Ancient Awakening (The Ancient)
Page 27
*****
In the elevator, Larry introduced Wen to Dr. Dupré.
“This is your only lab assistant at the moment?” she asked. She gave Wen the same long, cold stare that she had given Larry only moments before.
“Yes, at the moment. Wen is a PhD student here at CMDNJ, quite bright.” Larry nodded with the compliment and Wen responded with a thankful smile.
“At the moment?”
“Well, I did have another young woman working for me but I recently had to let her go.” By “recently,” Larry meant the next time he saw her. Dr. Dupré grunted something under her breath that Larry didn’t make out.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. Just clearing my throat.”
The elevator doors opened and Larry stepped out.
“Just over this way,” he said, leading the wheelchair and Wen out into the hallway. He took the next right and stepped through the door of the lab. “And this is home.” He smiled at Dr. Dupré as she entered the room. She ignored the smile, craning her neck around to Wen as he entered.
“Would you mind closing that door behind you, dear? There is a bit of a draft.”
“Of course, doctor,” Wen responded, shutting the heavy door behind him and making his way past the wheelchair to join Larry.
“Now, if you don’t mind if we cut to the chase, I would like to see the lily.”
Larry and Wen exchanged worried glances. Larry gave a nod, and Wen went to retrieve the empty container.
“Well, you see, there seems to be some...” As Larry turned to face the old woman, he noticed her pulling a large gun out from under one of her blankets. The sight was so out of place that he simply stopped talking, staring as the woman aimed and fired at Wen. The gun made almost no noise but the bullet must have been huge. Wen’s head exploded like a water balloon, splattering his brains in every direction. His body remained standing for a second in mid-step, blood pumping out of the stump of his neck. Then it collapsed to the floor. Larry screamed.
“Hmm…human,” said Dr. Dupré, “That’s very disappointing. I was sure that he was the one.” Then, the gun was pointing at Larry.
“My God,” Larry stammered at her, “Why…” He couldn’t finish the question, and trailed off, staring dumbly at the woman.
“Oh, it was nothing personal,” she said. Then, pulling off the rest of the blankets, she stood and stretched. “Well, I guess it is rather personal, in a way. Nothing against your student. You see, I didn’t think he was human. Good God, how I hate that chair. I can’t wait until I can ditch this old lady routine.”
Larry caught his breath back again for a second. “But how…why?” His brain was working its way out of shock and into pure panic.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret, Larry, since I know you won’t be telling anyone.” She walked over to him and gave him a hard shove, knocking him to the floor.
“How old do I look to you? Go ahead. Guess.”
“What? Why should I care how old you are?”
She poked him with the gun, the tip of its long silencer still hot. “Just guess,” she said, her voice low and menacing.
“75?”
“Not even close.” Dr. Dupré seemed to be working herself up for a show. “I’m 138 years old. Not so bad-looking for the world’s oldest living woman, right?” Larry did not respond. It was, of course, impossible. She was surely insane.
“Does it sound crazy? No, it’s true. And oh, it gets better.” She grinned, and then seemed to reconsider. “I’ll spare you the details. Let us just say I’ve been working on my current project for a very, very long time and now it seems to have gone slightly askew. A shame really, but it turns out that even we of the Cursed still can get a bit senile with age.”
The Cursed?
“What would you say, my dear student, if I told you all the stories of monsters were true? What if I told you that werewolves existed, and vampires, and demons? Why, pretty much every story ever told about things that go bump in the night has been based on some truth.” She stared hard at Larry, waiting for an answer.
At last he picked up his cue. “I would say you’re pretty crazy.” His response was weak but it was hard to talk at all with that big gun pointing at him.
Dr. Dupré coughed out a laugh. “Ha! Of course you say that. It’s been a hundred years since they walked this earth. Much longer than that since they did so in any large number. Too long for anyone to remember.”
“So they went extinct?” Larry asked. He had to keep her talking, there had to be a way out of this.
“You might say that. But you’re missing the best part. What if I told you that I had found a way to bring them back?” She seemed to bounce with excitement.
“Why…why would you want to do such a thing?”
“Oh, that’s a long story. Let’s just say I did it for love. Anyway, amazing creatures really. If my theory is right, they can rebuild themselves completely from just one single cell, much like a starfish. Of course, it’s less of a cell and more like a virus.”
“You mean werewolves?”
“No, silly boy, we’re talking about demons.”
Oh, of course, how silly that was.
“Still, the plan wasn’t to have them just run around New Jersey unchecked. They tend to, well, eat people, and that’s never really a good thing. Now, since my ‘help’ seems to have wandered off, I’m here cleaning up my own mess.”
Larry shook his head. “I’m not following you. Why come here? Why kill Wen? What did he have to do with your monsters?”
Dr. Dupré let out a long sigh. “I don’t remember you being this slow when you were my student. The sample, Conners, the white lily. It’s actually a very clever delivery system.”
“For what?”
“For the demon seed!” She said it as if talking to a child about the number ten coming after nine.
“The what?”
“The demon seed. You see, demons require a host. Preferably a human one.”
“So the plan was to infect me and my lab assistants with some sort of disease?”
“Not a disease, a life form. One that hasn’t walked the planet in a hundred years. One that will change science as we know it.”
“A life form that eats humans?”
“Well, among other things, yes. I didn’t say it was the perfect plan. You have to believe it was nothing personal. You are going to die, but it’s for a very good cause. Sadly though, before you go, I am going to need the name of that other lab assistant. She has to be the one.”
It was Ann she was after, but Larry couldn’t begin to imagine why. Dr. Dupré moved closer still until something caught her eye. Guessing at what she saw, Larry tried once more to distract her.
“So you kill us all in the name of science?”
She ignored him. “Ah ha!” The old woman picked up a notebook from the counter. “The lab journal of one Ann Melakh.” She held it triumphantly up to Larry, and then turned solemn. “No, this isn’t about science. It’s about my husband.”
The cough of the silencer was the last sound Larry heard.
Chapter 17 - Out About
Sanguine – Ars Arcana – The Savage Tongue