The hood was pulled back and I felt my gut clench. I’d seen the angular features before. I’d been bound to a wheelchair, surrounded by naked, chanting people-and, up at the front, there had been a pair of prancing figures. One had a hyena’s head and the other the stony face of the most depraved gargoyle. The latter was on display now.
“How dare you?” Rothmann said, spittle flying from his mouth. “Take that mask off immediately!”
A hand was raised slowly to the repulsive features-I had a vision of the naked woman, the one I’d feared was Karen, being tied to the upturned cross and then butchered. Then I saw that the person before me was a young woman, red hair pulled back from an attractive face. She dropped the mask to the floor with disgust.
“I know you,” I said, as my memory kicked in. “You were at Joe Greenbaum’s place with Clem Simmons.”
The woman nodded. “That’s right. I’m medical examiner for the MPDC, actually-Marion Gilbert’s the name. And you’re Matt Wells, the so-called occult killer, aren’t you? I’ve seen your photograph.”
Rothmann was looking at her curiously. “It’s good to see you, Doctor. But I’m rather busy at the moment. Could you perhaps wait? There is very comfortable accommodation that way.” He pointed toward the bow of the Isolde. “Please take the mask with you. I will need you to explain what you’re doing with it. The original is dedicated to the unholy ritual. No copies should ever have been made.”
“I made it out of misplaced love.” The doctor laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “I’m not going anywhere, my Fuhrer.” She spoke the title as if it burned her tongue. There was a blur of movement, after which I saw she was holding a vicious-looking skewer in each hand.
Rothmann looked astonished. “You!” he gasped. “You’re the occult killer? But…but you were one of our earliest subjects, you were trusted with-”
“Stand still, girl!” Marion Gilbert said, pointing one of her weapons at Gwen. “Move backward and sit on the sofa.” She glanced at me and Rothmann. “All of you!”
We complied. I tried to move my thigh away from the Fuhrer’s, but he wasn’t giving me any room.
“What is this?” he demanded. “You are to show respect to me at all times!’
Marion Gilbert stepped closer. “I’m afraid those times are gone. If you speak again, I’ll put one of these skewers through your tongue.”
Rothmann opened his mouth, but sensibly he made no sound.
Since I hadn’t yet been threatened, I decided to act as interlocutor. “Help me out here, Doctor,” I said. “You were one of the Rothmanns’ guinea pigs?”
She nodded. “There were twenty of us.” Then she sighed and words that she had been holding back for far too long were finally spoken.
“We were all at the top of the class in high school. One of the boys and I wanted to study medicine. The rest were going to be businessmen, soldiers, scientists-a range of professions. And we all had a similar racial background-we were white and of German, Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian stock.” She pointed at Rothmann. “This… this man and his vile sister set up a fund, and tempted our parents with scholarships and grants for our studies. The only condition was that we had to spend half of each vacation on what they called research projects. We thought that meant we’d be doing research, but it turned out we were the subjects.” She glared at Rothmann. “Guinea pigs is right. We were as expendable as animals. Sixteen of the group were terminated before a year passed.”
“Were terminated?” Gwen said.
Marion Gilbert’s expression softened. “You’re one of us, too, aren’t you? I can tell by your eyes. I can also see that your conditioning is in full effect.” She smiled sharply. “Try anything and the Fuhrer dies in agony.”
Gwen sat back, but her nails were digging into her thighs.
“Were terminated?” I repeated.
The doctor looked at me blankly for a few moments-I got the impression she was struggling to keep focus.
“The people who couldn’t take the conditioning were…killed… If they were twins, which many of us were, the stronger sibling was ordered to execute the weaker.”
Jesus. Then I remembered the woman who had cut the man’s throat in front of cameras in the camp. Had they been twins, too?
Gwen leaned forward. “It’s not like that now,” she said, looking at Rothmann earnestly. “I was with my twin, Randy, till…” She broke off and gave me a fierce stare. “Until this man shot him last night.” She turned back to her Fuhrer. “Before he killed Professor Irma.”
Rothmann’s eyes locked with mine. Although there was little trace of emotion, I could see that he intended to make me pay the full price for what I’d done to his twin sister.
“You killed the bitch, Matt Wells?” Marion Gilbert asked, her face suffusing with joy. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard since…” She stopped speaking and peered at the skewers in her hands. “Since Malcolm made the Yale chess team.” She took a quick step toward the sofa and buried a skewer to its hilt in Rothmann’s thigh, keeping the other pointed at Gwen. “But that still wasn’t enough for you. Malcolm…Malcolm.” Her voice cracked. “Your sister shot him in the heart.”
Rothmann was biting his lip, but he didn’t have the nerve to speak.
“I couldn’t do it myself.” Marion’s eyes were damp. “So she made me watch.”
I gave her a bit of time. I suspected the conditioning had stopped her grieving for her lost twin until now. I felt a strange empathy for the woman, multiple murderer though she was. I had been struggling enough with what had been done to my brain, but she had obviously been through much worse.
“You’ve been trying to nail them, haven’t you?” I said when she got her breathing under control. “The murders and the drawings-”
That surprised her. “You know about the drawings?”
I nodded. “I’ve been in contact with the detectives.”
Marion Gilbert looked confused. “But you’re a suspect.”
“Not for everyone. That was the FBI’s line, but one of this scumbag’s people was messing with the evidence. Dana Maltravers-do you know her?”
The doctor was staring at Rothmann, as if daring him to speak. His face was twisted in pain, his hands clutching the wound, but he kept silent.
“No,” she said. “We don’t know the identities of the others who have been through the camp. We receive individual assignments and orders.”
“And what were yours recently?”
“To keep them informed of the investigations.” She gave a strangled laugh. “The investigations into the murders I myself committed.” The doctor suddenly looked very tired. She leaned against the walnut-paneled bulkhead, the skewer quivering in her hand. “I…couldn’t help myself. Things that happened at the camp started to come back to me…mock executions…sexual abuse. The others turned on us when we refused to commit incest, they beat us terribly…and then I remembered…I remembered Malcolm’s death…”
“And you decided to hit back.”
She nodded. “The Antichurch…they kept taking us to the rituals, the sacrifices…it’s only in the last day or so that I’ve understood how horrible that side of the process was. They made us believe that Lucifer was rising, that he would reward his faithful servants. So I…I couldn’t stop myself choosing people who were apostates, who had chosen the wrong occult path…”
I thought about her victims. “But Loki the singer was a satanist.”
“An unworthy one,” the doctor said, avoiding my gaze. “He wasn’t serious about the faith. It was all a facade. He only cared about drugs and sex.”
“So you killed Monsieur Hexie, Professor Singer and Crystal Vileda because the Antichurch didn’t approve of their fields-voodoo, the kabbalah, tarot?”
Marion Gilbert still wouldn’t look at me. “Yes,” she replied, then shivered. “I know about the tarot myself-the Vileda woman was a fraud.”
“Hardly a reason to kill her,” I said, unwilling to let her off the hook.
The doctor’s eyes were fixed on Rothmann. “The fact that they were members of proscribed racial groups was also relevant.”
I looked round at the Fuhrer. “Proscribed racial groups? You assholes have such a thing about African- Americans, Jews and Hispanics.” I turned to Marion Gilbert. “Let him talk, will you? I want to see how sick he really
