Divine Fire

by Melanie Jackson

  At least he hadn’t touched Ninon’s letters. Yet. But he was working his way toward them.

  Brice began to rock her wrists back and forth, trying to loosen her bonds. It didn’t seem to have any effect, but she’d seen enough movies to know that she had to keep trying.

  “So much time wasted,” the doctor muttered. “Always, always, there are people trying to stop me.”

  Brice looked across the room. There was another source of uneasiness. Dippel had built up the fire in the grate until it was dangerously large. She’d have to speak to Damien about this. Such a fire was hazardous in a high-rise. Why hadn’t he converted to gas logs?

  She was trying not to think about the ox roast she had attended in England. There were no oxen or livestock of any kind in this skyscraper, yet the image persisted. It took effort to not start down the path of speculation about what else could be roasted in the flames. A library? A man? A woman? All of the above? She hoped her nervousness wasn’t flickering in her eyes. Showing fear would probably be unwise.

  “I think I have spiders in my brain,” Dippel said suddenly. “I can feel them…crawling. They may be eating it. I feel so empty sometimes. It’s the hippocampus, I’m sure. It shows rapid deterioration in some subjects—possibly because they were altered after death. But perhaps because the process cannot be continued forever.”

  Since he had gagged her, Brice assumed that she wasn’t expected to answer this alarming observation. She wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. If his brain was filled with spiders, her brain felt like cottage cheese. This was a step beyond the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Panic and unreason were nigh. She’d been making some heavy withdrawals from the banked funds of rationality during the last twenty-four hours, and that wasn’t an account with overdraft protection. If she crossed the line, would she end up insane too?

  Suddenly she remembered the old saw about how for writers there were no bad experiences, it was all just material for the next book.

  Oh, God! Let me live to write this story!

  Dippel spoke. “I had so many rehearsals—Byron among them—before I was able to perfect my technique for creating these wonderful foot soldiers. They are almost perfect now, don’t you think? Just their brains have failed to improve. If only I had more time…Bah! I cannot regret now. At least they should be sterile. Not that any of my soldiers has ever evidenced any interest in reproduction. Not like my living subjects.” He turned and glared, but not at her. Through her. He began to pace. His voice was anguished as he went on.

  “Your eyes accuse me. But understand that this isn’t what I want. I have to destroy my life’s work. It’s a huge sacrifice, but I understand now that there’ll be no place for me in heaven while my blasphemies yet live. I shall never know salvation. It’s in the Epistle to the Romans—sanctification through repentance. It’s the only way. I must return myself to grace before my brain is gone.”

  He stared at her intently before again turning away. “My foot soldiers don’t matter. They don’t know how they were created, don’t know how to renew themselves. They’ll die soon enough—they’re rotting where they stand, since I have stopped transfusing them and letting them feed. But my special ones—they must be killed by a certain method. It’s the only way. The only way. I’ve tried to be kind, but they’ve all fought me! They’ve made me be cruel and ruthless.” His mouth worked. The jaws creaked, a sound like rubber-soled shoes on a highly polished floor. Then the doctor said: “Judas.”

  He turned to face her again. This time Dippel’s face was covered in clotted tears that looked more like slime than saline. He leaned in close, like a lover, his lips only inches from her cheek. Brice didn’t want to provoke him, but she couldn’t help recoiling. She wouldn’t want a kiss from Death, and even less did she want one from this man, if that was what he planned.

  She briefly tried to feel compassion for the creature, but it was impossible when she saw the huge scalpel in his hand. He meant that for someone, and the list of possibilities was short. It was either her or Damien. His heart may not have been made in hell, but it had been fired there sometime in the last centuries. He was insane and he was evil—and irresponsible. There was no point in wasting compassion on him. It would only get in the way of anything she might have to do.

  Because she would do something if she got the chance. Her feelings about the death penalty may have always been ambivalent, but she suddenly found the answer in this situation was very clear. There were no moral quagmires. Dippel, unlike his monsters, was definitely born human. But he had exiled himself from the realm of civilized men by committing vile deeds. And he planned another murder—maybe more than one. That meant he had to be stopped, and by any means possible. He had to die before Damien did. If Brice had to be the one to kill him, so be it. It would be a righteous killing.

  Thunder boomed, making both Dippel and Brice jump. But the blizzard blowing outside was no match for the one forming within her. Brice embraced her stormy rage, hoping the power would make her strong and unafraid.

  Another creature entered the room, its smell preceding it. Brice stared, fixated. She thought she had seen the worst of Dippel’s creations, but this abomination surpassed her worst nightmares. The creature looked like a wax doll—an honest-to-goodness corpse from a wax museum horror flick. But that couldn’t be. It was walking around, moving, bending, more flexible than the other one had been—and more alert. No, it had once been human. Maybe many humans.

  Perhaps it was the scar that made his waxy face seem inflexible. Or perhaps it was just that the creature had been away from normal people for so long that it had forgotten how to use facial expressions. But—Brice wondered sickly—if she scratched its face, would it actually bleed, or would she just plow furrows in dead skin?

  The monster grunted something, its lips barely moving. But they moved enough for her to see what was inside them as it bent over her. The jaws had been wired together at one time, and there were maggots. Dippel had apparently been in so great a hurry that he hadn’t bothered to remove the undertaker’s sutures from the creature’s mouth. He’d simply clipped them and left them there.

  When Dippel finished speaking, the creature took a deep breath, snuffling Brice’s robe like a hunting dog gathering a scent. She tried not to notice the maggots that fell in her lap. The alert yellow eyes studied her for a moment, and then the monster stood up. Its movements were fast, precise. Not like the other one. This creature was…not fresher, but newer. And there was intelligence in its eyes.

  What had Dippel done, raided the local morgue? The cemetery? Brice wondered hysterically. That made sense—what else could he have done? Flown his European monsters first-class into JFK, or hidden them in trunks and hoped Customs didn’t notice anything odd?

  Brice swallowed as best she could, trying not to breathe any of the air the creature brought with it. If she threw up, she might well choke on her own vomit. Dippel seemed to want her alive for now, but his ability to pay attention to reality seemed erratic at best. He might not notice her choking.

  Maybe it was those spiders in his brain, she thought. And then she wished she hadn’t. After seeing those maggots, the explanation seemed entirely too likely.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The more sins you confess, the more books you will sell.

  —Ninon de Lenclos

  The lapse of ages changes all things—time, language, the earth, the bounds of the sea, the stars of the sky, and every thing “about, around, and underneath” man, except man himself.

  —Byron

  To hold a pen is to be at war.

  —Voltaire

  Damien stepped outside the executive bathroom and looked around carefully. No one was there that he could see. He supposed someone might be hiding in one of the office cubicles, but that wasn’t these zombies’ style. They had no cunning. Still, he listened intently. He scented the air. No hint of sandalwood. Nothing. Brice really was gone, not just hiding somewhere. Nevertheless, he walked cautiously among
the bolted-together panels that made up the peons’ offices, peering over those low enough to offer a view of the working-class prisons.

  He disliked this place. Damien didn’t understand why management thought underlings needed to be treated like veal, to be confined in identical pens while they worked. Such an environment would make his brain numb. Surely it would do the same to any thinking man or woman.

  Of course, right now numb sounded pretty good. Anything was better than imagining what might be happening to Brice.

  Damien had known fear before—anger, even despair. But this was worse. It was a witch’s brew of terror and rage, with empathy and guilt added for spice. He was two centuries old, and had lived hard enough for any dozen men, and if you had asked him a week ago, he’d have said that he’d seen and done and experienced everything at least once. This was one hell of a time to discover that he was wrong. That there in fact did exist a new kind of awful emotion that could be attached to love.

  Time was ticking down; he knew it, but Damien didn’t consult any of the clocks mounted on the walls. He wouldn’t consult with anything other than his gun and perhaps his hand grenade until he found Brice and killed Dippel.

  Dippel. The man was an exception to so many rules. That bastard was going to be killed dead, dead, dead—reduced to molecules so small that there was no chance of him ever resurrecting. It would be Damien’s favor to humanity.

  Flash, flash, went the small red light. Hurry! Hurry!

  Damien’s inner rage wanted him to rush about, smashing things, yelling, to find Brice immediately. But he didn’t give way to emotion. He was her only hope of escape—he couldn’t afford to be hurt or killed before rescuing her. He had to be smart.

  Instead of haste, Damien used logic. It was difficult, with the storm and his anger urging him to action, but he persevered, using pain to focus himself when his thoughts veered onto unproductive paths. It was doing neither the plaster nor his knuckles any good, but he found punching the walls oddly satisfying.

  Damien knew that she wasn’t on any of the floors below him. He’d checked them all from basement to level five. He hadn’t seen anyone, or discovered any booby traps since disarming the hand grenade in the stairwell. That meant they were retreating upward.

  To his apartment?

  Yes, that made sense. Dippel always had been into symbolism. He would want to kill Damien on his home ground.

  “They tried to burn me, you know,” Dippel said softly. “It was an epiphanic moment really, the first time I understood about purification by fire.”

  The doctor stood and began pacing. His differentsized arms swung unevenly. Occasionally, the doctor tried to make eye contact with her, but Brice had a difficult time taking her eyes off the scalpel still clutched in his right hand. Nothing had ever appeared more threatening.

  “They chained me and my helpers to the wall and piled up the faggots. But it was April, and the wood was green. The Dominicans would have known better than to use it, but those peasants! They’d never cooked anyone before. They didn’t even have the kindness to garrote my people before burning them.” Dippel’s voice was full of contempt. “The fire was slow to start and stayed sullen, even when they added straw. Eventually they got it to light, but it didn’t burn hot enough, and there wasn’t enough smoke to put my people out of their misery. They just singed and smoldered.”

  Brice shuddered, but Dippel didn’t notice. He was caught up in his memories.

  “I didn’t die, of course, and after a while the superstitious fools got afraid and ran away. Eventually I got free—I had to. The screaming was making me crazy. The smell was maddening too—like roasting pork, but I knew it was my own legs.”

  Dippel looked at the fireplace. He went over and threw the last of the wood on the pyre.

  Pyre?

  “At first, I did nothing. The castle was ruined, my labs destroyed, and I thought I would heal. But the cellular regeneration wasn’t happening quickly enough. The fire had done permanent damage to my tissues. I finally realized that I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to have new legs and another hand before those fools found their courage and regrouped.” Dippel resumed pacing. “I was fortunate. They’d hung Schmidt upside-down before they burned him. His eyeballs had burst and his ears were gone, but the legs were almost untouched.”

  Poor, poor Schmidt. Brice closed her eyes and tried to make Dippel’s voice go away.

  “I didn’t kill him—no one can say that. The mob did it! That sin can’t be laid at my door. I just ended his suffering, let his soul move on to heaven.” He added pettishly, “They weren’t his legs anyway. I gave them to him in the first place, and he wouldn’t need them in heaven. God would make him whole.”

  Brice felt sick, hearing her own rationalizations for killing coming out of the mouth of this monster. And there were other reasons to feel ill. It was all too easy to picture the mob scene he recounted, with the flames in Damien’s fireplace roaring, highlighting Dippel’s many scars.

  His arms were especially mismatched, one scarred and one not, and she wondered if one of them might also have belonged to the unfortunate Schmidt who went to heaven without his legs.

  Though it didn’t seem possible that the horror of their conversation could in any way increase, Dippel’s next words fell like a physical blow, knocking the wind from her lungs. Brice had half expected to hear this from the moment she saw the blaze, but listening to him voice his intentions out loud was more than she could stand.

  “I wonder if this fire is hot enough. Byron is strong, you know. He won’t want to burn. But, of course, he must. Suffering is the only way to be redeemed. I understand that now.” Dippel’s voice was one of fanatical earnestness. “I was wrong to try to escape that fire. I should have let it end there.”

  Brice’s eyes opened again.

  Evil. Dippel was Evil with a big E—Satan’s paw, the devil’s spawn. She didn’t want to start thinking in religious terms again, but it was impossible not to. This wasn’t just madness. Insanity may have cracked open his mind and let the Evil in, but his psychopathy was just a small part of what prompted his actions now.

  And Evil had just played its trump card on Brice: fear. Fear of watching another loved one die while she looked on helpless to stop what was happening.

  “You look so frightened. Don’t worry, my dear. I am a compassionate man. I shall offer you the kindness that mob failed to offer me. I’m quite good at these things, you know. I’m a doctor. And I won’t let my soldiers have you. Not ’til you’re dead.” Dippel patted her shoulder as he paced by. He still had the scalpel in his right hand.

  The moment his back was turned, Brice resumed pulling on her bonds. She felt her skin break open and blood start to flow. She kept on tugging, not caring if she sawed clean through her flesh and bones. If Dippel could do it, so could she. She had to get away. She had to warn Damien! Anything—anything!—was better than waiting for Dippel to enact his horrible plan.

  Damien found another zombie in the stairwell between the sixth and seventh floors. He smelled the creature before he saw the outline of its head, peering down into the darkness and snuffling for its prey. Damien took a bead on it, but he didn’t shoot. A single bullet wouldn’t put it down, and would only alert the creature to his whereabouts.

  Confronting it headlong while climbing upstairs would be a mistake too. He’d be at a terrible disadvantage. Fortunately, there were other options.

  Damien waited until the giant head withdrew; then he put down his rifle and grabbed the railing, mounting it gingerly. Water vapor in the air was beginning to condense and the pipes were slippery. Once he was sure of his balance, Damien began to climb.

  He moved silently, controlling his breathing, being careful not to make squeaking noises as he grasped and let go of the painted iron pipes. The last bit of the deadly jungle gym required a stretch—a potentially dangerous one since, if he slipped, he’d fall all the way to the lobby. But the maneuver allowed him to get behind his quarry.


  Though Damien made no noise, the creature sensed him and turned swiftly as Damien vaulted over the rail. The zombie was fast, but there was no time for it to aim its rifle. Damien lashed out with his foot, shoving the thing backward down the stairs.

  It grunted upon the impact of the sole of his shoe, but then its right hand flashed out and grasped Damien’s ankle with what felt like a steel claw. The left hand held fast to its gun even though it might have been able to right itself by grabbing the rail.

  Their gazes locked. The thing had evil eyes, hot eyes that seemed to glow even after the red smoke-detector light flashed off. There was also an intelligence there that hadn’t existed in the other creatures.

  But that awareness was where any connection to humanity ended. It had no hair and the skin looked scaly, almost reptilian. Even the underlying bone structure of the head was wrong, though that wasn’t the first thing Damien noticed. Its face was distorted by a long, curving scar that pulled its lips back from its teeth.

  Alarmed and repulsed by the feel of its talons gripping his ankle, Damien dropped to the ground, changing the thing’s center of gravity and pulling it off balance. As the creature jerked forward, Damien kicked out with his other foot, connecting with its midriff and knocking the monster away. It crashed down the steps.

  Damien rolled quickly to the edge of the landing and watched it fall. The movement looked odd in the slow pulse of the red smoke-detector light. And the thing grunted as it fell, giving audible punctuation as each step forced a small bit of air from its lungs.

  It finally reached the bottom of the flight of stairs, and there let out an enraged howl that shook the air of the stairwell. Damien shuddered at the sound. What the hell was this thing? The monstrosity was faster than the others, stronger too. Damien was suddenly willing to bet that this was the creature who’d laid the trap for him.