The Cold Beneath (29 page)

Damn my soul for the sin of love, but the sight of that single, shining cog stayed my hand and doomed us all!

As I stared at the cog, wondering if I had indeed lost my mind, there came an abrupt pinch in my arm. At first I thought it was my wound, waking me from my stupor to remind me that Geraldine was correct about one thing. I had lost a lot of blood. But no, it wasn’t just my wound. It was something else.

Something worse.

I glanced down in time to see her remove the needle from where she had injected the contents of a hypodermic directly into my injury. Lifting my gaze, I followed the length of her arm to her shoulder then up to her face. There, Geraldine’s smile spread wide, claiming her lips like a cancerous growth, ugly and dark. I blinked as her image swam in and out of focus, growing hazy as a sudden heaviness fell upon me.

“Ger …” was all I could manage before my thoughts went soft, as did my entire body.

From somewhere far off, I heard Albert ask, “Laddie?”

“He’s passing out from the blood loss,” Geraldine said, though we both knew it to be a lie.

The gun became weighty, ten times the burden it was seconds ago. I tried to keep it trained on her, but it was useless. I couldn’t focus on standing, much less threatening someone else. Geraldine plucked the weapon from my hand, disarming me with ease. My knees buckled, and I tipped forward, sliding to the floor in a slow drop.

“It’s all right, Philip,” she whispered as the world tunneled to black. “Everything is going to be all right now. Just rest. Rest.”

As if I could do anything else. I struggled, fought like a demon against whatever preparation she slipped me, but the darkness folded over my consciousness, drowning me in its vast embrace. I was forced to obey her command, having little choice but to rest, though on some level I suppose I should be grateful, because it would prove to be the last real rest I would obtain.

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back to toc

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Twenty-Nine

Confessions

A muted groaning woke me, pulling me from the darkness.

When I came around, it was with the drug-induced haze of forgetfulness. I was unsure where I was, and for a blessed moment who I was. My body ached with the echo of squaring off with a world championship fighter, and losing to the man more than once. Groaning, I tried to sit up, tried to roll over and gain some level of comfort, but found myself unable to lift my hands or feet. This wasn’t owed to my weakness, though I was weak, have no doubt of that. When I tried to move, I found myself bound at the wrists and ankles by leather straps, strung through the head and foot of the metal cot.

In those first brief moments, as I struggled against the bindings, my blank mind went wild with notions of what was happening. I was fully dressed in warm clothes, though my right sleeve was rolled up to the elbow with a bandage covering most of my forearm. It ached with a dull pain. Had I been injured? I couldn’t remember.

“Fascinating,” Geraldine said, and with her voice, everything flooded back to me.

The voyage.

The wreck.

The deaths.

The betrayal.

My heart burned with ire, smoldered with rage as I remembered the events that led me to that moment. I wanted to scream and rant, but my tongue was a cotton snake in my mouth. Whatever drug she had slipped me left me bone dry and in sore need of fluids. I returned to wriggling against the bindings, and in the silence of my struggle, that low groan met my ears again, then atop this I heard her speak.

“Very interesting reaction,” she said.

Turning my head to her voice, I was surprised to see her seated in front of Albert’s cot, watching him with interest and taking notes as she did. Poor Albert was also restrained, though he fought against his straps with much more vigor than I possessed. He was gagged in addition to being bound, which kept his cries subdued to the groaning that woke me. The more I stared at the pair of them, the more I realized that it wasn’t just one of the injured men Geraldine was observing.

It was all of them.

And they were all dead.

My gaze raked the room in a slow crawl. All five men were bound to their cots, which lay on either side of mine. Each man was tied down by a variety of materials: belts, lengths of rope, one man was even strapped down with extra bed sheets. Every single one bore the pallor of death, graven and gray, and their eyes were cold and lifeless. They struggled against their bindings and chewed on their gags as they tried to free themselves. The flame of my anger was doused for a brief moment, drowned by a flood of pity. It was a shame that these men should suffer such a fate after facing so much torment in the days before. My heart especially ached for poor Albert; though no one deserved such a fate, it seemed doubly sorrowful that he should succumb after all he had done to avoid it.

Amidst the writhing revenants sat Geraldine, hunched over a note pad and scribbling furiously. Beside her rested a tray of surgical instruments, some red with blood and others still clean, waiting their turn for whatever strange business the woman had been engaged in. It didn’t take a great leap of logic to realize the blood came from the revenants. I couldn’t imagine what she had been doing to those creatures. No, that’s not true. I could imagine, and I still can. I just don’t
want
to know.

“Pip?” Geraldine asked. “You’re awake.”

I snapped my attention to her, questioning her with my eyes as I lifted my bound hands as far as they would allow.

“You must be thirsty,” she said.

I nodded.

Geraldine stood and crossed the room to fetch a jug. Pouring a glass of liquid, she commented, almost offhandedly, “The pentothal does that.”

That was one mystery solved; she had shot me full of sodium pentothal. I wondered if she’d had the syringe in reserve, waiting for just the right moment to use it on me, or if perhaps it was meant for someone else? Geraldine came to my side, holding a straw up to my dry lips. I glanced at the cup, then back up to her with a look that I hoped said I had no intention of consuming anything she offered.

“Go on then,” she said, poking the straw at my mouth. “Trust me, it’s just water.”

I turned my head away, sending her a clear message as to how much I trusted her.

“Pip,” she said, that wicked grin taking her lips again. “You can trust me. Why would I poison you now? I’ve had plenty of time to do so without your pitiful glances. If I wanted you gone, I could have just kept you under until you dehydrated or starved to death.”

She had a point. I may have been in a vulnerable position, but why would she let me rouse at all? Why not just let me die? I wish that she had.

“Besides,” she added. “I know you won’t be happy until you know what is going on. Will you?”

Damn, but she was right! Above everything else—more than my release, more than my freedom from this scourge, more than enacting my vengeance—I desired to know what on Earth was occurring here. This endless need to discover the truth of things was my greatest weakness, and she knew it.

Geraldine raised an eyebrow as she held the straw out again.

I drank.

It might have just been water, but to me it was the nectar of life. The cool burst of liquid soothed my dry throat and tongue, quenching my thirst and lubricating my vocal cords. I moaned in gratitude, though it was directed at the precious liquid and not the bearer of the cup.

“I’m happy to oblige,” Geraldine said, mistaking my sounds of satisfaction as appreciation for her efforts. “Now, if you promise to behave, I’ll loosen your cuffs a bit.”

“Why?” I croaked. “Why bind me at all if you are just going to set me free?”

 
“Your wound was so deep, I wasn’t sure you would make it at all.” Geraldine cocked her head at me as she took on a look of pity.

I glanced down to my bandaged arm. The circumstances that led to the injury came upon me with the suddenness of a wild jungle animal stalking its prey. Gideon Alabaster Lightbridge was dead, and the world was far poorer for it. My rage returned at the burning memory of cradling his cooling corpse in my arms. I took what little comfort I could in the fact that he was spared the suffering of Albert and the others.

Geraldine continued, “I couldn’t run the risk of you changing when I had my back turned. So you had to be bound. Like the rest of them.”

The men in question continued to wiggle and groan across from us. The sight of their suffering drove bile into my throat. To imagine that I could so easily slip into the same state at the whim of one woman nauseated me.

“I said you could trust me,” she said. “But can I trust you?”

I looked back to her again and saw for the first time just how weary she was. Gone was the glimmering perfection of her usual splendor. She was pale with weakness and trembling from a chill. And yet I still found her beautiful. Despite all that was happening, I still believed I loved her. “You can trust me.” I lifted my hands, open-palmed, to show her I meant no harm. I was in no position to overtake her anyhow.

With a smile, she released my feet then loosened my hands, feeding me enough slack so I could sit upright. No sooner had I raised my head than the room spun and vertigo set upon me. I reeled in place, threatening to tip to the floor, but she was there to catch me before I could fall.

“I have you,” she said, pushing my back against the wall as she swung my legs to the edge of the cot. “There. Is that better?”

I nodded, my eyes closed as my equilibrium settled itself.

“Can’t have you passing out on me,” she said. She gave my wrist straps a quick tighten, adjusting me in place. “Then who will I talk to until the rescue party arrives?”

Another mystery unraveled. It was a simple and almost heartbreaking answer. She had roused me for company, nothing more. Yet it made little sense. When I went under, there were three able-bodied men still up and about. If she were so lonely, what kept her from talking to them? I was almost afraid to find out, but again my need to know overwhelmed my fear.

“What of Collins?” I asked. “And Lent? And …” I paused as I racked my tired mind for the third crewman’s name. “Bryant. What of the men?”

“What of them?”

“They were outside the ship when you drugged me. The last I saw of them, all three were very much alive and well. What happened to them?”

“Nothing.”

I sensed something hidden in her voice. “Where are they?”

“They … they are busy.”

She was lying. I had heard enough stories from her to know that little pause meant she was making it up on the fly. “Busy with what?”

“Busy … taking care of the ship. Don’t let it concern you.”

There was that pause again. I decided to push her for an answer. “Lent! Collins! Help me!”

The revenants began groaning louder in tune to my screams for help.

This in turn seemed to agitate Geraldine. She covered her ears and shouted, “Stop that! Shut up!”

I pressed on, sure she was hiding something. “Bryant! Come here! Quick!”

The revenants howled beneath their gags.

“You’re upsetting the subjects!” she shouted.

“Lent!” I cried.

“He’s gone! All right? They are all gone, so stop your shouting!”

I did as asked, but not out of obedience. I was confused. “What do you mean gone?” I gasped as a sudden idea took me. “They didn’t try to go after the rescue party, did they?”

“No. They’re just … gone.”

I caught the nuance of her meaning that time. They were gone, as in dead. Last I remembered, we had dispatched every revenant, and the only ones left to turn were in this very room, strapped in place. I couldn’t have imagined a scenario in which all three men would lose their lives at once. Unless …

“I had to,” she said, confirming my suspicion. “Pip, you must understand that I had to dispose of them.”

I jawed the air a moment, at a complete loss for words. When my voice returned, I asked, “Why? Why would you do that?”

Geraldine returned to her chair. As she passed each bed along the way, the revenants’ groaning grew louder under their gags, their thrashing more pronounced, wilder, as if her very proximity infuriated them. I couldn’t fault them for that. Her presence sickened me to the core. When she reached her seat, she picked up her notepad and sat down.

Looking at the paper, and not to me, she said, “They were risky. Unpredictable factors. Extraneous, so I eliminated them.”

“Extraneous?” I echoed. My God, did her evil know no bounds? I stared at her, this woman I thought I knew, thought I loved, and wondered who I was really looking at. Because this woman who sat before me was a total stranger. “Geraldine, they were living men!”

“They were also potentially dangerous.” She sat upright with a snobbish air of superiority about her, as if her way was not only the correct way, but somehow blessed by the heavens above. “Imagine if one of them, just one of them had died and turned without warning. What would have happened to the rest of us? Chaos. Death. The whole thing would have gone to waste. All of those results, lost.”