Night World 1 (3 page)

He knew where to find dead animals, too—he'd shown her a vacant lot where several rabbit carcasses lay in the tall brown grass. He was matter-of-fact about it.

When he got older, the big kids stopped picking on him. He grew up to be as tall as any of them, and surprisingly strong and quick—and he developed a reputation for being tough and dangerous. When he got angry, something almost frightening shone in his gray eyes.

He never got angry with Poppy, though. They'd remained best friends all these years. When they'd reached junior high, he'd started having girlfriends—all the girls at school wanted him—but he never kept any of them long. And he never confided in them; to them he was a mysterious, secretive bad boy. Only Poppy saw the other side of him, the vulnerable, caring side.

“Okay,” the technician said, bringing Poppy back to the present with a jerk. “You're done; let's wipe this jelly off you.”

“So what did it show?” Poppy asked, glancing up at the monitor.

“Oh, your own doctor will tell you that. The radiologist will read the results and call them over to your doctor's office.” The technician's voice was absolutely neutral—so neutral that Poppy looked at her sharply.

Back in Dr. Franklin's office, Poppy fidgeted while her mother paged through out-of-date magazines. When the nurse said “Mrs. Hilgard,” they both stood up.

“Uh—no,” the nurse said, looking flustered. “Mrs. Hilgard, the doctor just wants to see you for a minute—alone.”

Poppy and her mother looked at each other. Then, slowly, Poppy's mother put down her
People
magazine and followed the nurse.

Poppy stared after her.

Now, what on
earth
…Dr. Franklin had never done
that
before.

Poppy realized that her heart was beating hard. Not fast, just hard. Bang…bang…bang, in the middle of her chest, shaking her insides. Making her feel unreal and giddy.

Don't think about it. It's probably nothing. Read a magazine.

But her fingers didn't seem to work properly. When she finally got the magazine open, her eyes ran over the words without delivering them to her brain.

What are they talking about in there? What's going
on?
It's been so long….

It kept getting longer. As Poppy waited, she found herself vacillating between two modes of thought. 1) Nothing serious was wrong with her and her mother was going to come out and laugh at her for even imagining there was, and 2) Something awful was wrong with her and she was going to have to go through some dreadful treatment to get well. The covered pit and the open pit. When the pit was covered, it seemed laughable, and she felt embarrassed for having such melodramatic thoughts. But when it was open, she felt as if all her life before this had been a dream, and now she was hitting hard reality at last.

I wish I could call James, she thought.

At last the nurse said, “Poppy? Come on in.”

Dr. Franklin's office was wood-paneled, with certificates and diplomas hanging on the walls. Poppy sat down in a leather chair and tried not to be too obvious about scanning her mother's face.

Her mother looked…too calm. Calm with strain underneath. She was smiling, but it was an odd, slightly unsteady smile.

Oh, God, Poppy thought. Something
is
going on.

“Now, there's no cause for alarm,” the doctor said, and immediately Poppy became more alarmed. Her palms stuck to the leather of the chair arms.

“Something showed up in your sonogram that's a little unusual, and I'd like to do a couple of other tests,” Dr. Franklin said, his voice slow and measured, soothing. “One of the tests requires that you fast from midnight the day before you take it. But your mom says you didn't eat breakfast today.”

Poppy said mechanically, “I ate one Frosted Flake.”

“
One
Frosted Flake? Well, I think we can count that as fasting. We'll do the tests today, and I think it's best to admit you to the hospital for them. Now, the tests are called a CAT scan and an ERCP—that's short for something even I can't pronounce.” He smiled. Poppy just stared at him.

“There's nothing frightening about either of these tests,” he said gently. “The CAT scan is like an X ray. The ERCP involves passing a tube down the throat, through the stomach, and into the pancreas. Then we inject into the tube a liquid that will show up on X rays…”

His mouth kept moving, but Poppy had stopped hearing the words. She was more frightened than she could remember being in a long time.

I was just joking about the interesting scar, she thought. I don't want a
real
disease. I don't want to go to the hospital, and I don't want any tubes down my throat.

She looked at her mother in mute appeal. Her mother took her hand.

“It's no big deal, sweetheart. We'll just go home and pack a few things for you; then we'll come back.”

“I have to go into the hospital
today
?”

“I think that would be best,” Dr. Franklin said.

Poppy's hand tightened on her mother's. Her mind was a humming blank.

When they left the office, her mother said, “Thank you, Owen.” Poppy had never heard her call Dr. Franklin by his first name before.

Poppy didn't ask why. She didn't say anything as they walked out of the building and got in the car. As they drove home, her mother began to chat about ordinary things in a light, calm voice, and Poppy made herself answer. Pretending that everything was normal, while all the time the terrible sick feeling raged inside her.

It was only when they were in her bedroom, packing mystery books and cotton pajamas into a small suitcase, that she asked almost casually, “So what exactly does he think is wrong with me?”

Her mother didn't answer immediately. She was looking down at the suitcase. Finally she said, “Well, he's not sure
anything
is wrong.”

“But what does he
think
? He must think something. And he was talking about my pancreas—I mean, it sounds like he thinks there's something wrong with my pancreas. I thought he was looking at my
gallbladder
or whatever. I didn't even know that my pancreas was
involved
in this….”

“Sweetheart.” Her mother took her by the shoulders, and Poppy realized she was getting a little overwrought. She took a deep breath.

“I just want to know the truth, okay? I just want to have some idea of what's going on. It's my body, and I've got a right to know what they're looking for—don't I?”

It was a brave speech, and she didn't mean any of it. What she really wanted was reassurance, a promise that Dr. Franklin was looking for something trivial. That the worst that could happen wouldn't be so bad. She didn't get it.

“Yes, you do have a right to know.” Her mother let a long breath out, then spoke slowly. “Poppy, Dr. Franklin was concerned about your pancreas all along. Apparently things can happen in the pancreas that cause changes in other organs, like the gallbladder and liver. When Dr. Franklin felt those changes, he decided to check things out with a sonogram.”

Poppy swallowed. “And he said the sonogram was—unusual. How unusual?”

“Poppy, this is all preliminary….” Her mother saw her face and sighed. She went on reluctantly. “The sonogram showed that there might be something in your pancreas. Something that shouldn't be there. That's why Dr. Franklin wants the other tests; they'll tell us for sure. But—”

“Something that shouldn't be there? You mean…like a tumor? Like…cancer?” Strange, it was hard to say the words.

Her mother nodded once. “Yes. Like cancer.”

A
ll Poppy could think of was the pretty bald girl in the gift shop.

Cancer.

“But—but they can do something about it, can't they?” she said, and even to her own ears her voice sounded very young. “I mean—if they had to, they could take my pancreas out….”

“Oh, sweetheart,
of course.
” Poppy's mother took Poppy in her arms. “I promise you; if there's something wrong, we'll do anything and everything to fix it. I'd go to the ends of the earth to make you well. You
know
that. And at this point we aren't even sure that there
is
something wrong. Dr. Franklin said that it's extremely rare for teenagers to get a tumor in the pancreas. Extremely rare. So let's not worry about things until we have to.”

Poppy felt herself relax; the pit was covered again. But somewhere near her core she still felt cold.

“I have to call James.”

Her mother nodded. “Just make it quick.”

Poppy kept her fingers crossed as she dialed James's apartment. Please be there, please
be
there, she thought. And for once, he was. He answered laconically, but as soon as he heard her voice, he said, “What's wrong?”

“Nothing—well, everything. Maybe.” Poppy heard herself give a wild sort of laugh. It wasn't exactly a laugh.

“What happened?” James said sharply. “Did you have a fight with Cliff?”

“No. Cliff's at the office. And I'm going into the hospital.”

“Why?”

“They think I might have cancer.”

It was a tremendous relief to say it, a sort of emotional release. Poppy laughed again.

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Hello?”

“I'm here,” James said. Then he said, “I'm coming over.”

“No, there's no point. I've got to leave in a minute.” She waited for him to say that he'd come and see her in the hospital, but he didn't.

“James, would you do something for me? Would you find out whatever you can about cancer in the pancreas? Just in case.”

“Is that what they think you have?”

“They don't know for sure. They're giving me some tests. I just hope they don't have to use any needles.” Another laugh, but inside she was reeling. She wished James would say something comforting.

“I'll see what I can find on the Net.” His voice was unemotional, almost expressionless.

“And then you can tell me later—they'll probably let you call me at the hospital.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I have to go. My mom's waiting.”

“Take care of yourself.”

Poppy hung up, feeling empty. Her mother was standing in the doorway.

“Come on, Poppet. Let's go.”

James sat very still, looking at the phone without seeing it.

She was scared, and he couldn't help her. He'd never been very good at inspirational small talk. It wasn't, he thought grimly, in his nature.

To give comfort you had to have a comfortable view of the world. And James had seen too much of the world to have any illusions.

He could deal with cold facts, though. Pushing aside a pile of assorted clutter, he turned on his laptop and dialed up the Internet.

Within minutes he was using Gopher to search the National Cancer Institute's CancerNet. The first file he found was listed as “Pancreatic cancer___Patient.” He scanned it. Stuff about what the pancreas did, stages of the disease, treatments. Nothing too gruesome.

Then he went into “Pancreatic cancer___Physician”—a file meant for doctors. The first line held him paralyzed.

Cancer of the exocrine pancreas is rarely curable.

His eyes skimmed down the lines.
Overall survival rate
…
metastasis
…
poor response to chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery
…
pain.
..

Pain. Poppy was brave, but facing constant pain would crush anyone. Especially when the outlook for the future was so bleak.

He looked at the top of the article again. Overall survival rate less than three percent. If the cancer had spread, less than one percent.

There must be more information. James went searching again and came up with several articles from newspapers and medical journals. They were even worse than the NCI file.

The overwhelming majority of patients will die, and die swiftly, experts say.
…
Pancreatic cancer is usually inoperable, rapid, and debilitatingly painful.
…
The average survival if the cancer has spread can be three weeks to three months.
…

Three weeks to three months.

James stared at the laptop's screen. His chest and throat felt tight; his vision was blurry. He tried to control it, telling himself that nothing was certain yet. Poppy was being tested; that didn't mean she
had
cancer.

But the words rang hollow in his mind. He had known for some time that something was wrong with Poppy. Something was—disturbed—inside her. He'd sensed that the rhythms of her body were slightly off; he could tell she was losing sleep. And the pain—he always knew when the pain was there. He just hadn't realized how serious it was.

Poppy knows, too, he thought. Deep down, she knows that something very bad is going on, or she wouldn't have asked me to find this out. But what does she expect me to do, walk in and tell her she's going to die in a few months?

And am I supposed to stand around and watch it?

His lips pulled back from his teeth slightly. Not a nice smile, more of a savage grimace. He'd seen a lot of death in seventeen years. He knew the stages of dying, knew the difference between the moment breathing stopped and the moment the brain turned off; knew the unmistakable ghostlike pallor of a fresh corpse. The way the eyeballs flattened out about five minutes after expiration. Now, that was a detail most people weren't familiar with. Five minutes after you die, your eyes go flat and filmy gray. And then your body starts to shrink. You actually get smaller.

Poppy was so small already.

He'd always been afraid of hurting her. She looked so fragile, and he could hurt somebody much stronger if he wasn't careful. That was one reason he kept a certain distance between them.

One reason. Not the main one.

The other was something he couldn't put into words, not even to himself. It brought him right up to the edge of the forbidden. To face rules that had been ingrained in him since birth.

None of the Night People could fall in love with a human. The sentence for breaking the law was death.

It didn't matter. He knew what he had to do now. Where he had to go.

Cold and precise, James logged off the Net. He stood, picked up his sunglasses, slid them into place. Went out into the merciless June sunlight, slamming his apartment door behind him.

Poppy looked around the hospital room unhappily. There was nothing so awful about it, except that it was too cold, but…it was a hospital. That was the truth behind the pretty pink-and-blue curtains and the closed-circuit TV and the dinner menu decorated with cartoon characters. It was a place you didn't come unless you were Pretty Darn Sick.

Oh, come on, she told herself. Cheer up a
little.
What happened to the power of Poppytive thinking? Where's Poppyanna when you need her? Where's Mary Poppy-ins?

God, I'm even making
myself
gag, she thought.

But she found herself smiling faintly, with self-deprecating humor if nothing else. And the nurses
were
nice here, and the bed was extremely cool. It had a remote control on the side that bent it into every imaginable position.

Her mother came in while she was playing with it.

“I got hold of Cliff; he'll be here later. Meanwhile, I think you'd better change so you're ready for the tests.”

Poppy looked at the blue-and-white striped seersucker hospital robe and felt a painful spasm that seemed to reach from her stomach to her back. And something in the deepest part of her said,
Please, not yet. I'll never be ready.

James pulled his Integra into a parking space on Ferry Street near Stoneham. It wasn't a nice part of town. Tourists visiting Los Angeles avoided this area.

The building was sagging and decrepit. Several stores were vacant, with cardboard taped over broken windows. Graffiti covered the peeling paint on the cinder-block walls.

Even the smog seemed to hang thicker here. The air itself seemed yellow and cloying. Like a poisonous miasma, it darkened the brightest day and made everything look unreal and ominous.

James walked around to the back of the building. There, among the freight entrances of the stores in front, was one door unmarked by graffiti. The sign above it had no words. Just a picture of a black flower.

A black iris.

James knocked. The door opened two inches, and a skinny kid in a wrinkled T-shirt peered out with beady eyes.

“It's me, Ulf,” James said, resisting the temptation to kick the door in. Werewolves, he thought. Why do they have to be so territorial?

The door opened just enough to let James in. The skinny kid glanced suspiciously outside before shutting it again.

“Go mark a fire hydrant or something,” James suggested over his shoulder.

The place looked like a small café. A darkened room with little round tables crammed in side by side, surrounded by wooden chairs. There were a few scattered people sitting down, all of them looking like teenagers. Two guys were playing pool in the back.

James went over to one of the round tables where a girl was sitting. He took off his sunglasses and sat down.

“Hi, Gisèle.”

The girl looked up. She had dark hair and blue eyes. Slanted, mysterious eyes which seemed to have been outlined in black eyeliner—ancient-Egyptian style.

She looked like a witch, which was no coincidence.

“James. I've missed you.” Her voice was soft and husky. “How's it going these days?” She cupped her hands around the unlit candle on the table and made a quick motion as if releasing a captive bird. As her hands moved away, the candle wick burst into flame.

“Still as gorgeous as ever,” she said, smiling at him in the dancing golden light.

“That goes for you, too. But the truth is, I'm here on business.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Aren't you always?”

“This is different. I want to ask your…professional opinion on something.”

She spread her slender hands, silver fingernails glowing in the candle's flame. On her index finger was a ring with a black dahlia. “My powers are at your disposal. Is there someone you want cursed? Or maybe you want to attract good luck or prosperity. I know you can't need a love charm.”

“I want a spell—to cure a disease. I don't know if it needs to be specific to the disease, or if something more general would work. A—general health spell…”

“James.” She chuckled lazily and put a hand on his, stroking lightly. “You're really worked up, aren't you? I've never seen you like this.”

It was true; he was experiencing a major loss of control. He worked against it, disciplining himself into perfect stillness.

“What particular disease are we talking about?” Gisèle asked, when he didn't speak again.

“Cancer.”

Gisèle threw back her head and laughed. “You're telling me your kind can get cancer? I don't believe it. Eat and breathe all you want, but don't try to convince me the lamia get human diseases.”

This was the hard part. James said quietly, “The person with the disease isn't my kind. She's not your kind, either. She's human.”

Gisèle's smile disappeared. Her voice was no longer husky or lazy as she said, “An outsider?
Vermin?
Are you crazy, James?”

“She doesn't know anything about me or the Night World. I don't want to break any laws. I just want her well.”

The slanted blue eyes were searching his face. “Are you sure you haven't broken the laws already?” And when James looked determined not to understand this, she added in a lowered voice, “Are you sure you're not in love with her?”

James made himself meet the probing gaze directly. He spoke softly and dangerously. “Don't say that unless you want a fight.”

Gisèle looked away. She played with her ring. The candle flame dwindled and died.

“James, I've known you for a long time,” she said without looking up. “I don't want to get you in trouble. I believe you when you say you haven't broken any laws—but I think we'd both better forget this conversation. Just walk out now and I'll pretend it never happened.”