The Obsidian Chamber

51

It was another glorious November day in the Keys as Diogenes eased his Chris Craft into the dock, cleated it, and hopped out. He plucked the small cooler out of the back cockpit, filled with ice and containing the two caudae equinae, and hurried along the pier to the house. He kept an eye out for Constance as he approached, but all was quiet.

He entered in a state of high nervous energy, avoided the library, and went straight to his basement laboratory, locking the door behind him.

Six hours later he emerged with a box tucked under his arm. It was now late afternoon and the house and island were awash in that soft golden light so distinctive to the Keys. He went to the library and there found Constance, sitting by the dead fireplace, book in hand.

“Hello, my dear,” said Diogenes.

She raised her head. He was shocked by her distracted appearance, but he managed to keep his expression cheerful.

“Hello,” she said in a low voice.

“I hope you got along well in my absence.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Diogenes was hoping she would ask about his trip, or why he’d shaved off the Van Dyke he’d begun to regrow, but she did not. He hesitated. This might be difficult. “Constance, there’s something I must discuss with you.”

She put down the book and turned to him.

“I… I have to confess I deceived you about that blood test. It wasn’t routine. And it revealed something wrong.”

Her eyebrows raised, a faint stirring of interest in her face.

“The arcanum I gave you failed.”

He took a deep breath, let that sink in. He had rehearsed this scene a dozen times in his mind on the way back from Miami. He couldn’t rush this; he needed to give her time to absorb the new information and think through the situation.

“Failed?”

“I imagine you are feeling the ill effects of it. I am so very, very sorry.”

She faltered, looked away. “What happened?”

“The biochemistry is exceedingly complex. Suffice to say I made a mistake. I have now corrected it.” He set the box down and opened it up, to reveal a three-hundred-milliliter bag filled with a violet liquid.

“Is that why you went to Key West?”

“Yes.”

“To obtain more caudae equinae?”

Diogenes had been waiting for this very question. “Good Lord, no!” He shook his head vigorously. “Absolutely not. I’ve fully synthesized the drug, no need for more human tissue. It’s just that the first synthesis was faulty because of a mistake I made. I’ve now synthesized a new batch, reformulated. A good batch.”

“I see.”

She looked so exhausted, she appeared almost more unwell than tired.

“I’d like to give it to you, now, to restore you to health.”

“How do I know this batch isn’t a ‘mistake’ as well?” A dryness had crept into her tone that Diogenes didn’t like.

“Please trust me, Constance. I figured out exactly what went wrong and I’ve corrected it. This formulation will work. I swear to you on the strength of my love: this will work.”

She said nothing. He got up and walked to the IV closet, removed the IV rack, and wheeled it over next to her chair. He spread a sterile pad on the table, wrapped the tourniquet, located a vein, and inserted the IV. She watched him, apathetic, unresisting. Working quickly, he started her on saline, hung the bag with the arcanum, switched a valve, and in a moment the pinkish-purple liquid began to creep down the tube.

“I trusted you before,” said Constance, her voice prickly with irritation. “Why should I trust you again?”

“The first time I was too eager, too much in a hurry to give you the miracle of extended life.”

“You still look rather in a hurry.”

Diogenes took a long, deep breath. “I am in a hurry because I love you and want you to be happy and healthy. But I have not hurried the preparation of this drug.”

She was silent for a minute, a querulous air still clinging to her. “I’m not sure I care for being your guinea pig.”

“My lovely Constance, you’re a guinea pig only in the sense that the drug is formulated for one person only — you. There’s no one else I could try it on.”

“Except yourself.”

“There isn’t enough.” She’s very quick, even now, he thought.

She shook her head and he spoke fast. “Everything is so new. And you’re sick. Give it time — please. That’s all I ask.”

She breathed out with evident irritation and brushed a hair from her face, saying nothing. Diogenes glanced at the bag. He had upped the flow to run it in as quickly as possible, and already about half was gone.

“Your bad humor is a symptom of the misformulated arcanum,” said Diogenes.

As soon as he said this, he realized that was a mistake. “My bad humor,” she said, “is due to your excessive solicitousness, your creeping about the house listening for my every movement. I feel like I’m being stalked.”

“I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized I was bothering you so. I’ll give you all the freedom you wish. Just tell me how to act.”

“For starters, get rid of that telescope in the tower. It makes me feel like you’re spying on me.”

Against his will, Diogenes found his face flushing.

“Yes,” she said, looking at him keenly. “I see that you have spied on me. No doubt when I was swimming the other day.”

Diogenes was flummoxed. He couldn’t bring himself to deny it. He simply could not find an answer, and his silence was all the admission she needed.

“Everything was fine here while you were gone. I wish you hadn’t come back.”

This cut Diogenes to the quick. “That’s not only cruel, but unfair. Everything I’ve done — everything — has been for you.”

“Cruel? This coming from the maestro of cruelty himself?”

Diogenes felt this like another blow. He could feel a rising humiliation, and something else — the stirrings of anger. “You chose to come down here, knowing full well my history. It’s wrong of you to throw it back in my face.”

“Wrong? Who are you to decide what’s right and what’s wrong?” She issued a loud, sarcastic laugh.

This savage escalation left Diogenes reeling. He had no idea how to respond, what to say. The drug was three-quarters through. He could only hope to God it would take effect soon. Constance was talking herself into a rage.

“When I think back on what you’ve done,” she said, “on all that history, when I recall how you made Aloysius desperately unhappy, I wonder how you can live with yourself!”

“Aloysius made me miserable, as well. Please, Constance.”

“Please, Constance,” she said mockingly. “What a mistake I made, trusting you. Instead of making me better, you’ve poisoned me. How do I know this isn’t more of the same?” She shook the IV stand with her free hand.

“Oh, careful! Careful!” Diogenes steadied the stand, protecting his precious drug.

“I should have known your promises would prove worthless.”

“Constance, my promises are inviolate. All this anger of yours — that’s your sickness talking. That’s not you.”

“Isn’t it now?” She grasped the tubes. He lunged to stop her, but was too late — she ripped them out of her arm, the violet liquid spraying about, dotted with flecks of blood, the rack toppling to the floor with a crash.

“Constance! Good God! What are you doing?”

She flung the tubes at him and turned, running from the room. He stood there, frozen in shock, as he heard her feet hurrying up the back stairs, the door to her wing shutting and the bolt slamming home. He tried to get the pounding of his heart down so that he could hear; and he did hear, a faint, stifled sobbing from above. Constance, weeping? That shocked him more than anything else. He looked down at the floor to see the last of his precious arcanum drain out of the bag and onto the rug.