Heartbreaker

CHAPTER 8

  They started awakening where they had been left.

  At first they were confused. They didn't understand where they were, how they had got there, and most of all they had a strange feeling, something they knew to be wrong although they couldn't understand why it was so, or even what it was.

  Some of them even checked their pocket, victim of the impression they had lost or forgot to take something they needed, though no one could remember what it might be.

  Others went to look at their reflections in the shop windows at the streetlights, and those mirrored their usual faces, their usual looks, maybe a bit more tired and a little less neat than usual, their clothes untidy and even with some leaves on them, but nothing more than that, nothing to sweep doubts away

  Then something came to replace confusion.

  A thought.

  A voice.

  An instinct.

  A command.

  Whatever it was, it gave them a purpose, simple as it was, and at the same time they started moving, from different places, toward a common destination.

  Rupert opened his eyes and found himself in the dark. He knew he was in the dark, as well as he knew that he shouldn't have been able to see anything. What he didn't know was why, on the contrary, he was seeing perfectly.

  He was naked, lying on a hard and stiff surface. It was cold. He knew it was cold without really feeling it, as if it didn't really concern him.

  The ceiling was almost right over him. As if he had been closed into a box, or a casket. That thought should have terrorized him, but he was quiet, and couldn't find an explanation for that.

  He reached out with his hands, touched the ceiling and pushed. The ceiling didn't move. Something under him though, seemed to gave way, to shake.

  He tried to push forward, as if to make the ceiling slide over him. It kept being still. It was him who moved, along with the plank he was laying on. The drawer in which his body had been left opened quietly, allowing him to see the ceiling. The actual one.

  He got up and climbed down to the floor. He looked around and didn't understand what he was seeing. Still he knew what the place was. Or, better, something or someone knew that for him.

  Michael Crew went back to the autopsy room after a short pause and a scalding coffee.

  He wasn't used to work that late at night, but he had spent hours uselessly trying to understand something more from the homeless’ corpse, and that had forced him to delay other things he had to work on.

  When he looked up from his mug and saw in front of him what had been the subject of his work only a few minutes earlier, he was astonished. He wasn't used to see corpses leave the autopsy table and get up as if nothing had happened. And there couldn't be any doubt about the fact that it was a corpse: the Y-cut, albeit sewed-up, was still clearly visible on its chest, even though anyone seeing it now would have thought of some trick, since apart from that the man looked absolutely and undeniably alive and kicking. But he had made that cut and knew far too well how real it was.

  In his career, Michael had had the chance to see some undead beings up close. There were probably many more than he could remember, but all of them had one thing in common: aside from the fact that they might move, they looked dead. The only ones he knew that could, under the proper conditions, seem alive, where vampires, a category the being standing in front of him – looking at him with empty eyes as if it was trying to decide what to do – for sure didn't belong to. He hadn't found any bite mark on his body, and he had examined it too thoroughly to think he might have missed one; furthermore it hadn't been drained of its blood, so he had none of the characteristics of a vampire victim, neither he had been dead long enough to wake up as such.

  The two stood still, studying each other like opponents at the opposite sides of a boxing ring. Michael felt as if time had frozen for a second, stopping its flow while it waited for his mind and body to be able to communicate with each other again. The spell was broken when he decided to take a step backward, intending to reach the door and call someone who had more expertise on walking corpses. His foot hadn't yet touched the floor when Rupert's hands caught his throat. He hadn't even seen him moving.

  He realized that the undead wasn't choking him as much as holding him, and he tried to say something to talk himself out of that situation, but all he could muster was a strangled moan. Fear had paralyzed his vocal chords more and better than the hands around his neck had.

  His last thought was that nothing of that would have happened if the corpse had been transferred to Owlfeather's care, then his head was ripped away from the body and bounced under a tool tray, while his blood painted the walls.

  Rupert overstepped the body at his feet and walked out into the corridor.