The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [19]
The door opened and a man came out. He looked from side to side furtively, and on his face was a nervous, almost frightened expression. Orphan recognised him – it was the doctor who had first examined him.
"What ho, Dr W.?" the man on the left said. "We got you a good one, on my word of honour." He looked at his companion and smiled. "Two good ones, and fresh."
"Shut up, fool," the doctor growled. He raised his hand and touched his moustache nervously, then motioned the two men. "Bring the Things in. Quickly." As the door opened Orphan saw there were other men in the room, though he could not see them clearly.
As the two men walked through the door they struggled with their sacks, and the one on the right momentarily came loose; and Orphan watched with horror as a slender, white leg protruded from its opening.
The doctor halted when he saw this.
"I did not ask you for a female, Bishop," he said. "I will not pay for a Thing I do not need."
"It is not a woman but a big small," the man – Bishop – said in a wounded tone. "Look." And he opened the sack fully as it lay on the threshold of the room.
The corpse that sprawled out was indeed not that of a woman. It was a boy, aged, Orphan thought, around fifteen or sixteen. His face were strangely peaceful, as if he were only asleep and would soon wake up and demand his tea, and his features were strong but delicate, a face that had once known comfortable living.
The doctor looked with distaste at the two men. "What did he die of, Bishop?" He turned to look at the other man, who was standing grinning with his sack held securely in his hand, "May?"
"I neither know nor care," Bishop said, and his companion, May, nodded and said, "It is quite indifferent what he died of, for here he is, stiff enough."
"Get in, damn it!" The voice that came from within the room had the tone of command in it, and the doctor and the two body-snatchers (for that, Orphan realised, was what they must be, two resurrection men plying their trade) hurried through the door, the doctor shutting it behind him in a hurry.
Orphan, for whom the whole gruesome scene still seemed no more than a part of his nightmare, padded around the corner into the corridor, and peered through the keyhole.
Inside, the argument was continuing.
"This subject is too fresh," the doctor said, and the two men laughed. "The fact is," Bishop said, "you are not in the habit of seeing fresh subjects and you don't know anything about it!"
The same commanding voice Orphan heard before now growled, "We need the Thing fresh, so stop arguing about it and get to work!"
But the doctor did not easily give up. "I don't think it was ever buried," he said. "Where had it come from?"
"You know nothing about raising bodies!" Bishop said. He seemed truly exasperated.
"Enough," the man who seemed to be in charge said, and all fell quiet. Orphan, peering through, could not make out his face: all he could discern was a remarkable bulk, coupled with power.
Orphan squirmed against the door, trying for a better angle.
For a moment, the whole room spread out before him: there were the two resurrection men, standing to one side with their gruesome merchandise; the doctor, hovering nervously beside what appeared to be a huge coffin; the fat man, sitting in an armchair, himself surveying the room; two more men, strangely similar in appearance, dressed in white medical smocks, standing next to a vast array of machinery pulsating with lights.
What was in the coffin? Vapours rose from it, icy white tendrils that turned the room into a still, cold space like the inside of a slaughterhouse. A mortuary, Orphan thought. The coffin was long, metallic, over six feet long. It must have held a tall person, he thought. But who?
He blinked, took a slow, quiet breath. Yes. He could discern a face, thin, with a hawkish nose and a square, prominent chin. The eyes were open and stared into nothing,