City Of The Damned: Expanded Edition

by Stephen Knight

  Acheson nodded. Claudia stepped away from him, and in so doing she shot a quick glance toward Chiho. Chiho didn’t look away, but from the sudden set in Claudia’s jaw, Acheson surmised that Chiho’s emotions were just below the surface. For Claudia, it was probably like she was being showered with them.

  Let’s save this for another time, ladies… when we can all try and make some amends.

  “Hara, check out the pool area with Nacho. Nach, your dogs here yet?”

  “Just arrived,” Nacho said.

  “Then walk the grounds, see what you can find. Actually, let’s get everyone out of here and let Claud do some work.”

  “You all heard the man!” Cecil shouted. “Let’s shake a leg an get outta here.”

  The rest of the assemblage began to break up. Nacho headed for the front door. Chiho looked back at Acheson and Claudia, and after a moment she followed Nacho.

  Acheson turned to Claudia. “You need me to step away also?”

  “If I can’t do it with you here, I’ll tell you.” She looked around. “Where’s Jules?”

  “With Rick. Taking Sharon to the Plant.”

  Claudia’s hard expression softened. “I’m sorry, Mark.”

  “Thanks, but let’s get on with this.”

  Claudia nodded again. “Yes, let’s.”

  ***

  The Plant was a warehouse in Alhambra, not far from the I-10 and the Pacific rail line. In the center of the structure stood a large tank of laminated Plexiglas that it could deflect .50 caliber machinegun rounds fired at close range. Inside the tank was a surgical area, complete with an operating theater and a recovery area. It was an elaborate arrangement, complete with its own secured ventilation, plumbing, and secondary power. The perfect isolation ward.

  Or a prison cell, Kerr mused to himself as he strode past it. Several of his technicians were inside the center, making last minute preparations.

  The Plant also had its own loading dock, which was hardly a surprise, given that it had originally been a warehouse. The security guard manning the entrance opened the dock door, and the heavy gate rolled up on its ceiling rails. A moment later, Rick’s pickup truck pulled in, and the guard closed the door behind it. Kerr hurried to the truck as Rick and Julia climbed out.

  “She’s in back,” Julia said, opening the Ram’s rear door.

  Kerr waved to the two medics standing by with a gurney. They joined Julia and carefully removed the still figure from the crew cab’s rear bench seat. She had been wrapped in a blanket, Kerr realized, not a body bag. While he watched the medics remove the blanket and strap Sharon to the gurney, he considered the virus that was replicating inside her body. Each beat of her heart propelled thousands of the malignant particles to every organ, and eventually, every cell.

  Julia had said something about a blood transfusion. He turned to her and nodded as comfortingly as he could.

  “We’ll take care of that,” he told her as the medics finally got the gurney going, speeding it along toward the containment center. “We have full stocks of her type.”

  “Will you need us?” Julia asked. “I don’t want to appear callous, but…”

  “No, we have it in hand. Mark needs you both at the house. We’ll take it from here, and someone will keep you updated.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” Kerr said. “But time is of the essence, so I really need to go now. I’m sorry.”

  Julia nodded. “Understood. Do what you can.”

  With that, Kerr spun on his heel and hurried after his patient. Or was it subject? In the heat of the moment, even he couldn’t decide.

  ***

  Acheson grabbed Jerry Licht, a sandy-haired man with a hooked nose and a penchant for wearing his striped polo shirts untucked to try and mask his expanding midsection, and waved him toward the kitchen.

  “Jerry, grab your camera. Claud’s going to try and dance.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Acheson led Claudia down the hall toward the kitchen. Her face was now blank, mask-like. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that she was uncomfortable with whatever psychic residue still lingered in the kitchen. Hell, it bothered him, and he was about as psychic as a rock.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yes. Let’s get it over with.”

  “Okay. The kitchen is where we found Sharon and the baby. The others were—”

  “Out here, in the hallway,” Claudia finished. Her voice was suddenly soft, tranquil. Her dark brown eyes hardly matched her voice, however. Acheson fancied them gateways to a terror he didn’t want to know anything about. “They went down without much of a fight. The woman was first. I think she invited them in. She didn’t know, couldn’t know, but they had her once she opened the door…”

  “Licht!” Acheson called out.

  “Here.” Licht appeared at the end of the hallway, his digital camcorder switched on.

  “The man was tougher to overcome,” Claudia continued. “He knew something was wrong, and they took the baby from him. Even through their influence, he knew it was wrong, and he tried to fight. That’s when they let the lesser ones feed.”

  Claudia squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw. After a pause, she pressed on. “They got an artery on the man and fought over him, like animals. The blood hit the ceiling.”

  Acheson looked up and saw a dark fanning of droplets on the ceiling almost directly overhead. He hadn’t noticed it before.

  “The masters controlled them before it got too far out of hand,” Claudia continued, her eyes still shut. “They took the baby…”

  Claudia fell silent. She trembled, eyes closed.

  “Where did they go, Claudia?” Acheson asked.

  Claudia opened her eyes and slowly turned her head until she was looking into the kitchen.

  “In there,” she whispered.

  “Can you go in there? Can you continue?”

  Claudia looked around the hallway, at Acheson, at Licht and his camera, at Cecil, who stood by the front door watching them with frank concern. Claudia reminded Acheson of a trapped animal, seeking to evade a powerful predator.

  “Claudia,” he said again.

  “Yes, I can go in there.” Claudia’s voice was a pale, wispy thing. “But I don’t want to.”

  Nevertheless, she took one faltering step toward the kitchen, followed by another, and another, until she stood at the threshold. She sighed, and pushed past it as if it were a physical thing. Acheson followed, with Licht close behind.

  “She waited for Sharon here,” Claudia said as she lurched toward the center of the kitchen. “Not a master. She’s young, and she knows Sharon, she knows Sharon can’t let anything happen to the baby…”

  “She knows Sharon?” Acheson asked.

  “She knows Sharon,” Claudia repeated.

  “Claudia, can you tell us who she is?”

  Claudia turned a slow circle, as if examining the kitchen. But her gaze was firmly locked on the past now, and she was completely oblivious all else. Claudia rotated once, then twice. Each time her face turned toward Acheson, he saw her eyes darting this way and that, wild and unfocused.

  “Helena,” she said. “Helena Rube…”

  My God, Acheson thought as Claudia’s voice trailed off.

  “Claudia.” Acheson had to stop and clear his suddenly dry throat. “Is the name of the vamp Helena Rubenstein?”

  “That’s the name,” Claudia whispered. “She knew she could lure Sharon into the house. With the baby.”

  “Did Helena attack Sharon?”

  Claudia appeared to think about it, reaching out with her mind, fearfully evaluating visions only she could see. What she saw seemed to revolt her. Her respiration went off the scale, as if she had just finished running a marathon.

  “No,” she gasped. Tears began to stream from her eyes.

  “Then who attacked Sharon?”

  Claudia began to weep, having to fight for each breath.

  “Mark.” L
icht’s voice was alarmed. “We’ve got to bring her out of here—”

  “Not yet! Claudia, who attacked Sharon?”

  Claudia sobbed. Mucus trickled from one of her nostrils, tracing along the contour of her upper lip. She sucked in one ragged breath, wheezing and trembling.

  “It was the man in black. It was Osric.”

  Consciousness fled from her then, and Claudia Nero collapsed into a heap on the floor before Acheson could catch her.

  7

  It was almost eleven o’clock in the morning before they finished with the house. After the first pass at evidence collection, Acheson had allowed the two teams to leave and gather their vehicles and get some breakfast. Many of those present hadn’t had dinner the night before, and through the melancholy malaise that had descended upon him like a heavy cloak, he realized that his people needed a break. Though the desire to press on was intense, he knew he couldn’t push them too hard. Not yet.

  “You wanna eat, man?” Cecil asked after he had broken down the SAW and placed it in a black nylon transport bag.

  “I’ll stay here. You guys go on ahead.” Acheson turned away from the hulking black man and walked into the living room. He sat heavily on the long leather couch and stared through the trendy glass-topped table at the throw rug. He recalled vividly when he and Sharon had bought it, at a store in Orange County. It had been a beautiful southern California day, much like the one that was forming now. A day that found his conscience free of cast shadows.

  My God. What the hell am I going to do?

  There was no answer forthcoming, of course. He merely sat and stared, listening to the sounds of his team preparing to depart. There was no witty repartee; no gallows humor, no jokes, not even much conversation. It was all business.

  Finally, there was a stirring in the entranceway. Chiho walked to the couch, her feet making almost no noise on the shining hardwood floor. When they alighted on the throw rug, her footfalls fell completely silent.

  “Mark.” Chiho lowered herself to the couch beside him. “Mark… I’m so sorry.”

  “I was careless,” he said. “It’s my fault. I must’ve been made, and the vamp’s bloodhound followed me here. My own fucking fault.”

  Chiho touched his arm. “We’re only human. And it could have been Sharon who was scouted. Making this your fault is… pointless.” When he said nothing, she added, “Cecil says you’re going to stay here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll stay with you.”

  “No,” Acheson said immediately.

  Chiho reached out and cupped his chin in one of her small hands. Gently, she turned his head and looked into his eyes.

  “I don’t think you should stay here alone,” she said. “Now is not the time for you to retreat.”

  “I’ll be fine, Chiho. I’m not in the mood to run out for a sit-down breakfast. I just want to be alone. I need to sit and try to get a handle on things.”

  Chiho dropped her hand from his face but held his gaze. Acheson had to look away after a moment.

  “I don’t blame you if you hate me right now,” she said.

  “I don’t hate you. But things are very… confusing right now. You’re part of the reason, but it mostly has to do with me not being able to keep my prick in my pants.”

  Chiho said nothing.

  “You go on,” he told her after a time, his voice as hollow as his heart. “I’ll be fine. Nothing’s going to come after me during daylight.”

  Chiho persisted. “You’re sure?”

  The irritation he felt finally made its way into his voice. “I’ll be fine. Now go.”

  Chiho looked at him sadly for a moment longer, then rose. “As you wish, Mark.”

  Acheson was left alone in the house. For a time, he simply sat and listened to the wind rushing through the canyons. It was an odd thing. He had grown so accustomed to his lifestyle that he’d become almost normalized by it, by the routines he stuck to. It had been a subtle but insidious thing. His discipline had eroded. He had even allowed his dissatisfaction with his relationship to lead him to behave like “other men”—the philanderers he so looked down on. Acheson was surprised at how shallow he had become.

  After a time, he got up and wandered through the house again, this time seeing everything in stark detail, courtesy of the morning sun. The blood. The obvious signs of struggle, such as the shattered microwave in the kitchen and the bullet hole in one of the cabinets. Most of the physical evidence had already been removed under the cover of darkness, including the bodies.

  He found himself out by the pool, standing in the bright sunlight, the only true ally he had at the moment. Usually, after a night of dealing with the Undead, he welcomed daylight like a lover’s kiss. Today, he felt a chill that wouldn’t fade, as if his blood was refrigerated. The cold cut to his very core, and he wondered if it would be this way for the rest of his life.

  His cell phone rang. It was Kerr. Acheson answered it with great trepidation.

  “Acheson.”

  “Mark, she’s conscious.”

  ***

  It was still rush hour in the City of Angels, and if there was one thing insurmountable in this world, it was traffic. Acheson had no choice but to creep along with the rest of the pack. No lane was a better choice than the one he was already in, and the surface streets would be just as clogged. This was how life was led in Los Angeles, and no amount of frustration on his part could change that. He passed the time by ensuring that the evidence samples had been transported to the Plant for analysis. All was going as it should. Even though the victim was one of their own, the team wasn’t about to fall down on the job. They were, despite their own personal shortcomings, the most professional group of individuals he had ever known.

  Kerr met him in the reception area, still clad in his white lab coat. There were dark circles under his eyes. Clearly the work had taken a toll on the portly medical researcher. Judging from the expression of concern that flashed across Kerr’s face, Acheson presumed he looked much, much worse.

  “How are you holding up, Mark?” It was an unusual question, justified only by the circumstances. For all his technical expertise, Kerr was not the warmest of personalities, and the nuances behind such things as interpersonal relationships were fairly beyond him. That he had even made the attempt to bridge that capability gap was something of a minor event.

  Still, Acheson ignored the question. “What’s her status?”

  “Let’s talk about that,” Kerr said. He led Acheson to his office, a neat, sterile environment that reflected Kerr’s most basic personality. Acheson sat in one of the institutional, no-frills chairs that faced Kerr’s equally institutional, no-frills desk. Nothing on the desktop indicated Kerr might have a personal life beyond his work.

  “What’s the story, doctor? You said she was conscious—”

  Kerr held up a hand as he eased himself into his chair. It creaked beneath his bulk. “I know you’re anxious to see her, but we need to discuss some things first, if you don’t mind.”

  The truth of the matter was, Acheson really didn’t mind the delay. He had come to the Plant on autopilot, without having any idea what to say to Sharon. Sorry honey, I was fucking Chiho Hara while you were getting fanged.

  “Go on,” he said, trying to wrestle his guilt into submission for the moment.

  Kerr nodded and flipped open a metal clipboard on top of the files stacked neatly on one side of his desk. He scanned the first page for a moment before beginning.

  “When she was brought it, Sharon’s core body temperature had dropped to 96 degrees. Respiration was 20 breaths per minute, with a correspondingly low blood pressure. She was unresponsive to all stimuli, and had a wound on—”

  “I know all of this, doctor. I treated her in the field.”

  “Of course. At any rate, within five minutes of securing her in the isolation chamber, we administered the retroviral medication we’ve been working on. Blood samples drawn before and after the administration prove
she is infected with the RMA virus, but I can tell you the medication seems to be working. After a second dosage, the virus replication slowed considerably. And notably, it appears Sharon’s own antibodies are starting to rally against the infection.”

  “Really.” Acheson was a little dumbfounded. “Isn’t that unusual?”

  “Perhaps not. The medication obviously slowed the viral replication enough for Sharon’s body to catch up and start doing some work of its own. As you know, the host body does try to fight the virus, but cells are infected at such a rate the human body’s natural defenses can’t contain it, much less defeat it. This is all extremely premature, but the benefit of a healthy host reaction is something that could tip the scales in our favor. However…”

  Kerr pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair. It creaked again in protest. He toyed with a pen for a moment before looking at Acheson.

  “The process has only been slowed, Mark. It hasn’t been arrested, nor has it been defeated. We’ll continue with the regimen, administered through an IV so there’s a constant supply in her bloodstream, but… she’s still very likely to Turn.”

  Acheson absorbed this for a moment, turning it over in his head. He looked away from Kerr and sighed, rubbing his eyes.

  “When will it happen?”

  “I can’t be positive—”

  “I know that, doctor!” Acheson snapped. “Give me your best damned guess. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  “Ten days at the most,” Kerr replied. “Though seven days seems more reasonable. And I would prepare you for that window to grow even smaller.”

  Acheson squeezed shut his eyes. Seven to ten days, he thought. A week. One week to try and… and what? Redeem myself?

  “We’ll keep trying, of course,” Kerr added hastily. “We’re going to be very aggressive about it. We have the virus contained in a human host, and we’ll come up with procedures on the fly to try and stop it in its tracks—”

  Acheson rose to his feet. “I know you and your staff will do your best. You have free reign to do whatever you feel is necessary. Just don’t treat her like… like a lab animal. She couldn’t take that.”

  “Of course not,” Kerr said. “She’s a brave, courageous, smart woman, Mark, and I intend to do my damnedest to help her. Even…” Kerr looked down at his desk, suddenly groping for words. “Even if it only means minimizing her suffering.”