Chameleon (12 page)

“Good veins,” he said, removing a plastic wrap from the needle.

I felt a sick rush of nausea. I’d run out of questions.

“She has very good veins,” he repeated, prodding my arm with his fingers.

The room tilted off–center and I watched in horrible, sickened fascination as the needle crept slowly toward my arm.

Finding a vein, he inserted the sharp bright point.

You will not pass out!
I ordered myself.
You will get out of this place in one piece!

Deuxième dragged the needle tip back and forth trying to insert it into my vein.

I wanted to vomit; I wanted to pass out. But I forced myself to stay clear.

“We can’t find it,” muttered Deuxième. “Such a good vein and we can’t find the entrance.” He yanked the needle out in a quick and frustrated motion. Throwing that needle aside, he grabbed another one and ripped off the packaging. “Another try.”

My stomach lurched again.

“Deuxième,” I said, trying desperately to keep it together as he brought another needle towards me. “Uh, why do you want my blood?”

He drew his lips back from his teeth in a grim replication of a smile. “Deuxième is very good conversing with blood and learning all that it has to tell.”

“Oh,” I said. “So, you’re like, a blood–expert.”

“Deuxième is the
über
–expert of blood.” He laughed softly to himself.

“So, uh, how did you become interested in blood?” I asked, trying to get the conversation flowing again.

He looked down, a slight frown pulling at the side of his mouth. The hand holding the needle twitched once, twice. “She said we must learn everything that can be learned about a man from his blood or a woman from her blood.”

Here he raised and lowered his shoulders in an awkward approximation of a shrug. Compared to confident, crazed Ivanovich, Deuxième was something of a geek.

“So Deuxième studied and studied,” he said. “He studies still. He must never cease learning. Knowledge is power. Power is necessary.”

I frowned. “She never gave you a chance, you mean. To choose something else to study. Something you might like even more. Deuxième, that is sad.”

He’d tightened his grip upon the needle. It broke. He seemed not to notice.

“What must be, is,” he said simply. “Deuxième was not created for a wasteful life; Deuxième was created to obey and to serve. Ivanovich serves by protecting
die Mutter
; Bruno served by …” Here he drew his brows together considering the answer. At last he spoke. “Bruno was created to discover how far a man can be hurt and still live and serve. Deuxième is fortunate to be, instead, a man of science and discovery.”

I felt my skin turn to goose–flesh as the hairs along my arm rose.

“I don’t know, Deuxième. It sounds to me like you have no freedom. I wouldn’t call that fortunate. You’re like, a modern–day slave.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “We serve.”

I couldn’t think of how to get past his stubborn acceptance of his lot in life. How do you convince someone to think outside the little box they’ve always lived in?

“Jane must not talk further,” he said, frowning. “Deuxième has a job to do, and Jane is causing him to become inefficient.”

“I just want to help you.” I said. A note of fear clung to my voice. I wondered if he could hear it.

“Jane is very … kind,” he said, feeling once more for a vein. “But
die Mutter
is more cruel that Jane is kind. Deuxième must not disappoint her. Deuxième must test Jane’s blood.”

He looked at me sadly. “
Die Mutter
knows that Jane Smith is not who she claims to be.
Die Mutter
wishes to know who Jane is, truly. Ivanovich collected Jane’s blood once, but Deuxième could not use such a filthy, dried–up sample.”

He looked now at the broken needle he held, noticing it for the first time.

Ivanovich had collected my blood?
I shivered, remembering how I’d been caught by Helga’s henchman on my birthday, the first time I’d snuck into her laboratory. Yeah, Ivanovich had collected “Jane’s” blood all over his ugly knuckles.
Die Mutter
had to be Helga. She still wanted to know my identity. And I couldn’t let her discover it.

My heart began pounding crazy–fast: partly because Deuxième was looking for a needle again, partly out of fear of Helga discovering who I really was. I should have tried rippling earlier while I’d had Deuxième distracted! I was going to pass out. I was going to lose my cover as “Jane Smith.” Helga would learn I was a rippler—the very rippler her father desired. And from me, it was only a short step to Mickie and to Will. Fear threatened to consume me.

Deuxième raised the needle, ready to jab me again. But then something deep inside me bared its teeth.
Fight,
commanded a small but insistent voice.
Take the fear and turn it into strength!
A guttural cry broke from deep in my belly, and I lurched forward, the bench flying off the ground because it was attached to me. I swung it from side to side, catching the back of Deuxième’s knee. He grunted and fell forward against the cupboard. Turning, I took a run towards the doorway, shouting as I ran.

“I’m sorry, Deuxième!”

There’s not enough room
, I said to myself.
The bench won’t fit through the passage.
I hurled myself at the passage, arms taped together, legs strapped to a bench. It was stupid of me. The wooden seat caught on one side of the bone–wall and I tripped forward onto the ground, the duct–tape ripping painfully free of my legs as I fell.

From behind, I heard Deuxième stumbling towards me, his passage slowed by bones clattering from the damaged doorway. There was a moment’s silence, and then I heard the grinding noise of one of the bone–walls collapsing. I threw a glance over my shoulder and saw Deuxième knocked to the ground as the disintegrating wall led the ceiling to cave in. And then the air grew thick with dust and I couldn’t see anything more.

Kicking the bench aside, I backed down the tunnel I’d just entered.

“Deuxième?” I called. “Are you alright?”

No response.

“Oh, no,” I murmured. “I didn’t mean …” I broke off, uncertain what I’d meant to do.

You don’t know that he’s … gone,
I said to myself.
But you can’t stick around to find out, either!

Nor could I allow him to lie here unaided. I wasn’t Helga. I wasn’t Helmann. I wouldn’t leave a man to die here among the bones. I had a cell phone. I would call emergency services to this location in case he could be saved.

As I walked I used my teeth to tear at the duct tape binding my hands. Holding my shirt to my mouth, I took slow breaths and retreated along a dark pathway, running a hand along one side of the strange wall until the air felt fresher. As I progressed, I saw light. A few steps further and I encountered a metal gate. I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. For a moment, courage failed me. Then, blinking back tears, I laughed.

No gate could hold me in.

I imagined the most bliss–inducing thing I could remember: Will’s mouth upon mine, Will’s arms surrounding me, embracing me.

I no longer noticed the dust and stale air.

The pain where the needle had been inserted was gone as well.

I’d vanished. I passed through the blood–like tang of the iron gate.

As I began to climb stairs towards the surface streets of Paris, my mind brought to me a tidbit of German.

Die Mutter.

It was German for “the Mother.” Deuxième, Helga’s thug–scientist–human–experiment wrapped into one, was also her child.

I arrived at the hotel and trudged behind the front desk to the unreliable elevator, praying it would be in service this evening. My legs shook with exhaustion and my head had begun to pound where I’d struck it on the hard floor. If I wrinkled my forehead, I could feel a crusty line of blood now congealing into a scab. Brushing a hand across the wound, I realized that whole side of my face felt bruised; I probably looked awful.

As I stood waiting for the elevator to decide whether it was in the mood to show up or not, I heard a familiar laugh.

Gwyn.

And me looking like I’d just gone a couple of rounds in a boxing ring.

I was in the midst of deciding to take the stairs instead when Gwyn burst around the corner, her ear pressed to her phone. She stopped and noticed me. We stood silent for a moment.

“I’ll call you back later,” she said, clicking off her call.

I met her eyes, but then I gave up and looked away. She’d misinterpret this just like she had everything else. And I couldn’t say anything without putting Will and his sister at risk. Sighing, I attempted to move past her and take the stairs.

“No!” Gwyn’s voice echoed up into the twelve–foot ceiling.

I turned back, confused or curious, I’m not sure which.

“This has got to stop.
Now!
” Gwyn’s face was white with anger.

“Gwyn,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t understand—”

“No, I don’t!” she shouted. “I don’t understand how someone as intelligent and strong as you can put up with this.”

“I’m not—”

Gwyn cut me off. “Not one more minute. You are
done
with him. Do you hear me? I’m calling the police. I’m calling Madame Evans. I’m calling—”

“No!” I cried. “You’re not calling anyone. You don’t understand the first thing about my life or about Will.”

“Oh, I understand plenty!” Gwyn’s face contorted with righteous anger. “Everyone says how you never had any friends after I left. We all saw how you hooked up with Will the minute he looked your way. Sam, I
get it:
you were lonely. It felt good to be noticed.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“Some part of you decided you could live with the abuse if it meant you got attention from a guy. But he’s not worth it! No guy is. I don’t care how gorgeous his eyes are.
He’s evil!
And this has got to stop now!”

I didn’t know where to start, how to set her straight. But I knew one thing: I would not let her smear the reputation of the most decent human being I’d ever met. I took a deep breath and said, as calmly as I could, “You’re wrong.”

Gwyn grabbed me by the shoulders, spinning me around until I faced a mirror. “No, Samantha,” she said harshly, “
That
is wrong.”

I looked worse than I’d imagined.

Besides the injury that had trickled blood along one side of my face, there was a raised ridge over one eye, the skin furiously red. A smudge of dirt gave the appearance of additional bruising under my cheeks. My jacket had torn along the shoulder.

I rubbed at the smudge, watching it fade.

“What did he do?” she whispered. “Throw you down on the street?”

“Will’s not the responsible party,” I began, but Gwyn interrupted me with a shriek.

“You did not just say that!” She pointed at my face in the mirror. “The hands that did that to you
are responsible
. He’s got your mind so warped you don’t know up from down, Sam!”

At this moment Mickie burst around the corner, evidently sharing a joke with Sir Walter.

“Will’s racing us up five flights of—” Mickie stopped in her tracks. “Oh my God, Sam. What happened to you?”

“What happened?” shouted Gwyn. “
What happened?
”

Gwyn’s rant continued as Mickie examined my face, her fingers cool and gentle upon my skin.

“Hello, I’m talking to you!” Gwyn shouted to Mickie.

Mickie turned to Gwyn, as though noticing an annoying fly buzzing around. “I’m sorry, I’m sure whatever you have to say is very important, but it’s going to have to wait. Sam’s been injured.”

Gwyn planted herself directly in front of Mickie.

“No shit, Sherlock,” she said. “By your brother. What do you have to say about that?”

“What?” asked Mickie. “Will’s been with us. I don’t know what you think you know, and honestly I don’t care. Sam’s my priority at the moment.” She attempted to brush past Gwyn and into the elevator, which had finally arrived.

“Stop right there!”
roared Gwyn.

Our noise had at last attracted the attention of the clerk at the desk. He rounded the corner just as Gwyn finished shouting. The desk clerk was obviously
not
pleased with any of us.

Sir Walter spoke with him so quickly that all I caught was something about “affairs of the heart.” This seemed to satisfy the clerk, who winked at our French gentleman and exited. Sir Walter, directing all of us to
be quiet please,
herded us onto the elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor.

Gwyn could not contain herself, however, and a shouting match ensued between her and Mickie.

I slipped over to Sir Walter and offered an explanation of what Gwyn thought, and why she thought it, finishing just as the elevator arrived on our floor.

“Ladies,” said Sir Walter in a commanding voice. “Silence, please. Samantha’s well–being is our priority here. I trust we are all agreed upon that point?”

Mickie nodded curtly and Gwyn opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it and mumbled a “yes.”

“
Mademoiselle
Gwyn,” said Sir Walter, with a tiny bow, “I beg you will excuse us for the time being.”

Mickie was shoving me through the door. Inside, Will stood grinning.

“Told you I’d beat you,” he said. Then his expression changed. “Sam! What happened?”

Behind us, Sir Walter had succeeded in closing the door on Gwyn. “And now, perhaps
Mademoiselle
Mickie, you might turn your attention to our injured friend?”

“Sam?” Will waited for an explanation.

While Mickie bathed my face with a warm washcloth, I began to explain about my trip to the underground ossuary. I had only gotten as far Deuxième’s secret phlebotomy lab when we were interrupted by a knock upon the door.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Mickie, rising to answer the door.