Tommy Nightmare(80)

“No death certificate anywhere. Just disappeared.”

“What about her father?”

“Local handyman, no steady job. Living on old family land, old little house. There’s not much to Jenny, either, judging by her school records. No discipline issues. No extracurricular activities. Good student, but she only got a general diploma. Seems like she was pretty invisible. What do you know about the girl?”

“She might be an immune carrier of the disease,” Heather said. “She suffers occasional breakouts of the symptoms, but no long-term damage, as far as anyone knows. Some people think she can infect others at will, or at least chooses to do it maliciously.”

“That’s horrible,” Williams said.

“It may be that something triggered a major flare-up that night,” Heather said. “She infected a lot of people at once. But I still can’t understand how it works. She catalyzes a fatal reaction, but she doesn’t leave any biochemical trace. Nothing viral, nothing bacterial…at this point, it could be little demons with pitchforks.”

“Sounds like a perfect weapon,” Williams said. “We have to be careful approaching her.”

“Are we approaching her?” Heather asked. “How? When?”

“That is under development,” Williams said. “But you’re going to be part of it.”

“I’ll have to clear it with Schwartzman—”

“Consider it cleared with Schwartzman, and with anybody you might be tempted to clear it with. We’re moving into a high threat level area here.”

“Okay,” Heather said. “Let’s have a closer look at Jenny Morton.”





Chapter Thirty-Seven


South Battery, the street in front of the Mandrake House, was blocked off for the festival, so they had to park at a garage a few blocks north of it and walk to the hotel.

“Isn’t this so exciting?” Darcy asked. They walked down Meeting Street under a canopy of ancient trees. High stone walls shielded old mansions from the sidewalk, and Seth could only see their upper balconies and the chimneys.

“I hope we can find the place,” Seth said.

“Don’t worry, I know just what we need to do,” Darcy told him.

They walked toward the sound of pulsing music near the harbor. Parliament-Funkadelic was playing. All around Seth and Darcy, clumps of young people walked along the sidewalk or right down the middle of the street, teenagers and college students drawn like moths towards the flickering lights of the weekend-long festival.

They reached Battery and turned left. The crowd was thick here now, and got much thicker across the street at the public park, which looked out onto the harbor. The band was playing somewhere inside the park, past the temporary stalls hawking beer and deep-fried food products, past the cluster of little old ladies protesting the festival with posterboard signs.

The Mandrake House hotel looked like some old Greek temple, with arches and Corinthian columns, and balconies curving out on every floor. The brick steps leading up the front porch were as wide as the house itself. Purple wisteria hung from the gnarled limbs of the old trees surrounding it.

“Oh, it’s just like I remember,” Darcy said. “I even got us the same room my family stayed in. Two bedrooms, with a little sitting room and a huge balcony.”

“That’s great,” Seth said. He’d let Darcy make their reservations, so he wasn’t too sure how much this was costing him. Darcy was at a rough time in her life, though, being pregnant and then giving the baby up for adoption so she could go to college. Seth’s dad might yell at him about the credit card bill, but so what?

The clerk was a woman in her forties or fifties who looked at them suspiciously, until Seth touched her arm and healed any little aches or pains she might have had. Then she smiled and flirted with him while she showed them to their suite.

“Each item of furniture you see is a genuine Southern antique,” the lady explained. “Most of them antebellum. But your bathroom is one hundred and two percent modern. The shower has a heating-stone floor, and it’s big enough for two.” She winked at Seth and giggled.

“Okay, thanks,” Seth said. He tipped the lady, as well as the big quiet bellman who’d carried up their suitcases, and the hotel employees finally left.

“Whew! I’m pooped.” Darcy sat on the couch in the sitting room. She looked out the huge glass doors to the park and the dancing crowd outside.

“You really picked a great place.” Seth pushed open the wide glass door to the balcony, letting in a rush of summer moonlight, music and salty ocean air. “We could watch the whole concert from right here. I’m amazed they had a room.”