The Road to Bedlam

by Mike Shevdon

  The other man spoke. "Mentally she is traumatised. Her recent experiences have left deep mental scars."

  "And who are you?"

  "I am Professor Petrokos – Alexandra's psychologist. She has been able to show some progress, but so far she's unable to come to terms with the violence of her actions. She claims that there's something inside her that made her do it. She's externalising the guilt, you see?"

  "Or there really is something inside her?" I suggested.

  He smiled, uncertain, and shook his head. "We've done full body scans of all the patients, and there's nothing inside them that shouldn't be there. It's some kind of common delusion, you see?"

  "No, I think it's you who doesn't see."

  "Come, Watkins, you can show me where the samples are," said Raffmir, "While my cousin revives his daughter."

  "The samples? What do you want with the samples?"

  "I am afraid that we will not be leaving your work intact. It has become… an embarrassment?" He echoed the tone of Petrokos' voice.

  "But my work…?"

  Raffmir put a hand half around his shoulder, propelling him towards the side door into the central lab area. At the same moment there was another dull boom from within the building. "Hurry, we do not have much time." He prodded the doctor forward.

  I returned to Alex's side, lifted her wrist and patted it, trying to encourage some kind of life into her. Her hand dangled at the end of her wrist as if connected by string. I pointed the sword at Petrokos.

  "Get in the corner. Stand where I can see you."

  He moved sideways slowly until he was pressed into the angle of the corner. I laid my sword between me and Alex's body and lifted her shoulders. Her head flopped to one side at what looked like a painful angle. I laid her back down, trying to figure out a way to lift her on to my shoulder and still keep my sword arm free.

  Raffmir pushed Watkins back into the room. "You're

  sure the glass meets the specification?" he asked Watkins. They had left all the doors to the fridges and freezers open, the containers open on the benches.

  "It was all built to the specifications you demanded," he said. "We have complied with the trust's every wish. All our experiments have been conducted within the ethical guidelines." It sounded like an excuse.

  Raffmir stood in the open doorway. He raised his hands and cupped them. He appeared to breathe into his hands and within them a spark of light kindled. It glowed bright through his fingers and as he parted his hands it persisted, hanging in the air, like the arc of a welding torch, casting his stark shadow huge on the wall behind. The air smelled of thunderstorms and the hairs on the back of my neck lifted.

  I had seen this before. In the tunnels below the streets of London, Raffmir sent a glowing spark up into the vaulted roof of the hall where the anvil stood to illuminate the scene where I had been subject to a trial by ordeal.

  Now, though, I stood in two worlds. In the physical world I could see the light as it fizzed and crackled and then glowed, but in the shadow world that overlaid it, the spark looked entirely different. It was a distortion in space, a lensing of reality where everything collapsed into the spark. Space bent inwards around the star as matter collapsed into it, releasing fierce energy. Raffmir urged the star forward and it drifted into the lab, floating on the air like a feather on the breeze. He swung the door shut behind it and the star glowed brighter.

  "Dogstar, shield your eyes and those of your daughter. He turned his back to the star as its brightness grew.

  "My work," said Watkins. "All my work."

  "I would advise you both to avert your eyes," said Raffmir. Petrokos turned his face into the corner, covering his eyes with his hands. Watkins continued to watch the lab.

  I covered Alex's eyes with my hand, bowing over her and shielding my own eyes against the painful brightness. Even then I could see the bones in my hand when the flash came. There was a cracking, popping crescendo, the sound of tinkling glass from the lab, and it was dark again.

  I blinked, lurid green spots obscuring my vision. There was a scuffling sound as Petrokos ran for the door. I grabbed the hilt of my sword and went after him, still blinking away the luminous afterglow. As I reached the doorway, Raffmir stopped me. "Let him go. His patients are waiting for him in the darkened corridors."

  Raffmir caught Watkins by the scruff of the neck and dragged him forward. He stumbled, eyes staring sightlessly, still mumbling about his work.

  "What, cousin, would you have me do with this?" He shook Watkins, but all resistance had left him.

  Part of me still wanted revenge, but there had been enough death already to satisfy any lust for blood. "Let him go. He can find his fate with the other one." I nodded after Petrokos and the darkened corridor.

  "But what of his reward?"

  "Reward?"

  "Indeed. You do not yet know the full enormity of the good doctor's work. Tell him, Watkins."

  The doctor looked back towards the lab, though it was clear he was seeing nothing. Things smouldered on benches. There were scorch marks dimly visible on the fridges. He shook his head.

  "Oh, come now. This is no time for false modesty." Raffmir turned to me, "Your daughter was to be only the beginning of this man's crowning achievement." He shook Watkins again. The man was a rag doll. If Raffmir hadn't been holding him up, I think he would have collapsed to his knees.

  "Tell my cousin what you made," Raffmir insisted, and shook him again.

  The sword appeared from nowhere in Raffmir's hand. Raffmir released him and Watkins wobbled on his feet, but he did not have a chance to fall. Raffmir whirled on the spot and the blade sliced in under his chin and his head snapped back, the blood spraying around the glass walls. It splattered over the floor, Raffmir and Alex and me, running down the glass in sticky rivulets.

  "That seems a poor reward," I told him.

  Raffmir leaned on the end of the central table and used the sleeve of his coat to wipe the blade.

  He looked up. "The coat is ruined anyway," he said with a shrug.

  The sound of repeated gunshots came from the corridor.

  "We need to get out of here," I reminded him.

  I made to move forward, but Raffmir lowered the sword point level with my chest. "Not quite yet."

  "I thought you did not need to be reminded of your oath."

  "I don't, but I must remind you of yours."

  "Why?"

  He held up two small glass vials in his free hand.

  "This is the culmination of the good doctor's work," he said. "Twenty years' dedication." He looked down at the headless body. "No wonder he was upset."

  "Souvenir?" I asked.

  "There is not one sample here, but two. The first is the one intended for your daughter and would surely have killed her, though we can allow that the good doctor might finally have reached his goal and cured her – it remains untried, after all."

  "She's not sick, Raffmir, she's fey."

  "Half-fey, or a quarter, or a hundredth part, but not fey."

  "Whatever."

  "No, there is a difference, and that difference is everything. The second vial contains the weaponised version of the cure. A strange word, is it not? Weaponised? No, don't worry. I am not intending to use it on you, though if it got broken it would quickly be fatal for both you and your daughter. It would be a very unwise thing to attack me when I hold so delicate an object, Dogstar." He lowered the point of his sword, confident now that I would not fight him.

  "What do you want with it, then?" I asked him.

  "Fear. That's what drives them. They live such short and fragile lives that they are governed by fear; driven by it."

  Gunfire stuttered in the corridor behind me. "We do not have time for this, Raffmir."

  He stayed relaxed, ignoring the approaching sounds of conflict. "They fear not only us, but each other. What if another nation has fey? What if they are secretly coaching their own squads of half-breeds in the arts of intelligence gathering, assassin
ation, insurrection?"

  "There are no other fey. Are there?"

  Raffmir smiled. "They don't know, and not knowing drives them. It's the fear of the possible. What if someone else has found a way to control it – indeed, to create super-soldiers to use against them? Enormous strength, stealth, strange powers – it's a dream and a nightmare. That's what made it so easy to manipulate them, their fear and their greed. With a gift of funding and resources, they were easy to subvert. We are not their enemy, after all."

  I glanced towards the corridor, expecting the sound of approaching feet at any moment.

  "So in their search for a cure they discovered by accident a way to destroy the half-breeds: a manipulation of genes and viruses, a manufactured disease."

  "The Feyre don't get sick, Raffmir, you know that."

  "This is true. If I drank the serum, even if I used a hypodermic to inject it, there would be no effect on me whatsoever. I am fey and neither of these vials are intended for me." He smiled. "In one of the vials, though, is an agent, a viral contagion, cultured to be as infectious as a common cold and passed from human to human. They barely notice it, and the fey are immune to that too – the true fey, that is."

  "I don't understand."

  "The weapon is a contagion aimed at the mongrels. Its effect is the same as if your daughter had participated in the experiment. It releases the magic within so that it consumes the host. Any mongrel that contracts the disease will die quickly and cleanly. Once released, it will spread through the human population as no more than an inconvenience – a day in bed at worst – but it will wipe out any and all of the half-breeds like a virulent plague."

  I shook my head, trying to understand the scope of such a thing. "A weapon against the half-breeds? Why would you need such a thing?"

  "It is their safeguard against a mongrel army being pitched against them – a last line of defence, but it will serve the Seventh Court just as well."

  Then I saw the flaw in his plan. "You can't use it – if you do then Alex or I might become infected. You have sworn by fey law to harm neither of us. You can't use it without breaking your vow, and you can't give it to anyone else to use, either. If you do, you are in violation of fey law and your life is forfeit, as is your honour."

  "A prize almost worth dying for, were that necessary."

  "Almost?"

  "I am giving you notice to quit. You have forty-eight hours to leave this world."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You have the means, Dogstar. We are not as ignorant as you think. You have the Dead Knife from the Quit Rents Ceremony, and with that you can cleave the gaps between the worlds. You can use it to travel across the cosmos as we did, when we were forced into exile. You can go as far away as you want, and take your daughter and that pregnant bitch with you."

  "Leave the world? And go where?"

  "I care not. The only place you cannot be is here."

  "But I can't take the Dead Knife. It holds the barrier against the Seventh Court. It's needed here."

  "Oh, come. What use is a barrier when there are no half-breeds to protect? What is the point of all the rituals and the protections when there is no one to defend? Once the half-breeds are gone or dead, the Seventh Court can return to the world and stand alongside their brethren on their own soil. No more exile – what would be the point?"

  I suddenly realised what he was saying. I stepped towards him, reaching for the vials. The point of the sword rose level with my chest.

  "No violence, Dogstar. If the vial is broken now, you will die along with every other mongrel. You have the chance to be their saviour. It is not so poor a fate. After all, I am only trading my exile for yours. The mongrels leave and the Seventh Court returns. What could be more just? It is a fair exchange."

  Raffmir grinned.

  "It was why I needed you here on the solstice, when the walls between the worlds are at their weakest, so that you could be the instrument of their exile and know the bitterness that comes from knowing that you will never be able to return. You will rid us of them, every one."

  He grinned at me, relishing his victory.

  "And you will never be able to return."

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Raffmir admired the vials in his hand. "Driven by fear, the power of human ingenuity knows no bounds. Such a shame – it will mean the end of the pact between the Feyre and humanity. This is more than we ever asked for and more than you deserve. I am giving you the chance to rescue as many of the mongrels as you are able and take them somewhere else. It doesn't matter where you take them. Take as many as you please or none at all, only do not return once the virus is in the human population. It will spread and every visit will carry greater risk. You only need to carry the contagion back into exile…" He left that thought unfinished.

  "You are breaking your oath, Raffmir. You swore not to harm me or my daughter."

  "On the contrary, my oath remains sound. I am saving you and granting you the opportunity to save as many others as you choose. There's nothing in my oath that says that I must remain in exile, nor that you must remain in this world. If I had released the virus without telling you, then I would be breaking my oath. As it is, I am giving you the chance to be their saviour. Without you, doubtless they will all die." He shook his head in mock sadness.

  There was a dull boom, then another in quick succession. I raised my sword.

  Raffmir stood. "Yes, let's settle it now, blade to blade – only mind that my grip does falter and dash these vials to the floor, and if by some mischance you should best me–" He grinned, acknowledging that we both knew he was the better swordsman. "–then the vials will fall and break and all will be lost."

  He watched me doing the calculation, while the conflict approached behind me.

  "I believe the phrase is 'check' and 'mate'." He grinned. He had me and he knew it.

  The battle in the corridors grew ever nearer. Still I hesitated. There must be a way out. Once he left with the vials, there would be no way to stop him. All he would need to do is break the vial on a railway station, or an airport, or a busy supermarket. After that it would be simply a matter of time. There was no way to find all the part-fey humans within forty-eight hours, let alone persuade them to leave our world for an uncertain future, and his smile said that he already knew that.

  "Move out of the way, Dogstar. You have your daughter to save and I have business elsewhere. I have kept my promise and brought you to her. It is time for me to…"

  He shuddered and faltered. Then he coughed. Mucus leaked from his nose while his eyes bulged in their sockets. Perspiration beaded across his brow and then ran in droplets down his face. Sweat rained from his jawline as he hiccoughed and spewed. He coughed again, a belch of liquid welling up in him, running from his mouth.

  Behind him, winding coils like the tentacles of a black anemone extended out behind his head, long delicate fingers slid gently under his chin, cupping it like a lover's caress. Tremors spread through his shoulders, arms, chest and hands.

  Slowly Alex rose behind him on the bed, her hair a winding mass of tentacle curls, moving as if washed and tugged by an unseen swell. Her eyes glowed intensely with a blue so deep it was almost purple. Her hands clamped under his chin as she looked down on his head with an expression of feral hatred. He jerked and spasmed, his hands flicked open, and the sword flew out of one hand and the vials flew out of the other.

  I dived. I couldn't know which vial had the serum and which the weapon, but I dropped the sword and dived. They were too far apart to catch both. My hand stretched out and reached the floor just before the first vial hit. It bounced on the flesh of my hand and rolled on to the floor intact. The second vial smashed with the tiniest sound of tinkling glass.

  I held my breath. I dare not breathe. But then I realised that if I survived I would have to watch my daughter die before me. I blew out a long slow breath and inhaled.

  Nothing happened. How long would it take? How long did I have to wait befor
e I knew it was safe? My hand reached out and grasped the unbroken vial, wrapping my fingers around it, firmly enclosing it. I rolled on to my back. Above me, Raffmir was leaking fluid from every orifice. His eyes, his nose, his ears, all ran with clear liquid. He jerked and twisted, and then with a mighty effort he swung his arm around and smashed it into my daughter's side. She flew sideways like a discarded doll, arms flailing, crashing into the wall and sliding down out of sight.

  Raffmir staggered forward, reaching down for his sword. I summoned gallowfyre, filling the room with dappled light, reaching into the core of power within me. I focused the power, determined to end this now, oath or no oath.

  Beyond Raffmir, the glass wall exploded in a shower of scattering fragments. Bright shards hailed all around, forcing me to shield my eyes from the glass. There was another boom, and another. Shotgun blasts echoed in the confined space. Plaster dust and concrete fragments ricocheted off me amid a stuttered cadence of dull reports. I was deaf and blind. There was a screaming, screeching sound, a series of yells and cries and then a deathly quiet punctuated by falling fragments of glass and the moans of the injured.