Preston Child - The Babylonian Mask

“Absolutely,” she beamed. “Just let me pull up the discharge documents and I’ll meet you both in the lobby in ten minutes.”

“Thank you so much, Melissa,” Sam called after her as she descended the stairs.

Slowly his head turned to face Purdue’s strange expression.

“You are incorrigible, Sam Cleave,” he reprimanded.

Sam shrugged.

“Remind me to buy you a Ferrari for Christmas,” he grinned. “But first we’re going to drink until Hogmanay and beyond!”

“Rocktober Fest was last week, didn’t you know?” Sam said matter-of-factly as the two strolled down to the ground floor reception area.

“Aye.”

Behind the reception desk, the flustered girl Sam had bewildered stared at him again. Purdue did not have to ask. He could only guess what mind games Sam must have played on the poor girl. “You know that when you use your powers for evil the gods will take them from you, right?” he asked Sam.

“But I’m not using them for evil. I’m breaking my old pal out of here,” Sam defended.

“Not me, Sam. The women,” Purdue corrected what Sam already knew was his meaning. “Look at their faces. You did something.”

“Nothing they’ll regret, sadly. Maybe I should just allow myself a little bit of female attention by means of the gods, hey?” Sam tried to elicit sympathy from Purdue, but he received nothing but a nervous leer.

“Let’s just get out of here scot-free first, old boy,” he reminded Sam.

“Ha, good choice of words there, sir. Oh look, there is Melissa now,” he flashed Purdue a naughty smile. “How did she earn that Caran d’Ache ? With those rosy lips?”

“She belongs to one of my beneficiary programs, Sam, like several other young women…and men, I’ll have you know,” Purdue defended hopelessly, knowing full well that Sam was pulling his leg.

“Hey, your preferences have nothing to do with me,” Sam mocked.

After Melissa signed Purdue’s discharge papers, he wasted no time to get to Sam’s car on the other side of the enormous botanical garden that surrounded the building. Like two boys playing truant, they walk-jogged away from the facility.

“You have balls, Sam Cleave. I’ll give you that,” Purdue chuckled as they passed security with the signed release papers.

“I do. Let’s prove it though,” Sam jested as they got into the car. Purdue’s quizzical expression compelled him to give away the secret celebratory venue he had in mind. “Just west of North Berwick we go…to the beer tent village…and we’ll be wearing kilts!”

Windowless and dank, the basement lay in quiet wait for the lurking shadow that inked its way along the wall as it slithered down the stairs. Just like a real shadow, the man who cast it moved without a sound as he stole down to the only deserted place he could find to hide long enough until shift change. The emaciated giant plotted his next move meticulously in his mind, but he was in no way oblivious to reality — he would have to lay low for at least another two days.

The latter was a decision made at the scrutiny of the staff roster up on the second floor, where the administrator pinned the week’s work schedule to the staff room bulletin board. On the colorful Excel document he’d caught sight of the tenacious nurse’s name and her shift details. He did not want to confront her again and she would be on duty for two more days, leaving him no choice other than to squat in the concrete solitude of the slightly illuminated boiler room with only plumbing to amuse him.

What a setback, he thought. But ultimately getting to Flieger Olaf Löwenhagen, until recently stationed at the Luftwaffe unit at Büchel Air Base, would be worth the wait. The lurking old man could not allow the heavily injured pilot to stay alive at any cost. What the young man could do, should he not be stopped, was simply too risky. The long wait had begun for the deformed hunter, the epitome of patience, now hiding in the depths of the Heidelberg Medical Institution.

In his hands he held the surgical mask he’d just removed, wondering what it would be like to walk among people without some sort of covering over his face. But upon such pondering came the undeniable disdain for the wish. He had to admit to himself that it would vex him immensely to walk in the daylight without a mask, if only for the discomfort it would grant him.

Naked.

He would feel bare, barren as his featureless face was now, if he had to reveal his defect to the world. And he contemplated what it would be like to look normal, by definition, as he sat down in the quiet darkness of the east corner of the basement. Even if he were not plagued by malformation and wore an acceptable face, he would feel exposed and horribly — visible . In fact, the only desire he could salvage from the notion was the privilege of proper speech. No, he changed his mind. Being able to speak would not be the only thing that would please him; the joy of smiling itself would be as an elusive dream captured.

He eventually curled up under the coarse cover of a stolen bed linen, courtesy of the laundry room. He’d rolled up a bundle of bloody, tarp-like sheets he’d found in one of the canvas hampers to serve as insulation between his fatless body and the hard floor. After all, his protruding bones bruised his skin even on the mildest of mattresses, but his thyroid did not allow him to gain any of that soft lipid tissue that could gift him comfortable cushioning.

His childhood illness had only exacerbated his birth defect, leaving him a monster in pain. But it was his curse to equalize the blessing of being what he was, he assured himself. At first it had been a hard thing for Peter Marduk to accept, but once he had found his place in the world, his purpose was clear. Handicap, physically or spiritually, would have to give way to his role given by whatever cruel Maker had produced him.

Another day passed and he had gone undetected, his foremost skill in all endeavors. Peter Marduk, aged seventy-eight, laid his head on the stinking linen to get some well-needed sleep while he waited for another day to pass above him. The smell did not bother him. His senses were selective to a fault; one of those blessings he had been cursed with when he hadn’t received a nose. When he wanted to track a scent, his sense of smell was like that of a shark. Alternatively, he had the ability to utilize the opposite. That was what he did now.

Switching off his sense of smell, his ears were perked for any normally inaudible disturbance while he was asleep. Blissfully, after more than two full days awake, the old man closed his eyes — his wonderfully normal eyes. Far away, he could hear the squeak of trolley wheels under the weight of Ward B’s dinner just before visiting hours. Fading from consciousness rendered him blind and restful, hoping for a dreamless sleep until his task would prompt him to perk up and perform once again.

“I am so tired,” Nina told Nurse Marx. The young nurse was on night duty. Since she had become acquainted with Dr. Nina Gould over the past two days, she had slightly abandoned her girl-crush mannerism and adapted a more professional geniality towards the ailing historian.

“Fatigue is part of the illness, Dr. Gould,” she told Nina, sympathetically while adjusting her pillows.

“I know, but I haven’t felt this tired since I was admitted. Did they give me a sedative?”

“Let me see,” Nurse Marx offered. She slid Nina’s medical chart from the slot at the foot of her bed and flipped slowly through the pages. Her blue eyes scanned administered drugs of the last twelve hours and then slowly shook her head. “No, Dr. Gould. I see nothing here other than the topical medication in your drip. Certainly no sedatives. Are you feeling sleepy?”