Page 48 of The Undead

My eyes kept going to the mirror, and the car behind me. A woman finally got out and locked her car; she leaned on the car door, facing the hospice, and her body language painted her reluctance clearly enough for me to recognize it from where I sat. She pushed away and walked toward the door, a gangling, awkward woman composed mostly of elbows and angles, limp and dangerous at the same time.

I guess I knew even before the streetlight fell on her face that it was A.G.—Rebecca Foster. Of all of the people I could picture going to an AIDS hospice, Foster was pretty close to the last one. I’d heard her views on AIDS once, aired for the world to hear in the hospital cafeteria. She’d loudly proclaimed it the wrath of God on the homosexuals and deviants. I couldn’t see her doing volunteer work here, or any place like it.

She marched up the stairs and disappeared inside. She hadn’t looked at me, which was lucky; it meant that she wasn’t following me. Following me? A corpse? She couldn’t be.

Then come up with a reason for her presence, Mr. Brilliant Doctor. Okay, she was following Sylvia.

Why would she follow Sylvia? There was always the possibility that she was here by accident, but I didn’t think so. I thought Rebecca A.G. Foster was looking for somebody in particular, and she hated anyone close to Adam.

Realization hit me like a bucket of cold water. Adam. Jesus Christ, I’d forgotten about Foster’s tirade in the hospital the day Maggie was released. She’d been going on about Adam, about how dangerous he was …

… about Adam being demonic. Oh,Christ.She was followingSylvia.I had to get word to her without being seen by Foster. I opened my door and got out, then crossed and took the alley next to the hospice. It was not anything I would have done in my living hours; nobody in their right mind went into dark alleys downtown after dark—or before dark, come to that. But I figured I had enough of an edge to take a chance or two, if I had to.

The only chance I took, as it happened, was of paralyzing myself with the stench rising like invisible fog from the pavement and walls. Urine. Decaying flesh and food. Rot. Mildew. Things that made me gag and freeze in overwhelming revulsion; I forced myself to get moving, and found the fire escape. It was slimy with something I tried not to think about. The bars were rusty and crumbled in flakes under the pressure of my hands. I climbed quickly and without sound, and got up above the miasma enough that my eyes focused again. There was a window on the fire landing, locked; I exerted a little discreet pressure and it became unlocked. The hallway was deserted and dim. I slid inside and shut the window; it held back part of the alley smell, but the too-ripe atmosphere of the building hurt almost as much, an ache that began in my eyes and ran like acid through my nose and down my throat. I didn’t breathe—couldn’t have, I think—but it didn’t help.

The building stank of death and fatal illness. I gagged again, a silent rebellion, and then started down the hallway. The rooms I passed were deserted, piled with boxes and junk. Light spilled up from a stairway and cut a bright path over the scraped wooden floor. I stopped in the shadows and looked over the railing, mindful of my eyes and whatever else alien I now possessed.

I didn’t see anybody, didn’t hear anything but the muted murmur of voices and someone coughing, a continual dry hacking that sounded hopeless and agonizing. I took a cautious step down into the light, then another. When I was halfway down the stairs, a door opened across from them and Sylvia came out. She looked older than before, tired and beaten down with pain. I retreated back up the stairs, but her eyes had become accustomed to Adam and his quickness; she focused on me, and her eyes widened in surprise.

She covered it nicely enough to fool the woman who came out of the room behind her. Sylvia turned and stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets, staring at Rebecca Foster. Foster’s face was flushed an uncomfortable blotch of white and red, and her eyes looked weak and watery next to the glare. There was nothing weak about her expression, though, or the animosity in it.

“What do you want?” Sylvia asked coolly. Foster just looked at her. “Look, you burst in on my friend when he doesn’t need any more excitement, and I don’t appreciate that. If you have something to say, I wish you’d say it.”

“Do you know who I am?” Foster asked her. Sylvia cocked her head to the side. I couldn’t see her expression, but I saw the color rise in Foster’s face again, an alarming shade.

“Oh, yes,” Sylvia practically purred, as blandly insulting as she could be. “A.G. What do you want?”

“I want you to open your eyes to the truth. You’re dealing with the devil, Miss Reilly. You have to know that—what he is, what kind of—of thing—” Foster gestured violently and blinked back tears of effort. She was trying hard to keep calm, but it wasn’t in her nature. Her voice was already too loud. Sylvia didn’t turn to look up the stairs, but I could feel her attention subtly shifting, testing to see if I was still there. Yes, I assured her silently. Present and accounted for. “He’s evil. I’ve seen. He drinks blood. He kills for the glory of his evil.”

“Who?” Sylvia asked, still quiet, still controlled. Foster’s eyes narrowed, and she looked up and down the hall in a parody of caution. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Specific?” Foster spat. “Adam Radburn, if that’s even his name. He isn’t human. He isn’t even alive. You’ve got to see that you’ve been controlled by him, seduced, but you can be free, by the power of the Lord you can be free of him! I came tosaveyou!”

Sylvia didn’t move, didn’t seem to even breathe. I could smell the tang of her fear, hear the rapid frightened tapping of her pulse. On the outside, though, she seemed to hardly even have heard Foster’s harangue.

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Sylvia finally said, and turned away. Foster reached out and grabbed her arm. When Sylvia tried to pull free, Foster’s nails dug in, hard. I smelled the sudden sweet blood she drew as Sylvia pushed her away with an angry hiss.

“I can save you,” Foster assured her, breathing hard. There was blood on Foster’s fingernails, but neither of them seemed aware of it. “Repent and I can kill him. You must do it or die with him. He’s evil, and I have to destroy him. God’s with me.”

Sylvia slapped her, hard. Foster’s head rocked back, and she cupped a hand over the reddened patch of skin as her blue eyes leaked tears. Sylvia had turned enough that I could see her profile, and the look on her face made me remember her story about killing vampires. Foster had touched a nerve. A hot, painful one.

“Go to hell, Foster,” Sylvia said, and took a deep gulp of air to control her trembling. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you’d better get some help. You’re persecuting somebody who’s never done a thing to harm you. Can’t you see that what you’re doing is wrong?”

I thought, for a moment, that Sylvia’s instinctive sympathy might actually reach the woman. Foster’s face crumpled, and for a brief second there was confusion and fear swimming with the tears in her eyes. Only for a second. In the next, she smiled, a beatific smile that one of the ancient saints might have smiled, as they mutilated their own flesh and raised their blood-streaked hands to heaven.

“I’m doing God’s will. I always do.” There was a change in her voice, a chill that made Sylvia’s body language alter to a defensive stance. “And if you do the devil’s, then you’re my enemy. You can’t serve two masters, Miss Reilly. The devil will drag you down with him.”

“I only see one devil here,” Sylvia murmured. “It’s the one in your own head. I’m going back to my friend now, Sarah. Please leave.”

“I’m sorry,” Foster told her gravely. And without any change of expression, she reached out and grabbed Sylvia’s hair, winding it brutally tight around her fist and jerking down. Sylvia cried out and tried to pull away, but Foster held on. There was a tight, triumphant smile on her lips. “You have to come with me now. I have a friend who isn’t as forgiving as I am.”

I was two steps down the stairs before I could stop myself, drawn by the violence and the continued smell of fear and blood—and, at least partially, because I couldn’t let Sylvia be hurt. Foster’s triumphant smile widened as I came into the light.

“I knew he’d be watching …”

Even from where I stood I could see Foster’s shock as she realized who I was. Not Adam, whom she’d expected. Not at all. Her mouth flopped open, and her tongue moved weakly like a grounded fish.

“Dr. Bowman,” she finally whispered. “No, dear God, you can’t be—”

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