Petrified Page 5

  Braydon nodded. ‘OK. Can I see her now?’

  ‘Of course. But I think there’s one more thing I should tell you. Your ex-wife is here, too.’

  Miranda was sitting next to Sukie’s bed. She didn’t turn around when Braydon was ushered into the room. She was wearing a dark green silk scarf tied around her head and from the back she looked bonier than ever – with visible vertebrae and angular shoulders. In the middle of one of their more spectacular rows, Braydon had told her that she had all the physical charm of a praying mantis.

  Doctor Berman was standing on the other side of the bed. He was big and heavily built and bespectacled, with two double chins that were covered with a graying beard. He held out his hand when Braydon came in, and in a booming voice said, ‘Mr Harris? How are you? Terrible thing to happen. Just awful. I want you to know that you have all of our sympathy.’

  Braydon heard Miranda say, ‘Huh!’ but he ignored her and approached the bed. Sukie’s face was charred scarlet and black so that it looked like an aerial view of some volcanic island. Her nose and her lips were hideously puffed up and most of her hair had been burned off, so that her scalp was covered with nothing but blackened stubble.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, she’s just dandy,’ said Miranda, still without looking around. ‘You can see for yourself, can’t you?’

  ‘In herself, she’s doing not too bad,’ said Doctor Berman. ‘We have her on a drip to replace her fluids and her vital signs are holding up.’

  Braydon said, ‘She has bandages on her arms but no bandages on her face.’

  ‘That’s right. But if you look at her face you’ll see that it appears to be shiny. That’s because we’ve covered it with a transparent film medication called Jaloskin. It’s a totally new class of biomaterial, a membrane produced by the esterification of hyaluronic acid, which is a naturally-occurring extracellular matrix molecule.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Doctor Berman smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get too technical. When you’re dealing with deep dermal burns like Sukie’s, it’s important to remove the burned flesh as soon as possible, because that reduces inflammation and scarring.

  ‘Once you’ve done that, you need to apply a dressing to prevent infection, and that’s where Jaloskin comes in. It covers the burns and creates the ideal conditions for very rapid healing. It allows excess fluid to drain away, but at the same time it keeps the wound moist. Using Jaloskin, I’ve been able to allow young patients with second-degree burns to leave hospital and go home after only twelve days’ treatment.’

  ‘How long do you think it’s going to take Sukie to get better?’

  Doctor Berman shrugged. ‘Right now, it’s a little early to predict. Her burns are very deep and very serious, and we want to make sure that she suffers minimal aesthetic impact.’

  Miranda twisted around in her chair. Her pale blue eyes were narrowed with fury, and she looked as if her mouth was crammed with broken glass.

  ‘You know what that means, Braydon – “minimal aesthetic impact”? That means that the good doctor here is going to do everything he can to stop your daughter looking like too much of a freak!’

  ‘Now, come on, Mrs Harris,’ said Doctor Berman. ‘If everything goes according to plan, Sukie should eventually be left with only the faintest of scars.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have any scars at all if my deadbeat ex-husband hadn’t tried to kidnap her! I can tell you where I’m going as soon as I leave here, Braydon. I’m going to contact the FBI, and I’m going to have you arrested for violating a court order and for taking my daughter over a state line and for wrecking her life! You stupid, selfish, irresponsible, careless, pig-headed piece of worthless shit!’

  Braydon looked down at Sukie, lying on the bed with her scorched face shining under its protective membrane.

  ‘You can do what you like, Miranda,’ he said, his voice still hoarse from the smoke. ‘I think I’ve been punished quite enough already.’

  SEVEN

  Tuesday, 7:17 p.m.

  Nathan arrived home that evening to find a strange car blocking his driveway, nose-to-bumper behind Grace’s Explorer, so that he had to park his own car halfway up the curb. The offending vehicle was a purple Chevrolet Impala, and when he squeezed past it he saw that it had an Avis rental sticker in the window, from Philadelphia International Airport.

  He opened the front door and immediately heard voices in the living room. When he walked through, still carrying his briefcase, he found Grace sitting on the couch, talking to a young man in a light-gray three-piece suit. The young man had prickly black hair, almost military cut, and eyeglasses with black rectangular frames, as if he were looking through the slots in a mailbox. He turned around when Nathan came in, and as he did so, Nathan could see that he had a white zigzag scar that ran all the way from his right cheekbone to his chin.

  ‘Hi, honey,’ he said. ‘Didn’t know that we were expecting a visitor.’

  He was feeling sweaty and ratty. In spite of his success in creating the phoenix, he had been looking forward all afternoon to coming home, taking a shower, and then collapsing into his armchair with a very cold can of Dale’s Pale Ale.

  The young man stood up, tugged down his vest, and held out his hand.

  ‘I called yesterday, sir,’ he said, in a strong German accent. ‘Unfortunately I could not contact you so I decided to take a chance and call in person. I am Theodor Zauber.’

  Nathan put down his briefcase, but he didn’t shake the young man’s hand.

  ‘Theodor Zauber? Any relation to the late Doctor Christian Zauber?’

  ‘He was my father, sir.’

  ‘I see. So what brings you here to see me? I would have thought that I was the last person on earth you would have wanted to make contact with.’

  ‘My father and you, sir, you were two sides of the same coin, so to speak.’

  Nathan said, ‘I don’t know if you should have come here, really. What happened between me and your father – well, I think it’s best forgotten.’

  ‘It was a tragedy, Professor Underhill. But it would be even more of a tragedy if all of his life’s work were to be wasted.’

  Grace said, ‘Would you like a beer, darling?’

  ‘In a minute. After Mr Zauber has left.’ He turned back to Theodor Zauber and said, ‘To be straight with you, Mr Zauber, I don’t think we have anything to talk about. Your father managed to bring a basilisk to life, which would have been an incredible achievement if he hadn’t sacrificed the lives of dozens of elderly people in order to do so. He almost killed my wife, too. He put her into a coma from which she was very lucky ever to recover.’

  Theodor Zauber nodded. ‘Yes, Professor. I know about all of this. I can only tell you that I am profoundly regretful for all of those deaths, and for what my father did to Mrs Underhill. Of course his actions were criminal. But I think it would be even more criminal if all of the advances he made in the field of cryptozoology were to be ignored.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Zauber. Your father was a genius, no doubt about it. Anybody who could take a spell devised by an eighth-century sorcerer and make it work in a modern laboratory was inspired. But that still doesn’t excuse what he did. The whole purpose of recreating mythical beasts is to save lives.’

  ‘In all medical research there is some risk,’ Theodor Zauber replied. ‘However – ja – I have to accept what you say about my father.’

  ‘Then, goodnight,’ said Nathan. ‘I hope you understand that it’s nothing personal.’

  Theodor Zauber said, ‘Of course. The only reason I wanted to talk to you was because you have already made such impressive strides in recreating gryphons and basilisks and wyverns. I gather from the scientific media that you have also been trying to recreate a phoenix.’

  ‘That’s right, Mr Zauber, I have. But I’ve had a very long day and I really have nothing more to say to you.’

  ‘Please, Professor. I do not know how far you have a
dvanced with this phoenix project, or any of your other enterprises. But if you were to have unlimited access to all of my father’s papers – there is no question that you could save yourself years of laborious research and millions of dollars.’

  Nathan shook his head. He wasn’t going to tell Theodor Zauber that he had successfully managed to breed a phoenix already. He hadn’t even told Ron Kasabian yet, the CEO of Schiller Medical Research Division, who was funding him. Neither had he told Grace, although when she had called him at his laboratory today and asked him how his experiment had worked out, he had told her ‘pretty darn good, on the whole. I think we’re making some serious headway.’ Obviously she hadn’t heard the phoenix in the background calling out ‘skrrrarrrkkk!’

  Theodor Zauber said, ‘It is not just in recreating mythical creatures from scratch that my father’s research could help you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I read in Modern Zoology that you were trying to create your phoenix by combining the DNA from a dragon-worm with the DNA from a scavenger-hawk. This is correct, yes? But there are other mythical creatures which have survived from previous centuries in their fully-developed form, except that they remain in what you might call suspended animation.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Let me put it this way, Professor – they are not unlike a mammoth that is found frozen in a glacier after forty thousand years. Fully formed, fully developed, not at all decayed – but, of course, inanimate. All it requires is for somebody with the right scientific know-how to bring them back to life. Somebody who has both belief in thaumaturgy and expertise in science.’

  Nathan stared at him in bewilderment. ‘Are you trying to tell me that your father found one of these creatures, whatever they are?’

  ‘Oh no, Professor. He found many of them. In fact he found thousands. It was one of the last great discoveries of his career.’

  ‘How could there possibly be thousands of them? Somebody would have dug up at least some of them by now.’

  ‘No, Professor. You would never have found any of these creatures by digging.’

  ‘Then where the hell are they?’

  Theodor Zauber raised both of his hands in surrender. ‘Forgive me, please. I think I have said too much already. It is obvious that you do not wish to take advantage of my late father’s research, and I cannot say that I blame you. He was quite ruthless. He thought nothing of taking an innocent human life if it would further his experiments and eventually make him rich. I apologize for troubling you.’

  ‘So you’re not going to tell me where these creatures are? Or even what they are?’

  ‘Unless you are interested in carrying on my father’s work, it is better that I do not. As I say, I apologize if I intruded on your evening. I realize that you must be very tired. Goodnight.

  He bowed to Grace and said, ‘Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs Underhill. You were most gastfreundlich.’

  ‘Wait up,’ said Nathan. ‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Why do you think I went to such trouble to find out where you lived?’

  ‘Sit down,’ Nathan told him. ‘If you really do know the whereabouts of fully-developed cryptozoological creatures, then I want to know, too.’

  ‘Very well. But you have to understand that they may not have the same medical application as the creatures that you have been trying to develop yourself.’

  ‘I can’t be any judge of that, can I, unless you tell me what they are, and what kind of condition they’re in.’

  Theodor Zauber hesitated for a long time, with his hand over his mouth. Nathan waited, without saying anything. Grace said, ‘I’ll get you a beer, OK?’ and Nathan nodded.

  Eventually, Theodor Zauber walked back to the couch and sat down. ‘I suppose I have to tell you,’ he said. ‘After all, you are probably the only person in the world who can help me. Who else has come so close to bringing mythical creatures back to life? My father was full of admiration for your work, and for your persistence in the face of so much skepticism from the scientific community. He always said “whatever has existed once can exist again”.’

  Nathan sat down opposite him. Grace brought him a can of beer and he popped it open and took a long, cold swallow. Theodor Zauber couldn’t help saying, ‘Prost!’ although he didn’t smile when he said it.

  ‘So,’ said Nathan. ‘What exactly was your father’s last great discovery?’

  ‘Petrification, Professor. The turning of living beings into stone.’

  Nathan had been about to take another mouthful of beer but he slowly lowered his can. ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘Absolutely not. What would be the point?’

  ‘I really don’t know. Maybe you want to make a fool out of me because of what happened between me and your father.’

  ‘Please, Professor. I am one hundred percent seriously talking about creatures whose flesh has been deposed into solid stone.’

  ‘I see. Your father didn’t find Medusa’s head, by any chance?’

  ‘Of course not. But he did discover a formula that was used by thirteenth-century alchemists to convert a vertebrate being into what is essentially a statue. It is a process first mentioned by Ibn ar-Tafiz, sometimes known as Artephius.’

  ‘OK, Artephius, I’ve heard of him. He wrote The Secret Book of Artephius, didn’t he? Not that I’ve ever read it.’

  ‘You should, Professor, although it is not an easy book to understand, even for an eminent scientist such as yourself. Artephius devised a way of converting solids into gases without first becoming liquids, and many other important chemical reactions. He lived on his family’s cattle farm near Cordoba, and he discovered many new methods for making cheese and yogurt.

  ‘His most important discovery, though, was what he calls “secret fire”. This fire is actually a volatile liquid that can permeate a living body within a matter of hours and transform flesh into stone. It is exactly the same process by which mineral-rich spring water can gradually petrify anything that is immersed in it for long enough. Because of the active chemicals that Artephius added to his water, however, it all happens considerably quicker.’

  ‘And so what are you telling me? That at some time in the past, thousands of mythical creatures were turned to stone, and that your father found out where they are?’

  ‘Yes, Professor. Precisely that. But he found out much more than that. He found out how to turn them back into living flesh.’

  EIGHT

  Tuesday, 8:34 p.m.

  Jenna switched off the lamp on her desk and shrugged on her quilted brown parka. ‘That’s me for tonight,’ she told Detective Brubaker, who was still hunched over a pile of paperwork. He was appearing in Municipal Court tomorrow, giving evidence in a case of two young girls who had died after taking contaminated ecstasy tablets.

  ‘See you, sweet cheeks. Have a brewski for me, will you? I won’t be through till way past midnight.’

  Jenna paused beside Detective Brubaker’s desk. ‘Gerry?’ she said.

  Detective Brubaker caught the seriousness in her voice. He took off his reading glasses and looked up at her.

  ‘What is it? Not that daughter of yours giving you trouble again?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that. I was just wondering if you think that I’m likeable.’

  ‘Likeable? What kind of a question is that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sometimes I get the feeling that I put people’s backs up. You know, losing my temper too quick, opening my yap and putting my size six sneaker in it. That kind of thing.’

  Detective Brubaker made a moue. ‘Nah. I don’t think anybody gets too aerated when you say what you think. Now and then it might be better if you kept your opinions to yourself. Like Sergeant Mulvaney’s hairpiece. The poor guy’s real sensitive about it.’

  ‘I know he is. But, my God. He could have warned us he was going to walk into the squad room with Punxsutawney Phil on his he
ad.’

  Detective Brubaker couldn’t help smirking. ‘Let me tell you this, Jenna. Most of the guys don’t believe that women should be detectives at all. They think women should be home doing the laundry and baking brownies and changing the kids’ shitty diapers, and that every night they should welcome their husbands back to the bosom of the family with a cold beer and a warm blow-job. They certainly don’t believe that women should be detectives who say it the way they find it.’

  He replaced his spectacles and went back to his paperwork, but Jenna stayed where she was.

  ‘But, what?’ she asked him.

  Detective Brubaker looked up again. ‘Did I say “but”?’

  ‘I’m a trained interrogator, Gerry. I know when somebody has a “but” on the tip of their tongue.’

  ‘OK. You asked me if you were likeable, and you are. I like you. You’re sassy and you’re funny and you’re tough and you’re good at what you do. Underneath, I think all of the guys like you, too. It’s just that they’re scared of you. In fact I think that they’re scared of most women, especially women who talk back to them and won’t take any bullshit.’

  ‘Hm. I think you’re just trying to get into my thong.’

  ‘I didn’t know you wore a thong.’

  ‘And you never will, Gerry. Not for sure, anyhow. I’ll see you tomorrow, OK? And – you know – thanks for the heads up. I’ll try not to be so goddamned outspoken in future, especially when it comes to toupees. I’d hate it if everybody in the district thought that I was some kind of harridan.’

  She was making her way to the squad room door when her telephone rang. It had a particularly loud, unpleasant jangle that always left a salty taste in her mouth.

  Detective Brubaker waved his hand dismissively. ‘I’d leave it, if I were you. Go home.’

  Jenna hesitated. She was very tired, and she was anxious to get back in time to make sure that Ellie had eaten a proper supper. Ellie was neurotic about her weight at the moment, almost to the point of anorexia, and Jenna was growing increasingly worried about it. She knew what it was like to look in the mirror every morning and see a big-breasted, big-bellied, big-hipped lard-butt staring back at you, even if you didn’t really look like that at all.