Frankenstein's Legions (35 page)

‘So,’ he said, ‘may I take it that you were unaware of their intrusion?’

‘You may,’ answered Julius.

‘And that you have not solicited and encouraged it.’

‘They had no word from me.’

Fouché shook his head in distaste.

‘That is not the question I asked.’

Frankenstein considered his words. At the same time he seized the opportunity to gather his frayed edges, to be as seamless as the Bureaucrat pretended to be.

‘Very well then. I hereby affirm that I’ve had no part whatsoever in their being here...’

‘Then what do they want?’

Frankenstein wanted to shout back ‘can’t you hear the poor devils telling you?’ but did not. It wasn’t that kind of honesty that might keep him still breathing by day’s end. It was this variety:

‘Me,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘The woman thinks I can work miracles. Or that I know a man who can.’

‘So,’ Fouché mused, ‘she is here under false pretences...’

‘No, she is here for the reason she states. However, she labours under an illusion.’

‘Which is what precisely?’

It hadn’t worked. The mix needed even more honesty: a proportion that could take it to toxic levels.

‘That I can give her life back,’ said Julius. ‘Real, full, life; as it was before. Specifically, her genius...’

The tiny golden pencil hesitated an instant before continuing to move over the notepad—but something was amiss. A second’s focus revealed it. The scratching that signalled marks being made on paper was absent. Frankenstein pondered that lack and then, without moving his face a fraction, exulted.

No matter how shrewd they thought they were, no matter how careful, excitement betrayed all. Excitement, whether it be sexual or status-based or sordid, knew ways round the mental barricades; it bypassed the personas people constructed over long years. Statesmen blew decades of painstaking advancement for five minutes madness with a floozy. Princes of the Church blasted their professed beliefs to bits to get wealth that their faith warned against. Yet in this case there was nothing of flesh or coin about it: ‘the Bureaucrat’ had scented advancement and was instantly intoxicated.

Fouché was pretending to write, for form’s sake, but his mind was off the leash and running.

‘‘Genius’ you say?’ he said, slightly breathless. ‘And was she one?’

‘Some thought so,’ answered Julius. ‘She certainly does. Her faith has led her all this way. To this fate.’

‘And in vain? said Fouché, his voice level after the initial lapse. ‘I mean regarding this ‘miracle’ you mention...’

It was faint but unmistakable, the hint of a ghost of an embryo of almost erotic abandonment; the incautious question blurted out despite a life-time of caution. What a powerful weapon this thing ‘honesty’ was for ripping through the toughest of shields!  Especially when now coated with the poison of falsehood...

‘Not necessarily...,’ replied Julius.

‘No?’

‘No. Merely premature...’

The notepad was snapped shut.

‘I see,’ said Fouché—but he didn’t. Then he departed, trying and failing to conceal urgency.

In that short and bloodless battle Frankenstein had won a great victory. He now knew what to do and that he would have revenge for what was going on behind the door even as they spoke. Most importantly, he realised he would after all survive until dawn—which was all the time he needed.

His hand had been forced, as it always needed doing, but now he was steely and implacable. He had his plan and a third party had just set it in motion. Any ‘if’ had been resolved; now it was merely a question of ‘when.’ 

Julius considered the question. Lunch would be on the table soon and he was rather peckish. So, after lunch?

No. The continuing screams reminded him that now was probably best.

Chapter 12: EAT! AND BE MERRY

‘Eat,’ Julius ordered, and the Lazaran obeyed.

It was a fairly fresh specimen, still bemused by basic training. That and fuzzy memories of being a soldier before (right up to encountering an Austrian bayonet) pre-disposed it to obedience. Even before crossing the Great Divide it had been conditioned into accepting officer-class instructions. Now, after being dragged back, further tuition had broadened that to any ‘warm-blood’ in authority. They were in charge it had been told repeatedly. Lazarans who couldn’t grasp this blissfully simple message were recycled—in public, on the parade-ground, to hammer home the point.

Thus, although the former-and-once-again Frenchman’s days of appreciating food, or indeed feeling hunger at all, were gone never to return, when now told to ‘eat’ he ate. What warm-bloods told you to do could only be for your own good. And to be fair, that was sometimes true.

So, down the package went in one go, minus chewing, to be absorbed just as thoroughly as all the training had been.

Troubled by residual conscience, Frankenstein looked at the creature and muttered ‘sorry.’

But that signified nothing really, to either party. Julius didn’t mean it and was just scratching an itch. The Lazaran didn’t understand and stayed slumped in position, awaiting instructions.

Now the deed was done, Julius knew he must step lively, before the Lazaran started to receive orders from his own body that would overrule Frankenstein’s authority. He’d calculated the digestive trajectory as best a doctor may, but that same medical and Revivalist expertise also told him it was not exact science. If proceedings got underway before all was ready everything would crash in spectacular fashion.

And so:

‘Stand!’

The rest of the squad shambled up from the floor, moaning their continual dirge.

They were a fine batch from Frankenstein’s own factory. Taller, sturdier and more intact than the general run of battlefield-fruit, Julius had revived them to lusty afterlife with the strongest serum to hand.

He inspected his troops—and shook his head.

Even their mothers would be hard put to love them, just as smart uniforms couldn’t gild this particular stinking-Lilly. Their mouths hung open and their eyes showed no animating light. When one moved the rest tended to imitate, even down to the direction of gaze. It gave their movements a disturbing collectivity.

And that perpetual groaning...

Frankenstein took it as personal reproach aimed at him, the man and lineage responsible for all their woes. That it was fair comment only made things worse.

But it also impelled him to act: further on and along his personal road to damnation.

‘Join them,’ he told the recently fed one, and the Lazaran jostled into the middle of the rest. They didn’t even bother to glance at him.

‘Now follow me.’

Time for one last look around his rooms, accompanied by zero regrets. Just another temporary encampment from which he wished to retrieve or remember nothing. Likewise his collecting project (of which more shortly). Before leaving that he made one last addition. Then off Julius set at the head of his circus troupe.

The Versailles community had gotten used to seeing the eminent doctor up to funny business, or leastways at the centre of peculiar scenes. Add to that a purely natural human aversion to Lazaran company, and in present circumstances Julius became almost invisible. Down numerous broad flights of stairs and along interminable gaudy corridors, he led his latest brew of less-than-life without challenge.

Which, on the minus side, left him prey to his own thoughts. The temptation to skip this detour and simply head to his ultimate destination grew stronger with each step. Any interlude—let alone one of the sort envisaged—was squaring, maybe cubing, the already massive risk.

But there’s solace and virtue in keeping going, and just walking is a classic cure for melancholy. By the time they were drawing near, Frankenstein had got a grip. The realisation came to him that when even the basic danger was mad and monstrous then multiplying it didn’t actually make much difference. Whatever he did, the end was probably nigh and there was cold comfort in that.

So thinking, he came to the interrogation suite. There was the usual guard before its outer door. He knew Frankenstein by sight and still more about him by repute. Presumably it was that which caused a curled lip.

‘Yes,
monsieur
?’

‘There are two trespassers under interview. I was asked to pop in and see how things are progressing.’

He wasn’t just any old guard (or Old Guard) designed to stand there and look menacing. This one was a cut above and authorised to ask questions, even exercise discretion.

‘Why?’

Julius stood his ground.

‘I knew them from outside. I can corroborate their statements.’

He was halfway there, but objections remained. A squad of them to be precise. The guard nodded at Frankenstein’s friends.

‘Why the company?  I don’t see how they’ll help much...’

Julius looked back, as if he’d quite forgotten there were Lazarans trailing after him.

‘Oh, they’re for later,’ he said. ‘Duties elsewhere. They can wait here.’

You could see the guard was thinking ‘Oh joy!  Their dead eyes all staring at me...’

‘I’ll check,’ he said. ‘Maybe you can take them in with you...’

Maybe, maybe not. The question was never resolved. It transpired they were not required either in or out of the room.

When the Guard cracked the door to enquire there were others more impatient than he. They got in before him. And in him.

A stiletto blade shot from the ajar gap. It  penetrated the Guard’s head with an ease suggesting abnormal force. Then, generating sounds Julius vowed to forget lest he lose sleep ever after, the blade’s tip reappeared. Hello again, it might have said, protruding an inch beyond the guard’s busby, and spat blood and matter.

In fastidious reflex action, Frankenstein brushed the offending stuff from his lapel. It left a smear, a memento of the Guard’s billion+ brain cells and the memories they’d contained. Now all gone, alas, just like their former owner.

Then an arm, brawny and blood-flecked, shot out from behind the door. It encompassed the dead Guard’s neck and drew him in, like a bouncer dealing with a drunk.

If he’d been of that vast majority termed sensible, Julius would have been heading backwards at speed. However, the urgency of his mission overruled his feet. That and the fact that the arm seemed familiar.

Limbs are generic, and pretty or plain according to type rather than stand-out. However, tattoos do help people distinguish. Julius was helped to think he’d seen this one before—and in a context that was benign. Or fairly so.

Nevertheless, given what had just occurred, his staying put was an (in)action of high anti-sense—and his next act the category above that (should such exist).

Julius tapped upon the door.

‘Hello?  Anyone home?’

There was and they were listening.

‘Is that...?  Herr Frankenstein, is that you?’

‘It is, Foxglove, it is. How are you?’

The door was flung open. There stood Foxglove with Lady Lovelace beside him.

‘Can’t complain,’ answered the servant. ‘In the circumstances...’

Whatever the circumstances, he surely did have grounds for complaint. Life had obviously not been kind of late and what wasn’t bruise was caked blood. One eye was swollen closed but the other was clearly pleased to see a friendly face for a change.

‘No?’ said Julius. ‘Well, I’m sure you know best, Foxglove’

‘No he doesn’t,’ butted in Ada. ‘That’s my job.’

Simultaneously, both sides realised there were wider perspectives to take in. Behind Frankenstein’s ‘friendly face’ were a gaggle of dead-white ones. Behind Lady Lovelace and her flunky lay a picture of carnage.

‘How...?’ said Julius.

‘Who...?’ asked Ada.

They cancelled each other out but Julius, being a gentleman, deferred to the lady.

‘They are with me and harmless,’ he explained away his Lazaran company, before adding out of honesty: ‘for the moment. Things are afoot...’

‘Hmmm...,’ assessed Ada, just like her old self.

Julius took stock of the battlefield scene behind Ada’s shoulder. One, two, three, deceased interrogators were visible, slumped as they had fallen. Frankenstein indicated his close study should be taken as a silent question.

‘Neither you nor God seemed minded to intervene,’ said Lady Lovelace, ‘so we had to save ourselves. Poor Foxglove couldn’t hold out much longer.’

‘But how?’ Julius persisted. The last time he’d seen them both were bound.

‘Time hung heavy whilst we scoured France for you,’ Ada said, glancing up and down the corridor to confirm privacy continued. ‘So I had this fitted.’

She lifted her right arm and let her sleeve fall. A sudden upward flick of the wrist caused the previously seen stiletto to shoot out with speed. It quivered to a halt mere inches from Frankenstein’s face.

Julius was doubly impressed. The weapon emanated from under the skin and must be lodged alongside the long bone.

‘One of the precious few advantages to Lazaran lack of feeling,’ Ada explained. ‘Muscles can be arranged to either fire or retract it.’

She admired the now tarnished blade against the light.

‘Pretty much immune to body searches!’ Ada paid tribute to someone’s workmanship. ‘Leastways, the frogs didn’t detect it, so I sawed through my restraints and beckoned a torturer close. Then...-’

‘… He came close,’ interrupted Foxglove, made bold by feeling the fairer sex shouldn’t swap murder-notes. ‘Suffice it to say, Milady dispatched him and came to my aid whereupon I...-’

His turn to be cut off in full flow.

‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Julius, waving aside the doubtless vile tale. ‘My imagination will supply all additional detail. Meanwhile, suffice it for me to say well done: hurrah!  Also time runs short: will you join me?’

‘That was our intention,’ snapped Ada, ‘even if only to use this on you...’  Again she raised her armed-arm. Her point made, she then retracted the stiletto into its fleshy holster. Julius heard springs creaking and finally the click of a catch.

Yet Julius was not yet totally absolved. Nor trusted.