A Thursday Next Digital Collection: Novels 1-5 (17 page)

“You must be Thursday Next. Heard about you. Litera Tec, eh? Kind of a drop from SO-5?”

“At least I made it up there in the first place.”

Franklin grunted and looked at the two bodies.

“Dead?”

“Very.”

“You lot are becoming quite action-packed. I can't remember the last time a shot was fired in anger by a Litera Tec. Let's not make it a habit, eh? We don't want Swindon turning into a killing field. And if you want a piece of advice, go easy with Jack Schitt. We hear the man's a psychopath.”

“Thanks for the tip, Franklin,” I said. “I'd never have noticed.”

It was after nine when we were finally allowed to leave. Victor had turned up to ask us a few questions out of earshot of the police.

“What the deuce is going on?” he asked. “I've had Braxton yelling on the phone for half an hour; it takes something serious to get him away from his golf club AGM. He wants a full report on the incident on his desk first thing tomorrow morning.”

“It was Hades,” I said. “Jack Schitt was here with the intention of following one of Acheron's killers after he'd dispatched us both.”

Victor looked at me for a moment and was about to comment further when a call came over the wireless from an officer in need of assistance. It was the unmistakable voice of Spike. I went to pick up the microphone but Victor grabbed me by the wrist with a surprising turn of speed. He looked at me grimly.

“No, Thursday. Not with Spike.”

“But an officer in need of assistance?—”

“Don't get involved. Spike is on his own and it's best that way.”

I looked at Bowden, who nodded agreement and said:

“The powers of darkness are not for everyone, Miss Next. I think Spike understands that. We hear his calls from time to time but I see him in the canteen the following morning, as regular as clockwork. He knows what he's doing.”

The wireless was silent; the channel was an open one and perhaps upward of sixty or seventy officers had heard the call. No one had answered.

Spike's voice came over the airwaves again:

“For God's sake, guys!—”

Bowden moved to switch the wireless off but I stopped him. I got into my car and keyed the mike.

“Spike, this is Thursday. Where are you?”

Victor shook his head.

“It was nice knowing you, Miss Next.”

I glared at them both and drove off into the night.

Bowden moved across to where Victor was standing.

“Quite a girl,” murmured Victor.

“We're going to be married,” answered Bowden matter-of-factly.

Victor frowned and looked at him.

“Love is like oxygen, Bowden. When's the happy day?”

“Oh, she doesn't know yet,” replied Bowden, sighing. “She is everything a woman should be. Strong and resourceful, loyal and intelligent.”

Victor raised an eyebrow.

“When do you suppose you'll ask her?”

Bowden was staring after the taillights of the car.

“I don't know. If Spike is in the sort of trouble that I think he is, perhaps never.”

. . . I made the assistance calls as a matter of course; had done since Chesney was pulled to the shadows. Never expected anyone to come; was just my way of saying “Ho, guys! I'm still out here!” Nope, never expected it. Never expected it at all . . .

OFFICER
“
SPIKE
”
STOKER
—interview in
Van Helsing's Gazette

W
HERE ARE
you, Spike?”

There was a pause and then:

“Thursday, think hard before you do this—”

“I have, Spike. Give me your location.”

He told me and after a quarter of an hour I pulled up outside the senior school at Haydon.

“I'm here, Spike. What do you need?”

His voice came back on the wireless, but this time slightly strained.

“Lecture room four, and hurry; in the glove box of my black & white you'll find a medical kit—”

There was a yell and he stopped transmitting.

I ran across to where Spike's squad car stood in the dark entrance of the old college. The moon passed behind a cloud
and blackness descended; I felt an oppressive hand fall across my heart. I opened the car door and rummaged in the glove box. I found what I was looking for: a small zippered leather case with
STOKER
embossed on the front in faded gold lettering. I grabbed it and ran up the front steps of the old school. The interior was gloomily lit by emergency lighting; I flicked a panel of switches but the power was out. In the meager light I found a signboard and followed the arrows toward lecture room four. As I ran down the corridor I was aware of a strong odor; it matched the sullen smell of death I had detected in the boot of Spike's car when we had first met. I stopped suddenly, the nape of my neck twitching as a gust of cold wind caught me. I turned around abruptly and froze as I noticed the figure of a man silhouetted against the dim glow of an exit light.

“Spike?” I murmured, my throat dry and my voice cracking.

“I'm afraid not,” said the figure, walking softly toward me and playing a torch on my face. “It's Frampton; I'm the janitor. What are you doing here?”

“Thursday Next, SpecOps. There's an officer in need of assistance in lecture room four.”

“Really?” said the janitor. “Probably followed some kids in. Well, you'd better come with me.”

I looked at him carefully; a glint from one of the exit lights caught the metallic gold of a crucifix around his throat. I breathed a sigh of relief.

He walked swiftly down the corridor; I followed closely.

“This place is so old it's embarrassing,” muttered Frampton, leading me down a second corridor off the first. “Who did you say you were looking for?”

“An officer named Stoker.”

“What does he do?”

“He looks for vampires.”

“Really? Last infestation we had was in '78. Student by the name of Parkes. Went backpacking in the Forest of Dean and came back a changed man.”

“Backpacking in the Forest of Dean?” I repeated incredulously, “Whatever possessed him to do that?”

The janitor laughed. “Good choice of words. Symonds Yat wasn't as secure then as it is now; we've taken precautions too. The whole college was consecrated as a church.”

He flashed his torch at a large crucifix on the wall.

“We won't have
that
sort of problem here again. This is it, lecture room four.”

He pushed open the door and we entered the large room. Frampton's torch flicked across the oak-paneled walls but a quick search revealed nothing of Spike.

“Are you sure he said number four?”

“Certain,” I replied. “He—”

There was a sound of breaking glass and a muffled curse a small way distant.

“What was that?”

“Probably rats,” said Frampton.

“And the swearing?”

“
Uncultured
rats. Come, let's—”

But I had moved off to a doorway beyond the lecture room, taking Frampton's torch with me. I pushed the door open wide and an appalling stench of formaldehyde greeted me. The room was an anatomy lab, dark except for the moonlight coming in through the window. Against the wall were rack upon rack of pickled specimens: mostly animal parts, but a few human parts too, things for the boys to frighten the girls with during sixth-form biology lessons. There was the sound of a jar smashing, and I flicked the torch across to the other side of the room. My heart froze. Spike, his self-control having
apparently abandoned him, had just thrown a specimen jar to the floor and was now scrabbling in the mess. Around his feet were the smashed remnants of many jars; it had obviously been quite a feast.

“What are you doing?” I asked, the revulsion rising in my throat.

Spike turned to me, his eyes gaping, his mouth cut from the glass, a look of horror and fear in his eyes.

“I was hungry!” he howled. “And I couldn't find any mice!—”

He closed his eyes for a moment, gathered his thoughts with a Herculean effort, then stammered:

“My medication!—”

I forced down a foul gagging sensation and opened the medical kit to reveal a retractable penlike syringe. I unclipped the pen and moved toward Spike, who had collapsed in a heap and was sobbing silently. There was a hand on my shoulder, and I whirled round. It was Frampton, and he had an unpleasant smile on his lips.

“Let him carry on. He's happier this way, believe me.”

I pushed his hand off my shoulder and for an instant my flesh touched his. It was icy cold and I felt a shiver run through me. I backed away hastily and tripped over a stool, falling heavily and dropping Spike's injector. I drew my gun and pointed it at Frampton, who seemed to be gliding toward me without walking. I didn't shout a warning; I just pulled the trigger and a bright flash illuminated the lab. Frampton was catapulted across the floor toward the blackboard and fell in a heap. I scrabbled around for the injector, found it and ran toward Spike, who had picked up a particularly large jar with a very recognizable and unspeakably unpleasant specimen in it. I flashed the torch into his frightened eyes and he mumbled:

“Help me!”

I pulled the cap off the injector and jabbed it in his leg, giving him two clicks. I took the jar from him and he sat down looking confused.

“Spike? Say something.”

“That
really
hurt.”

But it wasn't Spike talking. It was Frampton. He had picked himself up from the floor and was tying what looked like a lobster bib around his neck.

“Time for dinner, Miss Next. I won't trouble you with the menu because . . . well,
you're it
!”

The door of the biology lab slammed shut and I looked at my gun; it was now about as much use as a water pistol.

I got up and backed away from Frampton, who once more seemed to glide toward me. I fired again but Frampton was ready for it; he simply winced and continued.

“But the crucifix!—” I shouted, backing toward the wall. “And this college—it's a church!”

“Little fool!” replied Frampton. “Do you really suppose that Christianity has a monopoly on people like me?”

I looked around desperately for some kind of weapon, but apart from a chair—which drew out of my grasp as I reached for it—there was nothing.

“
Thoon
be over.” Frampton grinned. He had sprouted an inordinately long single front tooth which grew over his bottom lip and gave him a lisp.

“Thoon you will be joining Thpike for a little thnack.
After
I have finithed!”

He smiled and opened his mouth wider; impossibly so—it seemed almost to fill the room. Quite suddenly Frampton stopped, looked confused and rolled his eyes up into his sockets. He grew gray, then black, then seemed to slough away like burned pages in a book. There was a musty smell of decay that almost blotted out the reek of formaldehyde, and soon there
was nothing at all except Spike, who was still holding the sharpened stake that had so quickly destroyed the abomination that had been Frampton.

“You okay?” he asked with a triumphant look on his face.

“I'm good,” I replied shakily. “Yuh, I feel okay. Well, now I do, anyway.”

He lowered the stake and drew me up a chair as the lights flickered back on.

“Thanks for that,” I murmured. “My blood is my own and I aim to keep it that way. I guess I owe you.”

“No way, Thursday.
I owe you.
No one's ever answered a call of mine before. The symptoms came on as I was sniffing out Fang here. Couldn't get to my injector in time . . .”

His voice trailed off as he looked forlornly at the broken glass and spilled formaldehyde.

“They'll not believe this report,” I murmured.

“They don't even
read
my reports, Thursday. Last person who did is now in therapy. So they just file 'em and forget 'em. Like me, I guess. It's a lonely life.”

I hugged him on an impulse. It seemed the right thing to do. He returned it gratefully; I didn't expect that he had touched another human for a while. He had a musty smell about him— but it wasn't unpleasant; it was like damp earth after a spring rain shower. He was muscular and at least a foot taller than me, and as we stood in each other's arms I suddenly felt as though I really wouldn't mind if he made a move on me. Perhaps it was the closeness of the experience that we had just shared; I don't know—I don't usually act in this manner. I moved my hand up his back and onto his neck, but I had misjudged the man and the occasion. He slowly let me go and smiled, shaking his head softly. The moment had passed.

I paused for a second and then holstered my automatic carefully.

“What about Frampton?”

“He was good,” admitted Spike, “
real
good. Didn't feed on his own turf and was never greedy; just enough to sate his thirst.”

We walked out of the lab and back down the corridor.

“So how did you get onto him?” I asked.

“Luck. He was behind me in his motor at the lights. Looked in the rearview mirror—empty car. Followed him and
pow;
I knew he was a sucker soon as he spoke. I would have staked him earlier 'cept for my trouble.”

We stopped at his squad car.

“And what about you? Any chance of a cure?”

“Top virologists are doing their stuff but for the moment I just keep my injector handy and stay out of the sunlight.”

He stopped, took out his automatic and pulled the slide back, ejecting a single shiny bullet.

“Silver,” he explained as he gave it to me. “I never use anything else.” He looked up at the clouds. They were colored orange by the street lamps and moved rapidly across the sky. “There's weird shit about; take it for luck.”

“I'm beginning to think there's no such thing.”

“My point precisely. God keep you, Thursday, and thanks once again.”

I took the shiny bullet and started to say something but he was gone already, rummaging in the boot of his squad car for a vacuum cleaner and a bin-liner. For him, the night was far from over.