Dead Waters - Anton Strout [44]
“Well?” Jane asked.
“No use,” I said. “It’s still there.” I looked at the towel. It was still clean. “Whatever it is, it’s not like an ink stamp. None of it came off.”
“Oh, hell,” she said. “This is it. That bitch marked me, didn’t she? I knew something felt off. I got in the damn shower and I just stood there for, like, an hour letting the water run over me, but look at my skin and hands. They didn’t even prune. I’m telling you, she did something to me. I’m going to go to bed and when you wake up, you’ll be lying next to a giant water snake or a puddle or something—”
“Calm down,” I repeated, saying it for my benefit as well as hers.
“That’s easy for you to say,” she said. “You’re not marked. That woman didn’t dive through you!”
“We don’t know anything yet, so don’t panic,” I said. “When you went through D.E.A. orientation, didn’t they teach you that panic is for the norms?”
“What orientation?” she asked. “The day I started, they sent me to HR and they barely handed me my welcome kit before Director Wesker pulled me out of there and dragged me off to Tome, Sweet Tome to start cataloging the Black Stacks. I think the only real orientation I ever received was being instructed not to cry while working for Thaddeus Wesker.”
“A valuable lesson, mind you,” I pointed out.
Jane craned her head to look around into the mirror at herself. “That doesn’t really help me now, Simon.”
I grabbed Jane and eased her out into the hall so she couldn’t look at the tattoo anymore. “I know,” I said, guiding her down the hall toward the bedroom, “but we don’t really have an emergency room for something like this, you know? I don’t think anyone from the graveyard shift is up on this type of thing, but I think I know who might be able to tell us something in the morning.”
“You do?” Jane said, looking hopeful for the first time tonight.
“Yup,” I said, leading her over to her side of the bed. “Allorah Daniels.”
Jane’s face was a mask of skepticism. “Won’t she be busy Enchancelloring?”
“We’re all working hard to cover each other’s asses these days,” I said. “I’m sure she won’t mind taking a break from old men and paperwork to get in some lab time. Science was her first love, after all. But first, you need to rest tonight. If there’s no pain or symptoms from it, we’ll defer to her expertise in the morning first thing. I promise.”
Jane lay back against her pillow and slid underneath the sheets, leaving her towel lying in a pile on the floor right next to the bed. “I don’t see how I’m supposed to get any sleep,” she said, worry returning to her face.
I tucked her in, and then went over to the night table on my side of the bed.
“I have just the thing for that,” I said, fishing a small vial out from a jumble of miscellaneous junk in the drawer. I held it up. Down one side were the letters RVW.
“What is that?” she asked.
I held it out to her and dropped it in her hand. “Wow,” I said. “They really did rush you through your orientation. You have this in that welcome kit you still carry around as a purse. It’s a sleeping potion of sorts.”
“RVW,” she said, reading the side of it before twisting off its top. “Rip Van Winkle. Not very clever.”
“I’m pretty sure the Enchancellors came up with the name,” I said. “Leave it to the bureaucrats to lack any artistic finesse.”
She raised it to her lips.
“Careful,” I said. “Just a drop should do it. Otherwise, who knows when you might wake up.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, taking a tiny swallow from it. “If I slept for twenty years, I’m sure that this thing on my back would have killed me by then.”
“Comforting,” I said, and crawled into bed on my side.
“I thought so,” Jane said, already yawning. Her eyes slipped shut.
“Sweet dreams, my love,” I said, putting my hand on her forehead. I ran my fingers through her still-damp hair.
“Only if you visit. . .” she said with a sleepy smile and was out like a light. I took the vial from her hand and stared at her for a few moments, wondering about the mark. How