Frankenstein's Legions (36 page)

‘How come you keep company with Fouché?’ Ada quizzed him, her enhanced limb still poised.

‘Who?’

It took a tense second, but happily Lady Lovelace chose to believe the innocence and ignorance in his eyes. It took her two more seconds to blow ‘the Bureaucrat’s cover. Frankenstein could be left to judge for himself the significance of such a well-oiled weathervane working for Napoleon. There can never be two powers in any land, not for long; nor, as Scripture says ‘in sundry places,’ can one man serve two masters. The Convention’s own Minister for Police was showing in the most practical way possible who he thought would win.

‘So,’ Ada said, ‘it seems you haven’t betrayed us—not consciously at any rate. Perhaps we may walk together once again. For a while.’

Talk of treachery was a bit rich coming from her. Frankenstein could easily have brought up the scene at the aerodrome, for instance. But he was in a forgiving mood—and they were in a corridor in compromising circumstances…

‘Then, madam,’ he said, ‘by all means let us walk—and in haste. I have pressing business and this place will not lay undiscovered forever...’

Ada nodded agreement.

‘‘Tis true—but give me one further moment: there is something I must do...’

Before anyone could argue she rushed back into the room and did it. One of the dead interrogators on the floor got the benefit of Lady Lovelace’s pointed toecap in the face. Repeatedly. She grunted with the effort put into each savage kick. Frankenstein averted his eyes. Foxglove looked pained, as though it was he suffering under the blows.

When Ada returned she was smiling.

‘That one,’ she said, ‘I particularly disliked.’

In reality that was all, but for form’s sake she felt the need to add:

‘And he was very cruel to Foxglove...’

*  *  *

At the ‘secret door’ Frankenstein occupied himself with his Lazaran attendants, fussing and dressing their ranks till an inconvenient brace of servants had gone by. By that time ‘Team Frankenstein’ was augmented by Lady Lovelace and Foxglove, marching concealed in their midst. Ada needed no blending in, but Foxglove’s battered features and hands were whitened with wig powder Julius had brought along for that purpose.

Further forethought emerged from a knapsack one of the Revived soldiers was carrying. Out came a supply of small packets similar to that fed to the Lazaran earlier: though these were less well wrapped. Frankenstein bustled round to ensure each was swallowed as per his system.

‘Eat!’ he commanded, as before, and the slack jaws complied.

Then Frankenstein drew a deep breath, declining to look into the abyss yawning before him—and knocked on the door.

Nothing. Maybe. Or was that just the slightest sound of someone coming to the alert, someone keen that no one else should know of it?

‘Dr Frankenstein here,’ he said to the door. ‘Reporting with a fresh treadmill team. The old one’s for recycling.’

There: he’d spiced it up as much he dared, without overdoing things to the point of suspicion. It had the authority of his name, the prospect of novelty for a bored guard, plus a hint at grim fate for some present. Added together it ought to add up to persuasion.

And it did. The door opened. Behind stood one of the Old Guard; perhaps even the one he’d seen before, because the breed tended to a muchness. The man presented arms but, as scrutiny ticked off all the expected sights, degree by degree the firearm and its threat descended.

‘That’s news to me, monsieur,’ the man said warily.

The worse thing Julius could have done was try to justify himself. In the little-big world of Versailles, indeed in the wider world outside, Frankenstein’s kind was up there and the Guard’s sort down there. The man should regard it as completely normal not to kept informed.

So it proved. Frankenstein didn’t deign to answer but implied by every non-verbal sign the birth of impatience. He moved forward and the crucial moment for resistance passed. Julius and gang passed through the door and mobbed the stairwell.

Suspicion remained however—though that was probably just as natural to the guard as deference.

‘Shouldn’t the new lot be in lift-team uniform?’ he asked. ‘What they’ve got on belongs to shock-brigade grenadiers. Some staff-officers what come through here are picky about that kind of thing...’

The intelligence was flooding in now. So, this route was frequented by those powerful enough to be pedantic.

‘Perhaps so,’ replied Julius, anxious to spin things out. ‘I wasn’t informed. I can always get them to change clothes I suppose...’

The guard was sorry he’d spoke. Only those with very specialist tastes liked watching Lazarans disrobe. Particularly the ‘jigsaw’ jobs...

‘Well…,’ he prevaricated, calculating how long till he was off-duty and out of the frame. Meanwhile, as the man sought for suitable delaying words something else caught his eye. Alertness flared anew.

‘Hang about: one of ‘em’s a woman!’

‘Was a woman,’ corrected Julius, clutching at straws now.

‘Was, is; don’t matter!’

‘Oh, but it does,’ said Julius, ‘because…’

The guardsman waited politely for a while, but when the meat of the sentence failed to arrive...

‘Because?’ he prompted, the start of a growl in his throat.

‘Because…,’ said Frankenstein. ‘Oh, deal with him, Foxglove, will you?’

He certainly would. The Englishman had suffered a lot from the French of late and was gagging to repay in full.

He put the guard down in one, with a rabbit punch from behind. A dishonourable blow perhaps, but powered by powerful emotions. The man tumbled like a factory chimney, unlikely ever to rise, and Julius deftly caught his musket lest it fall and fire.

Speaking of fire, the first primed Lazaran went off at that moment, rendering all this unpleasantness unnecessary. Not before time: indeed rather poor timing. If it had occurred only a few seconds earlier the guard would have had other things to do than ask impertinent questions. He might even have lived (though probably not for much longer, so there was no harm done).

The first-fed Lazaran foamed at the mouth, and then drummed his boots against the floor in a desperate dance. He looked at Frankenstein in mute appeal but that false mother-surrogate had no solace to give. Even if he’d wanted to.

Then the wrapping around the phosphorous must have finally decayed, releasing its load into the Lazaran’s stomach. It presumably fizzed and burnt in places intolerant to such rough treatment, producing pain even the Revived could feel. In his anguish the poor re-tread human went berserk. Dull-eyes bulging he struck out.

His Lazaran comrades were nearest to hand and so it was they who were struck. And right from revival they’d been taught not to turn the other cheek, but be again the warriors they once (mostly) were. So they struck back. An ugly—very ugly—melee developed that Lady Lovelace and Foxglove snuck out of.

Frankenstein handed Foxglove the late guardsman’s musket.

‘Save the shot, use the bayonet,’ he suggested.

By Foxglove’s easy handling of it you could tell the servant was no stranger to weaponry, but reservations remained.

‘On who?’ he queried.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ replied Julius. ‘We just want chaos.’

He proceeded to prove it by raising the bar to the lift-team’s cage and throwing its door wide. They watched him in enforced silence for a few seconds and then shambled towards freedom.

Frankenstein let several through and then shot the next. Smoke from his ‘pepperbox’ clouded the scene and confused the issue.

The scene was not alone in confusion: Lady Lovelace was coolly reserving judgement from the margins, but Foxglove looked perplexed.

Meanwhile, the lift-team—first released and then shot—scaled several stages above mere perplexity. Yet there was remained the bedrock of their training. The warm-bloods did many inexplicable things but orders were still orders...

‘Mill about,’ commanded Frankenstein, as he twisted the chamber of his revolver to bring another cartridge online. ‘Explore this place. Ascend the stairs.’

And, wonderfully obedient in the face of so much stress, many obeyed. Some chose one option, some another. Soon Frankenstein had the anarchy he wanted.

Then he added to it by shooting one of the Lazarans he’d brought with him. And again, and again, till it was dead-again.

‘And you bayonet another,’ he said to Foxglove.

Annoyingly the man looked to Lady Lovelace and only acted when she nodded approval.

A blade doesn’t have the kinetic energy of a bullet, even when backed by a powerful physique, and so it cost Foxglove great effort to finish off his chosen victim and raise cell damage to critical. That and the fact that the creature resisted. Only fancy fencing enabling Foxglove to fend off its claws and avoid (additional) injuries.

There proved just no end to Frankenstein’s demands. As soon as one randomly selected Lazaran was down he pointed out another: the poisoned and berserk unfortunate. Maddened with pain it was currently wrecking the lift-cage, tearing off metal strips from its mechanism.

‘Now drive that one upstairs.’

This time Ada’s seconding wasn’t sought. Foxglove deftly jabbed and warded, step by step directing the thrashing dying-again Lazaran to the staircase.

It batted off the pricking blade, it sought to get to the shepherder behind, but then, driven by even stronger impulses, gave that up as a bad job and sought escape in the direction required.

Escape, of course, it found none, for its problems went with it, but there must have been some easement in pastures new, if only through novelty. A new scene to suffer in; a change as good as a rest. Up the stairs it went, two at a time, till lost to sight.

‘You lot!’ ordered Julius, singling out a batch of Lazarans; those he’d brought with him and those he’d liberated now hopelessly intermixed. He indicated aloft. ‘Up you go too: at the charge!’

The mournful faces consulted in silence and then went as bidden: to do precisely what they neither knew or cared. All that worrying about futurity was one facet of life gladly left in the grave.

From somewhere up the staircase came identifiably human cries. They sounded like warnings, raised an octave by alarm. There followed shots and the sound of dead weight tumbling down towards the listeners.

Of course, by then the general rough and tumble, and especially Frankenstein’s free way with firearms, had already raised the alert. From out in the corridor came the sadly familiar rumble of military boots heading in their direction.

‘Follow my lead,’ Julius said to his regained companions. ‘Understand?  And stay close to me or you’ll picked off.’

What choice did they have?  The full weight of the Imperial will was heading their way, or so it sounded. Faith in Frankenstein had to either be forced or faked.

Both Ada and Foxglove nodded and drew near.

A second later, the main door didn’t just open but burst off its hinges. Old Guard poured in, brandishing bayonets. Julius was speaking rapidly, taking charge even before the woodwork hit the ground.

‘A Lazaran mutiny!’ he said, in authoritative parade ground French. ‘Quick!  Some have gone above!’

The first statement hit the bull’s-eye for obvious reasons—as intended. Bodies on the floor and powder fumes in the air seemed powerful confirmation. But surpassing that even, Frankenstein had tapped into a visceral fear. Undead insurrection was universal nightmare material. Aside from the intrinsic horrors, if established they took whole armies and years to smother. Some French colonial possessions in the Caribbean had never been returned to warm-blood control, and the fate of the colonists there could not be decently envisaged. All this was  common knowledge that even foot-soldiers knew.

Frankenstein’s second statement also hit home, but for reasons not so clear. Those in charge of the charge to assist seemed dead against unauthorised access upstairs. Passionately so. Any infringement swept aside misgivings (or even suspicions) they might have about the lift-room scene.

That and Frankenstein’s fast talking of course. There was a split second when scepticism might have ruled and things turned ugly, but it passed. Waving arms plus high anxiety in Julius’ voice did the rest. The soldiers looked to him for guidance—and decided on a leap of faith towards this vaguely familiar face.

Time spent in Ada Lovelace’s company could convert anyone to shameless opportunism. Julius took both advantage and control.

‘Deal with these,’ he said, indicating the Lazarans still with them; making it sound more a proposal than order, lest it offend military propriety. ‘Then follow me to get the rest...’

For once everything fell just right. Specifically, a dead soldier fell from further up, down to the base of the stairs. His face was missing. As signs went, it was convincing corroboration. To garnish the dish more shooting and shouts descended from the same unseen conflict. That and horrible tearing noises: wood and metal and flesh were protesting—and in vain by the sound of it.

Then the balance of the Lazarans Frankenstein had fed came to fruition. Their phosphorous grenades went off inside and, to the outward eye, they behaved just like mad Lazaran mutineers might do.

What more evidence was required?  Fiery writing in the sky?  Some soldiers piled into the Lazarans and they, under attack within and without, fought back. The crowded room became a twisting, snarling, dogfight that promised duration and high drama. Meanwhile, some Lazarans even fought their way out of the room into the corridor and Palace beyond. Dismay at the development sounded from there, followed by more musketry and war-cries. All in all, Frankenstein and friends were glad to get out of it. They headed for the stairs.

‘These two are with me!’ he said, physically clutching both Ada and Foxglove to him. That got funny looks but no contradiction. Somehow, the act of clasping them close made a shot or stab less likely: if only because it might harm him too.

They gained the stairs and rushed aloft, stepping over the faceless Frenchman and, soon after, a Lazaran peppered by pellets. Another flight after that there appeared a veritable barricade of dead and dying, entwined as they’d fallen; Lazaran and recently-live finally united in the same state.