by P W Hillard
Hanging from the centre of the cavern was a bizarre black mass. A cluster of tendrils gripping onto the cave ceiling, black and wet. From those hung a large cluster of eyes, blinking slowly, looking out in a thousand directions at once. Tucked into the tight grouping of eyes was a human face, a man in his early thirties, tight blonde curls on his head. He smiled at the sight of the detectives. There was an odd squelch, and the eyes began to peel away revealing the man's body. It was dripping a thick ooze, his skin black, covered completely in another mass of tendrils, leaving only his face uncovered. He began to extend slowly forward, supported by a tentacle, eyes along its stalk staring directly at the detectives.
"Ah welcome!" said the man. Smaller tentacles broke free of the clump covering him and gestured like hands. "So glad you got my message." A tentacle pulled an old Nokia from within the folds. It waved it casually, before stretching out across the cavern. Mark followed it with his torch, watching as it placed the phone onto a small table. The table had an old white plastic kettle, a half-open packet of biscuits and a large blue cable that disappeared into the cavern ceiling. "Would you like some tea? I am afraid it’s only cheap supermarket fare and the kettle is a little temperamental. My power supply isn't exactly…up to code."
"Who…what…are you?" Jess asked, slowly scanning the creatures form with her torch.
"Oh, excuse me a moment, I forget you cannot see. Just a moment," replied the creature. There was a noise, like wet leather on leather, and the cavern erupted in illumination. A selection of large outdoor lights had been daisy-chained across the ceiling, raising the cavern from pitch blackness to a dull gloom. Somehow it made the creature look worse, its twisted confusing body casting horrific shadows. "There we go, much better. I am the oracle. Well, more specifically I am an oracle. I'm glad you found my place ok, it's a little off the beaten track."
"So, you're the one directing the legion telling them where to go and who to kill?" Mark asked. He watched as the oracle shifted to look at him, its thick tentacles reposition its entire bulk.
"Exactly! It's a role I've been doing proudly for oh, two thousand years or so. Well one of me has, it's so hard to keep track!" The oracle let out a loud chuckle. Its body of eyes pulsed like a beating heart in time with its laughter. "I guess I should explain. I was once called Titus, a member of the Praetorian Guard, the elite soldiers of Rome. Bodyguards to the first citizen himself!" The oracles human face beamed with pride. "The man you now call Emperor Augustus, though he despised the title emperor truth be told, founded the Silent Legion. A small group of soldiers whose job it is to keep Rome safe from monsters, errant spirits, demons, and the like. I was chosen to be its leader. A great honour."
Jess watched the oracle as it talked. Its eyes seemed to blink one after the other, like a coruscating wave. "So how did you get like this? If you don't mind me asking," she said.
"Not at all. It’s why I brought you here after all. Augustus was able to capture a creature, a strange thing that had fallen into our world from some cursed other place. Its eyes, when plucked and eaten, gave you the ability to glimpse the future. Specifically, futures involving supernatural creatures. It seemed to have some sort of link to them. It was my job to eat the eyes and direct my troops. Over time, it began to take a toll…well, you can see the result." The oracle gestured to itself with the small tentacles it had been using as arms. "Truth be told, I'm not even sure I'm the original Titus. As I became more and more like the creature, I found I was able to…well bud I guess is the right term. The thing seemed to be a strange combination of animal and plant and I found I was able to grow copies of myself. New oracles. Eventually we no longer even needed to consume parts of the original beast. Part of me thinks maybe that was its purpose all along. To be consumed, and to, in turn, consume those who did so."
"So, there are more of you out there?" said Jess, continuing her questions.
"Only a handful, we tried to keep the number of us low. Got too confusing otherwise. As we speak your counterparts in Italy, America, Russia and China are having very similar conversations with the other oracles. Though I will say, this one seems to be the most pleasant so far."
"You're in contact with the other oracles?" asked Mark.
"Constantly. We share thoughts. Part of the reason it's so difficult to keep track of who is who. The Americans ignored the instructions to send two people only and came in guns blazing. Typical. Do you know the equivalent of their organisation was founded by the same man as yours? A Fredrick Aberline. Worked in the states for twelve years setting up their own unit. Ah, yes, before you ask, I was well aware of you even if the legionnaires weren't."
"Why contact us now? Why reach out at all?" Jess was holding up her note pad, trying to get sufficient light to start making notes.
"When I started the legion, we were noble warriors. Proud, honest, true. The legion today is a pale shadow of its former glory. Angry untrained housewives lashing out at the harsh world around them. It is a knife, one I have wielded for millennia, that has grown dull from overuse. It is time to end it, to disband the legion and let someone else take a turn at protecting humanity," said the oracle. It gestured to Mark and Jess to drive home its point. "I know, I know. I could have just told the legionnaires we were disbanding, but I feel like that would have just set them free to wildly lash out. There would have been casualties."
"More than there has been already? How many people's deaths are you responsible for over all those years? How much blood is on your hands?" shouted Mark.
"Thousands. Perhaps hundreds of thousands. I am not ashamed of what I have done detective. I am proud of what the legion has accomplished. But I am no fool, I can see it is dying. I would rather pass the torch to someone else. Someone who, whilst I find your insistence at leaving monsters alive distasteful, have proven themselves to be capable. Your recent encounter with the swarm of Jinn for example. Had you not intervened reality would have split, allowing all manner of nightmares into our world. Though I will confess at sending some legionnaires. Just in case." The oracle lowered its face, the tentacle supporting it dragging on the floor as it brought itself to the detective's height. "So, I am handing myself in so to speak. Arrest me, officers. Take me in." The oracle held out its smaller tentacles, pressing them together as though expecting to be handcuffed. It laughed, sending itself into another pulsating quiver. "I am serious. Clap me in iron and I will be bound. This…thing I am becoming abhors the stuff, as do most otherworldly beings. After today I will be one of only two remaining oracles. The American one is sadly, already dead. My brothers in Russia and China are currently handing over information on the legion maniples running in those countries, then they will be detonating explosives around themselves. Frankly, we don't trust them not to experiment, to make their own oracles. That just leaves me, and my Italian brother. You know," mused the oracle, "we were always the two with the most claim to be the original Titus. He always claimed he never left Italy, I always claimed the original travelled to Britain during the first invasion. Funny it's just us left."
"So, you'll hand over everything? All the currently operating legionnaires, every cell, every member?" Mark pulled himself towards the oracles face, meeting it eye to eye. "You do realise we'll have to put you somewhere…out of the way."
"I am aware. Honestly, I think it might be nice, give me time to work on my hobbies. I've always wanted to try woodworking. Make something with my hands. Well not hands anymore, but you know what I mean. As a token of goodwill, I do have some rather pertinent information for you. That vampire, the one who calls himself Vlad. He has taken refuge in a retirement home. I'll give you the address. I will warn you though, it's odd. There's a…haze over the place. A much stronger sense of the supernatural than just one vampire, but I can't quite get a good look at what else is there. It's very strange," said the oracle, without a hint of irony.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Vlad was relieved. Night had fallen, and he was finally free to leave his tiny box of a
room. He was tired, having to spend his day awake to sell his cover story. This place still unsettled him. It had an overwhelming aura of boredom. An arcane structure designed to drain any and all life from its inhabitants. Vlad took a sip from a can of weak lager he had hidden in his coat pocket and flicked idly through television channels. He decided to stop when he stumbled across an episode of Murder She Wrote, a guilty pleasure of Vlad's. He leant back in the large chair that dominated the room. A beige thing covered with a bright pink flower pattern, it was motorised, able to adjust from fully laid back to almost vertical. Certainly, useful for some of the residents he was sure, but it meant that between both it and the bed there was no space left in the room. He adjusted the chair backwards slightly and elevated his legs.
He tipped the can back to his lips, stopping short as a strong smell wafted in from beneath the door. The putrid stench had grown worse the longer he had spent in this wretched place. It seemed to be wafting off the other residents. It made him unsettled in a way Vlad couldn't quite explain like the smell gnawed its way down to his soul. He shivered, trying desperately to shake off the feeling as he watched Jessica Fletcher explain who did the crime. As he took a long sip of his lager, something stirred in the halls outside.
Matthew ran, his breath strained and ragged. His footing slipped as he rounded the corridor and spilt onto the linoleum. His thin scrubs provided little padding and there was a loud crack as he struck the ground. He scrabbled to his feet, ignoring the searing pain in his side. A scratching shuffling noise grew louder behind him as one of the creatures dragged itself after him.
Matthew had been in the common room, trying to entice the most stubborn of the residents to head to bed, when it happened. There was a low moan, starting with just the one resident, but spreading to the others, becoming a chorus of grunting. Several had begun to rock back and forth, a thin foam forming at the corners of their mouths.
"Come on come on," Matthew muttered to himself as he tried to rouse the nearest resident, a rail-thin balding man with jowly cheeks. "What the fuck is this." He turned, about to dash over to the emergency call switch on the wall when it began to happen. It was minor things are first. Twitch's in the arms and face. Oddly stretched mouths. Then it got worse. The residents twitched and spasmed, their limbs lashing wildly. Arms exploded in size. Faces half twisted into horrid bat-like features. New teeth erupted from the same jaws as existing ones, splitting lips and gums in sprays of blood. Fingernails became claws. Spurs of bone ruptured backs and arms. Each resident became malformed, taking on distended vampire elements, but not totally. Human arms and legs remained on some, others had only half their faces transformed. The residents began to shamble towards Matthew, mismatched bodies making movement difficult. Unnatural stretched tongues lolled hungrily. Their eyes scanned Matthew like eager hunters.
"Hey Matthew, are you done…here…what the hell is this?!" said Martina, an older wideset woman who supervised all the other orderlies. She had stepped into the recreation room, dumbfounded at the sight before her. This was her undoing. Frozen with fear she did nothing as a cluster of residents descended on her. They swarmed her, pulling her to the ground. They took deep bites into her flesh, jagged fangs, human teeth and ceramic dentures all breaking skin. Blood poured forth as they pulled at the bites, exposing muscle and blood. Matthew saw his chance, the death of his colleague buying him time, so he turned and ran.
Vlad pushed his door open gently, pausing to listen to the odd wet squelching noise. It was strange, almost familiar in a way. He pushed the door open fully, his taking in the sight before him. One of the staff members was dead on the floor. Matthew, was that his name? Blood was pooling on the floor, cascading from a gash on his neck. His Adam's apple had been torn out, exposing the still quivering vocal cords beneath. Crouched next to the body was a monster in a nightgown, a wretched horrible thing. Vlad could tell it was Mildred, the woman who had come to him the day he moved in. At least it had been her at some point. Now she was something else, her right arm was grossly swollen, her nails had blackened and turned to talons, the skin on the arm had grown a thick wiry hair. Vlad wasn't stupid, he could see the vampiric elements in her transformation. This was clearly a side effect of withdrawal from the blood. A half measure vampirism to match the half-measured vampire blood.
The thing that was once Mildred stopped lapping at the spilt blood, she took a deep breath in through her nose, sniffing at the air. She looked up at Vlad, her gaze taking in the man before her. Her tongue ran around her lips, wiping at the blood on her mouth. She began to advance, keeping in a low crouch.
"Woah there now, let's remain calm here," said Vlad. He reached into his mouth and tugged his dentures free. His fangs burst from his gums and he moved his head, trying to show them fully to the oncoming beast. "We're all…special here. Let's just take a moment." Mildred continued her advance, she was snarling, a low rumble trickling out from her throat. She lunged, claws outstretched. She was fast, erupting into an avalanche of movement. Not as fast as Vlad though, who deliberately fell backwards, his hands on her wrists, his feet planting into her gut. He released his grip as she catapulted over him, smashing into the wall, its plaster cracking from the force of it. Mildred let out a whimper. She was stunned, but Vlad knew it wouldn't be for long. She might not be a full vampire, but she was definitely faster and stronger than she should be. He reached under his bed grabbing the small rucksack he had brought with him. He had stolen it, along with a few articles of clothing before he had arrived. It had proved shockingly easy, his appearance as an elderly man had seemingly raised him beyond suspicion.
Quickly unzipping the bag, Vlad reached within, removing two large syringes. The last of the blood. He had planned to use it on the hunters, to repeat the gory explosion of the last one. Taking one of the syringes in his hands, he bent it, cracking one side of the syringe.
"Hungry are you fucker? Well here you go, eat up!" screamed Vlad as he tossed the cracked syringe to her. The stunned Mildred stirred, the smell of the tainted blood waking the sleeping beast. She grabbed the cracked plastic, supping eagerly at the syringe. Sensing his distraction was effective, Vlad placed on hand on the bottom of the rooms imposing chair. He lifted it slightly, and with his other hand tore free a section of its black metal frame. He took the now jagged shard of metal and raised it high above his head. He turned to face the old woman, who had drunk what she could through the crack, and was now shaking the syringe, eagerly consuming what scant drops she could form it.
The blow was quick, a single heavy strike which punctured her skull. The metal shard continued straight, bursting through her eye. Vlad jerked his hand backwards, pulling his makeshift weapon free. Mildred dropped to the ground, the blow proving fatal. Vlad spun the metal shard around in his hands, testing its weight and heft. Seemingly happy with his handiwork, he turned and walked out into the corridor.
Everywhere Vlad looked there was carnage. The residents had become unspeakable nightmares, tearing anyone still human apart in sprays of blood and gore. Vlad's clothes were stained red, splattered with chunks of organ and shards of bone. The creatures seemed to be mindless, not caring he wasn't human. Vlad suspected perhaps he was even more enticing to them in a way, the vampire part of them eager to try and complete the transformation. He was getting tired; the constant assaults were taking their toll even with his superior strength.
He pulled his blade free of another creature. This one had sprouted long fangs that had emerged at odd angles, piercing the skin of its face. Sharp spurs of bone had grown from its spine, tearing its nightclothes, leaving the former human woman a strange naked shrieking nightmare. It had sprinted directly at Vlad, its leaping attack being its undoing, the metal gutting it from the force. The attack had taken a toll though, as had all the others. Vlad was covered in gashes, wounds and bite marks. Had he been human he would have been dead a long time ago.
Stepping over the body of the latest monster, he gently pushed open the doors before him, opening the
entrance to the home's large recreation room. The Hill was a private facility, shockingly expensive and catering to a select clientele. Supposedly. To Vlad, it looked the same as every old people home he could imagine. Boring beige sofas, cheap wooden tables with old worn out chess sets and board games. The liberal application of blood at least improved it in eyes somewhat. On the other side of the large room was his goal, the entrance. He had at first tried a few of the windows, finding them locked. Whilst he could have broken the glass eventually, he didn't like the idea of making loud obvious noise in a small room. It seemed a recipe for disaster, his old soldiers' instincts telling him that the main entrance was his best bet.
There was a shuffling noise, followed by quick movement in the room's shadows. He wasn't alone. Holding up his metal shard ready he began to advance, one foot slowly in front of the other. Something rattled in the darkness. Vlad focused, trying to track the source of the noise. He needn't have waited, as the lurker burst forth from its hiding place. It was huge, much larger than the others he had seen. Its arms had morphed into huge wings, scraps of its old skin hanging off its new leather frame. It dragged itself along by its wingtips, its legs now pathetically tiny and hanging limply from its huge frame. The creature's face was split almost down the middle, the right half a sagged and wrinkled human face. The left had become more bat-like, the nose had upturned, the ear had become long and pointed. Thick hair had begun to sprout in wiry clumps. Its strange body did nothing to hamper its speed, the creature moving in leaping bounds propelled by the tips of its wings.
Vlad twisted to his side as the creature landed where he had stood. He lashed out with his weapon, slashing the membrane of its wing. The monster hissed and swung around swiping with the claws that tipped them. It was faster than Vlad expected, and it raked across his chest, cutting deeply.