by James Fahy
When I looked forward again, my brain could hardly register what I saw. The elevator door was open and Lucy, who loved vampires but was too squeamish to clean up exploding rats, was standing inside, her foot holding the door for us. She looked terrified.
Allesandro practically lifted me up and ran with me the last few yards. We threw ourselves into the lift and Lucy swiped for the doors to close.
They slid shut with agonising slowness as Jessica raced for us, covering the corridor with inhuman speed. I almost thought we made it but as the last sliver of space closed, white fingers thrust into the gap and began to force the protesting doors back open.
Allesandro pushed Lucy and me behind him, crushing us up against the wall of the lift, using himself as a barrier between us and the furious vampire tearing the doors open like tinfoil. Jessica’s face appeared. She looked feral, her fangs bared, her eyes wide and alarming.
“You fucking traitor!” she screamed at Allesandro. “You bring shame on the clan, on all of us! You filthy human-loving Judas! Give me the bitch!”
She was trying to force herself into the lift with us. Lucy screamed behind me. I didn’t blame her. Jessica was like a foaming snapping dog, any pretence to humanity lost in her anger and desperation to reach me.
“You’re a worm, Allesandro! A traitor to your own kind! You’re worse than the humans you bow to!”
His hand reached back to mine, grabbing the final dart syringe from between my fingers. I had forgotten I even had it. Bringing it up swiftly, he grabbed the top of Jessica’s dark hair in one hand and with the other, he rammed the dart into her wide, gnashing mouth.
“Jessica,” he said, “shut the fuck up.”
It lodged in her throat. She gagged in surprise, pulling herself away, falling backwards onto the floor of the corridor outside. As the doors finally slid shut, I glimpsed Gio appear round the corner. He looked as beat up from his tussle with Allesandro as my vampire did, but was staggering along the corridor towards us, blind fury on his face.
The doors closed and we heard a muffled, wet thump, as though someone had thrown a bucket of pasta against the other side of the doors.
That would be Jessica and her explosive temper. I heard Gio scream with fury, and then the lift was ascending.
“I’ve called Cabal,” Lucy stammered, “and the police, and the fire brigade. I wasn’t sure who else to call. Where’s Griff? What’s happening?”
“How did you all even get down here?” I asked breathlessly.
Bits of vampire were dripping in my hair. I was way past caring.
“Gio opened all levels,” Allesandro said. “Was that the Minister stood down there?”
I looked up at him, noticing for the first time how damaged he was. Gio had done a class one vampiric number on his face. One eye was swollen shut and already blackening.
“Yes,” I said, getting my breath back, “only he’s not really, he’s just a ghoul. It was Gio playing puppet master from the get go. Oh, and he used to be Rutheridge. That makes a full house. Five sinners, right? Told you they already had him somehow.”
In the crazed adrenalin of the moment, I grinned up at him. In return, the vampire brushed some lumpy gunk from my shoulder in what might have been an affectionate manner had it not been so gross. Something fell from my shoulder to the floor with a plop.
“Wait,” I looked to Lucy. “Gio opened all levels?”
She nodded, still looking shell shocked. I jabbed the button for Level 10.
“You can’t hide from them,” Allesandro said. “They’ll follow your scent.”
“I’m not hiding,” I said.
The elevator let us out on the Military Applications floor. I left Lucy inside, making her promise to go straight up to the atrium and get the hell out of the building. The police would be here any minute, Cabal, backup. She nodded frantically and continued upwards.
Allesandro refused to go with her. He followed me along the cell block corridor, with its heavy metal doors on either side.
“Still protecting your investment?” I asked.
I fired up a workstation in the semi-circular area where I had discovered some of Cabal’s dark secrets the last time I ventured down here.
“Still saving your sorry arse,” he said, but he was smiling. “What are you doing? They’ll be coming for you.”
I logged on to the workstation as Trevelyan and accessed the file I wanted. I knew we only had seconds before Gio reached us. I searched for the door number I was looking for. Each cell faced another. The cell opposite the one which interested me was empty. Perfect. I unlocked it, hearing it whoosh open behind us.
Then I told Allesandro what to do.
When the lift pinged open several seconds later, Gio stepped from it looking like a demon from Hell. His clothes were ripped and shredded from his fight with Allesandro. His face was torn and bruised, his hair was sticking up all over like a scarecrow, but his eyes were bright and shining. I felt his presence roar down the long corridor to where I stood alone at the workstations.
I was caught like a rabbit in headlights.
He bared his fangs at me in a snarl, his white hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. He was breathing heavily.
“Found you,” he growled. “Did you really think you could get away from me again, you difficult little bitch?”
I didn’t move. The only way off this level was through him, back through the elevator and out of the pit.
“You killed my people,” he spat. “Helena, Jessica … they had been with me for longer than your pathetic human mind can conceive. Amano and Christopher, they were brothers. I brought them into the clan myself. You just can’t stop, can you? You can’t stop killing my kind!”
“Says the psychopath trying to start the apocalypse,” I replied.
I hadn’t moved away from the workstation, I stood with my back to it, facing the vampire along the corridor.
He started towards me slowly, limping. He was in no hurry. He could see I had nowhere to run.
“I want vengeance,” he hissed. “Justice! I want your kind to pay the price for what you did, for bringing this world to its knees!”
He advanced, passing doors, coming ever closer to me. I felt his mind begin to push into mine.
“I will drag you back down there, Doctor, and we will finish this!”
His voice was inside my mind as he passed in front of door number four.
“Gio,” I said. “It is finished. Stop living in the past. In fact, do me a favour, stop living altogether.”
My hand found the screen behind me and I hit the button I had set up in anticipation. No observation this time. This time I wanted interaction.
The metal door to Gio’s left whooshed open, startling him. With a frown he turned his head to peer into the room. No plate glass barrier this time, you fucker.
My hands found the screen behind me again and door three, set in the opposite wall, also opened. From this empty cell, Allesandro erupted like a demonic jack in the box. He blindsided Gio, crashing into his shoulder at full force. Taken by surprise, Gio lost his footing and flew headlong into cell four landing sprawling on the tiles as Allesandro scrambled backwards.
I whirled at the workstation, my fingers flying over the keys. The safety glass barrier slid swiftly closed, sealing Gio in. I heard him roar with anger as he got to his feet within the cell.
I raced back along the corridor to where Allesandro waited and, standing side by side, we peered within. Gio threw himself against the glass, which shuddered, but did not break. His eyes were wild, he was practically foaming at the mouth.
“Open this now! Open this fucking door!”
He screamed angrily, so loud that his voice seemed to tear. He threw his fists against the glass in furious blows though the sound was muffled.
“Do you really think you can keep me here? That I won’t get out? I will tear you both apart! There is nowhere you can run that I won’t find you!” he bellowed.
“We’re n
ot going anywhere,” I said grimly, shaking.
Allesandro and I stood in the corridor staring into the cell, I was aware we were both liberally splattered with dripping vampire chunks.
In his desperate fury, Gio hadn’t noticed the figure huddled behind him in the corner of the small room, which now began to stir, slowly unfolding from its crouch. It growled, deep and low in the darkness of the cell.
Gio heard the growl. He stopped attacking the glass and turned to see the Pale standing slowly behind him. Its smooth grey skin damp with fever, it regarded him curiously with its black on black eyes, its head tilted enquiringly on one side. Its mouth was a deathly grin, as though it saw the joke that Gio didn’t.
The vampire looked back to us. The fury previously frozen on his face had been replaced with shock and fear.
“You were a terrible clan master, Gio,” Allesandro said. “Tassoni would have been ashamed of you.”
He leaned close to the glass.
“I will be better.”
“You don’t have much luck with my family, do you?” I said to the trapped vampire. “My father ruined your world and I’ve been a difficult bitch. Well, now you get to meet my half-brother.”
I managed a humourless smile. My voice was thick in my throat.
“Enjoy your family time.”
Gio opened his mouth to speak, his eyes wide and bloodshot, but the Pale leapt.
We stood and watched, Allesandro and I, like visitors at an aquarium. It wasn’t pleasant. It took a long time. Gio was strong and he fought back but the Pale was stronger than his kind or mine. We made them that way, after all.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, it was quiet and still in the cell. We couldn’t really see much anymore anyway. The glass was too smeared.
The heavy metal door finally slid shut with a definite and very ultimate thud. Observation over.
“What now?” Allesandro said quietly.
I looked up at him. His face was battered and bruised. Underneath, it was still lightly tanned, though it was fading already.
“Now?” I said wearily. “Now I want a dose of serum, before I start wanting to do to you what that thing just did to Gio.”
I turned away from the door, staggering slightly on watery legs.
“And then I want a fucking hot chocolate.”
We walked towards the elevator wearily. Allesandro leaned a little on me for support. I put my arm around him, to hold him up. I hadn’t realised how badly Gio had damaged him.
He pushed the button for the elevator.
“I can think of some other things you could do to me,” he suggested lightly.
I looked at him sidelong.
“Don’t push it, clan master,” I muttered darkly after a moment. “It’s been a long week so far.”
Epilogue
It’s been a month now since the events at Blue Lab. The aftermath of Gio’s little massacre and his failed attempt to end the world was messy to say the least. The clean-up was horrible, the administration horrendous, the lies told to the media … huge.
Griff healed. It’s taken him a month and he’s still in physiotherapy. There was a lot of muscle and nerve damage from the bite. Personally, I think he now has a phobia of bear hugs but on the plus side, Lucy brought him coffee every day in the hospital.
Those two have been spending an awful lot of time together in the month since the events at Blue Lab. I can’t help but speculate that hearing how he raced to our rescue and took down a vampire cult with a submachine gun has made him seem somewhat more attractive to Lucy.
I’m still taking the serum – the revised Epsilon that is, not the version which makes you explode. So far I haven’t degenerated into a bloodthirsty monster consumed with rage.
Well, perhaps occasionally, but we all have our bad days.
Brad the rat, you’ll be pleased to hear, is also still going strong. We have a bond of brotherhood, him and me.
With Servant Harrison dead, Veronica Cloves has been temporarily drafted in as the Servant Administrator of Blue Lab One. She didn’t die in the atrium.
I don’t know why I was surprised by that. I doubt whether a direct hit from a nuclear missile could kill that woman. When the bullets had rained down in Gio’s attack, she had taken a slug to the leg. Missed the artery, luckily for her, but she had cracked her head badly on the desk when she fell. It was lucky we all thought she was dead at the time or Gio would have had her put down there and then.
In my opinion, she played possum. That woman was built to spin the truth. Playing dead to save your own skin, while not being the most noble of acts, is at least smart, and Cloves was always good at self-preservation.
I can’t say she’s best pleased about taking on Harrison’s role and being in charge of the lab. For me, the thought of reporting to her on a regular basis fills me with a cold dread. It almost makes me miss Trevelyan.
But if I’m honest, there was a small part of me that was actually relieved when she made it through. I’d kind of gotten used to her charmless presence and horrific dress sense.
The Minister, previously known as Alistair Rutheridge, was never found. Officially, he is missing, presumed dead. The Cabal are still working on the admin to find a replacement. No one except Cloves, me, Allesandro and my team know he was a ghoul.
I wonder if he’s still out there somewhere in my city, in the warren of the Slade perhaps or wandering the woods, a shadow of his former self.
The Bonewalker disappeared too. My thinking is that with Gio’s death, it was freed from its indentured contract and went wherever Bonewalkers go. It took Tassoni’s body with it as well, it seems. I don’t know why. Something tells me we haven’t seen the last the blank-faced Djinn.
All we found in the chamber down in the Development Levels were Helena’s body and Oscar Scott.
Alive. Just…
Oscar made headline news, of course. The city’s golden boy, freed from the breakaway terrorist group who had captured him to ransom against his father’s wealth. Cloves’ media spin on the whole thing was impressive. She managed to keep both vampires and Blue Lab out of the Oscar Scott rescue story.
Officially, he was the third victim of a lone serial killer, rescued by New Oxford’s brave police force during the showdown at Carfax. Trevelyan and Coleman were the killer’s first victims. They have been buried now. Flower tributes for them both are still being placed outside the church, even a month later.
As for Oscar himself, he’s had extensive dental reconstruction work done now, not to mention the cosmetic surgery on the facial scars. Last I saw, he was back living the high life and doing the media circuit. He likes the attention. The boy keeps calling to ask me out. I’ve changed my number twice but he has resources. I’ll shake him off eventually.
As for me? Well…
What do you do when your world is turned upside down? When you discover your father had a direct hand in the genocide of much of the world’s human population? Well, what can I do? I’ll work through it on my own. Finding out that you’re indirectly related to a breed of monstrous mutant killers is not the sort of thing you can hug out in a therapy circle.
I’ve gone back to work. I took some time off but frankly, after everything that happened, I was bored. We have another R&D presentation coming up next quarter. I have to present the latest findings of Blue Lab to the general public. And instead of having Trevelyan breathing down my neck and making my life hell, I have Cloves breathing down my neck and making my life hell. In awful clothes.
Given my new ‘condition’, let’s just say I’m now a whole lot more invested in finding a permanent cure. I still scan as human when I check in every morning, which I’m taking as a good sign. I’ve decided to be positive.
Cloves has decided, in her infinite wisdom, to keep my unofficial promotion to what she terms as ‘Official Cabal Interspecies Ambassador’ open.
By Interspecies Ambassador, she means snoop. I’m still Cabal’s best if most reluctant link to th
e GO community, after all. I have a feeling she’ll find some new rock for me to turn over sooner rather than later. I’m not looking forward to find what might come crawling out from under the next one.
And as for my reluctant link himself? Well, he’s king of all he surveys now; clan master and Duke of Sanctum, amongst other holdings. He got what he wanted. Well, not everything, I’m sure.
I’m still pissed at him for seeing me as a meal ticket to his power and glory. But he saved my ass at least four times, one of those even successfully, and so far I’ve only saved his once – and I hate owing people.
I haven’t seen him much. He keeps inviting me to come back to Sanctum. Last I saw, he’d lost his tan and was back to his smouldering pale look, but he looked happier than I’d seen him before. A model vampire citizen, I suppose. I haven’t taken up the invite yet.
My life at the moment is quite complicated enough, thanks, dealing with my secret knowledge of what happened in Cambridge and deciding what to do about that. Besides, I know he’ll just be after something. It pains me to say it, but Cloves is probably right. Vampires don’t think like we do. They always have an angle.
When I got into the lab this morning, however, there was a delivery for me. I still don’t like opening anything delivered to the lab. I’m always worried it’s going to be teeth. It wasn’t though.
It was a box of premium grade Peruvian cocoa. Almost impossible to get these days. It looked pretty damn expensive and for a horrible moment I thought it might be a wooing gift from the ever-determined Oscar. But there was a card inside the package, a little crumpled.
It was a business card from Sanctum, the exact same one he’d slipped in my jacket back when we first met at the lecture, and on the reverse, still in very un-gothic biro, a telephone number and the words When you need me – A.