I’m still under Owl Man’s spell. I can’t strike him or any of our allies. But Holy Moly, like all of the babies, is able to read my mind. I shoot a plea to it, letting it know that I’m in trouble, asking it to do something to Owl Man that will stop him from exerting his influence over me again.
Holy Moly’s features darken when it sees what Owl Man has done to me. The babies take a very dim view of anyone who messes with their mummy. With a soft snarl, it throws itself at the much taller, pot-bellied figure, propelling itself like a white cannonball that has been shot into the air.
Owl Man tries to duck, but Holy Moly is too fast for him and attaches itself to his face. In a panic, he opens his mouth to roar a command at me, to tell me to call off the killer baby, but that’s what I was banking on, and Holy Moly seizes the moment, doing exactly what I asked.
As Owl Man’s lips part, the baby rams the vial between them, deep into his mouth. The end hits the back of his throat, then Holy Moly withdraws it and jams it in again, over and over, damaging the choking Owl Man’s vocal cords.
As he makes incomprehensible noises and tries to shake the baby loose, Holy Moly pulls out the vial with one hand, then–balancing artfully on Owl Man’s shoulder–sticks the fingers of its other hand into his mutilated mouth and rips its tiny claws around, slicing his tongue to shreds.
Holy Moly hops down with a giggle as Owl Man spits out pieces of blood-red flesh and moans. I’m sure the damage can be repaired, that his tongue and throat can be stitched back together. But it will take time. Right now he can’t utter a single clear word.
Which means he can’t tell me what to do.
Rage has released his grip on me, staring at the disabled Owl Man and considering his response. He doesn’t react when I bend, slip free of his hold and take the vial from a beaming Holy Moly. I stand and turn to face my old burly foe. He’s studying me warily. I know I can’t get the better of Rage in a fight, so I hold the vial out towards him.
“Your choice,” I snarl. “But ask yourself this. Do you really want to be the one who kills off every human on the face of the planet?”
Rage stares at the vial, then glances over his shoulder at Dr. Oystein, who is still grappling with Mr. Dowling.
“Nuh-uh,” I grunt. “You can’t pass the buck. If you take this now and hand it to the doc, you’ll be the one who decides the fate of billions of living, breathing people.”
“And if I don’t take it?” Rage asks.
“Then the responsibility will be mine.”
Rage’s eyes narrow. He thinks it over. Then he smiles. “You know what? I used to think I was the biggest, baddest beast on the block. But you’re more of a brute than I’ll ever be.”
With that barbed compliment, he steps aside and crosses his arms, leaving the running of the show to me.
“One favor before I go,” I tell him.
Rage looks at me quizzically.
“Free me up to speak openly and fight.”
He bows like a loyal servant. “I’m not sure if I need to repeat it, but I will, just to be safe. The truth is in the eyes. Now, I’m canceling Owl Man’s orders to say nothing about Dr. Oystein’s deception and not strike any of his troops. You’ve got the all-clear to say what you want and hit whoever you like.”
“Thanks, arsehole,” I grunt, and whack the side of Rage’s head with the palm of my hand.
“Hey!” he yelps.
“Just checking,” I grin, then focus on a startled, bemused Carl Clay. “You’re a smart operator,” I say quickly. “You should be able to recognize the truth. The doc lied to you. He wants to open this vial and kill off the last human survivors.”
“No,” Carl squeaks, shaking his head.
“Rage?” I snap.
“Like she said,” he sniffs.
“But… that doesn’t make sense… he wouldn’t… he loves…”
“He loves peace and quiet,” I growl. “The trouble is humans aren’t peaceful or quiet enough for him. He wants to replace them with the babies. For Dr. Oystein, the war has always been about getting hold of this”–I wave the vial of Schlesinger-10 at Carl–“and unleashing it on the world.”
Carl gulps. “So what’s your plan?” he wheezes. “Make off with it?”
“Nah,” I grin. “I’ve something better than that up my sleeve.”
My ribs are bound up tight. I pull a few of the bandages loose and jam the vial in nice and snugly. Then I slip behind Carl and wrap my arms round him.
“Jump,” I whisper. “Carry me to where Dr. Oystein and Mr. Dowling are fighting. I’ll take things from there.”
Carl looks back at me, then at Rage. Finally he stares at the spluttering Owl Man, who’s reaching hopelessly towards us, trying to pull me back.
Carl makes up his mind and leaps. He uses all of the power in his frog-like legs to thrust us clear across the room, over the heads of the babies, mutants and Angels. We soar like birds above the mayhem. It’s a weirdly calm moment. It reminds me of being in one of the Groove Tubes, the world fading out around me, safe, warm, hovering somewhere between the realms of reality and dreams.
Then we land next to the bloodied, wounded brothers. They’re in bad shape and can barely stand. Their faces are a blood-drenched mess. One of Mr. Dowling’s eyes has popped out of its socket and dangles by its optic fibers on his cheek. A chunk of Dr. Oystein’s skull has been bitten off, exposing his brain. They’re missing fingers. Their torsos have been carved open. But still they fight, ripping viciously at one another, unable to stop.
I thought I’d have to battle the doc, which is why I asked Rage to free me, but he’s so preoccupied that he doesn’t register my presence. In the end I don’t even have to throw a punch, just reach into Dr. Oystein’s pocket, where he stuck the vial of Clements-13 earlier. It was crazy of him to bring it. But these are crazy times. I think the doc lost his mind a bit, being so close to the end. He couldn’t think of anything except killing his brother, locating Holy Moly and securing the sample of Schlesinger-10. He screwed up, and it’s my job to make him pay for his mistake.
For a sickening moment my fingers don’t find anything, and I think the doc fooled me, that he slyly disposed of the vial along the way. But then I strike hard glass and yank out the tube. I’m expecting Dr. Oystein to scream and try to stop me, but he’s too busy fighting with the ragged, savage clown.
I take a step away from the warring brothers. Mr. Dowling is staring at me with his one good eye, shaking his head madly, gibbering like a monkey. He reaches towards me but is stopped by Dr. Oystein, who carries on punching and kicking.
Master Zhang is almost upon us. He could probably break through the last of the mutants and babies and disable me. But instead he stops and looks at me with an unreadable expression.
Holding the vial firmly, I twist the rubber cork in the top, expecting it to resist. But, to my delight, it slips out smoothly. I turn the vial upside down and shake out the smaller vial nestled within. The cork of this one comes out easily too.
Then I’m down to the fragile glass tube. About ten centimeters long, filled with the blood-red liquid that spells Armageddon for the living dead everywhere. I hold the tube above my head and gaze at it lovingly. Mr. Dowling moans and throws himself at me, but Dr. Oystein wrestles him to the floor. The doc doesn’t seem to be aware of the threat. Maybe the hole in his skull has scrambled his senses. When I smash this tube open, every zombie on the face of the planet is doomed. He should be shrieking at me to stop. But all he can focus on is his brother.
I pause for a long, horrible second. I have a dark moment of doubt, when I consider the fact that I’m signing my own death warrant, when I don’t think I’m brave enough to do this. For a terrible instant I feel like I’m going to chicken out.
Then I chuckle wryly.
“The hell with it. I’ve lived long enough.”
And I hurl the tube at the floor with all my might.
TWENTY-TWO
The glass container full of Clements-13 smashes upon conta
ct. Strangely, that surprises me. I was expecting it to bounce. I knew that it should shatter, but the pessimist within me didn’t think it would.
The red liquid splashes across the floor. No fumes rise from it. There are no crackling or hissing sounds. It’s the same as if some paint had been spilled.
But everyone who sees it stops fighting. Those farther back battle on, unaware of what’s happened. Soldiers continue to fire their weapons. Mutants and babies pile forward. Screams echo through the air. But those who saw the vial break know that something major has changed. The war has been decided. The battle for control of this planet has come to an abrupt end.
Mr. Dowling and Dr. Oystein stop clawing at one another. The clown staggers away from his brother, staring at the crimson liquid as it’s absorbed by the dust on the floor. He reaches out, dabs a finger into the small pool, then touches it to his tongue, before falling onto his bum and sitting there, blinking like a confused child.
Dr. Oystein pushes himself to his feet and sways drunkenly, fixated on the broken glass and the liquid. Then he looks at me.
“I’m sorry,” I croak. “But I had to do it. You were wrong. The living must always be given another chance.”
Dr. Oystein shakes his head slowly, awfully, and I feel wretched for the way I betrayed him, even though I had no choice.
“B…” Dr. Oystein whispers, his voice gargly with blood.
“I hope you can forgive me,” I moan. “We’ve got a week or two before it kills us. We can try to do good and help the living prepare for the takeover. I know you didn’t want this, but there’s no going back, so we might as well make the best of it, work together again one last time. Right?”
“B…” Dr. Oystein repeats weakly.
And then he does something that strikes a cold stake through the space where my heart once nestled, fills me with dread and makes me suspect that all is not as done and dusted as I thought.
He smiles.
TWENTY-THREE
Dr. Oystein’s smile is a thin, trembling thing, and it doesn’t stay on his lips for long, yet it hits me harder than Dan-Dan ever did.
“Oh, B,” he sighs. “I’m so sorry.”
“What the hell do you have to be sorry about?” I shout. I want him to be angry, to curse me, attack me, howl at the heavens while his senses dissolve.
Dr. Oystein sits again and wipes blood from his face. He looks drained.
“I lied,” the doc says quietly. “I fed you and the other Angels misinformation, knowing a day like this could come, hoping to trick you into doing my bidding. I was slyer than the offspring of a fox and a snake. I had to be.”
“What are you talking about?” I groan, looking to Master Zhang in case he can make any more sense. But he only shakes his head mutely and turns to Ingrid, who’s still screaming and trying to pick ants from her eyes—they’ve burrowed through one eyeball and are hard at work on the other. Master Zhang studies her, decides she’s too far gone to help, and drives his fingers through the side of her head, silencing her and releasing her from her agony.
“I mixed up the truth in all sorts of ways,” Dr. Oystein says as Owl Man comes limping towards us, moaning painfully. “I won’t go through the list and correct every piece of erroneous information that I dangled in front of you. That would take too long. You can piece most of it together later, in your own time. It’s enough to know this for now—although Albrecht was the more ingenious of us, I was always the master of the viruses.
“When I originally told you about Clements-13 and Schlesinger-10, I said that I had created both of them. That was true, except I created the zombie-destroying virus first, as I told you at our meeting earlier today. I said nothing of my breakthrough to Albrecht or Zachary, while I worked on manufacturing a virus which would be as lethal to humans as that one was to the undead.”
The fighting in the room begins to die down as word spreads of what has happened. The mutants and babies back away from the living and gather round Mr. Dowling and Kinslow–Claudia is supporting him, as his leg seems to have been broken in the fighting when I wasn’t paying attention–while the surviving humans regroup and move in closer, bewildered but respecting the cease-fire.
“When Albrecht found out what I’d done and what I was working on, he went wild and attacked me,” Dr. Oystein continues. “That’s when I accidentally injected him with one of his mutant strains and sent him veering down the path of madness. Alone after that, but undeterred, I continued working on the human-killing virus. I was close to perfecting it when Zachary betrayed me.”
Dr. Oystein smiles wanly at Owl Man, who has come to a standstill and is staring at me miserably.
“My nephew thought he was doing good,” Dr. Oystein murmurs. “He had not yet come to see that we needed to cleanse this planet of its human tyrants. He found out that a sample of Schlesinger-10 was still intact—I had kept it to run tests on. He didn’t know where I had stored it, so he orchestrated attacks on all of my laboratories at the same time. Alas, I hadn’t hidden the vial as cunningly as I thought. Zachary found it and delivered it to Albrecht.”
“Hold on,” I stop him. “This doesn’t make sense. You said you hadn’t perfected the human-destroying virus yet.”
“That is correct,” Dr. Oystein says calmly.
“So what did they steal?”
“The zombie-eradicating virus. They knew I would never dare release a virus targeted at humans as long as they had hold of its counterpart.”
“But… no… this is wrong,” I mutter. “Mr. Dowling had Schlesinger-10, the human-eliminating virus. He shared his thoughts with me. I know for definite that it was Schlesinger-10.”
“Yes,” Dr. Oystein nods, and then he smiles that sickening smile again. “That was my most cunning lie, the one for which I am most apologetic. When I learned of Albrecht’s fascination with you, I felt I could perhaps use you to retrieve the zombie-annihilating virus from him. But you would not have fetched it for me if you’d known what it really was. So, when I told you about the viruses, I switched names.
“Schlesinger-10 is the zombie-killing virus. Clements-13 is the human-killing virus. Not the other way round, as I pretended.”
My eyes bulge. “But that means…”
“Yes,” Dr. Oystein says sadly. “When you took my vial of Clements-13 from me and smashed it open, you condemned humanity to extinction. You have done my job for me, and sentenced every living man, woman and child to an untimely end. That is why, even in my most triumphant moment, I am sorry—because I have turned you into an all-destructive goddess of death.”
TWENTY-FOUR
I’m reeling. I feel madness washing over me. In desperation I look to the prince of chaos for hope. “Is it true?” I scream at Mr. Dowling inside my head.
“Yes,” he answers miserably.
“But it can’t be!” I roar out loud at Dr. Oystein. “If that was the case, why lie to me when you captured me at the pub and took me to your secret lab? You thought I had the vial. Why bother with the charade at that late stage?”
“Because I wanted you to do the foul deed for me,” Dr. Oystein says softly. “I am a coward in many ways. I accept that I’m God’s earthly agent, but I never asked for this much power. I wanted someone to lighten my load, to spare me the final, awful degradation.
“The plan was for Zachary to accidentally set you free of his control. Released from his influence, you would have wrestled the vial of Clements-13 from me and uncorked it in the belief that you were targeting the undead. If you’d failed, I would have opened it myself, but you were my first choice. I felt that if it was done by someone who thought they were doing good, perhaps God could forgive them.”
I stare at the deranged doctor. I don’t want to believe what he’s telling me, but I know it’s true. His self-satisfied smile is all the proof that I need.
“I am genuinely sorry, B,” Dr. Oystein says again. “I would rather not have used you, but fate set things up this way. The Almighty knows I am a weak man
. He chose one stronger than me to bear the dreadful burden.”
“Nice going, Becky,” Rage sneers, having trotted along behind Owl Man. “With heroes like you, who needs villains?”
I can’t respond. I’m numb with horror. I carry on staring at the doc, wanting this to be a bad dream or another of his lies.
“I’ve betrayed you,” Dr. Oystein says, “but it will be for the best in the long run. You must believe that. Humans are evil. This world is better off without the living. The babies will build a purer world. They’ll care for its wildlife and flora. They won’t overcrowd the continents or poison the atmosphere. They’ll work to heal what has been wounded, and live in love and peace.
“And it will be under your guidance,” he says, addressing the stunned Angels. “You’ll be their guardians. You will help them grow and learn, teach them to be good, highlight the errors of the past, help them not to replicate the mistakes of their ancestors.
“If you wish, I can be part of that process. If you feel you have need of me, I will make myself available, although I am by no means essential. I have left instructions with numerous Angels across the globe. They will help you carry out my wishes and show you what needs to be done when your supplies of human brains run out.
“But, if you think that my sins are too grave, I’ll accept execution too,” the doc finishes. “To be honest, I would prefer it. This has been a hard life. I will be glad to step down from the path. If you choose to punish me, I won’t resist.”
He smiles at me again, but warmly this time, offering me the right to pass judgment on him, to kill him if I wish.
“You lunatic!” someone screams behind us, shattering the strange solemnity of the moment. “What the hell have you done?”
It’s Vicky Wedge, lurching towards us, waving a handgun.
“I set the world free from your wicked grasp,” Dr. Oystein retorts.
“You’ve killed us all!” Vicky shrieks.
“It was necessary,” Dr. Oystein says.