Dead Waters (23 page)

“Do we have an expert on this or something?”

Wesker narrowed his eyes at me. “Did you not hear me before when I said I’ve never seen this done successfully before?”

“Right,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Sorry.”

“Can you let me do my job, then?” Wesker asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. He stormed off to a tall cabinet on the other side of his office and threw it open. It was stocked with vials, tubes, and little clay pots that were full of a variety of colorful spell components. He bent down to the bottom shelf, pulled up a large, plastic jug, and carried it back to his workbench.

“Do they sell bulk bloodroot at the discount clubs now?” I asked.

“No,” Wesker said, sliding on a pair of protective gloves, “and this isn’t bloodroot. It’s nitric acid. Movie film—more commonly, cellulose nitrate—eventually deteriorates and releases the acid naturally. Using this amount should serve as a catalyst.”

“Ah,” I said. “So naturally you just happen to have it around for office use.”

“It also makes a fine salt substitute for spell components when mixed,” he said. “As it stands, however, it’s quite toxic. You might want to step back.” He picked up a set of gloves and a pair of goggles off the workbench and put them all on. “This might eat away your eyeballs if I splash any of it.”

A mix of vanity and fear was enough to back me away almost before he finished his sentence.

Wesker twisted off the cap, and then poured half the container out into a large, clear petri dish. He put it down, and then scooped up the film and lowered it into the liquid, backing away from it.

In seconds the dish filled with swirling, bubbling activity. The mixture popped and hissed as sections of the film dissolved under the chemical attack. The acid turned from a clearish yellow to a dark, soupy mess. Only after a few minutes of furious activity did it begin to settle down.

Wesker walked back over to it, a satisfied smile on his face, no doubt loving the destructive display before him. When he reached it, however, the look vanished and was replaced with a disappointed one.

“Look, Simon,” he said, dipping his hand into the liquid mess. “Here’s something you should be familiar with—failure.” He raised his hand, pinching a section of stillintact film between his fingers. Wesker kept pulling until a fair section of film came out of the sludge.

“Your chemical didn’t dissolve all of it,” I said.

“No,” he said, walking over to a sink set off to the right of the workbench. “I suspect that what survived is the spliced-in magical part.” He rinsed the section of film thoroughly before laying it down.

“So, now what?” I asked.

“I’m on it,” Jane said, stepping forward with a determined look on her face despite the exhaustion in her eyes. She grabbed up the remains of the filmstrip and brought it over to Wesker’s desk. She leaned over and picked up the wastebasket next to it. On top of it were the close, sharp teeth of an electronic paper shredder.

“Jane. . .” Wesker said, but my girlfriend held up her hand, silencing him. Without another word, she slipped the film into the shredder’s jagged mouth. She laid her free hand on the top of the machine as it set into action. A horrifying sound came from the machine. Jane gave a nervous look down at it, but then bent down to it, whispering an electronic string of technomantic speech at it.

In response, the power level of the machine kicked into high gear, grinding its teeth even harder into the film, but so did the earsplitting screeching coming from it. Smoke rose somewhere inside the gears of the machine and seconds later flame burst out of it. The shredder shook and sputtered as Jane continued talking to it, her eyes half-rolled back into her head as she tried in desperation to command it.

I couldn’t take the sound of it or the oily haze of smoke rising from the flames licking along the top of it. I ran over and pulled the cord from the wall. Reaching for the nowmelting trash can below the device, I picked it up and ran it over to the sink before dumping the whole thing in and turning on the water. Steam hissed and rose as the sound of the machine winding down faded away and the flames died. The room became as foggy as an old London evening. When the smoke cleared, I looked to Wesker, fully expecting him to explode at Jane. Even she expected it, looking ready to flinch.

But Director Wesker didn’t scream or shout. Instead, he walked to the sink, turned off the water, and fished through the soaking-wet remains of the machine. “A valiant effort,” he said, pulling at an end of the film splice he plucked out. It slid easily out of the nearly destroyed machine. The remaining film wasn’t remotely burnt or slashed. It didn’t even have a single scratch on it from where I stood. “Alas,” Wesker continued.

Jane’s face sank, and she looked shaken. “I don’t think I’ve ever killed a machine before.”

I gave her a weak smile. “First time for everything, hon.”

She looked up at me, on the verge of tears. “I didn’t know it would make me feel so . . .
sad
.”

“That’s perfectly natural,” Wesker said. Compared to the disdain he threw at me over the smallest of mistakes, his soothing demeanor with Jane was killing me. He rolled the filmstrip up with care and put it back down on the workbench. “Your technomancy gives you access to the machine world, an affinity for it. To you, they’re more than just objects.”

Jane gave a slow nod of understanding. Feeling Wesker’s affinity for her, I put my arm around her shoulder, giving her a comforting squeeze.

“Please do me a favor, though,” Wesker continued. His voice held the edge of his usual dark tone to it. “Next time, try to not be as impulsive as your boyfriend there.”

Jane nodded again, still quiet in her newfound saddened state. Maybe now she would understand how I felt when shaking off the feelings I accumulated in my psychometric visions.

“Good,” Wesker said. “Let’s leave poor impulse control to those in Other Division, shall we?”

“Tsk-tsk,” the Inspectre said, waggling his finger at Director Wesker. “Remember what your lovely young technomancer told you about playing nice.”

“So, what now?” I asked.

Wesker pounded his fist on the workbench. “I
will
find a way to break this film, but even still, that may not be enough to stop the mad professor. For all we know, this may not even be the master print of the footage. Destroying this little section may accomplish nothing.”

“I can help you figure that out,” Jane said, shaking off her mood, “despite evidence to the contrary.”

She gave a nervous glance over to the sink full of smoldering wreckage, and then back to Wesker.

The Inspectre nodded. “Good,” he said. “See that you do.” He paused and his brow furrowed as his face turned somber. “I’m truly sorry to have brought this upon all of you.” He looked up at me. “I do think, however, this calls for a revisit to Mason’s old haunts.”

“The lighthouse?” I asked.

The Inspectre nodded once again. “He was up to something more than just making a documentary out there and we need to figure out what. Rejuvenating himself, yes, but there is something larger at hand going on at the Hell Gate Bridge.”

“I’ll gas up the boat,” I said, heading for the door.

“I’m afraid it will have to wait until tomorrow night,” the Inspectre said. “The fiscal month closed today and thanks to downtown, there aren’t funds available until tomorrow to requisition it on such short notice. That said, make sure to save room for one more in the taxi before heading down to the pier tomorrow evening.”

I stopped and turned to look at him. “
You’re
coming?”

“I’d say it was critical at this juncture, don’t you think?” He walked over to join me at the door with determination. “Mason’s back in the game now. Why shouldn’t I be?”

I wanted to cite his advanced age, for one, but it was already too late. The Inspectre pushed past me and headed off down the hall toward his office. I watched him go, then looked over at Jane. I felt bad enough when I had put her in harm’s way; now there was my mentor to worry about, too. I gave her a parting smile. “If you’ll excuse me,” I said. “I have to get the paperwork in motion for the requisition. I’ll file it with the Enchancellors in the morning.”

“Good luck with the bureaucrats,” Wesker said with a bit of snip to it.

Jane gave him a look that shut her boss up. She turned back to me, giving a nervous smile. “No dying tomorrow night, okay?”

“I’ll try not to,” I said. “I’ll let Connor steer the boat. That should lessen the odds a bit.”

22

I filed the requisition for the boat the next morning, and once funds were released for the new fiscal month around noon, the Enchancellors approved it and the boat was ours by nightfall. All in all, a day’s delay was a fairly speedy process, by Department standards anyway.

To be on the safe side, we brought the F.O.G. boat into Wards Island at a different angle, one I had hoped would be less filled with aqua-zombies. Whether it was the fact that Jane wasn’t there to draw them to her or not, we got to the island without being assaulted and tied off against the broken remains of the old dock there.

From the outside, the lighthouse looked pretty much as we had left it the other night, but since we were now there looking for the freshly reborn Professor Redfield, I had my bat at the ready as Connor, the Inspectre, and I pushed our way back in through the main doors.

“Just as I suspected,” I said in a whisper. “Still creepy.”

“And it just got creepier,” Connor added, just as quiet. “Look.”

The interior of the lighthouse wasn’t the way we had left it. Most of the film equipment was gone, and what little remained was trashed, broken, or knocked over amid the old, weathered furniture.

“Damned budget,” the Inspectre said. “We’re a day late and a professor short.” He gestured toward the spiral staircase that ran along the opposite wall and the three of us started up through the lighthouse. Every floor was in the same state, but other than the destruction and damage, the place was deserted. We all came back down the stairs, me at the back of the pack with my bat flipped up casually over my shoulder as we reentered the open room on the main floor.

I slowed down as I came off the staircase, looking around the main room again.

“Does something seem a little out of whack with the perspective in here?” I asked.

“It’s hard to tell among all the debris,” Connor said, looking around. “What are you seeing, kid?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, following the curve of the wall. “The wall by the stairs seems a bit. . . off.” I raised my bat and traced it along the wall, tapping. The thick, old plaster chipped away as I went, turning to powder after so many years, but the sound was a solid one. Until I hit the area just below the stairs, that was. There the sound changed, the heft of my retractable steel bat echoing out in a tone different from the rest.

“Well, well,” I said, searching along the wooden beams that ran up and down bordering the section of open wall. I stepped closer to the beam nearest me and saw the slightest hint of a break where the plaster disappeared behind the wood instead of meeting it. I pressed the section of wall and felt it give under my hand, the entire section of wall opening up into a secret room behind it.

“Nice going, kid,” Connor said, patting me on the shoulder. “You want to go in first?”

I shook my head. “After you.”

“How kind,” Connor said, and headed in.

“Not really,” I said. “I just figure if it’s booby-trapped, at least I get a few more seconds of feeling good about finding the door while you trigger it instead of me.”

“Nice,” Connor said, slowing down as he continued into the dark behind the secret door. The Inspectre went in next and I followed, my eyes quickly adjusting to the low light. We were in a dim, windowless chamber that looked like a sinister version of the professor’s NYU office, except most of the shelves here held arcane-looking relics instead of movie miniatures. Huge gaps along them led me to believe that much of the materials there had been removed. The rest of the room had the skeletal remains of film equipment—camera lenses, light rigging, an editorial deck, but it was the arcane stuff scattered throughout that gave me the creeps.

“Well, now,” the Inspectre said, walking around. “This seems more like the Mason Redfield that he always feared becoming.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said.

“Nonsense, my boy,” he said. “It’s hardly your doing.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “It’s just that I saw who he was back when I read part of your past psychometrically. I saw the promise and potential of who he could have been before he became. . .
this
.”

“I never would have expected this of him and I knew the man. I haven’t the faintest idea why he would become so corrupt as all this, but I must find out.”

“Check this out,” Connor said from where he stood in the center of the hidden room.

The Inspectre started walking over toward him, and then stopped in his tracks. I followed his gaze to a spot on a table in the center of the room. It was slick with blood.

“Whose is it?” I asked.

The Inspectre walked over to the table, looking it over. He grabbed the edge and lifted up one side of it.

“Sir?” I asked, unsure of what he was doing.

He let go of the table with one of his hands and indicated the surface where all the blood was.

“See how the blood flows when I tilt it?” he asked. “It hasn’t coagulated yet. It’s still fairly fresh. If this had happened before Mason’s death, it would by dried by now or tacky to the touch.”

“I’d say it’s pretty tacky, not cleaning it up,” Connor said. “It ruins the décor.”

I turned and shot him a look.

“What?” he said. “Is cracking wise only your domain or something? I was just trying to ease the tension.”

“Not helping,” I said. “Still feeling tense, but that’s probably just because we know the professor’s alive again.”

“Then maybe we should get to work, gentlemen,” the Inspectre interrupted.

I didn’t need to be told twice. “Fine,” I said, not bothering to banter any further. I turned my attention to taking in as much as I could of the whole hidden room. It wasn’t until I was focusing on the floor that I felt something click.

“Inspectre,” I said, noting the legs of the table, “you didn’t slide the table when you lifted up the one side, did you?”

He thought for a second before answering. “I don’t believe so, no. Why?”

“I didn’t think you had,” I said. “I don’t remember hearing a scraping sound.” I knelt down next to the table, mindful not to kneel in the blood underneath it. “Then why are there drag marks, here. . . and here?” I pointed at two sets of marks next to each pair of legs.

“Someone must have moved it aside before,” I said, and then stood back up. “Help me with this.”

The three of us grabbed the dry spots along the edge of the table and lifted it, moving it away from the center of the room. No longer in the shadow of the table, a definite difference in the flooring was evident.

“A trapdoor,” the Inspectre said.

Connor leaned down and felt around in the drying blood before finding a ring and pulling the door up until it was standing open resting on its hinge. The sound of running water rose up from the darkness below.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“After you, kid,” Connor said, waving me toward the open hole.

“Me?” I croaked out. “Why do I have to go first?”

Connor smiled. “I walked in through the secret door first, so it’s your turn now.”

“Screw that,” I said. “The last time I went down in something like this it was that Oubliette the Department had me test in. I nearly died when it malfunctioned. You’ll excuse me if I’m a bit reluctant to go jumping into another dank, dark hole.”

“Don’t worry,” Connor said. “You’ll be fine. Besides, it builds character.”

“Maybe you should try building a little character, then.”

“I’m full up,” he said, shrugging.

“Rock, Paper, Scissors?” I said.

“Now, why would I do that?” Connor asked. “I already don’t have to go down. What’s in it for me?”

“If I win,” I said, “you go down there. If I lose, I’ll do all your case paperwork for you for two weeks.”

Connor stood there, thinking about it. He didn’t look quite convinced. My partner knew he had the upper hand.

“Gentlemen,” the Inspectre interrupted. “Sometime today . . .”

I had to close the deal. “I’ll even file everything for you.”

Connor’s face lit up. “Deal,” he said. “One throw, on three. One, two, three!”

I threw out my right hand, flat as could be. I looked at Connor’s hand, two fingers held apart in a
V
formation.

“Scissors,” I said. “Son of a bitch.”

“Sorry, kid,” Connor said. He clicked his fingers against my hand like he was actually cutting it.

I looked down into the hole before pulling out my flashlight. “I thought for sure you were going to throw rock.”

“Not when I knew you were going to throw down paper,” he said.

“You got lucky,” I said. “You didn’t know I was going to throw paper.”

“I did too,” he said. “You are such a paper. You’re such a paper it hurts.”

I was going to ask what Connor even meant by that, but seeing the look on the Inspectre’s face shut me down. Instead, I turned my flashlight on the opening itself. An iron-rung ladder was built into the side of a stone chimney leading down to the sound of churning water far below. Without another word, I lowered myself down to the floor, slid over the edge of the trapdoor, and grabbed onto the top rung. Once I was certain I had a good grip and wasn’t about to fall to my death, I began my descent, the tiny flashlight gripped in my right palm leaving my fingers free to hold on to the rungs.

“If at any moment you feel compelled to lower a basket with lotion in it,” I said, making my way down the wet ladder set in the stone, “feel compelled to also drop dead.”

“Don’t make me get the hose, kid,” Connor said and waved at me.

The Inspectre shushed him, and I turned my attention back to my descent. The well was deeper than I had imagined, but soon enough I got to the bottom of the ladder where it met the water. It rolled and splashed up the sides of the shaft, leaving me to think it must lead out to the river surrounding the island we were on.

“Anything, my boy?” the Inspectre called down.

I snaked my arm through one of the rungs and used my now-free hand to move the light around. The walls were covered with a mix of dark green slime, white foam, blood, and bits of decaying organic material I feared was human flesh.

“This isn’t a well,” I said. “I think it’s a feeding pit.”

“Feeding pit?” the Inspectre called out, puzzlement in his voice. “For what?”

“I don’t know,” I said, passing my light over the churning water. “Maybe that creepy green woman. Maybe Mason Redfield unearthed her from a tomb and he was taking care of her, like a twisted pet of some kind, and she eventually turned on him.” My light caught something dark and solid bobbing in the churn of tiny waves. “Hold on a second. I see something.”

I stuck my legs through part of the ladder, and stretched myself out over the water, reaching out. My only thought was, Please don’t let it be a head. My fingers caught a bit of it for a second before it bobbed away. It was cloth, but it had some thickness to it. I leaned out a little farther and grabbed again, this time finding purchase. The electric shock of my psychometry flashed on the bag and I was whisked away into the past before I could control it or stop it from happening. The vision was dark with the sound of water all around. I couldn’t see, but I was sure I was at the bottom of the pit. I pressed my mind around to figure out who I was, and in a heartbeat I knew. George, the blondhaired Hispanic punk kid who palled around with the other disciples of Mason Redfield. His mind was a confused mix, overrun by pain from having been bled out, then tossed down here. Weak and enfeebled, he struggled to get hold of the ladder but his body had not the strength. He slipped below the surface of the water as something cold and slimy wrapped around his body, crushing in. He panicked at the sensation and I did, too, forcing my mind’s eye to pull itself back out of the vision.

Thankfully, my one arm was still locked in the ladder and I gasped a shocked breath from the surprise of the vision. My arm ached as I pulled the bag over to me, thankful that the water still bore much of the weight of the floating object until I could get a better grip. I fished it out of the water. George’s messenger bag, the same kind I used.

I threw its strap over my shoulder and started back up the ladder. There was a bit of weight to it, making my climb a little more strained than I would have preferred, and when I reached the top of the ladder, it took both Connor and the Inspectre to hoist me up before closing the trapdoor back over the pit.

I pulled off the bag and laid it down on an empty desk off to my left along the wall. The bag was decorated with an assortment of stitched-on band names and dozens of tiny safety pins everywhere.

“What do we have here?” the Inspectre said, coming over to it.

“It was at the bottom of the well,” I said. “It belonged to that blond kid George, one of Mason’s students. The professor brought him here against his will. He threw him down into the pit after he got what he needed. Blood. But that’s not all.”

“What else?” the Inspectre asked.

“There was something down there with him,” I said. “Couldn’t see anything. It was too dark down there, but it was like a big fish or a snake. It. . . it finished him off.”