Through Glass Darkly: Episode Two (12 page)

‘Somehow, you and the Lamphrey were mixed together and then separated back out into two living beings.’ I explained as carefully as I could.

She went very pale as I described how we’d found her body somehow intact and inside the shell of the Lamphrey. How the doctors had to surgically remove the extra limbs that had been attached to her spine, in the process discovering that her body chemistry amongst other things was now different, meaning they didn’t even know what kind of food it would be safe for her to eat let alone what medications would work.

‘So you mean that creature is still running around in something that looks like my body, hurting and killing people?’

‘Yes, though it’s also hurt quite badly itself at the moment.’

I gave an orderly that had been waiting outside with some different types of food the nod, and he brought in a whole tray full of different food types from raw vegetables and fish right the way through to a well-cooked burger, cheese, pickles, seeds, salad, chocolate.

As she tried each thing I described what had happened to the ship and the crew, the disastrous encounter with the creature in the rail yard that had only been saved by the arrival of the ship, right up to our most recent hunt for it through the sewers and the odd piles of debris we’d discovered, as well as Frasers theories for them.

She was attentive throughout, but as I described the nests of debris and then the theories that Fraser had come up with she stopped eating and looked at me clearly slightly shocked.

‘I should try and connect with it,’ she finally commented. ‘I don’t know whether I still can now that I’ve been separated from the shell of the creature that I was inside, but if there’s any chance it could be trying to make others of its own kind I’ve got try and find out anything I can.’

‘Will the creature be able to tell what you’re doing?’ I asked, concerned. ‘Or even see where you are?’

‘Yes, it can sense me and I can sense it, that’s just how it worked. It might not think I’m still alive after I was shot, but it’s a risk I think we should probably take.’

I could only agree, despite my concerns about whether she was yet recovered enough, any information about where the creature was and what it was doing could be priceless.

I moved the tray of food aside and helped to settle Ariel back into a more relaxed position, so she could concentrate on what she was doing.

‘Yes, I can still sense it,’ she said almost immediately. ‘If anything it seems easier than before.’

‘Something feels different though,’ she continued, frowning slightly. ‘It’s aware of me . . . though it doesn’t know I’m watching yet. I think it’s moving.’

Then suddenly, after only another moment she sat bolt upright with a gasp and looked straight at me. ‘Ash, it’s coming. It’s been sensing me for a while, I think it’s coming for me!’

CHAPTER 29 - HUNTED

The creature was coming for Ariel, to a hospital full of sick and infirm people, not to mention doctors and medical staff who were trained and naturally inclined to saving lives rather than taking them, but for a single heartbeat the rage that smouldered within me wanted it to come so I could kill it.

But I knew I couldn’t allow this place of healing to become a battlefield, so with my next heartbeat I gave Ariel her lenses and the suitcase full of clothes and told her to quickly get dressed, while I went to the nurses station down the corridor, to summon Dr Bach.

There was a second phone on the desk and without asking I called through to the police command centre in the park and quickly explained to Platt what was happening and how I was going to try and get Ariel away in the police car before the creature came to the hospital, and then as soon as she was dressed I was back with Ariel and the doctor, who’d arrived almost immediately.

He trusted me enough to allow me to explain while walked to the car with Ariel in a wheelchair, and went visibly pale when I explained how we knew the creature which had recently killed so many vagrants and police officers was now hunting Ariel, and was on its way to his hospital.

I didn’t need to check my gun, I knew it was fully loaded with Manstopper rounds and in perfect working order, but as we crossed the reception approaching the main doors I placed my hand on my gun ready to draw it the moment we stepped outside if the creature was there.

I felt the rage flowing in my veins again, controlled, but only just, as I used my other hand to set my lenses in motion. A full spectrum of a hundred lens combinations per eye running at thirty cycles a second, an automatic sequence that few Lensmen ever trained could withstand for any length of time. Even for me the pressure of so many lens changes and so much information bombarding my retinas and brain was a strain, which I knew at the very least would result in a splitting headache, and far more likely would induce extreme epileptic seizures if I used it for long, but it left nowhere for anything to hide.

As I scanned the world outside, absorbing information from every part of the spectrum I saw that Ariel alone had noticed and understood what I’d done, the blood draining from her already pale face in exquisite slow motion, multi-spectrum detail.

The police driver was stood by his car enjoying the fine warm weather and reading a newspaper, but as he glanced up he understood the situation in an instant, and was grabbing for the door-handle of his car before his falling newspaper had even hit the floor. I saw everything. How his pupils dilated with surprise, his heart rate quickening and his face flushed almost imperceptibly. I absorbed every detail of the newspaper he was reading right down to the normally invisible watermark. Every detail of the area around the front of the hospital entered my consciousness a fraction of a second later. As our driver brought the car to meet us, I saw him register the gun in my hand, and my speeding lenses while I scanned the perimeter, all as he manoeuvred the vehicle to meet us.

A moment later and Ariel was being bustled into the back seat by an orderly, while the driver scanned the perimeter himself for any sign of motion.

The police car left two deep ruts in the gravel of the Sanatorium’s drive as we sped away, while I scanned and re-scanned the grounds around us.

‘Ariel,’ I said, without looking at her for more than a fraction of a heartbeat. ‘Can you try to re-connect with the creature to see if you can tell how close it is.’

‘Of course,’ was all she said as she closed her eyes and bowed her head to concentrate.

We were heading north to the Bayonne Bridge, which must surely be the way the creature would get to the island, if it wasn’t already here.

A moment later, just as we were about to drive onto the bridge Ariel made contact.

‘I’ve got it, its swimming through water, beneath a bridge’ she said concentrating. ‘It’s north and east of us. It senses me and knows I’m moving toward it, but I can’t tell how close it is.’

As we neared the bridge I scanned the ironwork along the underside of the bridge as well as the countless girders that crossed the road but could see no sign of it, but there were so many angles and corners where it could be hidden.

The bridge was where we’d be most vulnerable, so I was almost tempted to tell the driver to stop and to find another route off the island and back to Manhattan, but there was no guessing what the thing would do if it felt us travelling away from it faster than it could follow, so as we rounded the corner toward the bridge I turned to the driver and instructed him to increase our speed as much as possible.

‘Crossing the bridge will leave us exposed,’ I told him, earnestly. ‘The creature could be hiding behind any one of those girders or other metalwork, and all we can do is speed up to make the car a more difficult target for it to intercept.’

He didn’t need telling twice, as soon as I’d finished speaking his foot pressed the accelerator to the floor.

‘Yes, yes sir,’ he replied rather wide eyed, never taking his eyes from the road.

The bridge was a full mile long, but it felt like the longest mile I’d ever travelled. I scanned and re-scanned the girders to the sides of the bridge and above us, as we sped on.

Ariel still had her eyes closed and head back against the seat, trying to sense where the creature was and what it was doing, until eventually she got something.

‘I think we’ve passed it, she finally said. It’s still in the water somewhere, but the direction is changing quite markedly, yes we must’ve passed it.’

I heard the police driver next to me let out a breath, as he glanced over to me before looking back at the road ahead.

‘In that case we can slow down to a slightly more sane speed,’ I suggested, scanning the water beneath the bridge for any sign of the creature, before gradually turning down the cycle rate on my lenses, and finally switching them off. I was sure to get a headache for a while, but by gradually cycling back down to normal vision it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

Ariel continued to try and sense the creature in order to detect where it was or how far away from us it might be, but after a while she gave up exhausted.

‘I think it can tell when I’m trying to sense it, and it’s deliberately blocking or hiding where it is,’ she said, sounding frustrated.

‘I thought you said it was simpler than that, and you could either sense it or not?’ I asked slightly confused.

‘Yes, but I can only see and hear what it is seeing and hearing, so I think it’s simply stopping what it’s doing and maybe closing its eyes so there’s literally nothing for me to sense.’

‘That makes the thing sound a bit too clever for my liking,’ I commented, unenthusiastically. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, it’s either that or its holed up somewhere where it just can’t see anything, but we know these Lamphrey can practically see in perfect darkness.’

We puzzled it out as we drove back through Jersey to Manhattan Island and the ships mooring in Central Park.

The Captain and the others were concerned for our safety, and had prepared the ship for immediate take-off just in case it was necessary, with all but a couple of the hawsers untied and men standing ready to unfasten those last two should it be needed.

As they’d done before, Fraser and Jenkins had boarded the ship along with Hughes and Dr Zimmerman to help out in the event that a flight had been necessary. Platt had also come aboard this time with Wright the Fire Chief, so they could continue a meeting which had been taking place when my call had come in.

There was still a radio link to the command and control room that had been set up in the boathouse, and someone had clearly notified the ship of our arrival, so the Captain himself accompanied by the doctor could come down in one of the cradles to welcome Ariel back aboard.

She was still very weak, and mentally exhausted from her efforts to sense the creature, but with my arm to lean on she managed to walk the short distance from the car to the cradle where the Captain waited for us, and even managed a good salute which the Captain proudly returned.

‘Welcome back aboard Lensman Shilling,’ he said warmly. ‘I am very pleased to see you alive and well again.’

At this the doctor kindly stepped to Ariel’s side to help her into the cradle for the ascent back up to the ship.

The meeting was being held in one of the officers mess rooms, which had a number of armchairs at one end, one of which the doctor now helped Ariel into.

As soon as she was settled the Captain did the introductions, and then asked for a short summary of what had happened, which I ran through in just a few minutes while the group listened.

I was expecting they’d have a few questions, and it was Platt who went first.

‘Ms Shilling,’ he began. ‘I’m very interested in what Mr Hall described as your ability to sense this creature, does that include what it’s thinking?’

‘No, not exactly captain Platt,’ she replied. ‘In the past I’ve been able to sense what the creature senses, what it sees, smells, even tastes, though the latter was generally enough to make me break the connection as quickly as I could. The closest I can get to sensing its thoughts, is experiencing how it responds to what’s going on around it.’

‘So when you detected that the creature was coming for you at the Sanatorium?’ Platt probed further.

‘Yes, it was the same,’ Ariel replied evenly. ‘On a couple of previous occasions when I’d been sensing the creature I was sure it had become aware of my connection, and on those occasions as soon as it had become aware of me sensing it, I felt the creature tapping into my senses in return.

‘When I connected to it earlier on though, I could tell the creature was on the move, but as soon as it became aware of me I distinctly felt it sense me and surge forward through water toward me, upping it’s pace as it were. Strictly speaking it could have been accelerating away from me, all that I could tell was it was slowly moving laterally to begin with, and then suddenly started to move much more quickly, straight toward me or away from me. From that it I concluded it had thought me dead, but when I woke up earlier on it must’ve realised I still lived and had started to eavesdrop on me to see what was happening. Then when I tried to sense it in return it didn’t like the idea and changed direction and started to come toward me.’

‘I see,’ replied Platt, thoughtfully. ‘That does seem to make sense. And in terms of how far away the creature is, does your sense of it strengthen with proximity?’

‘It has in the past, once we’ve come within fifty yards of one another, the connection then is much stronger and almost involuntary, but the rest of the time it feels pretty much the same irrespective of the distance.’

‘But how can you gauge the distance if it all feels the same?’ Jenkins interjected.

‘Well its only an approximation I’m afraid Agent Jenkins,’ Ariel replied, with a weak smile. ‘Firstly, there were times when I recognised the place that the creature was seeing, the bridge, one of the churches that kind of thing. Secondly there were times when I could tell the creature was closer or further away because its direction would change very quickly when it was close, or sometimes even when I’d travelled for miles its direction would remain pretty much unchanged.’