by William Hill
Frankenstein was visibly shaking, his great shoulders trembling with anger.
“Look at me!” he roared, and Larissa, whose head was turned toward the wall, jumped. “If you can’t, then look at him at least! Do him that courtesy, after you’ve wasted our time and left his mother in the hands of a madman! Look at him!”
Larissa’s shoulders hunched, then she slowly turned back to face them. Jamie felt a gasp rise in his throat as he saw her face.
The vampire was crying.
Tears ran down her pale cheeks, leaving narrow lines that glistened under the electric light above the table. Her expression was one of utter misery, and she looked at Jamie with pain etched across her face.
“The night your mother was taken. After you left me in the park,” she said, her voice barely audible, “I ran. I got a couple of miles before Anderson caught me and brought me back to him.” She spit this last word, her face momentarily curling with disgust. “Alexandru pulled me into the air, smiling, telling me he had to teach me a lesson, talking to me like everything was normal. Then he beat me until I lost consciousness and dropped me out of the sky.”
She looked at Frankenstein and hate twitched across her face. “You’re right,” she continued. “I’ve never killed anyone. Never hurt anyone, until the soldier and the boy in the garden, and I didn’t mean to hurt them. I was in so much pain, I can’t even-”
Larissa looked away, composed herself, then looked directly at Jamie.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I truly am. I thought you’d kill me if you thought I didn’t know anything, and I don’t want to die. I haven’t had a chance to live, not yet. I don’t want to die.”
“Why take us to Valhalla?” asked Jamie, quietly. “Why lead us on a wild-goose chase?”
“It was all I could think to do. I know you think I led you there to get even with Grey, but that wasn’t it. I just knew I couldn’t stall you anymore, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else, and I thought that if it was the last time I was going to see the outside world then at least I could see the person who did this to me and-” she broke off, fresh tears pouring down her face.
Jamie watched her cry and fought back the urge to comfort her, to step across the kitchen and put his arm around her. “Do you know anything that can help us?” he asked. Frankenstein started to groan, but Jamie held a hand up, quieting the monster. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t,” he continued. “But we need to know. Anything Alexandru did, or said, before you attacked us, anything unusual? Anything at all?”
“Nothing,” said Larissa. “He was just Alexandru, the same monster he always was. The day before the attack I heard him on the phone ordering more Bliss, but that wasn’t unusual. He went through tons of the stuff.”
Jamie’s blood froze in his veins, and he looked over at Frankenstein, who had turned as still as a statue.
“The day before?” the teenager managed. “The day before my mother was taken?”
Larissa nodded, a confused look on her face.
“What is it?” asked Morris, breaking his silence. “What’s wrong?”
Frankenstein’s head slowly swiveled toward Jamie, the expression on it full of thunder. “The Chemist,” he said, slowly. “He lied to us.”
I told you he knew more than he was saying! I told you that right outside his house! Why wouldn’t you listen to me?
“Let’s go,” said Jamie, walking quickly toward the door, the detonator hanging loosely in his hand.
“Go where?” asked Morris, following the teenager out of the house.
“Dartmoor,” answered Frankenstein. “And put your damn foot down.”
The Blacklight team stood on the edge of the moor, checking their equipment. A hundred yards along the road stood the Chemist’s neat, pale stone farmhouse, smoke drifting lazily from the red chimney.
“We do this my way,” said Frankenstein, clipping a pair of UV grenades to his belt. “No arguments. The rest of you have had your chance. Is that clear?”
Jamie stared up at the monster but said nothing. Morris nodded, and Larissa looked away, her eyes still ringed pink from crying.
“Good,” said the monster. “Follow me.”
The giant man led them along the road, the heels of their boots clattering out a steady rhythm on the asphalt. He pushed open the gate, walked quickly along the path, and knocked heavily on the front door.
It opened immediately.
“There’s no need to knock,” said the Chemist, smiling at them. “I heard you coming from-”
He didn’t finish his sentence. Frankenstein pulled the beam gun from his belt, his hand a blur of gray-green in the night air, leveled it, and pulled the trigger. The Chemist took the concentrated UV light square in the face. His skin exploded into flames, and he staggered backward, screaming in pain. Frankenstein looped the hand that was holding the beam gun into the doorway, and the barrel crashed against the Chemist’s jaw. Something crunched, and the vampire went to his knees, still screaming, still beating his face with his hands, trying to extinguish the purple flames. Frankenstein kicked the Chemist onto his back and stepped into the house. The rest of the team stared, uncomprehending; the entire assault had taken little more than three seconds, and the suddenness of the violence had frozen them where they stood.
The monster reached down, grabbed the Chemist by his hair, and dragged him along the hallway that stood beyond the front door. “Close the door!” he bellowed. “Get in here and close the door!”
Fear spilled through Jamie as he looked at Frankenstein’s face. The monster’s features were twisted into a snarl of savage, brutal enjoyment. His eyes were bright and alive, and his mouth curled at the corners into a terrible smile. He wanted to run, away from that face, away from the thick smell of burning meat that was emanating from the Chemist.
But he knew he couldn’t.
Instead he grabbed Larissa’s arm with his free hand, keeping the detonator out of her reach, and shoved her into the house. She went without protest, her eyes fixed on the smoking figure on the floor. Morris moved on his own, slowly, staring at Frankenstein, and when they were both in the hallway, Jamie reached back and slammed the front door shut behind them.
The monster hauled the Chemist through the first door on the right and into a large, comfortable sitting room. He knelt down across the vampire’s chest, pulled one of the UV grenades from his belt, and gave it a sharp twist. The red light that signified that the grenade was live lit up on the top of the small sphere, then Frankenstein leaned down, prized open the Chemist’s jaws, and shoved the grenade into his mouth.
“What are you-” cried Jamie, horrified.
“Shut up!” roared Frankenstein. “Get one of those chairs and put it down next to me! Now!”
Jamie looked around the sitting room, saw a dining table surrounded by six dark wooden chairs standing in the corner, and ran to it. He dragged one of the chairs over to where the monster was kneeling on the helpless, groaning vampire and glanced down at the Chemist’s face.
He wished he hadn’t. The skin was burned almost completely away from his skull; bright white patches of bone shone out through raw red and charred black. He gulped and turned away.
Frankenstein lifted the Chemist easily from the floor and placed him on the chair. Then he stepped back, lifted the grenade’s detonator into his hand, and stopped next to Jamie. Morris and Larissa stood behind them, silent and terrified.
A terrible sound emerged from the Chemist; a rhythmic series of gasps that sounded like a death rattle. Then the vampire lifted his head, trained his burned eyes on the four figures in front of him and grinned savagely around the grenade.
It’s laughing. My God, it’s laughing.
“Cover him,” said Frankenstein. Morris fumbled his T-Bone from his belt and trained it on the Chemist, and Jamie followed suit.
“You will not move, or say anything,” said the monster, staring evenly at the Chemist’s ruined face. “You will answer my questions by nodding or
shaking your head. If you refuse to answer, or I think you’re lying, I will press this button, and your head will explode from the inside out. Then I will stake what is left of you. Is that clear?”
The Chemist snarled but nodded his head.
“Good. You lied to us when you told us you knew nothing about Alexandru. Correct?”
Another nod.
“He placed an order with you the day before we arrived. Correct?”
The vampire’s red eyes blazed with hate from his scorched face, but he nodded again.
“Did he ask you to deliver it to an address?”
The Chemist shook his head, sending droplets of blood flying in the warm light of the living room.
“Did he send someone to collect it?”
Another shake.
“Did he collect it himself?”
A long pause, and then the faintest of nods.
Jamie gasped.
“He was here?” he asked, his voice trembling. “Was my mother with him?”
The Chemist stared at the teenager, and then nodded sharply. Jamie felt as though he was going to be sick; his stomach lurched, and saliva splashed into his mouth.
“Was she all right?” he asked. “Was she hurt? Has he hurt her?”
The vampire looked at Frankenstein, who appeared to consider for a moment, then stepped forward and crouched at the Chemist’s side, being careful not to block the aims of Jamie and Morris.
“You’re going to spit the grenade into my hand,” he said. “I’m going to put it inside your shirt, and we’re going to continue this conversation. If you move even a millimeter, my colleagues are going to destroy you. Is that clear?”
A frantic nod told the monster that it was, and he held his hand up flat before the Chemist’s face. The vampire stretched his torn mouth open and pushed the grenade out with a black, burned tongue. It fell into Frankenstein’s hand with a thud. The monster shoved the metal sphere down the front of the white shirt the Chemist was wearing and stepped back.
“You’ll die for this,” spit the Chemist, as soon as the huge man was out of reach. “All of you will die for what you’ve done here today.”
“If you don’t be quiet, there will be death in this room,” replied Frankenstein. “But it will be yours-and yours alone. Alexandru placed an order with you five days ago, the day before he attacked Jamie and his mother. When did he arrive to collect it?”
“Three days ago,” snarled the Chemist, his eyes fixed on the monster. “But the order was huge, more than I had in store. I had to acquire new quantities and make the order from scratch. He was very. .. angry.”
“So it wasn’t ready when he arrived?”
“Aren’t you clever?”
“Did he leave and come back for it?”
“That wouldn’t have been very hospitable of me, would it? Especially not for one of my very best customers.”
Realization dawned on Jamie like the first clap of a thunderstorm. “He stayed here, didn’t he?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper. “He stayed in this house while you finished the order?”
The Chemist spit a wad of blood onto the living room floor and glared at Jamie. “That’s right, you little brat. Alexandru, Anderson, and his prize.”
His prize?
“My mother,” Jamie said. “He kept my mother here while he waited for you to make your Bliss. And you let him? How could you do that?”
“Alexandru can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants,” replied the Chemist. “I’m not going to cross him for some human.”
Fury burst through Jamie, and he launched himself at the Chemist. Larissa blurred forward, wrapped him up, and dragged him back, kicking and punching.
“Some human?” Jamie roared. “That human is my mother, you disgusting creature! My mother, who never hurt anyone in her entire life, who has nothing to do with any of this, and you let him keep her here, in your house? I’m going to kill you!”
Frankenstein shot Jamie a look of sympathy, then turned back to the Chemist. “When did you finish your work? When did they leave?”
The vampire shot the monster a look of savage satisfaction. “Yesterday. About two hours before you came to see me.”
The words crushed the fight out of Jamie, and he sagged in Larissa’s arms.
So close. We were so close. We missed her by a matter of minutes. Too much. It’s too much to bear.
He heard Frankenstein ask the Chemist where they were going, but the monster’s voice sounded as though it was coming from underwater; it was distant and muffled. He felt Larissa place her cheek against his as she hugged him, felt the warmth of her body surrounding him, but felt nothing. He would fall to the floor if she released him, he knew it; she was the only thing holding him up.
“They went north,” answered the Chemist. “Alexandru sent the rest of his followers ahead, to prepare for some kind of party. That’s all I know.”
Jamie felt Larissa’s muscles tense momentarily, and then she spoke from above him. “I know where he means,” she said, softly. “I’ve been there. I know exactly where he means.”
“You’ve been where?” asked Jamie. “Where’s he talking about?”
“I’ll show you when we get back to base.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?”
“So you can let your pet monster blow me to pieces after I do? I don’t think so.”
Frankenstein rolled his eyes, then stepped away from the Chemist, who was glaring malevolently at the people who had invaded his home.
“I should press this,” he said, nodding toward the detonator in his hand. “God knows the world would not miss you. But I suspect you might consider it a kindness, and that is not what you deserve.” He looked around at the rest of the Blacklight team and motioned to the door.
“Can you stand?” whispered Larissa, and Jamie nodded. She let go of him, and he swayed unsteadily for a moment before walking toward the door, followed by Larissa and Morris.
Frankenstein walked backward after them, his eyes never leaving the Chemist, who was staring at him with naked murder in his eyes. “Don’t move until we’re gone,” he warned. Then he pulled the living room door shut in front of him and joined the three figures who were waiting for him on the garden path. They hurried through the gate and along the road toward their waiting vehicle.
“What does all this-” began Morris, but Frankenstein cut him off.
“Not now, Tom. We’ll debrief in the car. OK?”
Jamie walked along the road, his mind full of misery and hopelessness, his feet made of lead. He looked over at Larissa as they approached the car and gasped.
Her eyes were a deep, liquid crimson.
Then she moved.
She grabbed his wrist-so quickly it had happened before he even realized-unpeeled the fingers that were wrapped around the detonator, took it easily from his grip, and disappeared into the night sky.
33
ON THE WAY TO THE GALLOWS
There was silence in the SUV. Thomas Morris was behind the wheel, guiding the car towards the Loop, and a series of questions that no one in the vehicle was looking forward to answering. Frankenstein was in the passenger seat, staring out of the window at the passing countryside; the flat landscape sped past as the powerful engine devoured the distance. Jamie sat in the back, his hands over his face.
Eventually, Morris spoke.
“How bad is this going to be?”
Frankenstein laughed, a deep grunt without humor in it. “How bad do you think?” he replied. “We took a vampire off base without authorization, disobeying the specific orders of the director, then let her escape. We fraudulently commandeered a helicopter and a pilot, and lost the only lead that might have led us to Jamie’s mother. I think it might be quite bad. Don’t you?”
Morris nodded glumly, his eyes on the dark road.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” asked Jamie, his voice barely audible. “We’re never going to find her.”
Frankenstein leaned aroun
d his seat’s headrest and looked at him. “I promised you I would help you find her,” he said. “And I will continue to do so. But you have to be prepared for the fact that after tonight, we are probably going to be doing this on our own. And that’s assuming that Admiral Seward doesn’t have us both arrested. Which he very well might.”
Jamie nodded. He hadn’t expected to be told anything different. He had been wrong, so terribly wrong, and now Larissa was gone, and he had jeopardized the careers of two men who had believed in him, two men who had helped him.
“I’ll tell Seward it was my idea,” he said. “I’ll take the blame for everything.”
“I appreciate the gesture,” replied Frankenstein. “But that isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference. We should never have let you take her out of her cell. You couldn’t have done it without the code Tom gave you, and Seward knows that. We’re in this together.”
Morris groaned and turned the SUV off the motorway, sending it speeding past RAF Mildenhall on their left, approaching the final turning that would take them through the woods and into the Loop. A C-130 Hercules roared low over the road, lights flashing on its enormous belly as it rushed toward the long Mildenhall runway. The SUV shook and rattled as the huge aircraft thundered over them, then there was a loud thud on the roof of the car, and Morris spun the wheel to keep it on the asphalt. He slammed his foot on the brake and brought them sliding to a halt at the side of the road.
“What was that?” asked Frankenstein. Then the passenger door on the opposite side of the car to Jamie was pulled open, and Larissa swung easily into the seat next to him.
“Did you miss me?” she asked, sweetly.
Frankenstein hauled the T-Bone from his belt and shoved it against her throat. She pulled it easily out of his hand and threw it out of the open door. The monster fumbled for his stake, but Jamie shouted at him to stop, and turned to Larissa.
“Where have you been?” he shouted, his face bright red with anger. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”