Darren Shan: Hell's Horizon

“What’s the deal?” I asked.

Vincent swerved to avoid a necking couple who weren’t paying attention to the road, pounded on the horn, gave them the finger, then looked at me and grinned. “You heard about the girl who got sliced at the Skylight?”

I recalled my conversation with Jerry and Mike. “Yeah.”

“Nobody knows anything about her. She checked in under a pseudonym. Might have been a hooker but wasn’t a regular. We brought her out here to let the experts at her. They haven’t gotten around to her yet — there’s always a backlog at the Fridge. She wasn’t supposed to be a priority but now she is — word leaked and we’ve gotta take her back.”

“Back?”

“To the Skylight. A cop phoned Tasso. Said someone told him what happened. We have till midnight to return her and report her murder or he sweeps in with his men. If she ain’t there, he’ll go to the press.”

“So? Kill the cop, can the story. That’s SOP, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Vincent said. “But it’s simpler to let the cops have her now that they know about her.”

“Won’t the state pathologist figure out how long she’s been dead?”

“That asshole drives a BMW,” Vincent said with a wink. “Gets a new model every year on his birthday. Gratis. He sees what we tell him to see.”

The Fridge looked innocuous from the outside. Set close to the docks, it was a huge dilapidated building, broken glass in the windows, a couple of lights shining to deter tramps, graffiti scrawled by design across the lower walls. We parked down a side alley and let ourselves in. A short stroll down a corridor, through a splintered door, and suddenly we were face-to-face with a vast, whitewashed, stone monstrosity.

The entire interior of the old building had been hollowed out and this enormous box had been constructed inside. Or else they’d built this first, then placed the frame of the older structure around it. I never did think to ask.

Vincent made his way to one of the entrances and tapped in the security code. The door hissed open and a cold blast of air swirled around us. Vincent shivered. “Should have brought my long johns,” he grumbled.

We entered.

This section of the Fridge contained nothing but coffin cubicles. Cold, metal containers, inside which, on ice-cold slabs, rested the dead. They stood in rows of a hundred, five cubicles high, twenty long. There were six floors of scaffolding above this first level, all stacked similarly, staircases and catwalks running around them.

Most of the nearby containers were occupied, their doors tagged and hung with accompanying files. Alongside the usual statistics — gender, height, weight, address, next of kin — were details of how they died, when they were admitted and by whom, and what was to be done with the body. Very little of the information was censored since none but The Cardinal’s own was ever admitted.

Vincent located an internal communicator and pressed a button.

“Dr. Sines will be with you presently, Mr. Carell,” a woman informed him before he had a chance to speak. “Please remain where you are. Refreshments will be provided if requested.”

Vincent looked at me and grinned. “Hungry, Algiers?”

“I couldn’t eat in here if I was starving.”

“Chickenshit,” Vincent laughed, but he ordered nothing either.

I climbed up a couple of flights and went walkabout while we were waiting, checking the roll call of the dead, examining their testimonies. Men, women, children, cops, gangsters, priests — all were represented. Vincent joined me after a couple of impatient minutes and we padded along quietly, one after the other. It was supposed to be good luck to find the final resting place of someone you knew.

“This is where we’ll wind up,” Vincent said quietly. “A couple of coins over our eyes, jellylike blood, blue skin and a slab for a bed.”

“I’d rather burn than freeze in here,” I said.

“That’s what hell’s for, Algiers.”

We moved up another flight and I finally stumbled upon a name I recognized.

“I remember this guy,” I said. “I was there when we took him out.”

“Theo Boratto.” Vincent frowned. “That was the night we picked up Raimi.”

“Who?”

“Capac Raimi. The guy we let walk.”

I thought back. I’d been part of a support platoon sent to eliminate Boratto and his cohorts. Tasso had lined us up beforehand and described a young man who would be with Boratto. He wasn’t to be harmed. If necessary, we were to sacrifice our own lives before jeopardizing his. No reason was given.

“He’s working for The Cardinal now, isn’t he?” I asked, recalling scraps of gossip I’d picked up in Shankar’s.

“Sure as shit is,” Vincent growled. “The Cardinal’s pet monkey.”

A tall man in a white uniform appeared beneath us and called up, “Mr. Carell?”

“Yeah?” Vincent replied, leaning over the bar.

“I’m Dr. Sines. You’re here to pick up Miss Skylight?”

“Got it in one, Doc.”

Sines didn’t say much as he led the way through the arteries of the Fridge. Five minutes later we entered a large, spotlessly white operating room. Stiff corpses hung from the walls by steel hooks, entrails tumbling down their fronts. I’d been startled the first time I saw them. Thought they were real. It was only when I noticed the pathologist laughing that I realized they were fakes. Lab humor — go figure.

Other doctors and assistants circled the room, ignoring us, up to their elbows in blood and gore.

Our cargo was lying facedown on a slab, naked, whitish-blue.

“I’ve taken her prints, measurements, photographs,” Dr. Sines said. “Had to work quickly. Been examining her back while I was waiting. A clumsy piece of work.”

The back in question had been carved to pieces. Long slashes, deep gouges, thin red cuts and violent purple punctures. An uneven circle had been etched between her shoulder blades, several straight lines radiating from it at tangents.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Maybe a sun symbol,” the doctor replied.

“I didn’t notice that when I brought her in,” Vincent said.

“There was a lot more blood then. We’ve cleaned her up. Amazing what comes out in the wash.” He smiled briefly but Vincent and I remained stony-faced. “How do you want her?”

“What do you mean?” Vincent asked.

“You want us to leave her like she is or should we bloody her up again, make it look like she’s just been killed? She’s to be returned to the scene of the crime as I understand things.”

“Yeah.” Vincent scratched his nose uncertainly. “Fuck it, I got my suit bloody bringing her here — no point ruining it again dragging her back. We’ll take her clean.”

“Shouldn’t we get a bag or something?” I asked.

“Doc?” Vincent sniffed.

“I think some form of wrapping would be appropriate.”

“Then step to it, man! We’re working to a tight schedule.” Vincent smiled at me as the doctor bristled and clicked his fingers at one of his assistants. “Pays to keep them on their toes,” he whispered.

“I wouldn’t pester them,” I whispered back. “Never know how they might take it out on you if you turn up here dead.”

Vincent shrugged. “Like it matters a fuck at that stage. C’mon — let’s turn her, so we’re ready to tip her in. You wanna take the left or right side?”

“I don’t care.”

“Then I’ll take the right — don’t want to be the first to hear her heart if it starts beating again.” He laughed ghoulishly and grabbed her arm as the assistant arrived with the bag. I took the other arm. It was cold. Stiff. Clammy. “Ready?” he asked and I nodded. “One. Two. Three .”