LITMIR.BIZ

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acid convulsed in a huge bubble, spraying boiling liquid into the air of the lab, and sizzling on to the exposed skin of Jamie’s neck and jaw.

      He screamed in pain, and both Frankenstein and the chemist ran to him. Jamie clamped his gloved hand over the wounds, and the fabric began to smoke. The pain was beyond anything he had ever felt before; it was as though a million tiny knives were cutting into his flesh. He screamed again, as his skin began to melt.

      The chemist flew to the corner of the lab, opened a small metal fridge, and returned to Jamie’s side with a bottle of purified water. Frankenstein had picked him up and carried him out of reach of the bowls, and was holding him still with one hand while trying to pry Jamie’s hand away from his wounds so he could inspect the damage. The chemist’s pale hand shot between them, gripping Jamie’s wrist and pulling his hand clear of the burns. Jamie’s head was thrown back, the cords in his neck standing out like ropes, his teeth clenched together in a grimace of agony.

      The vampire flicked the top off the bottle and tipped water over the burns, irrigating the wounds. They gushed smoke as the liquid flushed them clean, and Jamie bellowed. Then the wounds, a bright red patch of at least ten individual burns, stretching from the collar of his uniform to just below his right ear, began to bleed.

      The chemist’s eyes turned red.

      Frankenstein saw it happen, and fumbled for the T-Bone, which had fallen to the laboratory floor. But before he could reach it, the vampire threw himself backwards into the air, away from the fallen teenager and the crouching monster, and hovered by the door that led back to the garden.

      “Bring him into the house once the bleeding has stopped,” he said, his voice guttural and full of lust. “There is a first-aid kit above the fridge.”

      And with that he was gone, opening the door and swooping through it and into the night.

      Frankenstein left Jamie, who was staring at the ceiling, his face white, his eyes wide, and pulled a green box down from a shelf above the fridge. He made his way back across the lab, turning off the gas rings beneath the bowls of acid as he did so, and crouched down next to the teenager, who looked at him with eyes that were starting to regain their focus.

      “Are you all right?” asked Frankenstein.

      Jamie was shocked to hear the monster’s voice so full of worry. “Fine,” he croaked in reply. “I’ve... I’ve never felt anything like it. I couldn’t breathe, it hurt so much.”

      “Does it still hurt?”

      Jamie nodded. “But not like it did,” he said. “It feels like a normal burn now.”

      Frankenstein wiped the blood from the boy’s skin, then pulled a gauze pad from the first-aid kit and gently placed it over the burns. Jamie winced, but did not protest. The monster unrolled a strip of white bandage, laid it over the gauze, and fixed it in place with surgical tape. Jamie pushed himself up into a sitting position as Frankenstein closed the kit, took it back across the lab, and replaced it on the shelf it had come from. When he turned back, Jamie was looking at him.

      “He was going to turn the gas off,” the teenager said, slowly. “He knew what was going to happen.”

      “I couldn’t have known that,” replied Frankenstein, walking back to the boy.

      “I’m not blaming you,” said Jamie, his face full of pain. “I was just saying.”

      “All right,” said Frankenstein.

      “Help me up?” asked the teenager, and the huge man reached down a misshapen hand. Jamie gripped it, and pulled himself to his feet, wincing as he did so.

      He hesitantly touched the bandage on his neck, then looked up at Frankenstein. “I want you to let me do the talking,” he said. “In the house. OK?”

      The monster looked down at him. “Fine,” he said, after a pause. “Do whatever you think is best.”

      The back door was open when they reached it, and they stepped through into a warm, ramshackle kitchen. A kettle was boiling on a huge Aga, and the chemist was sitting at a wooden table in the middle of the room, looking uneasily at the two men.

      “I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t tasted human blood in more than a decade, but I can’t control my reaction to it.”

      “It’s all right,” said Jamie. He looked down at an empty chair opposite the vampire’s, and the chemist quickly invited him to sit down, then told Frankenstein to do the same.

      “I’ll stand,” rumbled the monster.

      “As you wish,” replied the chemist.

      Jamie carefully took his seat, and looked at the chemist, who was eyeing the teenager nervously. “I know you were going to turn the gas off,” said Jamie, and the vampire breathed out a long sigh of relief.

      “I was,” he said, eagerly. “I could see it was going to boil over, but then your partner told me to stay still, and I didn’t want to provoke the situation, and…”

      He trailed off. Frankenstein rolled his eyes, but said nothing.

      “I know,” said Jamie. The chemist seemed to him to be genuinely shaken up by what had happened in the lab, and he pressed forward. “How did you end up here, doing this work?” he asked.

      The vampire looked at him, and then laughed. “You want to hear how I was reduced to this, is that it?” he replied. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr Carpenter, but it really isn’t much of a story. I was a biochemist for a pharmaceutical firm, I was turned, and I carried on with my job. I just make a different product now.”

      Jamie’s face fell. He had thought that taking an interest in the chemist might open him up a little, and make him more willing to talk about Alexandru.

      “However,” continued the chemist, casting a pointed look in Frankenstein’s direction. “It is refreshing to be asked a polite question. Especially when said question isn’t posed behind the point of stake. You have manners, young man. Your mother must be proud.”

      Jamie saw his opening, and leapt for it. “I think she is, yes,” he replied. “I can’t ask her though, because Alexandru has her. That’s why we’re looking for him.”

      The chemist looked at the teenager with naked sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that,” said the vampire. “Truly I am. You must be going through hell.”

      Jamie nodded.

      “But I don’t know where he is,” said the chemist. “You can choose to believe me, or not to. I can’t make that decision for you. But I will tell you one thing that I do know, which is less than prudent on my part.”

      “Anything,” said Jamie. “Anything that might help.”

      “He is still in the country. How I know that, I will not tell you. But he is still here. Which makes it extremely likely your mother is, too.”

      Frankenstein snorted. “That’s it?” the monster asked. “He’s still in the country? So that means we only have to search about 250,000 square kilometres to find him.”

      The chemist stared at Frankenstein, his face twisted with open loathing. “You leave my house knowing more than you did when you arrived,” he said. “I doubt that will be the case anywhere else you choose to conduct your search. The brothers have eyes and ears everywhere, and no one else will be willing to tell you anything.”

      Jamie stood up from the table, clenching his teeth so he wouldn’t cry out as the muscles below his burns moved. He shot Frankenstein a look of pure anger, warning him to say nothing more. “Thank you for your help,” he said to the chemist, who nodded politely. “We’ll leave you to your work.”

      They followed the path back to the road in silence. Private Hollis was leaning against the door of the van.

      “Where to next?” he asked, as they stopped beside the vehicle.

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