Текст книги "Nameless"

Автор книги: Sam Starbuck

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If I could make Lucas a mask, an invisible mask he could always wear – if I could give him the means to protect himself instead of protecting him...that would be a fine thing. Even just a symbol would be something.

I walked out into the dark shop and reached for a piece of paper on the desk, then stopped. I wasn't an artist, and paper masks are children's toys anyway. I looked up, casting around the shop, and the Dottore mask hanging over the fireplace seemed to leer knowingly at me. I ignored him and went to my workbench, where my bookbinding tools lay – scissors and glue, clean waxed thread, needles, punches, sharp scalpels and dull bone paper-folders. There was nothing there that would help. I was a book-binder, not a maskmaker.

But I had my hands and they weren't unskilled. If Lucas could make a mask in his desperation to be loved, I could make one in desperation to save him. Without his book (which I had never believed in) and without his tools (which wouldn't be of any use in my hands) I could make him something. One thing, even if I didn't believe. For Lucas, because I loved him.

I clenched my left hand as tightly as I could, which made the lacerations under the bandages throb and pull away painfully from the sterile cotton. But I could feel something hard and solid in my palm, something forming to the shape of my fingers. When I opened my hand again it rested there like a weight even though I couldn't see anything.

I picked it up in my right hand – invisible, but for a strange shimmer of light across it from the streetlamp through the window. I pressed my hands together and it flattened, slowly, stubbornly. When I ran my thumb over it, shaping it, it seemed to smooth and stretch.

I don't remember much about that night, except that I worked through it, exhausted, still filthy from the mud and the hospital and the train ride back to Low Ferry. My left hand was almost useless in the bandage and I do remember eventually finding scissors at the workbench and slicing the cotton off, unwrapping it from the bite and drawing fresh blood when the scabs pulled away. The blood dripped onto the mask I couldn't see, spattering briefly or smearing under my fingers and then disappearing as well.

I wanted it perfect. I wanted to make it beautiful, even if it couldn't be seen.

I know it sounds insane. I know that. It sounds as if I had some kind of breakdown, and perhaps I did, but I know what I felt, too. There was something real under my hands, something solid. It had weight, it had a smooth texture like glass, and it fought me every step of the way – sprung back when I tried to press it out, closed over when I tried to mold holes in it for eyes. It may have been shaped under my hands but it was slow going, and my shoulders and wrists were aching in earnest around the time the sun was coming up. My fingertips were already raw and bruised.

I began to cry in frustration, like a child who can't make a painting look the way they want it. I let it drop to the counter, resting one hand on the smooth curved surface as I sat down and rubbed my face with the other. Static crackled in the air, shocked me where my fingertips touched my skin – it would be a dry day outside, cold and sunny and brutal.

I set it on the workbench, exhausted, and found my hands bloody, grit under the fingernails, the sharp crescent of the bite still oozing a little. There was nothing to be done, and I couldn't be seen like this. I climbed the stairs slowly, turned on the shower, and scrubbed my hands clean while the water warmed up.

Under the hot water, my muscles began to relax and then to shake; it was all I could do to dry myself off and crawl into bed, and that was the last I knew for hours.

***

I woke to Jacob's voice, calling my name in the shop below. I flailed out of bed and dragged the blanket with me as I walked to the stairs.

"Down in five minutes!" I called.

"I can wait!" he shouted back. I pulled some clothing on with numb, exhausted fingers, and then looked down at my hand again. The scabs had held but seemed grotesque and misshapen, and I wrapped a dishtowel around my palm as I hurried down the stairs.

"Sorry," I said, as I reached the bottom. "Just cleaning my – "

Jacob was standing at the counter, paging through a book, but all my senses focused on the workbench, and the slight shimmer in the air where the mask lay. I looked nervously at him, but he didn't appear bothered. Didn't even see it – not that there was anything to see. But to me it seemed – better than it had earlier. It didn't seem as imperfect as I'd thought it was. We have no objectivity when we're tired.

" – hand," I finished weakly, holding it up.

"Carmen said you'd hurt yourself," Jacob said, frowning in concern as he set the book down. "Anything serious?"

"No, just – just a dog bite," I lied, tucking the towel-wrapped hand behind my back and coming forward. "I – ran into a nasty stray on my way to The Pines."

"Town folk were worried when your lights weren't on this morning. Isn't like you to disappear," he said. "Thought I'd come over and see."

"Long night." I rummaged in the shelves behind the counter and finally came up with an old elastic bandage and some cotton wadding I normally used for wiping up paste when I was bookbinding. "I told the boy to tell people I got bitten, but he only told Charles."

"Ah," Jacob said. "Which boy?"

"You know, the one Lucas tutors," I said. He gave me a vague nod that told me he didn't have much of an idea who I was talking about. "Did you need something?"

"Nope, just to see you were well," he said. "Come on over to the cafe, Carmen's been worrying. Buy you lunch," he added.

"Lunchtime already?" I asked.

"Pretty nearly. Whole town's been wanting to stop by all morning."

"Gratifying," I said with a light smile. "Let me get my boots."

Carmen threw her arms around my neck when we walked in, nearly knocking me over, and then wouldn't let us sit down until I'd shown her my makeshift bandage and assured her that they'd given me all my shots at the hospital. Everyone asked a lot of questions, but I answered evasively and eventually they must have figured out that I didn't want to talk about it.

On the way out, I caught Carmen's elbow as she passed.

"Hey," I said. "You know the kid that's always running around with Lucas?"

"Sure," she replied, with the same distracted look Jacob had given me. "He comes in for a soda sometimes."

"Anything about him ever strike you as a little weird?"

She laughed. "Weird? Nah. He's just one of the town kids, you know."

"I thought he might be from one of the farms."

"Could be. Who is he again?"

I looked at her, frowned, and shook my head. "Don't worry about it. I'll see you later."

"Feel better!" she called after me as I left.

I walked back across the street to Dusk Books and pushed the door open, though I didn't intend to stay long. More people would want to come see me that afternoon, which was fine – but I wanted to be sure Lucas was all right. And I wanted to give him the mask, which sang out almost audibly when I walked into the shop.

How to give it to him was the question. Standing there holding out empty air would look ridiculous, but then so was the entire idea of Nameless. Wrapping it in paper didn't work – believe me, I tried – and it didn't seem right to just sling it into a box or a bag and carry it.

I picked it up from the workbench, turning it over in my hands, and then quickly set it down again when the wooden door to the shop creaked open.

"Christopher?" Michael called, putting his head around the door.

"Come on in," I said, walking back to the counter. "Afternoon, Michael."

"Afternoon," he said, standing in front of the counter, eyes darting down to my hand. "Heard you were hurt. Word going around is you got a dog bite."

I held up my hand. "Nothing serious. Looks kind of gross, though. Caught a stray on a bad day."

"Only stray around here's that big husky," he said. "That the one?"

"Who, Nameless? No," I told him. "Just some dog."

He gave me a searching look. "How's your heart?"

I laughed. "My heart's fine, Michael. How's yours?"

That got me a grin. "Fine too. Better than fine."

"You need anything?"

"No, just wanted to make sure you didn't need us to go find Nameless. Whatever it was, it drew blood – got to put down a creature like that, before it gets a kid or something."

"Long gone by now, I guess – don't think it was local to start with," I said hastily.

"I can put word around if you want. You know Low Ferry."

"Mm. Yeah, I do. I think I'm closing up today – I'd appreciate it if you told folks not to bother Nameless if they see him."

"Sure. Where you headed?"

"Out to The Pines."

"Drive you far as the road goes," Michael offered.

"No," I said, thinking of the mask. "I...think I'll walk. Nice day for it."

He gave me an uncertain look. "Sure?"

"Yeah. I love that walk. Next time though, maybe?"

A small smile. "Sure. See you round, Christopher."

He left, the door banging shut behind him, and I turned back to the mask. This time, when I picked it up, something brushed against my fingers. I almost dropped it in surprise. I looked down, which was stupid, and then brought my other hand up to explore the edge, discovering something dangling next to one of the eye-holes.

A ribbon. Another on the other side.

I almost burst out laughing, but instead I tied the ribbons together and looped them around my hand, letting the mask dangle from my fingers in a way that was almost unnoticeable. I glanced furtively at Dottore, whose leer from above the fireplace was more of a benevolent smile in the daytime, and left for The Pines.

I didn't see many people as I walked, none once I left the main street, and the world seemed still and a little empty. Mask swinging from one hand, I left the asphalt behind and walked out into the fields that divided The Pines from town, the grass still sodden and pocked here and there with snow.

When I reached the kitchen door I knocked a couple of times, waited, knocked again, shouted up to Lucas and then tried the door – unlocked, so I hurried inside. I half-expected to find him dead on the kitchen floor, but he must have cleaned it. There wasn't even any mud on the floor. The sink where he'd thrown up the hemlock was wiped clean too, though I noticed a spot of blood – my blood, I thought distantly – on the edge.

I looked into the living room and did see a body on the couch there, but my first rush of panic subsided quickly when I saw his chest moving – slowly and evenly, deep inhales and exhales. I touched his wrist where it rested on the back of the couch. His skin was warm, pulse slow and even. He was sleeping. I expected him to wake up when I touched him, but he didn't even shift.

The boxes he'd packed hadn't been touched, and the room seemed very bare without his supplies and masks strewn everywhere. I came around to the other side of the couch and sat down on the heavy coffee table, watching him.

"Lucas," I said softly. His hand twitched. "Wake up a little, huh?"

He didn't move. I reached out and ran the tips of my fingers along his cheekbone, down to his jaw, but he just exhaled slightly and slept on.

"All right," I said, almost relieved. "Sleep if you have to. I brought you something..." I set the mask on the table next to me, straightening it so that it rested on its edges, facing him. "Come see me when you want. You know where I am."

No reaction, just the soft sound of breathing.

If he found the mask, well, that was fine. If he didn't, then it was all in my head anyway. But I hoped he would.

I got up, hesitated, then bent and kissed him on the forehead before leaving. I flicked the lights off on my way out, shut the kitchen door firmly behind me, and turned my face to the chilly wind outside the cottage.

That was the last time I saw Lucas for almost two months.

***

Sandra brought the news to me the next day, when I was still trying to set my internal clock back to waking before noon. I'd already eaten lunch by the time I opened the shop, and a delivery of new comic books had taken up an hour or two after that. I was busy cutting myself a new, more precise bandage with some wadding and a scalpel when she came in.

"Afternoon," I called from the workbench. "With you in just...one...second. Trust me, you don't want to see the Grim Hand of Christopher Dusk."

She laughed and rested her elbows on my counter as I got up, wrapping the wadding around my hand and securing it with the elastic bandage. "Better make sure it wasn't a werewolf," she said.

"I think I'm safe in Low Ferry," I answered, hiding a pang of – conscience, or regret, or something. I don't know. "What can I get for you today? New magazines came in a few days ago."

"Thought they might have by now," she said, as I collected her usual assortment and set them on the counter. She flipped through them while I rang up the total. "Took the afternoon off. Just me and my magazines and some of Carmen's coffee."

"Nice for some. Nolan and Michael handling things?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, and laughed again. I caught her eye, saw the mischief in it, and stared at her.

"You know about them," I blurted, stopping in the middle of totaling her cost.

"You do?" she asked, equally surprised.

"I imagine we're the only two who do," I replied, hastily printing her receipt. "Six twenty-two."

"I bet we are," she said, handing me the exact change. "How'd you find out?"

"I have eyes everywhere," I whispered. She grinned. "But if you knew – that whole thing with you and them last autumn..."

"Well, I do like Michael an awful lot," she said, a hint of regret passing over her face. "Nolan too, but I really liked Michael. If things were different...but they aren't. And the boys are happy, so why not give them a hand? You know they're leavin' town in a month or two. You won't make trouble for them, will you?" she asked earnestly.

"I haven't yet. What about you, though? You might hit some when they go."

"Why?" she asked, frowning.

"Well, people might think you were covering for them," I said.

"So what? Let 'em," she replied. I began to sense that I had grossly underestimated Sandra. "Besides, if I have to I can act all heartbroken for a little while and I'll make Alex Culligan comfort me."

I lifted an eyebrow. "Alex Culligan, huh?"

"Yep," she said, beaming. "Oh, which reminds me – you know Lucas? That weird guy out at The Pines, the one who's always lurking in here?"

"He's not weird," I said, annoyed.

"Whatever – he disappeared!"

I felt a pit open up in my stomach. "He – what?"

"He's gone," she said, with the kind of relish that often accompanies such gossip. "I had lunch with Alex. He says his dad went up from their farm because their well was out, to see if The Pines had any water, and the place was cleared out. He looked around inside and everything."

"Cleared out – how do you mean?" I demanded. She shrugged.

"All his stuff was gone, is what Alex said. Just a couple of empty boxes and the furniture that rents with the place."

I stared down at the glossy magazines on the counter, trying to keep my breath slow and even.

"You were friends, weren't you?" she asked.

"As much as one can be, with Lucas," I said, hoping my voice was steady.

"That's the truth. Anyway, Alex figures maybe he skipped on his rent or something. He says they saw one of those Friendly trucks passing through, maybe he went with them."

"I – maybe," I said numbly. "He liked them."

"Anyway, thanks for the magazines," she said. "I'll tell the boys you said hello."

"Yeah...do that," I told her, and when she was gone I leaned heavily on the counter.

The first thing I did, and perhaps I'm not entirely proud of this, was take my pulse, just in case. The beat was even, though, and my heart felt fine. Then I straightened and walked through the shop, grabbing my coat from the peg near the door. I flipped the sign to closed, and for the third time in four days I took off for The Pines.

It wouldn't have taken very long to load what little he'd brought with him into one of the Friendly's pickups. Their Christopher would have been pleased to have him traveling with them, and one more mouth isn't so much to feed when you already have twenty or thirty.

I wasn't quite outside of town yet when there was a tug on my arm. I stopped walking and looked down. The boy stood there, one hand in his pocket and the other on my sleeve, looking up at me expectantly.

"You're going out to The Pines," he said. I felt my left hand clench, as if I expected there to be something in my grip.

"Yeah, I am," I replied. I tugged my sleeve out of his grip and kept walking.

"You won't find him there," the boy said, running to catch up to me. "Alex Culligan says he's gone."

"I know that!" I shouted, turning around to face him. "What do you know about it?"

He tilted his head, dark eyes studying me.

"You're still going?" he asked.

"I need to see for myself," I said sullenly.

"I know," he sighed. "All right. Go and see, then. Can I come?" he added, with such typical boyish enthusiasm that I wondered for a moment just whether I'd imagined all of it – Nameless, the mask I'd made, the way the boy had looked at me sometimes.

"I can't stop you," I said, and kept walking.

He walked next to me, hurrying a little to keep up with my strides, down the street to the end of the asphalt and then onto the fields. It was a pretty day out, but I wasn't paying much attention. I walked up to the kitchen door of The Pines, pulled it open without knocking, and went inside.

The kitchen had always been sterile, but there was an added emptiness now. I pulled the cupboards open one by one – there was a water stain where one of the leaks had been before he fixed the roof, but the dishes were neatly stacked. There was no food in the pantry. The refrigerator was empty too.

I walked through the open living room door and found it was similar: the furniture was in place, the floor swept clean, most of the boxes gone and the remaining ones empty. Not a trace, not a sign of the workshop Lucas had kept there.

I looked up. The burn-mark on the ceiling was still there, but it was the only sign anyone had done anything in the cottage. I didn't even bother looking in the bedroom, just sat down on the couch and bowed my head. After a second, I saw the boy's shoes next to mine, facing the couch as he sat on the coffee table opposite me. There was a rustle from nearby, and a book was thrust into my line of vision.

"This was on the table," the boy said, offering it to me. I took it from him with my good hand, thumb rubbing the edge of the cover. A small blue book, hardbound, imprint 1944, still smelling slightly of cigarettes. Ancient Games.

I opened it, holding the pages down with my left hand, and checked the flyleaf. There was a price scrawled in the upper right-hand corner, leftover from its time in the second-hand store in Chicago, and a single word in Lucas's tidy handwriting. Christopher.

I closed the book and held it, pressed against my chest. After a while, I looked up at the boy.

"I don't even know what this means," I said, only half-conscious I was talking. "I – does he – is he coming back?"

"Probably not today," he said pointedly. I looked around at the clean, empty living room and nodded. I didn't want to stay there. It wasn't Lucas's home anymore.

The boy led the way through to the kitchen and out the door, but I stopped on the threshold and looked back. My hand tightened around the book until the edges of the cover bit into my palm. Quiet Lucas, with his hidden world and his missing piece, had filled the rooms with color and light. Without him it was pretty empty.

When I turned back, the boy was gone. There was a soft flutter of wings, though, and the little Waxwing who had spent the winter in the holly bushes by the door was perched there now. He regarded me with small sharp eyes, his yellow, black-banded head tilted slightly. He warbled at me.

"How is this supposed to help?" I asked him, but he hopped along the branch, spread his wings, bobbed once or twice and then took off, straight up into the air. I followed his flight until he disappeared in the distance.

Easing my way down the hill to the field, I could see the fresh tire tracks, and a few muddy footprints – yes, the Friendly had been here, a truck with a camper. Perhaps the boy had fetched them, too. They'd come and taken Lucas away. If I was lucky, I'd see him again the next winter.

Perhaps he'd be married to a Friendly woman by then. Who knew?

I put the book in my jacket pocket and walked back to the village, tripping a little on the ridge of asphalt when the road became Low Ferry's again. I took a side-alley to the back of my shop, let myself in, left my shoes by the back door and went upstairs.

From the window I could see people coming and going, see Ron emerge from the cafe to have a smoke on the front bench. Beyond them, Leon was poking around in the scrap-metal bins in front of the hardware store. A couple of schoolchildren ran past, down to my front door, and stopped at the bottom of the steps when they saw the sign. Their faces all turned upwards to my window, and they waved.

I set the book down carefully and opened the window.

"Hey Mr. Dusk," one of them yelled. "You got new comic books in?"

"Yeah," I said, surprised at how steady I sounded. "Go on in, I'll be down in a second. Bags by the counter!" I added, as they flocked onto the porch and momentarily out of sight.

Downstairs they were already engaged in a debate over who would buy what, but they fell respectfully silent when I appeared. Their eyes, as one, tracked down to my left hand.

"Is it true you got attacked by a dog?" one of them asked.

"Just a bite," I said.

"My mom said you went to Chicago to get it fixed."

"That's right," I answered, willing them to find their comics and go.

"What's Chicago like?" a girl asked. I looked down at my hand.

"Big," I said. "Old. And very far away."

***

I called Marjorie that night, after I'd closed the shop and gone back upstairs to the troubling sight of the book on my bedside table. She was still at her store, and she answered on the first ring.

"Eighth Rare Books, Marjorie speaking," she said.

"Marj, it's Christopher," I said.

"Christopher, how are you?" she asked warmly. "How's the hand?"

I held up my left hand, studying it. "It's fine. Healing, I guess. Hurts a little."

"I'm glad you're on the mend. And your history scholar?" she asked. I glanced at the book on the table. "Christopher? Still there?"

"I..." I wasn't even sure what to say.

"Oh, god, did he try to – "

"No!" I interrupted, understanding what she must have assumed. "No, he – I don't know how he is. He disappeared yesterday."

"Disappeared?" she demanded. "How do you mean?"

"His place is empty. He cleaned out and left. Probably with the Friendly. They're – nomads, they pass through every once in a while."

"Nomads? This isn't the desert, Christopher."

"They're just Travelers, they wander. They...must have taken him with them," I said lamely. "He didn't say goodbye. They never do."

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"No, Marj, I don't think I am," I said softly.

"Sweetheart, I know your heart is broken in a couple of ways, but this kind does heal," she said. "And maybe he'll be back. He's young, he might just need to find himself a little. He didn't seem very happy in his own skin."

I laughed, though I think it probably sounded more like I was crying. "Yeah. You have no idea."

"You could file missing-persons," she said. "Do you think he'd try to hurt himself again?"

"No, he sort of promised he wouldn't. And if he went, it was because he wanted to," I replied. "I just...don't know what to do."

"Nothing you can do, love, unless you want to look for him. I don't think you do, do you?"

"No," I said. "I meant I don't even know what to think."

"Why should you think anything?" she said. "Have yourself a cry or a drink or a religious conversion – "

This time my laugh was more sincere. "Hardly that," I said drily.

"Fine. Then you keep on selling your books, and live your quiet country-mouse life, and if that gets a little unbearable come see me," she said. "You know you're always welcome here, Chris."

"I know."

"Are you going to be okay? Should I call some farmer or something to come sit up with you?"

"I'll be fine. Confused, but fine," I promised her. "Thank you, Marjorie."

"Call anytime, sweetheart."

"I will. Bye."

"Bye now."

I hung up the phone and threw myself into the chair by the window, staring up at the ceiling. I felt like I'd been going for days, like I hadn't stopped running since the boy came into my shop and told me to find Lucas. Running to something, running from something, both, I couldn't be sure. I was tired. Maybe that was how Lucas had felt too.

I got up and got myself a glass of water, made myself drink the whole thing, and then dressed for bed. I slid between the covers and lay on my side, looking at the window and the long strip of light thrown into the room from the streetlamp outside. And the book, on the bedside table.

I switched on my lamp and picked it up, paging through to the opening chapter. I only managed a few paragraphs before I was asleep, exhausted, the book still in my hands.

For the next week, at least, I ran more or less automatically, not thinking much about anything. A lot of people came into the shop – it felt like the whole village came sooner or later – but not in the way they would have, in crowds. Just a few at a time, asking if it was true about the dog bite, about going to Chicago, about Lucas. Gossip travels fast but I think they wanted to hear it from me, so even if they knew they kept asking. And I kept answering – I don't know where he's gone, probably with the Friendly. Yes, he did like them. No, I can't be sure; all his things were gone.

I asked some of them about the boy, and they seemed to be conscious of him, but every time they answered they had that same disconnected look. As if they weren't sure what we were talking about even as we talked about it. Some thought his family had sold up and moved away, others that he was being sent to the school in the next village south. Wasn't he one of the Ardval kids? Maybe, maybe not.

I know I never saw him again, and with the warmer weather the birds were all migrating back, so it wasn't as if I could pick one small Waxwing out of a flock and say, yes, that's probably the Ferryman's son, or the spirit of Low Ferry or whatever he was. I felt ridiculous even thinking of it, though I'd seen enough not to swear outright that I know the answer. I'm no less of a skeptic than I ever have been, but maybe I'm a little less arrogant about it now.

I wish I could tell him thank-you. Though I'm sure he knows it, wherever he is.

I missed Lucas intensely. I missed his company, and I missed being...special, being chosen. I wished there were things I'd said to him. I wished I could have asked him not to go. But Lucas, for all his reserve, his secret need for love, was also stubborn. Maybe he would have gone anyway, and if he'd stopped to say goodbye I think it would have been irrevocable. At least, with that unsaid between us, nothing was quite so final.

Every evening I closed up the store and went across to the cafe, to get some dinner and waste a few long evening hours in a place where I had to smile and talk with people. When I was finished I'd go back to Dusk Books, work a little if there were books to sort or repairs to make, and then go upstairs for bed. Often I'd pick up Ancient Games and read a few pages, but when I did I never got very far before I fell asleep.

I didn't learn much – the words just seemed to wash past me, but they were some comfort against the loss.

Marjorie had been right, at least, that metaphorical broken hearts are easier to fix than physical ones. All they need are sufficient applications of time. Act normally for long enough, and you actually start to feel that way.

As the days passed I found that I wasn't quite so tired as I had been, and that the yawning pit in my stomach was closing up a little. While days turned to weeks I discovered I could see Nona Harrison shopping with her two babies and I would still think of Lucas, but it didn't send a twinge up under my ribcage. It didn't instantly make me worry that he was out there somewhere, struggling to protect himself. I could hear a dog bark without looking to see if it was Nameless. I started to hope the Friendly would make one of their rare summer-runs up to Low Ferry, instead of just missing them, and him.

Kirchner called me up one morning in March and asked if I'd come down – nothing urgent, but he wanted to see me when I had a moment. Since I had nothing but moments, really, I told him I'd come down as soon as I got my boots on.

"Step on in," he said, holding the door to his office – not his exam room – open for me. "How are you?"

"Pretty good," I said, sitting down in front of the desk. He leaned against the edge rather than sitting on the other side and looked down at me thoughtfully. "I'm hoping I should be feeling pretty good."

"I think so, yes," he said. "How's the hand?"

I held up my left hand and waggled the fingers. The bandage I wore was lighter now, just a pad with medical tape to hold it on, and the stitches had all fallen out. "Healing up."

"I'll get you some scar cream before you go," he said.

"But that's not why I'm here, is it?" I asked. He shook his head.

"No. I've finally talked the city hospital into sending your most recent tests out here – it took me a while but I thought I should make sure you hadn't incurred any extra damage."

"I didn't have an attack," I said.

"You mean when you went out to Chicago?"

"Yeah."

"Funny thing about that trip to Chicago," Kirchner said. "In your records, your injury is listed as a human bite wound, not a dog. And it says you were airlifted in with another patient. Who..." he shuffled through some paperwork on his desk, picking a file out of the chaos, "is also a patient of mine."

"Ah," I said, trying to calculate how much trouble I was in. "Lucas."