The Thirteenth Skull

“There’s something I have to tell you,” I blurted out. I was sitting on the examination table with my hands behind my back.

He glanced at the Things, then turned back to me.

“About my blood powers,” I went on. “Something even OIPEP doesn’t know. Nobody knew about it except the knights, and they’re all dead. You should know about it before you cut me open.”

“Yes? I’m waiting.”

“Not in front of them,” I said, jerking my head toward the door.

His small eyes got even smaller.

“It’s something you’re really gonna want to know,” I said.

He waved the Things outside. The door locked behind them. We were alone.

“There’s a risk of explosion,” I said.

“Explosion?”

“Exposing too much of my blood to the air can make it like—um, I don’t know the scientific term for it—expand rapidly maybe . . . ?”

“The scientific term is explode.”

I nodded. “Right. Like a bomb.”

He laughed. He didn’t have a nice laugh. It wasn’t the scary-villain type har-har-har, guttural and harsh; more like the hee-hee-hee giggle of the mad-scientist-cackle variety. I know that’s a stereotype, but there’s a reason we have stereotypes.

“So how are we feeling this morning? Yesterday was a bit trying, yes?”

“I slept okay, except I had this weird dream about an old man pulling his own skull from his head and then I found out about Special Device 1031. I guess you wouldn’t consider yanking that puppy out while you’re in there.”

“I won’t.”

“Too bad. Can we talk about the frontal lobotomy?”

“You don’t like the idea?”

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me.”

Nothing. Not even one hee.

“That’s an old joke,” I said.

“I don’t get it.”

You will.

“How’s the hand?” he asked.

“Hurts like heck.”

He stepped between my dangling legs.

Step: Pop open the shampoo lid.

“Let’s have a look.”

“Okay, but I’m warning you, there’s something nasty in it.”

“I’m a doctor, Alfred. I’m used to nasty.”

“You asked for it,” I said. I brought the bottle around fast and blasted both his beady little eyes. Instinctively, he brought his hands to his face. He took a couple of stumbling steps backward. I jumped from the table, spun him around, pinned his arms to his sides, dropped the loop over his head, drove my knee into his lower back, and forced him to the floor. I lay spread-eagled on top of his squirming body and spun the wooden handle of my homemade garrote, each turn tightening the noose around his thick neck, until his cries for help were reduced to choking, barely audible sobs.

It happened very fast, no more than fifteen seconds from the time I squirted him with my pee to me whispering into his beet-red ear, “I’ve got a couple of questions. Here’s the first: do you want to live?”

He managed to nod, the muscles of his clammy neck rolling beneath my knuckles.

“Good. Here’s the next: where is she?”

“You’ll never—ack!—you won’t get past the guards—”

I twisted the broken hanger a half turn.

“Down the hall! Right, right, left, right, first door on left, bottom of stairs—room 202!”

“Okay. Right, left, right—”

“No! Right, right, left—”

“Right, left?”

“Right.”

“Right, left, right . . . right?”

“No, no. Two rights—wrong! It’s right, right, left, right!”

“The last right means you turn right, not ‘you’re correct’ right, right?”

“Right, right! Right correct-right!”

I slid off him and pulled back on the garrote.

“On your feet,” I said. “Slow. Good. Now walk slowly to the door.”

“They’re armed; you won’t get past them,” he gurgled as we shuffled toward the door.

“I’m not going past them,” I said. “They’re going past me.”

03:03:02:16

So here’s the setup: You’re standing in the hallway outside the locked door of the examination room, just kickin’ back with your partner, your OIPEP killer bro, and maybe you’re talking about the kids or where you’re going on the next vacation or the latest episode of Law & Order or maybe trashing MI:3 (like you believe Tom Cruise could be a secret agent or any of that crap in the movie could happen, like Hollywood knows how it really works), and you hear the keypad on the wall go beep-beep and the gears of the locking mechanism rotate on their well-oiled axis. You step back, waiting for the boss to come out with the lobotomy patient, the tall kid with the gray-streaked hair and weird gray-flecked eyes, only the door doesn’t open. The doc unlocked the door but didn’t come out. How come?

You glance at your partner, who looks back at you like Hey, don’t look at me, and you hang there for another couple of seconds, hand resting on the butt of your Glock 9mm, chewing on your bottom lip, trying to decide while you wait for the moment to make a decision for you. A minute. Two. Two and a half. Did Kropp jump him? you wonder. Did he change his mind about coming out for some reason? Why unlock the door if you’re not coming out?

You nod to your partner. We go. He turns the knob. Pushes open the door.

A blur of white flying toward the far wall. It’s Mingus, sitting on the rolling stool, sliding across the smooth floor, his white lab coat flapping as he spins.

And no sign of the kid.

You rush in, guns drawn, and what registers in your head when Mingus screams, “Behind the door, you idiots! He’s behind the door!”?

You freeze halfway in, but it’s already too late. The door slams and there’s no kid. He’s on the other side.

The side with the master control panel.

I smashed one end of the broken hanger into the keypad. On the other side of the door, I could hear them, shouting and cursing, banging on it as if to get me to answer the door. “Shoot the lock! Shoot the lock!” one of the Things was yelling.

I ran down the hall, reviewing the directions. “Right, right, left, right . . . R, R, L, R. Reggie, Reggie, listen, Reggie. Really, really, lame, really!”

A guard was stationed by room 202, his black jumper shimmering under the fluorescents. I hadn’t planned for a guard and there was no time now to develop a plan, so I just went on instinct and my experience in dealing with seemingly hopeless situations: I rushed him.