"No discharge." The medic sat back with a huff. "No decomposition coming out of his nose, no cataracts forming over the eyes, no rotting of the teeth. Other than a relatively shallow stab wound to his side and a slight burn on his chest, I can't find anything."
"Well," I said before blowing out the oil-powered flame at the end of my light. "If you plan to examine any more of his orifices you need to get yourself another assistant."
"No need. I can tell you he's not a zombie," the medic said.
"I told you that twenty minutes ago." Marlowe cast a smug smile at me.
The urge to stick my tongue out at him almost overwhelmed me. Only my soldier's discipline came to my rescue.
"What do you mean he's not a zombie? Look at him," Riley shouted.
"I am," the medic shouted back. "If Hoskins was a zombie he'd be eating our brains for breakfast."
"Then what is he? What happened to him?" Riley asked.
"I don't know," the medic replied.
We turned to Marlowe in concert.
He shrugged, shaking his head as if to say, "don't look at me."
"What do you know," I demanded of the medic.
"He's in a catatonic state of unknown origin," the medic said.
"Brilliant," I groused. "I knew that without any medical training."
Marlowe straightened and pulled a wooden chair from the corner of the room. "Perhaps if Sergeant Riley would tell us what happened we could work out the cause of Hoskins' condition." Placing the chair back down, Marlowe gave the sergeant a slight push and Riley plopped onto the seat.
"I'm not sure." Riley scrubbed at his face with his hand. "Everything happened so fast."
"Start with your plan," I suggested.
Riley nodded. "We had intel about the crown's plan to transport human prisoners to a water-front warehouse in the Southwark area. We were to set up an intercept point just a kilometer from the warehouse. We planned to block both sides of a bridge and trap them between us."
"A sound plan," Marlowe observed.
"It would have been if they hadn't been waiting for us," Riley said. "By splitting our ranks into two, we were overwhelmed easily."
"Once they attacked you, what happened?" I asked.
Riley shook his head with increasing agitation. "I don't know. All I remember is the ghouls swarming us."
"Calm down," I put a hand on Riley's shoulder.
Riley shrugged off my hand, his tone hysterical. "The ghoul guard didn't behave as they usually do. No one was biting or tearing our people apart. They just 'took' them."
"How?" Marlowe asked.
"I don't know!" Riley's scream reverberated against the porcelain tile. "Our people seemed to give up after one touch."
Riley's babbling was getting us nowhere. Although I didn't like the idea, I knew what I had to do.
"Were you injured?" As if to inspect a wound, I touched the sticky splotches on the side of his jacket.
My eyesight faded.
"No. That's Hoskins' blood..."
The vision took hold and Riley's words faded as if he'd departed on a fast-moving train. Or perhaps I was the one on the train because all at once my consciousness had left the clinic. I found myself dropped in the middle of a bridge with a battle waging on either side of me, surrounded by the sounds of screaming, the motion of running, the smell of sweat, gunfire and blood. I was wrapped in the memories contained in the blood that would allow me to relive the time when Hoskins received his injury.
A ghoul stabbed me—the Hoskins me—in the side and I staggered. The ghoul grinned, showing me his jagged teeth as he brought up a hand toward my chest. I felt myself as Hoskins, kick at the ghoul. The blow sent him backwards and into position for a shot at his head with our gun. One silver bullet struck the ghoul between the eyes and gooey black ghoul brain matter exploded from his skull as he went down.
Hoskin's satisfaction at the ghoul's demise was short-lived as he glanced down and I saw the wound in his side. When he looked up again there were at least ten other ghouls charging toward us. The fear and panic of my host filled me. Like Riley I wouldn't be able to remember anything of use about all this if I didn't relax. So, with deliberation, I forced my emotions to separate from those of the blood. Once I could be an impartial observer, I began to scan.
A figure at my right shoulder brought my progress to an immediate halt. Marlowe. But not a Marlowe engaged in the battle. Instead. it was a Marlowe who, like me, was an observer.
"What are you doing in my vision?" I asked in confusion.
"You wanted me here," he answered, giving one of his now familiar smug smiles.
"I did not."
"You need not be ashamed of your attraction to me," he said.
"My what?" My outrage blinded me to anything around me. "You are so full of yourself, even when you're just in my head and not really here."
"Since I am not really here, then I am not doing this."
Before, I could move, Marlowe grasped me by the arm, pulled me into an embrace and his mouth covered mine in a kiss. The movement of his soft lips and his body pressed against mine, and the feel of his tall, muscular length against my body, sent tingles fizzing through me as if my blood had turned to seltzer water.
What the Hades? This was not a typical vision. In fact, I'd never before imagined someone else as a companion. And I'd certainly never had physical sensations that were mine and not the host. This kiss was beyond any experience, whether in a vision or in the real world. Unique and powerful physical sensations radiated from my lips through the rest of my body. Exciting, but also scary.
Squirming, I pulled away from him. Or he allowed me to pull away. With defiance I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
"You wanker—"
"Shhh." Marlowe stilled my lips with the tip of his index finger. "You will miss details of the vision while you argue with me."
As if he hadn't already wasted crucial time in the vision.
Around me—or was it Hoskins—the ghouls were on our people. And just as Riley had reported, the individual contests were brief. Almost at once our fighters went slack jawed and glassy-eyed before being led away. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the charging ghouls closing in and beyond them in the distance was the warehouse Riley had spoken about.
Inside the warehouse, lightning-like flashes illuminated its windows intermittently.
"How—" My question was cut short by the burning in my chest. The pain in my heart —or rather Hoskins heart —was so intense I wouldn't have been surprised to see its liquefied remains pouring from my nose. While my attention had been on the lightning in the warehouse, a ghoul had caught Hoskins and pressed a poker hot crystal to his chest.
As the ghoul who'd caught Hoskins mumbled his incantation, I felt my own being, the essence of me—me not just Hoskins—begin seeping out of my body.
"Amy." Marlowe shook me. "You must separate from Hoskins."
I heard him, but I couldn't do as he commanded.
"Now. You must—" Marlowe slapped me.
The sting of his palm on my cheek brought me to myself...literally. My essence snapped back.
After a few seconds I was able to speak. "What was that? What did he do to my chest?"
"I'm not certain...I'd heard of an experiment but..." Marlowe muttered. "If this is a catcher crystal then it may make sense."
Not to me, it didn't.
"So you know why there's lightning inside that warehouse?" I asked.
"I may, but we must enter so I can be more certain."
"Hoskin's blood powered this vision," I explained. "Since he didn't go into the warehouse, I can't take us in."
"I can," Marlowe said as he grasped my hand.
From the instant he touched me it was as if we flew. More accurately we dematerialized. All the particles within me scattered before flying through the air like dust wafting on a breeze. The strange sensation of being separated into millions of little pieces became even stranger as those particles passed thr
ough the microscopic pores and cracks of the warehouse building. Once inside, my body reconstituted itself to hover like a hummingbird fairy next to Marlowe, near the ceiling. My fingers were twined with Marlowe's and I would have pulled away except for fear that without him, I'd plunge to my death against the floor twenty meters down.
As I took in what was happening beneath our hovering bodies, I saw workers in blue dungarees bustling about. Directly under my feet were stacks of grassy turf squares. These stacks took up at least half of the building's floor space. Was this storage for the prince's landscapers?
To one side were a number of mammoth wooden tripod structures. Worker ghouls buzzed around one tripod, which stood on top of a cart. The workers applied the patches of grass around each of the three legs before affixing them with mud. From the size of the ladder one worker used to get to the top, I estimated the tripod must be at least double the height of an average man. The result was an extremely ugly topiary.
Marlowe pointed and my gaze followed his direction to one end of the building where a ghoul soldier—one of the Prince Leopold's guards garbed in a proud red coat and all—led a young human male in through a side entrance. I'm sure I'd met, lived and fought side-by-side with this young man in our section of the Resistance. He was a private, but I couldn't recall his name.
More than ever, I was glad I'd adopted a cold barrier, a shield, between my fellow soldiers and me. Nothing could help this man who was now in the same catatonic state as Hoskins. Certainly I, in a non-corporeal state, could do nothing as he was placed in a caged holding area with what looked like ten more of our people. This was all just a memory of something that had happened over an hour ago.
Bitter bile filled my throat. I suspected the young man, along with the other wretched men and women in this holding pen, would soon be part of Prince Leopold's rumored new feedlot system of food production. Food production for vampires, that is. But what else was being done to them?
The ghoul soldier who'd brought in the Resistance fighter then proceeded up the line to a worker ghoul. The soldier handed the worker a crystal and he placed it on a tray and covered it with a cloth. The worker then laid the tray on a table where another worker ghoul sat. The seated ghoul peered through a jeweler's loupe he wore mounted on a headband. After a few seconds, he lifted the crystal he'd been tinkering with. He placed the crystal—which now hung from a chain necklace—in a box. Before the lid closed, I saw the crystal throbbing with a red blazing light.
I glanced at Marlowe about to ask him whether he'd seen the crystal, but my question died at his concentrated stare in the opposite direction.
"Gethin." He growled the name of the prince's wizard.
Following Marlowe's hate-filled gaze took me to a figure. From this distance I couldn't make out the features but I did see the figure wore a square, red fez hat with a long black tassel sprouting from its center. The fez was reportedly the wizard's signature look. I'd never seen the infamous Gethin myself and wondered how it was that Marlowe recognized him. Perhaps, like me, he was just going by the hat, but I suspected not.
The fez-wearing figure stood in front of a finished topiary on its cart. Gethin motioned to a worker ghoul. The ghoul jumped forward and held out a box. Gethin opened it and drew out a crystal. The red throbbing necklace variety. The wizard nodded as if satisfied and handed it back. The worker proceeded to climb a ladder where he fastened the necklace around the topiary, about a head's length from the top. After the worker climbed down, he removed the ladder and backed away.
Gethin took a step and spread his arms open wide. "A capite ad calcem."
"From head to heel," Marlowe muttered in translation.
"Vivat!"
Even I had enough knowledge of Latin to translate that word as something to do with life.
At Gethin's command, lightning flashed from the crystal. Involuntarily, I squinted against the blinding effect. Blinking, I attempted to refocus my eyes. Finally, my vision cleared and I saw the thing I'd thought of as a topiary caught in a series of convulsions. Amazement turned to horror as I saw the top of the thing bubble, burble and undulate to form a head with broad, rough features. The convulsions then spread to two legs of the tripod, which transformed into low hanging arms with giant knuckle dragging hands. The convulsions rippled through the remainder of the thing turning it to torso and leg. Finally, after shudders and pulls, the one massive leg split into two and the creature lurched ahead. The now animate thing took one step and then another. The thing continued its unsteady gate so reminiscent of a baby's first steps.
"What the hell is that?" I asked, not expecting an answer.
"A golem," Marlowe answered. "An earthen monster brought to life. A kind of automaton."
Automaton.
"But there are no cables or pulleys. No steam power," I said, remembering the history I'd read of the humanoid structure built by Di Vinci during the Renaissance and the replicated bird fashioned by the ancient Greek, Archytas."
"No," Marlowe answered. "These automatons are powered supernaturally, it seems."
A ghoul worker walked toward Gethin carrying another necklace box just ahead of three other workers pulling a cart with a topiary. The cart pullers yelled and motioned at the necklace box carrier to get out of their way. The necklace box carrier, glancing behind himself, scurried forward and into the path of the baby golem. Gethin saw the coming calamity before I did.
"Stop," he yelled, throwing a hand toward the necklace box carrier.
The ghoul had just enough time to shoot a wide-eyed look of panic at the baby golem just before the thing knocked him down with one swinging tree trunk wide arm. The ghoul rolled, trying to escape but an elephantine golem foot came down on his head, squashing and breaking it like a pumpkin under the wheels of a carriage. Certainly, the baby golem had had an easier time beheading his ghoul than I'd had earlier today.
Gethin shouted an order to the golem and the thing subsided into a ramrod straight statue pose. A string of obscenities issued from the wizard as he rushed to the ghoul, but I knew there was going to be no bringing this one back.
The death of the ghoul didn't make me cry. In fact, I think I smiled a little. But I soon saw the wizard wasn't concerned with the ghoul worker's welfare. He didn't check for signs of life in the prone form. Gethin proceeded directly to the ghoul's hand and then pried its death grip from the necklace box. Once he had possession, he inspected the outside and a heavy frown creased his brow and lips when he saw the massive dent on one side. After opening the lid, he pulled out the crystal by its chain. As the crystal rose free of the box, a part fell away and crashed to the floor. The remainder, still hanging from the chain, blackened as if it had been in a fire, it no longer throbbed red. Gethin tossed it to the floor harrumphing in disgust.
At the human holding area a scramble drew my attention. The human I'd seen brought into the warehouse just minutes ago had dropped and was lying unmoving on the floor. The remaining humans had no reaction, but a ghoul worker, with agitated jerky movements opened the gate of the pen and dragged the body out.
"Dammit," Gethin screamed. "Be careful. A moment's clumsiness has cost us a crystal and the human stock. Any more mistakes and Prince Leopold will order the execution of you all."
Gethin shouted something I didn't hear to the baby golem and it stepped forward, this time with more certain movements before, pivoting to continue out a side door.
Marlowe tugged at my arm and the two of us scattered again before materializing just outside the building to witness the creature emerge and join a group of his kindred. A ghoul officer barked an order and the creatures formed a line, then another, until they had created a column five wide and seven deep. At another order, the column of creatures began moving in unison, marching away from the building.
The ghoul officer waved an arm. The driver of a flatbed cart, powered by zombified donkeys, pulled forward. The ghoul officer then shouted through the door and into the building, "Bring the stock."
In short order the human prisoners, tethered together by rope, trudged in a single file from the building. Docilely, they followed a ghoul soldier even climbing onto the cart. Once they'd filled the area of the flatbed, the ghoul officer shouted to the driver, "Take them to feedlot C-1."
Gethin strode out from the building. "Wait," he shouted. "Take this one too." At his signal two workers carried out the body of the human who'd died when the crystal was destroyed. They lifted the corpse up onto the edge of the flatbed. As they pushed it, the body nudged the legs of the human cattle and they absently moved to make room.
"Take the corpse to the Tower Bridge on your way," Gethin said. "The soldiers on watch there need feeding and we have this body to dispose of." Gethin said.
"That way there'll be no waste of human meat," the ghoul officer replied with a smirk and a happy nod.
"Yes. The prince will be pleased," Gethin said with a disgusted curl to his lip.
"We must go back to the clinic," Marlowe said.
"I have no idea how to get out of here. We aren't in my vision any longer."
A sudden heat flared in the palm of the hand Marlowe gripped as if I'd used it to extinguish a candle.
With a hiss I pulled my hand, my real hand, from Riley's side. I came back to myself inside the clinic. Out of breath and panting as if I'd just run here from the warehouse, I had to blink hard several times to get the room into focus.
"What's the matter?" Riley asked.
"Nothing." I stepped away and plunged my hands into the basin next to the medic. The water pinked as I twisted and laved at my skin in the coolness "The blood was sticky, that's all."
"I didn't realize you had such a blood phobia," Riley joked and the medic chuckled.
"Mind your own affairs, Sergeant," I barked. "Or next time I might just let you bleed to death."
Resistance (Dark Realm Series) Page 5
