FOURTEEN
SO BEAUTIFUL . . . EVEN IN DEATH, BEVERLY
Harris was radiant, but Irons couldn't risk having her
wake up while he wasn't watching; he carefully folded
her into the stone cabinet beneath the sink and
latched it, promising himself that he would take her
out when he had more time. She would become the
most exquisite animal he'd ever transformed, posed
and forever perfect once he'd prepared her the proper
way ... a dream come true.
If I have time. If there's any time left.
He knew he was feeling sorry for himself again, but
there was no one else to commiserate with, no one to
marvel at the sheer magnitude of all that he'd suffered.
He felt terrible - sad and angry and alone,
but he also felt that things had finally become clear.
He knew now, knew why he was being persecuted,
and that awareness had given him a focus - as depressing
as the truth was, at least he was no longer
lost.
Umbrella. An Umbrella conspiracy to destroy me, all
along. . .
Irons sat on the scarred, stained table in the Sanctuary,
his special, private place, and wondered how long
it would be before the young woman came for him.
The one with the athletic body, the one who'd refused
to tell him her name. In a way, she was responsible for
his newfound clarity, an irony that he couldn't help
but appreciate; it had been her sudden appearance
that had provided him with the truth.
She would find him, of course; she was an Umbrella
spy, and Umbrella had obviously been watching him
for quite some time. They probably had lists of
everything he owned, volumes of psychological profiling
reports, even copies of his financial records. It all
made sense, now that he'd had some time to think; he
was the most powerful man in Raccoon, and Umbrella
had designed his downfall, tailored each vicious
backstab to cause him the most acute agony possible.
Irons stared at his treasures, the tools and trophies
that sat on the shelves in front of him, but felt none of
the pride they usually inspired. The polished bones
were simply something to look at as his mind worked,
absorbed with Umbrella's treachery.
Years before, when he'd started taking money to
turn a blind eye to the company's doings, things had
been different; then it had been a matter of politics, of
finding himself a niche in the power structure that
really controlled Raccoon. And things had worked
smoothly for a long time - his career had progressed
on schedule, he'd earned the respect of officials and
citizens alike, and for the most part, his investments
had paid off. Life had been good.
And then there was Birkin. William Birkin and his
neurotic wife and their brat daughter.
After the Spencer estate spill, he'd almost convinced
himself that the S.T.A.R.S. and goddamn
Captain Wesker had been responsible for all the
trouble, but he could see now that it was the arrival of
Birkin and his family, nearly a year before, that had
started the ball rolling; the destruction of the Spencer
lab had only hurried things along. Umbrella had
probably started monitoring him the day he'd had the
misfortune to meet Birkin - at first, just watching,
planting bugs, and installing cameras. The spies
would have come later . . .
The Birkins had come to Raccoon so that William
could concentrate on developing a superior synthesis
of the T-Virus, based on the research being done at
the Spencer lab. As quirky and unpleasant as William
could sometimes be, Irons had liked him, right from
the start. The male Birkin had been Umbrella's boy
genius, but like Irons, he wasn't the type to brag about
his position; William was a humble man, only interested
in fulfilling his own potential. They'd both been
too busy to have much of a friendship, but there had
been a mutual respect between them; Irons had often
felt that William looked up to him . . .
. . . and my mistake was to allow it. To allow my
regard for him to cloud my instincts, to keep me from
noticing that I was being watched, all along.
The loss of the Spencer lab sent some big ripples
through Umbrella's hierarchy, and only days after the
explosion, Irons had been approached by Annette
Birkin with a message from her husband - a message
and a request for a favor. Birkin had been worried
that Umbrella was going to demand the new synthesis,
the G-Virus, before it was ready; apparently, he'd
been most dissatisfied with the application of his
previous work, something about how Umbrella
hadn't let him perfect the replication process, Irons
couldn't remember exactly - and with Umbrella
looking to recover from the financial blow of the
Spencer loss, Birkin had been concerned that they
might compromise the integrity of the untested virus.
Through Annette, Birkin had asked for assistance
and offered him a little extra incentive to keep things
fair. For a hundred grand, all Irons had to do was help
keep the G-Virus under wraps - in short, watch out
for Umbrella spies and keep an eye on the surviving
S.T.A.R.S., making sure they didn't do any more
"discovering" of Umbrella's research.
That was it. A hundred thousand dollars, and I was
already watching my city, and keeping tabs on that
rebellious little pack of troublemakers. Easy, easy
money, and more to be made if everything went as
planned. Except it was a trap, an Umbrella trap. . .
Irons had walked right into it, and that was when
Umbrella had started plotting against him, using the
information they'd gathered to seal his fate. How else
could things have gone wrong so quickly? The
S.T.A.R.S. had disappeared, then Birkin - and before
he'd even had a chance to assess the situation, the
attacks had started up again. He'd barely had time to
seal Raccoon off before everything had fallen to shit.
And all because I was helping a friend - for the
greater good of the company, no less. Tragic.
Irons stood up and walked slowly around the cutting
table, idly tracing the dents and scars in the wood
with his fingertips. Behind every mark was a story, a
memory of accomplishment, but again, he could
take no comfort. The cool, quiet atmosphere of the
Sanctuary had always soothed him before, it was
where he practiced his hobbies, where he was truly
able to be himself, but it wasn't his anymore. Nothing
was. Umbrella had taken it from him, just as
they'd taken his city. Was it so far-fetched to deduce
that they'd unleashed their virus to get at him, to rob
him of his power and then sent that scantily clad
brown-haired girl to rub his nose in it? Why else was
she so attractive? They knew his weaknesses and were
exploiting them, trying to keep him from retaining
even a shred of dignity . . .
. . . and soon she'll come for me, maybe still playing
dumb, still trying to seduce me with her helplessness.
An Umbrella assassin, a spy and an exploiter, that's all
she is, probably laughing at me behind that pretty
face. . .
Maybe the spill had been an accident; the last time
they'd met, William Birkin had seemed unsteady,
paranoid, and exhausted, and accidents happened
even under the best of circumstances. But the rest was
fact, there was no other explanation for how completely
Irons had been ruined. That girl was coming to
get him, she was from Umbrella and she'd been sent
to murder him. And she wouldn't stop there, oh, no;
she'd find Beverly and . . . and defile her somehow,
just to make certain that nothing he cared about was
left.
Irons looked around the small, softly lit room that
had once been his, gazing wistfully at the well-used
tools and furniture, the sweet, familiar smells of
disinfectant and formaldehyde emanating from the
rugged stone walls.
My Sanctuary. Mine.
He picked up the handgun that lay on his special
cutting table, the VP70 that was still his, and felt a
bitter smile curl his lips. His life was over, he knew
that now. This whole affair had started with Birkin,
and would end here, by his own hand. But not yet.
The girl would come for him, and he would kill her
before he said his final good-byes to Beverly, before he
admitted his defeat by taking a bullet. But he would
see to it that she understood his suffering first. For
every torture he'd endured, the girl would pay, the bill
settled through flesh and bone and as much pain as he
could inflict.
He was going to die, but not alone. And not without
hearing the girl scream in agony, creating a voice for
the death of his dreams - a voice so clear and true
that the echoes would reach even the black hearts of
the company executives who had betrayed him.
The S.T.A.R.S. office was empty, cluttered and cold
and layered with dust, but Claire was reluctant to
leave. After her stumbling, frightened flight through
the body-strewn halls of the second floor, finding the
place where her brother had spent his working days
had left her feeling weak with relief. Mr. X hadn't
followed her, and although she was still anxious to
help Sherry and find Leon, she found herself lingering,
afraid to step back into the lifeless halls and
hesitant to leave the one place that felt like Chris.
Where are you, big brother? And what am I going to
do? Zombies, fire, death, your weird Chief Irons and
that lost little girl - and just when I thought things
couldn't get any more insane, I get to face off with The
Thing That Would Not Die, the freak to end all freaks.
How am I going to get through this?
She sat at Chris's desk, gazing at the small strip of
black-and-white pictures that she'd found tucked in
the bottom drawer; the four shots were of the two of
them, grinning and making faces, a photo-booth
memento of the week they'd spent in New York last
Christmas. Finding the strip had made her want to
cry at first, all of the fear and confusion she'd been
holding back finally surging to the front at the sight of
his well-loved smile - but the longer she'd looked at
him, at the two of them laughing and having a good
time, the better she'd started to feel. Not happy or
even okay, and no less afraid of what was to come...
... just better. Calmer. Stronger. She loved him, and
knew that wherever he was he loved her back - and
that if the two of them had been able to survive the
loss of both of their parents, to build lives for themselves
and share a silly Christmas vacation in spite of
having no real home to go to, then they could cope
with anything. She could cope.
Can and will. I'm going to find Sherry and Leon
and, God willing, my brother - and we're going to
make it out of Raccoon.
The truth was, she didn't really have any choice,
but she needed to go through the process of accepting
her lack of options before she could act. She'd heard
before that real bravery wasn't an absence of fear, it
was accepting the fear and doing what was necessary
anyway - and once she'd sat for a moment, thinking
about Chris, she thought that she could do just that.
Claire took a deep breath, slipped the photos into
her vest, and pushed away from the desk. She didn't
know where Mr. X had been headed, but he hadn't
seemed like the waiting-around type; she would head
back to Irons's office and see if Sherry had come
back - or Irons, for that matter. If X was still there,
she could always run.
Besides, I should have searched his office, tried to
find something about the S.T.A.R.S. There's nothing
here that can tell me anything. . .
Standing, she took a last look around, wishing that
the S.T.A.R.S. office had offered a little more in the
way of supplies or information. All she'd found of any
use was a discarded fanny pack in the desk behind
Chris's; according to the expired library card in one of
the pouches, it had belonged to Jill Valentine. Claire
had never met her, but Chris had mentioned her a
couple of times, said she was good with a gun. . .
Too bad she didn't leave one behind.
The team had obviously cleared out all of the
important stuff after their suspension, although there
were still a surprising number of personal items left
around, framed pictures and coffee mugs and the like;
she'd spotted Barry's desk right away from the partly
finished plastic gun model on top. Barry Burton was
one of Chris's closest friends, a huge, friendly bear of
a man and a serious gun nut. Claire hoped that
wherever Chris was, Barry was with him, watching his
back. With a rocket launcher.
And speaking of. . .
On top of everything else, she needed to find
another weapon, or more ammo for the ninemillimeter;
she had thirteen bullets left, one full clip,
and when those were gone, she was SOL. Maybe she
should stop and check some of the corpses on the way
back to the east wing; even in her panicked run, she'd
noticed that some of them were cops, and the handgun
was an RPD issue. Claire didn't like the idea of
touching any of the dead bodies, but running out of
firepower was distinctly less desirable - particularly
with Mr. X running around.
Claire walked toward the door and pushed it open,
trying to get her thoughts organized as she stepped
back into the dim hall. Leaving the office put a
damper on her resolve; she had to suppress a shudder
at the still vivid image of Mr. X as she closed the door
behind her, suddenly feeling vulnerable again. She
turned right and started back toward the library,
deciding that she wouldn't think about the giant
unless she had to, wouldn't dwell on the memory of
those blank, inhuman eyes or the way he'd raised his
terrible fist, as if driven to destroy anything in his
way . . .
. . . so knock it off already. Think about Sherry,
think about getting some goddamn ammo or how to
handle Irons, if you can find him. Think about trying
to stay alive.
Just ahead, the dark wooden hall turned right again
and Claire tried to steel herself against the task ahead;
if memory served, there was a dead cop around the
corner -
- like I can't tell by the smell -
- and she'd have to search him. He hadn't been too
disgusting, at least, not that she'd noticed.
Claire turned the corner and froze, staring. Her
stomach knotted, telling her she was in danger before
her senses could. The body that she'd jumped over on
the way to the S.T.A.R.S. office was now only a
bloody, tangled mass, flesh and broken limbs and
shredded uniform. The head was gone, although there
was no way to tell if it had been taken away or just
smashed into an unrecognizable pulp. It looked like
someone had taken a sledgehammer or an axe to the
corpse in the few moments since she'd passed it,
beating it into a clotted smear.
But when, how, I didn't hear anything...
Something moved. A shadow, soft and darting over
the mashed remains some twenty feet in front of her,
and at the same time, Claire heard a strange rasping
sound, breathing. . .
. . . and she looked up, still not sure what she was
seeing or hearing - that ragged breathing and the tick
of talons on wood, the talons themselves, thick and
curved, the claws of a creature that couldn't exist. Big,
the size of a full-grown man, but the resemblance
ended there - and it was so impossible that she could
only see it in pieces, her mind struggling to put them
together. The inflamed, purplish flesh of the naked,
long-limbed creature that clung to the ceiling. The
puffed gray-white tissue of the partially exposed
brain. The scar-rimmed holes where the eyes should
have been.
- not seeing this -
The creature's rounded head dropped back, the
wide jaw opening, a ropy stream of dark drool pouring
out and splattering over what was left of the cop.
It extended its tongue, eely and pink, the rough
surface shimmering wetly as it slithered out. And out.
And out, the snaking tongue uncoiling and whipping
from side to side, so long that it actually trailed
through the ripped flesh of the corpse.
Still frozen, Claire watched in horrified disbelief as
the incredible tongue snapped back up, flicking droplets
of blood through the shadowy air. The entire
process had taken only a second, but time had slowed
to a crawl, Claire's heart beating so fast that everything
else was in slow motion - even the creature's
drop to the wooden floor, its body flipping in midair
so that it landed in a crouch atop the mutilated cop.
The creature opened its mouth again and
screamed...
... and Claire was finally able to move as the
bizarre, hollow shriek erupted from the monster, able
to point her weapon and fire. The thunder of ninemillimeter
rounds drowned out the howl that echoed
through the tight hallway, bam-bam-bam...
... and still screaming that chilling, trumpeting cry,
the creature was thrown back, its claw-tipped arms
flailing. Its spasming legs kicked up bloody chunks of
the eviscerated body; Claire saw a ragged flap of scalp,
one ear still attached, fly across the hall and smack
into the wall with a wet slapping sound, sliding
down...
... and the creature got its legs beneath it somehow
and flopped forward in a boneless lunge. It spidered
toward her, lightning fast, gripping the wood floor
with its terrible claws and howling.
Claire fired again, unaware that she was also
screaming as three more rounds hit the scuttling
thing, ripping through the gray matter that protruded
from its open skull. She was going to die, it would be
on her in less than a second and its massive talons
were only inches from her legs...
... and as suddenly as the attack had come, it was
over. Every part of the sinewy body quivered and
shook as liquid gray dribbled from its burbling head,
the thick claws tapping wildly against the wood floor
in a frantic tattoo. With a final whispering whine, the
creature died. There was no mistaking it this time.
She'd blasted through its brain, it wasn't going to get
up again.
She stared down at the monster, her shocked mind
digging for something to relate it to, some animal or
even a rumor of an animal that came close, but she
gave it up after a few seconds, recognizing it as a lost
cause. This was no natural creature, and as close as it
was, she could finally smell it - the odor was not as
pungent as the zombies', it was a bitter, oily smell,
somehow more chemical than animal...
... and it could smell like chocolate-chip cookies,
who gives a shit? Raccoon City's got monsters, it's time
to stop being so goddamn surprised when you see one
of them.
The chiding tone of her mind's voice wasn't particularly
convincing. As much as she wanted to feel
brave and determined, to step over the monstrous
creature and get on with things, she just stood for a
moment and for that moment, she thought very
seriously about going back to the S.T.A.R.S. office,
going inside, and locking the door behind her. She
could hide, hide and wait for help, she could be
safe...
Decide, then. Do something, one way or another,
stop this wavering and whining, because it's not just
you anymore. Will Sherry be safe? Do you want to
survive at the cost of her life?
The moment passed. Claire took a careful step over
the raw red flesh of the creature and crouched down
next to the cop's remains, using the muzzle of the
handgun to push a torn piece of bloody uniform
aside. She swallowed down bile as she poked through
the rotten flesh and bone, working not to think about
who the cop had been or how he had died.
Nothing, and she now had only seven bullets left,
but she refused to panic, letting the disappointment
fuel her determination instead. If she could search
one bloody mess, she could search another.
With a last look at the dead animal-thing, Claire
stood and walked quickly toward the end of the
corridor, her decision made: no hiding and no more
running from the fear. At the very least, she could
take a few of the monsters with her, raising Sherry's
chances of escape.
It would be better to die trying than not to try at all.
She wouldn't waver again.
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