We took a set of steps down to the floor level.
“What’s everyone doing?”
“In this area we monitor what’s going on out there. This is our equivalent of Section 19’s command centre. They’re still getting back on their feet since the attack you told me about, so their social media algorithms are only working part-time. Luckily it’s all quiet out there at the moment.”
“How do you know so much about Section 19?”
Victoria looked grim, “I used to work for them.”
That surprised me.
“I was drafted into Section 19 straight out of Cambridge. I had two doctorates and knew enough about the hidden world to be an asset. My family has a history with the supernatural. My brother is a warlock. You’ll meet him at dinner later this evening.”
“A warlock?”
“He’s a terrible show-off, so ignore him,” Victoria replied in a fond tone, “I’d do anything for him. He’s all the family I have left. He had a talent for magic, me not so much. At all. So I went into science instead and ended up at the section.”
“I ran the science wing as best I could, advocating a capture not kill policy. Trying to change the system from within. No-one listened. If possible, Section 19 became even more extreme. The science wing was closed down, seen as an expensive waste of resources, and I left. That was about fifteen years ago now. Maybe a little more.”
“So I decided to do my own thing. Our parents had died in a fire and left the pair of us with a fortune and a huge company. I began to put both to good use, and here we are.”
We had walked the full length of the cave and come to a white door. Victoria opened it and ushered me through.
The next room was a large lab, not as big as the previous room but just as impressive. A dozen technicians in lab coats moved around, checking data, making notes as they looked through microscopes. There was a lot of equipment that I couldn’t imagine the function of. Massive glass fronted fridges contained hundreds of test tube vials. Cages were filled with lab rats.
Kate would be right at home here, I thought.
“Science lab,” Victoria said, “This is where we’d like to run some tests, if you don’t mind.”
“What kind of tests?”
“We only need blood samples and so on for now,” Victoria replied.
“Right,” I said. I hadn’t prepared myself for that.
Something occurred to me. Apart from the demon hound on the screen, everyone I’d seen so far had appeared human.
“Where are the others?”
“The others?”
“Yeah, the other supernaturals. You said this was a sanctuary.”
“It is, but a temporary one in most cases. We help those that need it and then send them on their way. There’s far too big a risk that Section 19 might raid us. We keep a close network of supernaturals across Britain instead.”
“Oh,” I said, a touch of disappointment clear in my voice.
“I’m sorry, were you expecting a supernatural hotel or something?”
Well, yeah. Or maybe a prison.
“No, I didn’t know what to expect really.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll meet Alice shortly.”
“Alice?”
“Our resident vampire,” Victoria said.
“You’re joking, right?”
“Nope. Vampires are people too.”
“Okay, but...Alice?”
“That’s her name. Semi-short for Alessandra, actually. Everyone calls her Alice because it’s less of a mouthful. Now hold still for me.”
As we’d been talking, Victoria had put on a lab coat, snapped on some latex gloves and sat me in a chair. She took four blood samples as well as some hair, fingernails and mucous from my nose, which grossed me out. Victoria was professional and efficient as she worked.
“Good,” she said, “That should be more than enough to get started with.”
She passed out the various samples to the technicians with instructions to start analysing them. She’d paid particular attention to how quickly the small pinprick from the needle had closed up, filming the process and observing it through a magnifying lens.
“Fascinating,” she said, “I’ve seen healers before but not in human form.”
“How long will it take? Before you find anything out?”
“The only answer I have is ‘I don’t know.’ It could take a day to find something out, it could take a year. You’re an anomaly in the scheme of things, so we don’t know what we’re looking for. It might be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, or it might be a lot simpler.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You might not even be an anomaly. Section 19 has wiped out multiple species, so we haven’t encountered them. You might be the last of your kind, or you could be a hybrid.”
“You mean part human?”
“Yes.”
I thought of Brooks, shot twice in the back of the head by Major Wilson. I guessed maybe he’d been a hybrid.
“Come on then,” Victoria said cheerily, “Let’s take you to meet our vampire.”
Chapter Twenty Five: Alice the Vampire
The next room Victoria took me to was a gym. The centre of it contained a boxing ring where a man and a woman were sparring. Neither of them wore gloves, instead they were practising blocks, throws, kicks and locks. The man was well built with honed muscles. The woman looked eighteen, maybe nineteen years old. Pitch black hair tied back in a ponytail, slim and not noticeably built. She was dressed in black, a figure-hugging tank top and sports shorts. Her eyes were deep brown and she appeared to be Italian, or at least from the Mediterranean area. If she was a vampire, I couldn’t see anything that gave it away. She just looked normal. Okay, she looked hot-normal, but that was all.
She was easily besting the older man again and again, forcing him to yield repeatedly. Victoria and I watched them for a few minutes then Victoria called the other woman over.
“This is Jason,” she said.
“Hi. Alice. Nice to meet you, I’m sure,” she winked at me then turned to Victoria, “So this is the freak, right?”
“Alice!” Victoria scolded, “I’ve told you not to use that term.”
Alice grinned at me, “I only say these things to wind her up, don’t take it personally. You want to spar?”
She gave me a flirtatious look with her blue eyes. For the second time that day I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
I noticed faint flecks of bright red in her brown irises - the only indication she wasn’t quite ‘normal.’
“Not yet,” Victoria said, “I want to run him through some exercises.”
“Sure,” Alice replied. Then she returned to beating up her sparring partner. She was fast, her slim body far stronger than you’d have guessed. I gawped as she spun and tossed the guy around the ring with supernatural speed and strength. The guy barely managed to get her in a hold, and certainly couldn’t keep her in it. Nine times out of ten, it was the guy slamming the mat with his palm to concede. She might have appeared normal, but she moved, kicked and punched faster than anyone I’d ever seen.
“Down boy,” Victoria said.
“What? I wasn’t staring.”
“You were staring.”
Okay, fine, so I was staring. Victoria didn’t miss a trick.
“Come on, let’s see what you can do,” Victoria said, indicating a weight bench.
“It doesn’t work like that. I only get strong when I’m angry or scared.”
“Understood, but we need to establish a baseline. So we can tell what’s normal for you before your powers activate.”
“Right, that makes sense.”
Victoria directed me to a changing room, and I put on a plain t-shirt and shorts that were provided. For the next couple of hours, Victoria had me lifting weights, testing my arms and legs. Then she had me do a series of press-ups, none of which I did at home. She placed some patches on my forehead and chest to measure my heart rate, blood
pressure, brain activity and so on.
“Below average strength,” she said, “for your age and height. You should work out. Now let’s see what you can really do.”
We walked back to the middle of the gym, and Victoria helped me put on a pair of boxing gloves and a padded headguard. It was the first time I’d ever tried them on. I felt ridiculous. Victoria clapped twice and indicated to the man sparring with Alice to change places with me. Reluctantly I climbed through the ropes as the other man left the ring, and I stood face to face with Alice. Unlike me, she had no gloves and no headguard. I was standing in a boxing ring with a gorgeous black haired seventeen-year-old.
“Ok,” Victoria said, “I want you to hit her.”
“What?”
“I want you to hit Alice,” Victoria said.
Alice grinned at me and raised her bare fists, pacing around me.
“What? No! I’m not going to hit a girl!”
Alice stopped for a second.
“Jason, I’m over seventy years old,” she said, then resumed her attack stance.
“That doesn’t make it any better!” I replied, gloves dangling by my side.
Quick as lightning, Alice gave me a short, sharp kick in the ribs.
“Ow! Hey!”
“Come on,” she said, “Don’t be boring.”
She rained a quick series of light punches and kicks on me.
“Ow! Hey – ow – would you stop – ow – ouch – please stop hitting me?”
“Nope,” Alice replied with a grin as she brought a kick to the side of my head that sent me spinning to the ground. I could tell she was holding back.
“Hey, stop that, come on!”
“Jason,” Victoria said, “You’re being beaten up by a girl.”
“Yes, thanks Victoria, I had noticed that!”
My cheeks were burning with humiliation. I was conscious I was being made a fool of. I started to get angry, and as I did so the fire returned.
“Come on Jason, you can’t hurt me,” Alice said as she jabbed a couple more times at me. I glared at her, gritted my teeth and threw a punch in her direction. At the same moment, Alice stood stock still. She could have dodged my clumsy swing, but she didn’t. I caught her on the side of her face and she went down hard.
“Oh my god! I am so sorry!”
Alice lying on the mat spat blood and grinned, “Now that’s more like it.”
I hadn’t used anything like my full strength, and nowhere near the force with which I’d tried to hit Major Wilson. It had been a lot though. I was terrified I’d hurt her. Instead she jumped back up and landed another kick on me.
I saw red.
“That’s right, get angry,” Victoria said.
I lifted my gloves up into my approximation of a boxing stance and started to take this seriously. Alice kept jabbing at me and I tried to connect, jabbing and swinging as she danced around me. She kept ducking and dodging out of the way, making me more frustrated and angry. Then, when she could see I was really wound up, she let one of my wilder blows connect. She slammed down to the mattress hard.
“Damn,” she said, “The kid is strong. Maybe stronger than me. He should be able to bench press 500 pounds at least based on those punches.”
“Interesting,” Victoria said, “He can barely do 130 when he isn’t agitated.”
“Alright, enough. I get angry, I get stronger. We already know this.”
Alice sat up. I knelt down beside her. Despite taking two punches to the face there was no sign of bruising.
“Are you okay?”
Alice threw Victoria an ironic glance, “My, this one is such a gentleman, Vicky.”
“Isn’t he just?” Victoria smiled back, “Something to eat?”
For a split second, I thought she meant me.
Chapter Twenty Six: Vincent Pryce
Vincent Pryce sat in a wheelchair opposite me. He’d been silently perusing me ever since we’d been introduced. He was a frail old man who looked like he was in his nineties, dressed in a simple grey jumper and black jeans. He appeared fifty years older than Victoria at the least, old enough to be her grandfather, not her brother. Only their smiles gave the connection away. Both Victoria and Vincent’s smiles had that special, warm brilliance about them.
He was weak and occasionally coughed as we ate dinner. I assumed he was suffering from a terminal illness, but thought it rude to ask. He’d introduced himself as ‘Vincent Pryce, like the actor,’ and then had looked irritated that I didn’t know who the other Vincent Price was.
Since then he’d been silent.
We’d returned to the mansion upstairs and were on the second floor, sitting in a large plush dining room. Alice and I were sat on one side of a huge ten-metre long polished black oak table, Victoria and Vincent were on the other side. An open log fire burned nearby. Outside the weather had turned nasty. Brutal winds whipped around the mansion and rain sliced down from the dark clouds above. We’d been served a simple meal of mushroom soup followed by chicken breasts in a creamy cheese sauce, baked potatoes and vegetables. I was surprised to discover that rich people ate food just like the rest of us. Victoria told me they employed full-time kitchen staff to service the forty odd soldiers and technicians on site.
Alice ate some of the food she was served. I wondered if this was more out of politeness than a need for sustenance. I wanted to ask her a dozen questions; if she drank blood, if sunlight hurt her, if she had a reflection, but didn’t know how to begin as I was tongue-tied around her. What could I ask her that wouldn’t make me sound like a complete idiot? I’d run through a list of possible opening lines but couldn’t find a follow up that smoothly ran on from ‘sorry for punching you in the face’.
Mind you, technically she should be the one apologising since she’d started it.
“So, you’re the one, are you?” Vincent eventually said. He had only eaten the soup and had waited patiently as the rest of us finished our main courses.
“I’m not sure what you mean. The one what?”
“Vincent, behave,” Victoria said.
“The boy who might be able to help me with my little death problem,” Vincent continued, ignoring his sister, “Victoria thinks you hold the key to healing my body before I..”
He raised his bony right hand and opened his fingers outwards, making a ‘pooof’ sound as he did so.
“Vincent!” Victoria said.
“Oh, Victoria, do you mean to say you haven’t told him? Well that is somewhat remiss of you.”
Victoria looked irritated at her brother’s words.
“What haven’t I been told?”
“As I already explained to you, what we’re doing here is trying to save lives. One of those lives is my twin brother’s. It’s becoming rather urgent.”
“Your twin brother? Where’s he?”
Vincent raised his hand up and waved slightly.
“Over here,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
There was no way that Vincent was Victoria’s twin brother. Not unless Victoria had had some serious plastic surgery, and even then, it seemed improbable.
“Magic has a cost these days,” Vincent replied, “Far more than it used to have. There was a time when warlocks such as myself could tap power from other dimensions, when magic flowed through our world like water. Now there’s so little of it left that even the smallest of tricks drains the warlock himself. Or herself, in the case of witches. Magic has made me old before my time. I have to use my own life force, you see. Every piece of magic I cast takes a little more of my life away.”
“Use your own life force?”
“Well I can’t very well use anyone else’s. Aside from the moral quandary that presents, it’s the first rule of magic. A warlock can never use magic to take a life or take a life to fuel magic. It was a punishment created by a powerful warlock centuries ago, a curse designed to reign in our powers and prevent us from using them for evil. Nasty stuff happens if you use magic to take a
human life, believe me.”
“What happens if you break the first rule?”
“You become a cursed one,” Vincent said, “Not something you’d ever want. You’re stripped of all magic and forced to live forever, constantly reminded of what you did and what you’ve lost.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Believe me, eternal life without magic is worse than death for anyone who has used the arts. People who can’t use magic are lucky in one way. They don’t know what they’re missing. The energy, the rush, the feeling of power...”
“...not to mention the lung cancer, liver failure, Alzheimer’s and general physical and mental breakdown,” Victoria said.
Vincent grunted. They’d clearly had this argument many times.
“Anyway. My dear, eternally optimistic sister thinks your healing abilities may hold the key to my survival. Never mind all that for now, though,” Vincent winked a wrinkled white eyelid at me and grinned, “Watch this.”
He muttered a few words and made an elaborate hand gesture. The smoke from the log fire stopped rising upwards and instead drifted across to our table where it took the form of an exquisitely detailed twelve-inch tall ballerina. Every ruffle of her tutu was visible, her fingers and face delicately carved from the smoke. The miniature ballerina bowed, smiled graciously at us and then began dancing and twirling. She leapt across the table and span on her toes, kicking and spinning in time to music that only Vincent could hear.
“Is she real?” I whispered.
“Just an illusion,” Alice whispered back, “Cool though, isn’t it?”
I nodded in awe as the ballerina danced over to me and curtseyed.
Her performance - and existence - was terminated by Vincent’s hacking cough. His concentration broke as his body shook. The ballerina dissipated into wisps of dull grey smoke that rose to the ceiling and vanished.
“Vincent, we’ve talked about this,” Victoria scolded, “You can’t afford to use your magic on silly party tricks.”
Vincent waved her away.
Personal Demons Page 11