The Devil's Elixir (41 page)

She didn’t even wait for me to answer, her face ablaze with excitement. “The pulmonary. Another kid who started remembering a past life had this birthmark under his chin. The past life he was talking about matched that of a drug dealer who killed himself by holding a gun to his chin and pulling the trigger. When Stephenson and his team looked into it, they got coroner reports and eyewitness testimonies, then they checked the kid more closely and you know what they found? A hairless birthmark on the top of his head, exactly where the autopsy report said the bullet’s exit wound was. Stephenson’s website says that in many cases where they saw a birthmark that corresponded to the entry point of a bullet, they discovered another one that matched the exit wounds on the autopsy reports. It’s mind-boggling.”

My mind was definitely in a major boggle. Two tides were pulling at my better judgment. One was that it was Tess telling me all this, and Tess had a finely tuned bullshit detector, one I trusted. The other was Stephenson. The fact that a Harvard PhD with all his credentials could devote his life to researching hundreds of cases and end up being convinced by a significant number of them wasn’t that easy to dismiss. I just couldn’t believe I was actually sitting here entertaining this insane notion, but I was intrigued and found myself going along with her and asking, “Do all the past lives that these kids recall involve a violent death? Hasn’t anyone remembered a past life that ended peacefully in bed?”

She studied me dubiously, like she wasn’t sure if I was being serious or just a doof. I wasn’t kidding. Either way, she said, “Actually, a vast majority of the cases he’s studied, something like seventy percent, seem to involve previous lives that didn’t end naturally, meaning they died either in a car crash or by getting shot or murdered or in some other kind of violent end. And his theory is that the shock of those deaths might somehow disrupt things and cause those souls to retain more memories than they normally would.” She paused, gauging me again. “I don’t know what to believe, but . . . you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty compelling evidence.”

“But not proof,” I pointed out. Then I nodded. “Yeah, it’s— surprising. And a bit troubling. But what about Alex? What did he say about him?”

Tess looked uneasy. “I don’t know. I only spoke to his secretary.”

“And?”

“He’s away. She doesn’t know where he is.” Tess’s face tightened, and I could see she wasn’t comfortable with what she was about to say. “I think he’s your missing scientist, Sean. The guy in the basement of the bikers’ clubhouse. The contact lens?”

That took me completely by surprise—and I was now seriously interested. “What makes you think that?”

“About ten days ago, he called her and said he had to go away. Didn’t say where, didn’t say for how long. He’s not picking up his cell. He’s never done that before.” She paused, letting out a rueful breath, then added, “He also wears contacts.”

Him and countless others. “What else?”

She hesitated.

“Tess, come on. The fact that you’re sure Stephenson didn’t slip off to Vegas on a bender means there’s more. Tell me.”

She was having trouble keeping her eyes on me, and I noticed she was also shivering. I suddenly flashed to something Karen Walker had said when we interviewed her. That the bikers’ last kidnapping was in the San Francisco area.

Stephenson was at Berkeley.

I felt a chill crawl down the back of my neck as Tess edged closer.

“I don’t think they were after you, Sean,” she said. “I think they were after Alex all along. That’s why they’re still after us. And that’s why they took Stephenson.”

“Why?” I asked, feeling my core tighten up. “Why would they want Alex?”

She met my gaze, and a shadow crossed her face. “Because they think he’s the reincarnation of McKinnon. Because it looks like your son could well be the reincarnation of the man you killed.”

V
illaverde awoke in a large, airy room.

He looked around and saw that he was in some kind of gym. An expensive, in-house one. In front of him, an elliptical trainer, a rowing machine, and a Power Plate were lined up facing a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. Beyond, he could see the sea shimmering in the moonlight, and realized he was in a beachfront villa. Which would have been great if he didn’t have his wrists and ankles duct-taped to a set of steel wall-mounted gym bars.

He was also naked above the waist.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened, how it had happened. They’d drugged him, he knew that much.

El Brujo.

The loco prick had grabbed him from his home. Which wasn’t easy. FBI personnel’s home addresses are well protected. That information isn’t easy to get hold of—not easy at all. Then he thought back to the rest of his day, and it all made sense. The mall in Mission Valley. Dumping Torres there, with a gun, all of which seemed pointless and random. It was all misdirection. They must have followed him from there, although he was always—by instinct—careful about that. Then he realized they must have tagged his SUV. Of course. Someone must have sneaked up on it and stuck a tracker to it. They didn’t even need a tracker. They could have just taped a live cell phone to his SUV and tracked that.

But why him?

Reilly.

They were after Reilly. They’d hoped to put a tracker on his car, but they couldn’t since he and Villaverde had both arrived together in Villaverde’s SUV.

And that, he realized, had signed his death sentence. There was no doubt in his mind about that.

And at that moment, not having children—or even a girlfriend—made complete and utter sense to him.

He tried tugging at the tape, but it was solid. His arms were stretched out horizontally, his legs spread into a V—he was like a fly caught on sticky tape.

Something else, too. His head felt heavy. Heavy, and—slow. Like his reflexes were dulled.

He heard footsteps at the door, and twisted his neck to see who it was. The door to the gym opened, and a man stepped in. He was smartly dressed in a black open-necked shirt and some expensive-looking gray slacks. He wore dark leather loafers without socks, and his slick black hair was gelled back.

He had a fat, short, curved knife in his hand.

And as he positioned himself in front of Villaverde, the agent met the man’s eyes and felt an odd shiver. They were studying him with an inscrutable intensity, the kind of eyes that were laser-focused but aware of everything around them, the kind of eyes that could casually dismiss anything they surveyed without the hint of emotion.

And in that glance, he spotted the tiniest of acknowledgements, as if to say, “Yes, it is me.” And Villaverde knew, for certain, that it was Navarro.

“Don’t think you’re going to—”

“Ssshh,” the man stilled him with two rigid fingers in front of his mouth. Then he raised his knife and, slowly, slid it across the surface of Villaverde’s bare chest without pushing it in too deeply and opened up a vivid, red, circular gash across his entire torso.

Villaverde refused to scream. He wouldn’t give the
pinche madre
the satisfaction. Navarro studied him dispassionately, then he slashed his chest again, and again, making horizontal and vertical slits that criss-crossed the circle in a symmetrical pattern. Then the man finally stepped back, admired his handiwork, took out a cloth from his pocket and began to wipe clean his blade.

Villaverde felt like he was going to black out from the pain. He was trying not to look at his lacerated chest, but couldn’t help himself. His torso was a bloody, fleshy mess of cuts. He was bleeding profusely, his blood drenching his pants and dripping off his toes and onto the polished wood floor of the gym. None of the cuts, however, appeared to have hit an artery or an organ.

He didn’t understand why he was being tortured before Navarro had even bothered to ask him what he wanted to know. He had always wondered how he’d react in a situation like this. He knew he wouldn’t tell them anything, no matter how much pain he felt. He was going to die anyway, there was no way around that. But he had several choices regarding how he spent his last moments alive. He was in too much pain to get angry, and he felt it was pointless to vent by screaming abuse. But he still had to say something. Honor demanded it.

“Whatever you’re after, you do know you’re going to end up like all the others, right? Sooner or later, if we don’t get you, one of your fellow narcos will and you’ll be dog food like everyone else.”

Navarro tilted his head to one side and gave Villaverde a thin smile. Then he removed a small leather pouch from his pocket and loosened the lace that held it closed. He held the pouch aloft, almost reverently, and whispered a few words in a language that Villaverde didn’t understand. Then Navarro’s eyes gazed directly into his own.

“Clear your mind, and enjoy.”

He dipped a hand into the pouch, then pulled it out. His cupped palm was now full of a fine gray dust that looked something like human ash. He took a step forward, so he was up close to his prisoner, reached out, and—with his eyes locked on Villaverde’s—he massaged the dust into the open wounds on Villaverde’s chest. The powder burned—badly—but Navarro didn’t flinch, even though Villaverde was screaming so loudly it felt like he was going to burst his own eardrums.

Then, just as suddenly as he’d started, he stopped. He turned and stepped away, grabbing a towel from a stand on the way and wiping his hands as he stood by the glass wall and stared out at the sea.

Villaverde felt the pain subside, then, very quickly, his pulse started to race. He thought of Torres and realized that in a few minutes he wouldn’t be in control of his own mind.

After a few minutes, Navarro returned to face him and stood absolutely still, staring at him while muttering some more incomprehensible words.

And then he felt it. Much sooner than he had expected.

His temperature rose. Sweat broke out across his face. Stomach acid boiled in his abdomen and shot up into his mouth, making him retch and almost choke. He shut his eyes, only to see strange, primordial shapes glide across his vision. He opened his eyes again, but the weird forms were still there, swimming across his vision of Navarro and the gym behind him.

He closed his eyes again, trying to block out the confusion. Blinding colors took over, then suddenly, they disappeared, like someone had hit a switch in the back of his eyes. The blackness was intense, complete—a darkness he’d never encountered. He opened his eyes, suddenly terrified that he’d gone blind, and the creatures appeared. Horrible, hissing reptiles and snakes. Deformed, human-like shapes, snarling through fanged teeth, strafing him from all corners. And behind them, black walls, closing in, tightening against him like a giant vise.

He started to scream and shut his eyes, trying to block out the horror. He forced himself to think of something else, something calming, and thought of the last time he’d gone surfing at Black’s Beach. He tried to focus on the waves rolling in from the submarine trench half a mile off the coast. On the raw ocean swells marching toward the shore, one after the other, before releasing their energy in big hollow peaks. He tried to remember the smell of the sea, the sound of the seagulls shrieking overhead, the feeling of the sheer power of the waves as he paddled out to join the lineup.

For a brief moment, it worked. He felt a blissful calmness as his turn came up. He jumped up onto his board. Bent his knees. Centered his weight. But something was rushing toward him. Not the beach. Not the ocean. Something else. Something from deep inside of him. He felt it slam into him with a force greater than the biggest wave he’d ever ridden. It knocked all the air from him. He couldn’t breathe and was gasping for air. It seemed as though all his organs were jammed up against his heart—and then it burst out of the cuts on his chest.

A three-headed snake, thick as a boa and black and slimy, emerging from a field of flames, curling out, coming out of him and spinning on itself before it drew level with his face and snarled at him, its wide jaws filled with rows of fangs.

Villaverde could see flames jutting out of the cuts on his chest, he could smell his own skin burning and feel it sizzling and melting from the scorching heat. He knew he would be incinerated completely within seconds, and as he screamed and tried to turn away from the monster facing him, it followed his head around and moved right in so it was breathing into his sweat-drenched face and asked him, with an echoey hiss, “Where are they?”