In Tongues of the Dead (29 page)

The client was Harold Grower.

He glanced at his watch and frowned. It was five minutes past the hour. He went and looked in the waiting room. Empty.

That's odd
—
Harold is never late
.

He left the waiting-room door open and went to his desk. He'd clear up paperwork until Harold arrived.

He picked up the stack of correspondence he needed to answer and saw, right at the top of the pile, the papers from Blue Cross declining to pay for Harold's therapy. First was the paper with the claim denied stamp, and beside the stamp the rubric 28a P/D, which was supposed to tell him the reason for denying coverage. He couldn't remember all the codes — why couldn't they just use English? — but he was pretty sure he'd never seen
this one before. He searched through a drawer full of Blue Cross papers for the sheet that explained the codes, then realized there was a second sheet stapled to the letter about Harold.
Aha, the code for the codes!
He went down the column until he found the one he wanted.

28a P/D: Patient deceased
.

Wyatt was playing a video game, his mother on the sofa beside him, when he felt her shift and stand. “Honey,” she said. He
hated
it when she called him honey. It was kind of girly. “I need to do some laundry. Could you go play in your room for a bit?”

“Can I play with Emily?”

“I think she still needs to finish her homework. You can play with her in a little while. But for now, can you play in your room, please?”

“Okay,” Wyatt said, and started toward the stairs.

“Wait,” Abby said abruptly.

Wyatt jumped.

“Come back here for a second,” she said sternly.

He frowned but obeyed. She scooped up him and gave him a big hug.

“Mom,” he yelped. Hugs were even worse than being called honey. Sheesh! She'd hardly left him alone since he'd come home. His dad too. He hoped they would get over it soon. Emily was the only one who didn't make a big fuss all the time. He liked playing with his sister.

“Okay,” Abby said, then set him down and kissed the top of his head. “Away you go. You can play more video games tonight.”

Wyatt pounded up the stairs and along the hall to his room. He liked his room okay, but the best part was the closet — it was huge. He had a secret playroom in there. His mom knew he kept his toys in there, but she didn't know about
everything
he had in there. He went right to his secret playroom and reached for his
Hulk action figure. Wyatt sat cross-legged and made the Hulk leap through the air, defying gravity, then soar to the top of a closet ledge. He had barely touched down when Spider-Man landed beside him.

“Oh yeah,” Wyatt said in his deepest voice. “Let's see you do
this
jump!” The Hulk was airborne again.

Deceased? That's a new one
.

He looked in the waiting room. Still empty. He looked at the letter from Blue Cross.
Deceased
. The insurance company had cancelled Harold's coverage six months ago. And six months ago was when Harold had had his accident on the helicopter.

Jake stood. He looked in the waiting room again. Harold was almost fifteen minutes late. Jake shut the waiting-room door then sat at his desk again, Harold's file in front of him. He drummed his fingers and thought about calling Harold's wife.

How many times had Jake asked Harold for permission to call her? And every time, Harold had said no.

He opened the folder and found the basic information sheet they'd completed at their first session. The home phone number was right there. He checked Harold's wife's name. Linda.

He dialed. Part of him almost hoped no one answered. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to say.

And then he heard a woman's voice say, “Hello?”

“Uh, hello. This is Dr. Jake Tunnel. I'm a psychologist in Halifax and I wondered if I could talk to Linda Grower.”

“This is Linda.”

“Linda, hi. Is this a bad time to talk?”

“No,” she said, but Jake thought she sounded uncertain.

“I'm sorry to bother you but I had some questions about Harold.”

“Harold?” she said, surprised.

“Uh, yes — I had an appointment with him today and he
hasn't shown up.”

She laughed. “You must have booked that appointment quite some time ago.”

“Why do you say that?” Even as he waited for an answer, he felt sure he knew what it would be.

“Was it booked in relation to our son?”

“Your son?” He hadn't expected that question.

“Yes, Lucas. Harold was a mess after Lucas left us. I thought maybe the military had booked the appointment back then.”

“No, actually, I was seeing him about the helicopter accident.”

Silence.

“Mrs. Grower?”

“What do you mean, seeing him about the helicopter accident? That's not the slightest bit amusing.”

Jake could tell she was crying. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.”

“Harold passed away that night. It was one of the worst nights of my life. We lost our son, and then I lost Harold so soon after.”

Jake was speechless.

“Is that all?”

“I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs. Grower. But could I ask one last question? I'm just going to close my file.”

“Ask it if you must.”

“What happened to your son?”

“Why do you want to know about that? It's none of your business.”

“I'm sorry. I don't mean to pry. I'm just trying to finish up your husband's file.” There was long silence, and he could hear Linda Grower crying.

Then she spoke. It was obviously a story she'd told before. “Lucas was a special boy. We knew that when we adopted him. A lot of people told us we wouldn't be able to handle an autistic child but Harold and I knew better. We'd never had children
of our own, but we had a lot to offer.

“Lucas was seven when he came to live with us. He went to regular school — we helped pay for a full-time aide, and it was worth it. Lucas seemed to really enjoy going to school and coming home again. I don't know if he realized what school was, but he went off with his aide every morning without fuss. Then one day, I don't know, everything went wrong. The aide took Lucas to school but then she got sick and — and our Lucas disappeared. At first we kept hoping he would try to come home on his own.”

There was another pause, and Jake heard more crying. She took a moment to compose herself.

“Anyway, they found Lucas the next morning, in the woods behind the school. The medical report said he died of exposure. Harold never believed that. Some kids at the school said they'd seen a couple of strange men talking to Lucas. Harold thought there was something else going on, but Lucas hadn't been hurt in any physical way — the police checked that very carefully. There was no sign of other people in the woods where Lucas was. But Harold just never believed it.”

“What
did
Harold believe?”

“I don't know,” she said, and started sobbing. “I really need to go.”

Jake sighed. He had a thousand more questions. “Of course,” he said. “Thanks so much for your time. And I apologize again for bothering you.”

“Good day,” Linda Grower said, and hung up.

Jake set the phone in the cradle.

There was a thought in his head, and he didn't want it there. He waited, but it didn't go away.

Lucas was Nephilim
.

Harold had stayed on the Earth to protect the last of the Nephilim. To make sure the world would not lose the secrets of the Voynich manuscript forever. Harold wanted to do right for his son.

Only Harold wasn't exactly Harold anymore. Back at the hospital, Azazel seemed to recognize Harold, as though Harold were of some divine origin. Jake wondered if Harold was on a mission direct from God. A mission to stop Azazel and Shemhazai from destroying the last of the Nephilim and taking away humanity's chance to know the secrets of the Voynich manuscript.

A mission that had failed.

Matthew was dead, the Voynich lost.

Jake slowly closed Harold's file.

The Nephilim's secrets were lost forever.

The Hulk smashed into a neat stack of books on the closet shelf. Mom always made him keep the bedtime books in the closet so his room didn't get
cluttered
— one of her favorite words. Most of the time the books were in heaps on the floor, or scattered under piles of action figures. Wyatt wondered who had put them in such an orderly stack, then decided it didn't matter, as long as he didn't have to do it.

Spider-Man followed the Hulk and hit the books hard enough to knock one to the floor. The others shifted and started to fall off the shelf.

Wap, wap, wap
. They hit the floor one after another.

Wyatt stepped back. He didn't want any books to land on his foot — probably one of his toes would die if it got hit. He waited. After the books stopped crashing down he looked around nervously, waiting for his mom to yell about the noise. Then he remembered she was in the laundry room.
Good
, he thought.
The machines are a lot louder than a bunch of books
.

He'd better pick the books up, though. He stacked a couple of them and stood, reaching high to set them on the shelf. He bent to pick up a couple more.

Uh-oh
. One of the floorboards was loose. The books must
have broken the floor.
I'm going to be in big trouble
.

He knelt beside the board and tried to push it down so it wouldn't wobble.

It wobbled even more.

He pushed on the other end of the board, and it seemed to jump into the air.
Oh man, oh man
. He grabbed it and pulled the whole thing out of the floor so he could see why it wouldn't stay where it belonged. There was a big hole under the board, and one of his bedtime books was in there. He pulled it out and tossed it aside, then tried to push the board down again. Then he stopped. There was something else in the hole. He threw the board behind him and looked down. There was another book in the hole — a big book.

He reached in to get it, but it was really big and pretty heavy. He got up and walked around the hole and knelt on the other side, then tried pulling the book out from there. When he finally got it out he dropped it on the floor. It weighed a ton!

And it was really dirty.

It looked pretty old, and it smelled kind of funny.

He frowned.
How'd that get in here
?

He opened his mouth to call his mother, then closed it. She would ask him how the floor got wrecked. She probably wouldn't even care about the book. And what would he tell her? Spider-Man did it? She'd never believe him.

I guess I'd better see what the stupid book is
, he thought, and looked at it. The cover was kind of torn up, so he pulled the book open near the middle and saw silly pictures of fat, naked ladies. He laughed, then turned the page. The book had weird letters. He knew his alphabet already, but he didn't recognize any of the letters or words in the old book. But as he stared at the page, the letters started to dance and spin. It made him feel dizzy.