Robert Walker - Absolute Instinct

She rushed back out to the terrace, a safer place. There she sat at the table and opened Asa Holcraft's book again. She'd been going from it to the murder books and back again, looking for answers.

“Maybe the sick motherfuckingsonofabitch has begun his own stem cell research in an effort to find a cure for whatever ails him,” she half joked.

“That may not be so far-fetched,” he replied, stepping out onto the balcony.

Jessica sipped at her whiskey sour as she continued to read.

“Asa was a genius, a somewhat obsessive one, to have put together so much arcane and scatological and lost-to-time information between the covers of a single volume.”

“Never heard of his book,” admitted Darwin.

“Unfortunately, the thriving publisher that Asa earned a great deal of money for, Pendant, allowed its Pax Books division to go under as a write-off, and Holcraft's invaluable work, along with countless others, has joined the innocent yet somehow disdained horde of out-of-print titles left to die on the vine.” This had happened the year before Asa's death. It had hurt the old man deeply to think that his years of backbreaking toil to bring this information to light, to put it into perspective, and to place it into every forensic student's hand had ended in such ignominy. The publisher, of course, had as much as told Asa it was somehow his fault as it must have been with all the authors in the Pax division who'd been used as tax write-offs.

“That's too bad. Guess every horror story you ever hear between writer and publisher is true, huh?”

“That's right. But I've got a contact who's very interested in reprinting Asa's work. She is as determined to see it back in print as I am.”

She located the section that discussed the human spinal column, and next scanned down the page looking for what information she could find on the vertebral column in man. There were sections under S for spine and V for vertebrae and B for backbone. She hefted the book and stood, pacing to the terrace railing, reading aloud to Darwin. “ 'Made up of thirty-three segments, the spinal column breaks down into five groups. One, cervical, the seven vertebrae making up the bones of the neck; called the first cervical vertebra and appropriately the atlas-' “

Rubbing the back of his neck as if in sympathy pain with the victims, Darwin interrupted, “ 'Atlas'? Why 'atlas'?”

“Because it supports the universe, the known world-the head.”

“Got it.” Darwin stood and stretched, groaning with the effort.

Jessica read on. “ Two, thoracic, or dorsal, twelve bones attached to the ribs, completing the rib cage and making up the trunk bones.'“

She moved one hand to her own rib cage.

“And three?”

“'Lumbar, five bones in the small of the back or loins; four, sacral, five bones in the rump, lying between the two haunch bones, and forming the back wall of the pelvis; in the adult these are fused together into a triangular bone called the sacrum.

“All right, so what's the fifth section of the spine?” he asked.

“ 'Coccygeal, four small bones forming the coccyx which is Greek for cuckoo-'“

“It's all Greek to me.”

“'-so named from its supposed resemblance to the shape of a cuckoo's bill. The coccygeal vertebrae correspond to the root of the tail in animals.' “

“All of this scientific mumbo jumbo gobbledygook is only putting me to sleep,” complained Darwin. “It isn't going to catch a killer, Dr. Coran.”

“I happen to find it fascinating,” she countered, waving the book at him. “Look, we all know that the vertebral column encloses the spinal cord, a basic part of the nervous system without which a person can't function, cannot even… ahhh… slither in snake fashion as our limbs would be paralyzed without it. Hell, if the spinal column and cord had not evolved as it has, we'd be big-headed slugs incarcerated in our reptilian beginnings, likely still in the sea using a dorsal fin to guide us and a series of clicks to communicate.”

Darwin put up his hands in mock surrender. “All right, all right. I know it's all important. I just want to get something on this guy, and I don't think we're going to find it in any books other than the case files.”

“You may be right, but listen to this.” She again read from Holcraft's book. “ 'The spinal cord and vertebrae hold endless fascination for early mankind and the shaman in particular who rattles the bones of fallen warriors overhead. It was both symbolic and concrete proof of deboning a man, rendering his flesh and his spirit helpless to ever harm his enemies ever again. The backbone was revered by ancient peoples-our cannibalistic ancestors cleaned the bones with their teeth and saliva.' “

“They used the bones of their fallen enemies to summon the gods or something, right?” Darwin asked.

“Or something. Holcraft talks about looking past the mere function of an organ or a set of bones or nerves and muscle to understand the value and symbolism a people placed on say the eyes, the heart, the brain, and in this case the backbone.”

“All right, so you think our killer might place some kind of crazoid notion of importance on the spinal cord, so he has to have it-repeatedly. But it has to be plucked from a living human being. No five-and-dime knockoffs, no substitute for the real thing.”

“Maybe… perhaps he has some notion of it carrying magical powers, that it can bring him powers. There is that possibility.”

“I can just see some old crazy shaman shaking 'dem bones overhead at the sky, railing at the gods and rattling his rattles.”

“A rattle of vertebral bones,” she replied. “Indo-Europeans believed that the soul of man, like a fire or flame, fed on the cerebrospinal marrow.”

“Is that what this monster is doing?” he shouted, his grimace and shake of the head telegraphing his disbelief turning to belief. They remained silent for some time, contemplating the horrid possibilities. She returned to sit at the table and poured from an open bottle of wine now. The wine, a rich burgundy, in this light, held a kind of purple hue. She poured him a glass as well, and she raised hers for a toast. “To feeding on the cerebrospinal bone marrow of his victims.”

She downed a large gulp, but Darwin stared at the dark liquid. “Cannibalizing the marrow… maybe the spinal fluid… in some sick belief that maybe both can provide him with life-giving, power-granting strength and renewal?”

“Whatever he's doing with the spines, we are dealing with a sick, twisted mind that likely has cultivated an equally twisted fantasy and a liking for it.”

Jessica read on as Darwin set aside his wine. “ 'An injury to the spinal cord between the first and second vertebrae causes instantaneous death; between the third and fourth vertebrae produces an arrest of breathing; below the sixth vertebra, an injury gives rise to paralysis of the chest muscles; injury lower down causes paralysis of the lower limbs, bladder and intestines.'“

“And, as we know, removing the entire damn thing causes death!” he scoldingly added. “Come on, Dr. Coran. We don't have time for a science lesson.”

Jessica ignored his tirade and sipped more wine between revelations found in Holcraft's account of the ancient religious symbolism of the backbone. “ 'The spine has been called a road, a ladder, a serpent, a rod, a tree. The spine is for many millions on the globe a replica in the human body of the primal cosmic tree, and the brain, as its efflorescence, corresponds to the expanse of heaven.'“

She had to stop to take all this in, and she tried to imagine some maniac who may or may not have read a similar description of the spinal cord in some arcane book on early rituals and beliefs of mankind.