Basilisk (17 page)

The orderly came up the stairs toward him, but as he did so, Doctor Zauber must have appeared on the landing behind Nathan, because the orderly stopped, and took one step down again.

‘No, no,’ said Doctor Zauber. ‘By all means call nine-one-one. But ask for the police. These two people are trespassers. Thieves.’

Nathan turned around. Doctor Zauber was looking down at him in fury, his brow furrowed, his eyes glittering black – as if he wished that he, too, could take people’s souls just by staring at them.

There was only one thing that Nathan could do. He pushed past the orderly and the Korean carer, and clattered down the rest of the stairs as fast as he could. He almost fell over, but he managed to balance himself against the banisters, and the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and then he hefted up Grace’s lifeless body so that he was holding her higher, and more securely. Thank God she was so light.

He made his way along the corridor, panting. As he turned the corner, ‘Michael Dukakis’ suddenly appeared in one of the doorways, his hair sticking up wildly, like an apparition on a ghost-train ride.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘Has the car arrived yet? We’re going to be late.’

Nathan ignored him and kept on going. When he reached the back door, he managed to force the handle down with his knee, and open it. He carried Grace around the side of the building, although he was stumbling now, and his heart was thumping. Before he crossed the street, he turned his head around to see if anybody was following him, but nobody was.

He held Grace up against him while he reached into his pocket for his car keys.

‘Grace?’ he urged her. ‘Grace? Can you hear me? I’m going to take you to the ER. Hang on, sweetheart, you’re going to be OK.’

He opened up the SUV and lifted Grace on to the back seat. She was completely floppy, all arms and legs, as if she had been drugged, but her eyes were still wide open, and unblinking. He felt her carotid pulse. It was very weak, but there was no doubt that her heart was still beating. He leaned over her, and he could feel her breathing against his cheek, but even when he shook her he couldn’t elicit any response.

‘Just don’t die on me, OK?’ he told her. ‘If you die on me, I swear to God I’ll never forgive you.’

Or Zauber, either
, he thought, as he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

He pulled away from the curb with squealing tires, and as he did so he saw the shaven-headed orderly appear in the Murdstone’s gateway. The orderly watched him as he drove away, as if he wanted to be sure that he had gone, but it was clear that he had no intention of chasing after him.

Whatever Doctor Zauber was, he wasn’t stupid. He would know that Nathan wouldn’t call the police. What could Nathan possibly tell them? That Doctor Zauber had created a mythical creature, a creature that hadn’t existed for hundreds of years, and that this mythical creature had put Grace into deep shock just by looking at her? Even if they believed him, Doctor Zauber could easily have hidden the basilisk by then: in the attic, or the cellar, or even in a sewer. And under the law, he had every right to protect himself and his elderly residents against intruders, using as much force as necessary.

Nathan turned toward the city center. He was headed for the Hahnemann University Hospital, at the intersection of North Broad Street and the Vine Expressway. At this time of night it was less than ten minutes away, and it had one of the best emergency rooms in Philadelphia.

Every now and then, he quickly turned his head to check on Grace, but she continued to loll on the back seat, staring up at nothing at all.

TWELVE

Coma

L
ike a man in a dream, Nathan carried Grace in through the emergency room doors. Inside, it was brightly lit, with polished white floors, and utterly silent. Even when he thought about it later, Nathan couldn’t remember if he had spoken out loud to the receptionist, or exactly what he had said to the two nurses in lavender-covered overalls who had taken Grace into triage. He knew that he had blurted out something about ‘shock’.

‘Electric shock?’ one of the nurses asked him. A very calm black woman, with slanted eyes and a long nose, almost Egyptian-looking, like Nefertiti.

‘No, no. Nothing like that.’

‘Anaphylactic shock? Some kind of allergy? Peanuts?’

‘No. More like neurological shock. More of a mental trauma.’

‘What caused it? Do you have any idea?’

‘Stress. I don’t know. She just collapsed.’

‘Try not to worry,’ the other nurse told him. ‘We need to run some tests, OK? Blood pressure, heart rate. We’ll call you when you can see her.’

‘Be honest with me. She’s not going to die, is she?’

The Egyptian-looking nurse laid her hand on his arm. ‘We’ll take good care of her, sir. I promise you.’

He sat outside the triage room for a few minutes, but he was too distressed to stay still for long. He looked in through the porthole windows in the doors, but the nurses were still checking Grace’s vital signs. One of them saw him looking in and raised her hand to reassure him that everything was under control. He went back and sat down. Then he stood up again.

More than twenty minutes passed. Eventually, a doctor came out of the triage room, her shoes squeaking on the polished floor. She was small, a Japanese-American, her hair fastened at the back with a large red enamel clasp.

‘Mr Underhill? My name is Doctor Ishikawa. I need to ask you some questions about your wife.’

‘Of course.’

‘Can you tell me exactly what happened to her? Were you present when she went into shock?’

‘We were on our way home. She just kind of gasped, and her head fell forward.’

‘There was no obvious reason for this?’

Nathan shook his head. He hated lying, but even if he had told the truth it wouldn’t have helped Grace in any way. There wasn’t an ER doctor in the whole world who was trained to treat the trauma induced by a basilisk’s stare.

Doctor Ishikawa said, ‘Your wife has very low blood pressure and all the symptoms of cardiac arrhythmia. Does she have any history of heart trouble?’

‘No. None at all. She’s super-fit. She’s an MD herself, at Chestnut Hill.’

‘Any allergies?’

‘Only to shellfish. And she hasn’t eaten any shellfish.’

‘Well, Mr Underhill, we will have to run further tests on her, including an ECG. If you want to stay here, there is a wait room just across the hallway. It has a coffee machine, and you can use your cell in there, too. We will call you as soon as we have any news.’

‘Thank you. Please save her.’

He badly needed some fresh air, even if it was warmer outside than it was in the hospital. He needed night sky, and noise. He went outside on to North Broad Street and called Denver.

It had started to rain again, very softly, and the streetlights were reflected in the sidewalks like a dark, drowned city from which nobody could ever surface. The phone rang and rang for over three minutes, but Denver didn’t answer. Sleeping with his mouth wide open, probably, after one too many beers. Nathan tried his cell number, in case Denver had woken up and discovered that he and Grace had gone out again, and decided to go out himself, but it was switched off.

He went back inside. The only other person in the ER wait room was a girl of about seventeen, her clothes spattered with blood, and a lint bandage over her right eye. She sat in one corner, shivering like a mistreated whippet.

It was dawn before Doctor Ishikawa came into the wait room, and the shivering girl had long gone. Nathan stood up. He felt bruised and disoriented, like the survivor of a traffic accident.

‘How is she?’ he asked. ‘Is she awake yet?’

Doctor Ishikawa said, ‘She is still unconscious. We are taking her upstairs now, for further observation. Her heart keeps going into spasms, quite prolonged, almost like a fist clenching. But so far we haven’t been able to determine why.’

‘Can I see her?’

‘Of course. Come with me.’

She led him back through to the triage room. Grace was lying with her eyes closed, hooked up to a drip and a Casmed vital signs monitor. Nathan had never seen her look so white. She could have been dead, or an effigy of herself molded out of candlewax. He took hold of her hand and she was penetratingly cold.

Doctor Ishikawa said, ‘I am very sorry, Mr Underhill, but it is not yet possible for me to predict how long she is likely to stay like this, in this comatose condition. She could regain consciousness in a few hours. Equally, she could stay like this for days. Whatever happens, though, we will ensure that she has the very best of care.’

Nathan leaned forward and kissed her chilly lips. ‘Grace,’ he whispered. He felt so guilty that it hurt. He had known how dangerous a basilisk could be. Why had he insisted on going to look for it, and taking Grace along with him? He might just as well have led her into a pit full of black mambas, and gambled that none of them would bite her.

‘You’re absolutely sure there’s nothing more you can tell us?’ asked Doctor Ishikawa. ‘The smallest piece of information could be very important. Your wife didn’t say anything, before she collapsed? Didn’t complain of any chest pain?’

‘No,’ Nathan insisted, although Doctor Ishikawa looked at him as if she suspected he was holding something back. She was an ER doctor, after all. She must have had to deal with hundreds of cases of violence and tragedy and sheer stupidity.

An orderly came in and they wheeled Grace off to the diagnostic unit upstairs. Nathan was about to follow them when his cell rang.

‘Pops?
Pops
? It’s Denver. Where the hell are you?’

‘Downtown, at the Hahnemann, in the emergency room. Your mom’s had an accident.’

‘What? What kind of an accident? Is it serious?’

‘The doctors aren’t too sure yet. It was kind of a heart attack. They’re running some tests right now.’

‘She’s going to be OK, though?’

‘I’m praying that she is. She’s unconscious. I’ve been calling you most of the night, but you didn’t answer.’

‘I was totally out of it. Bryce Evans gave me a bottle of this cheap tequila. I only had a couple, I swear to God.’

‘I don’t care about that, Denver. I’m just worried about your mom. Do you think you can get on down here? Take a taxi.’

‘OK, pops.’

Next, Nathan called Richard Scryman, but Richard Scryman wasn’t answering. Maybe it was too early in the morning, or maybe he had already spoken to Doctor Zauber, and knew what had happened at the Murdstone last night. Maybe he was hiding.

After that, he tried the Murdstone. The phone rang for nearly a minute before anybody answered it, and then a suspicious woman’s voice said, ‘Murdstone Rest Home. What do you want?’

‘I need to speak to Doctor Zauber.’

‘Doctor Zauber isn’t here.’

‘Oh, no? Do you know where he is?’

‘No. But he isn’t here.’

‘OK . . . do you have a cell number for him?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have any idea when he’s going to be back?’

‘No.’

‘Madam . . . this is very important. It could be a matter of life or death.’

‘Doctor Zauber isn’t here.’

He gave up, and closed his cell. But he still needed to speak to Doctor Zauber. He didn’t care if Doctor Zauber was brought to justice for what had happened to Doris Bellman, or for stealing his research, or anything else. All he wanted to know was what he could do to save Grace. She was comatose, yes. But unlike Doris Bellman, and her cockatoo, and unlike Bishop Kadłubek’s congregation, and the swallows that had dropped from the ceiling of St Andrzej’s, she hadn’t died. Not yet, anyhow.

The basilisk had turned its blinding gaze on her for only a fraction of a second, and she was still breathing, and still had a pulse. There had to be a way to bring her back, and maybe Doctor Zauber knew what it was.

For the first time since he had started his Cee-Zee program, Nathan felt ignorant, and inadequate. It occasionally happened at conventions, when he met eminent biologists and zoologists, and he realized how sweeping their intellect was. They spoke the language of pure science. They argued about genetic adaptation and nutrient limitation, and what these meant for the survival of the planet. His own work in recreating mythical creatures was right at the very edge of understandable biology, but he still felt excluded.

The Egyptian-looking nurse came out. ‘Your wife is stable, Mr Underhill. No worse, but no better, not yet. But Doctor Ishikawa is very optimistic.’

‘You gave her a CT scan?’

‘Yes . . . and the result was perfectly normal. No brain tumor, no swelling, no cerebral bruising of any kind.’

‘How’s her heart?’

‘Still seizing. But we’re going to try to calm the spasms down with medication.’

‘OK.’ Nathan knew the dangers of the drugs that controlled tachycardia, but surgical ablation was even more risky, and its effectiveness could never be guaranteed. What upset him even more was the way in which he was thinking about Grace in terms of muscles, and nerves, and blood vessels, instead of the woman he loved beyond anything else.

Forty-five minutes later, Denver arrived. He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with sparkling raindrops on the shoulders and he looked puffy-eyed and tired.

He and Nathan held each other for a moment, in a way that they hadn’t held each other since Nathan’s father had died, more than five years ago.

‘How is she?’ asked Denver. ‘Is she conscious yet?’

‘Not yet, no. Her heartbeat’s irregular, and her blood pressure’s way down. But in every other test they’ve done, she’s fine.’

‘So what happened? I mean, like, where
were
you guys? And don’t tell me that you were out looking at the moon again, because I won’t believe you.’

Nathan said, ‘No, we weren’t. But if I promise to tell you the truth, I want you to promise me that you won’t go crazy.’