From Hell With Love: A Secret Histories Novel

  “Off seeing the sights,” she said. “These gatherings aren’t for outsiders. They are reserved only for those who have known the benefits, and otherwise, of the Baron’s methods. For those who belong dead.”

  “Got it,” I said. “The Spawn of Frankenstein.”

  “A gathering of all the various creations, creatures and by products of the Baron’s admittedly amazing surgical gifts. We like to get together once a year, for self-help groups, companionship, and the pursuit of closure. We all have abandonment issues, after all. We end each meeting by cursing the Baron in his absence, wherever he may be.”

  “I did hear he was dead . . .”

  The Bride snorted loudly. “He’s cheated death so many times they don’t even bother screwing the lid down anymore. No, he is still out there, practicing his ungodly arts on those who cannot defend themselves, bringing new and awful life into the world. And hiding from us, his forsaken children.”

  “What would you do?” I said. “If you ever did track him down?”

  “I don’t know. Call him Daddy. Have sex with him. Kill him. It’s a difficult kind of relationship. Complicated . . . What would you say, if you came face-to-face with your creator? Ask him why you were made to suffer so much? I think I have a better chance of getting a straight answer out of my creator, than you have from yours.”

  “Mine might have had better motives,” I said.

  “But can you be sure?” The Bride chuckled quietly. “I’m afraid I cannot ask you in, Shaman, my dear. You understand how it is.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Family only.”

  I did take a quick glance through the open door, and the Bride didn’t object. There were enough of them to fill the ballroom, standing around like any group, talking and drinking and nibbling dubiously at finger snacks provided by the hotel. Hidden speakers dispensed inoffensive classical music, the only safe bet when those present come from so many times and cultures. There were all kinds on view, from those who could pass for normal, with a little help, to those who never would. Not all of the Baron’s children were monsters, but they were all marked by the obsessions of their creator. Everyone in the room had started out dead, and it showed. In the eyes, in the voices, and in their image, which could be disguised but never forgotten.

  Some of the more extreme cases displayed their differences openly here, among the only people who would understand. Men and women with two pairs of arms, or legs with too many joints. Gills on the neck, bulbous foreheads, bulging chests that contained specially designed new organs. Feathers, fur and even scales. The Baron had grown more adventurous as his work progressed. They talked easily together, bastard offspring of a bastard science. All they had in common was their scars, and their pain; but sometimes, that was enough.

  I looked thoughtfully round the crowded room. Something was nagging at me. Something I’d seen or sensed, but not understood. So I raised my Sight, and looked again. And just like that I saw the one person present who didn’t belong in this group. Oh, he had the look down pat. A tall bulky chap, in black leathers with studs and dangling chains, with prominent scars at his wrists, and a ragged line across his bulging forehead. But he had an aura. No one else in the room had an aura. Revenants of whatever kind may have a mind, and even a soul, but they never have an aura. That’s reserved for the living, and the Spawn of Frankenstein were the living dead. So whoever this guy was, he definitely wasn’t one of the Baron’s creations. I pointed him out to the Bride, and explained why, and she swore viciously.

  “I should have known! He said all the right things, dropped all of the right names, but the scar on his forehead was just too ragged. The Baron, for all his faults, always did neat work. How dare he! How dare he intrude on such a strictly private gathering? The one place where we can be honest and open, without fear of condemnation . . . This could put some people’s therapy back months! He is probably a reporter, from some squalid little tabloid . . . I will take his hidden camera and shove it so far up him he’ll be able to take photographs through his nostrils!”

  And she stalked forward before I could stop her. I had a pretty good idea of who and what he was, and it wasn’t any kind of journal ist. I watched from the doorway as the Bride marched right up to the only living man in the ballroom, spun him around and stabbed him hard in the chest with one long bony finger. I winced, but he didn’t.

  “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” demanded the Bride, towering over the intruder. “You are not one of us!”

  The room fell quiet, all the conversations stopped dead. Everyone turned to look at the intruder, and the expressions on their faces would have scared the crap out of anyone else. Death was in the room, cold and angry. The man I’d pointed out realised immediately that there was no point in continuing his pretence, and he smiled easily about him with calm, practiced arrogance.

  “I am an Immortal,” he said. “The real thing; not a botched scientific experiment, like you. And I am here because Immortals go where they please, to learn what they need to know. Get on with your little party. I’ll see myself out.”

  But the Bride still blocked his path. She stabbed him again in the chest with one long thin finger, hard enough to rock him back on his feet, and this time he did wince.

  “This is a private gathering of gods and monsters, of men and women who have sworn never to be victims again. You insult us by your very presence, and we will have an apology.”

  “I don’t think so,” said the Immortal, and his tone of voice was a slap in the face to everyone present.

  All the features on his face suddenly ran, like melting wax. The underlying bone structure rose and fell, and then everything snapped back into place, and the intruder had a whole new face. He was now a middle-aged man with a broad square face, fierce dark eyes and a cruel mouth. It was a face I’d seen before, in a number of portraits from the nineteenth century. The Bride fell back a step, and a slow murmur ran round the ballroom.

  The Baron . . . It’s the Baron . . .

  “Bow down before your creator,” said the Immortal.

  In the doorway, I felt like covering my face with my hands. Bad idea, Immortal, really bad idea. The Bride punched the Immortal so hard in the face, I half expected her fist to come out the back of his head. The false Baron staggered backwards, his features already moving again, trying to become someone else. The Bride went after him, and every one of the living dead in the ballroom closed in, looking for their own little bit of vengeance and payback, if only by proxy.

  “We are the Spawn of Frankenstein, little man,” said the Bride. “And you should not have come here.”

  The crowd fell upon the Immortal like a pack of savage beasts, hammering him with oversized fists, slicing at him with clawed hands, and hacking at him with all kinds of blades. The Immortal took a terrible punishment, that would have killed an ordinary man, but he just soaked it all up and stubbornly refused to fall. His features settled into yet another face, proud and disdainful, and he struck out at those creatures nearest him with more than human strength. Bodies flew threw the air, slammed into walls and furniture, and took their time about rising again. The Immortal raged through the crowd, striking them down with cold purpose, but still the living dead pressed forward, determined to get their hands on him, driven by more than one lifetime’s rage.

  I stepped quietly inside the ballroom, and pulled the door shut behind me. Someone had already thoughtfully turned up the music, so if the receptionist did hear anything, hopefully she’d just think it was more than usually enthusiastic dancing. In the meantime, I stayed by the doors. It wasn’t my place to get involved. First, it would have been presumptuous, implying I thought they couldn’t handle this themselves. And second, I didn’t see what I could do, without armouring up and revealing myself a Drood. Which could be bad, for any number of reasons. So I stood my ground, and watched, and winced as the Immortal threw the Spawn of Frankenstein around like they were children.

  They were hitting the Immortal from every
side at once, but he was still standing, and more and more they weren’t. I was starting to feel really glad we’d strapped the false Rafe down while we had the chance. The Immortal lashed about him with both fists, beating his attackers down with contemptuous ease. But the Spawn were learning, cutting at him with their claws and blades and then darting back out of reach. He was losing a lot of blood, and the strength in his blows wasn’t what it was. So he pulled his next trick.

  His whole body shuddered, and bone plates rose up out of his flesh to cover his chest, arms and skull. Pale, gleaming bone, the plates turned aside blades and claws and took no damage. Spikes and spurs of bone rose up from his hands, and his fingertips lengthened and hardened into vicious claws of his own. Flesh dancing, Rafe had called it. I was impressed; the Immortals had developed their own armour.

  The Immortal tore into the living dead with recovered energy, and blood and other fluids flew on the air. (Not all of the Baron’s creatures had blood in their veins.) But they could all take a lot of punishment, and they were used to pain. They pressed forward just as eagerly as before, hitting the Immortal with everything they had, and still they couldn’t bring him down. He stood his ground, ripped through their pale flesh, hammered them to the floor, and trampled them underfoot. One by one they fell back from him, nursing their wounds and struggling for breath, still surrounding him, still searching for something else to try. And then the Bride came forward to stand before the Immortal. She towered over him, and showed him the spiked silver knuckle-dusters on both her hands. She smiled a cold and deadly smile, and even the Immortal could see the power in her.

  “Let’s dance,” said the Bride.

  “Let’s,” said the Immortal.

  They slammed together like crashing cars, all strength and fury. Clawed hands versus spiked silver knuckle-dusters. The strength of the flesh-dancing Immortal, set against the inhuman vitality of the living dead woman. There was no skill or strategy in what they did; they just stood their ground and hammered at each other, both refusing to give an inch. They each took terrible punishment, but neither of them cried out. But in the end, the Immortal had flesh that healed itself, and an energy that simply wouldn’t give out, and he just wore her down. He beat her to her knees, and then grabbed her by the throat with one heavy hand, and squeezed. The Bride clawed at his face with her long arms, even as her breath was cut off. Death had no fear for her. She’d already been there. The Immortal throttled the life out of the Bride, and looked around him disdainfully.

  “Don’t think you’re anything special. You’re just an ugly bunch of failed experiments. My family throw away better things than you in our laboratories every day. How many of you do I have to kill, before you get the message? Know your place.”

  And that was when I hit him in the face with the punch bowl. It was a good throw. The heavy glass bowl shattered over his head, and the industrial strength alcohol filled his eyes, blinding him. He cried out with shock and pain, and let go of the Bride so he could claw at his face with both hands. I knew I shouldn’t have intervened, but there’s some shit I just won’t put up with. I was looking around for more things to throw, when the French windows suddenly blew open and there, silhouetted against the night, was a tall dark shape. All of Frankenstein’s creations turned to look, and then as one they fell back, opening up an aisle between the newcomer and the Immortal. I nodded slowly, smiling. I’d been wondering when he’d show up. The Immortal cleared the last of the noxious punch from his eyes, and glared at the man in the French windows. The newcomer advanced slowly on the Immortal, with a calm, elegant bearing. He was wrapped in a long black cloak that swept about him like batwings, and wore an old-fashioned top hat. From his pale face, he was barely my age, but his eyes were very old and very cold, and he was smiling a most unpleasant smile.

  “Get away from my Bride,” he said, in a cool and really quite disturbing voice. “Or you’ll be resting in pieces before you know it.”

  The Immortal looked at him incredulously. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Ah, that’s the question, isn’t it? Sometimes I think one thing, sometimes I think another. But unfortunately for you, right now I’m Springheel Jack.”

  The Immortal lashed out at him with a bone-spurred hand, and Springheel Jack jumped lightly into the air, high enough to trail his fingertips across the ceiling. The Immortal lurched forward and almost fell on his face, as his blow whipped through the air where Jack had been only a moment before. He stepped quickly back, and Jack dropped lightly to the floor again. But now he had two brightly shining straight razors, one in each hand. He smiled mockingly at the Immortal, and then jumped right over him. He somersaulted over his enemy’s head, landed elegantly behind him, his legs absorbing the impact as though it was nothing, and then he spun round and hamstrung both the Immortal’s legs at once. Blood spurted thickly, and the Immortal cried out in agony; and then he collapsed to the floor as his legs failed him, both leg muscles sliced completely through. Springheel Jack looked down at him, thrashing helplessly on the bloody floor, and then stepped elegantly forward to stand before his Bride.

  “You all right, love?”

  She caressed her throat briefly, but her smiled never wavered. “All the better for seeing you, my sweet.”

  “I know you,” the Immortal said harshly, from the floor. “We all know you. We keep killing you, and you keep coming back!”

  “It’s a gift,” said Springheel Jack. He grabbed the Immortal’s head and jerked it back to expose the throat. A straight razor pressed against the taut skin, and a thin runnel of blood trickled down, as the steel edge nicked the skin.

  “Say good night, Gracie,” said Jack.

  “No!” said the Bride. Springheel Jack ˚ looked at her.

  “No?” he said, politely.

  “I’m not in a mood to be merciful,” said the Bride.

  Springheel Jack considered this, and then nodded. He hit the Immortal a vicious blow on the top of the head with his elbow, and the Immortal slumped unconscious to the floor. Jack stood up, and took his Bride in his arms. They embraced, laughing, and then she crushed him to him. And since she was a good foot taller than he was, his face disappeared into her cleavage. He didn’t seem to mind. She finally released him, still laughing, and he smiled happily around him. The straight razors were gone from his hands. He looked down at the unconscious form at his feet.

  “Who is he, anyway?”

  “An Immortal,” I said. “Shaman Bond, at your service.”

  “Ah,” said Springheel Jack. “The Bride has spoken of you, in a quite annoyingly approving way. If I weren’t so secure, I might be jealous. But I’m not. Thanks for throwing the bowl.”

  “Least I could do,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Jack. “That’s what I thought. Still, an Immortal, you say? One of those terribly up themselves long-lived creeps, from the real Castle Frankenstein, up the road?”

  “They think we don’t know,” sniffed the Bride. “Of course we know! We all remember where we were born.”

  Springheel Jack considered me carefully. “What do you know of Immortals, Shaman?”

  “I’m just here to do a favour for a friend,” I said. “You know how it is . . .”

  “Of course,” said the Bride. “If there’s anything . . .”

  “I’ll let you know,” I said.

  “And if you should by any chance find a way into the Castle . . .”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  I bowed to them all politely, and headed for the open French windows. Just in case the receptionist was listening at the door and wondering why it had all gone quiet. I was just stepping out into the dark of the evening when I heard the Bride say, “An Immortal, who claims to be our superior? I think not. I think . . . we’ll make him one of us. Jack, fetch me my scalpels!”

  Some monsters are scarier than others.

  I moved quickly across the cobbled yard, putting some distance between me and the Hotel. I looked up the long narrow road that
led to the real Castle Frankenstein, but it was hidden from view behind the rising hill. I had to wonder if perhaps Rafe had got some kind of warning off, before we grabbed him. In which case, they knew I was coming. Was that why the Immortal had been sent down to the Hotel? But there is caution, which is useful, and paranoia, which is mostly not. Not everything is about me. I was here to do a job, and it was time I got on with it. I started up the road. There was still no sign of any passing traffic. The evening had gone dark, and the last of the light was going out of the day. A storm was gathering.

  Perfect atmosphere, for an assault on Castle Frankenstein.

  I walked up the middle of the road, pacing myself. It was a fair walk to the Castle, and I didn’t want to miss anything interesting along the way. There were no streetlights, no markings on the road, and as the Hotel vanished behind a curve in the road, it felt like I was walking back into the Past, into a more primitive time, where the peasants in the small village I’d left behind me had reason to be afraid when the lightning flared, and strange lights shone at Castle Frankenstein.

  There were no more signs of civilisation, just the rising hill and the darkening sky, and the road winding away before me. It wasn’t even much of a road. A nearly full moon rode high on the sky, just enough to see by. I would have liked to use my torc, to call up some golden glasses to see through, but I didn’t dare, this close to the Castle. The torc could hide itself, but my armour would stand out like a beacon in the dark. It wasn’t as though there was much to see, anyway. It was all black basaltic rock and shifting scree, rising up increasingly on the one side, and the dull sounds of the River Rhine far below, on the other. No life, no vegetation, not even the usual hardy shrubs. And then, not nearly far enough off, I heard the sudden howling of a wolf. At least, I hoped it was a wolf. In this kind of territory, you never knew. I checked my Colt Repeater was secure in its holster, so I could be sure I had access to silver bullets.