City of Night

perhaps a gas, lazily billowing along the glass.
    Mysterious, this object drew Erika just as the lustrous eyes of Dracula drew Mina Harker toward her potential doom in a novel that was not likely to be a source for literary allusions suitable to the average formal dinner party in the Garden District but that was in her downloaded repertoire nonetheless.
    Being refractive, the fluid or vapor absorbed the lamplight and glowed warmly. This internal luminosity revealed a dark shape suspended in the center of the case.
    Erika could not see even the vaguest details of the encased object, but for some reason she thought of a scarab petrified in ancient resin.
    As she approached the case, the shadow at its core seemed to twitch, but most likely she had imagined that movement.
     
     
     

Chapter 39
     
    From City Park, Carson drove to the Garden District to cruise the streets around the Helios residence.
    They were not yet ready to shoot their way into the mansion and go on a Frankenstein hunt, but they needed to scope the territory and lay out escape routes in the-unlikely-event that they were able not only to kill Victor but also to get out of his house alive.
    En route, she said to Michael, “Those people in the white Mercury Mountaineer, back there in the park—did they look familiar to you?”
    “No. But he waved.”
    “I think I’ve seen them before.”
    “Where?”
    “I can’t quite remember.”
    “What are you saying? Did they seem dubious to you?”
    Checking the rearview mirror, Carson said, “I didn’t like his smile.”
    “We don’t shoot people in New Orleans for having an insincere smile.”
    “What were they doing on the service road? That’s only for the use of park personnel, and that wasn’t a park vehicle.”
    “We aren’t park personnel, either. Under the circumstances, it’s easy to get paranoid.”
    “It’s stupid not to be paranoid,” she said.
    “You want to go back, find them, and shoot them?”
    “I might feel better,” she said, checking the mirror again. “You want to call Deucalion, set up a meet?”
    “I’m trying to picture how the original Frankenstein monster applies for a cell phone.”
    “It belongs to Jelly Biggs, the carny who lives at the Luxe, the friend of the guy who left the theater to Deucalion.”
    “Who names their kid Jelly Biggs? They doomed him to fathood.”
    “It’s not his real name. It’s his carny name, from his days in the freakshow.”
    “But he still uses it.”
    “Seems like if they’re in the carnival long enough, their carny monikers become more comfortable than their real names.”
    “What was Deucalion’s freakshow name?” Michael asked.
    “The Monster.”
    “That had to be before political correctness. The Monster —what a self-esteem quasher. These days they’d call him the Different One.”
    “Still too stigmatizing.”
    “Yeah. He’d be called the Unusual Beauty. You have his number?”
    She recited it while Michael keyed the digits in his phone.
    He waited, listened, and then said, “Hey, this is Michael. We need to meet.” He left his number and terminated the call. “Monsters—they’re all so irresponsible. He doesn’t have his phone on. I got voice mail.”
     
     
     

Chapter 40
     
    In the coat closet off the hall between the living room and the kitchen, Randal Six is not yet fully happy, but he is content, for he feels at home. At last he has a home.
    Former hospitals converted into laboratories for cloning and biological engineering do not in his experience have coat closets. The very existence of a coat closet says home .
    Life on the bayou does not require a collection of overcoats and parkas. Hanging from the rod are only a few light zippered jackets.
    Boxed items are stored on the floor of the closet, but he has plenty of room to sit down if he wants. He is too excited to sit, however, and stands in the dark, all but quivering with expectation.
    He is content to remain on his feet in the closet for hours if not days. Even this narrow space is preferable to his billet at Mercy and to the fearsome machines to which his maker has often manacled him in the conduct of painful testing.
    What tempts him to ease open the door is, first, the woman’s happy singing and the delightful clink clatter of kitchen work. He is further enticed by the mouthwatering aroma of onions sauteing in butter.
    Having eaten brown food, perhaps he can safely eat virtually anything.
    Without quite realizing what he is doing,