you do, maybe I would, too." Cal ie's voice became brittle, verged on cracking.
"Would you teach me?"
Natalie tightened the embrace, in part to keep from quivering with her own misgivings. "We'l see." Despite the noncommittal response, Natalie knew she would relent, for she could no longer deny the truth. Her daughter would never be merely a girl with violet eyes. She would always be a Violet.
4
Inmate X
THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE NORTH
AMERICAN AFTERLIFE COMMUNICATIONS
Corps featured four aboveground stories, each
ornamented with the Greco-Roman columns and
pilasters characteristic of the other self-important government buildings in Washington, D.C. In addition to numbers for each of the floors, the control panels of the building's elevators included a B button for the basement. But there was another level below that for which there was no button, only an unmarked slot. To reach that level, one had to possess both the knowledge of the subbasement's existence and the security card to insert in the control panel's slot.
Dr. Carl Pancrit owned such a card and knew how to use it. When the elevator shuddered to a stop at the base of its shaft and parted its doors, he pul ed the card from the slot and stepped into a smal foyer, where a pair of uniformed guards flanked the entrance to the world's smal est and most specialized prison, which had been meticulously tailored for its sole inmate. Each guard carried only two nonlethal weapons--a stun gun and a tranquilizer pistol--for the prisoner they watched was Evan Markham, the Violet Kil er, and he was far more dangerous dead than alive. If his spirit ever got loose, he could potential y inhabit any living Violet.
One of the two officers rose from her desk to check Pancrit's I.D. Her lank brown hair was pul ed in a tight ponytail, and she had the chapped lips and husk-dry voice of a chain-smoker. The engraved name tag pinned to her shirt said RYAN. "Please remove anything that could be used as weapon or a means of suicide, Mr. Pancrit."
She held out a large plastic tray. He emptied his pockets into the receptacle--coins, keys, wal et, a Montblanc pen. "That's Dr. Pancrit."
"Yes, sir. The coat, belt, and tie, too, please." He peeled off his blazer and accessories with a wry look. "You sure you don't want my Jockeys, as wel ?
I've heard some cons hang themselves with their
underwear."
If the sarcasm offended Ryan, she didn't let it show.
"Sorry, sir. Regulations."
The second guard folded the clothes and set them on the desk beside the tray and a half-eaten lunch of burger and fries that Pancrit had interrupted with his arrival. Ryan then indicated the flat-screen, ful -color monitor on the wal behind her. "I'l get him secured before we let you in."
On the monitor, Pancrit surveyed the four split-screen shots of the cel 's security cameras. They included an overhead view of the room, which resembled those for the patients at the White Sands facility in its absolute simplicity and innocuousness. Not a single sharp edge or hard surface existed in the enclosure of soft vinyl and contoured plastic. Even the spigots for shower and basin were smooth, featureless bumps that lacked
valves to turn them off and on. The prisoner washed himself only when his captors al owed.
The only furnishing aside from the toilet and a mattress pad was a vinyl-upholstered chair in the center of the floor. One might have mistaken it for an ordinary recliner if not for the padded manacles on its foot-and armrests, claws open like the pincers of a crab.
A figure in bright red pajamas stained the cel 's sterile white interior like a blood spot seeping through a bandage. The uniform--the only clothing the prisoner was permitted to wear--bore no number or any other form of identification; everyone here knew who he was. Crouched on al fours between the chair and the bed, the man performed push-ups with manic rapidity.
Pancrit could not see the prisoner's face in any of the camera angles, only the
"Would you teach me?"
Natalie tightened the embrace, in part to keep from quivering with her own misgivings. "We'l see." Despite the noncommittal response, Natalie knew she would relent, for she could no longer deny the truth. Her daughter would never be merely a girl with violet eyes. She would always be a Violet.
4
Inmate X
THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE NORTH
AMERICAN AFTERLIFE COMMUNICATIONS
Corps featured four aboveground stories, each
ornamented with the Greco-Roman columns and
pilasters characteristic of the other self-important government buildings in Washington, D.C. In addition to numbers for each of the floors, the control panels of the building's elevators included a B button for the basement. But there was another level below that for which there was no button, only an unmarked slot. To reach that level, one had to possess both the knowledge of the subbasement's existence and the security card to insert in the control panel's slot.
Dr. Carl Pancrit owned such a card and knew how to use it. When the elevator shuddered to a stop at the base of its shaft and parted its doors, he pul ed the card from the slot and stepped into a smal foyer, where a pair of uniformed guards flanked the entrance to the world's smal est and most specialized prison, which had been meticulously tailored for its sole inmate. Each guard carried only two nonlethal weapons--a stun gun and a tranquilizer pistol--for the prisoner they watched was Evan Markham, the Violet Kil er, and he was far more dangerous dead than alive. If his spirit ever got loose, he could potential y inhabit any living Violet.
One of the two officers rose from her desk to check Pancrit's I.D. Her lank brown hair was pul ed in a tight ponytail, and she had the chapped lips and husk-dry voice of a chain-smoker. The engraved name tag pinned to her shirt said RYAN. "Please remove anything that could be used as weapon or a means of suicide, Mr. Pancrit."
She held out a large plastic tray. He emptied his pockets into the receptacle--coins, keys, wal et, a Montblanc pen. "That's Dr. Pancrit."
"Yes, sir. The coat, belt, and tie, too, please." He peeled off his blazer and accessories with a wry look. "You sure you don't want my Jockeys, as wel ?
I've heard some cons hang themselves with their
underwear."
If the sarcasm offended Ryan, she didn't let it show.
"Sorry, sir. Regulations."
The second guard folded the clothes and set them on the desk beside the tray and a half-eaten lunch of burger and fries that Pancrit had interrupted with his arrival. Ryan then indicated the flat-screen, ful -color monitor on the wal behind her. "I'l get him secured before we let you in."
On the monitor, Pancrit surveyed the four split-screen shots of the cel 's security cameras. They included an overhead view of the room, which resembled those for the patients at the White Sands facility in its absolute simplicity and innocuousness. Not a single sharp edge or hard surface existed in the enclosure of soft vinyl and contoured plastic. Even the spigots for shower and basin were smooth, featureless bumps that lacked
valves to turn them off and on. The prisoner washed himself only when his captors al owed.
The only furnishing aside from the toilet and a mattress pad was a vinyl-upholstered chair in the center of the floor. One might have mistaken it for an ordinary recliner if not for the padded manacles on its foot-and armrests, claws open like the pincers of a crab.
A figure in bright red pajamas stained the cel 's sterile white interior like a blood spot seeping through a bandage. The uniform--the only clothing the prisoner was permitted to wear--bore no number or any other form of identification; everyone here knew who he was. Crouched on al fours between the chair and the bed, the man performed push-ups with manic rapidity.
Pancrit could not see the prisoner's face in any of the camera angles, only the
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