“Hit the button on the bomb to activate it, and then hit the remote to set it off. We can’t depend on a timer with this mission. If you’re going to lead the vampires into a trap, only you can decide on the right moment to trigger the explosion.”
“You know about the plan?” said Tina.
Miss Montague smiled sweetly, and fixed Tina with her worryingly bright eyes. “I helped Edward work out most of the details.”
“I didn’t know you and he worked so closely together,” said Tina.
“Oh, we used to be very close, a long time ago.” Miss Montague laughed softly at the look on their faces. “You young people, you think you invented sex.”
Daniel decided he was going to concentrate on the remote control. Just another box with a single button, presumably because you really didn’t want complications when the shit was clogging up the fan. He wanted to ask Miss Montague if she had one with a red button, but he didn’t feel like pushing his luck.
Miss Montague finished up by handing Tina a powerful flashlight, to help them find their way through the dark Underground tunnels, and presented Daniel with a small mirror, so he could quietly check who was and wasn’t human. And then she gave them both backpacks to carry everything in. She stepped back and looked them over critically.
“Allow me to wish you both the very best of luck,” she said. “Because you’re going to need it.”
“So,” said Daniel, after they’d left the armory. “Where now? Back to the tailors, for new outfits?”
“Hell with that,” said Tina, slinging her pack carelessly over one shoulder. “I’m keeping my nice evening dress. It’s lucky.”
Daniel thought about everything they’d been through. “Really?”
“We’re alive, and the Frankensteins aren’t.”
“Do Hydes do superstition?” said Daniel.
“This one does.”
“Then I’m hanging on to my tux,” said Daniel. “If only because it makes me look like James Bond.”
“I am very definitely not a Bond girl,” said Tina. “Modesty Blaise, maybe.”
“I thought she wore a catsuit?”
“Only because she was drawn by a man. I have better fashion sense.”
“All right,” said Daniel. “Where are we going now?”
“According to Edward’s file, to see a vicar about a river.”
They traveled across London on a series of Underground trains. Tina quietly briefed Daniel from the file, while he kept a careful lookout for any vampires who might be traveling with them. Paul’s words had made an impression. The few other people in the carriage all seemed entirely ordinary, but he checked them out with his concealed mirror anyway, just in case. None of them paid any attention to what Tina was saying, because everyone minds their own business on the Tube.
“Can’t I just read the file for myself?” said Daniel.
“No,” said Tina. “This is my file. Edward gave it to me. Now pay attention . . . There are lost rivers that run underneath London. Once they coursed through the heart of the city, part of its everyday trade and commerce, but now they’re built over and largely forgotten. One of them is the River Fleet. We are going to visit the source of that river, where a vicar is waiting to bless it for us so that all the waters of the Fleet will be holy.”
“Hold everything and blindfold the horses,” said Daniel. “Edward Hyde has a vicar working for him?”
Tina looked at him pityingly. “He has all sorts of people on his books, from all walks of life. Because he never knows when they’ll come in handy. Some are bought and paid for, and some he blackmails or intimidates into doing their bit.”
“That sounds like Edward,” said Daniel. “How many of these people have you actually met?”
“Just the ones Edward wanted me to work with,” said Tina. “He only ever tells people what he thinks they need to know. Most of what I’ve learned about Jekyll & Hyde Inc. comes from gossiping with the support staff. I’ve been told there are some people who work for Edward because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Making a deal with the devil for a chance to finally get rid of the monsters. They think they’re fighting on the side of the angels.”
“Aren’t they?” said Daniel. “Isn’t killing monsters a good thing?”
“Of course,” said Tina. “I’m simply not sure that’s why Edward is doing it. Does he really strike you as someone who does the right thing for the right reasons?”
“He must have some reason,” said Daniel.
“Maybe it’s professional jealousy,” said Tina, “because he can’t stand the idea of anyone being a bigger monster than he is. Or perhaps he just finds the whole idea of monsters fighting monsters amusing.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Daniel.
Tina consulted her file again. “The official source for the River Fleet is supposed to be two streams on Hampstead Heath, but according to this, Edward has been able to track down the real source.”
“Amazing, the information that man has,” said Daniel.
“Not really,” said Tina. “People tell him things. He has a very compelling personality, as you’ve seen.”
“Whether they want to or not?” said Daniel.
“Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” said Tina.
They left the train at Paddington Station, and set off through a variety of unofficial passageways until they were deep in the unfinished workings of the long-delayed Jubilee Line Extension. Daniel and Tina descended through increasingly dark and deserted tunnels, in a bobbing pool of light provided by her flashlight. Daniel assumed Tina was following a map in her head, but wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of asking. But even as they moved through one tunnel after another, he couldn’t shake off a slow creeping feeling that they weren’t alone; that something was down there in the dark with them. He stuck close to Tina, straining his eyes against the gloom and his ears against the quiet.
Finally an uncertain flickering glow appeared up ahead, and Daniel and Tina hurried toward it. The low-ceilinged tunnel suddenly widened out into a great open cavern, lit by dozens of candles set everywhere there was a reasonably flat surface. A trickle of water ran across the muddy cavern floor, rising up from some underground spring. The source of the River Fleet. A man in a dark suit and a white dog collar was sitting on a folding stool, drinking hot tea from a thermos. He put it down carefully when Daniel and Tina stumbled out of the dark and into the candlelight, and rose to his feet to meet them.
Tall and more than usually thin, he had a gaunt face and haunted eyes. It was hard to tell whether or not he was pleased to see the Hydes; it seemed like there was simply too much sadness in him to allow for anything else.
“You can call me Mr. Martin,” he said, in a voice so low they had to strain to hear it. “Here to do what’s necessary. You both drank the potion, didn’t you? You have the look. No, don’t bother to introduce yourselves. I don’t care.”
He reached down and picked up a large leather-bound bible from the cavern floor. It looked like it had seen a lot of use. He patted the cover absently, like a man with a faithful dog.
“I find comfort in the Old Testament. Especially when it speaks about the end of the world.”
“Because it offers you hope?” Daniel said politely.
“Because I’m looking forward to it.”
“You are exactly the kind of vicar Edward Hyde would have working for him,” said Tina.
Mr. Martin showed them a brief smile. “Needs must, when the devil has a lease on your soul.”
He opened his bible to where it was marked, and pronounced his blessing on the source of the River Fleet. His voice became louder and more forceful as he spoke the ancient words. When he was done, the trickle of water didn’t appear at all different. He closed his bible, and dropped it carelessly onto the folding stool. He seemed very tired.
“Why are you doing this?” said Daniel.
Mr. Martin looked at him with distant eyes. “They made my wife into a vampire. No warning and no reason; no sign anywhere of God’s will or his great plan . . . or at least nothing I could come to terms with. I had to hammer a stake into my wife’s heart, while she screamed and fought me, just to give her rest.”