The Bride Wore Black Leather (22 page)

“Was that before or after they shoved you up chimneys or down the mines?” I said.

Julien sighed, heavily, and translated the various descriptions for me. With rather more hesitations and uncertainty than you’d expect from someone who was supposed to have had a first-class private education. But after a while he got interested and started a running commentary on what each new description implied.

“Here at the Hospice, they deal with all the more unusual medical problems and conditions of the Nightside. Resulting in some very specialised care and services. There are doctors here to take off curses, put souls or identities back where they came from, reverse transformations, and undo teleport pod mishaps. They can restore kirlian fields and retune your chakras. Can’t say I really approve of all this New Age stuff, but you can’t ignore alternative medicine these days. Fortunately, I don’t see anything here about crystals or flower aromatherapy, or I would have to say something very unfortunate. There are wards here for every need and speciality, including every kind of species you can think of. The Hospice doesn’t discriminate. And then, of course, there’s Ward 12A, though most people don’t like to talk about that.”

“Why not?” I said immediately. “What goes on in Ward 12A?”

Julien pressed on, deliberately ignoring my question. “There are wards for unicorns who need reshoeing with pure silver hooves, and for werewolves with the mange. I understand Leo Morn’s a martyr to it, in the winter months. For vampires who’ve made themselves ill by drinking the wrong blood group: Rhesus intolerant. And, of course, a ward to treat all the rare and nasty diseases that will keep turning up in the Nightside through Timeslips: from the Past and any number of unfortunate futures. You really don’t want to know about the Plague Ward, John.”

He carried on, talking with increasing enthusiasm, extolling the many virtues of the Hospice, genuinely proud of all the incredible services its staff could provide. Often only because of his vigorous fund-raising though, of course, he never mentioned that bit. He talked at length of the giant spiders who lived in the basement, spinning bandages, and the ghouls who were bused in every day to eat the medical waste, and the occasional body too toxic to dispose of in a normal manner. Or too tough to burn. A ghoul’s digestion can handle anything, up to and including nuclear waste. Though you really don’t want to be around them when they fart.

And, sometimes, ghouls would be called in to deal with certain bodies that were too dangerous to be buried. Any villain who ever said
I’ll be back!
as he went to his death at the hands of a triumphant hero . . . never met a Nightside ghoul. But I couldn’t help noticing that Julien was saying most of this to cover up the fact that he didn’t want to talk about Ward 12A. I mused on this while noticing that all of the porters, including those pushing patients around in wheel-chairs, were actually very familiar-looking cat-faced robots. I pointed this out to Julien as a matter of urgency, but he just nodded easily.

“I know,” he said. “The Authorities bought them at auction, from one of the vaults discovered after the Collector’s death. We donated them to the Hospice. Mark always did have a fondness for this particular kind of automaton, brought back from some future iteration of China, I believe. You don’t have to worry, John; they’ve all been very thoroughly reprogrammed to serve and protect the patients.”

I decided I was still going to keep a very careful eye on them. These robots, or some very like them, had tried very hard to kill Suzie and me when they worked for the Collector. In fact, I was almost sure some of them were keeping a careful eye on me. I caught a number of cat-featured heads turning away the moment I looked at them. To take my mind off this, Julien pointed out that many of the nurses working in the Hospice were actually probationary nuns, from the Salvation Army Sisterhood. That got my attention. The SAS were the most hard core, extreme Christian Sect in the Nightside. Certainly not anyone you’d want to argue with when they said you needed an enema. Apparently probationary Sisters were sent here to put their faith to the test and to harden them up. Before they could join the Sisterhood proper and go forth to smite the ungodly where it hurt.

And then suddenly the lobby was full of sirens, bells, flashing red lights, screams and shouts and people yelling at each other. Julien was up on his feet immediately, looking quickly round for people to help and evil to fight. I was still struggling to get to my feet, and looking around for anything that might be coming my way. Everyone else was heading for the front doors, with great speed and determination. Including security people, reception staff, nurses, and robots helping patients, and absolutely everyone in the waiting area. Many of them showed a remarkable turn of speed, considering how ill they were supposed to be. I looked at Julien, to ask whether or not we should be leaving, too, but he was busy looking around to see where the fire was. Or possibly the attack. I grabbed a passing nurse by the arm, and she nearly pulled me over before I brought her to a halt. She was a big girl. Her arm muscle bulged dangerously under my hand, but then the probationary nun recognised who I was and settled for jerking her arm out of my grip.

“What’s going on?” I yelled at her, over all the sirens and alarums.

“Red Alert!” she yelled back at me. “Major Emergency and Get the Hell Out! Look, it’s Ward 12A, you idiot! If you’re not going to run, get out of the way of a nun who can!”

In an instant, she was off and running again, not even looking back. I turned to look at Julien, only to find that he was off and running, too, but heading in the opposite direction, deeper into the Hospice. I looked round the deserted lobby, sighed deeply, and went after him. Thinking,
That man will be the death of me, one day.
I knew he was going to Ward 12A to see if he could help anyone and put down whatever trouble had broken out there. Because he was still the Great Victorian Adventurer, and that was what he did. And if he was going, I had to go as well. Because that was the trouble with Julien Advent; he made you be a better person, in spite of yourself, if only because you couldn’t stand to let him down.

•  •  •

We pounded through the Hospice corridors, following the signs on the walls that pointed the way to Ward 12A. We passed a hell of a lot of people going the other way, running as though the Devil himself was hot on their heels. Many of them looked at us incredulously and yelled for us to get out while we still had a chance. Julien kept going, so I had to go on, too. And, of course, along the way we ran into Dr. Benway herself, also heading for Ward 12A. I only knew it was her because Julien actually said her name out loud and smiled with something very like relief. Dr. Benway nodded briefly to Julien and kept going, too.

We soon caught up with her. Benway was a short, stick-thin figure in the usual white doctor’s coat. She had flat grey hair, cropped short in a functional way, and a hard-set face, lined with all the marks of a long, busy life, filled with more losses than successes. Her eyes were a cool, thoughtful grey, and her mouth was set in a thin, flat line. She looked strong and capable, someone you’d be glad to have around in a crisis. If only she wasn’t leading you right into the heart of it.

“Good to see you again, Julien,” Benway said brusquely, looking straight ahead as she ran. “We can use all the help we can get.” She glanced at me. “Even him.”

“You’ve heard of me,” I said reproachfully. “And you know Julien Advent personally. What a surprise.”

“I know everyone,” said Julien. He wasn’t even breathing hard, the bastard. “How else do you think I know everything?”

“I know a lot of people, too,” I said.

“Ah yes,” said Julien. “But you know people like Dead Boy and Razor Eddie, while I know people who matter.”

“Shut up and run,” said Benway. “Save your breath and your strength. You’re going to need them.”

She actually increased her speed, racing along with her arms pumping at her sides, sprinting through the deserted Hospice corridors with a turn of speed that was frankly astonishing in a woman who had to be well into her sixties. She darted in and out of a series of short cuts, ignoring the directions on the walls, and soon I hadn’t a clue where I was. The corridors were starting to remind me uncomfortably of the hedgerow maze. But I knew when we were finally getting close to Ward 12A because I started to hear things. From up ahead of us, to every side, and, even more worryingly, behind us, I heard a series of heavy, slamming sounds.

“That’s the steel security doors dropping down into place,” said Dr. Benway. “Sealing off the corridors. No-one in, no-one out, until this mess is sorted, and the danger is over. If all the security doors are dropped, that means all the patients who can be moved have been; so we’re pretty much alone in here, with the problem.”

“What about the patients who couldn’t be moved?” said Julien. Typical of the man, to be concerned with innocents even as he raced into danger.

“They’ll have to take their chances,” Benway said curtly. “They’re under guard; God bless the Fortress. Concentrate on what’s ahead of us, Julien. If we can’t bring this under control quickly, we could lose the whole Hospice.”

“What is ahead of us?” I said, not unreasonably, I thought. “What the hell has happened in Ward 12 bloody A?”

“Something got loose,” said Benway, in a voice like the end of the world.

•  •  •

We rounded a final corner, and there at the end of the corridor before us was a heavily reinforced steel door, marked simply:
12A
. Two young men in white doctor’s coats were barricading the door with everything they could get their hands on. Furniture, medical trolleys, even a Hot Drinks! Machine that they were man-handling into place. They suddenly realised they weren’t alone. Their heads snapped round, and they both let out girlish shrieks of alarm. They started to run, only to stop immediately as Dr. Benway yelled at them.

“Dr. Burke! Dr. Rabette! Stand right where you are!”

And they did. They turned immediately to look at her, ignoring Julien and me, as the three of us finally came to a halt before the door to Ward 12A. I had black spots dancing before my eyes, my ribs ached, and I had to lean against a wall while I concentrated on getting my breath back. Julien breathed deeply a few times, then strolled forward to observe the barricaded door with a keen interest. Dr. Benway put her hands on her hips and rotated her back a few times. I heard bones creak and crack. She glared at the two young doctors standing uneasily before her, then glared at me.

“These two young fools are supposed to be in charge here. On the grounds that I can’t do everything myself. Talk to me, Burke, Rabette! What’s the situation?”

The two young doctors looked at each other guiltily. The older of the two was barely into his midtwenties, and they both looked shocked as well as scared as they glanced at the barricaded door. Finally, the older one, Burke, swallowed hard.

“The door is locked and sealed. It can’t get out. But we can’t go in there! It’s too dangerous! Who are these two?”

“Julien Advent and John Taylor,” said Benway.

“I think I felt safer before they got here,” said Rabette in a high, shaky voice. He smiled quickly, to show it was meant to be a joke. “We’ll take all the help we can get, but I don’t know what you can do. I don’t know there’s anything anyone can do. All hell’s breaking loose in there.”

“We should get the hell out of here!” said Burke, actually wringing his hands together.

“Shut up, both of you!” snarled Benway. “Call yourselves doctors . . .” She turned her back on them and marched over to stand before the barricaded door. She started to push the drinks machine out of the way, then found she couldn’t. Julien and I had to help her. Burke and Rabette reluctantly shifted everything else they’d piled up against the door, revealing a portholelike window in the top third of the steel door. Benway walked right up to it, listened carefully for a moment, then peered cautiously through the porthole. I looked at Julien and gave him my best hard stare.

“I think this would be a really good time for you to fill me in on what’s so important about Ward 12A, don’t you? What do they do in there; what kind of patients do they treat?”

“Ward 12A is reserved exclusively for those unfortunate enough to have been damaged by coming in contact with forces or beings from Outside the realms we know,” Julien said quietly. “Remind you of anything?”

“The Entities from Beyond,” I said.

“Exactly,” said Julien.

I looked at the very solid steel door and hoped it was as locked and sealed as the young doctors had said. “You think . . . maybe the Sun King is in there? Could he really have got here ahead of us, that fast?”

“Who knows what he’s capable of, now?” said Julien. “But let’s not add to our problems until we have to.”

“If you two have finished muttering secrets to each other, perhaps you’d like to take a look,” Benway said acidly.

Julien and I moved forward to join her. Burke and Rabette seized the opportunity to back away. Benway had her face pressed up close against the porthole, so Julien and I moved in on either side of her, our heads pressed close together. All I could see were flaring bright lights, sharp and intense, so bright I couldn’t even be sure what colours they were. The glare didn’t simply blaze through the porthole; it outlined the steel door itself. Great, angry, roaring sounds rose and fell on the other side of the door, none of them in any way human. I glanced at Benway.

“What exactly have you got in there? What’s wrong with these patients?”

“In Ward 12A, we deal mainly with possessions and abductions. Men and women, and sometimes children, unfortunate enough to have attracted the attention of forces from Outside. We try to treat people who have been taken and changed, physically and mentally, to adapt them to live on other worlds, or in other realities. Places where merely human forms couldn’t hope to survive. Of course, after these beings have finished with their experiments, they abandon their victims and dump them back where they found them. They never bother to undo the changes they’ve made, don’t care that the poor bastards have been altered so much they can’t cope with Earth conditions any more. Some of them end up at the Fortress, but the most damaged, or dangerous, are brought here. We do what we can for them, but mostly they’re contained here, in a secure facility. Ward 12A.”