Читать книгу The Green Memory of Fear - B. A. Chepaitis - Страница 9

Chapter 4

Home Planet, Toronto, Canada

“You must be Dr. Addams. I’m Susan. Please come in.”

Jaguar stood on the front porch of the Karas house on Spodina Street as Susan Karas opened the door wide and extended an arm inward. Jaguar crossed the threshold into a wide entrance hall with a thick Persian rug laid over shiny white tiles. Expensive. The best.

She followed Susan into the living room and looked around. It was painted in neutral tones, with neutral furniture and beige satin curtains at the windows. Paintings of muted pastel flowers and family photos hung on the walls. The flowers in a crystal vase on the coffee table were fresh. The rug was thick and soft and clean. She’d read in the files that the Karas’s had old money, through the father’s family.

Mrs. Karas waved toward the deeply cushioned couch. “Please sit,” she said.

“I appreciate your cooperation, Mrs. Karas,” Jaguar said.

“Of course,” she said, waving it away. “Anything—if it will help with this mess. It’s awful. Oh, and do call me Susan.”

Jaguar considered telling Susan to call her Jaguar, then sensed she wouldn’t be comfortable using that name. It wouldn’t go with the furniture, or her very expensive and neutral clothes. She was groomed as perfectly as her house, but Jaguar noted the fatigue lines at her eyes, the pinched flesh at her mouth. She was holding tight, trying to get through events nothing had ever prepared her for.

“It’s been tough on all of you,” Jaguar commented.

“Worst for Daro, of course. He can’t go to school, so he’s getting tutored through the courts, and the guard follows him everywhere. You were stopped by the one out in front?”

Jaguar nodded. A large man in a protective vest took her credentials. The Province was going to a lot of trouble to make sure Daro didn’t die, or kill anyone in some embarrassing way, as the other boys had.

Susan sighed. “Everyone’s been great, really protective. His guards, and his law guardian’s wonderful, but Daro has to answer all these questions over and over again. And so do I. So does his father.”

“What questions do they ask you?”

“Oh, why did we send him to Dr. Senci? Do we have any marital trouble?” She made a derisive sound. “Marital trouble. As if that explains why Daro—why any of this happened.”

As if they were the criminals, Jaguar thought. Technically, anyone who reported sexual abuse was only a witness, acting properly as citizens to help the Province prosecute a crime, but Daro was inherently suspect because he’d gone to see a neuropsych specialist in the first place.

“Daro went to Dr. Senci for help with nightmares, didn’t he?” Jaguar asked.

Susan confirmed this, but added that nightmares were too mild a word. He had wild, raging, terrifying dreams that woke him nightly and kept him up until daylight, when he could sometimes collapse into a few hours restless sleep. He stopped doing his homework, going to school, playing with friends.

His parents wanted to know if he was a candidate for Liratone, a new wonder drug for childhood Attention Deficit Disorder that had the unexpected benefit of giving beautiful, soothing dreams. They wanted the best for their son, and Dr. Senci was known as that, so they consulted with him. Dr. Senci’s notes indicated his belief that Mr. and Mrs. Karas were somehow creating the nightmares. They were suspect from the minute they called him.

And for all Jaguar knew, they should be. She’d worked with enough pedophiles to know upper middle class white parents were not immune from that moral disaster. It was entirely possible that Daro, unable to accuse his parents, threw the blame onto the nearest available substitute. Jaguar had to consider that possibility. Of course, it didn’t explain what happened to the other boys, but technically that was none of her business. She was here only to collect information on Daro and Dr. Senci.

The panel of judges they’d present their case to, borrowed from the Medical Protective Board, made a public fuss about their policy of zero tolerance for sexual abuse between doctor and patient, but the MPB also took care of its own, so Jaguar was also wary of them. She knew they’d agreed to a closed hearing, at the parent’s request. She wondered if that was to shield Daro, or the doctor. Or maybe it was meant to shield the parents. This would wreak havoc on their social lives, Jaguar thought.

Mr. Karas was in banking, and had a social circle where this sort of thing wasn’t mentioned. Mrs. Karas worked part-time in an art gallery, a pretty career for the wife of a banker. Of course, Daro’s name had been kept out of the press, and so Jaguar supposed they could still hide their involvement from some people, but if the trial was public, that would be all over.

“Dr. Senci was treating the boys involved in the shooting, correct?” Jaguar asked.

“Yes. Also for nightmares. Daro talked to one of them in the waiting room. They—they got to be friends. The other boy—John DeLucas—Daro didn’t know.”

“Did you get a diagnosis for Daro from another doctor?” Jaguar asked.

“Two. Good thing it was all covered. They went over him head to toe. They both said they wouldn’t have prescribed the liratone. Nothing wrong with him except—PTSD, they said.”

“Post-traumatic stress disorder,” Jaguar said. The cluster of problems someone develops when they’ve been traumatized and haven’t integrated or healed the traumatic events. PTSD was assumed in her prisoners, and then specific syndromes diagnosed. What fear couldn’t they integrate? Why not? Did they need medication as well as intervention? She’d have to see Daro’s files to find out if the doctors had gotten any more specific.

“That’s right. I remember I was just relieved he wasn’t born with anything wrong. I guess I worry,” Susan admitted.

“He’s your only child, isn’t he?”

“One I never thought I’d have. Even with the in vitro, I had a hard time going to term. I keep thinking—”

She paused, and Jaguar filled in the blanks for her.

“If only you didn’t have that glass of wine while you were pregnant. If only you were younger. If only you took more vitamins. And what about great uncle Harry who never was quite right. Like that?”

Susan shook her head. “Stupid, isn’t it?”

“Normal is a better word, I think.”

“Well,” she said uncertainly. “Maybe. Would you like something to drink? Coffee, or something cold maybe? And a little food?”

“Coffee would be wonderful, if it isn’t any trouble. Shuttle coffee’s the worst.”

“No trouble at all,” she said.

They were moving toward the kitchen when the front door swung open wide and then slammed shut hard. Jaguar turned, and saw a smallish boy in sleeveless net shirt and shorts, baseball cap turned around backwards on his head, a gold hoop earring with a growling tiger dangling from the end of it in his left ear.

She found herself grinning. He could have been any child, from any age, except for the blinking electronic earcuff clipped over the tiger earring, which would allow him to communicate with his guards from anywhere. He scowled, removed it and laid it down on the table by the door before it was done blinking.

“Daro,” his mother said reprovingly, “aren’t you supposed to keep that in all the time?”

“Why? I mean, I can’t go anywhere except the yard and the stupid courthouse, and the guy’s always right there. And now I’m just here.” He stopped himself, and knit his brow at Jaguar. “Who’s she?” he asked, pointing.

She walked over to him, keeping her grin under control. “I’m Dr. Addams,” she said, extending a hand.

She saw his instinctive withdrawal. Another doctor, here to poke and prod at him.

“Not that kind of doctor,” she said quickly. “It’s an academic title. It means I went to school for too long. You can call me Jaguar.”

His face shifted its expression to interest. When he wasn’t scowling he seemed younger. Those eyes, open wide enough to let in the whole world, too wide to keep out danger.

“Jaguar?” he asked. “Like those big cats? They’re extinct.”

“Actually,” she said, “There’s still some left in captivity. Not too far from here, at a place called Exotic Cat World, off the 401.”

“Superhype,” he said. “You mean that? Hey mom, you hear that? Maybe we could go?”

“We’ll see,” she said. “I’ll talk to your father about it.”

He grinned, lopsided. Mothers, his face said. Then he pushed his hand out to her, and she took it. “Are you, like, a lawyer?”

“Not even close.”

“Cop?”

“Not that either. I’m a Teacher on the Planetoids.”

His eyes widened with respect. The general public didn’t really know much about those bits of glowing light floating above them, but they understood the work there was dangerous. The rest they filled in with their own imaginings.

“What’re you here for?” he asked.

“Daro,” his mother said, “A little politeness, please.”

“I wasn’t impolite,” he said. “I just asked.”

“That’s fine,” Jaguar agreed. “Always ask when you want to know something. I’m here to collect preliminary information on Dr. Senci for Planetoid research, in case he ends up there.” She paused a moment. “And I’m here to help you. You did a brave thing, getting that recording on Dr. Senci. You deserve some help.”

Officially, that wasn’t true. And officially, it wasn’t protocol. She wasn’t supposed to help. But she’d come here to do just that. That much she knew already.

His face grew sober and concerned. She could see the places where his childhood would drop from his cheeks and the bones live close to the flesh. He would be a handsome young man.

“It wasn’t brave,” he said. “I just didn’t want to have to, like, explain what happened. Besides I knew cops need evidence. Right?”

She nodded. “You did the right thing.”

“You gonna ask me a lot of questions about the other boys?”

“Not too many,” Jaguar said. “I’m here about you, not them.”

“I can tell you something,” he said firmly. “I know why they did it. Shot people.”

“Why?”

“Because he said to. And I know why they killed themselves.”

“Why?” Jaguar asked softly.

“Because they didn’t want to become him,” Daro said. Fear made his face young again, a little boy seeking shelter from madmen.

She saw herself at his age, living in the streets, her hands covered with blood from the rats she’d catch and eat, her eyes a wall against everything. Then, as if someone had changed channels on a television, she saw Daro kneeling in front of Dr. Senci, whose face stretched into sexual ecstasy while Daro’s eyes were blank with horror. She saw him struggle to be released from the Doctor’s hand, heard him gasp.

Stop it. That feels funny.

Just a little more, Daro. Good boy. That’s the way.

Jaguar stepped back, and the image dissolved. They hadn’t made contact. At least, she hadn’t. What had she seen? She took in air, a short breath sucked in between her teeth. Daro, looking at her, shuddered.

Susan put a hand on his shoulder. “Daro?” she asked.

He shrugged, but leaned into her at the same time.

“We don’t have to talk about lawyers and trials just yet, do we?” Susan turned to Jaguar and smiled hard. “Let’s have a snack, and Daro, you should change and wash up for dinner. Let’s do that. Okay?”

Jaguar turned to her. She was desperately seeking a way to keep this tidy and clean. And she hadn’t a chance in hell of succeeding.

“I think that would be a very good idea,” Jaguar said, and followed her to the kitchen.

Planetoid Three—Toronto Replica, Zone 12

The day after Jaguar left for Toronto Alex went back to the Senci file, and a hard copy of Davidson’s Etiquette of Vampires. He opened the book and the file on his desk, and contemplated.

Dr. Senci’s file was merely a review of the basic facts. After the Serials his primary home was in Toronto, though he maintained his New York residence. He had money he said came from his family, but those records were destroyed in the violence, so they couldn’t check on that. Looting, mugging, searching the pockets of the dead—all this was common during the Killing Times, though Dr. Senci didn’t seem the type for that kind of thuggery.

Alex drummed his fingers on his desk and peeked at his computer screen to check his calendar for the day. Final reports to file. Stats to update. He had training sessions all day tomorrow, something he often brought Jaguar to. Training was the best time to get to know new Teachers and to spot the ones with psi capacities. Jaguar could sniff those out even before the Teacher knew they had them, and given her own skills, she was the best at showing them how to use what they had.

She carefully couched all her words in psychological terminology because the Governor’s Board still frowned on open use of the empathic arts, but they knew her, so they must know what she was up to. Probably they’d use it against her the next time she got in trouble, though at this point he didn’t think they’d fire her. She’d prevented too many potential PR disasters for them to risk that. They’d keep her around, because they never knew when they’d need her.

He didn’t think they’d be so lenient if they knew she was researching vampires, subspecies Greenkeepers. He wasn’t sure what he thought of it himself.

He stroked the book on his desk, flipped the pages around while he mentally reviewed the basics. Davidson said Greenkeepers accessed regenerative biochemicals through energy, blood or sex. She saw it as a specific psi capacity, and since it allowed them to live virtually forever, they had plenty of time to develop expertise in other psi capacities as well. They were usually hypnopaths and Telekines as well, often shapeshifters or Protean changers. If they were empaths, they would also be deeply shadowed, filled with that emptiness extant from the beginning of time.

They were a dissonance, Davidson said, in a universe that strived toward harmony. A gathered bundle of negative energy moving outside the constraints of time. The longer they lived and fed, the more energy they could accrue, and the more energy they accrued, the longer they continued to live and feed.

Davidson said their energy field appeared either as a space emptied of light or a dense greyness, but unless you knew that, you could stand next to one on the streets and notice nothing unusual beyond a slight but constant chill. An empath might sicken in their presence, or catch an odor of decaying flesh in their breath, said to be mildly toxic.

If one fed off you once or twice the results would be nausea, flu-like aches and weakness, but if they kept feeding off you, you’d wither and die unless you became a Greenkeeper and fed off someone else. And only a Greenkeeper could transform someone who was not born to it, something they rarely did since they weren’t big on sharing.

She speculated that perhaps there was actually only one original Greenkeeper, a mutation that never spread because it would not serve the human species well. That template may have made others in its early days, then seen the folly of overpopulating the planet with more like itself. And it might still be alive.

Destroying any Greenkeeper was difficult at best since they could regenerate and heal wounds rapidly. If you shot a Greenkeeper once, odds were high you wouldn’t live long enough to get in a second shot, or to plunge your hand into his chest to rip his heart out, one of the best ways to kill them. They were, Davidson added by way of exquisite understatement, highly dangerous.

That is, they were dangerous if they existed, which Davidson never admitted to believing. In fact, she stated frankly that there was no evidence backing any of the stories she’d collected. Nor, Alex thought, did any of it necessarily have anything to do with Dr. Senci, though Jaguar obviously suspected it might. Still, she had yet to say the magic words, Dr. Senci is a Greenkeeper, and she wouldn’t until she knew they were true. She was proceeding more slowly than usual, and he was glad of that.

A knock on his door brought his attention away from his reading. “Come in,” he said, and the door opened to Rachel, who walked in and handed him a disk.

“Senci,” she said. “Or actually, it’s about his victim. His psych evaluation. I couldn’t get it until we were officially on the case.”

Alex slid the disc into his computer. Rachel stood behind his chair, looking over his shoulder. The file scrolled out the medical life of Daro Karas, born twelve years ago to an older couple in Toronto, through the aid of in vitro fertilization. His infancy was normal. His toddler-hood was normal. He’d had all his vaccinations, grew at the usual pace, got all his teeth in, and showed no signs of ill health. A fine and healthy male specimen.

Then, at eleven, he started having nightmares, in a specific and repetitive form. They got so bad his parents took him to see his doctor, who recommended Dr. Senci.

Alex knew all this. Then, something on line three caught his eye. He read, then twisted a scowling face to Rachel. “Hell. Did she know this?” he asked.

Rachel shook her head. “She won’t get this until tomorrow, when she meets with the Provincial people. And it’s kind of buried so she might not catch it right away. I mean, that wording—metaphoric interpolations involve mythic creatures, etcetera. That’s why I brought it up. So you could let her know.”

Alex leaned away from his computer. Another room to add to this house of horrors.

The jargon of psychology translated into something quite simple. Daro dreamt, constantly and virulently, of vampires.

Home Planet, Toronto, Canada

“Thank you, child,” Dr. Senci said. “You did a good job for me.”

The little girl shifted from one foot to the other. She wasn’t sure which was worse—when he was nice to her, or when he was angry. At least when he was angry she knew to stay away. When he was nice she didn’t know what to expect. “Can I go?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “There’s more for you to do. Come here.”

He crooked a finger at her, drawing her toward the deep upholstered chair he sat in next to the fire. Of all his houses, she liked this one best. It had a fireplace, and she liked fire. When he wasn’t around, she’d burn things in it, watching flames lick at old books, at paper, at his shirts. Everything burned different, she learned. Each burning had its own look, its own smell and feel.

Often he left the children alone, either here or at his house in New York. Sometimes she’d be in charge, and sometimes Peter would. She didn’t like that much. Peter was bossy. The oldest of the children and almost ready to transform, he liked to pretend he was Dr. Senci. If he got too bossy she’d kick him or gouge at his eyes, but he was bigger and hard to beat. Still, he was better than Dr. Senci, who never left her alone.

She approached his chair slowly, reluctantly. When she was within reach he grabbed her by the neck, pulled her between his legs and held her pinioned.

“You will be my eyes and ears. My little angel. You will draw her to us,” he crooned.

“Leggo,” she said, pushing against him.

“Not yet,” he said. “This is very important, and you must listen. Unless—perhaps you’ve changed your mind and you don’t want a mother?”

She was still. He’d had her for three years and it took two of them for him to find her pressure point. She did not respond to violence or bribes, but one night he caught her mooning over one of her storybooks about princesses and fairy godmothers, and found out that more than anything, she wanted a mother. Not like her own mother, who sold her to him for a dose of latrinol. She wanted a real mother.

“Do you want a mother, angel?” he asked.

“Don’t call me that,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

“I wouldn’t, if you’d tell me what your name is,” he said.

She shook her head. Nobody knew her name. Nobody was going to, either, except maybe her real mother. He relaxed his legs, and she slipped out from between them, backed up quickly and stood just outside of his reach.

“Come back here, my angel,” he cajoled.

She stamped a small foot on the carpet. “Don’t call me that. I can’t be an angel because I’m not dead.”

Dr. Senci didn’t laugh. He never laughed at her unless he had her pinned down so that she couldn’t bite or scratch because she’d do both. She was the youngest of his pack, and the most fierce. If she lived to adulthood she might become an interesting companion, or perhaps a good feed. Right now, she was a powerful and ill-tempered brat, very gifted in the empathic arts, but with no direction in her use of them.

“Keep this up, and you will be. I’ll take you back to Manhattan and leave you there for the rats to eat.”

She lifted her leg and kicked him hard, and when he reached for her, she bared her teeth to bite. He got hold of her wrists with one hand and dangled her in the air away from him while she wiggled and screeched. He dropped her and twisted her wrist.

You’ll do what I say, or you’ll die.

Suddenly, she ceased struggling. Leaned back on her haunches and relaxed.

“I’m tired,” she whined. “I don’t want to.”

Something like a sob caught in her throat. Dr. Senci brought his hand back and slapped her hard. She fell flat onto her back and lay there, water welling up in her eyes. That wasn’t good. Both the chemical combination of salt water and the specific energy in the emotion of sorrow were physically painful to him and he tolerated no pain. No interference with his pleasure.

No crying. Don’t play with me or I’ll fuck you until you’re dead.

Her face tightened into stillness.

“Get up,” he said out loud. “And come over here.”

She rubbed at her cheek and did as she was told in sullen silence.

He pulled her into his lap. “If you want a mother, you must do this, tired or not. I’ll help you get ready.” He held her shoulders and felt her sigh as she settled into the work at hand.

He’d never taught her how to leave her body. She already knew how, and used it to escape him the first time he tried to sex her. Just as he was ready to take her she went flying out from herself and across the room. When he grabbed for her she threatened to go out the window and into a flock of white birds that flew overhead.

Pigeons. She would fly with pigeons rather than be with him. He found that insulting, considering the situation he’d rescued her from—a wastrel child with no future, living with her addict mother and a group of dying druggies. When he bought her she was filthy and malnourished, but good food and adequate shelter soon brought her back to health and a bounding energy. Then the ungrateful wretch left her body every time he tried to sex her. Finally he decided to use her skills in ways that suited him.

She became his messenger. His little angel. He taught her how to direct her travels over greater distances, and now she could appear as a ghostlike figure wherever he sent her. If all went as he planned she’d help bring him the woman they both sought, but she made such a fuss about it he’d almost made up his mind to kill her once she’d gotten him what he wanted. She had limited usefulness, and apparently unlimited trouble in her.

Sometimes he killed the children at the moment they expected to be transformed, slashing their throats and letting their blood pour into his hands before he fed. He’d make the other children watch. It increased their respect and let him drink their fear, allowing him to experience the terror of death the only way he could—vicariously.

Perhaps this little girl who bit would give him that thrill someday. Now she had work to do for him. He pressed a hand against her forehead, felt her readiness to begin.

“There, my little angel,” he said. “Go out and play. The Jaguar is waiting to see you.”