Eddie Lancaster Box Set 2, page 60
part #4 of Eddie Lancaster Series
He sped down the corridor in a blur. The soldier let out a stream of bullets but Howard slid back down to the floor so he skidded along the polished concrete on his back. The bullets went straight past him and I burned them to dust before they could hit me.
As Howard flew towards the soldier he reached up and great talon-like claws extended from his fingers. He dug into the guy’s stomach and tore down at the same time as he slid in between the soldier’s legs. The soldier yelped and fell to his knees as his stomach emptied its contents all over the neat floor. The remaining soldier brought his rifle up and the barrel rested just in front of Howard’s face. Then the soldier’s head flew off and his body fell to reveal Amara standing behind him with several more vampires in tow.
Amara pulled Howard up and once again the couple was embraced in a deep, and entirely inappropriate game of tonsil tennis. It was like being with a pair of horny teenagers.
‘Hey! You’re two-thousand, not twelve. This can wait,’ I told them, as I marched over to where they were making out above two fresh corpses.
‘The boy’s right,’ Amara said silkily as she broke their embrace.
‘The boy? I’m not the boy,’ I argued. ‘Can we get on with this? Please?’ They really needed to evaluate their priorities.
Howard chuckled. Then he gestured for the others to lead the way and we were on the move again. Every now and then we encountered more soldiers but the vampires made quick work of them. Despite Stephen’s claims, they were not prepared for this at all. I grimaced thinking about how Richards was definitely going to blame me for all of this too. To be fair, I had come here willingly and I had asked for Howard’s and Amara’s help. So, I guess he could blame me if he really wanted to.
‘There,’ one of the vampires said. He pointed down a corridor on our left at a pair of chunky looking metal doors. A sign on the wall to the left said: COMMAND CENTRE. STRICTLY NO ADMITTANCE TO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL.
‘So there are some signs,’ I grumbled to myself. My comment earned me a strange look from Howard.
One of the vampires up ahead stepped on some kind of trigger. Several thick wooden spears flew out of the walls on either side. They came out from the tops and bottoms, pointing diagonally down making it more difficult to dodge them. The three foremost vampires were caught in their trajectory and impaled upon them. They screamed as the wood pierced their hearts. Howard ran forwards but there was nothing he could do. Even with his ancient strength, he couldn’t make the spears budge. The vampires’ flesh greyed as their blood dripped onto the floor. They should have installed some kind of drainage system for the blood to run down.
Howard stood in silence, his hands still grasping one of the spears. His head was bowed, eyes closed. Despite his bloodlust, and his apparent enjoyment of fighting, he felt the loss of his people. He took it personally. There were plenty of leaders in the world who could learn a thing or two from Howard. Myself included.
Amara walked over slowly with no vampiric speed. She wrapped one of her arms around his shoulders, the palm of her other hand went to his hair, stroking him soothingly. ‘It won’t be in vain, my love,’ she whispered to him.
‘They will all die for this,’ he growled. I glanced over at the one remaining vampire but he was staring at the floor respectfully.
We had to climb through the vampire deathtrap in order to get to the command room. Not only was it awkward climbing around the bodies but I also got blood all over me. I wasn’t bothered about being dirty but blood is very sticky and it felt horrible between my fingers. I would have given anything to be blessed with a baby wipe to clean my fingers at that moment. I was tactful enough not to say anything. Sticky fingers were a lot better than being dead.
The door to the command room was an unmovable slab of metal. Howard and Amara used all of their strength and it didn’t budge. I blasted it with all the magic I could muster and it didn’t so much as scratch the surface.
‘The only way we’re going to get in is with a keycard,’ Amara said, pointing at the card panel beneath the sign. The card I had was taken from me when I’d been caught. I doubted it would have granted us access to the most secure room in the building anyway.
‘Richards,’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘The guy I was with when you guys found me. He’ll have a key card for this room.’ He seemed pretty senior to me being all chummy with Stephen. ‘Don’t kill him. Please,’ I said as Howard turned back down the corridor. He paused, shoulders rigid. He sighed loudly and then he and the other vampire left to go and retrieve the key card and I waited with Amara. We stood in silence for a few minutes but then it got too awkward. I hoped he was going to listen to me but it was hard to tell.
‘I’m sorry about your people.’ I pointed at the death trap in the corridor. She glanced back at them and sighed.
‘This is the nature of fighting. Howard and I relish in the midst of a battle, but we hate the bitter taste of losing our own soldiers,’ she said.
‘It is a little unusual,’ I admitted. ‘Most people are either one or the other.’
She nodded in agreement. ‘Most people are poor leaders. And even poorer generals. If you do not love your people so much that it hurts when you lose one, then how can you look after your people fully? And if you do not love the battle so much that you are in the midst of the fighting then how can you ever truly win? The general who sits on the sidelines and knows not what it is to fight is unintelligent and cowardly. The queen who does not love her people is there only for the power.’
I wasn’t sure I agreed fully with her statement but I nodded all the same. I didn’t think you had to love fighting to be good at it. But I did think a leader had to love their people to be a good leader.
‘I can see the doubt in your eyes, Eddie. When you ruled Maidstone did you love your people?’
‘I didn’t love everyone in Maidstone,’ I admitted. I wondered if I should have been ashamed of that.
‘And Howard and I do not love every vampire in Kent. But we love the ones who work with us. Your people were the friends who helped you. The vampires like Gabe who held you up when you could not do it for yourself. Love isn’t always what Howard and I feel for each other. It would be inappropriate if a person loved all people in that way.’ She chuckled and I laughed with her. ‘But love means caring for those who follow you and hurting when they come to harm.
‘Right now, Zeke and Lydia follow you. Could you walk out of here without both of them at your side?’
‘No,’ I said at once. They were my main concern at that moment. Not getting into the command room, or destroying this place, or even finding the dagger. Getting them out of the mess I’d put them in was my priority.
‘Then you love your people. Not all love is the same. Not all love can be recognised so easily. Now, tell me, do you love to fight?’
‘No,’ I told her without even thinking about the question.
‘So you would rather sit quietly at home? Have a quiet life away from the wars that have followed you for most of your life?’ She smiled at me knowingly, as if she’d seen inside my soul and knew me better than I did.
I thought back to the night I’d spent on the beach with Ashley. I remembered her saying that we would do that for entirety once I returned. And my heart filled with dread. Then I realised that even though I was terrified every time I’d been in a situation like this since I’d returned, I loved it. I lived for the rush of adrenaline when I was swapping spells with a warlock, or trading blows with a vampire. Or even dodging bullets from a human soldier. I loved it. The quiet life was not for me.
I looked back at Amara and saw the twinkle in her eye. ‘No need to say a word, Eddie Lancaster. I know you are like me.’
Howard stopped the conversation there by leaping over the deathtrap, one bloody keycard in his hand.
‘Is he…’ I said, praying that Howard hadn’t killed Richards for the card.
‘He’s a bloody mess, but he’s still alive. Which is more than I can say for a lot of mine,’ he said in a growl. Amara planted a kiss on his cheek and he returned one on her lips. I no longer felt uncomfortable or disturbed by their affections. Instead, they brought a warmness to my heart and a longing. I wanted what they had. I wanted to feel love so strongly that I stopped in the middle of a fight to display my feelings.
Howard pressed the card to the panel and a green light appeared. The doors hissed like the suspension on a bus, and then they slid open to reveal the command room.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I entered the room first, barrier spell in place. It was a wise move. A shower of bullets came at me, all burned to dust before they got near my face, or anybody else’s. Howard, Amara, and the other remaining vampire whooshed into the room and then I saw the weapon. It was like a medieval ballista, in fact, I’m pretty sure that was exactly what it was, except it was made of metal rather than wood. The soldier hit a button and a mighty spear just like the ones from the corridor hurtled through the air. Amara flung herself to the side just in time, but the other vampire was not so lucky. The spear hit him and swept him off his feet, carrying him across the room like he was little more than a leaf in the wind, and then staked him against the wall. He said something unintelligible before his head fell forward and his skin turned stoney.
Howard and Amara did not stop to mourn him. They dashed around the room, killing without mercy. Blood and weapons flew freely. The soldiers never got another chance to fire their ballista.
I saw Stephen sitting at a giant technical looking desk. Honestly, there were so many screens and buttons it looked like it belonged to NASA. He was pressing buttons as fast as his skinny fingers would let him. His face was frantic, sweat pouring down in streams.
‘Let’s stop that,’ I said. I gripped the back of his chair and wheeled him away so he could no longer reach the desk. ‘You’re in quite a bit of trouble.’
‘Yes. He is,’ said Howard. The last soldier fell and the vampires came to join me by the main console. They pulled their balaclavas off since there were no UV lights in the room.
‘Turn off the UV lights and that fucking alarm,’ Howard ordered. Stephen looked at us nervously contemplating whether to refuse. He made the smart decision and hit one of the several buttons which I assumed turned off the UV lights. He hit another button and the siren ceased. The sound faded out as if the alarm was reluctant to shut up. The quiet seemed alien after all the racket that had preceded it.
The room was gigantic and circular. Stephen’s control desk was at the head of the room, on a raised platform looking down on everything else that was happening. The rest of the room was filled with other desks, each holding computers, and scientific instruments. There were things in the room that I never thought I’d see outside of a sci-fi film. The whole room seemed to have been built around a gigantic tube of clear plastic that stood in the very centre of the room and ran from the floor to the ceiling. Every workstation was facing it. The cylinder was large enough to fit a car in but it was empty. For now.
‘What is that for?’ I asked. It looked like the tube that Zordon’s head used to appear in the original Power Rangers TV show. I doubted it was used to communicate with a disembodied space wizard. Although it was entirely possible, I supposed.
‘I can’t… I can’t…’ Stephen murmured, all a fluster. The confidence he’d displayed before was all gone now.
Howard stepped forward and slapped Stephen across the cheek. His head whipped around hard enough to give him whiplash, and his face burned with a pink handprint. ‘You can. And you will.’
I walked over to the tube to inspect it. It looked like it was made of incredibly thick plastic. Maybe it was some kind of quarantine chamber. There didn’t appear to be a door, though. I pressed my palm to the plastic and felt an odd crackling sensation. The feeling was familiar and yet somehow alien at the same time. Then I realised where I recognised it from. This tube gave me the same feeling of unease that I got when I touched iron.
‘No way,’ I whispered to myself. I took a step back and conjured a ball of magic. I flung the purple orb at the tube where it fizzled out on contact. That spell should have at least cracked the plastic, if not destroyed it, and yet there wasn’t even a blemish on the surface. I turned back to Stephen as the blood drained from my face. ‘What is this?’
‘It’s magic-resistant plastic,’ he said sheepishly. ‘We’ve been developing it for some time.’
I glanced down at the dead soldiers littered around the room and my eyes fell on their armoured vests. ‘How much of this do you have?’
‘Not much. We created the armoured vests with it and a few riot shields but we haven’t tested it fully yet so it hasn’t been rolled out. The possibilities…We can arm police with shields, we can create holding cells without relying on iron. The possibilities are endless.’ He spoke with excitement, momentarily forgetting his predicament.
I glanced back at the tube. This material was dangerous for sorcerers. If the government wanted to subjugate, or even eliminate the sorcerers, they would no longer be at such a disadvantage with this stuff in their armoury. It couldn’t be weaponised as far as I could tell but even used in defence it robbed us of our best weapon. I looked up and saw at the top of the cylinder was what looked like a metal doorway, one that could be controlled via the control desk that Sebastian was sitting at, and another, more dreadful, thought came to me.
‘What is this for?’ I said, turning back to Stephen, a dark look clouding my features.
‘I just told you,’ he said. He looked up at Howard as if he might be able to help him.
‘No. This tube specifically. What is it for? Why do you have a big magic proof container here in the middle of your command room and why is the door up there?’ If it was in the most important room in the building I seriously doubted it was there purely for holding warlocks.
Stephen swallowed hard. ‘We are going to use it to hold some of the magic from Cedarstone. We want to see if we can apply that power in some way.’ He shrunk into his chair, expecting a backlash. That was the answer I’d been dreading.
‘You most certainly are not,’ Amara told him.
‘Does anybody outside this place know about this invention?’ I asked. If we destroyed the compound then nobody would ever find out about the special plastic they’d invented here.
‘Yes, of course. All our research is backed up on servers in London. You can’t undo our work here, Eddie,’ he said petulantly. His tone earned him another slap from Howard and he returned to being meek.
‘Fuck,’ I said and kicked the stupid cylinder. The sound of my kick echoed up the tube like mocking laughter.
‘If you kill me, then you’ll start a war. The government will wipe you out for this,’ Stephen said quickly as if the threat would do him any good at all.
Amara smiled sweetly and then squatted down so her eyes were level with him. ‘Poor, sweet, little man,’ she said. Her hands found his hair and started to brush it back gently, soothingly. ‘This facility is an infringement of the rights of everybody being held here. Criminal or not, you cannot do experiments on people without their consent. Whatever happens here, the government will have no choice but to deny its involvement. As far as the prime minister is concerned, this facility doesn’t exist.’ The hope vanished from his face confirming that what she said was true. She slid her hands down to his cheeks and twisted his head sharply to one side. His neck snapped and his limp body fell back in his chair.
‘What do we do about this place?’ she said, standing up and facing us. The question was directed at Howard more than me.
‘We’re going to have to purge it of all the scum that have been working here,’ Howard said, thinking on his feet. ‘Then search it from top to bottom. Figure out everything they’ve been up to. Then eradicate the lot. We can’t undo the work they’ve done, but we can educate ourselves on what to expect for the future.’
‘They’ll send more soldiers to take this place back,’ I warned them. There was no way the government would just let the place go.
‘True,’ Howard agreed. We’ll have to try and get done by morning. If we have to stay any longer then we can prepare for another fight.’
‘Does it say anywhere where my friends are?’ I asked. There must be some CCTV cameras somewhere that would show where the holding cells were. I went over to Stephen’s massive desk but there was nothing there.
‘Here,’ said Howard. He was at another desk a few feet away from the main one. The desk consisted of an overwhelming amount of CCTV monitoring screens. I couldn’t see my friends on any of them but I could see a room full of prison-style doors. I guessed I’d find them down there. Howard pointed at a map that was screwed into the desk just next to all the screens.
‘Thanks.’ I grabbed Stephen’s blazer and began searching the pockets. It seemed wrong to search a corpse but he wasn’t a nice man and he had no more use for his things. I found what I was looking for: a phone and a keycard. I put the keycard in my pocket and then used the phone to take a picture of the map on the security desk.
‘I could remove his thumb for you if you need to unlock that device,’ Howard offered, pointing at the mobile phone.
‘No, it’s fine. I can access the camera without his passcode, thanks,’ I said. The last thing I wanted was to be traipsing around with a dismembered thumb in my pocket.
‘Thank you, Eddie. It seems that even when you ask for a favour you still manage to do us a service,’ said Howard. ‘Leading us to this place was a blessing. I’m sure we will find a good many missing vampires in those cells.’
‘Listen, there’s a warlock down there called Ben. He used to work for Nickolas Blackwood. He’ll only be trouble if you let him out,’ I said. There was no way Ben was coming back with me. I’d promised not to take his magic and that was the extent of my mercy for him.
‘We’ll hand any warlocks over to Shirley. They are her jurisdiction.’ He offered me his hand and I shook it politely. Our arrangement for the night had concluded. ‘Oh and Eddie, if you want your human friend to survive this, the one who tried to shoot me earlier, I suggest you take him with you. If he is still here when you’ve gone he will not survive the night.’ I nodded my gratitude and then left the room heading down to the holding cells.
