Secret Histories 10: Dr. DOA (19 page)

Benway tried to snatch it from her. She held it back out of reach, waggling the nasty thing temptingly. Benway turned to the patients, still watching from their far corner.

“Look!” he said harshly. “They’re stealing the one thing that can cure you! They want to keep it to themselves. Are you going to let them get away with that? Get the leech back from them, and your next treatments will be free! If they take it out of here, you’re all going to die!”

“Time we were leaving,” I said to Molly.

“You think they can stop us?” she said.

“I don’t want to have to hurt them,” I said.

“You always were a soft touch,” said Molly.

We ran for the front door, and the whole crowd came baying after us, everyone desperate, hysterical, reaching for us with outraged hands. If I’d really thought the leech would help them, I would have made Molly give it back. But I had no faith in the thing, and even less faith in Benway and Raven to do the right thing with it. Con men only look after themselves. Benway and Raven were both screaming at the crowd to get the leech, running right along behind, almost out of their minds at the sight of their most lucrative meal ticket departing.

I ran out the front door and onto the street, with Molly treading on my heels. The few people passing by didn’t even slow down to look at us; an armoured Drood and a wild witch with something unnatural in her hand were just business as usual in the Shade. I slammed the door shut the moment Molly was through, and kept it closed by pressing my armoured back against it.

“Now what?” I said. “We can’t just run through the streets pursued by a screaming mob. Someone would notice.”

“Easy!” said Molly. “We steal an ambulance!”

She pointed to the one parked just down the street. The sign on its side read
The Peter Paul Clinic. Private Ambulance. Group Bookings Available. No Time-wasters.

The door slammed and shuddered against my back. I turned around, crushed the lock with my golden hand, and then backed cautiously away. The door held, but still shook ominously as a great many fists hammered against its other side. People who’d seen their hope snatched away, and thought they were fighting for their lives. I looked around, spotted a nearby parking meter, and smiled briefly. Never liked the things. I grabbed hold of its column with one hand, and ripped the meter right out of the pavement. Chunks of concrete went flying in all directions. I jammed the parking meter against the door, forcing it into place.

“That won’t hold them for long,” I said. “Those are some highly motivated sick people.”

“Get in the ambulance!” said Molly.

I hurried over to the driver’s door. There was still no one behind the steering wheel, but the door was locked. Molly tried the passenger door, but that didn’t want to open either. I shrugged, and jerked the door open with one golden hand. The lock shattered.

“Ow!” the ambulance said loudly. “That hurt, you beast!”

I wasn’t thrown. I’ve had stranger things talk to me. The ambulance had a sultry female voice that made me think of a mature stage actress, a little past her prime but still game.

“Sorry,” I said. “We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

“Men always are, dear,” said the ambulance. “You have no idea how to treat a lady . . . Hey! What are you doing? Don’t you dare! Get out of me this instant!”

But I was already settling into the driver’s seat. The passenger door opened, and Molly dropped into the seat next to me. She still had the big black leech in her hand. She didn’t seem too sure what to do with
it. She didn’t want to risk losing it, but every time she looked at what she was holding, she winced. I looked for the keys to the ignition, but not only were there no keys; there was no ignition. The steering wheel didn’t move under my hands, and there were no pedals on the floor.

“How do you get this ambulance going?” I said.

“Oh, the usual ways, darling,” said the ambulance. “Flowers, chocolates, buck’s fizz . . .”

“You drive yourself?” said Molly.

“Of course!” said the ambulance. “A girl has to make a living.”

“Then take us to the Wulfshead Club,” said Molly.

“I am not taking you anywhere,” the ambulance said haughtily. “I’m on my break. Of course, if you were to take advantage of my generous nature by offering a poor working girl a substantial bribe . . .”

I looked back at the shaking and shuddering Clinic door. It didn’t look like it would last much longer.

“How much?” I said.

“Oh, it’s not about the money, honey,” said the ambulance. “In this business, it’s all about the suffering . . .”

Molly slapped the leech onto the dashboard, and it stuck there. The ambulance made a surprised sound. Molly goosed the leech with a small lightning bolt from her fingertip, and the heavily veined flesh shuddered briefly. Lights flashed wildly all across the dashboard, and the whole ambulance trembled for a moment.

“Oh yes, darling!” said the ambulance. “That will do nicely!”

The Clinic door burst open, and men and women driven crazy by desperate need fought one another to get into the street first. The ambulance started its engine. Turning as one mind to look, the crowd saw me sitting behind the wheel and charged forward, shouting and howling. Those in the rushing mass were so out of their minds now, they weren’t even producing words, just animal noises. The ambulance surged forward, and those in the crowd ran along beside it, beating on the sides
with their hands. Some of them grabbed hold, and were pulled along as the ambulance accelerated, before falling away again, to be trampled underfoot by the running mob. I looked back at the desperate faces, slowly losing all hope, and then looked at the leech on the dashboard.

“Stop the ambulance,” I said. “Stop right now.”

“Really?” said the ambulance.

“Yes!”

“Well, make up your mind, dear. And if those animals scratch my paintwork, you’re going to be paying for my next makeover.”

The ambulance screeched to a halt, and the crowd took new heart. Those who’d stopped running started again, and the mob soon surrounded the ambulance on all sides, beating on the walls and trying to force open the doors. Others threw things at the windscreen. Molly swivelled round in her seat, the better to give me a very hard look.

“If they get their hands on us, they’ll tear us to pieces. Tell me you have an idea.”

“I have an idea.”

“Is it a good idea?”

“It’s an idea.”

“I’m not going to like this at all, am I?” said Molly.

I explained my idea to her, briefly, and after a moment a big, broad grin spread slowly over her face.

I armoured up my right hand, took a firm hold of the leech, and pulled it off the dashboard. It didn’t want to let go, but finally jerked free with a nasty sucking sound. The ambulance made a disgusted noise. The leech pulsed hungrily in my hand, single-minded as only genetic engineering could make it, but it couldn’t get to me past the strange matter. The crowd had closed in all around us now, rocking the ambulance back and forth. I kicked open the driver’s door, leaned out, and held up the leech so everyone could see it. Everyone in the crowd froze where they were.

“Back off!” I said loudly. “Or I’ll crush it!”

Those at the front backed away immediately, and word spread quickly through the crowd. The noise fell away as people reluctantly retreated, and the ambulance grew still. Those who could see the leech in my hand looked at me with a wretched mixture of hope and despair. I leaned out farther, holding the leech up before me. A dark inkblot against my golden hand. All eyes were fixed on it. Benway and Raven forced their way to the front of the crowd.

“Give it back!” said Benway. “That belongs to us!”

“You’ve no right to it!” said Raven.

“Neither do you,” I said. “It should belong to the people who need it. But if you want it, it’s yours.”

I threw it straight to them. Those in the crowd couldn’t believe it. They made a sound like they’d been hit, and surged forward from all sides at once. Benway and Raven got to the leech first, snatching it out of mid-air. They each got a hand on it at the same time, both to preserve it for themselves and for fear it might fall to the ground and be trampled underfoot. Or that the leech might be torn apart by the crowd fighting over it. Benway and Raven both took a firm hold on the leech at the same moment . . . with their bare hands. In the heat of the moment they’d forgotten all about gloves and special tongs.

Both of them cried out in shock and horror as the leech sucked the life energies out of them. They tried to let go, but their hands had clamped shut on the leech in a convulsive grip. The leech had them, and it wasn’t letting go. I gave Molly the signal and she leaned over me, pointed one finger at the leech, and blasted it with another of her miniature lightning bolts. Just enough to really speed up the process. The leech went into overdrive and sucked all the life energies out of Benway and Raven in a moment. Leaving nothing but two shrivelled, crumpled shapes; desiccated mummies in good suits. They fell dead to the ground, with no more sound than two dried-up insect husks.

Those in the crowd ran right over them to get to the leech; not even
looking down as they fought one another to get to the one thing they thought might save them. A dozen hands clamped down on the leech at once, not caring what its touch might do. And Molly hit the leech with a slightly different magical lightning bolt. This one reversed the leech’s polarity, forcing it to release all the life energies it had stored in one great blast. The leech exploded, but there was no blood, just a blast of brilliant light. A wonderful life-giving light that filled the street, washing over all of the crowd at once. They stood still, awed and confused, as the stored life energies sank into them. And the pain left them, one by one, and the madness went out of their faces.

They turned and looked at one another wonderingly, and then laughed and cried and embraced one another, free of the pain and the horror, and the deaths that had been staring over their shoulders for so long. They turned away from the ambulance and went back to the Clinic to share the good news with their friends and family. Not that they were cured, but that they had a lot more time than they’d thought. I watched them go, and wished I could have gone with them. That I had reason to go with them. Molly settled back into her seat as I armoured down my hand and closed the driver’s door.

“All right,” said Molly. “As ideas go, that one wasn’t too bad.”

“Just this once,” I said, “nobody dies on my watch. Sometimes I forget that I’m not just here to fight the bad guys. I’m here to save people.”

“With a little help from your friends,” said Molly.

“Of course,” I said. “Okay, ambulance, the Wulfshead Club, if you please. As fast as you can.”

The ambulance set off down the street, accelerating fiercely. With all the alarms and sirens going, at no extra charge.

“I’m going to need a new job, aren’t I?” said the ambulance after a while. “Never liked Benway or Raven . . . and I never really liked being an ambulance. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve had to wash out of the back of me on a Saturday night.”

Molly looked at me. “She keeps saying things . . .”

“I had noticed,” I said. I studied the departing street in the rearview mirror. “This time next week, there’ll be a shrine back there, to mark where a miracle took place. And a whole new bunch of con men will emerge, to take advantage of the situation. Such is life. But it does feel good to do some good.”

“You look good, Eddie,” said Molly. “You look . . . better. How are you feeling? Did any of the leech’s light touch you?”

“No,” I said. “It couldn’t get past my torc. I’m still dying. But for the first time since the Drood doctors gave me my deadline, I feel alive again. I’ve got my hope back.”

“About time,” said Molly. “I was getting really tired of carrying you.”

We laughed together as the ambulance sped through the streets of London.

We All Wear Masks

I
’ve driven a Nineteen Thirties racing Bentley through strange dimensions, and piloted an experimental jet over worlds that don’t even have names yet. I’ve run across carriage rooftops on the Trans-Siberian Express, and sailed a ship through a Faerie Gate. But I still say travelling in that ambulance from the Peter Paul Clinic to the Wulfshead Club is one of the most nerve-racking things I’ve ever done. Even though I was sitting in the driver’s seat, I had no control over where we were going or how we were getting there. Mostly I just braced my legs and clung to the unmoving steering wheel with both hands, to keep from being thrown back and forth as the ambulance hit London traffic like a shark thrown into a toddler’s swimming pool. She used her lights and sirens to intimidate everyone into getting out of her way, and when that didn’t work, she was quite happy to play chicken with oncoming cars and threaten to rear-end everything else. Or drive right over them. Speed restrictions were treated as mere suggestions, and the rules of the road were only for the weak and the spineless. She had a particular fondness for side-sweeping bicycle messengers, but then, don’t we all?

She also liked to shout threats, abuse, and very vulgar suggestions
at people who had the temerity to use pedestrian crossings. I wasn’t sure they could hear her, but I still stayed slumped down in my seat, hiding my face as much as possible. Word must have got ahead of the ambulance, because after a while it did seem like all the other traffic was going out of its way to give her plenty of room, including by driving on the pavements. I could understand that; I’d have moved to another country to make sure she had enough room. I just hoped the ambulance didn’t crash into anything. I really didn’t want to be cut out of the wreckage of a loudly blaspheming ambulance.

“Could we please slow down, just a bit?” I said plaintively. “I think I left my stomach behind at the last mini roundabout. The one you went the wrong way round.”

“Thought you were in a hurry, darling,” the ambulance said cheerfully.

“Not this much of a hurry,” I said. “There are theoretical particles that go backwards in Time that go slower than this!”

“Don’t listen to him!” Molly said loudly. “This is the most fun I’ve had all day! You go, girl!”

“You are really not helping,” I said.

I would have liked to close my eyes, but didn’t dare. There was a horrid fascination in seeing sudden death coming straight at me, at speed. I just hoped the way the ambulance dodged disaster again and again, usually at the very last moment, would turn out to be some kind of good omen. Molly, arms and legs braced, whooped loudly in the seat beside me, treating the whole thing as a roller-coaster ride. She grinned across at me.

“What are you looking so worried about? You can always armour up!”

“Not in public,” I said. “Hey! That was a red light!”

“See if I care, darling,” said the ambulance. “I think they do that just to tease me.”

“This is not how I thought I was going to die,” I said wistfully.

Several near misses and a few heart attacks later, the ambulance
finally skidded to a halt at the end of the alley that led to the Wulfshead Club. I slowly relaxed, and looked around carefully. The rest of the traffic carried on as normal, trying to pretend that nothing mind-numbingly dangerous and scrotum-tighteningly awful had just happened. For their own peace of mind. I knew how they felt.

Night had fallen during our journey. Street lamps glowed sullenly, office buildings blazed arrogantly, and the best the night sky could manage was a sprinkling of stars and a crescent moon. A few pedestrians wandered past, but no one so much as glanced at the ambulance, because this was an area for minding your own business. I opened the driver’s door and got out, as quickly as dignity would allow. Molly jumped out of her side, quite happily. The alarms and flashing lights snapped off.

“Told you I’d get you here by the quickest route,” said the ambulance. “Who needs sat-nav? Arrogant little things, with their celebrity voices . . . I know London. I even know bits of it that aren’t always there, and a few that should be.”

“Were you by any chance a taxi driver in some previous existence?” said Molly. “Or even a taxi?”

“Not a bit of it, sweetie,” said the ambulance. “Just a regular working girl, with far too many streets under her white stilettos.” She paused. “You know, I’ve always wanted to visit the Wulfshead. Any chance you could get me in?”

“Not looking the way you do now,” said Molly. “Two legs good, four wheels bad.”

“Ah well, you know what they say, darlings,” said the ambulance. “A change is as good as a rest. It’s not like I meant to be an ambulance all my life; I just chose it as a quick way to make money, and work out my frustrations on slow-moving traffic. You won’t know me the next time you see me! See you on the flipside, sweeties.”

She sped off into the night, in a swirl of flaring blue lights and wailing sirens. I could almost hear the rest of the world flinch.

“You meet the strangest people in this business,” I said.

*   *   *

I led the way down the dark alleyway. Someone had made a public-spirited attempt to clean the place up since I was last here. Probably using really long-handled brooms, and a flame-thrower. The usual piles of garbage were gone, though I could still hear rats scurrying in the shadows. At least, I hoped they were rats. An attempt had been made to clean away some of the accumulated dirt and grime, with varying success. But the alley walls were still slick with moisture, running down the old brickwork in sudden streams, and there were still far too many shadows, deep and dark and quietly menacing. The long alleyway had a worryingly uncertain feel, as though its edges weren’t properly nailed down. Like the alleyways we walk in dreams, where the end is always farther away than you think, and you don’t need to look back to know something is after you.

I couldn’t work out why the alleyway was disturbing me so much. I’d been there often enough before, to visit the Wulfshead, and it had never bothered me. Was it the alley, or was it me? I couldn’t ask Molly if she was feeling the same, in case she wasn’t. I wasn’t ready to have it all be in my mind. And I didn’t want to upset her. I realised I’d come to a halt, just standing there, looking . . . and that Molly was looking at me. I gave her a quick smile, and did my best to appear confident. I didn’t think I was fooling her, but she was kind enough to pretend I was. I moved on, trying to keep an eye on everything at once. Even if I wasn’t sure why.

The walls were still covered in overlapping layers of graffiti. Messages and warnings from the Past, the Present, and the Future. Recent additions included
Cthulhu Has Bad Dreams
,
Don’t Move Anything
;
It Leaves Gaps
, and more worryingly,
Say Good-bye to the Flesh.
And then I had to stop suddenly as the world seemed to lurch under my feet. I turned quickly to the nearest wall and leaned against it, supporting myself with both hands. My head was swimming. Everything felt far away. My legs were trembling, as though they might stop holding me up
at any moment. As I looked at my hands before me, pressed against the wall, I realised I couldn’t feel them. Both hands were completely numb.

Slowly, my head began to clear, and I straightened up again as my legs grew firmer. I held my hands up before me, and flexed them both several times. At first I could only see the fingers moving, but then the usual sensations crept back. No feeling of cold, or even pins and needles. I looked at my hands as though they’d betrayed me. It’s always the extremities that go first. The first sign that for all my torc could do, the poison was still progressing, and my body was breaking down. I wondered when my hands would go numb again, and whether I’d get the feeling back next time. Or what would fail me next. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about . . .

Molly was right beside me, watching silently and trying to keep the concern out of her face. I could tell she wanted to say something, but because I didn’t, she couldn’t. I smiled at her, to show I was back, and then gestured with an almost entirely steady hand at the opposite wall.

“Well, here we are. The Wulfshead Club. How do you want to play this?”

“We can’t go in as Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf,” she said, her tone indicating she would accept the change of subject, for now. “Too many complications, and too much back history with the club and its patrons. Some might have heard that you’re . . . not yourself, and try to take advantage. And for those who haven’t heard anything yet, best not to drop any clues.”

“Right,” I said. “I do have the feeling that we’re still banned. As Eddie and Molly. We made a hell of a mess of the place, last time we were here. It’s going to be hard enough to ask casual questions about Dr DOA, without having to fight off heavily armed bouncers at the same time.”

“I’m sure they’ll have forgotten all about our little upset,” said Molly. “Well, no, they won’t have forgotten, but if they banned anyone who got a little rowdy now and then, they wouldn’t have any customers left.”

“Of course,” I said, “we’re not just anyone.”

“Damned right,” said Molly.

“In order to make it easier for us to pursue our enquiries, I’ll go in as Shaman Bond,” I said. “People are always glad to see Shaman, that charming rogue about town.”

“You like being him,” said Molly, “I often think, more than you like being Eddie. Which is . . . just a bit weird.”

“Shaman doesn’t carry the weight of my family’s history around with him, and he hasn’t done the kind of things I’ve had to do. But he’ll still die when I do. That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Okay,” said Molly. “Moving on . . . I’ll go in as Roxie Hazzard, well-known mercenary soldier and adventurer for hire. She’s a cover persona I often use when I have to work in the Nightside and don’t want to carry Molly Metcalf’s personal and professional baggage in with me.”

I looked at her. “And why have I never heard anything about this Roxie person before?”

“Because you didn’t need to know,” Molly said loftily. “A girl’s entitled to a few secrets.”

“And you have more than most,” I said generously. “Has Roxie been involved in anything, or done anything, that Shaman might know about?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so,” said Molly. “Shaman’s never been to the Nightside. Has he?”

I smiled. “Not officially. I have my secrets too, you know.”

Molly laughed, and closed in on me. “Tell me all, right now, or it’s tickle time.”

“Later,” I said.

Molly dropped me a wink, snapped her fingers, and just like that, she was somebody else. Molly Metcalf blinked out of existence, to be replaced by a tall, muscular figure with frizzy brick red hair and a harsh, handsome face. She wore a heavy black leather jacket over a simple blue jumpsuit, with thigh-high calf-leather boots, and a length of steel chain wrapped around her waist. She looked like she could punch out a rabid Rottweiler and look good doing it.

“Okay, that is incredible,” I said. “I’m looking at you through my Sight, backed by all the power of my torc, and I still can’t see a trace of Molly Metcalf anywhere.”

Roxie Hazzard grinned back at me, and when she spoke, even her voice had changed to a low, sultry growl with a hint of an accent I couldn’t place.

“That’s the idea, lover. The change has to be complete, to go undetected in places like the Wulfshead and the Nightside.”

“Is it just an illusion?” I said. “Or have you undergone an actual physical transformation?”

“Allow a girl a few trade secrets,” said Roxie. She struck a pose, showing herself off. “So, do you fancy me like this?”

“I’m going to be in trouble whatever I say, aren’t I?”

She laughed happily; a low, throaty sound. And then we both looked round sharply. There had been movement, and the sound of movement, farther down the alley. Deliberately made, wanting to be noticed. I looked hard into the shadowy depths of the alleyway, but couldn’t see anything. I glanced at Roxie, and she shook her head quickly. We started down the alley together, and I quickly discovered that while she might look like Roxie, she still moved like my Molly. Like a predator, always ready for trouble.

Half-way down the alley, a figure stepped out of the shadows to confront us. Even though there was nowhere he could have come from, no way he could have got that close without us noticing. As though he’d just appeared out of nowhere. Which is never a good sign. I stopped, and Roxie stopped with me. The new arrival stood very still, waiting for us to make the first move.

A tall, almost spindly figure in a grey hoodie over grey slacks and grubby trainers. So he could disappear into the shadows whenever he felt the need. He had the air of someone used to hiding from unfriendly eyes. He pushed his hood back, to reveal a pale, youthful face with short black hair and heavy stubble. His eyes burned fiercely, and his
thin lips were pressed tight together; holding harsh emotions within. There was something of the wild about him, ready to fight or flee, as necessary.

I relaxed a little as I recognised his face, but only a little. His presence here made no sense.