Josey woke at noon, drenched in sweat. The circus, the subway, Madame Sonya, the girl — it was all jumbled and fading like a dream in daylight. He dressed in his rumpled clothes and rinsed his face with cold water in the small bathroom. The face looking back at him from the mirror looked worn and tired. His hair was disheveled; his skin was pasty. There were dark bags under his eyes and a small pinprick on his neck.
He smelled a sweet aroma and turned back to the room. Madame Sonya had come in with a tray of black tea, salted fish, and warm bread. Josey sat at the table and wolfed down the meal. When he had finished, he rose to leave,
“I’ve got class in half an hour.”
“Don’t push yourself too hard.,” said Madame Sonya. “With each passing hour, your strength returns and grows. At your age, the healing process is rapid, but you are still weak. You’ve not yet completely recovered.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got to go. Thanks for everything, Madame Sonya. Please tell your grand-daughter I said good-bye.”
Madame Sonya nodded, “We’re here if you need us.”
Josey wondered what she meant by that last remark but had no time to think about it now. He left the fortune teller’s parlor, hurried out through Damrosch Park and across the plaza. He took the local to 116th and ran up the steps and through the campus gate to the Science Building. When he arrived at the hall, Prof. von Holzing was already lecturing. Josey eased the door open and slipped into an empty seat in the last row, next to Tricia. She seemed startled.
“You look awful!” she whispered.
“I don’t feel so good.”
“What happened to you?!”
“I’ll tell you later.”
Trisha and Josey settled back in their chairs. Trisha was still staring at him. He looked as if he had a horrible hangover. Maybe he had food poisoning from the hotdog at the circus?
Josey looked down to the front of the hall. Professor von Holzing’s mouth was moving and sounds were coming out, but Josey could not decipher their meaning. His lids were heavy. It was stuffy in the closed room. Stifling...
“Wake up, Josey.”
Josey opened his eyes and tried to focus. He heard giggling close by. Tricia had nudged him awake.
“You were snoring.”
Josey sat up and blushed. Tricia was looking at him with worry in her eyes. The other students around him were laughing. Professor von Holzing, however, was not amused.
“Have you decided to join us again, young man?”
“Yes, sorry professor.”
“Let us please have no more interruptions.”
“Just tell me if you’re going to be sick,” Tricia whispered to him.
Josey shook his head and took a deep breath.
Down at the podium, Professor von Holzing consulted his notes and went on,
“Precognition is a very old art and a very young science. Demonstrable foreknowledge of future events is inextricably linked to the problems of free will and determinism, which have plagued philosophers for centuries. These problems, in turn, raise profound ethical and moral questions which, to many, seem merely the various forms of an irreconcilable moral dilemma. From the Oracle of Delphi to modern computerized statistical analysis of probabilities...” Von Holzing stopped in mid-sentence. “Excuse me just a moment,” he said and strode from the podium, up the aisle to the classroom door.
Josey saw someone in the doorway, a large, muscular man with a graying crewcut and whiskers. There were drops of blood leaking through bandages under the man’s shirt and his arm was in a sling and heavily bandaged.
“Good God, Straker!” exclaimed von Holzing. “What happened?”
“The subject has been neutralized.”
“Splendid! But you’re bleeding. Your arm!”
“It will heal. I need to talk to you, Professor.”
“Yes, of course.” Von Holzing waved a hand, “Class dismissed.”
The students rose and gathered their things. Von Holzing and Straker started out the door. Josey stood and watched them leave, fascinated somehow by the powerful but injured man. Straker glanced back over his shoulder. His eyes met Josey’s stare. Their gazes locked, Straker’s eyes narrowed and seemed to drill into Josey, as if searching for his soul. Josey looked down in confusion. When he looked up again, Straker was gone.
“Why was he looking at you like that?” asked Tricia.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“I don’t think he likes you.”
Von Holzing and Straker walked rapidly down the corridor, through the milling students, towards the professor’s lab at the end of the hallway.
“Who was that?” asked Straker.
“Who?”
“That kid in the last row.”
“Oh, I don’t know. One of my students. Why?”
“I told you, Professor. I can smell them a mile away.”
“What? You mean?.. Oh, no. You’re mistaken, Yanosh. You’re letting your imagination get the best of you. Now tell me what happened when you located the subject.”
“It was a massive specimen. Four inch incisors. It covered 10 meters in a single leap.”
“You’re lucky to be alive. You shouldn’t take such chances.”
“Someone has to take out the garbage, Professor.”
“Did you obtain a blood sample?”
Straker tapped his breast pocket.
“Excellent!”
At the end of the hall, they stopped before a door with the word “Laboratory” written on opaque glass. Von Holzing unlocked the door and they stepped inside. Rows of tables filled the room, covered with racks of test tubes, scales, beakers, burners and scientific apparatus. The walls were lined with glass cabinets, their shelves filled with flasks of liquids and small jars of powder.
As they entered, von Holzing motioned with his hand, “Careful, Yanosh. Wait here just a moment.”
Straker stopped and saw an open shaft to his right near the corner of the room.
“It’s an old freight lift,” said von Holzing. “Not in use.”
Von Holzing crossed the room and flipped a red switch. The trap doors creaked and swung shut. Von Holzing slid an iron rod through an eye-hole on the doors.
“It’s supposed to be kept closed and barred. God forbid someone should fall into the hole. We’d have a law suit on our hands.”
Von Holzing sat at a table in front of a powerful microscope, ran his fingers across his balding scalp and scratched the thin gray hair on the back of his head. Straker handed him the sealed tube.
Von Holzing smeared a drop of blood on a slide and focused the microscope on the sample.
“Amazing!”
“What have we got, Professor?”
Von Holzing took a thick volume of the Necronomicon from a shelf beneath the table and leafed through the yellowed pages.
“Ah! Here it is.”
He studied the illustration and looked back through the microscope, “Hmmm.”
“What is it, Professor?”
Von Holzing looked up at Straker, “Further analysis is required but it looks exceedingly like an infection of Tepes Pyogenes.”
“Werewolf?”
“Not exactly. Upwyr. Often misdiagnosed as vampirism. Upwyr are more like shape-shifters, capable of various bestial forms and modes. And we’re dealing here with an extremely virulent and highly contagious Romanian strain. If I’m not mistaken, this variant, although mutated, traces back to the Wallachian outbreak of 1450.”
“The Impaler?”
“Precisely. I believe we are dealing here with lineal descendants of those victims originally infected. They may have developed a certain tolerance to the action of the pathogenic agent.”
“Professor, nobody is going to believe you.”
Von Holzing sighed, “Correct, Yanosh. Not even the Upwyr themselves, who believe the condition is caused by an enchantment placed on the poor sufferer by a witch or sorcerer, often by means of a magic potion. Infection or curse, it’s hereditary. In any case, it is premature to involve the authorities, much as it might be desired, since they would constitute little more than interference, at this point. But our investigation must proceed. Based on the frequency and pattern of recent incidents, the simultaneous outbreaks in disparate locations, I’m afraid we are dealing with more than one.”
“An infestation.”
“Yes. And I believe we are getting close to the source.”
Von Holzing reached for a yellow pad and began to scratch some notes. Brooding and grim, Straker walked to the window and gazed down at the campus. A great deal of difficult and dangerous work remained for him to do.
* * *
Copyright © 2008 by Bill Bowler
