dEaDINBURGH (19 page)

“Oh, I got a nicer one. So kind of you to be concerned for me though, Joseph.”

His smile broadened.

“Did you give the padre a nice sending-off? Some nice words spoken over his grave, maybe a few close friends sharing a pleasant meal and exchanging anecdotes about the old boy?”

“Ignore him,” Alys whispered out the corner of her mouth.

“What’s that, my dear? Oh, how rude of me. I forgot to ask about your dear cousin. Stephanie, wasn’t it? Lovely girl, she’s keeping well, I hope?” Bracha winked at her with his marble-eye. “Perhaps I’ll visit with her? Once we conclude our… meeting. Oh, and once the cure has been disposed of. It’s through here, y’know.” He nodded into the doorway he’d come through. “Found it earlier, but I had a little trouble opening the container.” He smiled his reptilian smile, raising his right arm.

Alys grinned humourlessly, noting the lack of mobility in the limb.

Joey had had enough of his words, and threw him a line Jock had used to antagonise opponents.

“Are you gonna bark all day, or are you gonna bite?”

Bracha gave him a pitying look.

“As you wish, young archer.”

In a flash he disappeared through the open door.

Both Alys and Joey shot after him. Sprinting through the doorway they heard his footsteps echo along the corridor. They skidded to a full halt before entering, but not out of fear or caution since Bracha was well into the building from the sound of things. What alarmed them was how clean the corridor was. How… white.

They’d never been inside a building with artificial light, or one that didn’t have plants or moss creeping along the walls and floors. Their footsteps felt different on the hardness of the tiles. Their voices sounded all wrong, bouncing off the bare walls. It was an alien world to them, this one simple corridor.

Alys turned to him. “It’s so unnatural-looking.”

Joey didn’t know what to say, so gave her hand a squeeze, offering reassurance and gaining the same from touching her.

They stepped further along the corridor, instinctively lightening their footsteps to counteract the noise of their boots on the pristine floor. A few metres along the corridor, they noticed a map of the building.

Instead of wards, it was filled with offices, labs and tech rooms, all labelled neatly on a graphic painted onto the wall. Both of them were unnerved by how impossibly new everything was.

“Do you think this place has been sealed shut since the plague broke?” Joey asked.

Alys shook her head. “Can’t have been, or it’d be full of dampness, bugs, moss and God knows what by now.”

Her eyes widened as the realisation hit.

 
“People have been here, recently. This place is being used for something by people. People from out there.” She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at the general direction of the fence-line.

“That can’t be true, Alys. Nobody would come through the outer fences. They don’t want to be infected. Something else must be happening. Maybe it’s something to do with The Exalted? They’re in the area.”

“I don’t know, Joey. Have you ever seen any community live like this, with access to electricity?”

Bracha stepped around a turn at the far end of the corridor. The fake, cheery demeanour was gone. He had a blade in each hand, one of them the stiletto he’d killed Jock and maimed Steph with. The sight of him, and
it
, made Joey have to work very hard to stay calm.

“I assume that the padre told you about The Exalted, Joseph?”

Joey didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. Bracha had already read something in his body language or facial expression that confirmed for him that this was the case.

Bracha twirled the stiletto blade around in his fingers in the same manner he did with his golf club. He was clearly deciding what to say.

“This place isn’t theirs.” He jerked his head to the right, indicating the building.

Joey and Alys remained still, but ready.
Let him talk,
they were both thinking.

“She’s right.” He pointed the tip of his stiletto at Alys. “This place is normally shut down, inaccessible. On a normal day, merely approaching the fences will get you executed.” A toothy grin spread across his face. “It is a complete disgrace that I couldn’t access this building before. My grandmother opened it, you know?”

Bracha noticed the puzzled look on both of their faces, quickly replaced by indifference. He waved his hand as though dismissing his own words as unimportant.

“Ancient history.”

Suddenly his face morphed into a perfect mask of hatred.

“I picked a good day to attempt stealthy entry. It seems the place is in close-down, maybe only for a few more hours, maybe minutes.”

Bracha threw a square, white padded pack with a large red cross emblazoned on it towards them.

Joey watched it skitter along the smooth tiles and put a boot on top of it when it came to him.

“I found that at the location I’d been told I’d find the cure. Open it.” Bracha spat the words.

Stealing a quick glance at Alys, he noticed the eagerness in her eyes.
Do it
, they said. Joey unzipped the bag around its lid.

Empty.

“So there it is: your cure.”

Bracha almost disappeared in a blur of speed as he ran towards them. With the corridor so narrow, they weren’t able to fight as a unit. Rather Alys would engage, perform a few sequences, then allow Joey to move in. They fought like this, alternating attacks, delivering kicks, elbows and punches. Weapon slashes and strikes all thrown at a variety of angles and in a myriad of styles. After two exchanges lasting five seconds, Alys knew that they could beat him, but only because his arm didn’t have a full range of motion and only together.

She stepped up her attack, spreading more blows to his right where he couldn’t defend effectively. He wasn’t tiring but he was getting frustrated at his own ineffectiveness. She didn’t improve his mood when she delivered a vicious backhand strike to his face, breaking his nose with a sickening crunch.

Following the momentum of her swing she spun around, allowing Joey to step through and launch a front kick into his gonads. Bracha went down instantly, projecting a plume of bright green vomit onto the white tiles as he collapsed.
Vagus nerve
, Joey thought, stepping back whilst Alys hammered her knee into the back of his neck, smashing his face into the tiles and breaking his mandible. She systematically used the heavy-butted handles of her Sai in overhand blows to break one hand, then the other, followed by a series of blows to the back of his ribcage. Joey watched her strikes flash along, breaking five of his ribs.

“Try talking now, you bastard,” she spat at him, rising to her feet.

Joey fished out a handful of plastic cable ties from his pockets and handed a few to Alys.

She looked puzzled. “We should just kill him.”

“I don’t disagree, but I want a look around this place first. See if there’s anything useful, or something that can tell us more about whoever runs this place. According to him.” Joey kicked at the unconscious Bracha.

“We don’t have much time. I want to know more about this compound before we leave and, like it or not, this piece of trash knows more than we do.”

Alys didn’t look happy. Pulling the USB drive Jock had given him from his pocket, he held it in an open palm for her to see.

She nodded her agreement and helped him restrain Bracha’s limp body by wrists and feet and attach him to a large, immovable iron radiator.

“Let’s make it quick,” she said

A door immediately to Bracha’s right had a sign labelling it as
Main Feed Router.
That sounded like something technical they wouldn’t understand and so they headed the other direction, along the corridor.

They made their way through a series of offices, trying not to waste time staring at the electrical equipment they saw in each space. Neither had any idea what most of it was, but Alys had seen a photo of a laptop in a magazine she’d read as a kid and picked one up for Joey in the third room they visited. It’d been plugged into an electrical socket and had a little green light buzzing on its front face before she’d unplugged it. They hoped that it meant a full charge in its battery, but it was inconsequential until they found someone who could use it.
Maybe Bracha
.

Almost every room, and corridor, had the same stylised logo on its walls.

UKBC

Neither of them recognised it. The logo was also on mugs of unfinished coffee, stationery and some lab coats. It seemed people had left in a hurry, and recently.

Having searched all of the offices and taken everything they recognised as useful, which was very little, the pair made their way back to the corridor they started from.

Alys handed him the laptop. “Time to get some use out of that monster.”

Joey took the device and made his way along to where Bracha still lay, strapped to the radiator.

Chapter 25

James Kelly

James looked along the group of Exalted, lined along the fence that looped around the Royal Infirmary compound on Little France Crescent. Each of them looked relaxed, but determined. Almost none of the fifty who had assembled here today on Somna’s command had been at the hospital the last time Somna was called upon to defend its fences.

Most had never been near the compound, despite its close proximity to The Exalted’s base at Drum Woods. Somna’s deal with The Corporation didn’t allow for their presence beyond the Dalkeith Road fences, unless ordered so by The Corporation. James had no idea how The Corporation communicated with Somna – he’d never seen any contact take place – but he was fairly certain that none had in the hours since he’d told Somna of Bracha’s presence and the absence of personnel at the hospital. Somna was acting on his own initiative, James was sure of that.

James had torn into Somna’s bungalow within minutes of leaving his meeting with Bracha. Finding his leader praying at the feet of their King, he’d waited patiently for the ritual to end before seeking Somna’s attention. As Somna knelt at the base of his King’s altar, James moved his eyes over the scene in front of him as he decided exactly what he should tell him.

As always, the King was bound to bamboo poles. Snarling at his follower, the King was held in the pose he’d used as his logo when he’d been a footballer: one arm out in front, the other behind for balance, one leg planted and the other in mid swing. The posture of this footballer taking his famous free kicks, forever preserved in the form of the undead remains of the once famous man. It was a sick parody of the image the footballer had presented before The Fall. Power, money, fame, skill, determination; all represented by the sick pose he was held unnaturally in by the infection in his cells and the ropes on his limbs.

The presence of the King never failed to sicken James. Unlike the rest of The Exalted, James Kelly was not now and had never been a true believer. His loyalty to the tribe was one of necessity rather than devotion.

 
He didn’t subscribe to the tribe’s beliefs that cleansing the city of all life, as communicated to Somna by this King, was their holy mission. He did know a winning side when he saw one, though, and the pragmatist he’d been since leaving the city-centre so many years before whispered to him that Somna and his followers couldn’t be stopped.

Somna, of course, knew that he didn’t buy into The Exalted’s religion and tolerated James’ lack of belief because of his combat skills and farming knowledge. When Bracha’s unsuccessful coup had been ended and Bracha had escaped punishment by fleeing the tribe, James had taken his best friend’s position as Somna’s right hand. He’d served ten years as Somna’s lieutenant. Ten years.

Shifting his eyes once more, to Somna this time, he reflected on what a truly hideous sight Somna was. Dressed in black, worn biker-leathers he stood at almost six-seven in height. His skin was covered in a network of tattoos, all of which meant something to him or was a trophy, a reminder of each soul he’d
saved
. His trophies took the form of small ravens. He had hundreds of them etched permanently into his skin as a mark of his dedication to his King and of his success. All of The Exalted did this in celebration of the lives they’d sacrificed to their King.

 
James had only one raven, etched in flight under his right eye. A permanent tear.

Somna wore his black hair long, tightly wrapped in a sheik-like bun and fixed in place with wire at the crown of his head. Blackest of all his features were his eyes. So dark, like pools of black ink, no emotion. Nothing, not anger, fear, love or regret, ever showed in them. They belonged to a shark rather than a man. They also lacked the frame of upper or lower eyelids having been removed by his own hand “to better serve my King and watch my flock,”
as he said.

The very worst of Somna’s appearance was also the one aspect that seemed most out of place. Around his waist hung a bum-bag, a fanny-pack, with the legend
I Love Edinburgh
in bright neon orange lettering. Inside were the other trophies he took from his victims, the ones he cut from them when only his trusted few lieutenants were present. A festering pack filled with the putrefied eyelids of hundreds.

Somna finished his prayers and fished a little bottle of self-made serum from his pocket. Holding the bottle above his permanently open eyes, he waited patiently as a few drops of the moisturising liquid fell. The muscles around his eyes contracted, still attempting to engage the blink reflex, unaware that they no longer held eyelids to flick over his exposed eyeballs. Somna rolled his eyes around in their sockets, face pointing to the ceiling, as he spoke.

“What can I do for you today, Jimmy?” His voice was entirely at odds with his appearance, being gentle, seductive even. Always calm.

James told him of his encounter with Bracha, explaining that he had been hunting in the woods when stumbling across the former lieutenant.

“What a coincidence,” Somna said gently.

James held his poker face and continued. When Somna discovered that the hospital fences had been breached and the compound itself seemingly evacuated, he calmly rounded up fifty or so men within minutes and set off for Little France.

James had no idea whether the teens were still in the area, but whatever the case, it was out of his hands. Bracha had to be silenced. If Somna were to discover from him the extent to which James had lied to him about the status of the city-centre, he expected one more raven on Somna’s skin would be his legacy. He followed his master out into the morning frost and aided a silent prayer for the children he may have just murdered to protect his own secrets.

Looking along at Somna standing on the perimeter of the hospital boundary on Little France Crescent, James watched the leader of The Exalted
converse
with their King, who had been carried to Little France on his platform, still in his perverted pose, half-deflated ball at his foot.

Somna threw his arms up suddenly. “We will have the traitor, Bracha, delivered unto us this very morning,” he announced. “Our heavenly King assures me.”

A ripple of excitement from the gathered men; James could almost taste the adrenaline surging through the gathered monsters.

Somna strolled calmly towards James and leaned in close, voice a whisper.

“If you feel any lingering loyalty to Bracha, best that you leave now, Jimmy.”

A thousand memories rushed through James Kelly’s mind in that moment. He had known the man who was now called Bracha for most of his life. They’d met in boarding school. They’d joined the army together. Two tours in Afghanistan. He’d become a member of the man’s team of personal guards. He was there with his friend on the day the city fell. They could have left days before, a chopper had been sent, but
he
wanted to stay.

 
With his ruddy-red face and ginger hair, he’d told James, “This is the world now, and it’s a damn sight more interesting than the one we’ve waded through all these years.”

James and one other personal guard, Cammy, had stayed out of loyalty, out of duty. They’d followed their friend as he descended into madness. Cammy left soon after. James had stayed too long and finally abandoned him when he’d joined Somna’s insanity and taken the name Bracha. James wept for his friend and grew to hate the monster who wore his appearance like a twisted suit.

He’d gone his own way. At one point he’d lived in the city-centre, joining Cammy there. They’d made a life there and had helped establish a little farming community. They’d found a sort of peace amongst the wandering grey people who roamed the city streets eternally. And then they found themselves banished from there also. Cammy had been bitten within weeks of leaving the centre. For all James knew, he wandered the streets of the city to this day. He hadn’t had the heart to put him out of his misery.

Returning once more to Somna’s compound to find his final friend, out of loyalty, out of need, only Bracha was there by then. Not a shred of the decent man his friend had been remained. But Bracha was all he had left so he’d had to make do until his grasp exceeded his reach and Bracha challenged Somna, making James choose between Somna and his friend.

James coughed. “I haven’t felt anything for him since you gave him that name. Do what you have to do.”

Somna smiled and returned to his King’s altar to commune with his god.