Part 28 (1/2)

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing back. It only encourages him otherwise. ”So, you saw his wife, did you?”

Carlos said, ”Yeah. She looks awful. Like death warmed over.”

I checked the lockbox on the door. It appeared to be the electronic kind requiring a magnetic keycard. ”Anyone working on getting us a key?”

Spinelli answered, ”Tried. There's a sign on the office door that reads, BE BACK IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. One of the guests said it's been there an hour already.”

”Did you call for backup?”

”Got black and whites on the way. ETA two minutes.”

I checked my watch. ”Okay look, We're not waiting. We're going in.”

Carlos said, ”You can't break down the door, Tony. It's solid steel. We'll need a battering ram.”

”Not going to.” I holstered my weapon and stepped out in front of the door.”

”What are you doing?”

”Lilith is always telling me I need to use more witchcraft.” I pointed at the door with both hands and parted the way with a sweeping gestured to each side. ”So, I'm using witchcraft. Step back. This could go badly.”

”Cool,” said Dominic.

Carlos echoed the sentiment.

I adjusted my stance. Legs spread. Knees bent slightly. My palms were sweaty, so I wiped them against my pant legs. I saw Carlos and Spinelli do the same. I held my right hand out, palm up and steady. ”You guys ready for this?” I asked.

The two only nodded. Never blinking.

I focused intently on the energy building in my hand, remembering keenly the lesson learned when Ursula lost control of her zip ball in the living room.

”This takes some concentration,” I told them. ”If it gets away, it can hurt.”

”Should we step back further?” Carlos asked.

I nodded. ”You might want to.”

Neither did.

I puckered my lips and blew into my hand softly, as if fanning the smoldering ambers of a dying flame. At once, a small blue energy sphere appeared. It sparkled in nervous flickers with snaps of white lightning like tiny flash bulbs dancing in my palm. I blew again and the sphere began to spin. After it got going, I was able to keep it moving by pus.h.i.+ng it along with just my finger. Soon it was spinning in a blur, crackling and throwing off electric blue sparks like tiny shooting stars. I rolled my hand back over my shoulder and positioned it as if carrying a serving tray.

”Get ready,” I said. ”I'm going to launch it.

This time Carlos and Spinelli did step back. Spinelli about four steps. Carlos six. I eased away from the door myself, suggesting the two have their weapons drawn and ready to charge. Then I hauled back and let the zip ball fly. It hit the lock box in a shower of sparks. A white light as bright as a wielder's arc discharged with a bang, destroying the box and sending shredded bits of burnt metal everywhere.

I fell back, stunned by a shard of hot shrapnel that caught my face below my eye, tearing a gash in my cheek two inches long. Carlos and Spinelli pushed pa.s.sed me in their rush for the door, spinning me around and knocking me to the ground.

”You all right, Detective?” I heard someone say.

I looked up and saw Corporal Olson. She stopped to help me to my feet while her partner ran in to back up Carlos and Spinelli.

”I'm fine,” I told her. ”I lost my balance. Go on. I'll catch up.”

She brushed my cheek with a clean hanky. ”You always say that, Tony.” And then she gave it to me. ”After all these years, you still say that.”

I pressed the hanky to my wound. She winked and sprinted away. Two more units screeched to a stop in the parking lot. By the time I joined the party, we had half the precinct squeezed into Howard Snow's room. I hiked my thumb up over my shoulder and kicked everyone but Carlos and Spinelli out.

Snow sat on the edge of the bed, still in his underwear, his hands already cuffed. His wife, clad only in a hospital gown, occupied a stuffed chair in the corner. The boys had not cuffed her. Didn't need to. She seemed as inanimate as the chair she was sitting in. Her eyes, glazed over white, stared blankly at the floor. Drool dripping down the side of her mouth collected on her left breast, saturating a patch of gown the size of a grapefruit. Her skin looked paler that pale. Carlos said earlier that she looked like death warmed over. I could not see it. Nothing about her looked warm to me.

I walked over to Howard Snow and took a seat on the edge of the bed opposite his. Our knees nearly touched. He looked spent. Deflated. I said to him, ”You all right, Mister Snow?”

His eyes appeared fixed on the TV screen. It was not on, but the charcoal images in the gla.s.s reflected the movement of police uniforms outside. Still, I doubted he saw it. I doubted he saw anything.

”Mister Snow. Do you want to tell me what is going on here? Why is your wife here?”

He raised his head. His gaze followed a path to his wife as if tethered on a string. ”My wife?” he said, and nothing more.

”Yes, Mister Snow. Your wife. You told us she was dead. What happened?”

He shook his head slowly. ”They told us we were working on a cure.”

”They?”

He nodded.

”You mean Biocrynetix Laboratories?”

His lips were dry and chapped. They barely parted when he spoke. ”Cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's. We were going to change the face of modern medicine.”

”Mister Snow. Did you take the compound? Did you take the QE647?”

”It was the government, you know. They funded the project. They didn't want us finding out what it was. We worked in separate groups. Only Ferguson knew. And even he didn't have all the pieces. But I figured it out. I put the pieces together.”

He rolled his eyes up at me. They looked tired and bloodshot, like he had not slept in days. He tried to smile, but his cracked lips prevented that.

”We were working on a secret military project,” he said in a hush. ”A project researching bio-reanimation in complex life forms.”

”And you succeeded,” I said. ”Didn't you.”

He nodded faintly. ”We succeeded, Mark, Rick, Melvin, Jake and me. We made QE647 a reality.”

”You took it, too. Didn't you? You took the compound and gave it to your wife.”

His eyes wandered back across the room to her. ”Yes. I gave it to her.” He shook his head. ”She was too far gone. She had been dead an hour. You can reanimate the tissue, but the brain....” His eyes fell away again. ”The brain must be fresh. Look at her. She's a zombie. She doesn't know where she is, who she is.”

He dropped his head into his hands and buried them in his lap. ”Dear G.o.d. What have I done?”

I didn't know what to say to him. I looked up at Carlos and Spinelli. They didn't know either. I put my hand on his bare shoulder. He felt cold, maybe as cold as his zombie wife. After a bit of silent sobbing, Howard Snow raised his head, sniffed through the tears and asked me, ”What now?”

”Now?” I took my hand off his shoulder. ”For starters, you can give back the research material you stole.”