Джули Кагава – The Eternity Cure (страница 12)

A howl rang out behind us, and rabids spilled into the corridor, a pale, hissing flood. They screamed as they spotted us and charged, hurtling themselves over beams and around pipes, their claws sparking against the metal.

“Move, sister!” Jackal’s voice boomed through the shaft, making my ears pound, and something shoved me through the opening. I leaped forward, grabbing thick cables as I dropped into the tube, catching myself with a grimace. Jackal squeezed through the doors and, instead of grabbing for the metal ropes, swung himself onto a rusty ladder on one side of the wall. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at me.

“I’ll meet you down there.”

“You’re lucky I can’t reach you right now.”

Jackal only laughed, but at that moment a rabid slammed into the door frame, hissing and gnashing its fangs across the gap separating us. With a shriek, it sprang forward, soaring through the air, grabbing the cables next to mine. Claws slashed at me, and I yelled, kicking at it as it we hung there, the metal ropes shaking wildly. Curved talons sparked off the cables, and I swung myself around the ropes, out of its reach.

The rabid shimmied through the cables like a grotesque monkey, lunging at my face with fangs bared. With a snarl, I threw up my arm, letting jagged teeth sink into my coat and skin, and then yanked it to the side, ripping the monster off the cables into empty air. It snatched desperately for another rope, missed and plummeted down the shaft, screaming. It was a long time before I heard the faint thud at the bottom.

More rabids crowded the door frame, their empty, dead eyes locked on me, but these seemed reluctant to take that leap. I looked around and saw Jackal already several yards below me, descending the ladder at shocking speed. Muttering dark promises under my breath, I began climbing down into the darkness.

The shaft went down at least a couple hundred feet, a pitch-black, claustrophobic tube that seemed to descend into the center of the earth. Even with my vampire sight, which turned complete darkness into shades of gray, I couldn’t see the bottom or the top. It made me feel like I was dangling over a bottomless pit. I was relieved when I finally heard Jackal hit the bottom, sending a metallic thump up the shaft.

I slid down the remaining length of rope, landing on a square metal platform that swayed slightly under my weight. Gazing around, I discovered the platform wasn’t attached to the walls of the tube; it appeared to be a large metal box at the bottom of the cables. A pale, broken body lay in the crack between the wall and the box, its skull smashed open on the corner.

Jackal stepped up, smirking, and I fought the urge to kick him in the shin. “Looks like we’re on the right trail,” he stated, pointing to a hatch in the center of the box that had already been pulled open. “After you.”

Pulling my sword, I dropped through the hatch, landing inside the rectangular box, finding these doors shoved open, as well. Beyond the opening, a long hallway ended at two thick metal doors.

Jackal hit the floor beside me, his duster settling around him, and straightened, giving the entrance a shrewd look. “All right, you bastard,” he muttered, walking forward. “What were you looking for down here?”

We went through the doors together, pushing them back, and stepped into a dark, chilling room. At first, it reminded me of the old hospital where Kanin and I had stayed in New Covington. Beds on wheels sat against the wall, sectioned off by rotted curtains, or lay tipped over on the ground. Shelves of strange instruments were scattered about, and bulky machines sprawled in the middle of the floor or in corners, knocked down and broken. Glass clinked under our feet as we maneuvered the maze of rubble and sharp objects,

I looked closer and saw that most of the beds had leather straps dangling from the sides, thick cuffs to restrain wrists and ankles. Pushing aside a moldy curtain, I jumped as a skeleton grinned at me from a bed, rotten leather restraints hanging on bony wrists. My stomach turned as I stared at the naked bones. What had happened here?

Jackal had already moved on, searching the hidden corners of the room, so I continued along a wall until I found another door. Unlike the others, this one didn’t swing open at my touch. Why was it locked when none of the other doors had been? I braced myself and then lashed out with a kick, aiming for just beside the doorknob. There was a sharp, splintering crack, and the door crashed open.

It was an office, at least, it looked like one from the shelves and metal cabinets and large wooden desk in the corner. Unlike the rest of the lab, this one looked fairly clean and intact; nothing looked broken, and the furniture, though old and covered in dust, was still standing.

Except, there was a suspicious-looking dark spatter on the wall behind the desk and, when I walked around, I discovered a skeleton slumped in the corner, the threads of a long, once-white coat still clinging to him. One bony hand clutched a pistol.

Wrinkling my nose, I turned around and noticed a single book lying in the middle of the desk. Curious, I walked over and picked it up, examining the cover. It didn’t have a title, and when I flipped it open, messy, handwritten pages sprang to light, instead of neat rows of typing.

Day 36 of the Human-Vampire experiment, the top line read.

All power is being redirected to keeping the lab up and running, so I am writing down my findings here, in case we lose it all. Then, if something happens to me, perhaps the project can continue from the notes I will leave behind.

We continue to lose patients at an alarming rate. Early tests with the samples from the New Covington lab have been disastrous, with our human subjects dying outright. We have not had a single patient survive the infusion of vampire blood. I hope the team in New Covington can send us samples we can actually work with.

—Dr. Robertson, head scientist of the D.C. Vampire Project

I shuddered. So, it sounded like the scientists here had been working with the New Covington lab, only they’d been experimenting on humans instead of vampires. That couldn’t be good. I flipped a couple more pages and read on.

Day 52 of the Human-Vampire experiment,

The power grid in the city has gone down. We are running on the emergency backup generators, but we might have had our first breakthrough today. One of the patients that we injected with the experimental cure did not immediately die. She became increasingly agitated and restless minutes after receiving the injection, and appeared to gain the heightened strength of the vampire subjects. Interestingly, she became increasingly aggressive, to the point where her mental capacities appeared to shut down and she resembled a mad or rabid animal. Sadly, she died a few hours later, but I am still hopeful that a cure can be found from this. However, some of the younger assistants are beginning to mutter; that last experiment rattled them pretty badly, and I don’t blame them for wanting to quit. But we cannot let fear hinder us now. The virus must be stopped, no matter what the cost, no matter what the sacrifice. Mankind’s survival depends on us.

We’re close, I can feel it.

A chill crawled down my spine. I turned the page and kept reading.

Day 60 of the Human-Vampire experiment,

I received a rather frantic message today from the lead scientist at the New Covington lab. “Abort the project,” he told me. “Do not use any more of the samples on human patients. Shut down the lab and get out.”

It was shocking, to say the least. That the brilliant Malachi Crosse was telling me to abandon the project.

I’m sorry, my friend. But I cannot do that. We are close to something, so very close to a breakthrough. I cannot abandon months of research, even for you. The samples that came in yesterday are the key. They will work, I am sure of it. We will beat this thing, even if I have to inject my own assistants with the new serum. It will work.

It must. We are running out of time.

I swallowed hard, then turned to the very last entry. This one was blotched and messy, as if the author had written it in a great hurry.

The lab is lost. Everyone is dead or will be dead soon. Don’t know what happened, those monsters suddenly everywhere. Malachi was right. Shouldn’t have insisted we go through with the last experiment. This is all on me.

I’ve locked myself in my office. Can’t go out, not with those things running around. I only hope they don’t find a way back to the surface. If they do, heaven help us all.

If anyone finds this, the remaining samples of the retrovirus have been placed in freezer number two in cryogenic storage. And if you do find them, I pray that you will have better success than I, that you will use them to find a cure for Red Lung and for this new monstrosity we have unleashed.

“Hey.” Jackal appeared in the doorway before I could finish the entry. He jerked his head into the hall, serious for once. “I found something. And I think you’d better see this.”