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“Please state the names and designations of all passengers.”
Frankenstein rolled down the driver’s window and spoke loudly and clearly into the darkness.
“Frankenstein, Victor. NS302-45D. Carpenter, Jamie. No designation.”
Two halogen spotlights exploded into life, enveloping the car in a circle of blinding white light.
“Non-designated personnel are not permitted access to this facility,” the artificial voice said.
This time Frankenstein roared through the window.
“Non-designated personnel present on the authority of Seward, Henry, NS303-27A.”
There was a long, pregnant pause.
“Clearance granted,” the voice said. “Proceed.”
The spotlights disappeared, replaced with warm electric light, and Jamie’s eyes widened in amazement. They were in a tunnel at least fifty metres long and ten metres wide. Covering most of the floor was a dark grey treadmill, in the middle of which sat their car. Two white concrete paths ran the length of the tunnel, on either side. The walls were immaculate white, stretching up to a ceiling that had to be at least six metres high. Where the walls and ceilings met, lights of numerous shapes and sizes pointed down at the treadmill. Jamie could see the wide circles of spotlights, and rows of thick rectangular boxes with purple lenses.
Frankenstein breathed out heavily, filling the car with warm air, and drove forward, along the treadmill. As they neared the end of the tunnel, another gate, as silent as the first, slid open. They drove through the gate, and Jamie got his first look at a world very few people knew existed.
Light bathed the car, purple and yellow, creating an atmosphere that was both cold and warm. Ahead of the car, at the end of a strip of tarmac lit by lights that stood at five-metre intervals, a wide, low grey dome rose out of the ground, like the visible part of a ball buried in the earth. To the left of the car, and far to the right, a pair of enormous red and white radar dishes revolved slowly atop squat grey buildings. Beyond the dishes lay a long runway, lights flashing at intervals along its length, two huge beacons shining at one end. Sitting on this runway, partially hidden by the low dome, was a white airliner with a red stripe running the length of its fuselage. As Jamie watched, a steady stream of men and women, dressed in civilian clothes, appeared from behind the dome and walked up a ladder truck to the plane’s door. He could hear voices and laughter, carrying on the night air.
Frankenstein pressed the accelerator and the car moved slowly forward. As it did, Jamie craned his neck, looking for the tunnel they had emerged from. He saw it, a wide black semi-circle disappearing as the gate they had passed through slid back into place, but what lay to the sides of the tunnel caused him to gasp, audibly. A road, branching off the one they were slowly travelling along, curved back and ran parallel to the tunnel, the exterior of which was a flat, nondescript grey. Fifteen metres before the tunnel disappeared into the tree line it curved again, this time into a long, shallow arc that ran parallel to a huge metal fence. Jamie’s eyes widened.
“Wait,” he said. “Stop the car. I want to see.”
Frankenstein grunted, and shot him a look of annoyance, but he drew the car to a halt. Jamie threw open the door and stepped out. His head was spinning as he tried to take in what he was looking at.
The inner fence was at least fifteen metres high, made of thick metal mesh and topped with vicious snarls of razor wire. Set into the fence at one hundred metre intervals were guard towers, cubes of metal on top of sturdy-looking pylons. There were no lights in them, but Jamie’s eyes caught movement in the one nearest to him. He turned to look at the next tower, a hundred metres further away, and the next, and the next. The fence ran for as far as he could see, in what appeared to be a vast circle. It passed the end of the runway before it disappeared from view beyond a series of low rectangular buildings on the far side of the landing strip. He turned slowly, taking everything in.
Past the low buildings his view was obscured by the dome. Further to the right, a large building sat flush against the runway, its huge metal doors closed. Beyond it Jamie again picked up the path of the fence, the towers evenly distributed along its incredible length. He continued his turn, ignoring Frankenstein, who was looking at him with a certain amount of gentle bemusement. The road running along the inside of the fence continued until it met the tunnel again, then curved back to join the central road no more than twenty feet from where he was standing.
Beyond the inner fence was a wide strip of dirt, crisscrossed with hundreds of thousands of red laser beams; the complexity of the patterns would have made the world’s greatest jewel thief weep. This strip of no-man’s-land was bordered on the other side by a second fence, almost as high as the one by the road. Beyond it lay the woods, a wall of twisted branches and leaves, running a perfectly even distance from the outer fence. Every square inch of the space between them, a dirt run five metres wide, was illuminated by bright purple ultraviolet light, shining down from black boxes set at three-metre intervals along the outer fence.
Excitement surged through Jamie as his eyes drank in the sheer strangeness of what he was seeing.
What is this place? Why are there so many fences and lights and towers? What are they keeping out?
As his eyes adjusted to the brilliant red and purple illumination before him, he saw that set in between the flickering laser grid was a series of giant spotlights, the wide round lenses pointing into the sky. He looked up, and his mouth fell open.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
There were no visible beams rising from the spotlights, but their purpose was clear as soon as he tilted back his head. Above him, shimmering gently in the night air, an enormous canopy of trees hung in the sky, extending seamlessly from the edges of the woods and covering the whole of whatever this place was. From underneath the image was flat, and faintly translucent, like a film of oil on a puddle of water, but he could see erratic shapes and uneven rises bristling the upper side. The effect was disorientating.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice full of wonder.
“It’s a hologram,” Frankenstein answered. “It keeps away prying eyes.”
He fought off the urge to ask who those eyes might belong to, and instead asked how it worked.
“There’s a suspended field of reflective particles that lies over the whole base. The spotlights project a moving image on to it from underneath.”
“Like a big cinema screen?”
Frankenstein laughed, a strange barking noise that did not sound as though it came naturally to him.
“Something like that,” he replied. “From above, all anyone sees is the forest. Have you seen enough?”
Jamie hadn’t, nowhere near enough, but he told his companion that he had, knowing it was what the giant man wanted to hear.
“Good,” Frankenstein said, not unkindly, and got back into the car. Jamie did the same, and they moved forward, towards the low grey dome.
In front of the building were several military vehicles, a heavy-looking truck with an open rear, a row of jeeps and a surprising number of civilian cars. Between one of the jeeps and a 3-series BMW that had seen better days, a parking bay was stencilled on the tarmac in white paint. Frankenstein guided their car into it and pulled it to a halt. The giant man and Jamie stepped out of the car and walked back around to a flat indentation where the dome faced the road they had just driven along. Set into the grey material of the building was a door. It stood open, waiting for them.
Frankenstein motioned for Jamie to enter, then followed him in when he did so. They were standing in a white corridor, featureless except for a sculpted crest that looked down at them from high on the wall opposite them.
“What now?” asked Jamie.
“We wait,” replied Frankenstein.
Jamie studied the crest as he did so. A crown and portcullis sat above a wide circle, in which had been carved six flaming torches encircling a plain crucifix. Beneath the circle three words of Latin were etched into the wall.
Lux E Tenebris
“What does that mean?” asked Jamie, pointing up at the crest.
“Light out of darkness,” translated Frankenstein. “It was the favourite phrase of a great man.”
“Who?”
The door closed behind them, sliding silently until it met the opposite wall, where it thudded into place with a loud clunk. There was a sound like spinning gears moving heavy machinery, then a quieter, yet somehow ominous second clunk. Instantly, the wall at the far end of the corridor slid aside to reveal a silver metal lift.
“Not now,” said Frankenstein, and walked down the corridor. After a moment’s hesitation, Jamie followed him.
The lift car had no buttons, and as soon as they stepped inside the door closed and they began to descend. It was such a familiar, mundane feeling, the shift in his stomach, the vibrations in his legs, that the mild hysteria Jamie realised he had been feeling ever since the thing in the grey coat had walked through the door of the house he shared with his mother threatened to pitch him into a fit of laughter. He steadied himself, and waited for the door to reopen. As they settled to a halt and it began to slide open, his mind raced with the possibilities of what he might see next.
It was a dormitory.
A long, wide room, lined on both sides with thin beds covered in olive-green sheets and blankets. The beds were pristine, as though they had never been slept in, and the metal lockers that stood between them shone like new.
“What is this place?” he asked Frankenstein.
The monster opened his mouth to reply, but a deafening siren drowned out the words. Jamie pressed his hands to his ears, and when the siren paused, Frankenstein looked at him with a worried expression. “You’re about to find out,” he said.
Chapter 6
THE LYCEUM INCIDENT, PART 1
THE STRAND, LONDON3
JUNE 1892
The carriage clattered to a halt on Wellington Street, in front of the tall pillars of the Lyceum Theatre. A fine rain was falling, and the driver pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders as he waited for his passenger to disembark.
“Bring my bags, boy, both of them,” said the old man, impatiently. He stood in the cobbled road, the brim of his wide hat low over his face as he watched the sun descending towards Trafalgar Square. “Yes sir,” replied his valet, lifting a black leather surgeon’s bag and a tan briefcase down from the back of the carriage.
The aging black horse that had pulled them through London shifted as the weight was removed and took a step backwards into the valet, sending the man down to one knee on the wet cobblestones and the tan briefcase to the ground. A sharpened wooden stake rolled out and settled at the feet of an overweight man in evening dress, who stooped down, grunting at the effort, and picked it up.
“You, boy,” he said, in a superior, goose-fed voice. “Have a care, would you? A man could go full-length with blasted logs rolling around his ankles.”
The valet picked the briefcase out of the road and stood up.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said.
“See that you are,” said the man, and handed the stake back to the valet while his equally large wife giggled at her husband’s wit.
The valet watched them totter away towards the Strand, then handed the bags to his master, who had watched the exchange with an expression of impatience on his face. He took them without a word, turned, and strode up the steps. The valet waited a respectful second, then followed.
Inside the rich red lobby of the theatre the old man waited for the night manager to greet them. Looking around, he took in the wide staircases that led up to the left and the right, the posters for previous productions that lined the walls, the majority of which showed the face of the man who had called him here; the actor Henry Irving.
The handsome, pointed face of the great Shakespearean was as well known as any in London, and his rich baritone voice equally so. The old man had seen his Othello, two seasons previous, and deemed it entirely satisfactory.
“Professor Van Helsing?”
The old man awoke from his musings and regarded the stout, red-faced fellow who was standing before him.
“That is correct,” he replied. “Mr Stoker, I presume?”
“Yes sir,” the man replied. “I’m the night manager here at the Lyceum. Am I right in thinking that Mr Irving explained why your presence was requested?”
“His message told me that a showgirl was missing, that he suspected foul play, and that I may have some expertise of the type of foul play in question.”
“Quite,” said Stoker. “But this isn’t just any showgirl. There’s...”
He trailed off. Van Helsing regarded the night manager more closely. His face was a deep beetroot red, his eyes watery and his head enveloped in a gentle cloud of alcoholic vapour. He had clearly sought the courage for this night’s work at the bottom of a bottle.
“Mr Stoker,” Van Helsing said, sharply. “I have travelled from Kensington at the request of your employer, and I wish to be about this business before the sun is long beyond the horizon. Tell me everything that I do not already know.”
Stoker looked up as though stung. “I apologise, sir,” he began. “You see, the girl who has vanished, a chorus girl by the name of Jenny Pembry, is a favourite of Prime Minister Gladstone himself, who has been kind enough to visit us no less than four times this year already. Her absence was mentioned by the Prime Minister after he attended our production of The Tempest, two days past, and Mr Irving promised to find out what had become of her. When he reported back to the Prime Minister that he had been unable to do so, he was told that a telegram to the famous Professor Van Helsing of Kensington might prove useful.”
“And so here we are,” boomed Van Helsing, drawing himself up to his full bearing, his voice suddenly loud and deep. “Standing in an empty theatre, with no reason to believe that this missing girl has done anything more mysterious than tire of the stage and choose a more dignified line of work for herself, and certainly nothing to suggest that this affair merits my attention. I fail to see what you expect me to do here, Mr Stoker.”
The night manager had taken a step backwards. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and furiously dabbed his forehead with it.
“Sir, if you would spare the time to examine the dressing rooms,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “Mr Irving informs me that the Prime Minister is most upset by this business, and I do not wish to tell him I have not exhausted all avenues of enquiry. Ten minutes, sir, I beseech you.”
Van Helsing looked at the small red-faced man before him, and felt his anger subside, replaced with a deep frustration. Nine months had passed since he and his friends had returned from the mountains of Transylvania, and although none of them had spoken publicly about what had happened, rumour of what had taken place beneath the stone peaks of Castle Dracula had spread, and he had found himself deluged with requests for help, with everything from creaking floorboards to ghostly apparitions and, it now appeared, missing chorus girls.
He longed for the quiet of his surgery, where his research into what he had seen in the East could continue. But there were worrying stories emerging from the Baltic, tales of blood and shadow. Thankfully though, nothing yet suggested that the evil condition which had caused the deaths of two of his friends had found its way back to London, and God was to be praised for that, if for little else.
“I apologise to you, Mr Stoker,” he said. “If you will lead the way, I will examine the dressing rooms, as you suggest.” He turned and spoke to his valet. “You may return to the carriage, boy. There is nothing here that will require your assistance.”
“Nonetheless sir, I will accompany you so long as it does not offend.”
Van Helsing waved a hand at him, dismissively. “Do as you wish.”
*
Stoker led them through the theatre, past the long rows of red velvet seats and the orchestra pit, through a door and into the backstage area. The narrow passages were piled high with props and set furniture from old productions – a wooden tower from Verona, a broken Faerie throne, ermine cloaks, rusting helmets and crowns, row upon row of daggers and swords, silver paint peeling from the wood and collecting in small drifts on the floorboards. As the night manager led Van Helsing and the valet through the dusty corridors, he talked non-stop, his confidence refuelled by the Professor’s apology and the contents of the small hip flask from which he was now openly taking regular sips.
“… of course Mr Irving is a great man, a truly great man, as fine an employer and as gracious a companion as he is skilled an actor. He has always encouraged the players to excel, to… improve, has given his time to tutor those with promise, and to always gently, most gently, discourage those without. My own small ambitions have always found a sympathetic ear with him, although of course he has so many more important claims upon his time, a great man, truly. He has promised me, one man to another, that he will read my play, should I ever complete the cursed thing. What kindness! What generosity! Although I fear I may never be able to accept his kind offer. The confines of the play confound me endlessly, and I am close to accepting that it may not be the medium to which I am best suited. Perhaps the novel holds the answer? I think it may do. Perhaps I should write of a theatre, from which people keep disappearing without a trace? That may entertain, if only for a short while. I may even presume to base the hero on Mr Irving, such a great man, such a—”
“Keep disappearing?” Van Helsing interrupted, his voice low.
They had reached a stop. The door in front of them led to a nondescript dressing room, barely larger than a pantry, in which stood three small desks, each facing a dusty mirror, and three hard wooden chairs. In the corners were piled costumes and pages of lyrics and dialogue.
“Sir?”
“Keep disappearing, you said. Are you telling me that this girl Pembry is not the first to vanish from the Lyceum without explanation?”
Stoker mopped his brow, the confusion clear in his face. “Well, yes, sir. There have been others. But as you yourself said, the theatrical life is not for everyone. Many choose to pursue their fortune elsewhere.”
“How many others?”
“In total, sir, I do not know. In recent months, four others, to the best of my knowledge. A trumpet player, an understudy to Titania, and two chorus girls whose names I must confess I do not remember.”
“Four others!” bellowed Van Helsing, cowering Stoker back against the open doorframe. “You are the manager of this theatre, five of your employees disappear in quick succession without an explanation between them, and you do not consider this unusual? And not worthy of mentioning to me, even after I was summoned here to investigate the most recent of them, even now not by you, but rather to satisfy the whim of a politician! Are you an imbecile, sir?”
Stoker stared back at him, his mouth hanging open. He closed his mouth, and muttered something too quietly to hear.
“What’s that, man? Speak up if you have something to say,” demanded Van Helsing.
“I’m only the night manager,” replied Stoker, in a small voice.
“That is no kind of excuse, no kind at all, and well you know it. Attend to me now: has anything notable occurred in recent months that coincides with these disappearances? Think now.”
Stoker turned away from Van Helsing, who looked over at his valet standing several feet away, his face expressionless. They waited for the night manager.
Eventually he turned back to them. His eyes were redder than ever, and a gasp in his breathing suggested he was close to weeping.
“I cannot recall anything of significance, other than the sad business of our conductor, Harold Norris.”
“What business?”
“Mr Norris suffered from a nervous disposition, sir. Six months ago Mr Irving granted him a leave of convalescence, in the hopes that an absence from the bustle of London would help with his condition. As I said, sir, Mr Irving’s generosity knows no—”
Van Helsing cut him off impatiently.
