“You’re a Hyde!”
“I’m what you made me,” said Daniel.
“Let me go. Please. I’m no one important.”
“You’re a Frankenstein. And I still have really bad dreams about that cellar.”
“It was just business! And it’s not like we took anyone who mattered.”
“Everyone matters.”
“Then let me go.”
“Sorry,” said Daniel. “But I’m a monster now. Just like you.”
He started forward again, and she quickly lowered her scalpels.
“Wait! I know things. There must be something you want to know . . . ”
Daniel stopped. “I did wonder: how were you able to shrug off that Taser?”
“Genetically engineered transplants. Physical upgrades. We all have them.”
“You experiment on yourselves?”
“We share the wealth. We’re better than everyone else, because we’re made that way.”
“I saw what you did to Oscar,” said Daniel. “And I know what happened to Paul. But what did you do to Nigel?”
He was still speaking when her hand snapped forward, and one of the scalpels flashed toward his throat. Daniel snatched it out of midair, turned it around, and sent it flying back. The thin blade plunged through her left eye, and she dropped to the floor. Daniel looked down at the body for a long moment. This wasn’t closure . . . but it was a good start. He turned to Tina, who was standing grinning over a pile of dead creatures. Daniel didn’t look to see which of them had Oscar’s face. It didn’t make any difference. Tina looked back at the dead businesswoman, and then smiled at Daniel.
“Did it feel as good as you hoped?”
“Maybe. It’s complicated.”
“Hydes don’t do complicated.” She looked at her watch. “We really need to get a move on.”
“Yes,” said Daniel. “Let’s get this done.”
He strode off down the corridor, leaving her to catch up with him.
Two larger-than-usual creatures in ill-fitting suits stood guard outside the banquet hall. Daniel and Tina charged down the corridor and killed both creatures while they were still reacting. Daniel didn’t hesitate, and didn’t care. He helped Tina move the bodies away from the door, and glanced quickly up and down the corridor.
“I’m not seeing any sign of backup. I can’t believe they thought they could get away with just a couple of guards.”
“Typical Frankenstein arrogance,” said Tina. “They couldn’t believe anyone would dare attack them at their own gathering.”
Daniel tried the door. To go with the hotel, the door had an old-fashioned latch on it. It was locked.
“Do we break it in?”
“Too noisy,” said Tina. “Fortunately, I never leave the house without these little beauties.”
She produced a set of skeleton keys, some of them looking rather high tech, and had the door unlocked in a moment. She eased it open, and slipped quickly through the gap. Daniel followed her in, and quietly closed the door behind them. The huge banquet hall was brightly lit by a series of elegant chandeliers, and packed full of long tables with pristine white tablecloths, all but buried under the very best in food and wine. There were floral displays and ice sculptures, and all the trappings of wealth and power. No expense had been spared—or even considered, from the look of it. Sitting at the tables were hundreds of perfectly ordinary-looking men and women in exquisitely tailored outfits. No surgeons in blood-spattered gowns, no mad doctors with staring eyes, no faces steeped in evil or marked by a lifetime’s cruelties. They could have been any business community, come together to attend a formal dinner and celebrate the year they’d had. Except for the rows of oversized creatures standing inhumanly still as they watched over the diners.
At the end of the hall a distinguished-looking man was on his feet, addressing the Frankenstein Clan.
“Once again, it’s been a very good year. Rich and powerful people the world over owe their extended lives to the very special organs we provide—and we are careful to never let them forget that. Our researches continue: into rejuvenating the deserving old, enhancing the lives of people who matter, and learning all there is to know about life and death. We lower our hands into human depths, and create marvels. We are the cutting edge of Humanity!”
He stopped, so they could applaud him and one another. The clapping went on and on, as though they couldn’t bring themselves to stop. In the end, the speaker had to raise an admonitory hand before the self-congratulation reluctantly died away.
“But . . . we are still struggling to achieve the eternal goal of the Frankensteins,” the speaker said sternly. “To bring the dead back to life. Our patchwork creations always seem to lack something. A certain vitality. It’s almost enough to make you believe in souls . . . ”
The people at the tables laughed politely, and some glanced briefly at the creatures standing behind them. Nothing moved in the empty faces that looked back.
“But not anymore!” said the speaker. “Allow me to present something new; restored from the grave, rejuvenated and remade . . . Dead tissues infused not only with life, but the beginnings of intelligence. A new hybrid creation, worthy to serve the Frankenstein Clan! I give you: the perfect slave!”
He nodded to two men standing by the rear door. They opened it, and wheeled in a metal frame holding a naked, hulking creature, standing upright and secured in place by lengths of heavy steel chain. Surgical scars crisscrossed a body bulging with muscles, but it was the eyes that caught everyone’s attention. They were alive and aware—and driven to the edge of madness. The new creation knew what he was, and hated it. A dead man walking, going nowhere. Just alive enough to know he still had both feet in the grave. Tears ran jerkily down his face. But even this horrible awareness was totally different from that of a normal Frankenstein creation. The whole of the Frankenstein Clan rose to their feet, laughing and cheering and madly applauding.
Daniel felt sick to his soul. For all their fine words, the Clan had produced nothing more than a reanimated corpse that knew what it was. He looked at Tina.
“He doesn’t want to be rescued,” she said flatly. “Let’s get out of here. The bomb will kill him, along with the rest of the Clan.”
“What if the bomb isn’t enough?” said Daniel. “We have no way of knowing how strong the Frankensteins and the Elixir made him.”
“We can’t rescue him without giving away our presence, and putting the bomb at risk!” said Tina.
“We have to do something!” said Daniel. “Would you want to go on living like that?”
Tina looked at the new creation, and shook her head.
“No. But what can we do?”
Daniel produced the knife he’d taken from Tina earlier, and his arm snapped forward. The long thin blade flashed through the air to bury itself in the creature’s right eye, and Daniel thought he saw a fleeting gratitude in the scarred face, before the body slumped lifeless in its frame.
Everyone in the banquet hall turned around in their seats, to take in Daniel and Tina standing by the doors. Daniel smiled at them coldly, while Tina waved cheerfully.
“Don’t mind us! Just passing through. Hope your evening goes off with a bang.”
“Get them!” The voice of the Clan’s spokesman was thick with rage at being so openly defied. None of the Frankensteins sitting at the tables so much as stirred in their chairs, but the rows of creatures standing behind them turned as one and lumbered steadily toward the two Hydes. Dozens of dead things, pieced together from the remains of better men, with murder on what was left of their minds. They moved slowly at first, but soon built up a head of speed as they closed in on their prey.
Daniel stood his ground, his face as set and implacable as theirs. He’d faced this scene so many times before in his nightmares that it had lost much of its power over him. In fact, this was better, because he was looking forward to getting his hands on these creatures. He wasn’t helpless anymore. He was a Hyde. Part of him wanted to see the creatures as victims of the Frankensteins, like the hybrid, but in his mind’s eye he could still see the death of his friends in that awful cellar, at the hands of things just like these.