22

Alf was strapped into his bed. He cried out, but his words were impossible to understand, if they were words at all.

Gradually, though, Davis could understand them. “Get away from me! Please, get away from me!”

Again and again, imploring someone or something to leave him alone.

“I see him,” said Alf, his thick tongue making his words nearly indistinguishable. “I see him, at the window.”

There was a window there, beside Alf. Grass, and the trunk of a tree.

Nurses hurried in and hurried out. Davis took one look at Alf, and had to hang on to something—he found a chair to lean on. Langton trembled, and had to sit down. A nurse attended to him, putting a hand on his forehead, bringing him a glass of water.

Alf groaned and tossed. He glistened with sweat. His tongue was swollen and filled his mouth, brown and quaking, like a toad. The worst thing about this appearance, however, was his eyes. They had sunk far into his skull, and when his lids trembled open, there was nothing but dark holes.

The injured arm was a great white melon of bandages. The arm had been strapped into place, but it jerked from time to time.

Dr. Hall strode into the room, and gazed down at the thrashing figure. He glanced at Langton, and then crooked a finger at Davis.

“His nervous system is necrotizing,” said Dr. Hall. “The major nerves are simply disintegrating. I say ‘simply.’ It isn’t simple at all. I’ve never seen anything like it. The optic nerve is already gone. Dissolved, like so much overcooked porridge.”

“It has nothing to do with the explosion, does it?”

Dr. Hall pulled at his lower lip. He roused himself as though from a daze. “There’s a law in medicine, as in every other science. I think of it as the Uniqueness Prohibition. If it happens in one place, it happens in many, is one way of putting it. There are rare syndromes, nearly unheard-of diseases. But virtually nothing that is literally unique. What is happening to this man is unheard of. What is happening to Dr. Higg is equally mystifying, although quite different. Both men are suffering from something apparently unique.”

“I think we should have a talk,” said Davis.

Dr. Hall gave him a hard look. “Yes, I think we should.”

“It will take a few minutes. I can’t explain it all here. You won’t believe it, anyway.”

Dr. Hall smiled, and Davis liked him. The man did not mind mysteries. What he really minded was death. “Let’s take a quick walk, shall we? We can have some fresh air and some privacy at the same time.”

The District Hospital grounds were bright in the afternoon, and the trees, while black and bare, seemed to be tipped with the lightest gold from place to place. Naked rose stalks shivered on their stakes, and the earth was black where a gardener had worked it. It was winter and spring at once, and the green of the lawns as the two men talked was shocking, nearly unbelievable, as though the tint control on a television set overadjusted to produce a blazing green impossible in nature. There was a scent of wet earth, and, far away, the purr of a lawn mower.

Dr. Hall did not even ask a question until Davis had told everything, even the tale of the burst pipe in Mr. Foote’s bookshop, and then Dr. Hall shook his head sadly. “How could so many bright people suffer such a delusion?”

Davis was irritated, but then he realized that Dr. Hall was reacting as any rational person would, as Davis himself would have reacted a few weeks ago.

“Now that you have lost all respect for us,” said Davis, with as much cheer as he could, “I suppose you still have no idea what is wrong with Alf and Dr. Higg.”

Dr. Hall shook his head. “Your interesting story has shed no light at all. We’re wasting time, as well.”

As though to demonstrate the truth of this, a nurse stood in the distance, waving a white arm. The two men ran, and the nurse told them with a glance that something very bad was happening.

Alf’s face was shriveled, gray and nearly unrecognizable. The skin of his uninjured arm was so withered that the tattoos had lost much of their definition. Black fluid streamed from Alf’s nostrils.

Dr. Hall swore, and snapped instructions. Alf heaved against the restraints. For several minutes nurses and doctors wrestled with the struggling figure.

Alf howled, and his head seemed to burst.

Black, putrid matter spattered the ceiling and the walls, and Alf gave a long, broken groan.

He was silent.

Then the men and women slumped, fatigued. The body did not move. Dr. Hall gave quiet instructions, and turned to face Davis.

The doctor was thin and small suddenly. He looked away from Davis, and yet seemed to need to talk.

Davis had enough experience with postmortems to be able to hazard a guess or two. Alf had apparently suffered a massive infection that had attacked the nervous tissues. Davis had handled a number of skulls of syphilis victims. A massive infection could even eat into the bone of the skull, rotting it as worms rot wood. But syphilis took decades to accomplish its horror. This had taken hours.

Dr. Hall sighed and shook his head, indicating that he couldn’t talk just yet. He gazed at the floor, and then turned angrily away from Davis, as though Davis reminded him of ghosts and poltergeists and other such foolishness.

It was hard to believe that cheerful, lively Alf was gone.

A fellow worker. A colleague.

Someone who needed to be avenged.

Mr. Langton had watched it all, and now sat with his arms folded. “They weren’t much use, were they, all these well-trained people.”

One of the nurses glanced his way. She was using a white rag on some of the debris that had burst from Alf’s body.

“They did their best, though,” Langton added quickly. “Admirable people.”

The older man stood weakly, and put his hand to the chair for support. Then he shook himself. “We mustn’t give in to weakness, must we?”

Davis could think only, Alf is gone.

“Peter will be shocked,” said Davis at last. “He thought we would save Alf, even his hand. Peter’s already pretty disturbed by all of this. This will be hard.”

“Peter knew something like this would happen,” said Langton. “He knew someone would die.”

Figures ran in the corridor.

“Another casualty,” said Langton vaguely.

Then the two of them hurried, too.

The crisis was in Dr. Higg’s room.

A tall, heavyset nurse blocked the door. They would have no more criticism from Mr. Langton. “Just a minute, if you please,” she said.

Dr. Higg was wheeled out of his room, a tangle of transparent tubes and medical personnel. Davis could see only a glimpse of Higg’s ashen profile.

“You see, Davis, what we are up against,” said Langton, when, he could speak.

Davis did not. What they were up against was entirely mysterious, although apparently malevolent and extremely powerful. Beyond that, he knew nothing. He had the bare beginnings of a plan, though. A sketchy plan. He needed information, and time.

“This is why we must stop working on anything associated with Skeldergate,” said Langton. “Perhaps we may even have to fill in the trenches.”

Davis wheeled, appalled. “And destroy all that work!”

Alf’s work.

“Try not to hate me, Davis. None of us believe in such things. The Bible has its witch of Endor and other such devils and demons. So perhaps it’s not unchristian to believe in such things. I really don’t know what to believe. I know only one thing, Davis: there’s nothing at all we can do.”

We shall see, thought Davis.

The Minster Library would close in half an hour. It was nearly dark in late afternoon. The Minster cast not only a shadow, but a dark that spilled everywhere, filling the sky.

“I require admission into the rare manuscript room. Not as a staff member of the Foundation. On my own business.”

Davis flashed his cards identifying him as a member of three different university faculties—two of the cards were out of date, but there was no need to explain that. There was one of Dr. Higg’s cards expressing hope that “all courtesies would be extended,” a card Davis had carried for some fifteen years, and never had to use until now.

The bearded librarian frowned. It was all too complicated, he seemed to be thinking. Americans with little white cards. The world was cluttered with them.

Another librarian, a woman, smiled up at Davis. “I saw you on television. It was on BBC Two. I begin to remember—it was a few years ago. I seem to remember you from—was it ‘Open University’?”

“That’s right,” said Davis. “My lecture on the nasal index.”

“Nasal index! And you want to see our manuscripts?”

“Just briefly.”

Davis climbed the ladder, located the volume, and leaped down. Gentle with the ancient pages, but as quickly as he could, he found the place he wanted and tilted the pages to get the best light.

The ancient script was nearly invisible in places. He searched back in the chronicle, discovering what had happened to previous kings, how they had died, and most important, how they had been buried. Plainly, being a king was a temporary position in York’s eighth century. There had been plots and counterplots, and the kings had not been, in the best of times, particularly powerful.

The deaths of ancient kings, and ancient lords. “In the ninth month of his reign the ring-giver, lord of Bodeton and the Oak Ford, and lord of the Kingdom north of the Humber, died by the grace of God almighty, and was buried with his sword.”

“In that month a great water rose from the west and fell upon the lands, with a great foulness, and many lords fell by the will of God almighty, and were buried with their swords.”

So many people, faded to tea-pale smudges on a sheepskin page.

He called Irene from the Phonecard booth near the Lendal Bridge.

“Poor Alf,” said Irene. “The doctor looked like such a determined man. No doubt he is very unhappy.”

Everyone was unhappy, said Davis. “I suppose Mr. Langton is the most upset of all. He has forbidden me to do any more work on the dig, or to have anything to do with investigating what has been happening.”

“But you will not stop working, will you?”

The little window in the telephone showed that his Phonecard credits were nearly used up.

He wished she were here, this moment. He had an instant sense of her smile, and her body, her perfect black hair, the curve of her under him, her breath at his ear.

“You will not give up, Davis, because you know that you are right.”

There was a note taped to the door of his flat. “Call Mr. Langton.”

Davis used the coin phone near the abbey walls. There was only a recorded message at the office, Mrs. Webster telling Davis what to do at the sound of the tone. Davis hung up, and fed the telephone twenty pence. This time Mrs. Langton answered at the Langton residence.

“A terrible thing, Mr. Lowry. I don’t even want to say.”

Worse, Davis wanted to ask, than what had already happened that day?

Mr. Langton would pick him up. He should stay where he was, and wait not five minutes.

Langton drove quickly, which, Davis imagined, was not like him. The city was entirely dark now, and the headlights of Langton’s Ford did not seem to succeed against the black.

“Not a pretty business,” was all Langton would say.

Davis had to nearly beg for information.

“Two matters, really,” said Langton.

Langton swerved to miss a man on a bicycle.

“Should I try to guess?”

“You couldn’t. The first one is, perhaps, fairly simple. Did Mandy mention going off anywhere? Down to London, perhaps, with Irene?”

“No, not at all.”

“Well, she’s gone missing, then. She was supposed to lecture at Saint Andrews tonight on Norse artifacts uncovered at the dig. She’s a charming speaker, and enjoys it, and she can use the money.”

“Sick, perhaps. Or maybe she forgot.”

“Mmmm,” doubtfully. “Perhaps.”

There was a long silence. They were well out of York now, heading southwest, as nearly as Davis could tell.

“Bishopthorpe,” said Langton in answer to Davis’s question. “Closer to Acaster Malbis, actually.”

“Could you, maybe, give me just a hint as to what is happening?”

Langton sighed, and as frustrated as Davis felt, he decided not to push the man.

“Not a pretty business,” said Langton after driving silently for a moment. “When was the last time you saw Jane Hull?”

Davis didn’t know. He had thought—perhaps Mandy had told him—that she was quitting and leaving for London.

“Yes, I knew that. We had a word. She thought this project might not be the best thing for her career. Can’t imagine anyone thinking that, can you?” he added, a bit of dry humor that Davis appreciated, even as it surprised him.

“This will certainly be the pinnacle of my résumé, for as long as I live,” said Davis.

Langton drove, every furlong that they traveled just that much closer to exactly the sort of thing Langton most wanted to avoid. He found himself resenting Higg for spending all this time completely unconscious. Langton was capable, but he was not intended for the slings and arrows of fortune quite this outrageous.

“I am beginning to become rather familiar with the police,” said Langton at last. “After years of television, I’m afraid I am a little disappointed.”

Davis began to guess what had happened. He could not, naturally, imagine the details. But he, too, wished the car would blow a tire, or that the calendar could shift and find them all just a few weeks before all this—anything to delay what was about to happen.

Davis did not bother to ask any more questions. He didn’t want to know.

Lights swung on the black water. Blue police lights flashed, and electric torches illuminated reeds, then water, then road as their bearers turned their attention from one place to another.

“We had her and then we lost her,” said a policeman.

“How, exactly,” asked Mr. Langton, “did you manage that?”

Bubbles burst on the surface of the river.

“Our divers brought up a handbag. Here it is. Here’s a library ticket with her name on it.”

“Yes, but you haven’t a body?”

“We thought we did.”

Langton turned to Davis and, although the two men could not see each other’s features, there was a moment of shared exasperation.

“It’s dark, you see, and she’s hard to get a hold of. I do want to apologize. We should have her any moment now.”

“Lovely,” muttered Langton.

Langton and Davis walked to the edge of the darkness. A van with a loud generator backed to the edge of the river, and the scene was illuminated with nearly blinding blue light. Policemen parted bushes, and the frogmen rose, spitting water, and clearing mouthpieces. “Nowt yet,” said one. The river water looked green in the unnatural light.

Langton put his hands into his pockets. “They think,” he said, “they have Jane’s body.”