“That was amazing,” I said.
Vincent smiled. Victoria gave me a stern ‘don’t encourage him’ look. I got the feeling that this was a game the two of them often played, her scolding him and him winding her up. Despite Victoria’s words and Vincent’s dismissal of her, there was an obvious affection between them.
As Vincent’s coughing subsided, the lights in the room flickered and then went out. We were plunged into near darkness, the only light that of the log fire. I jumped up, startled, as lightning flashed outside and rain battered the black windows. The lights going down and the fire brought flashbacks of the night at Section 19. Darkness, flames. Death. Major Wilson’s face.
I shuddered. The contrast of this evening with that one couldn’t have been starker.
“Power cut,” Victoria said, “Nothing to worry about. The backup generator will kick in soon.”
Sure enough, two minutes later the lights came back on. Victoria noticed my nervous expression.
“You needn’t worry. We’re perfectly safe here. Aside from the regular patrols around the estate, including the groundskeepers you saw, the whole place is wired with motion sensors and cameras which would register even the most determined intruder.”
“Right, but what happens to the motion sensors if the power is out?”
Victoria frowned, pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialled. There was no answer. She dialled another number. No answer.
“Dammit,” she muttered, “Someone report!”
One of the doors to the dining room swung open.
Major Wilson, brandishing an automatic rifle and a pistol, entered the room. He was dressed for war and there was murder in his eyes.
“Well now,” he growled, “isn’t this all nice and cosy?”
So much for being perfectly safe, I thought.
Chapter Twenty Seven: The Intruder
Major Wilson pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. Kept hold of his rifle, but placed the pistol on the table. Gave us all his bullet eyed stare, the one that could stop a charging herd of elephants at thirty paces. He was dressed in black, military style. His tactical vest had various utility pockets and a pistol holster. On his right side several ten-inch stakes were strapped to his belt, some metal, some wooden. An assortment of knives in sheaths and guns were dotted around his body, along with a shotgun in a back strap gun holster.
He was kitted out like a human tank.
“I think it’s time we had a little chat, don’t you, Victoria?” he said.
If Victoria was startled by Major Wilson’s sudden appearance, she didn’t show it. She nodded, cool as ice.
“Stewart,” she said in a conversational tone, “You’re looking well.”
“Can’t say the same for your brother there,” Wilson replied, “too much time playing with the dark arts, hey Vinnie?”
Vincent didn’t comment, just stared at Wilson with a half-formed sneer on his lips. While there was clearly no love lost between them, Wilson and Victoria’s relationship was harder to pin down. She was almost behaving as if he was an old friend.
“Would you care for something to eat? I can have the staff bring you up a plate.”
Wilson ignored her and turned to me with a raised eyebrow.
“What brings you here, lad?” he asked.
“An invitation,” I snarked, “You got one?”
Wilson’s moustache did that little twitch-smile of his. Despite my flippancy, I knew how serious this was. There were at least two people in the room who qualified as supernaturals – myself and Alice - perhaps three if you included Vincent. I wasn’t sure where ‘warlock’ fitted in on Section 19’s hit list. Wilson still didn’t know there was anything unusual about me, and he had no reason to suspect Alice of being anything other than a teenage girl. Even so, this could turn deadly at any second.
“I hope you haven’t hurt any of my men and women, Stewart,” Victoria said.
“They’ll live,” Wilson grunted, “Which is more than I can say for my people. Now where are they?”
“Stewart, I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I’m not here to play your little games, Victoria. I know you were behind the attack. I know you’re harbouring the animals that did it.”
Victoria shook her head.
“Stewart, I can assure you that we had nothing to do with the assault on Section 19. The first I heard of it was through Jason here and for what it is worth, I’m truly sorry for your losses. I might violently disagree with Section 19’s policies but my concern is saving people’s lives. There are no supernaturals onsite because I’m a scientist, not suicidal. Yes, I spent some time advocating a capture-not-kill policy when I worked for the section. That doesn’t mean I wanted to create a terrorist group out of them, or whatever it is you imagine I’ve been doing for the last seventeen years.”
There was a moment of doubt in Major Wilson’s eyes. Then his face hardened again and the familiar fanatical look returned.
“You’re lying,” he said, aiming his rifle at Victoria, “Now...”
The next bit happened so fast I almost didn’t see it.
Alice leapt from her chair and launched herself at Major Wilson. She was little more than a blur as she streaked across the table towards him. Her fingernails became talons and her teeth turned into sharpened points. She reached Major Wilson and made a lunge at him.
As fast as she was, Wilson was faster. He grabbed her by the collar and in one smooth action he turned her momentum against her, spinning around and pinning her against the door behind him.
Simultaneously he grabbed one of his metal stakes from his combat jacket and stabbed Alice through the left shoulder so hard that he drove the stake through the door. Alice screamed and tried to reach the stake with her right hand. Wilson slapped her hand away and drove another stake through her right shoulder. She was suspended three inches above the floor, her body convulsing. Blood flecked Alice’s mouth as her legs kicked helplessly against the door behind her. Her eyes rolled in their sockets as she went into shock, her arms dangling uselessly by her side.
“No supernaturals, hm, Victoria?” Wilson said.
He picked up his pistol and fired once in the direction of Vincent, who had begun muttering a spell. The bullet narrowly missed Vincent’s head. A warning shot.
“Stop this at once!” Victoria said, “Stewart, this is entirely unnecessary.”
She was scared now, and so was I. Major Wilson had the upper hand and there was nothing we could do. Wilson threw a bundle of zip tie handcuffs onto the table in front of me.
“Make yourself useful, lad,” he said to me, “cuff the pair of them. Nice and tight. Vincent first.”
I looked at Victoria, unsure what to do. She nodded at me. I didn’t know if she had a plan to get us out of this situation. I got up and tied Vincent’s hands behind his wheelchair, then Victoria’s. Wilson indicated that the three of us should move opposite him, waving his pistol and ignoring the vampire pinned to the door behind him.
“She needs a doctor, right now,” Victoria said, indicating Alice. Her feet had stopped beating against the door and were instead twitching as her head lolled. Blood poured from the two metal stakes in her shoulders down the length of her body.
I gritted my teeth, scared and angry. No – actually this time I was more angry than scared. A lot more angry.
“She doesn’t need a doctor where she’s going,” Major Wilson said, “Now, where are you keeping the rest of them? This is your last chance, Victoria.”
I’d finished tying the Pryces and was standing on the other side of the massive oak table from Major Wilson.
“They’re in a building a few hundred metres from here,” I said, “I can show you.”
Wilson raised an eyebrow in my direction, “Finally picked a side have you, son?”
“Yes,” I said.
Then I threw the table at him.
Chapter Twenty Eight: A Better Man
In the few minutes si
nce Wilson had made his entrance, the fire had coursed through my veins. Anger and fear had been making me stronger by the second, but I knew all of my strength was no match for Wilson’s speed and training.
The only real advantage I had was surprise.
As far as Major Wilson was concerned I was an average teenager. Normally the huge wooden table would have remained rooted to the spot no matter how hard I tried to flip it. In my heightened, powered up state I sent it flying towards Wilson as easily as if I’d thrown a matchbox at him. As fast as he was, he couldn’t dodge a ten-metre long solid wood table. The table smacked into him and he stumbled back into the floor-to-ceiling window behind him.
Without hesitating, knowing this was my only chance, I vaulted over the upturned table, ready to pummel Wilson into the ground for what he’d done. I was still angry with him for the execution back at Section 19. Now he’d possibly killed a girl that I liked and was threatening my new friends.
Wilson was backed against the window which had cracked in a few places. Shock was written all over his face at the sudden attack.
“What?” he shouted. Before he could recover I barged into him shoulder first. Wilson grunted in surprise as we crashed through the second-floor window. I was acting on instinct, moving with a speed and confidence that surprised me. My first goal was to get him away from the others as fast as possible.
My second goal was to beat the living hell out of him.
Wilson lost his grip on the rifle as we went through the glass, the weapon spinning out of his hands. We fell fast and hit the ground below. The rain lashed around us, thunder sounding off in the distance. Wilson roared with pain as we landed and I came down on top of him. He tried to get a swing in as I rolled myself off. More by luck than anything else I managed to get my arm up to block him before his punch landed. Wilson reached for the spare pistol in his tactical vest. I grabbed it from his hand and tossed it aside. Wilson snarled and aimed another blow at me.
I caught his fist in the palm of my hand. Held it immobile.
“What are you?” Wilson spat at me through the driving wind.
I pulled a fist back, rearing up.
“Better than you,” I shouted and laid him out cold with a single punch.
I pulled my blow just enough to knock him out without breaking his neck.
I sat beside the unconscious Major, the rain coming down hard, soaking us both to the skin.
It took me a second to realise there was something wrong with Wilson’s body. Something extra was sticking up out of him, below his chest. As we’d gone through the window, one of the thick wooden bars between the glass panes had broken off and stabbed through his lower torso as he’d hit the ground. Blood was draining out of him, washing away in the rain and running into the mud. I looked at the wound in shock, realised some of Wilson’s blood was on me.
As quickly as the fire had built up in me, it drained out again leaving me shaken and weak. The danger had passed, it was over. I stood up shakily as three of Victoria’s men showed up, running towards us in the dark.
“Sir, are you alright?” one of them asked.
“I...yes. I’m fine.”
Victoria appeared behind me as a man checked for Wilson’s pulse.
“Are you injured?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
I shivered in the cold and the rain. One of the men took off his jacket and put it around me.
“We’d better get you back inside,” Victoria said.
“Wait, I want to know if he’s going to live.”
As much as I might have hated Major Wilson, I didn’t want to have his death on my conscience. He was still a human being. Sure, he might well be a murderous lunatic and maybe I shouldn’t have cared but it mattered to me.
“He’s alive but he’s badly injured,” one of Victoria’s men reported, “If we don’t get him some medical attention, he won’t make it. He might not make it even if he is seen to. That’s a nasty wound.”
Victoria narrowed her eyes.
“Let him bleed out,” she returned, “And then dispose of the body.”
I’d heard Victoria make bad jokes before.
This was not one of those moments.
“What? No, Victoria – you can’t do that! You have to save him.”
“Why on earth would I do that?” Victoria asked, “He broke into my house, threatened us all at gunpoint, nearly killed Alice and shot at my brother and you want me to, what, try to save his life so he can do it all over again?”
When she put it that way, she kind of had a point.
Maybe Victoria was right. Maybe she was right in everything she was saying. That didn’t change the simple fact that I didn’t want to be a murderer, even in self-defence.
There was another side to this. Although my misgivings about Victoria Pryce had been dissipating over the last few hours, I still needed to know that she was on the side of the angels. Both Wilson and Moorecroft had said she might have been behind the attack on Section 19. I’d heard her lie to Major Wilson so convincingly that I’d almost believed it myself. I’d known her less than two weeks and I wanted to trust her, but there were enough doubts circling my mind for me to need proof that she was who she claimed to be.
That she was better than Wilson. That she was all about saving lives not taking them.
As weak and tired as I was, it still mattered to me.
“I know what he’s done, Victoria, but we can’t just let him die. Isn’t that what makes you, what makes us better than him? What was it you said? That you save lives. Your words.”
Victoria gave me an inscrutable look.
“Jason...” she began.
“Save him. Please.”
Chapter Twenty Nine: Worse than Death
Victoria pursed her lips. I couldn’t tell if her expression was one of approval or disapproval.
“We don’t have the right facilities here,” she said, “And we can’t take him to a hospital. He’ll be dead by the time we get him there.”
“I thought you were a doctor.”
“Yes, Jason, a doctor of genetic sciences and theoretical physics. Not exactly the type of doctor Stewart needs right now. But I can do my best.”
She snapped her fingers at two of the men, “Take him to the medical bay on the lower level. We’re not staffed to handle this kind of emergency on such short notice, but I have an idea.”
“You mean there are no actual doctors on site?”
“Only when we have a risky operation going on,” Victoria replied, “Most of the staff you’ve seen are technicians. There’s a field medic, but no-one who can handle complex operations like this. Come on.”
“What about Alice, will she be okay?”
“She’ll need a lot of blood and rest, but she’ll recover,” Victoria said.
Ten minutes later we were back underground. One part of the complex had been set aside for medical procedures. Wilson was still unconscious, lying on an operating table. His clothes had been cut off him and he’d been hooked up to a drip, along with instruments measuring his heart rate and blood pressure. Trying not to gag at the sight of all the blood and gore, I watched from a side room.
Victoria had already given me an examination to check I hadn’t taken any serious injury. She insisted on taking a couple more blood samples, to study what happened after my powers were activated. I was too weak to object, and having stood up to her over Major Wilson I didn’t feel like another argument.
Wilson had been restrained. Victoria’s field medic tried to work out how to proceed. The shaft of the wood was the thickness of a child’s fist. Blood was still pouring out. The medic opted for pulling the wooden beam out.
Wilson woke up screaming.
“He’s not going to make it,” Victoria said as she stood beside me, “That wound has punctured his liver and stomach.”
“There must be something you can do. You said you found cures for stuff here, I mean can’t you do something?”
“Sometimes yo
ur naivety is truly astonishing. Cures take years to formulate and those are for illnesses not injuries. Nevertheless, there is one thing we can try. It’s experimental and we haven’t tried it on a human subject yet, but it might work. It’s up to you though.”
“Try it. If there’s any chance of saving him, we have to do it.”
Victoria nodded. She left me in the small observation room and issued instructions to one of the lab technicians as the medic tried to stop Wilson’s bleeding. Wilson was screaming and shouting loud enough to wake the dead, and I realised he hadn’t been given any painkillers or sedatives. He spat and swore at Victoria and, despite the grievous injury, tried to break free of the restraints.
The technician returned with a syringe filled with a pale yellow liquid. Victoria indicated that Wilson’s arms should be held down. He was squirming and twisting erratically against the restraints. He swore at Victoria again. He demanded to know what she was doing.
Victoria calmly found one of his bulging veins and emptied the syringe into him.
Then she lent in close and whispered in his ear. A look of horror crossed his face.
Victoria ordered extra restraints on Wilson, then told the technicians to step back. She returned to the observation room.
Major Wilson started to scream louder than he had done before. He twisted and shook, the veins on his body standing out, his muscles straining to breaking point. Ripples of grey hairs appeared across his body. His face distorted then returned to normal. He snarled and spat as the wound sprouted a patch of thick hair, then returned to smooth skin, but fully healed. The bleeding stopped, but Major Wilson’s battle had only begun. His hands and feet cracked, stretched, snapped. His face twisted into inhuman shapes as his body shuddered.
Wilson screamed as the transformation snapped and tore through his body.
“Oh my god, Victoria,” I whispered, “What have you done?”
“It’s a formula we’ve been working on based on werewolf saliva,” Victoria said, “Trying to capture their healing abilities. Observations have shown that people transforming from human to werewolf have their human injuries healed – although oddly enough it doesn’t work the other way round.”
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