I got up off the bed, and then paused, thoughtfully. I had the distinct feeling I was being watched. I raised my Sight and looked casually round the room, and immediately half a dozen surveillance cameras revealed themselves to me, all craftily hidden, along with over a dozen traditional listening devices. Between them they had the whole room covered, in sound and vision, without a single blind spot anywhere. I had to consider—was the whole hotel riddled with them, so the Immortals could keep an eye on everyone who booked in, or was this just one of the rooms reserved for people who arrived suddenly, with no luggage? I had wondered why I’d been given a room on the top floor, when there were supposed to be so many vacancies.
Just how paranoid were the Immortals?
It didn’t make any difference, of course. My torc could hide itself from even the most sophisticated devices, and maintain my disguise as just another tourist. Still, I’d have to be careful what I said and did, in this room. Maybe I should steal a few items, just to seem normal. I could use a few good fluffy towels . . . Maybe later.
I washed up, took a good long pee on the grounds it might be ages before I could hit the facilities again, and took my time descending the five flights of stairs, so I wouldn’t be out of breath when I got to the bottom. A man has his pride . . . At the foot of the stairs was a new sign, in German and English, saying THE CASTLE HOTEL IS PROUD TO WELCOME THE SPAWN OF FRANKENSTEIN. MAIN BALLROOM. TICKETS ONLY FOR SPECIAL BANQUET
.
I decided I might as well take a look, while I was there, so I wondered over to the main ballroom. Just to take a peek. And the first person I met at the open door was the Bride of Frankenstein. The real one.
She was tall, a good seven feet. All of the Baron’s first creations had to be big, so he could fit everything in. The skin on her face was very pale and very taut, like someone who’s had too much plastic surgery. But hers had always been that way, and always would. She had huge dark eyes that didn’t blink often enough, a prominent nose, and her mouth was a deep dark red without benefit of makeup. She would never be beautiful, but she was attractive, in a frightening sort of way. She wore her long jet black hair piled up on her head in a beehive, like Amy Winehouse, and she wasn’t bothering to dye out the white streaks anymore. Or use makeup to cover the familiar scars that stood out on her chin and neck. She wore flowing white silks, with long sleeves to cover her wrists, a tight blouse that showed off a lot of cleavage, and knee-length white leather boots.
She recognised me immediately, and flung her arms around me. I braced myself for her embrace; she’d never known her own strength. Up close, she smelled of attar of roses, and maybe just a hint of formaldehyde. She released me, and clapped me hard on the shoulder with one heavy oversized hand.
“Shaman, my dear! So long since I have seen you!” Her voice was a rich contralto, full of life. “What are you doing here?”
“Little bit of business,” I said solemnly. “You know how it is . . .”
She laughed easily. “Of course. If there is a profit to be made, or trouble to get into, there you will find Shaman Bond! If you should find yourself in need of an alibi, or someone to stand bail for you . . .”
“I’ll bear you in mind. I see you’re not covering up the scars anymore. Or is that just for the Convention?”
“No . . . I have come out of the living dead closet, my dear. I am who I am. I’m almost fashionable, these days . . . And more and more I think, the best place to hide is in plain sight.”
The Bride and I first met at the Wulfshead Club in London, that well-known gathering place and watering hole for the strange and unnatural. We soon warmed to each other. Shaman Bond is always very sociable because you never know when it might come in handy down the line. We fell into one of those easy friendships where you’re always popping in and out of each other’s lives. We even worked together on a few cases. Always with me as Shaman Bond; the Bride had no idea I was a Drood. The last job we’d done together had turned out rather messy. We’d been asked to stamp out the Cannibal Priests of Old Compton Street, who worshipped the insides of people, and not in a good way. Still, fire purifies. And even when it doesn’t, it’s still a damned good way to destroy evidence.
The Bride has been around. She’s worked with pretty much every unorthodox organisation there is, including the Droods, but she’s always been her own person. She prefers to work with a partner, though given who and what she is, she tends to either wear them out or outlive them. The Bride specialises in the most dangerous of cases, on the grounds that she has so much less to lose than most.
She’s a very feminine creature; she works hard at it. Her latest companion was the current Springheel Jack, latest inheritor of the title, and the curse. Apparently she quite literally stumbled over him in the middle of a case, when it was all new and horrible and he didn’t understand what was happening to him. So she took him under her wing, showed him the ropes, and the padded handcuffs, and they’ve been inseparable ever since.
“He’s isn’t at all put off that I am very much the older woman,” she said cheerfully. “And the scars aren’t a problem at all. He likes them! And I always was a size queen, so . . .”
“Hold it right there,” I said. “We are rapidly approaching the point of too much information. Where is Jack?”
“Off seeing the sights,” she said. “These gatherings aren’t for outsiders. They are reserved only for those who have known the benefits, and otherwise, of the Baron’s methods. For those who belong dead.”
“Got it,” I said. “The Spawn of Frankenstein.”
“A gathering of all the various creations, creatures and by products of the Baron’s admittedly amazing surgical gifts. We like to get together once a year, for self-help groups, companionship, and the pursuit of closure. We all have abandonment issues, after all. We end each meeting by cursing the Baron in his absence, wherever he may be.”
“I did hear he was dead . . .”
The Bride snorted loudly. “He’s cheated death so many times they don’t even bother screwing the lid down anymore. No, he is still out there, practicing his ungodly arts on those who cannot defend themselves, bringing new and awful life into the world. And hiding from us, his forsaken children.”
“What would you do?” I said. “If you ever did track him down?”
“I don’t know. Call him Daddy. Have sex with him. Kill him. It’s a difficult kind of relationship. Complicated . . . What would you say, if you came face-to-face with your creator? Ask him why you were made to suffer so much? I think I have a better chance of getting a straight answer out of my creator, than you have from yours.”
“Mine might have had better motives,” I said.
“But can you be sure?” The Bride chuckled quietly. “I’m afraid I cannot ask you in, Shaman, my dear. You understand how it is.”
“Of course,” I said. “Family only.”
I did take a quick glance through the open door, and the Bride didn’t object. There were enough of them to fill the ballroom, standing around like any group, talking and drinking and nibbling dubiously at finger snacks provided by the hotel. Hidden speakers dispensed inoffensive classical music, the only safe bet when those present come from so many times and cultures. There were all kinds on view, from those who could pass for normal, with a little help, to those who never would. Not all of the Baron’s children were monsters, but they were all marked by the obsessions of their creator. Everyone in the room had started out dead, and it showed. In the eyes, in the voices, and in their image, which could be disguised but never forgotten.
Some of the more extreme cases displayed their differences openly here, among the only people who would understand. Men and women with two pairs of arms, or legs with too many joints. Gills on the neck, bulbous foreheads, bulging chests that contained specially designed new organs. Feathers, fur and even scales. The Baron had grown more adventurous as his work progressed. They talked easily together, bastard offspring of a bastard science. All they had in common was their scars, and their pain; but sometimes, that was enough.
I looked thoughtfully round the crowded room. Something was nagging at me. Something I’d seen or sensed, but not understood. So I raised my Sight, and looked again. And just like that I saw the one person present who didn’t belong in this group. Oh, he had the look down pat. A tall bulky chap, in black leathers with studs and dangling chains, with prominent scars at his wrists, and a ragged line across his bulging forehead. But he had an aura. No one else in the room had an aura. Revenants of whatever kind may have a mind, and even a soul, but they never have an aura. That’s reserved for the living, and the Spawn of Frankenstein were the living dead. So whoever this guy was, he definitely wasn’t one of the Baron’s creations. I pointed him out to the Bride, and explained why, and she swore viciously.
“I should have known! He said all the right things, dropped all of the right names, but the scar on his forehead was just too ragged. The Baron, for all his faults, always did neat work. How dare he! How dare he intrude on such a strictly private gathering? The one place where we can be honest and open, without fear of condemnation . . . This could put some people’s therapy back months! He is probably a reporter, from some squalid little tabloid . . . I will take his hidden camera and shove it so far up him he’ll be able to take photographs through his nostrils!”
And she stalked forward before I could stop her. I had a pretty good idea of who and what he was, and it wasn’t any kind of journal ist. I watched from the doorway as the Bride marched right up to the only living man in the ballroom, spun him around and stabbed him hard in the chest with one long bony finger. I winced, but he didn’t.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” demanded the Bride, towering over the intruder. “You are not one of us!”
The room fell quiet, all the conversations stopped dead. Everyone turned to look at the intruder, and the expressions on their faces would have scared the crap out of anyone else. Death was in the room, cold and angry. The man I’d pointed out realised immediately that there was no point in continuing his pretence, and he smiled easily about him with calm, practiced arrogance.
“I am an Immortal,” he said. “The real thing; not a botched scientific experiment, like you. And I am here because Immortals go where they please, to learn what they need to know. Get on with your little party. I’ll see myself out.”
But the Bride still blocked his path. She stabbed him again in the chest with one long thin finger, hard enough to rock him back on his feet, and this time he did wince.
“This is a private gathering of gods and monsters, of men and women who have sworn never to be victims again. You insult us by your very presence, and we will have an apology.”
“I don’t think so,” said the Immortal, and his tone of voice was a slap in the face to everyone present.
All the features on his face suddenly ran, like melting wax. The underlying bone structure rose and fell, and then everything snapped back into place, and the intruder had a whole new face. He was now a middle-aged man with a broad square face, fierce dark eyes and a cruel mouth. It was a face I’d seen before, in a number of portraits from the nineteenth century. The Bride fell back a step, and a slow murmur ran round the ballroom.
The Baron . . . It’s the Baron . . .
“Bow down before your creator,” said the Immortal.
In the doorway, I felt like covering my face with my hands. Bad idea, Immortal, really bad idea. The Bride punched the Immortal so hard in the face, I half expected her fist to come out the back of his head. The false Baron staggered backwards, his features already moving again, trying to become someone else. The Bride went after him, and every one of the living dead in the ballroom closed in, looking for their own little bit of vengeance and payback, if only by proxy.
“We are the Spawn of Frankenstein, little man,” said the Bride. “And you should not have come here.”
The crowd fell upon the Immortal like a pack of savage beasts, hammering him with oversized fists, slicing at him with clawed hands, and hacking at him with all kinds of blades. The Immortal took a terrible punishment, that would have killed an ordinary man, but he just soaked it all up and stubbornly refused to fall. His features settled into yet another face, proud and disdainful, and he struck out at those creatures nearest him with more than human strength. Bodies flew threw the air, slammed into walls and furniture, and took their time about rising again. The Immortal raged through the crowd, striking them down with cold purpose, but still the living dead pressed forward, determined to get their hands on him, driven by more than one lifetime’s rage.
I stepped quietly inside the ballroom, and pulled the door shut behind me. Someone had already thoughtfully turned up the music, so if the receptionist did hear anything, hopefully she’d just think it was more than usually enthusiastic dancing. In the meantime, I stayed by the doors. It wasn’t my place to get involved. First, it would have been presumptuous, implying I thought they couldn’t handle this themselves. And second, I didn’t see what I could do, without armouring up and revealing myself a Drood. Which could be bad, for any number of reasons. So I stood my ground, and watched, and winced as the Immortal threw the Spawn of Frankenstein around like they were children.