From Black Rooms (20 page)

"Wait! I can help you, Mrs. Maddox," Pancrit said quickly, hoping to persuade her to stay. "If you can answer a few questions--"

He did not get the chance to debrief her about the afterlife, however, for she had already returned to it. Perhaps she and Clem would final y enjoy their long-delayed reunion. Nature evidently abhorred a vacuum, for in the next instant another spirit took up residence in the living corpse. Scribbles of consciousness skittered along the SoulScan readout, and Maddox's face hardened with cantankerous misanthropy.

"W
here am I?" the body's new occupant snapped at
Pancrit. It tried to sit up, discovered that its arms and legs were tied down. "This is that cursed Greener Pastures, ain't it?" it demanded, surveying the surroundings. "You people kil ed me with your incompetence. So help me, if I get in touch with my grandson, I'l make you pay, I swear I wil ." Pancrit heaved a sigh and jammed the morphine-laden hypodermic into the body's forearm. As much as the Treatment #17 phenomenon intrigued him, he had

neither the time nor the patience to transport a test subject who kept changing personalities every few minutes. Nevertheless, the experiment had proven

promising and warranted further research.

Leaving the former Greener Pastures resident to rattle and gripe in the dying body, Pancrit ambled out into the hal way, tapping his pen on the clipboard as he mul ed over his notes.

16

Two on a Couch

THAT NIGHT, AS SHE HUDDLED WITH SERENA

AROUND HER "OFFICE" the smal desk in the living room where she kept her computer--Natalie

began to wonder if their entire undercover op at

Greener Pastures had been a bust. According to her Web searches, no one in Seattle seemed to have noticed that Clement Maddox was missing, Evan Markham had kept himself underground, and the main thing that came up for the entry "Dr. Wax" were advertisements for Dr. Zog's Sex Wax, a surfboard coating.

The name "Pancrit" produced a few thousand results, most of them genealogical. When she entered "Carleton Pancrit," the search returned nothing.

Did you mean "Carl Anton Pancrit"? the search
engine asked her.

"Maybe I did," she murmured aloud, pulse quickening as she clicked on the link.

This time, only a handful of results came on-screen, most of them articles archived from the Philadelphia
Inquirer that dated back to the early eighties. Natalie
selected the most promising title in the list, "University
Doctor Suspended for Possible Ethics Violations."
She felt Serena squeeze her shoulder as the article came up. "Nat, I think we've found our man."
University Doctor Suspended for Possible Ethics
Violations

King of Prussia, Pa.--Dr. Carl Anton Pancrit, a lead physician at the Pierpont University Center for

Gerontology, has been put on indefinite, unpaid leave pending investigation of "certain unauthorized research activities," a university spokesperson said in a prepared statement yesterday.

The university refused to state the nature of the research in question, but sources close to the investigation, on condition of anonymity, stated that Dr. Pancrit, 42, had abused his professional relationship with terminal patients to further his study of the passing of the soul's quantum energy from the physical body at the time of death.

Specifical y, these sources say, a col eague discovered Dr. Pancrit attending to a cancer victim to whom he had attached a SoulScan device. The SoulScan, a

sophisticated instrument capable of registering a soul's electromagnetic fluctuations, is general y used only on licensed conduits of the North American Afterlife Communications Corps. These conduits, commonly

known as Violets for their violet-colored eyes, employ the device to confirm that a deceased individual's soul has inhabited them.

According to the col eague, whose name was withheld, Dr. Pancrit hoped the SoulScan would show precisely how long the patient's soul remained in the body after cessation of autonomic functions. Although Pancrit presented a signed form in which the unnamed cancer patient consented to the experiment, university officials believed the doctor's methodology to be a violation of prevailing medical ethics.

The revelation has also spurred the families of some of Dr. Pancrit's previous patients to press for a review of the physician's treatment of their deceased relations. Dr. Pancrit could not be reached for comment.

Natalie and Serena skimmed the other relevant articles, but none of them revealed what became of the

investigation, or of Dr. Carl Anton Pancrit. A terse, one-paragraph item merely stated that Dr. Pancrit had resigned his post at the university and that the

Gerontology Center had settled al outstanding

malpractice claims for an undisclosed amount.

"How do you suppose he wriggled out of that one?" Natalie wondered.

"Two words--Corps Security," Serena said. "Corps never has enough Violets to satisfy it. Pancrit must've cut a deal with 'em. If the N-double-A-C-C paid off the families and shut down the investigation before he went to jail, he'd churn out al the Violets they want." She snorted her contempt. "Crazy bastard might just do it, too."

"But he hasn't yet. He said the project wasn't working, and Maddox was...screwed up somehow." Natalie didn't want to think about what that meant for Calvin. The foil didn't seem to protect him as wel as it first had; by the time she and Serena got back to the condo that evening, he had begun hearing voice-echoes in his head again, "remembering" things that hadn't happened to him, feeling the spider-skitters in his extremities that indicated a knocking soul. At that moment, he was lying on her father's bed upstairs, muttering to himself.
This subject's going to end up like all the others.
No, Natalie told herself. Calvin would not end up like
Maddox. There had to be some way of reversing the process.

"We need to talk to Wax," she declared.

"That'd be great if we knew how to get ahold of him." Serena rose from her chair to stretch her long acrobat's arms. She'd shed her grandma costume in favor of a khaki tank top and camo pants, but hadn't had a chance to wash the silver out of her wig, making her look like a geriatric commando. "You sure that was Evan's voice you heard talking to Pancrit?"

"Positive."

"So this Wax guy is dead. We could summon him ourselves if we had a touchstone for him. 'Course, that would entail finding out who the hel he was and where his stuff is."

"Maybe not. Maybe we can find the touchstone first." Natalie remembered the list of forgeries Pancrit wanted her to paint: The Scream, Storm on the Sea of Galilee,
Madonna of the Yarnwinder, and the others. All of
which had made headlines when the mysterious Arthur Maven returned the stolen works to their respective museums without apology or explanation.

I told you what would happen to your pretty pictures if
you disappointed me, Pancrit had threatened Wax.

"Wax has some connection to those stolen paintings Pancrit asked Calvin and me to copy," she said, thinking aloud. "What if he came into contact with the originals? He might have touched them...or at least the frames. We could use those as touchstones."

Serena smacked her forehead. "Of course! It's so simple--al we have to do is lay our hands on a couple of Rembrandts. Why didn't I think of that?"

"No, I'm serious! Sea of Galilee, Chez Tortoni, and The
Concert are all back at the Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum in Boston. We could be there in a day. I'd only need to touch one of the paintings long enough to summon Wax." She paused for her friend to insert a put-down. "Unless you've got a better idea." Serena frowned but didn't reject the proposal out of hand. "Boston, huh? Long way to go for a wild-goose chase."

"It's closer than Oslo." Natalie smiled with goofy optimism.

"Can't argue with that." Serena mul ed it over, then took out the wal et she carried in place of a purse. She produced her Corps credit card and handed it to Natalie.

"Go ahead and book our flights. Give me a day's layover in Albuquerque."

The request unnerved Natalie. She didn't want to be without Serena's protection. "You're not coming to Boston?"

"I'l meet you there. Right now, I gotta go chat with Uncle Simon. This thing's even bigger and badder than the ol' paranoid thought it was."

"It's just...I can't leave Dad and Cal ie here alone. And Calvin's a mess--I'l have to take him with us." Freed from the brown contacts she'd worn that

afternoon, Serena rol ed her violet eyes upward, as if she could see through the living-room ceiling to the man who languished, sweating, in the bed upstairs. "I wouldn't get too attached to Calvin if I were you, Nat. Things don't look good for the boy."

As soon as Natalie had reserved a red-eye flight to New Mexico for her, Serena bid her farewel with a tightlipped "Good luck." Nettled by Serena's cold-blooded pessimism, Natalie gave her an equal y curt good-bye. No matter how grim the prognosis, she wasn't about to treat Calvin like a pet that needed to be put to sleep. The moment Serena's Harley rumbled off into the

night, Natalie went up to see how he was doing.

She got the answer even before she entered the

bedroom, for his broken, desperate mumbling leaked out the open door.

"A
-B-C...d-d-DEE...E-F...juh-juh-GEE--"
Calvin broke off, embarrassed, as she leaned through the door frame, as if she'd overheard him singing in the shower. He sat up on the bed and steadied himself, stil wearing the foil beneath his basebal cap and folding his arms to keep from wrapping them around his head.

"Oh. Hey."

He reminded Natalie of herself at five years old, when she was first practicing her protective mantra at the School. She, too, had been too scared to admit that she could not control her own mind, too proud to let others know how hard the mental discipline was for her.

"Mind if I come in?" she asked.

"Please. It'l be nice to actual y see the person who's talking to me for a change."

She seated herself beside him on the rumpled

comforter. "How's it going?"

"I have plenty of company, if that's what you mean. How do you stand it? Al those people talking to you, al the time? Most of them ticked off about something or other."

"You learn to tune them out." Natalie wondered if that would be true for Calvin, however. He seemed to be far more receptive to souls than any Violet she'd ever known, including herself.

"You find out anything about our mad-scientist friends?"

"Sort of. But we need to go to Boston to learn more."

"We?"

"I can't leave you here alone in your condition. Not with Evan and Pancrit out there looking for us." Calvin nodded gamely. "Okay, Boston it is. When do we leave?"

"First thing in the morning, so we should get some sleep." Natalie glanced with chagrin at the bed she was going to ask him to vacate for her father. "I can let you have the couch tonight, if you want."

"No, you don't need to do that. Just give me a throw pil ow, and I'l crash on the floor."

"C'mon, you need a good night's rest." Natalie nudged him in the ribs. "Tel you what--the sofa bed's wide enough. We can share." Raising a hand to cut off any prurient speculation, she added, "Ful y clothed, of course."

He lifted his hand to pledge. "On my honor as a gentleman." His singular green-violet eyes went glassy, his expression going from comic to tragic so fast that she feared another soul might be trying to enter him. "I can't tel you what it means, Natalie--everything you've done for me. I know I'm nothing but a schmuck who showed up on your doorstep, but I swear, if I make it through this...

He grasped for something he could offer in repayment, but apparently couldn't come up with anything worthy. Natalie smiled. "You'l make it. Now, let's go have a slumber party."

The sofa bed was big enough for both of them--barely. Calvin's feet jutted out over the edge of the mattress, and Natalie had to lie on her side to keep from brushing shoulders with him.

A light sleeper under the best of circumstances, Natalie found it impossible to doze off while fretting about Evan and Pancrit, dressed in her street clothes, and crammed next to a man she barely knew whose bulk

made the flimsy springs of the couch cot screech every time he rol ed over. The fact that he kept mumbling to himself didn't help, either.

Insomnia loves company, so it was only a matter of time before she said, "Calvin? You awake?"

"Of course." He flipped over to face her, the mattress cresting and dipping with his shifting weight. "Thought you'd never ask."

As was her custom, Natalie had left the lights on in the kitchen in case she needed to get up during the night. The dim il umination that stretched into the living room reflected off the crinkled foil on Calvin's head and whitened his smile, which she returned. "Mind if I pose a personal question?"

He sighed. "Anything's better than lying here listening to the whispering in my brain. Shoot."

"Your technique on that Rembrandt is astonishing. I think you're one of the most gifted painters I've ever met--even better than Hector Espinoza, though don't you dare tel him I said that."

Calvin grinned. "I'm liking this so far. What's the question?"

"With al that talent, why blow it by breaking the law and going to jail?"

His smile wilted. "Ouch. Talk about a backhanded compliment."

Natalie had anticipated that Calvin's past would be a sore spot for him. Perhaps infected by Serena's

mistrust, she wanted to probe the depth of his remorse, to test whether he regretted committing the crime as much as getting caught for it. She could forgive him one ghastly mistake if he'd truly learned from it. After al , Natalie herself had become so desperate for money after leaving the Corps that she had gone to Peru to participate in an il egal hunt for Incan treasure. The lapse in moral judgment led her to kil two men, and though she had kil ed in self-defense, the memory of their dead faces served as an indelible emblem of her own past sins.