Dead on my Feet - The Halflife Trilogy Book II

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  I looked again: this was the man in the first photograph I had snagged from subterranean altar. I suddenly remembered that the Ogou pantheon manifested its military aspect in the form of one Ogou Baba.

  As the gray-haired, gray-suited and—I looked more closely—gray-eyed gentleman looked around, his face hardened into an expression of displeasure. “I hardly think it appropriate to continue this discussion out here, in the open, and certainly not in front of outsiders.”

  “Dr. Delacroix works for me—”

  “She’s not cleared!” he snapped, cutting her off.

  “She works for me,” Báthory repeated, putting some heat and force behind the words. The “general” winced as if in pain. “It is now necessary to provide her with the essential clearances and briefings for her to continue her work.”

  I looked at Chalice. Her eyes had grown hazy with confusion and the anesthetization of mental domination.

  Deirdre’s eyes were different. I couldn’t seem to get a reading on her.

  “Mr. Cséjthe is about to become a major contributor to the Greyware Project,” Báthory continued. “In a manner of speaking, General, he’s about to become your very best friend. Yours and your friends on the council back in Virginia and Montana.”

  Walk away, Cséjthe, I told myself. Move.

  I couldn’t.

  “I thought you started final testing three weeks ago,” the general snapped.

  “Of the virus? Oh yes. And aside from a little fine-tuning, I think we’ve cleared all of the major hurdles.” Her smile twisted into a smirk. “But we’ve still got a ways to go on perfecting the vaccine. Mr. Cséjthe’s hemoglobin may prove more effective in stabilizing the telomerase than pure vampire blood. And, unless the council is composed of superpatriots, I think you’ll be waiting for the antidote before authorizing the broad-spectrum release.”

  The general looked thoughtful and I looked around for the exits. I had been able to resist Dracula’s mental domination: Why couldn’t I leave now?

  “What about Phase Two?” he asked.

  The brunette turned abruptly and spoke to Chalice. “Go upstairs to Lab Four. Wait for me there. Do not leave.”

  Chalice turned silently and headed toward the main hallway.

  I tried to follow her.

  I couldn’t get my legs to move.

  “We’ve begun testing on Operation Blackout,” Báthory said as Chalice disappeared. “In fact we’re mixing some of our clinical trials.”

  “Why?” the general asked. “Won’t that just confuse the results?”

  As much as I wanted to hear where this conversation was going, I knew that the longer I stood there, the slimmer my chances became of exiting of my own volition. Straining against the mental command to stay, I felt the straps of my shoulder rig begin to chafe my ribs. An idea began to glimmer.

  “Not for us,” Báthory answered. “The piggybacks are activated by two different triggers. For the Greyware virus, it’s the length of the telomeres. For the Blackout piggyback, it’s the racial subsets of DNA. That still requires a bit of fine-tuning, but since we’re not even trying to develop any counteragents for the second solution, it’s taken less time to get to the trials phase.”

  Gently, slowly, carefully, I raised my right arm, as if to adjust the front of my suit. Moved my hand toward the opening above the button at my waist.

  “But you’re right in that releasing both piggybacks will lead to some confusion. It should slow any effectual diagnosis and response on the part of the public health sector and the CDC.” My fingers were just inside my jacket lapel and inches from butt of the Glock as she added: “I shall become very cross with you Mr. Cséjthe, if your hand gets any closer to that gun.”

  Cross? I’d show her frick’n cross! I grabbed the Glock and pulled.

  “You bastard!”

  I flinched as a gunshot boomed and waited for the shock of the bullet tearing through my armpit to reach my brain.

  I heard a second gunshot about the time I realized my fingers were nowhere near the trigger and the voice wasn’t Báthory’s. Heads turned; mine with them.

  The Snow Queen commanded the entryway to the main hall through which Chalice had passed just moments before. The beaded black sheath dress that Suanne Cummings wore wasn’t cut for a proper shooter’s stance—which was probably why she had failed to hit anything of consequence, yet.

  The room erupted in screams—some of them feminine—and half the occupants threw themselves to the floor while the remainder rushed about in a variety of directions. Most of them ended up on the floor, as well, tripping over the already prone or colliding with other rushees.

  “You bastard!” Suanne repeated. And Hyrum Cummings broke from the pack as his cover went down and ran in search of other shelter.

  “Where is she?” Suanne shrieked. The hem of her dress gave way with a ripping sound as she spread her feet and the seams on both sides unzippered to her thighs. The nickel-plated, snub-nosed .38 came up in a two-handed grip and tracked her husband as he ran . . .

  . . . toward us!

  The temptation to lay down suppressing fire passed through my mind without tapping the brakes. I released my grip on my own gun and made a quick sending: DROP THE GUN! DROP THE GUN!

  Suanne didn’t quite drop her weapon but she did fumble with it. Another shot boomed like doomsday thunder and a bullet tore a bloody chunk out of my left biceps while Dr. Cummings was still twenty feet away. The countess and the general hit the floor simultaneously. I was suddenly free of Erzsébet Báthory’s compulsion. I ran toward Suanne, hemorrhaging like an Internet start-up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I slapped the gun out of Suanne’s hands as I ran past her and then out into the main corridor. Taking the stairs meant that I would bleed that much faster, but the elevators would be way too slow. I pushed the door to the stairwell open and then clapped my good hand across my shattered upper arm.

  So much for my renewed enthusiasm for divorce cases. Maybe the Monroe P.D. had an opening for a meter maid.

  I was outside Lab Four in less than a minute, but even with the advantage of inhuman speed I wasn’t moving fast enough. By now, Báthory and her goons would be up and moving and I was leaving a trail of gore that Mr. Magoo could follow.

  I slammed the door open and ran to Chalice. “Come on! We’re getting out of here!”

  The hazed expression in her green eyes had faded but the anxiety that replaced it was scant improvement. Her gaze slid from my face to a focal point over my drooping shoulder.

  “Howdy, Sparks,” said a familiar voice. “Long time . . .”

  “ . . . no see,” chimed in a second unwelcome greeting.

  I turned slowly. Shock and pain had dulled my reactions but I deliberately kept my movements slow and careful, knowing that any sudden move would likely be my last.

  Two men wearing ill-fitting tuxedos lounged against the wall, on either side of the doorway I had just pushed through. The one on the left towered over me. In the fifteen years that had passed since I had last seen him, the muscles of his body had been overlaid with a smooth coating of fat. He still looked as if he was strong enough to tip a Hummer over, though. I saw him do it once. I didn’t doubt that he could still do it if sufficiently pissed. “Mouser,” I said, “see you’ve gone for the Jesse Ventura ‘do.”

  Joel Mouse rubbed his gleaming bald head and grinned. “Ya think?”

  “A feather boa would complete the look if you wanted to go retro,” I offered.

  The short, barking laugh of the short, funny-looking man with gray teeth augmented Mouser’s answering scowl.

  “Fafhrd,” I said. “I should have known you’d still be hanging with the Mouser after all these years.” Fafhrd wasn’t his real name and he most likely still couldn’t spell the nickname that had been hung on him all those years ago. Just as well: Fritz Leiber would be turning over in his grave.

  Shoot, he’d probably spin like a turbine.

  Fafhrd stopped laug
hing. “Yeah. We even did time together after you spilled your guts to the brass.”

  “Spilling guts . . .” I scowled. “You’re a fine one to talk about spilling guts . . .”

  “Looks like someone started yours ahead of schedule,” Mouser observed.

  “Oh my god!” Chalice grabbed my arm to get a better look. That felt real good. “Sorry,” she said, seeing the expression on my face. “Can you get that jacket off?”

  “Just cut the sleeve off,” I said through clenched teeth. The odds were bad enough at two to one. For all that I knew, the rest of the squad might be around the corner. Remembering the left-handed setup on the sniper rifle I could just about bet the bank on at least one more.

  I closed my eyes and started focusing: You will obey me, you will obey me . . .

  “I will obey you,” Chalice said.

  “That’s nice,” Fafhrd said. “She will obey you, but don’t count on us being your happy little mind-slaves.”

  The Mouser nodded. “We got that hypnotherapy fix. You bloodsuckers can’t mess with our minds now.”

  That was interesting. Not only were they aware that vampires actually existed, they knew something about my condition, as well. The question was, who was acting C.O. for these Rambo rejects and what was his relationship with BioWeb?

  The military connection was a given. But was it legitimate or paramilitary? There was the guy downstairs with the obvious moniker “General” and the not-so-obvious gray business suit. Which meant nothing as he could be legitimate and visiting covertly. Or he could be representing any one of the dozen or so private militias that had long fancied themselves a more legitimate alternative to our duly elected government.

  Legitimate or not, the presence of these two soldiers of misfortune, along with Erzsébet Báthory’s involvement, suggested really nasty business afoot. Bioweapons are ugly enough. Using them on segments of your own population takes the ugliness to a whole new level. Ike had warned us against the military-industrial complex. I wondered if he had ever, in his darkest dreams, imagined the world that was to come.

  “Like you have enough mind to mess with in the first place,” I retorted, slipping my hand inside my jacket as if to assist in its removal.

  “Uh-uh, Sparky!” Fafhrd slide-cocked the 9mm that had suddenly appeared in his hand. “I ain’t supposed to smoke you but I can blow your legs out from under you before you can clear your shoulder-rig.”

  I just shook my head. Anyone else would already have a round in the firing chamber: thumb the safety off and you’ve got a head start on the other guy. Not Fafhrd. He still preferred the retardo drama of slide-cocking his nine. Someday that pose would be his undoing.

  “Want me to get his gun, Faf?” Mouser asked.

  But not, apparently, this day.

  “Think you can do it without blocking my shot, big guy?”

  He smirked, trying for a knowing smile. “Hey, we’re The Elite!”

  “The Elite?” I said, and swore. “You bozos aren’t anything more than SEAL wannabes. More Special Ed than Special Forces.”

  “You talk like you weren’t one of us,” Mouser growled.

  “He wasn’t one of us,” Fafhrd snarled. “That’s why he turned on us.”

  “A court of inquiry asked questions,” I said. “I swore an oath to answer truthfully.”

  “What about loyalty? What about trust?”

  I glared at the huge bald man. “What about dead civilians?”

  Mouser shrugged. “There are always casualties in war.”

  “This wasn’t war. It was a classic hostage situation and you guys hot-dogged it with no regard to SOP.”

  “Okay, so there was some collateral damage,” Fafhrd agreed. “It was regrettable. We can agree on that. But what was done was done and, afterward, there was no taking it back. What purpose was served ratting us out to a bunch of Monday-morning quarterbacks?”

  “You mean telling the truth under oath to my superior officers?” I asked as Chalice took a scalpel from a dissection kit at the edge of the table. She began cutting away my blood-soaked sleeve. “Seems to me to me I’m answerable to them, not to you. Answerable to them and the civilians we were charged to protect and rescue.”

  “Your first responsibility,” Mouser said, circling to my left, “is to the man backing you up in a firefight. You’ve got to be able to trust every man in your squad with your life or one of you doesn’t belong there. Too bad we found out about you after the fact.”

  “Don’t lecture me about trust, Mouse. We were trusted to follow orders and we broke that trust.” I winced as Chalice pulled my shirtsleeve away from the wound and fresh blood began oozing from my torn flesh. “If there was any betrayal, it was when you abandoned protocol and started your cowboy shit. I answered the questions I was asked truthfully and honestly. It’s bullshit to think that company honor required that I lie for you.”

  “High-handed talk, Sparks,” the little man retorted. “If you’re so righteous, tell us why we’re still working for the government while you’re on their Most Wanted list?”

  “I’m on the government’s Most Wanted list?” It had been awhile since I had been inside a post office, much less checked the mug shot posters.

  Of course, the real question was “which” government were we really talking about?

  “Too bad it ain’t ‘dead or alive’,” Mouser added, reaching for the front of my jacket.

  “You know, the sad thing is,” I told him, “all these years I thought you were a cowboy; I never figured you for a Nazi.”

  Mouser’s hand jerked to a stop. “Huh?”

  “A Nazi, Mouse. In your case, more like a Schutzstaffel.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “I’m talkin’ SS Stormtrooper, Herr Rat! I’m talkin’ about genocide and gas chambers!”

  Instead of grabbing my gun he shoved me back against the counter. “Why’re you trash talkin’ me like this?”

  Faf laughed. “The Mouser is just a foot soldier, Sparks. He don’t know policy, he just follows orders.”

  “But you’re a smart guy, aren’t ya, Faf? You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “I hear things. I can add two and two.”

  “Only we’re not talking addition, here, Bucko. We’re talking subtraction and in the millions.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Mouse demanded to know.

  “I’m talkin’ about your mama, Herr Rat. How old is she?”

  He shoved me again, jump-starting a lawnmower of pain in my arm. “Shut up about my mama, man!”

  I focused past the renewed agony and said, “The people you work for are going to kill her, Mouser. The general is using these facilities to manufacture a virus that’s designed to kill the elderly.”

  “Naw, man; you got it wrong,” Fafhrd drawled. “The general is going to solve the race problem, old and young. Got nothin’ to do with the Mouser’s mama, she bein’ white. She is white, isn’t she, Mouse?”

  Mouse suggested that Fafhrd look no further for sexual intimacy than his own genitalia.

  “It’s both, bozo.” I pointed a trembling finger at the little man with the gray teeth. “Your general is collaborating with vampires to produce and disseminate viruses tailored to kill blacks as well as the elderly of any race or ethnicity.” I heard Chalice gasp behind me as I turned back to the big bald guy. “Which means your mama, Mouse!”

  The Mouser turned to his partner. “Is this true, Faf?”

  Fafhrd answer was cryptic. “Urk!” he said.

  Or something to that effect as the lab door flew open and smacked the little man back into the wall.

  “What the f—”

  Mouser never finished his query: I had spun on the balls of my feet and grabbed his throat with my good hand, my fingertips digging into the flesh over his carotid arteries.

  “Nobody move!” I yelled. “Drop your guns or JoJo’s Adam’s apple winds up across the room.

  “Sui
ts me fine,” said a familiar voice.

  Fafhrd contributed another “urk” to the conversation.

  I turned and saw William Robert Montrose standing in the doorway. He was holding the door with one arm so that it continued to pin Fafhrd against the wall. Although the old vampire didn’t seem to be exerting himself in any way, cracks were appearing in the plaster, radiating out from behind the door.

  “Hurry up and feed!” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Feed?” I echoed. I was suddenly aware of Mouser’s dead weight and the strain on my good arm from holding the unconscious man by the throat.

  A brown hand closed on my wrist and helped brace my arm. “What’s this about a virus designed to kill blacks?” Chalice hissed.

  “I’m a little short on the details,” I answered, “but a pattern is starting to emerge.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Between the dreams, the countess’ historical MO, a fortune-teller’s vague prophecies, BioWeb’s sinister projects, and that conversation downstairs between Bloody Báthory and General Goebbels Goering, it was just too difficult to explain.

  Especially under the current time constraints.

  “Later,” I promised. I saw movement behind Count Bubba. A kid squeezed past Montrose and into the room.

  He was probably sixteen—or had been when he died. But he looked younger, smaller because of the suit that he wore. Or, rather, it wore him. Electric blue, it was strictly forties era and very zoot. The pants were crotched low with reet pleats and bluff cuffs. Above, he wore a racket jacket with a drapeshape and wide lapels. His keychain, in the hepcat lingo, was “long with links.” On his head was a wide-brimmed dicer with a hatband that matched his Windsor-knotted choker. On his feet were two-tone barkers and—I was guessing under the saggy baggy striders—argyles held up by old-style garters. This was my first look at an actual, honest-to-God, zoot suit outside of old photos, and the whole package was totally killer-diller.

  “Wowsers!” I said. “Beat me, Daddy, eight to the bar!”