by William Hill
“It sounds like you’re saying you look the other way,” said Jamie.
“Good. Now be quiet.”
An hour later, the van drew to a halt outside a farmhouse on the edge of an expanse of moorland. The rear doors slid open, and the smell of wood smoke drifted in from the clear night sky.
Jamie stepped down from the vehicle. They were on a narrow country road, lined on one side by a row of trees, on the other by the open expanse of Dartmoor. The farmhouse, a rambling two-story building made of pale stone, sat behind a rock wall, the forest quickly thickening into a solid mass of black beyond it.
Frankenstein was waiting for him at the side of the road. When Jamie reached him, he pushed open a wooden gate. They walked up the neat path together, a pair of mismatched silhouettes in the dark. Before they reached the red front door to the farmhouse, it opened, and a tall man, with the gray hair and lined face of late middle age, smiled at them.
“Please,” he said, “follow the path to the back garden. I’ll meet you there.”
Jamie smiled a bemused smile as they made their way around to the garden: The warm, friendly welcome was not what he would have expected from either a vampire or a manufacturer of illegal drugs-and certainly not from a creature that was both. The scent of fallen blossom filled the air as they stepped carefully along a narrow path that ran along the side of house, and when they emerged into a wide, beautiful night garden, the gray-haired vampire was waiting for them beneath an apple tree.
A wooden path ran down the center of the garden to a sturdy-looking gate at the far end, splitting halfway along to pass round the wide trunk of the tree, then joining back together. Two wide semicircles of lawn stood on either side of the path, and the rest of the garden was filled with a series of overwhelmingly beautiful flowerbeds.
Great sprays of angel’s trumpets and moonflowers bloomed in the darkness, as the scents of lavenders and hyacinths mingled in the air. Creeping clusters of Jacob’s ladder and Adam’s needle shone in the pale moonlight, the white lines standing out brightly, the gray leaves shimmering silver. Jamie looked around, overcome, as Frankenstein watched him, a smile threatening to emerge on his lips.
“Do you like the garden?” asked the Chemist, as Frankenstein steered the gawking teenager toward the tree.
“It’s… magnificent,” Jamie said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“That’s because you sleep through the most beautiful part of the day,” said the Chemist, a smile of pride on his face. “The darkness hides flaws and sins; the moon illuminates only the delicate and the elegant.”
“Who said that?” asked Jamie.
“I did,” the Chemist said with a grin. “Colonel Frankenstein, always a pleasure. Follow me, please, we’ll talk in the lab.”
The vampire floated down the garden, and the two men followed. They walked through the gate, which the Chemist opened using a small touchpad concealed behind a curtain of ivy, and stepped onto a concrete path as smooth as a bowling lane. Orange lamps hung in the lower branches of trees, illuminating their destination.
At the end of the path was a long metal building, with flat ends and a rounded canopy that emerged from the ground on both sides. It looked as though someone had buried an incredibly long tin can in the ground. Electric light shone through narrow windows cut into the walls, bathing the surrounding trees in pale white. The vampire turned a handle on a door at the front of the building, held it open, and the two visitors entered the lab.
It was much louder than Jamie had been expecting. The laboratories he was used to were quiet places, with oddly shaped glass beakers bubbling above Bunsen burners.
This room was more like a small factory.
Large extractor fans ran the length of the building on both sides, humming loudly. The Chemist passed pairs of plastic goggles to Jamie and Frankenstein, and led them to the end of the room.
Next to a large, vibrating extraction unit stood a bench covered in rectangular blocks of yellow-white powder.
“What’s that?” Jamie asked, inquisitiveness getting the better of him.
The Chemist appeared at his shoulder. “That’s recrystallized heroin base,” the vampire replied. “It’s what my shipments arrive as. I treat them with-”
“He doesn’t need to know the details,” said Frankenstein from behind them, his voice tinged with warning.
Jamie shot him a look full of wounded independence. “I want to know,” he said.
Frankenstein shrugged, turned away, and examined the wall of the lab, where a map of the UK had been hung. It was covered in yellow circles, some of them overlapping each other, that covered almost every inch of the country.
The Chemist smiled at Jamie. “It’s heartening to see a boy who wants to learn about the world,” he said, then guided Jamie to a second bench on which sat six shallow plastic bowls. Two were half full of a clear liquid; the other four contained a thick white solution.
“This is sulfuric acid,” he continued, motioning at the clear liquid. “The heroin is dissolved into it, then we add methyl alcohol, then ether, and that leaves us with this.” He gestured to the tanks with the white liquid in them. “The mixture stands until it begins to crystallize, then I add more ether, as well as… the final ingredient… and then leave it until it becomes solid. What you’re left with is Bliss, about seventy-five percent pure.”
“The final ingredient?” asked Jamie.
The vampire smiled and guided Jamie to a third bench, which held seven large plastic containers filled with a dark red liquid. “This is what makes Bliss into Bliss,” said the Chemist, with obvious pride.
“Blood?” said Jamie.
“Of course,” smiled the Chemist. “Human blood, mixed into the heroin before it solidifies. Seven different types, for seven different drugs. A, AB, B, and O: the basics, the cheap stuff. O negative, A1 negative, and OB positive for my premium customers.”
“What’s so special about them?” asked Jamie.
“They’re rare,” said Frankenstein, his voice booming in the enclosed space. “They’re not so easy to acquire.”
“Easier than you might imagine,” said the vampire, smiling oddly at the monster, before returning his gaze to Jamie. “The last batch of the day needs to go into the acid,” he said. “Would you care to do the honors?”
Jamie could feel the disapproving heat of Frankenstein’s gaze on the back of his neck and knew the monster was watching him, waiting to see what he would do next.
“Cool,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
The vampire supervised as Jamie lit the burners under the two bowls of acid, then carefully spooned the yellow-white powder into them, being careful not to drop it from a height that might cause the liquid to splash, putting each spoonful into a new bowl so none was overfilled. Once the bowls were bubbling away gently, the question that had been nagging at Jamie for several minutes burst to the surface.
“Where do you get all this stuff? If it’s just you out here on your own, where does it all come from?”
The Chemist smiled at him. “An excellent question, young man,” he replied. “The heroin base comes from Myanmar, and the blood comes from the National Health Service of this fine country of ours. As to how it all arrives here, unmolested, so to speak, I suggest you ask you partner.”
Jamie turned to Frankenstein, who flinched, ever so slightly. “Not now,” he said, sharply. “There are more important things to discuss.”
The Chemist raised his hands, deferentially. “By all means,” he said. “I so enjoyed seeing someone take an interest in my work that I forgot to even ask you why you were here. I presume you are looking for information of some kind?”
Frankenstein nodded. “Alexandru,” he replied. “We need to know where he is. I thought you might have heard something, from one of your dealers, or your customers.” He almost spit the final word, his face drawn into a grimace of distaste, and the Chemist’s mouth narrowed.
“I’m afraid I haven’t heard anythi
ng,” the Chemist replied, and it felt to Jamie as though the temperature in the lab had lowered by several degrees.
On the bench next to Jamie, one of the bowls of sulfuric acid began to bubble violently. The Chemist moved toward it, and Frankenstein’s hand slipped to the handle of the T-Bone on his belt. The vampire stopped and stared at him.
“I don’t believe you,” said the monster, evenly. “I wonder why that is?”
“Perhaps it’s because of your suspicious nature,” replied the Chemist. “Or perhaps it’s because you’re not stupid, and you know full well that anyone who knows anything about the three brothers is going to lie to you.”
He took another step toward Jamie, and Frankenstein pulled the T-Bone from its holster, letting the weapon hang by his side. “I’d appreciate it if you stayed still,” he said, his voice rumbling.
Jamie looked back and forth between the monster and the vampire. Then the bowl of sulfuric acid convulsed in a huge bubble, spraying boiling liquid into the air of the lab, and sizzling onto the exposed skin of Jamie’s neck and jaw.
He screamed in pain, and both Frankenstein and the Chemist ran to him. Jamie clamped his gloved hand over the wounds, and the fabric began to smoke. The pain was beyond anything he had ever felt before; it was as though a million tiny knives were cutting into his flesh. He screamed again, as his skin began to melt.
The Chemist flew to the corner of the lab, opened a small metal fridge, and returned to Jamie’s side with a bottle of purified water. Frankenstein had picked him up and carried him out of reach of the bowls and was holding him still with one hand while trying to pry Jamie’s hand away from his wounds so he could inspect the damage. The Chemist’s pale hand shot between them, gripping Jamie’s wrist and pulling his hand clear of the burns. Jamie’s head was thrown back, the cords in his neck standing out like ropes, his teeth clenched together in a grimace of agony.
The vampire flicked the top off the bottle and tipped water over the burns, irrigating the wounds. They gushed smoke as the liquid flushed them clean, and Jamie bellowed. Then the wounds, a bright red patch of at least ten individual burns, stretching from the collar of his uniform to just below his right ear, began to bleed.
The Chemist’s eyes turned red.
Frankenstein saw it happen and fumbled for the T-Bone, which had fallen to the laboratory floor. But before he could reach it, the vampire threw himself backward into the air, away from the fallen teenager and the crouching monster, and hovered by the door that led back to the garden.
“Bring him into the house once the bleeding has stopped,” he said, his voice guttural and full of lust. “There is a first-aid kit above the fridge.”
And with that he was gone, opening the door and swooping through it and into the night.
Frankenstein left Jamie, who was staring at the ceiling, his face white, his eyes wide, and pulled a green box down from a shelf above the fridge. He made his way back across the lab, turning off the gas rings beneath the bowls of acid as he did so, and crouched down next to the teenager, who looked at him with eyes that were starting to regain their focus.
“Are you all right?” asked Frankenstein.
Jamie was shocked to hear the monster’s voice so full of worry. “Fine,” he croaked in reply. “I’ve… I’ve never felt anything like it. I couldn’t breathe, it hurt so much.”
“Does it still hurt?”
Jamie nodded. “But not like it did,” he said. “It feels like a normal burn now.”
Frankenstein wiped the blood from the boy’s skin, then pulled a gauze pad from the first-aid kit and gently placed it over the burns. Jamie winced but did not protest. The monster unrolled a strip of white bandage, laid it over the gauze, and fixed it in place with surgical tape. Jamie pushed himself up into a sitting position as Frankenstein closed the kit, took it back across the lab, and replaced it on the shelf it had come from. When he turned back, Jamie was looking at him.
“He was going to turn the gas off,” the teenager said, slowly. “He knew what was going to happen.”
“I couldn’t have known that,” replied Frankenstein, walking back to the boy.
“I’m not blaming you,” said Jamie, his face full of pain. “I was just saying.”
“All right,” said Frankenstein.
“Help me up?” asked the teenager, and the huge man reached down a misshapen hand. Jamie gripped it and pulled himself to his feet, wincing as he did so.
He hesitantly touched the bandage on his neck, then looked up at Frankenstein. “I want you to let me do the talking,” he said. “In the house. OK?”
The monster looked down at him. “Fine,” he said, after a pause. “Do whatever you think is best.”
The back door was open when they reached it, and they stepped through into a warm, ramshackle kitchen. A kettle was boiling on a huge Aga, and the Chemist was sitting at a wooden table in the middle of the room, looking uneasily at the two men.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t tasted human blood in more than a decade, but I can’t control my reaction to it.”
“It’s all right,” said Jamie. He looked down at an empty chair opposite the vampire’s, and the Chemist quickly invited him to sit down, then told Frankenstein to do the same.
“I’ll stand,” rumbled the monster.
“As you wish,” replied the Chemist.
Jamie carefully took his seat and looked at the Chemist, who was eyeing the teenager nervously. “I know you were going to turn the gas off,” said Jamie, and the vampire breathed out a long sigh of relief.
“I was,” he said, eagerly. “I could see it was going to boil over, but then your partner told me to stay still, and I didn’t want to provoke the situation, and…” He trailed off.
Frankenstein rolled his eyes but said nothing.
“I know,” said Jamie. The Chemist seemed to him to be genuinely shaken up by what had happened in the lab, and he pressed forward. “How did you end up here, doing this work?” he asked.
The vampire looked at him and then laughed. “You want to hear how I was reduced to this, is that it?” he replied. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Carpenter, but it really isn’t much of a story. I was a biochemist for a pharmaceutical firm, I was turned, and I carried on with my job. I just make a different product now.”
Jamie’s face fell. He had thought that taking an interest in the Chemist might open him up a little and make him more willing to talk about Alexandru.
“However,” continued the Chemist, casting a pointed look in Frankenstein’s direction. “It is refreshing to be asked a polite question. Especially when said question isn’t posed behind the point of stake. You have manners, young man. Your mother must be proud.”
Jamie saw his opening, and leapt for it. “I think she is, yes,” he replied. “I can’t ask her though, because Alexandru has her. That’s why we’re looking for him.”
The Chemist looked at the teenager with naked sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that,” said the vampire. “Truly I am. You must be going through hell.”
Jamie nodded.
“But I don’t know where he is,” said the Chemist. “You can choose to believe me, or not to. I can’t make that decision for you. But I will tell you one thing that I do know, which is less than prudent on my part.”
“Anything,” said Jamie. “Anything that might help.”
“He is still in the country. How I know that, I will not tell you. But he is still here. Which makes it extremely likely your mother is, too.”
Frankenstein snorted. “That’s it?” the monster asked. “He’s still in the country? So that means we only have to search about 160,000 square miles to find him.”
The Chemist stared at Frankenstein, his face twisted with open loathing. “You leave my house knowing more than you did when you arrived,” he said. “I doubt that will be the case anywhere else you choose to conduct your search. The brothers have eyes and ears everywhere, and no one else will be willing to tell you anything.”
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Jamie stood up from the table, clenching his teeth so he wouldn’t cry out as the muscles below his burns moved. He shot Frankenstein a look of pure anger, warning him to say nothing more. “Thank you for your help,” he said to the Chemist, who nodded politely. “We’ll leave you to your work.”
They followed the path back to the road in silence. Private Hollis was leaning against the door of the van.
“Where to next?” he asked, as they stopped beside the vehicle.
Jamie kicked the metal side of the van as hard as he could, the clang echoing through the silent night air. He kicked it again, and again, then rounded on Frankenstein, his face red with rage.
“You’re so stupid!” he yelled, spittle flying from his lips. “He obviously knew more than he told us, much more! And he would have told me if you hadn’t been such a dick to him! Why did you do that? Don’t you want to find my mom? What the hell are you doing here?”
Frankenstein was too shocked to reply. The boy’s anger was steaming off him in waves.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Jamie bellowed, punctuating each word with a thunderous kick to the van’s side. Then as quickly as it had come, the anger was gone, and he slumped to his knees on the bumpy road.
There was silence.
Tentatively, the driver reached toward him, but Jamie shoved his hand away.
“Don’t touch me!” he yelled, rising back to his feet. “Just leave me alone!”
He ran, stumbling into the forest, leaving the two men by the van.
Jamie sat at the base of a wide oak tree. He could see the van’s headlights through the black maze of the forest and could hear the driver’s and the monster’s low voices.
Let them look for me. They won’t find me in here. Let them think they’ve lost me.
His head rushed with frustration, anger, and guilt. The chemist would have told him more about Alexandru, he was sure of it, if the stupid monster hadn’t opened his big, stupid mouth. They could be on their way to rescue her right now, could be hot on her heels, but instead they were no further along the path that led to her than they had been before they arrived. It had never even occurred to him that Alexandru would have taken his mother out of the country, not after the message that had been carved into the man’s chest and left for him to find, so that information was useless-Frankenstein had been right about that. But it was what was going to come next, what he was sure the Chemist was going to go on to say that might have helped them. Because Jamie was convinced one thing the vampire had said was true: No one else would be willing to risk Alexandru’s wrath to help them.