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little else.
Glancing idly toward the foot of the bed, he saw that Oelefse had laid rattle
and staff down on the bed sheets.
Three-quarters of the way up the staff, the tough stainless steel was
partially melted beneath a black streak slightly less than a foot long. Cody
went cold inside. The thing that had caused that was living within, and
feeding off, the woman he loved. Based on what he knew, Interlopers could
not normally affect non-natural objects such as steel. But the events of
the preceding half hour had been anything but normal. Certain minor laws of
nature had been suspended, existence altered, and perception adjusted. Reality
had been tampered with.
Leaving Kelli's bedside, he removed the chair propped against the
door and opened the window blinds, flooding the room once more with
unfiltered sunshine. By the time Oelefse emerged from the bathroom, once again
impeccably attired, there was little to indicate that anything out of the
ordinary had taken place. The
German was just setting his handsome hat back on his head when two husky
security guards burst into the room, closely trailed by a doctor and nurse. As
they cast suspicious glances in all directions, Cody looked up curiously.
"Everything all right?"
When the security men gazed hard at the archaeologist, he met their accusatory
stares with an expression of bemused innocence. The doctor turned on the
bewildered nurse.
"Well? What's this all about, then?"
"I-it sounded like there was a war going on in here. I swear, Doctor! The
outside walls were shaking. If you put
your palm against them you could feel the vibrations!"
The duty physician turned sternly to face Cody, who was seated on the edge of
the bed alongside his gently breathing wife. "My nurses are not subject to
hallucinations, Mr. Westcott."
"I told her." Cody shrugged, affecting the air of one who when confronted by a
meaningless challenge could not and would not argue with those too daft to
accept the obvious. "My wife likes heavy metal. I'm sorry if I
had it going a little too loud."
"A little loud!" The flustered nurse's outrage was palpable. "It was
more than music that was going on in here!"
Oelefse spoke up, gesturing at the room. "Really, Herr Doktor, do you see
anything amiss?"
The duty physician scanned the room. "No. No, everything looks all right." His
eyebrows drew together and he gestured with a nod. "What are those?"
As one, Cody and Oelefse's eyes went to the two long objects
resting crosswise on the foot of the bed.
Rising from his seat, the old man picked them up, prepared to allow the doctor
closer scrutiny should he be so inclined.
"Gifts for my young friend here. He is an archaeolo-gist, and as such
interested in all manner of primitive objects."
The doctor stared a moment longer. Then he finally relaxed. "They're very
handsome. Indian? The metal one is, of course, a reproduction." Behind him,
the nurse glow-ered silently.
"Of course. Ja, they are Indian. You are perceptive be-yond your field, Herr
Doktor."
Feeling good about himself and better about the situ-ation, the
physician smiled broadly. "Sorry to have both-ered you, then. Please do
try to keep the volume down in here, though. Our walls are reasonably well
sound-proofed, but they're not impenetrable, and not all our patients are
heavy metal fans. Especially some of the elderly ones. American or British
band?"
Oelefse gestured deferentially. "German, of course. Rammstein. I
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
thought they might be especially efficacious in this case."
The doctor shook his head in amusement. "Heavy metal music. Now that's a
therapy I haven't tried." Favoring the bewildered nurse with a withering look
of reproach, he turned and led the way out of the room. Relieved of any need
to wrestle with recalcitrant visitors, the security men followed without
comment.
Cody let out a deep, inward sigh of relief. So preoccupied with
the nurse's report and then distracted by
Oelefse's colorful gear had the doctor been, he'd failed to notice the absence
of a CD player, tape deck, or any other visible source of the sounds that
the archaeologist had claimed as the "music" that had shaken the room The
older man began to breakdown the staff into its com-ponent parts to repack
in the briefcase. He paused to inspect the scorched, marginally melted
section of shaft, running a finger over it speculatively.
"Donnerwetter Very powerful infestation, this. Very, very strong," he muttered
under his breath.
"What now? What happened?" Cody glanced helplessly down at his beloved. "Did
any of that do any good?
She doesn't seem any better."
"Oh, but she is." Carefully, Oelefse placed the rattle in his attache. The
archaeologist noted absently that the interior was equipped with customized
holding straps, pockets, and slots designed to accommodate a wide variety of
paraphernalia not usually found in such cases. The decorated and
incised gourd-rattle fit neatly between an ultrathin laptop computer and a
satellite telephone.
"Is that a fact?" Cody cradled his wife's limp hand. "Better how?"
"She was suffering from a multiple infestation. Per-haps you saw, when I drew [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]