Elixir (27 page)

The jail is hushed for about ten minutes. Then a rustle emerges from Dante’s cell. Sean doesn’t look over, but the drunk does. He watches Dante slip off his left loafer, remove his Ralph Lauren sock, squeeze it into a compact little ball, and stow it in his jacket pocket. He sees him do the same with the one on his right foot. “What the hell are you doing that for?” the drunk asks, pressing his face between two bars for a better view through the shadows.

Dante locks eyes with him for a moment, then turns his attention back to his shoes, sliding his bare feet inside. Stepping to the front of his cell, he licks his teeth, that predatory calm to him again. “Officer,” he says toward the passageway. Sean’s eyes open upon hearing the deep, chilling voice. He stares at Dante, wondering what he’s doing.

About a minute later the patter of steps carries in, the policeman resurfacing. “Was that you calling on me?” he asks Dante.

“Yes sir.”

“Well what the hell is it?”

“Remember earlier when I told you I didn’t feel I needed first-aid supplies?”

“I said you were nuts.”

“I must admit you may have been right sir. It’s not the injury on my temple that concerns me. It’s another one. A gash on my abdomen. I just checked it. I believe it’s infected. Let me know if you have anything I can put on it.”

The officer is still for a few seconds, then nods. He unbuttons his gray jacket, the material billowing around him, the cop fixating on his torso. He begins untucking his white dress shirt, then lets go and thrusts his arm through a pair of bars, clutching a fistful of the young man’s collar, slamming his forehead into the metal. He wobbles as blood spills, a three-inch gash across his boyish face.

Dante clamps his shoulders, flips him a hundred eighty degrees, and jerks his back against the cage. He lifts the socks from his pocket, loops them around his throat, and tugs. He leans back with the ends of the socks wrapped tight around his wrists, all his weight on his heels, taut fabric razoring into the cop’s flesh. He tries to scream, nothing coming out, the jangle of items on his police belt the only noise in the jail. His cheeks swell from the pressure. The white of his left eye pops red, then his right.

Petrified, Sean backpedals to the corner of his cell while the drunk observes frozen. Sean sees the officer’s arms go flaccid, his hands falling from his neck, no energy to resist with anymore. In a bit his whole body stops moving, flesh of his face a ballooned purplish gray. Dante still pulls, the hardened, sharp sock material cutting his wrists, blood trickling down each. The policeman gurgles for a moment, then is quiet.

Dante lets go, the corpse sliding down the rods to the concrete floor. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” Sean says, cowering as far from the scene as the confines of his cage allow.

Kneeling, Dante deposits the bloody socks in his pocket, reaches through the metal bars to the dead man’s belt, and frees the gun from his holster. He wedges it in the waist of his suit pants, then unclips the keychain and handcuffs. Standing, he inserts a few keys into his cell lock until he finds a match, then turns, door opening with a squeak.

He exits, latching one end of the cuffs around his left wrist as he steps over the cop’s mangled face toward Sean. He unlocks his door in a few attempts and approaches. Backed tight in the corner, Sean kicks at him with his healthy leg and says, “Get away you nut job.”

With ease Dante bats his flailing boot to the side, grasps his leather jacket, and rips him off the bench. He slaps the other end of the cuffs on Sean’s right wrist, attaching himself to him. “Let’s go,” he says, dragging the staggering kid out of the cell.

Dante stops a few feet from the drunk’s cage. He wraps his fingers around the pistol and aims the barrel between two bars. The drunk’s expression turns frantic and his mouth moves to say something, but before he can get a word out a bullet blasts through his right eye, killing him in an instant. Sean almost vomits from the sight, right half of the man’s face gone, left eye still open.

Dante whips Sean around the hallway corner and charges into the brightness of the station, gun in front of him, vision hopping around. Nobody there. The old wiring in the overhead light has a soft drone to it, audible now with no voices present. Dante peers out the window, nothing except some passing car beams behind leafless trees in the distance.

He heads to the desk, snatching his license, dropping it in his pocket. He opens a drawer and scours the inside. Then a second. Then a third. He recognizes the feel of the Lincoln keys at the bottom, clutches them, and plops them in the same pocket. He marches ahead, Sean eyeing his out-of-reach James Crates ID on the surface as they move in unison.

Just before they come to the front door it opens, a man in a Suddsfield Police jacket arriving, hunting cap on with the flaps down, confused expression as he absorbs the scene before him. He snags the Ruger firearm on his hip, but it’s too late, a round from Dante’s weapon piercing the meaty part of his shoulder. He falls on the coffeepot table, tumbling with it to the floor, losing his pistol. Clasping his wound, he flops around, shattered glass from the pot all over, hot liquid searing the skin of his forehead and cheeks.

Looming over him, Dante asks, “What’s your name?” He doesn’t reply, screaming in pain. “Answer me.”

“Daniel.”

“Daniel what?”

“Jepson dammit.” Fixating on the gunman above him, the deputy stops shouting, the realization he’s going to be murdered sinking in. Gut shaking from nerves, he starts weeping. “Please. Please. I have a daughter. She lives in South Carolina. I haven’t had a word with her in two years.”

A urine spot spreads on the crotch of his beige uniform pants, Dante staring. “Stop doing that.”

“Oh God. God help me.” He folds his hands, checkered with his own blood, and looks up at the ceiling mumbling a prayer to himself between whimpers.

Dante watches him for a while. “That’s not going to help. Whatever it is you’re saying. You could’ve been the best follower of your religion your whole life, but none of it matters now. Because in the real world, in this moment, I’m here and you’re there. And I have the gun. It won’t work. I promise you. Do you understand?”

“God,” the cop says to the sky, ignoring him. “Please God.”

“You have a daughter. Is that your only child?” He doesn’t respond, still praying. “Is it?” he asks with aggression.

“Yes.”

“Instead of focusing on whatever it is you are, focus on what’s here. In the world of Daniel Jepson. If you don’t have any sons it means the Jepson name ends tonight. Your direct line at least. Since the beginning of humankind there’s been a Jepson man on this planet, even before the label existed. Over a hundred thousand years. All those people leading to you. And now to this. And this is how you’re going to honor the lineage in its last moments? Crying and wetting your pants? This is how you’re going to let all that history culminate after a hundred thousand years?”

“You don’t have to—”

“I do. Stop thinking about whether or not it’s going to happen and start focusing on making it happen right. Have some respect for yourself and the ones before you.” Still crying, the officer wriggles on the floor, urine patch widening, scent of it emanating through the room.

Dante observes him for another half-minute or so, then angles the gun at him. Sean clenches his eyelids and turns his head, his arm stiff as it extends from the gunman’s other wrist. Dante moves the firearm in small waves back and forth, watching the cop’s frightened eyeballs follow the dark hole at the end, listening to his soft gasps upon each revolution. Then he pulls the trigger. The round enters him through the bridge of the nose, cratering his face, spraying bits of skull and brain into the cheap carpet.

Panting in fear, Sean shields his vision from the dead body with his free hand as Dante lugs him across the stained rug and out the door. They step into the night, quiet other than the scratch of squirrels. Weapon at his side, Dante inspects the Suddsfield municipal complex, library, courthouse, recreation center. All closed.

He makes out the Lincoln in an impound lot behind a chain-link fence about a hundred feet away. Closing in on it, he grabs the police keys from his pocket and releases the cuff on himself. He twists Sean’s hands behind his back and tightens the second restraint on him, assuring he can’t try to escape again, then opens the rear door of his car and pushes him inside.

He pops the trunk, sifts through all his equipment, and takes out a screwdriver. He slams the hatch, kneels, and removes his back license plate, sticking the screws in his pocket. With the metal rectangle tucked under his arm he struts to the front and detaches the other. He steps to a maroon Ford F-250 pickup, one of four other vehicles in the impound, and unfastens its tags, replacing them with the Lincoln’s. He returns to his car and fixes the truck’s plates to it.

He gazes around in all directions for movement, the glow from the police-station lamppost illuminating the hole in his head. Nothing, nobody. He climbs in his sedan, turns on the engine, and cruises toward the freeway, picking up his journey where he left it.

A lanky seventy-something man is rubbing his body with medical-grade soap inside a shower stall in the hospital in Zurich where Natasha is quarantined. In five minutes or so he shuts off the water and exits into a ten-foot-by-ten-foot vacuum-sealed room with metal walls, tile floors, and no windows. The word “Interaction” is posted on the borders in red letters in multiple languages.

He removes a sterile towel from a stainless steel hook and dries himself off, then drapes it back on the peg, collects unworn sets of underwear and socks from another hook, and slips them on. He turns to his Catholic priest attire, suspended from a hanger. He slides on the black pants, then the shirt of the same color, buttoning it to the top and tucking it in. Bending, he steps into a pair of brand-new shiny dark shoes and laces them.

Catching his reflection in a small mirror, he removes a white clergy collar from a bin and fastens it around his neck. He lifts a comb from the same bin and drags it through his moist white hair. Though he’s in good shape for his age, his skin is still old and loose and shakes around his jaw as he sweeps his hand over his scalp. He watches his eyes, flecks of blue remaining in them through the decades but the bulk of their centers gray now. There’s a hint of uneasiness to his gaze as if he’s harboring a worry but his will to suppress it is winning by a slight margin.

Laying down the comb, he grasps an opaque plastic bag, then walks to a steel door on the far wall. He hits a black button next to it. A loud buzzer rings as the heavy slab frees from its compression lock, a green light flashing as well. A red light emanates from a similar door behind him as it self-seals, assuring both passages can’t be open at the same time, guaranteeing no air from the quarantine area can flow backwards into the main supply.

Stepping through the entryway, he progresses to a second small room that appears identical to the last except for its lack of a shower. A blue biohazard suit waits on a metal table in the center. The priest studies it for a moment, the first he’s ever seen in person. He peels it off the surface and maneuvers his legs, then arms inside. He secures a zipper and series of clamps stretching across the chest. He grips a rubber glove from the table, holds the base to his lips, and blows inside. Pinching the opening, he checks to see if it retains the air, verifying there are no holes in it that can lead to skin exposure. He does the same with a second glove, then puts both on.

The last item on the surface is an air mask. He straps it on his head, his milky hair curling around the black belts. He puts the hood of the biohazard outfit over himself, a plastic shield now covering his face, the loud huffing of the breathing apparatus coursing through the confines of the airtight suit.

He clutches the opaque plastic bag he carried in with him, then turns to another steel door. He presses its black button, activating a noise and green light from it, in addition to a red one from the self-closing door in the rear. The entrance unlocks and he advances into Natasha’s chamber, the opening suctioning shut behind him right away.

He looks around, the bright circular bulbs on the ceiling, the six-inch glass over the observation area, the closet of medical paraphernalia. Then the bed. He finds it difficult to view the scene before him. Natasha lies there emaciated, about a dozen pounds stripped off her already-skinny frame, a respirator mask over her mouth and nose, dialysis equipment dug into her arm. The pace of his breath increases, crisp close-together puffs consuming the sealed suit.

Her head crawling to the left, she notices him with her weary stare. She doesn’t seem fazed by his outfit, all her visitors the past few days required to wear the same. She holds her attention on him, the priest stepping closer, less than a foot from the mattress.

The respirator conceals much of her face, but her eyes are exposed, a darker red than they were a few days ago, internal bleeding more extreme now. The priest spots a thin circle of blood around the rim of each eye. He’s been among many sick people in the past but the sight of such a young, beautiful girl bleeding from her eyeballs disturbs him in a way he’s never experienced in his seventy-plus years. Wanting to evade the image, he moves his focus to a tube extending from her forearm.

“Hi Natasha, I’m Father Beimer,” he says in German, his words coming through a voice-transmission device fixed to his air mask. “Nice to meet you.” She surveys him with slight movements of her eyes, the rings of blood around them swelling a bit with the motion. “Let’s begin my dear.”

He reaches into his plastic bag and extracts a vial of olive oil. Bottle in his hand, he makes the sign of the cross over himself, liquid swashing against the glass, then bows his head and says, “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” His body heat fogs the plastic shield in front of his face, the girl hazier to him through it now. He removes the cork from the oil receptacle and dribbles some on his rubber-gloved thumb. He spreads it on her brow, the liquid cold, goose bumps running down her neck.