripples began to pass across Rafi’s face, each one leaving it subtly
altered. The effect was slow enough that you could convince yourself it was an optical illusion, but it didn’t much matter
how you rationalized it. After half a minute or so, the fact was, you were looking at a different face.
The new face, wearing Rafi’s features like a savagely ironic quote, stared at me with a sour grimace twisting one corner of
its mouth.
“Can’t hear the cavalry,” Asmodeus said, sounding like he was crunching down on a mouthful of ground glass.
“They’re coming,” I answered with more confidence than I felt. “In the meantime, I was going to ask a favor.”
“I love doing you favors, Castor. Come in a little closer. Kiss me on the lips.”
“I want you to burrow down as deep as you can. Go all the way to sleep if you can. I’ll play for you: Listen to the music
instead of trying to avoid it. Let it work through you, and use it to get as much distance from Rafi as you can.”
Asmodeus smiled politely. “And why should I do this thing?”
“Because someone who looks like one of my species but acts like one of yours is coming to get you. And she’ll pick you to
pieces with tweezers, and she’ll mount you on slides, and she’ll label all the pieces of you. You know this is true.”
There was silence except for the punctured-tire hissing of Asmodeus’s breath. “The bitch,” he said at last, without heat.
“The bitch with the fishing rod and the big ambitions. When she hits the wall, it will make a very sweet sound.”
“Maybe,” I allowed. “Maybe not. She’s a crafty player, Asmodeus, and too fucking big for you right now.”
“And for you, Castor.”
“Goes without saying.” Knowing what Asmodeus was, I felt seriously uncomfortable with all of this—almost, as if the phrase
had any meaning at all, like a species traitor. I was discussing tactics with a demon, trying to keep him out of the hands
of the closest thing the human race had to a predator of demons. This was what Jenna-Jane Mulbridge had brought me to, and
at that moment I hated her for it.
“The people outside need to see Rafi,” I said, taking my whistle—it was the first alternate, and I hadn’t properly worn it
in yet—out of my pocket. “They don’t need to see you. If they see you, they’ll think she’s right. You understand?”
“Humans can’t think, Castor. They can only think that they think.”
“Point stands. Maybe I’ll see you later, but I sure as fuck don’t want to see you now. And I’ve said all I’m going to say.”
I stopped talking and played. It started out as a recognizable tune but then became a crazy medley, fast at first but decelerando,
working down through the scale with a certain doleful urgency. Asmodeus bobbed his head in time with the beat, ironically
showing me that he was keeping up. He sang improvised words in a guttural language that the human voice box was never shaped
for, and I hoped I’d never meet anyone who could provide me with a translation.
But his eyes were closing, and his voice was faltering. His head dropped out of sync with the music, then slowed and stopped.
When the door finally swung open behind me, he was still.
“Got to move the patient,” Paul said brusquely.
I turned around, tucking the whistle back in my coat. Paul wasn’t alone; a Welsh guy named Kenneth and a third Stanger staffer
whom I didn’t recognize stood shoulder to shoulder with him on either side, while farther back I could see Dr. Webb, the Stanger’s
director, directing proceedings along with a bald, austere stick figure of a man in a dark gray suit. Paul’s face was impassive;
he barely even looked at me. Webb, on the other hand, was dismayed and outraged to see me there ahead of him.
“Castor!” he exclaimed, spitting out my name in much the same way a cat spits up a hairball. “Who let Castor in here? He’s
trespassing! Move him aside!”
“Sorry,” I said, stepping determinedly into the path of the little party as they came forward. “Got to move the patient where,
exactly? Who says? What are you talking about? I’m the patient’s next of kin, so why don’t I know about this?”
“You’re not his next of kin!” Webb snarled. He snapped his fingers under Kenneth’s nose and pointed at me imperiously. While
the stick man was still talking at me, Kenneth put a hand on my chest and pushed me firmly to one side, allowing Paul and
the other male nurse to walk past me and take either end of the metal frame. They maneuvered it so that they could wheel it
end-on through the door, but I wasn’t done yet. I ducked under Kenneth’s hand, crossed to the door, and slammed it shut. The
mortise lock clicked home, which meant that Paul would have to leave off what he was doing, get his keys out, and open it
again. And that meant he had to come through me.
Webb bought me another few seconds, obligingly. Turning three shades south of purple, he stalked toward me, then stood in
front of me with his clenched fists hovering an inch from my face, paralyzed by an approach-avoidance conflict so painfully
visible that I couldn’t look away. He wanted to hit me; he knew there were witnesses. But he wanted to hit me—but then there
were those darn witnesses…
“I’m sorry,” I said to the room at large, “but I’m performing a citizen’s arrest.”
Kenneth looked pained as he advanced on me again, having to step around the good doctor. “You’re performing a what, my lovely?”
he demanded.
“A citizen’s arrest. I’m arresting all five of you for the attempted abduction of a mentally ill person against his—” Kenneth
clamped a massive hand on my lapel. I swatted his hand vigorously away. He came back with both hands, and although I parried
again, he managed to get a better grip this time and keep his purchase.
He outweighed me by a good fifty pounds. I could have taken him, but only by playing dirty, and getting myself banged up for
assault at this stage of the game wasn’t a risk I could take. I let him pull me aside and pin me into a corner of the cell
while Paul got the door open and he and his colleague manhandled the massive steel frame through it, hindered rather than
helped by Webb’s unnecessary instructions and ubiquitous presence. “To the right, Paul. No, to the left—”
“Mind your feet, Dr. Webb,” Paul rumbled, and then there was an agonized yelp from Webb that did my heart good. But they were
out in the corridor and picking up speed. My delaying tactics had foundered.
“Okay, boyo, you just stay put,” Kenneth growled, wagging his finger sternly in my face. But as he turned to follow the others,
I shouldered past him and got to the door first.
We trotted along the corridor in a strange and unwieldy procession. Paul and the other nurse pushing the frame along after
Dr. Webb, the ugliest drum majorette in history, flanked on one side by Jenna-Jane’s tame lawyer and on the other by me, with
Kenneth bringing up the rear.
When we got to the reception area, they faltered to a stop, staring out through the double doors onto the small apron of the
Stanger’s front drive. In theory, I knew, there should have been a van waiting there, its back doors open and a ramp in place,
with a happy crew of psychiatric interns and burly removal men all ready to take Rafi aboard and whisk him away to his new
life in Paddington.
The van wasn’t there, though. Presumably, it was still out on the road, or stranded at the Stanger’s gates. Meanwhile, the
drive had been colonized by three or four hundred young men and women who were singing “You can’t kill the spirit” with as
much wild energy as if they knew what they were talking about. They were mostly in casual dress, but black T-shirts dominated,
and on a lot of them, I could pick out the slogan
DEATH IS NOT THE END
.
“Holy fuck,” Paul muttered under his breath.
“What?” Webb demanded, words seeming to fail him for a moment. “Who are all these people?”
“Mostly the local chapter of the Breath of Life movement,” I told him helpfully, relieved that they’d all made it on time.
“I met some of them a couple of days ago. Really nice guys once we got past the small talk and the mutual fear and loathing.
They were fascinated when I told them what you and J-J were up to.” I didn’t mention the frightener I’d had to put on Stephen
Bass—threatening to tell his tutors and the police about his hobbies of vandalism, stalking, and criminal damage—before I
could get him to agree to this. That seemed to fall under the heading of a trade secret. “Oh, and I think those guys over
there,” I went on, “are from a national TV network. You see the letters on the side of the camera? They stand for Beaten,
Butt-fucked, and Clueless, and they’re talking to you.”
Webb shot me a look of horrified disbelief and opened his mouth to speak. But his words were lost to posterity, because at
that moment the double doors of the Stanger swished open and Pen strode across the threshold, bang on cue.
“Where’s my husband?” she demanded, projecting beautifully for the cameras and standing dead center between the doors so they
slid impotently back and forth on their tracks, unable to close on her. “What have you done with my husband, you bastards?
I want him back!”
Webb blinked, his jaw dropping. He turned to face Pen, at bay, and took a step toward her, but then he stopped as flashbulbs
popped out on the drive—one, two, then a whole cluster all at once. The paparazzi were moving into position on either side
of the doors so that they could enfilade anyone coming out from a variety of photogenic angles.
“Miss Bruckner!” Webb struggled with the polite form of words, forcing them out through clenched teeth. “I don’t know what
you’re talking about. You and Ditko aren’t married. You don’t even—”
“He’s my common-law husband!” Pen shouted. “We’re married in the sight of God! And I’m not letting you put him in a concentration
camp!”
Webb was struggling to make any sound at all, his complexion getting darker and more alarming by the second. “The—the MOU
in Padddington is not a—a—”
“Oh, look what they’ve done to him!” Pen wailed, pointing at the frame and Rafi’s glum, limp form hanging in the center of
it. “He’s not a criminal! He’s not a monster! Why are they torturing him?”
“Rights for the dead and the undead!” Stephen Bass bellowed from the front ranks of the Breathers. “Soul and flesh are friends!
Soul and flesh will mend! Death is not the end!” The chant was taken up by his undisciplined but enthusiastic cohorts. It
didn’t mean a damn thing, as far as I was aware, but it sounded great.
“Your move,” I murmured to Webb in a lull between the twenty-first and twenty-second repetitions. “My advice would be to—”
“I do not,” Webb gurgled, swallowing hard several times, “want your advice, Castor. And this—this will not make a difference.”
“Well, that’s not strictly true,” I demurred with a mild shrug. I caught Paul’s eye, and he winked solemnly at me over Webb’s
shoulder. “I think it’s going to make a difference of at least—let’s say—four or five days. Maybe a week. Depends how cold
it gets at night and how much staying power these kids have. They’re young and idealistic, so I’d be surprised if they didn’t
make it at least up to the weekend. After that, I’ll have to think of some other way to make your life a misery.”
I walked away from him before he could answer. I passed Pen in the doorway. “You can take it from here?” I murmured. “Keep
things percolating? Make sure they don’t get Rafi out the door?”
“Trust me,” Pen snarled back. There was a dangerous gleam in her eye as she stared at the restraint frame. She wasn’t faking
it. She was really angry.
“Play it cool, though,” I cautioned her, a little worried. “You’ve already got one assault charge pending. Be the victim and
let Webb be the monster.”
“I’ll be fine,” Pen told me a little curtly. “Where are
you
going, anyway?”
“The United States. Alabama.”
“Looking for a change of scene?”
“I’m looking for a dead woman.”
“Get Jenna-Jane Mulbridge to come down here. I’ll make you one.”
I put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, but only for a moment. I didn’t want to lose it.
I was hoping the crowd might part for me, but I’m no man’s Moses. I picked my way through the massed ranks of the Breathers,
trying not to tread on any fingers or toes, trying not to meet anyone’s eyes. They were in a volatile mood, bless their rabid
little hearts.