Spectacle(82)

Then he went on (and on, Nathalie thought) about his research, using complicated terms and formulas that she skimmed over. He wavered between specifics and vagueness in presenting his work (“secrecy is essential to most areas of my research”) and talked in academic terms about science and medicine and alchemy and rites both ancient and modern. Dull.

The next part that intrigued her was Dr. Henard’s discussion of his earliest experiments.

As of this writing, eight people have undergone a transfusion. The length of time since their respective transfusions ranges from two weeks to three months. Seven have been successful in displaying magical abilities, and the usefulness of their talents vary: (1) a man age 19 who hears through someone else’s ears by touching the person’s hands; (2) a man age 41 who can perfectly mimic any voice he hears; (3) a woman age 46 who can heal by making eye contact; (4) a man age 55 whose dreams can foretell illness; (5) a woman age 27 who can discern a person’s financial situation by smell; (6) a man age 22 who can communicate thoughts to other people using animals as a vessel; and (7) a woman age 39 who can read a person’s past by stroking his or her hair.

The eighth subject (age 33) is a mystery. His transfusion failed to bring about any magical ability. My examination of his body and mind before, during, and after did not suggest a reason as to why. I have marked this as an area for further study.

I have met with the subjects once weekly for the first month, then once monthly relative to their duration. All but the eighth subject are pleased with the results. All including the eighth subject are in good health.

Note that there is a slight variation in intensity of magic. Four patients report a greater clarity in the development of their powers over time; three maintain that their ability has been consistent since the transfusion. One patient is now with child and has inquired as to whether the child will inherit the magic. My theory proposes that the child will not, just as a child does not possess a broken finger should the parent have one or a preference for the color blue should the parent exhibit one.

However, the human body has many components. Just as I do not know why the eighth subject did not acquire magic, I cannot be certain that a circumstance will not arise whereby a child possesses a power indicative of magic.



That was the sentence Nathalie underlined more thickly than the rest. She had to read it through several times to make sure she understood it correctly. Maybe she was the only child of an Insightful to manifest a power. Maybe she wasn’t and others remained hidden. Simply because M. Patenaude and Christophe and her mother hadn’t heard of other examples didn’t mean they didn’t exist. What did it matter now? She was here. She was proof of what couldn’t be proven.

She flipped to the end of the booklet, to the final section she’d marked as important.

Those who have objected to my work have said I am playing God. I am not playing God; I revere Him and pray to Him and thank Him for giving me the gift of insight such that I devised these experiments.

I suspect some people will be envious of those who have undergone transfusions. The more one has, the more others begrudge him for having. Man is a jealous and at times petty creature. Man is also a creature with tremendous abilities, some free and some trapped behind our own small and limited thinking. It is my hope that this is the beginning of an era: one where the faculty of reason weds magic and the two create a new way to manifest the human spirit through gaining insight.



Until reading Henard’s work, Nathalie had thought he was deceptive and arrogant and indifferent, the sort of man who didn’t care about his patients or the consequences they eventually suffered. She understood now that there was more to him than that, or at least there had been, at one time.





39


The Dark Artist was rotting away, even as people bought newspapers awaiting his next letter or stood in line at the morgue wondering if they’d be among the first to see his latest “exhibit.” Some of them had seen his corpse in the two days since it had been on display in the morgue. Even more read about it in the morgue report, which said he “resembled a plaster sculpture smashed in the temple by a hammer.” The report also noted that his “clothes were of fine quality, with one exception: a section missing from his silk burgundy cravat.”

If they only knew that the real question on their minds and lips should be, Who killed the Dark Artist?

Nathalie regarded the bodies in the display room, including the sixth victim and the Dark Artist, and touched the viewing pane. She didn’t expect a vision, but she chose to continue placing her hand on the glass, just in case. Maybe she’d find out who killed the Dark Artist that way.

She also watched those beside her in the morgue—a young couple with children, a group of women—and wondered what they thought of the handsome man on the slab before them.

Christophe was in the exhibit room beside the black velvet curtain. When she made eye contact with him, he gestured toward the Medusa door. Within a minute she was seated across from him in the drab office down the hall.

“Why is he still on display?” Nathalie tugged on her cap.

“He’s been identified—several more times, in fact—but no one has claimed his body for burial.” Christophe put some papers in a stack.

“And the sixth victim?”

“Unidentified.”

Nathalie’s chest tightened with sorrow. She didn’t want the final victim to be anonymous, to be dumped into a grave next to her murderer.