When the heavily-armed security guards barged into the doctor’s office, they encountered a scene that would send a chill down the spine of the most stouthearted man.
The doctor was prepping the heaps of arms and legs and internal organs of the dissected corpses with cryo-preservatives. With each injection of the purple fluid, a pearl-white sheen covered the hand or foot as it froze solid.
Having prepared them for transport later, he carefully removed them to another table. Whether by accident or choice, that table faced the door. This strange array of ice sculptures was the first thing the security guards saw. Needless to say, the sight stopped them in their tracks.
“Nice hobby you got here, Doc.”
This was the patrol leader who’d just sent the security guard—the one who had “apprehended” Setsura—packing. He scanned the room with electronic eyes that looked like a pair of pyramids cleaved in two.
“Any suspicious characters hanging around these parts?”
He was being polite, though in a manner that clearly suggested any attempt to hide the truth would be swiftly dealt with. Unfortunately for the rest of them, he’d been promoted to his position on the strength of his ambition alone, and now his pride and inexperience came too often to the fore.
“Somebody came by earlier,” the doctor said, not turning around.
“Well, I’d like to inspect the place again for myself,” the patrol leader said with a presumed air of authority.
“Suit yourself,” the doctor said, picking up and examining what looked like intestines. “Looks good to me. Have a bite. Save some for the others.”
He tossed it over his shoulder. It wrapped around the neck of the patrol leader like a snake. With a yelp of surprise, he flung it off.
“Waste not, want not,” somebody called out, snagging it out of the air. “The doctor’s special recipe. Very good.”
He chomped down on the end of the viscera-shaped sausage. Apparently he wasn’t alone in the opinion.
“Hey, don’t hog it all to yourself.”
“Me, too.”
Hands reached out and tore off chunks and gnawed and chewed.
“What the hell are you doing!” the platoon leader barked. “We got a job to do here!” He yanked the sausage away from the nearest guard.
“Whoa, take it easy, man,” the guard said. “Seems you’re new on the job. A little favor Doc here does for us all the time.”
“He makes this for you?”
The platoon leader glared at him. The guards only shrugged. As was to be expected, the leader had more than enough dignity to make up for his youth.
Whatever was stuffed inside these intestines and however it was prepared, the pieces oozing out and falling to the floor had an aroma that made the mouth water. The platoon leader furrowed his brows.
The doctor said with a wry smile, “If you see anything worth investigating, go right ahead.”
The leader averted his eyes. Taking that as a signal, the rest of the platoon dispersed. They soon announced the results of their search.
“Nothing here out of the ordinary,” each one announced in turn.
The leader’s eyes lit up. With a jerk of his chin he indicated a still-intact body on the gurney, the head covered by a sheet. “Wheel him over.”
“You gotta be kidding—”
The reluctance of the guards had less to do with any question of what was lying under the sheet, and much more to do with openly doubting the doctor. He’d been here, it seemed, practically forever. There was one iron rule, steeped in blood and gore, that everybody followed: Nobody disses Doc.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What it looks like. A corpse. Do you detect an aura?”
The doctor didn’t waver in the slightest. The leader fell silent. The aura detector showed nothing at all. That face was nothing more than a beautiful mask. He’d known it from the start, and was only trying to get back at the doctor for showing him up before.
“Sure, it’s a dead body. But what’s it doing here?”
“I brought it with me.”
“You what?”
“The poor thing died of an unusual disease,” he said, gently patting the pale face. “I meant to examine him more thoroughly at my hospital, but ran out of time. I was afraid if I just let him be, the rampaging bacteria would leave me nothing to work with.”
“You talking about an infectious disease?” scowled the leader.
“Let’s get going,” said one of his men, moving toward the door.
“Hold on a second.” A wicked smile rose to his face. “Doc, how about you inject some of that preservative into this body?”
The guards blanched a bit, but the doctor was unfazed. “Fine with me.”
He nodded and returned briefly to the operating table. He came back with a vial and syringe. After the patrol leader confirmed that he’d filled it with the purple liquid, the doctor jabbed the needle into the carotid artery and pushed the plunger all the way down.
“Satisfied?”
“Yeah,” the leader said dully. He’d gone all in on this attempt at intimidating. Now the doctor held the upper hand.
“Be on your way, then,” the doctor said, as if it were all in a day’s work. The patrol leader bowed and hurried out of the room.
The footsteps disappeared down the hall. The doctor turned back to the still-as-death Setsura.
“Neat trick, that,” he said with heartfelt sincerity. “Makes me want to autopsy you for real.” He got the antidote from the medicine cabinet and injected it into his arm.
Two minutes later, signs of life had returned to the waxy countenance and the black-clad chest began to almost imperceptibly rise and fall.
“And people think I’m the one always doing unreasonable things on a whim,” Setsura complained.
There was a touch of hoarseness in his voice, probably the lingering effects of the preservative that would have killed a normal man. All the antidotes in the world shouldn’t have made that big of a difference—unless he had really been dead as a doornail.
Only one word could describe him—genie, as known as a jinn. With a light shake of his head, Setsura climbed off the gurney.
“What did you come here for?” the doctor said.
“Got a thing or two to do.” Setsura looked around and said, “Interesting place you’ve got here, Doc.”
The doctor nodded. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Setsura turned his attention to two of the white ice sculptures sitting at the back of the operating table. He picked one up and examined the neat line severing it from the rest of the body.
The doctor said, “Quite the piece of work. I don’t think they knew what hit them. Gives you goosebumps, eh?”
Setsura was holding the head of one of the corpsmen. He nodded. “It certainly is a clean cut.” He put the head back on the operating table. “I take it the surgeon who did the operation stopped by?”
“Ah, about thirty minutes ago. He offered me that and the other one as gifts and disappeared. I don’t know where, but it appears no one has caught up with him.”
“He’s got a thing or two to do here too,” Setsura said softly.
“You’d better wait a while longer,” the doctor said, lovingly caressing his strange sculptures. “The patrols haven’t finished with their search.”
“No can do. I’m in a hurry.” But for a moment, Setsura couldn’t avert his eyes from the severed body parts. “He is getting better,” he said under his breath. “Just like his father said. That casket is his instructor. It’s well past time to dispose of both, and the sooner the better. Upstairs, eh?”
A stampede of footsteps echoed outside the door. “Oh, shit,” Setsura said. He hopped back on the gurney and lay down.