by Maynard Sims
The penthouse apartment was in semidarkness as they slipped in through the doorway. What scant illumination there was came from a large glass tank in the corner of the room, where multicolored tropical fish darted back and forth. Music was playing softly on the stereo; jazz—Miles Davis, Blue in Green. It would have been soothing had the circumstances not made it so incongruous.
“Welcome, Mr. Carter. And you too, Mr. Black. Welcome to my humble abode.”
The voice seemed to come from everywhere. Gliding on top of Miles Davis’s mellow horn.
“Show yourself,” Carter said.
“And spoil the surprise? Besides, it would be rude to start the party before the final guest has arrived.”
A small bell sounded as the elevator reached the penthouse. There was a hiss as the doors opened, and Frankie Morgan stepped out of the car.
“Ah, right on cue.”
Carter ran forward. “Frankie! Get back in the elevator. Get out of here!”
A shadow passed in front of his face and something wet and heavy crashed into him, knocking him to the ground.
“Carter!” Black yelled and rushed toward him, but more shadows appeared, crawling from the darkened corners of the room, slipping out from beneath the furniture. They circled Carter as he struggled to push himself to his feet. Black stopped in his tracks as one of the shadows reared up in front of him. He felt himself being lifted from his feet, and then he was thrown backward, crashing into the fish tank. The glass shattered, sending water cascading over the Persian rug.
Frankie Morgan stood at the threshold of the room, trying to focus her thoughts, to channel her energy. She could feel the evil all around her. She tried to push it back but it was pervasive.
The evil was in every shadow that moved through the room. A tangible evil, cloying, pressing down on her like a suffocating wet rag. She tried to call out to Carter, who had made it to his feet and was standing, swaying in the center of the room, but the shadows had reached her now and were starting to move up her body. Her chest was constricted, and it was becoming more and more difficult to breathe.
Suddenly the whole apartment was flooded with light as every lamp in the place burst into blinding life.
Standing there was Jonathan Lassiter, illuminated by an overhead spotlight, behind him the open French doors to the balcony. The Armani suit was immaculate, the Gucci loafers gleaming, and he was smiling. Around him shadows danced with a life of their own.
“Lassiter?” Carter said.
The man’s smile broadened into a grin. “Yes,” he said. “And no. The inadequate young man who entered this building is no more. We have entered him, improved him.”
“And who are you?” Carter said. “What are you?”
“You’re about to find out,” Lassiter said. He raised his arms, and the shadows around him rushed forward.
Carter spread his arms out in front of him as if welcoming the shadows, as if he was going to embrace them, but as they were about to swarm over him he crossed his arms over his chest and yelled, “No!”
The shadows faltered and then started to retreat, slithering back to their hiding places.
Lassiter’s smile faltered, and he took a step backward. A frown creased his forehead.
Carter glanced round at Frankie and Adam. Frankie was on her knees, almost engulfed by the shadows. Adam was wet and bleeding. He was clutching his left arm, which had been sliced open by a shard of glass from the shattered aquarium. From the way blood was pumping out through his fingers, it was likely an artery had been severed.
“You and me!” he shouted at Lassiter. “Let the others go.”
“And why in God’s name should I do that?” the young man replied.
“Because if you don’t, I’ll know you’re still the inadequate, pathetic little prick I met down in the foyer. Delusions of grandeur. Is that it, Lassiter? Show me the kind of man you are now.”
“You’ll regret it,” Lassiter said, the smile returning.
“I doubt it.”
Lassiter snapped his fingers, and the shadows slipped from Frankie’s body and slinked away into the corner of the room.
“Robert, no!” Frankie said.
“Frankie, take Adam down in the elevator and get him to a hospital before he bleeds to death.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she said.
“Neither am I.” Adam staggered forward, then sank to his knees, weakened by the loss of blood.
“Do as you’re bloody told! Both of you!”
Frankie looked from Carter to Black, who looked as if he was about to pass out. Then she rushed forward, helped him to his feet, and hauled him across to the elevator. With one desperate glance back at the apartment, she hit a button.
As the doors closed, Lassiter laughed. “They don’t have as much faith in you as you do yourself.”
“Go to hell!” Carter said.
Lassiter snapped his fingers again, and the shadows surged forward. This time Carter was too slow, much too slow. The shadows swarmed over him, shredding his clothes, ripping at his skin. They had weight, so much weight. He felt his knees begin to buckle. With a supreme effort of will, he focused his thoughts, concentrating fiercely, trying to repel the onslaught. But he’d miscalculated badly. There were too many of them, and they were pulling him down.
He could feel claws raking his body, sharp pains as spindle thin spikes were driven into his side. The spikes moved inside him, searching out his vital organs, hungry, probing. As he was pulled down by the weight of the shadows, he felt his life begin to slip away. The room was growing dark, the light being sucked into the shadows. He was aware of Lassiter laughing obscenely, triumphant, victorious.
His neck was wrenched one way then the other. Hard blows smashed into his chest and he felt ribs crack.
And then the elevator doors opened, and Adam Black was back in the room, running, throwing himself at Lassiter. The two men tumbled backward, crashing onto the balcony. For a moment it seemed like they would stay propped together against the metal railings. Then there was a shout like a pistol shot, and they tumbled, Lassiter wrapped in Adam’s embrace, out into the night and down to the cold hard ground below.
As he lay there, unable to move, Carter felt the weight of the shadows lift from his body as they slithered away. And then Frankie’s face swam into focus. “Shh. Don’t move. I’ve called for an ambulance.”
“Too late,” he said. “Much too late.”
And darkness crashed in to claim him.
Chapter Two
Clerkenwell, London, England
They’d found him again.
Daniel Milton’s senses were rattling. He couldn’t see his pursuers yet, or even hear them, but he knew they were there. He could feel them close by and knew they were in the derelict office block that had been his home for the past two weeks. Somewhere beneath him, they were moving stealthily through the abandoned lower floors; maybe a few were even now climbing the stone stairs to reach his sanctuary.
Earlier he had broken cover, traveling up to the West End, knowing it was a risk but a necessary one. His meeting with Simon Crozier of Department 18 was important, vital. Thankfully the man had taken him seriously. Crozier even offered to feed him at his club. The gnawing hunger pains in his stomach made the offer too tempting to turn down, but it was a mistake. The good food and wine made him drowsy and sluggish and dulled his instincts, which allowed them to get close without him sensing them.
And now they were here.
He slipped out of the sleeping bag, shucking it off like a bug emerging from a larval sac, picked up the thin, needlepointed knife, and hefted it in his hand. The weapon was a constant companion now, and he was never more than an arm’s length away from it. He slipped it into his belt and crept silently to the door, opening it a crack and listening.
For a long moment there was nothing, a pregnant silence broken only by the sound of the engine of a passing car.
A creak.
A floorboard being stepped on
.
Two, three floors down.
Even closer than he’d anticipated.
He looked back into the room. The scruffy green rucksack lay against the wall. It contained a few of his possessions, but nothing he couldn’t leave behind. He slept fully clothed these days—a habit since the last nocturnal attack—and everything important to him, credit cards, cell phone, money, was stashed in the numerous pockets of his combats. He was ready to run, to flee at a second’s notice.
Another creak. Closer this time.
He edged out into the corridor, his eyes accustomed to the darkness, but his vision was nowhere near as good as theirs in this gloom. This was like daylight to them. They could see as well as cats in the dark, so they had him at a disadvantage. The only thing on his side was his knowledge of the building and, after a fortnight using this as his refuge, the building was now very familiar to him, as familiar as an old friend. He’d started to feel safe here, and that was another mistake. Safety equaled complacency, and that was something he couldn’t afford anymore.
He crossed the corridor to the stairwell and pulled back the door, slipping through to the concrete stairs and climbing them silently. There were four floors above him and above them the roof, flat concrete with a steel fire escape reaching all the way down to Clerkenwell Road, and a spectacular view of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A few streets away was the traditional meat market of London, Smithfield’s, open day and night. Watching butchers in blood-soaked aprons drinking pints of Guinness in the early hours of the morning was a surreal sight.
He could hear noises below him on the stairs. They were climbing and were only two floors down. He had to move quickly.
As he turned the corner at the top of the next flight, someone cannoned into him. A man, six three, six four, two hundred and forty pounds. A big man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, biceps and pectorals straining at the thin cotton.
Stupid!
He’d come down from the roof. Daniel had been so preoccupied with the pursuers below it hadn’t occurred to him they might try an attack from above.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
The big man seemed as surprised as Daniel and rocked back on his feet, mouth working but unable to find the appropriate words. It was only when recognition registered in his eyes that his hand came up holding a gun and he called out. “He’s here. I’ve got him!”
That’s what you bloody think, Daniel thought, pulling the knife from his belt and stabbing the man through the eye in one fluid movement. The eyeball popped like a ripe grape, blood and a jellylike fluid pouring from it.
The gun cracked as a muscle spasm jerked the man’s finger, but the bullet whistled past Daniel’s shoulder and embedded in the wall behind him. The man dropped the gun and staggered backward, his hands to his face, a wailing cry following the explosion of the gunshot. He was already starting to change, to revert; the skin thickening, becoming scaly, the fingers stretching, thinning, the nails tapering to points, the slits in the fingertips opening and closing, tiny mouths searching for food.
As the man crumpled to the floor and started to disintegrate, Daniel heard more footsteps below him and still more coming down the stairs from the upper floor.
A pincer movement.
The phrase floated through his mind, and he smiled grimly. They’d outflanked him with almost military precision. There was only one way out now, only one escape. He retraced his steps and went back to the corridor. Halfway along was an elevator shaft gaping open, the brass concertina gates long gone, stolen for their scrap value. Steel cables hung from the machinery above, black with grease and dirt. Below, and a long way down, he could see the roof of the elevator car stuck between floors.
The doors at the stairwell end of the corridor opened, and suddenly the corridor was filled with bodies; men and women advanced on him. There was nothing special about them. They could have been a bunch of people lifted from any busy shopping street and transplanted here. They ranged in age from their twenties to their sixties. One of the men was wearing a smart pinstriped suit, another a leather jacket and oil-stained jeans, the long hair and beard suggesting that he’d left his Harley Davidson chopper out on the street below. A woman in a tweed suit, her gray hair permed and lacquered, grinned at him malevolently, while a younger woman wearing a skimpy black skirt and cream blouse fluttered her eyelashes at him in a parody of seduction. A few of the other faces were contorted with rage, angry that he’d evaded them for so long. A few were smiling in triumph that they had finally cornered him, had him trapped.
They all looked hungry.
He counted. Twelve of them. He could take two easily, three at a push, but the others would be on him before he could eliminate any more.
The corridor was eerily silent as they advanced on him. No one spoke. The only sounds were the shuffling of their feet, and the sibilant sounds of skin and bone stretching as their fingers elongated, fingernails lengthened into deadly points.
They wouldn’t take him. He’d promised himself that a long time ago. They wouldn’t have the satisfaction of feeding from him, or worse still, making him as they were.
He grinned, threw a salute, and stepped backward into the empty elevator shaft.
Chapter Three
Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
Krakow, Poland
In a room at the Prince Albert Hotel, situated in the center of Krakow, Jason Pike gave a small gasp and sat bolt upright in bed. The young woman next to him sighed softly and rolled over onto her side, but she didn’t wake. He glanced down at her, watching her long brown hair slip like silk over her shoulders. Anna? Was that her name? He couldn’t remember now. He tried to concentrate, dismissing her from his mind and focusing on the wave of despair that had woken him.
Daniel.
Daniel Milton was in trouble.
As he opened up his mind, a jumble of images flashed across his consciousness.
Gray-painted walls. Long, empty corridors. A deep, dark pit. Falling. Faces staring down at him. Evil faces grinning.
Them.
He picked up his cell phone from the bedside table and punched in Milton’s number. Even as he waited for the phone connection, the images in his mind started to fade, evaporating like a splash of water on a hot plate. He focused more deeply, grinding his teeth, trying to hold on to the images, trying to get a fix on Milton’s location.
The girl beside him murmured again, and that small distraction was enough to blow the images away. He swore under his breath, threw back the covers, and pressed the phone closer to his ear, listening to the cell ringing at the other end of the line.
No answer.
Still holding the phone to his ear he padded through to the en suite to relieve himself. Finally he switched the phone off. Daniel wasn’t answering or, more probably, couldn’t answer.
There was little Pike could do for him now. Daniel Milton was several hundred miles away in England. Here in Poland, Pike had important work to do and couldn’t afford to bail out and leave the country. Besides, it was probably too late to do anything to help his friend. It seemed likely that they had finally tracked him down, as they had with others before him. Pike hadn’t been in England then either; though he had gone back to attend most of the funerals.
He laid the phone on the marble surrounding the sink and washed his hands, cupping the water and splashing it over his face. He could see the bedroom reflected in mirror above the sink; could see Anna, or whatever her name was, still sleeping peacefully.
There were four small wounds in the ivory skin of her back where his fingers had penetrated her. They would heal in a matter of days and leave no scars. He had taken from her only what he needed—just enough to sustain him for a week or so. When she eventually woke, sh
e would feel slightly under the weather and, for two days, three at most, think she was coming down with the flu. And then it would pass and she would be well again with no aftereffects. Unlike Holly and his kind, Pike never killed when he took what he needed.
She’d felt no pain as his fingers burrowed into her, but then the digits had tapered to stiletto-like points, so the entry wounds were small. The other reason she’d felt no pain was the posthypnotic suggestion he’d planted in her mind, and in a few hours she would have forgotten she’d ever met him—another suggestion.
He finally looked at his face and hated what he saw there.
He hadn’t been born like this. He’d been created, turned into a freak by one of the many freaks he’d met in his fifty-eight years.
He showered quickly, threw on some clothes, and went down to the lobby to get a coffee, irritated when he found the restaurant closed. He checked his watch. 3:20 am. Hell! What did he expect?
He walked out into the night and for the next two hours pounded the streets of Krakow, trying to clear his head and get his thoughts into some kind of order.
Slawkowska, Florianska, Grodzka, most of the streets in the old part of the city. The red stone buildings, many with arched windows, three or four stories above them, with intricate carvings on the roofs.
For centuries Krakow was the capital of Poland, the seat of kings, attracting scholars and artists from all over the world. Their legacy shaped much of the past that can be seen today. The renaissance Royal Castle at Wawel, the gothic St. Mary’s Basilica, the historical trade pavilions of the Cloth Hall, the former separate Jewish city of Kazimierz.
Krakow connects Polish tradition with modernity.
Pike’s thoughts were of a different tradition. A violent past that still existed today.
A past and a violence he was determined to stop.
Chapter Four
Kings College Hospital, London, England
