FORTY-THREE
In Europe in the Middle Ages, and even later,
witches were known to be notorious grave thieves. Their dissection
of corpses for parts of the body needed in the “witches brew” is
famous in folklore. . . . Not too many years ago, the only way for
medical students and medical schools to obtain corpses for
dissection and study was to hire grave robbers. Sometimes when
students were unable to hire others to do the gruesome job, they
were obliged to do it themselves.
—Claudia De Lys, A Treasury of
American Superstitions
Konrad heard the back door of the clinic
open. He checked his Patek Philippe. Right on time.
Tania entered the room, a contractor-grade trash
bag slung over her shoulder.
Konrad couldn’t help smiling. She looked like an
elf, carrying presents for a psychopathic Santa.
She dumped the bag on the operating table. Konrad
winced a little, even though the condition of the remains didn’t
matter.
“I got what you wanted,” she said.
“Well done,” he said. “You get your treat. It’s
over there.”
He pointed. A bag of type O rested on the
counter.
Tania, hating herself for her eagerness, rushed
over to it and tore it open with her teeth. It slid down her throat
in two smooth gulps.
Konrad was busy pulling the remains from the bag.
The body was mostly decomposed, with long strings of dead tissue
here and there. The rest was bone.
“You can use that?” Tania asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “It was so difficult, so long
ago. When I was looking for the Elixir of Life. When I was still a
mere alchemist.”
Konrad’s eyes grew soft and warm as he tore the
remaining flesh from the bone. “It was like the heavens opened when
I finally learned the secret. Death is, you see, paradoxically,
fundamental to survival. Our bodies are in a constant state of
flux. Cells must die in order to be replaced. To halt this process,
to freeze it in place, is to turn living tissue into a corpselike
state.”
He used a bone saw to cut the limbs into smaller
chunks. Grit and dust flew into the air.
“Death itself held the secret to eternal life. I
soon learned what your kind has always known, on a cellular level.
The process can be halted, but only if one is willing to become a
living corpse.”
Tania made a face. “We’re both in pretty good shape
for corpses.”
Konrad began digging into the bone with a metal
pick, scraping something out. “Because we sup regularly at the
fountain of youth, my dear. We know that immortality and
rejuvenation are not the same thing.”
Konrad hit a button on the wall, and his machine
lowered itself from the ceiling. Even Tania found that thing
disturbing.
Konrad placed the scrapings lovingly into one of
the collection arms of the device. Then he activated it, and the
bits of bone and marrow went into a cup, where they began to be
soaked in some kind of fluid.
“Life requires death,” Konrad said, his face rapt.
“And death consumes life.”
Konrad began scraping more bone, Tania seemingly
forgotten.
She wondered if she could make the door while he
was playing with the corpse.
He looked up at her then, seeming to wake up.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “It came to you as
an accident. But I had to stalk it and hunt it down, and make it
mine. This is why my prize is so much purer than yours.”
Tania just stared. She’d seen all variety of human
emotion reflected through the eyes. Whoever said they were the
windows to the soul was right. She’d seen her prey stare back at
her with fear, with hate, rage, disbelief, even love.
But there was something she’d never seen in
Konrad’s eyes. She wondered if she was seeing true madness for the
first time.
He shook his head, as if pitying her.
“You don’t understand. No. Come. Let’s put you back
in your cage.”
Remote in hand, he walked her back to the atrium at
the building’s center.
She was nervous. She had the feeling that the trip
to the cemetery was the last thing he needed. But Konrad seemed so
happy now. Calmed by touching death.
Perhaps he wasn’t going to take his revenge on her
after all.
She walked into the atrium and sat by the fountain.
He waited at the door, smiling.
Something was off. She sensed it immediately. She
looked up.
The screen over the skylight had been drawn back.
She could see the stars. Eyes wide with realization, she looked at
Konrad.
“Sunrise will be in a few hours,” he said. “Perhaps
you can learn something new about fear in that time.”
“You son of a bitch,” she said, looking around
frantically for something that would shield her from daylight when
it came.
Nothing. The room was as empty as ever.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Konrad confirmed. “I
haven’t left a secret passage for you, or anything to torture you
by raising your hopes. I’m not really the mustache-twirling type,
I’m afraid. It’s enough for me that you will spend your last
moments in utter despair. You will die.”
He closed the door.
Tania stood there, waiting. If she felt she had the
right, she would pray that Cade would find her. She had drawn
enough attention to her errand for Konrad. It had to work. He was
her only chance.
The door opened again, Konrad smiling.
“I thought you should know: Cade is already dead.
My associates saw to it this morning.”
Tania sat down, numb. The noisy fountain seemed to
chuckle behind her.