Something of the Night (20 page)

“Oh… no,” she moaned, as she
peered inside.

The picture inside had been
broken into tiny irregular shaped pieces. She took a couple of the pieces out
and examined each individually. The first was a small blob with a protrusion on
two sides and a round indentation on the others. Part of the woman’s head could
be seen on one side and just a plain background on the other. She dropped it
into the box before examining the next. This one had two straight edges and
only one indent and one protrusion. At first there didn’t appear to be any part
of the picture on it.
Alice
managed to match it against the picture on the lid
and discovered it to be part of the arena’s dusty floor.

“Why would anyone destroy
such a beautiful thing?” she whispered to herself.

She dropped the pieces back
into the box before replacing the lid. Then she tucked the box into her
waistband. Once she’d sorted the fire out, she intended to see if she could
stick the pieces back together again.

She left the rows of toys
behind and now worked her way through a corridor. She found the room above her
makeshift fire. The floor looked fragile and dangerous. Using the main beams
for support,
Alice
walked towards the centre of the room, carefully
balanced with her arms held out wide. She reached the centre and crouched
lower. From this position she could make out the room below through the
colander of holes.

With her behind fixed firmly
to the beam, she used both feet to kick away the plaster and succeeded in
creating a sufficiently large hole. Then she climbed back to her feet and stood
balanced on the beam. She headed in the opposite direction and found herself at
a shuttered window. It took her a couple of minutes to free the rusty catch, which
then allowed her to push open the two shutters. As she did so, the wind caught
them, ripping both away from the sill and flinging them into the darkness. For
once, the wind had helped rather than hindered. At least now she need not worry
about them slamming shut. And the natural draught she’d created would
continually draw away the smoke from below. Even the horrid grey sludge that
fell from the sky would help in hiding the faint plume of smoke.

She spun gracefully, then
crossed the beams, traversed the corridor and returned to the dark staircase.
She mentally counted them off until she reached the missing step. Taking hold
of the banister, she stepped over the void and reached the bottom intact. She
returned to the unlit fire and sat cross-legged beside it.

She pulled the box free and
placed it delicately in front of her. The beacon returned to the floor next to
the box. Part of the lid had ripped away and a piece of paper fluttered
slightly. She smoothed it down and the second part of a word joined the first.
Jigsaw
.
She looked at the word, then at the animal. Jigsaw, she thought, what a nice
name. Removing the lid, she took a handful of pieces and laid them out on the
floor. Her hand hovered over them for a second before she plucked one up. It
was an ear. She placed the first piece of Jigsaw’s head down and then began to
look for the next.

After a couple of minutes of
silence, her concentration was broken when boots crunched through the
passageway. Her heart quivered with fear. There were two sets of footsteps.
Squirrel appeared then and he looked worried. Close behind the mechanic came a
second figure, dressed in a wet cloak that hid the wearer’s features. A
powerful-looking rifle hung from one of its hands.
Alice
panicked. She reached inside her jacket, intent on drawing her pistol. The
stranger reached up to pull the hood away.

Her heart missed a beat.

Elliot.

Chapter
Thirty-Three

One thousand, three hundred and sixty steps, that’s
how many Ben had climbed with the Browning weighing him down. By now, his legs
had become so weak he was in danger of collapsing and never getting up again -
not ever. He looked up, counted sixteen more steps and almost cried with joy.
With typical irony, the heavy weapon had not been called upon; and Ben was
convinced the beast Jacob Cain had told him about lay dead or dying somewhere
below them. Yet, he’d been forced to cart the Browning all the way from the
ground floor up to the 86
^th
.

“Nearly there,” Jacob said.

Lieutenant Hutson smiled a
weary look of relief. “I guess we’re close to the moment of truth.”

“Yeah,” Jacob agreed.
Although no one had actually spoken about it, all three were terrified that The
Ray of Hope would be irreparably damaged.

“This,” Ben commented, “had
better have been worth it.”

“It was your plan, remember?”
Jacob said.

“Aye – and I’m the one paying
for it.”

Jacob grinned mischievously.
“Would you like me to carry it the rest of the way?” He held his hands out. Ben
grumbled a long string of obscenities - No.

“Can’t say I didn’t offer,”
Jacob retorted.

Another tirade of obscenities
fell from Ben’s lips, and, even though Lieutenant Hutson didn’t fully
understand them all, her cheeks still turned a slight shade of red.

Jacob climbed the last few
steps and stood before a door with Level 86 stencilled across it. This one
appeared to be twice as strong as the other doors, and locked tight. A huge
locking mechanism had been chiselled into the wood and the keyhole looked like
a dark, misshapen eye. He pushed his shoulder against the door to test its
strength. It was as solid as rock.

“Is everything okay?” Hutson
asked.

“Damned door is solid,” he
told her.

Hutson reached out and took
hold of the handle. She tried it to the left. Nothing. Then she twisted it to
the right. The thing didn’t budge an inch.

“What now?” he asked.

“This,” a voice from behind
said.

Ben stepped forwards and
brought the Browning’s muzzle up to the keyhole. He pulled on the trigger and
his face grinned with devilish delight. In the next instant, the locking
mechanism and part of the framework ceased to exist. Now, a tattered hole
filled with darkness had taken the lock’s place. Using his boot, Ben kicked
open the door and stepped out onto the platform.

Together, they walked around
the observation deck. Seven or eight pairs of binoculars hung limp and rusting
from the railings; the only picture they would be capable of revealing now
would be one of despair and dilapidation. The entire city had become a dark,
forgotten landscape. The deck curved around and brought them to the opposite
side.

And there, in all its
splendour, sat, The Ray of Hope.

“Is that it?” Jacob asked,
disappointed.

Perched on a four-legged
trestle was a lifeless, circular searchlight. The diameter, Jacob reckoned,
must be a little over three feet, which was barely half what he’d expected. The
object stirred images from a long-ago conflict, seen in black-and-white
photographs or film. It had been used to search out enemy aircraft, and
pre-dated the earliest radar detection systems. Jacob stepped closer and the
glass cover caught him in a dark reflection. Concentric lines ran from the
centre of the cover in ever-increasing circles, turning the glass into a
powerful lens. His reflection was distorted into a wide, stretched blob.

Again, he asked, “Is that
it?”

The disappointment of the
object had silenced any reply from the Lieutenant.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Ben
commented from behind.

They turned and gave him a
look of frustration.

“What?” Ben asked, their
displeasure a mystery.

“What the hell is
that
?”
Jacob complained. He looked back at the searchlight and huffed miserably. “What
the hell is it?”

“It’s a General Electric
Carbon Arc Searchlight, more commonly known as a Sperry Searchlight,” Ben
explained.

“A Sperry what?” Jacob asked.

“A Sperry Searchlight,” Ben
repeated. “It’s named after the guy who invented the gyroscope it’s sat on.”

“Gyroscope?”

Ben shook his head and he
looked genuinely disappointed at his audience’s dire lack of knowledge. “Don’t
you know anything?”

“Not from 1942, no,” Jacob
replied.

Hutson shrugged her shoulders.
She had absolutely no recollection or understanding of the greatest battle man
had ever seen. That was, the greatest battle until now.

Ben stepped closer and his
excitement managed to push his fatigue away for the moment. “She’s probably
well over ninety years old,” he said with childlike wonder.

Jacob released a deep,
agonised moan. “You dragged us all the way up here for a relic.
Great …
”

“Hold your horses,” Ben said.
“This baby was made to last.”

“For all our sakes, I hope
you’re right.”

“Trust me,” Ben responded,
and grinned.

Ben stepped over to the
Sperry and placed his hand affectionately on it. With the giant standing beside
it, the searchlight looked even smaller and more pathetic than before, little
more than an oversized metal drum. However, instead of stretched skin over the
front, this instrument had a magnifying membrane of glass.

“Shouldn’t it be… I don’t
know – larger, or something?” Jacob asked.

“You’re getting confused with
the 1942AU Hercules Flathead, a big bitch to be sure. This baby, though, is the
1943MA – mobile anti-aircraft unit – a more portable and lightweight
anti-aircraft unit.”

“You’re just a fount of
knowledge,” Jacob scorned.

“Indeed,” Ben said, ignoring
the sarcasm. “You have to remember, halfway through World War II radar was
invented and the searchlights became almost redundant towards the end of 1943.
But the 1943MA became a smaller version of the AU and was used predominantly to
help protect installations that were under construction, and before the
complicated mechanisms of radar had been implemented. The old AU ran off a
General Electric DC generator, capable of producing 16.7 KW.”

“Great… ”

“The combined weight of the
generator, light and transport trailer was in excess of 6000 pounds. Can you
imagine pulling
that
load across
Europe
during the winter months?”

“The mind boggles,” said
Jacob wearily.

Ben looked from one blank
face to the next. “Don’t you guys ever read?”

Jacob grumbled. He’d probably
read more books than the guy had hairs on his head and face, but just recently
he’d been a bit too preoccupied with the distraction of a million vampires.

“Not recently, no,” he
replied.

“Look,” Ben said, “the AU was
just too big to transport, so a smaller version was created.”

“Wait a minute,” Hutson said,
her face forming into a frown. “Even if they did make a smaller… whatever –
then why is it all the way up here? And wouldn’t the light have been useless
against the undead?”

Ben clapped his hands
excitedly. At least one of them had initiative, if not understanding. “That’s
correct, but this baby was modified to operate two Xenon ultraviolet tubes. The
original white light was deemed too harsh for its purpose, so they changed it
to a softer blue or UV and named it ‘The Ray of Hope’.”

“But why?” Hutson asked.

Ben sighed. “Because it was a
symbol of peace. Hope. For almost two decades western civilisation had been at
war with the east, and after years of bloodshed and suffering Man began to
finally understand his differences, differences between cultures, religions,
ideologies and values. And to symbolise peace, the rulers of the west created
The Ray of Hope. They said as long as the light shone, man would be protected
from terror, prejudice and ignorance. Basically, from himself.”

Jacob nodded. That time of
peace now seemed like a million years ago. Indeed, it had been a very different
world from the one they lived in now.

“You mean, man killed man?”
Hutson asked, sickened.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Ben
responded morosely. “
I
always thought it would be the invasion of UFOs
which would bind men together – brothers amongst brothers. I never thought we’d
figure it all out by ourselves. There’s a certain sick sort of irony that after
finally finding peace, this happens.”

Jacob nodded again. God
definitely had a twisted sense of humour.

“But it’s just one light. How
can that help us now?” Hutson asked.

“Just one light?” Ben
repeated. “Honey, have you any idea how bright this thing gets when it’s on
full burn?”

“No.”

“It burns at 8 million
candelas,” he said.

“What’s a can-deela?” she
quizzed.

“It’s a unit of light. Each
candela is equivalent to one burning candle. Can you imagine eight million?”

Hutson’s mouth dropped open.
It seemed like enough to light up the entire world.

“But how do we power this
thing?” Jacob asked.

Ben’s enthusiasm took a
nosedive. “That’s the only problem.” He shuffled around the searchlight and
disappeared around the back. They heard a desperately sad sigh as Ben found
that the generator was a hunk of rust and decay. “The generator’s goosed.”

For once, Jacob’s optimism
flourished. “If we can save the light, then there are generators at the
underground we could use.”

“But what about diesel?”

“That too.”

Ben’s face broke into a
colourful smile. “Alright!” His elation, however, was short lived. “Wait a
minute, how big are these generators?”

Jacob shrugged. “Not sure,
but plenty big enough to operate that.”

“See, that’s the problem,”
Ben said miserably.

“What problem?”

“It can’t be too big or it’ll
never work.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll be too heavy
to carry.”

“As long as we get the light
back, then we don’t need to carry it anywhere,” Jacob explained.

“Yes we do.”

“Where?”

“How do you think we were
planning on using The Ray of Hope? Stood at the end of a battlefield waiting
for it to be shot to pieces?”

“I hadn’t really thought
about it,” Jacob admitted.

“Well, I have,” Ben told him.
“And unless we find a small enough generator, our plan will never work.”

“What plan?”

“The plan to fix The Ray of
Hope onto Black Bird.”

“Fix it where?” Jacob asked.

“Onto Black Bird,” Ben
echoed.

“How?”

Ben looked momentarily
confused; and at that moment Jacob realised that most of Ben’s knowledge was
confined to textbooks and technical manuals, not the real world. “I’m not
sure,” Ben admitted.

“Great …” Jacob moaned.

Suddenly, Ben’s face lit up. “Hey,
what about your friend … Squirrel?”

“Yeah, Squirrel will know
what to do,” Hutson said.

“I guess,” the tracker
agreed. “I just hope you make it back in time to fix it.”

“You’re still heading for
Ezekiel’s camp?” Ben asked.

“Yeah.”

Ben shook his head. “You’re
one brave son-of-a-bitch. You wouldn’t get me taking one step into their
domain. Not even with a fully loaded Browning under each arm.”

Jacob had to agree – on the
face of it, it did look positively reckless. But still, he felt an inexplicable
force pulling him towards the heart of the vampires’ lair.

“I guess it’s hard for you to
appreciate, but I’ve got to go,” he said.

Ben nodded in understanding.
“We’ll do our best to get you as close as possible.”

“Thanks.”

“Now,” Ben continued, “we
need to concentrate on stripping this down, so we can transport it back to this
underground of yours.”

“Wait a second,” Jacob said.

“What is it?”

“Once we do strip it down,
how the hell are we gonna transport it back to the lobby?” He leaned over the
railing, trying his best to find a landmark below at such a high altitude.

“Well?”

Ben shuffled awkwardly. “If
this wind doesn’t drop, we’re in for the long haul down stairs.”

“Christ. What sort of
half-assed plan is this?” Jacob moaned.

As if to mock them, a
powerful gust of wind tore across the observation deck, rattling railings and
scooping debris up into the air. The noise became deafening for a moment, like
the agonising wail of a tormented soul. Under such conditions it would be
virtually impossible for Tate to guide the Huey close enough with any real
measure of control.