Helix: Plague of Ghouls (11 page)

She nodded. “Everybody goes a little crazy during false starts. I know I did.”

Ishmael shrugged. “Maybe it’ll be different for him. A seizure here or there, a few
tabarnaks
and the odd
ôstie
, then one day, nothing but hair and claws. After that, he should be fine.”

He remembered Holly wringing her hands, telling him that Dep would be all right.

Ferox dumped the shirt she was folding and turned to the window.

“You know what you have to do if he . . . gets Lost . . .” Ishmael said.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Elf-like Danielle was squaring her shoulders and donning her Ferox persona.
Am I the only person in Wyrd who doesn’t have a split personality?

“There’s one more favour I need to ask,” he said. “Look after Mary Anne until you can’t anymore, and then look after Shuffle when he needs you. And most of all, keep an eye on Helen.”

She turned at the mention of the name.

“Burley is looking out for her, too. But if this thing in Halo County goes sideways, Burley is going to have worse things on her mind than Helen. That’s when Helen’s going to need you most.”

“Wait a second—you think if Dep’s already going, she might be, too?” Then she wrinkled her nose. “Oh
God
, can you imagine her as a wendigo?”

“I’m trying hard not to,” he replied. “Digger as wendigo I can handle. Dep as wendigo I can handle. But a teenaged girl? No.
No.
God, no
.
Stuff of nightmares. She’d passive-aggressive us to death.”

She smiled in spite of herself.

“Can I ask?” He pointed at her computer. “You blushed like you were showing him a skin flick.”

Her awkward
ew!
expression made him laugh. “This is the last face I would want to see in a porno.” She opened her computer and unlocked it from standby so he could see the web search results.

The boy was sullen, covered in zits, with an octopus-shaped clutch of unruly hair, mascara, and a large eagle-shaped pendant hanging from a cheap tarnished chain about his stubbly neck. Completing the picture was a black Ramones t-shirt, a nose stud, and an inverted cross hanging from one ear.

He shuddered and pretended to retch. “How old is that? And how the hell did you find it?”

“Archived yearbook photos,” Ferox said.

According to the website, the photo was from 1976, years before Ishmael’s infection. There wasn’t much he could remember prior to 1982—a dog dropping a Frisbee to eat watermelon out of his hand, the sound of wind chimes, Captain Kangaroo on TV, riding in a file of bicycles over a gravel road toward the sunset, and drops of blood falling onto the boys’ washroom sink. Not much else. But if that really was his own face in the photograph, he figured there was a lot he should be glad to forget.

“Your Grade Eleven photo,” she said. “Unless I’m
sorely
mistaken. But there you are.”

The caption under the photo said Owen I. Chase. But even after much Photoshoppery, there wasn’t much he saw of himself.

Coincidence
.
Just another false lead.

“That would make me younger than I thought,” he said. “Grade Eleven?” He did some mental math. “There’s no way that kid is fifteen or sixteen in that picture.” He had to be at least eighteen, given the dark neck stubble and the jutting Adam’s apple. More math told him he was likely to have been born in the very late ’50s, if he was still in high school in ’76. Ishmael had always thought he’d been closer to his late thirties before his infection in ’82; that photo would have put him in his late teens. “Sorry,” Ishmael said. “It’s not me.”

“Could have fooled me! I mean, look at those eyes!”

“Owen Chase isn’t my birth name. Anders Jewell Anderson gave me that name in ’82 during my rescue and induction into Wyrd. But it’s an interesting picture. How did you
find
it?”

“Varsity Book Online, some kind of yearbook archive website,” she said. “Bridget told me Ishmael was your middle name, so I asked and she told me your full name, and I was bored last night and . . .” She shrugged. “I found you. Seriously, you never googled yourself?”

Hard to do that when you don’t know your own birth name.
“A few times,” he said, impatiently. “Jeez, what a face.”

“I was telling Padre that if it’s this easy to find
you
, and you’ve been theoretically missing since 1980-whatever, then it should be easy to find myself, since I’ve only been missing since 2009.”

“And?”

“Take a wild guess how many hits you get when you search ‘Danielle Smith.’” She demonstrated. “Seventy-one
million,
seven hundred thousand, and rising every day.”

“So . . . narrow your search parameters. Plug in your estimated year of birth, where you were when you were taken by Wyrd . . .”

“But I don’t know any of that.”

“Ask Bridget.”

“It wasn’t Bridget who picked me up. It was Jay and Angie Burley.”

Well shit.
“Grey kept a list of all his patients,” he said. “That’s how Burley was able to find all the first generation patients. Ask her for your file.”

“I did ask. She told me no.”

“Why not?”

“She was worried I might try to make contact with my family. I’m supposed to be dead. For the sake of Wyrd and the Pack and for werewolves everywhere, I’m supposed to sit here quietly and pretend like it doesn’t matter who I am or if someone might be looking for me.”

Ishmael checked the time. Identity crises were bad, but he still had two potential wendigos to deal with, a litter of kittens, one gruesome murder, and an infection that set his blood on fire. “So you asked Padre to see what he could learn.”

“I thought maybe someone blocked search terms on my computer. I figured if he could hit an internet café or something, he might find out more.”

“Then I’ll help him search,” he said. But what he meant to say was that he’d crack the password on Grey’s patient list and find out everything she wanted to know. “First chance I get.”

She smiled sadly. “Thank you.” She lowered her eyes and picked at her nails.

“And if you do want to see embarrassing pictures of me in my younger days, google ‘Backdoor Access punk rock band.’ The stuff on YouTube is a classic. You’ll get to see Gil with long hair.”

She wasn’t cheering up like he’d hoped. “The Padre wants me to keep an eye on Dep, too. To be with him. Talk to him.”

“And will you?”

She chewed a nail and spat out the twisted shard. “There’s one thing I learned at the Farms,” she said. Her reedy voice buzzed now. “Enjoy the good times, but don’t bother hanging on to them. Your heart’s a luxury, something you can open up and look into when your belly’s full and when the door’s barred. For the rest of the time, seal it and freeze it, or someone will reach in and tear it out. I’ll watch him from a distance, and I’ll do what I have to do if he gets Lost.” She turned to her computer and began closing down browser windows. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“And Helen?”

“Same thing,” she said. “Same . . . exact . . . goddamned . . . thing.” She closed the computer and propped up her head with her hand, studiously keeping her face averted.

Ishmael thanked her quietly and said goodbye. She didn’t reply. He closed the door when he left.

TWO-TREES HAD
stripped down to his boxers and an undershirt, because the Marigold Hotel was one cockroach short of an equatorial dive. He’d had to shower to cool down. With the heating system rattling as loudly as it was, the air conditioning blowing as uselessly as it could, and with Nickelback thumping through the ceiling, he nearly missed the sound of his phone vibrating on the nightstand beside him.
On a school night and everything.

The call display showed a local exchange but no associated name. “Hector Two-Trees,” he said.

“Two-Trees, glad I caught you. It’s not too late, is it?”

It was half past midnight, but the kegger/boxing match upstairs had only just begun. “Nope. Who is this, please?”

“DS Buckle. You remember me from earlier tonight?”

“Detective Sergeant,” he said, “there is not one damned thing I’ve
forgotten
about earlier tonight.” He had case files, photographs, preliminary notes, and newspaper articles strewn across the end of the bed, to remind him of anything that might have escaped his attention. “What’s on your mind?”

“We’ve got something here you might want to see. You mind coming into the office?”

He was wearing nothing but a towel and body hair. “How soon?”

“We have to release him in an hour or two.”

Two-Trees rolled off the bed and let the towel fall. “Witness or suspect?”

“Not sure yet.”

“Then gimme a few. I’ll be there.”

They said their goodbyes, and Two-Trees put his phone back on the charger to absorb what few sips of electricity it could while he dressed. He combed his long wet hair and wondered if he should pack up his computer or leave it on the hotel room desk. A body thumped on the floor overhead. He decided to work elsewhere, since it was clear he wouldn’t be getting any sleep.

WHILE THE AMENITIES
left much to be desired, the Marigold Hotel did have three things going for it: its proximity to the highway, its proximity to a 24-hour Tim Hortons drive-thru, and its proximity to the OPP detachment headquarters in Elmbury. He hit all three of these in order, and was buzzed through by a sergeant at the front desk, who seemed to have been expecting him.

Oh, God, does this bring back memories.
Some offices had been remodelled and repurposed, but for the most part, not even the wallpaper had changed. He accepted the clip-on “Visitor” tag and followed the desk sergeant down a hall, to the left, and down another hall. This wasn’t a detachment big enough to warrant a bigger building, even though Halo County was outgrowing its britches, so it wasn’t hard to figure out which was DS Buckle’s cubicle. In case of doubt, Buckle himself stood up and waved Two-Trees over. Three of every four desks were empty for the night. Otherwise, the place would have been too crowded for casual conversation.

“We still have him in the interview room.” Buckle sounded stuffed up.

“Have who?” Two-Trees asked.

“One of the local high schoolers.”

While they walked, Buckle gave Two-Trees a thick file folder. Inside was a stack of missing persons notices from around the province. Two-Trees counted the notices. There must have been close to a hundred.

“You remember Steeper Lake?” Buckle asked.

“Oh, you mean
Reefer
Lake,” Two-Trees said, scanning the papers. “Sure. Pritchard Park is along its shore. Oh hell, first the body, now Pritchard Park. You found this kid there?”

“Him and two others, doing what the local kids do best.”

“Macramé?” Two-Trees said. “They were up to something dull, I’ll bet, otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me out of the Waldorf Astoria at this time of night.”

“They were . . . Uh.” He coughed into his fist. “They found something.”

“Evidence? Wait, same case?”

“That’s up to you to tell us,” Buckle said.

“There’s a lot of space between that body dump site and Pritchard Park. Namely, the entire town of Elmbury.”

Buckle shrugged. “It was portable,” he said simply. He snapped a tissue from a nearby box and sneezed airily, then blew his reddening nose. “Swear to God, this kid is made of cat hair and dandruff or something. We’ve all been sneezing since he came in.” He asked Two-Trees to watch one of the monitors that was fixed to a wall just around the corner from the interview room. A young man was sitting there, viewed from above by a sketchy surveillance camera. He sat in the very corner with his sleeves pulled down over his hands, his chin tucked down to his chest, his knees drawn up, and his blond hair curtained over his eyes.

Two-Trees felt a tickle in his chest, so he cleared his throat. He leaned in close, watching for the tell-tale signs of a lycanthrope. The camera wasn’t great. He’d need to get in closer, see the kid face-to-face. “What’s that on his cheek?” Two-Trees asked, pointing to the scabby stripe.

“War paint,” Buckle said.

Two-Trees checked to make sure Buckle’s underfed face was serious. It was.

“Jungle punk,” Buckle said. “You live in a cave or something?” He measured out progressive blocks of air. “Punk, Goth, Emo, Scene, Jungle Punk.” He let his hands fall. “Harmless stuff, for the most part. Loud music, funny clothes, one more reason to smoke up and get into trouble. Instead of going to school, they get out their iPhones and bitch on Facebook about how technology has destroyed human nature. The usual.” He sneezed again.

“Yeah, but war paint?” Two-Trees asked. “And no one from the Waabishkindibed Reserve has complained?”