Blindspots Page 21

Alexa clicked the phone off. "Ursula, hold the damn elevator for me."

  8.

  Gabriel was the last to leave the Hummer after it came to a skidding stop inside the open garage, which fortunately was empty. With the snowstorm obscuring most of the view from inside Daedalus, if anyone had managed to see their approach, no one had appeared yet. Gabriel slung a backpack over his shoulders, containing two walkie-talkies, another pistol, and a pair of night-vision goggles.

  Hank helped Indra into his wheelchair. As soon as he was settled, the blanket over his legs, Indra engaged the controls and wheeled around.

  The light slanted in through the open garage door as the storm raged outside. It seemed more like twilight than noon as the blizzard, implacable and monstrous, pressed in from all sides.

  Indra hefted his gun, sighted down the barrel, and then almost had it slip from his fingers as he tried to appear macho. He slid it under the blanket and reached for a flashlight. "Dr. Sterling, you say the power is out?"

  Gabriel nodded. "Except for some auxiliary lights, but she will still have the advantage." He couldn't fully concentrate, still in pain and still thinking about the plan, which had them splitting up. He and his mother were going in through the alternate basement access door, to try to get in the vault and cut off any aid Alexa might receive from her Brotherhood, while Indra and Hank went to get the others and to deal with Alexa personally.

  Darcy started heading to the access door, rubbing the .45 in both hands. "Come on."

  "Wait," Gabriel said suddenly. "There's a problem. If everything you said is true, we can't just kill her."

  Darcy frowned. "Why not?"

  "The good doctor is right," said Indra quietly.

  "Care to explain?" the gun in Darcy's hand trembled as another gust drove into the garage. "And do it quick, I'm freezin' my ass off."

  Gabriel rubbed his bandaged head. "If you're right about all this, kill her, and she'll just come back twenty-one years from now. And unless she's not thought ahead…"

  "Oh, we can be sure she has," Indra said. "Probably left new instructions in her secret place – in case of her premature death. No need for reprogramming herself. Die, and in the next life, the commands still hold. Whoever she is next time will find a way to go and retrieve those instructions, wherever she's hidden them. Driven by an uncontrollable need, no matter where he or she is."

  Gabriel made his hands into fists, then opened them. "Then it's the same with you! With the six of you. That's why she's bringing you all here instead of just killing you."

  Indra nodded, having reached the same conclusion earlier. "She has to deprogram us first. Eliminate the implants Atticus placed in us the last time. Otherwise, in every life, we'll be out there, potentially remembering, seeing each other, compelled to find out why, trying to solve the mystery."

  Gabriel shook his head. "Then we have to find her safe location, remove the contents—"

  "Or, we turn the tables on her," said Indra, "Take her under the way she's been doing to us. We wipe her mind, cleanse her Ba."

  "And then," said Darcy, "we kill the bitch."

  9.

  Monica awoke with a pounding headache, like that one Christmas morning after she and Paul had been drinking Merlot all night, watching a marathon showing of It's a Wonderful Life. Her head spun in one direction, the room in the other, twin forces tugging at her stomach, knotting her intestines.

  She flexed her hands. Moved her fingers, then her arms. No more duct tape. She was free. She stood up slowly, wobbled and then made it to the oak desk, and leaned against its smooth, polished surface. A lone candle, burned almost to the base, sat in a pool of translucent liquid wax; it bathed the room in a calming, orange light, just enough to see by.

  Enough to make out the huge painting on the wall. A giant, golden-framed portrait of a face from her nightmare. Here, finally, was someone she could see – the first face she could actually view with clarity -- and it was one that filled her with unrelenting fear.

  She had to get away from him. Get away from this room.

  But she couldn't move yet. Still disconnected, trying to piece together the past hour. Am I cured?

  Monica's memories were fuzzy... Images of that woman's opaque eyes, unblinking, inches from her own... Impressions of an hourglass, crimson sands shifting, diminishing, bleeding out from one glass to another, one soul to the next.

  Why did I just think that?

  Layer after layer had been seared away, her soul laid bare. Pieces plucked from her spirit like feathers, leaving her defenseless. Then Alexa had gone deeper, tearing open her core and removing what had been planted there a lifetime ago.

  But now, like after a diseased tooth had been pulled, it felt good. To be free of it, to be pure again.

  Except for those cold eyes staring at her from the painting.

  That artist should be killed. It was too real.

  But I am real, she heard the painted man say, his booming voice echoing in her mind, fused with the lighter voice of Alexa Pearl. I am real. As really real as that beloved piece of shit rabbit of yours. I am real, more real than your mother's killer, the one you let off the hook.

  Stop it! In a mounting rage, Monica picked up the candle.

  More real than your poor husband, who couldn't even do something sweet for you without getting his head blown off.

  She yelled and flung the candle at the painting.

  The wax spattered, caught, clung, dripped.

  Burned.

  The painting flickered. The eyes, those terrible eyes. Twin drops of wax flared up and flames shot out from its eyes like some cackling demon.

  Monica ran. She bumped into the chair, then staggered to the door as the whole painting suddenly burst into flames. The fire leapt maniacally to the curtains, to the tapestries… To the rug... The desk.

  As soon as she bolted into the hall, the overhead sprinklers exploded, and a shrill alarm sounded. Suddenly she was getting drenched, looking back into Alexa's office where the fire raged against what felt like a late August thundershower.

  Monica backed up, her face soaking wet, hair dripping into her eyes. Doors opened. A few patients timidly popped their heads out. Then they were running, nearly tripping over each other, racing for the stairs, some of them with their suitcases or choice possessions. After the hall was empty, the water continued to fall from the ceiling, soaking the rug, collecting in puddles on the banisters, on the railing surrounding the open view all the way down to the lobby floor.

  Monica turned away from Alexa's office, where smoke drifted out from the dwindling fire. The smooth, rounded balustrade called to her. The clear, empty space beyond. So empty, clear of anything. No guilt, no pain. Just… nothingness.

  So inviting…

  It's time, said the voice from the painting. A voice now raspy, as if burnt, and then drowned in succession. She heard squishing footsteps behind her… Blackened feet sizzling with every step onto the wet carpet.

  Impossible. Not real, not real. Just in your mind.

  The alarm stopped, turned off somewhere or disconnected.

  Monica reached for the railing.

  Jump, said the seared voice behind her. Atticus Sterling.

  Do it, Alexa said, her voice joining up with the other's, inside her mind. Jump.

  Gripping the wooden railing, Monica risked a glance behind her. But no one was there. The landing, empty on all sides.

  Good. No one to see me dive.

  She lifted her leg, placing her knee on the top rail, and looked down. Five floors. A lot of empty, inviting space.

  Just then, a door opened. Gabriel's office, at the other end of the main hall. For a fleeting second, she had a surge of hope. That he was there, that he would see her, stop her from doing this thing, this thing she couldn't resist. That he would stop her and hold her and talk to her. Take her under, plunge deep into her soul; he would root out the poison, excise the horrible thing Alexa had left in her mind. He would free her.

  But it w
asn't Gabriel.

  A woman, that nurse with the snake tattoo. She came out, looking up at the sprinklers, shielding her eyes as the water sprayed her face. She looked back down and her eyes met Monica's.

  I can see her. I am cured.

  Good for you, said the burning voice over her shoulder… in her mind. Now jump.

  The nurse nodded to her, folded her arms. Back in the shadows of Gabriel's office, someone moved. Struggled.

  It wasn't Monica's concern. Whoever was in there wasn't real. Nothing else was real. Nothing but the railing.

  The drop. The jump.

  Time to end it.

  10.

  Kaitlin stayed in the shadows, inching down the final bend of the stairs toward the lobby. The great expanse of marble looked like the tranquil surface of a moonlit pond, glimmering in the cold, shaded light from the windows. The area was empty except for one middle-aged woman behind the desk; she wore a thick black sweater and looked exhausted. The light on the wall over the door burned faintly, but enough to still illuminate the small tattoo on the receptionist's neck.

  She's one of them.

  Kaitlin took another step, directing her attention now to the silver elevator doors, suddenly convinced they would open at any moment. Another step, and she caught movement in the shadows behind a pillar. A man standing there, keeping an eye on the side door – the one to the garage.

  She gasped. Nestor?

  What is he doing back here? He should have left with Monica and Gabriel. What--?

  An alarm rang out, a screeching series of sounds. Doors opened upstairs, on every level and people rushed out… Running, heading to the stairs. Nestor burst out of the shadows, looking up. He caught her eye, and Kaitlin was about to call out when she saw his face twist into malice. He pulled something from behind his back.

  She knew, even before she saw it – knew he had a gun. She backed up as Nestor pointed it at her. "No…"

  Then the door to the garage opened, and a big, faceless man in a long trenchcoat burst in, followed by a familiar electronic wheelchair. Nestor swiveled to face the pair of newcomers, gun menacing, just as a crowd of patients and staff came thumping down the stairs.

  "Indra! Watch out!"

  Kaitlin struggled to stay on her feet as they stampeded around her. The receptionist and two orderlies ran out in front of the rush, into the lobby, waving their hands, trying to control the patients.

  And then Kaitlin glimpsed the elevator doors opening. The darkened interior relinquished a wraithlike form, more shadow than substance.

  #

  The man in the trenchcoat lifted a shotgun and pointed it at Nestor, but Indra yelled and yanked his arm down. "Stop! He's one of us—"

  Kaitlin cringed as two gunshots erupted. The crowd froze in a moment of shared shock. Then came the screams, the lobby erupting into panic.

  The big man in the trench coat crumpled to his knees; the shotgun fell to the floor and his hands clutched at his throat, trying to stop the dark gouts of blood streaming through his fingers. Another hole spilled blood, thick as red paint, down his chest. Indra wore a look of complete shock, turning to horror, as he turned from his dying companion to Nestor who now had the gun trained on him.

  "STOP!" yelled Alexa, banging her cane on the ground. People continued screaming; some cowered, others started back up the stairs, away from Nestor, believing they had a terrorist in their midst.

  Nestor spun, raised the gun, and fired into the wall above their heads.

  Alexa shouted in the ensuing silence, "Get back to your rooms!" She tilted her head toward the front desk. "Maria! Shut off that damn alarm, now!"

  Maria, her face blushed and splotchy, ran to the reception desk. She stopped before reaching the wall panel. "But what if—"

  "Shut it off!"

  "Ms. Pearl," Maria was shaking, staring hesitantly at Nestor now, then back to Alexa as if wrestling with something that hadn't been part of the plan. Kaitlin's heart surged. Maybe there was hope – if Alexa's staff could turn against her…

  Maria said, "What if there's really is a fire?"

  Nestor shot her. He simply swiveled around, kept his arm straight, and shot her once in the face. Then he stepped over her twitching body and pointed the gun at the next staff member, a smaller, cowering woman. "Shut it off."

  The woman ran behind the desk and opened the panel, madly searching for the controls, as the rest of the patients surged back upstairs, fleeing in terror, preferring to face whatever natural elements raged upstairs instead of this gunman blocking the exit.

  Kaitlin felt the heat from Alexa's blind gaze, sweeping back and forth, seeking her out. She retreated, blending in with the others. She caught Indra's eye. He gave a brief smile and she opened her mouth—

  But Indra shook his head. He had looked so utterly helpless in that chair, but seeing her seemed to give him a burst of confidence. He signaled with his eyes, and she understood: Go, get to the others. I'm fine. And then he patted something under his blanket.

  Kaitlin nodded, turned and ran up with the residents, keeping her head down.

  She would have to find another way to help Indra. But as she climbed, she realized she was headed in the right direction – to the one person she needed. If only she could revive him in time.

  She had to get back to Jake...

  11.

  After Indra and Hank headed for the lobby door, Gabriel led his mother through the supply entrance from the garage's south side, down the drafty stairwell into the basement. He held the flashlight since Darcy refused to relinquish her .45. Seeing her finger on the trigger, the gun trembling, terrified him.

  "Mom—"

  "Shut up, Gabe. You're lucky I don't shoot you now. Are you aware of how long it's been since you visited me?"

  He hung his head. "I've been busy."

  "I can see that. Playing little errand boy for that blind tramp."

  "Mom, I—"

  "Let's just go. We've got work to do."

  They made it to the basement, emerging in near-darkness. "Stop. Turn off the light," Darcy whispered.

  "Why?"

  "Do it, boy. My eyesight's shit, but I think I see…"

  He flicked it off, and as his eyes adjusted to the shadow-engorged interior, he thought about how he had spent so many frustrating hours down here, standing before that locked vault door, contemplating its mysteries, wrestling with the temptation to blast it down or blowtorch through it. All the while, that hourglass – his father's favorite tool, his symbol – mocked his impotency, chided his efforts.

  "I don't believe it." He stared at the faint rectangle of light in the far wall, opposite the stairs up to the lobby. His stomach twisted, his feet and hands burned with renewed ferocity. The gash on his head throbbed and the swelling on his face felt like he had broken some cheekbones.

  He needed medical attention, but all he could think to say was, "The vault door's open."

  #

  They carefully stepped inside. The air smelled of death. Blood.

  "The hourglass?" Gabriel whispered, carefully stepping over the body of Lance Critchwell.

  "Damn thing." Darcy gave the grains of sand a kick and moved ahead, grimacing at the bloodied skull. She trod carefully, with awe as if she had just discovered a tomb that had been hidden for thousands of years. Gabriel moved with similar caution, covering the other side, ignoring for now the set of tables, monitors, servers, binders and loose papers. He switched off the flashlight and set it down on the nearest table along with the backpack. He kept moving to the closer wall where jagged carvings hung, depicting Egyptian rites with bold hieroglyphics.

  The air was so clear, pristine, and he had the sudden notion that leaving the door open would cause all these artifacts to crumble into dust, the sacred words gone forever.

  Good riddance. If all these pieces just dissolved in the dank basement air, disintegrating before his eyes, he wouldn't shed a tear, not after what this thing, this piece of ancient history, had done to his father. W
hether or not all that mystic crap was true, his father believed it. And now, Alexa believed it and was acting on its implications, believing herself to be a god. And us mere mortals are just dispensable obstacles in her path.

  He turned away from the walls, from the strange artifacts, the pottery, the clay jars, the jackal-headed statues, the pharaohs with arms crossed in death-like poses, decked out in their finest golden attire.

  He headed for the tables, but his mother was already there. "Look at this," she whispered, her free hand pointing at a monitor. Gabriel came around and tried to make sense of the spreadsheet, the split screen and the six files grouped together with now-familiar names.

  "What?"

  "There's your experiment," Darcy said smugly. With the gun she pointed to the spreadsheet. "Doesn't look finished, but she must have had her people trying match who came back as whom." She peered closer, squinting. "Who's Monica Gilman? Says here she's that nice Elizabeth Ellison woman. Always liked that one. Stood up to Atticus, she did. Gave him a shitload of trouble."

  Gabriel was shaking his head. "I still… can't—"

  "Wake up, son!" She grabbed him by the collar. "Did the storm snap your brain? Give you frostbite of the noggin'? I raised you smarter than this. Go with your gut, you know this ain't a joke. Your son of a bitch father went and did it."

  Gabriel pulled away; sat at the desk and started pulling up the files. "Let me study this."

  "We ain't got time. Didn't you hear the cripple upstairs? And hell, if you don't believe me, look at the TV sets here."

  His head whipped around. The cameras. Alexa had them installed all over. So this was where her people came to snoop on everybody. He immediately picked out the hallway on the top floor, the shared corridor between his and Alexa's offices. A lone nurse stood outside his office, like she was guarding it. That bitch Ursula. Who was in there? Monica, still?

  He pulled his eyes away, glanced back at the file he had opened. Only for a second, but it was enough. His eyes picked out the most important words on the screen, a skill he had called upon often trying to keep up with hundreds of psychological journals.