From Black Rooms (26 page)

Evan had never kil ed for his own sake before. His previous victims had al been Violets, al of them his friends. He'd delivered them to death as an act of mercy, relieving them of the daily onslaught of

agonized souls vying to inhabit them. After putting them out of their misery as quickly and painlessly as he could, he defiled their corpses after the fact, dressing up the murders with the trappings of sadism in order to disguise his motivation--to create the fictional

psychopath known as the Violet Kil er.

He now repeated the M.O. he had invented, gouging out Tranquil ity's eyes and slitting open her bel y to draw the worm of her smal intestine out to form a talismanic circle around her body. But on this occasion, he did it solely for his own benefit. To vent ten years of fury at languishing in Corps headquarters' soul-cage oubliette. To protest how Boo had betrayed him, scorning his gold in favor of dross like Atwater and Criswel . To poison the haven she had created for herself and Atwater's bastard by making this clean, cozy home a touchstone for the pitiful soul of this petty, stupid woman whose entrails he spread over the carpet.

And, most important, to practice for the next time.
21

The Doctor and the Gardner

THE REST OF THE FLIGHT to Boston by trading

seats so that Calvin did not have to contend with the touchstone for a terrorist. When they final y landed around five o'clock, Eastern Time, none of them

possessed energy for anything more than checking into their hotel and eating a dispirited meal of burgers and fries. If this real y had been a family vacation, Natalie might have reserved the adjacent room in addition to the one in which they were staying, since a sandwiched pair of locked doors could be opened to connect the two rooms. That way, each of them could have had his or her own bed. Because this was not an ordinary trip, however, Natalie decided they should stay together for greater safety, so she and Calvin ended up sharing one queen-size bed while Wade and Cal ie took the other. Needless to say, this arrangement meant Natalie and Calvin again had to try to doze off ful y dressed. Calvin continued to fade in and out, fleetingly

possessed by unpredictable spirits. When bedtime came, Natalie did not take any chances. She gave him twice the recommended dose of some over-the-counter

sleeping pil s and lashed his wrists and ankles together with pairs of panty hose that she bought at the

pharmacy where she got the drug.

Deciding what to do with Calvin the fol owing morning was far more difficult. His condition would surely draw attention if he accompanied them out in public, and Natalie didn't know how she would handle another

inhabitation like the one he'd endured on the plane. With Carl Pancrit and Evan both hunting for them, however, Natalie refused to leave any member of her group alone and unguarded. After a hasty continental breakfast, she chose to risk taking Calvin with her when she, Cal ie, and Wade caught a cab to 2 Palace Road in Boston's Back Bay district.

The Isabel a Stewart Gardner Museum had once been the "summer palace" of its eponymous owner, the indomitable society matron known as Mrs. Jack after the late husband from whom she inherited her mil ions. Modeled upon a fifteenth-century Venetian palazzo, the rectangular, four-story manse had remained, by Mrs. Jack's decree, virtual y unchanged since her death in 1924. Shaded by trees that had grown to maturity over the past eight decades, the unimposing wal s of gray stone and roof of red tile barely hinted at the glories they embraced. Only the baroque sculpting of the

arched windows promised the kind of beauty that could be cal ed "art."

When Natalie had conceived the idea of using Storm on
the Sea of Galilee or one of the other stolen paintings as
a touchstone to summon the elusive Dr. Wax, she

imagined doing so in a sleepy, sparsely attended gal ery patronized only by cognoscenti. She had not considered the sensation created by the largest unsolved art heist in modern history, nor the phenomenon of the missing paintings' equal y mysterious return. Tourists of seemingly every nationality and ethnicity lined the queue that snaked out the entrance and down the

sidewalk in front of the museum, and the Lindstrom party had to wait almost an hour to get inside, with Cal ie constantly grousing about having to stand stil for so long.

The Gardner had milked the publicity for al it was worth, touting the restored col ection as the "Reunion Exhibition." A banner as big as a Times Square advertisement hung in the foyer with the jubilant greeting WELCOME HOME, REMBRANDT! beside a

blow-up of the Dutch master's miniature self-portrait. Placards posted on stainless-steel stands related how, at 1:20 A.M. in the black morning of March 18, 1990, two men armed with pistols and disguised with fake

mustaches gained entry to the museum by posing as police officers investigating a disturbance. Once they'd overpowered and incapacitated the guards on duty, they set about slashing canvases from their frames. The works they selected to steal seemed idiosyncratic to the point of being arbitrary, for they passed over invaluable pieces by Titian and Raphael in favor of some minor sketches by Degas.

It bore al the hal marks of a Corps Security operation, Natalie thought--crude, brutal, yet effective. But what did these purloined masterpieces have to do with

Project Persephone? Perhaps Dr. Wax could tel her...if she ever got the chance to speak with him.

There was one advantage to the spectacle the museum created around the recovered paintings: it made them easy to find. Signs pointed the way to each of the star attractions, saving Natalie the trouble of searching three floors of cavernous gal eries for a single picture. Nevertheless, it took another half hour for her to reach
Storm on the Sea of Galilee, in part because she had to
tug Calvin through the museum's shifting throngs as if leading a blind man. Ever babbling under his breath, he'd taken to shutting his eyes while he walked, inching his feet forward as if each step might tumble him over a precipice. Hardly anyone took notice of him amidst the honeycomb buzz of activity in the hal s, however, for Natalie had covered his bandages with the Padres

basebal cap again.

Wade fol owed the two of them, keeping a tight hold of Cal ie's hand so she didn't get separated from them in the crowds. Eventual y, they made it to a large room whose wal s bore the metal ic sheen of green satin embroidered with gold fleur-de-lis.

"Wel , there it is," Wade said when he saw the mob of spectators encircling one of the room's paintings. "Now what do we do?"

An excellent question, Natalie thought. She had
assumed she'd be able to get close enough to touch the painting in an unobtrusive fashion to summon Wax. She now saw how impossible that would be. Red velvet

rope fenced in the Rembrandt, holding people at a distance of two feet from the canvas. A docent stood to one side of the picture, lecturing a group of more than a dozen visitors, while a portly guard attended a short distance away, resting a hand on the pistol in his hip holster as if daring any thief to chal enge his machismo. The Gardner was clearly determined that its stolen masterpieces would never disappear again.

Natalie peered at the Rembrandt in helpless vexation. Because Mrs. Gardner's wil had forbidden any

alteration in the arrangement of the museum's display, the three-foot-high gilt frame had stayed in place, enclosing a barren patch of wal paper, for more than fifteen years. The art-restoration experts who'd replaced the canvas in its frame had incorporated a narrow matte border to cover the frayed fringe of the painting where the thieves had cut the centuries-old canvas from its original stretcher. Seeing the original, Natalie marveled again at how Calvin had created an uncanny copy

working only from the flat, dul reproductions printed in books. Barely three yards away, the picture seemed close enough for her to press her palm against, yet a moat of humanity isolated it from her.

"Maybe we can create a distraction," she suggested to her father because she had no better ideas. "You and Cal ie could make some kind of commotion to catch people's attention. I should only need a few seconds... Trying to be optimistic, Natalie understated the time usual y required to summon a soul. If it took several minutes, as it often did, that trigger-happy guard would have them al up against a wal with their legs and arms spread before Wax showed up.

"You don't have to do that," Calvin interjected. "This whole place is a touchstone for Wax."

His pained whisper startled her. Although she stil gripped his hand in her gloved fist, he'd become so withdrawn that she had ceased to think of him as an active participant in the conversation, talking past him the way people do in front of vegetative patients. When she saw the pinched intensity of his face, the eyes and mouth squeezed shut as if to deny access to demons, Natalie realized the irony of their situation. While she had been seeking a way to draw Wax inside her mind, Calvin had been trying to keep him out of his.

Natalie understood the hazards of permitting the artist to be possessed by the soul of a man about whom they knew next to nothing. With Calvin's condition

deteriorating daily, however, she believed the danger of
not speaking to Wax outweighed the other threats.

"Let him in," she whispered.

Ground down by the unremitting assault of the dead, Calvin welcomed her permission to give in and give up. The inhabitation was gentle--an abdication, not an overthrow. Calvin draped one arm around Natalie's shoulders and relaxed against her, and al the weariness and fear etched into his brow and eyes were wiped clean. A look of cerebral, apprehensive naivete took their place, such as might belong to a shy child prodigy. The heaviness on Natalie's shoulder lightened as he began to support his own weight again. When he

became aware of how close he was to her, he fluttered backward in embarrassed agitation, as if he'd

accidental y violated her personal space. Then he noticed his surroundings, and he slowly panned the room, his eyes and mouth O's of wonder as he saw the antique mahogany furnishings, the silken wal s, the dark, chocolaty lacquer of the oil portraits.

"A
m I dreaming?" he said in a voice hushed with awe.
He stopped, transfixed by Storm on the Sea of Galilee.

"Dr. Wax?" Natalie asked.

He wheeled around to face her, frightening her with the sudden ferocity that contorted Calvin's features. "Did Carl put you up to this? Is this his idea of a joke?" She shook her head. "We're not with Dr. Pancrit--"

"Mr. Pancrit." Wax pointed to the Rembrandt. "He said he'd taken al my children prisoner."

It took Natalie a moment to make sense of the bizarre assertion. "The stolen paintings? No...they al returned safely."

Wax seized her shoulders, trembling. "Are you sure?

The da Vinci Madonna...I saw it burn."

"That was a forgery."

"How do you know?"

Natalie frowned. "Because it was painted by the man whose body you're in."

Wax put his hands to what had been Calvin's face a few minutes earlier. "You mean this isn't that other conduit?

The lunatic--the one Carl cal s 'Markham'?"

A seismic quiver tril ed through her at the mention of Evan's name. "No. His name's Calvin and his life's in danger. That's why we need to talk to you about Project Persephone."

"I see." The subject obviously distressed him as much as Evan bothered her, and his attention wandered back to the Rembrandt. "You...you say they're al safe? Carl had The Scream--"

"Another forgery." She al owed herself a smal smile of mischief. "I did that one myself."

Calvin's eyes glistened with a joy that wanted to weep, and his voice became hoarse with Wax's emotion.

"T
hank you."

He roved the gal ery with his gaze. "I've thought of this place so often over the years. Could...could we go out into the garden?"

Given the fact that some of the surrounding tourists had begun to gape at them, Natalie thought that was an excel ent suggestion.

"Cool!" Cal ie exclaimed as they stepped out into the portico that bordered the garden. "It looks like the School."

Natalie shared her opinion if not her enthusiasm. Bounded as it was on al sides by the four wings of the museum, the Gardner's central courtyard reminded her a great deal of the one at the Iris Semple Conduit Academy. With four stories of flat stone surrounding you, the sky receded to an impossible, inaccessible height, as if you were peering up from the bottom of a deep, sheer pit. Unlike the School, however, the

Gardner sheltered its seasonal flowers and manicured sod with a glass roof, permitting the formal garden to remain green even in the bleakness of a Boston winter. Greco-Roman statues watched over the paved pathways with the blank eyes of cemetery angels, giving the enclosure an aura of funereal peace.

While Wade took Cal ie for a strol to keep her

occupied, Natalie stayed with Wax as he seated himself on a concrete bench between two Doric columns. The doctor clasped Calvin's hands in delight as he reveled in the clipped, orderly beauty before him--Eden in miniature.

"I used to eat my lunch here every day," he reminisced, inhaling a long draft of the floral-fragrant air that the skylight bottled in the courtyard like perfume. "I could sit here for hours. Simply sit and look and think." Natalie did not have the patience to watch him sit and look and think for hours. "Pancrit gave Calvin the Project Persephone treatment," she said, "but something's gone wrong."

"Of course," Wax replied. "It doesn't work."

"Why not?"

He sighed and puzzled for a bit, confounded by the struggle to simplify his genius for an ordinary person.

"When we first conceived of using gene therapy to create new Violets," he began, "it natural y occurred to us that the mutated DNA responsible for conduit ability would be contained in the same gene that determined eye color, given the positive correlation between the two characteristics.

"But we were only partly correct. The gene that turns the conduit's eyes their distinctive violet color merely creates the node points in the brain through which dead souls can impinge upon and even subdue the Violet's consciousness.