Grayson glimpsed escarpments of ice through the haze of snow, and a tundra that stretched out on all sides to nowhere as the plane taxied down the runway, and into the hangar.
He stepped off the plane, squinting against the bright hangar lights. It had been a long time since he'd been here, in Antarctica. He lit a cigarette. A security guard, some newbie from the Umbrella Security Service (Grayson didn't recognize him, so he must have been new) told him he couldn't smoke here. Grayson grunted, and crushed the cigarette under the toe of his shiny black wingtip. He hadn't smoked since Puntas Arenas, and he was craving nicotine like a junkie craved junk. The booze gestating in his system didn't make it any easier either—when he drank, it made him want a cigarette even more.
"Grayson Harman?" asked the guard, reading his name off a clipboard.
"Yep. My photo's in the file."
"Says here you're coming from Rockfort."
"Technically Puntas Arenas, but yeah. Good to know the USS still requires their recruits to be literate."
The security guard pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes.
"Look, buddy, I'm fucking tired," said Grayson. He glanced at the tag that gave the man's name. "Maloney. Alfred called ahead, didn't he? I'm here to clean the Ashfords' residence. I'm the new butler. Dad retired."
Alfred hadn't exactly told him why he was cleaning the residence—Alfred spent most of his time on Rockfort, not in Antarctica—but he'd made it seem as if it was of enormous importance that Grayson scrubbed the place spick-and-span. He figured Umbrella had finally whiffed the smoke on Alfred's cooked books, and decided to send in an auditor. But Grayson didn't mind the work, and, truthfully, he looked forward to some time away from Alfred's psychotic episodes. That, and Raccoon City had only happened a month ago; the work would keep his mind focused on something other than the vile nightmare-shit he'd witnessed during the outbreak.
And then, the security guard asked him the question: "You were in Raccoon City, right?"
"Yeah," said Grayson, looking at the guy, "but I don't wanna talk about it. Find your goreporn somewhere else, and tell your buddies, the ones who told you that, to mind their fucking business. Dossiers are confidential under company policy." He turned and strode off across the concrete, lighting another cigarette and, before the guard told him he couldn't do that, flipping him the bird.
A long hallway, in which another security guard awaited him at a walk-through metal detector, connected the hangar to the main facility. Corkboards decorated the walls, papered over in brochures and pamphlets, and smiling stock-photo people wanting to sell him Umbrella's health and retirement plans ( Enroll now ! advertised a grinning man in a lab coat, who looked less like a scientist and more like someone who should have been selling toothpaste on a billboard. See HR for details before enrollment period ends ). The guard ran his bag through the scanner (nothing but some clothes he'd bought in Puntas Arenas, a Walkman, an empty bottle of whiskey, and a zip-case full of cassettes), and Grayson deposited his wristwatch into the security box. The guard waved him through the detector. Ping . The guard looked at him. Grayson sighed. He reached into his pocket and took out a silver dragonfly barrette with delicate filigree wings, and dropped it into the security box.
"That's a pretty barrette. Yours?" The guard laughed like a tea-kettle at his own joke.
"No. It was a gift for Alexia. Now, it's a memento."
The guard stopped laughing, and looked like a kid whose mother had caught him with his dick in his hand. Without another word, he patted Grayson down for contraband, found no contraband, then cleared him through, mumbling something on his walkie. Grayson collected his things from the box, then grabbed his bag off the rollers. He shouldered through the white-painted fire-door that would take him to the facility's main hub.
The facility had once been an iron mine in the years before the Madrid Protocol, but had been abandoned when the operation became too costly for investors. Alexander Ashford, Alfred and Alexia's dad, had bought it in 1969 and converted it into a lab, and a transport terminal for Umbrella's more illicit goods. The main atrium, where Grayson now stood, served as the hub of the facility, built around the old mineshaft. Leaning over the handrail, Grayson could see the other floors of the facility, going down and down like an apartment courtyard reflected in an infinity mirror.
Someone plucked the cigarette from his lips, startling him. Alfred stared at it disapprovingly, took a long drag off the filter, then flicked it over the railing. He wore a dark Italian suit, and had the sort of cold, colorless face that made Grayson think of an albino reptile. His eyes were the pale blue of ice, and his white-blond hair was neatly pomaded, burned into a platinum aura by the harsh fluorescent lights. He smelled of expensive cologne: sandalwood, and of something vaguely leather. An antique Walther was holstered on his hip.
"That wasn't a Dunhill," observed Alfred, about the cigarette.
"Marlboro."
"Disgusting."
"What the fuck are you doing here?" asked Grayson suddenly, feeling a sharp pang of disappointment. He'd been hoping for a quiet vacation away from Alfred's volatile weirdness, but as it usually did, life decided to tell him to go fuck himself. "You were on Rockfort."
"I just arrived an hour ago," said Alfred, absently fiddling with his ring, the fat sapphire winking in the light. "Have some business to attend to. Preparations." He glanced up at him, his too-pale sanpaku eyes boring into his skull like the points of misericordes. "Shall we walk together, Grayson?"
Grayson nodded, and he walked with Alfred. Researchers and terminal workers flowed out of their way, and all of them avoided eye-contact with Alfred, too afraid to even glance in his direction. And for good reason: Alfred had an itchy trigger-finger, little to no regard for human life, and they were in Antarctica where there were, technically, no laws—at least nothing that couldn't be circumvented by greasing the right palms. "You gonna be around long?" he asked.
"Not certain yet," said Alfred, fishing a pack of Dunhills from his blazer. He lit one with a thin slab of silver, and blew a cloud of smoke.
"You had your own cigs, but took mine," he said, dully.
Alfred shrugged. "Ah," he said, and looked at him, "by the way, my—" his expression guttered for a moment, and Alfred looked as if he were struggling to choke down a sharp rock— "sister's laboratory is off-limits." The words came out as if someone had squeezed them out of him, like toothpaste from a crumpled tube. "I know you were looking forward to reminiscing as you vacuumed and dusted, but there it is." Alfred licked his lips, then added, "Yes. Off-limits."
Grayson frowned. "Why?"
"At some point, some of Alexia's—" again, that just-swallowed-a-sharp-rock look pinched his features— "ants, the ones she'd been experimenting with, escaped their tanks. Nasty buggers. I'd sent the caretaker down there with bloody industrial-grade insecticide, but all he managed to do was piss them off."
"And the caretaker?"
"Dead," said Alfred. "Probably still down there if the ants haven't eaten him by now."
"Yikes. Ants eat people?"
"Probably," said Alfred, idly stroking the grip of his Walther and eyeballing a few of the terminal workers with a contemplative look. Then he said, "But it worked out for the best. My sister would be quite cross with me if I destroyed her work, so I simply locked the area down."
"Alexia's dead, Alfred. Been dead for fifteen years. I don't think she cares much about anything anymore."
Alfred set his jaw, the little muscle in it twitching. Dropping Alexia's name was like pulling the pin on the grenade that was Alfred's temper, but he, unlike most people who pissed Alfred off, enjoyed a degree of clemency. Grayson had grown up with the twins. He'd spent his childhood shadowing his father, learning everything there was to know about butlering. And now that his dad had retired, it was Grayson's turn to serve the Ashfords. But sometimes Grayson wished he could just go back to bartending, because that was easier than dealing with a psychotic Englishman with a military fetish.
They stepped into the private-access elevator that would take them down to the mansion, to home sweet home. Alfred fed his keycard to a slot set where the button panel should have been, and the lift lurched, descending smoothly on its cables. Grayson inspected himself in the chrome, and he looked older, more tired, than he remembered. He looked like a goodfella who'd spent the last several nights sleeping in a drunk tank—which, he supposed, wasn't far from the truth. He'd been a bad drunk before Raccoon City, but after Raccoon City, Grayson had morphed into a certified pisshead who could comfortably outdrink whole fraternities.
"You reek like a keg, Grayson," remarked Alfred, pinching his nose. Now that they were in such close proximity, Grayson smelled the whiskey too, its smoky-sweetness mingling unpleasantly with Alfred's cologne and the stink of old cigarettes.
"Killed a bottle of Jameson on the ride over," he confessed, with a nonchalant shrug. Grayson looked at Alfred. "Never mind that, though. Why am I cleaning the mansion?"
Alfred rolled his eyes. "Because I'm here for the time being, and I want it bloody cleaned."
"Oh."
"You always assume I have some sort of ulterior motive," said Alfred.
"You usually do."
"What did you think it was?"
"Auditors."
Alfred stared at him, suspicious. "Have you heard something?"
"No," he said, "I just assumed you put me up to something as pointless as this because of auditors."
"Why the bloody fuck would I have you clean the mansion for auditors ?"
"I dunno," said Grayson. "Maybe you wanted to entertain them, and needed the ambience. I mean, if your house is sloppy, then your books must be sloppy, too. So you get someone to clean up." Alfred slugged him in the arm—his punches landed a lot harder than expected of a man built like David Bowie, and the ring made it hurt even more—and Grayson rubbed the fresh bruise, and said, "Ow. Asshole."
Alfred patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Good to have you back, you numpty."
"You're just saying that."
"If I didn't like you, Grayson, you'd be dead."
Grayson agreed. Alfred killed the people he didn't like.
Still, Grayson couldn't call their relationship friendly, not exactly. Just civil, sometimes edging on friendly but never quite getting there. He knew Alfred harbored some fucked-up feelings for Alexia, and viewed him as some sort of romantic rival—as if Alexia had ever been interested in fucking her own brother to begin with, and Grayson was the only reason that they hadn't habsburged yet on a silk bed sprinkled with rose petals. Alexia, much to Alfred's disappointment, had loved Grayson, and Grayson had loved her, and Alfred had never quite forgiven him for that. Not that it mattered anymore; Alexia was dead. But Alfred was the kind of guy who could hold a grudge for decades.
"By the way," said Grayson, "what's with all the security all of a sudden?"
"Someone tried to kill me," said Alfred, matter-of-factly.
"Who?"
"One of the workers. He was upset about being denied his vacation."
"You send him to Rockfort?"
"No," said Alfred, "I blew his head open. Had his body dumped outside, in the snow." He spoke of murder as casually as someone commenting on the weather, but Grayson was used to it.
The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open. The slot spat out Alfred's keycard, and he pocketed it. They stepped out of the lift.
They navigated a few corridors, and eventually found themselves at the hydroponic yard, the grass bristling like bright green bacillus under the fluorescent lights, which were tuned to a brightness meant to simulate sunlight. On the far side of the yard stood the stoic Georgian facade of the mansion, like the set of some period film. Alfred unlocked the doors with a small key.
The foyer was exactly as Grayson remembered it: all polished marble and lacquered wood. The room was dominated by an enormous staircase carpeted in an antique runner. A chandelier glittered overhead like a cake of melting icicles, gleaming on the antique suits of armor, and the dusty showcases of catatonic porcelain girls staring out in profusion. Alexia had never liked the dolls, but Alexander had insisted that she did, and he'd bought her so many that she'd had no choice but to display them ("At least they won't all be in my bloody room," eleven-year-old Alexia had said to thirteen-year-old him. "And I won't have to hear my father whinge that I'm ungrateful").
They went upstairs. Like the rest of the mansion, the decor was that of a slightly nicer haunted house, and they walked down a carpeted hallway papered in Regency stripe and wainscoted in dark wood, lit by the dim, greasy glow of kerosene lamps.
The height-chart his dad had marked off in strips of masking tape still stood at the end of the hallway, their names and measurements, and the dates in which they had been recorded, written on the tape in his father's fussy, old-fashioned handwriting. The last measurements had been recorded in 1983, a few days shy of Christmas, and almost a week shy of Alexia's untimely death.
Grayson brushed his fingers over Alexia's name, then said to Alfred, "I'm gonna head to my room. I'll get to work in the morning."
"Very well, Grayson." Alfred wasn't looking at him; he was looking at the height-chart, at Alexia's name. Grayson got the sense Alfred wanted to be alone, and took that as his cue to leave.
His room was exactly as he'd left it. His TV and VCR were still there, and so was his black Mockingbird. He'd devoted so much time playing along to heavy metal records on that thing, learning his favorite songs by ear; and in Raccoon City, he'd occasionally busked the streets, or performed in bars to make some extra cash when bartending was slow and tips were thin. The thin layer of dust in his room suggested nobody had been inside since his father had last cleaned the place.
He set his bag down and sat on his bed, plucking out "Holy Diver" on his Mockingbird and wishing he could plug in his amp without rankling Alfred. Grayson remembered the nights Alexia would sneak into his room to listen to him play, and he still fondly recalled how big she'd smiled when he'd played her a metal rendition of her and Alfred's berceuse. His dad hadn't been happy about that; he'd said that no son of his was going to be some long-haired, guitar-strumming hippie, and he'd threatened to cut his hair, then taken him by the ear and put Grayson to work scrubbing the bathroom with a toothbrush.
Grayson put the guitar down, then peeked under his bed. And grinned. He'd nicked a bottle of scotch from Alexander's liquor cabinet and stashed it under his bed, but had never gotten the chance to drink it, because his dad, who was well-acquainted with teenagers and the stupid things their hormones made them do, liked to hover. When his dad had found Alexia and him making out in the foyer, any semblance of privacy they'd ever enjoyed had come to a screeching halt. He'd been banned from visiting her room—he'd still managed to sneak over, but nothing weird had ever happened—and if Alexia visited his room, usually to listen to him play or to peruse his music collection, his dad made him keep the door open, randomly popping in to make sure they weren't doing the horizontal tango on Grayson's Star Wars duvet. And if it wasn't his dad making the rounds, it was Alfred, who made it a point each time he barged into the room to remind Grayson that if he ever got Alexia pregnant, Alfred would strangle him with the baby's umbilical cord.
He worked through the scotch within the hour, then lay on his bed, sinking into the sort of leaden sleep that only booze afforded him now. And woke some time later because he urgently needed to piss. He was just about to roll over, to get up and walk to the bathroom, when a weight settling on his bed made him freeze like a scared kid. Grayson lay there, very still, pretending to sleep, no longer smelling the wood and leather of Alfred's cologne, but the light, sweet smell of gardenias—Alexia's favorite perfume, her scent.
"Oh, Grayson." Alfred spoke in his approximation of what he thought Alexia would have sounded like as a woman, and Grayson felt silken fingertips stroke his cheek. "I wish you would open up to me about Raccoon City. It's maddening to see you like this."
Grayson said nothing. He didn't move, or even try to breathe too obviously. He kept his eyes shut. Navigating Alfred's psychosis was like walking a tight-rope without a harness—one stumble, and you were gone.
Alfred caressed his chin, brushing the pad of his thumb over the cleft in it. "I don't understand why you're like this," he said, softly. Then, with a sharp edge in his Alexia-voice, Alfred said, "Was there another woman, Grayson?" His grip tightened, the tips of his fingers digging painfully into his skin. "Is that why you won't talk about it?" hissed Alfred, and he moved his hand down to his throat, strong fingers clamping around his neck and squeezing his trachea, hard.
Grayson wheezed and sputtered, willing himself not to open his eyes, to reveal he was awake. The noise must have startled Alfred, because he quickly fled the room. Once he was sure Alfred had gone, he rolled over, coughing explosively. He looked at the door, and swore at himself for forgetting to lock it.
He stumbled across the room and turned the lock on his door, then jammed a chair under the knob for good measure, and pissed into the empty scotch bottle. He'd flush it down the toilet in the morning—better to piss in a bottle, Grayson thought, than to chance an encounter with Alfred on his way to the bathroom. The delusions usually wore off by the morning—they were usually worse at night, and Grayson maintained this theory that it was because the dark made it easier to believe in things that weren't there—but sometimes they didn't, and Grayson really hoped it wasn't one of those times.
Lying back down, sleep enfolded him once more, and he dreamed about Annette Birkin, and, in a brief moment of half-wakefulness, wondered if Alexia would have been angry.
