Don took the phial from the centrifuge. The antivenin. Antibodies harvested from the ample reserves of Albert Wesker's blood.
"Wouldn't have had the chance if I hadn't put you to bed, mate," said Don, as if Wesker were standing right beside him and could appreciate the deception like the punchline to a good gallows joke. He chuckled to himself, and the chuckle spluttered into a wet, lung-rumbling cough which left the coppery taste of blood in the back of his throat.
He fed the needle into the phial and drew the antivenin, then gave the syringe a few flicks before easing it into his vein. Don depressed the plunger—and felt a rush of blessed warmth, not unlike the junk-highs of his youth, crash over him like a breaker. Shuddering with pleasure, he practically came from the sensation, and leaned back against the wall to steady himself—to ride this groundswell of familiar narco-bliss, and greet it like an old friend.
When the sensation passed, Don no longer felt the copper wire-burn of the venom in his veins, and he smiled like a fiend.
"You locked the doors."
The foyer was the kind of quiet that usually preceded bad news, which, depending on who you asked, was precisely what Grayson was about to deliver to her. "I did. Alexia wants to talk to you, Jill."
Jill looked nonplussed. "Just like that?" she said, finally.
"Just like that."
They walked upstairs, into the drawing room. "The ceiling's not gonna drop on my head, is it?"
Grayson halted in the doorway, and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Long story."
Alexia was waiting for them in the drawing room, seated in the armchair that, not very long ago, Alfred had been sleeping in. Grayson joined her side, and she gestured at the spread of tea and cakes on the coffee-table. "Don't waste all of Grayson's hard work. He baked those cakes himself. They're to die for."
Jill swept her gaze over the refreshments, confused. Her hand strayed toward her gun.
"Hardly any need for guns. The food's not poisoned," said Alexia, absently twirling a pale lock of hair around her finger and smiling like a woman with a lurid secret. She popped a cake into her mouth to illustrate that the food was not, in fact, poisoned (Grayson wasn't about to ruin perfectly good bienenstich with arsenic, because that shit took too much time and effort to make from scratch), then straightened up in her chair, carefully rearranging her skirt to cross her legs. "I just want to chat, Ms. Valentine." Alexia paused, then said, "Or would you prefer Officer Valentine? Agent ?"
"It's Jill," said Jill, and she sat down on the couch.
"Seriously, try the bee sting cakes," said Grayson. "They're good, and a bitch to make. I don't wanna waste them."
Jill ignored him, her eyes steady on Alexia. "You look like someone."
"Oh? Do share."
She hesitated, shook her head. "Not important. You wanted to talk?"
"Right to business. I respect that," said Alexia, still smiling. Then the smile vanished, and her cordiality chilled into polite sangfroid. "I want out of Antarctica."
"What, can't get your buddies at Umbrella to help you out?"
"It's complicated," said Alexia, bristling.
"Sure is. You were supposed to be dead, for one," said Jill, and she finally helped herself to some of the tea. She sniffed it experimentally, then gave it a small sip. When it proved to be perfectly ordinary tea, Jill added her sugar and milk. "And," she continued, "I take it you're not gonna let me leave the mansion until we come to some kinda agreement."
"You're quite sharp."
"Spend enough time around Umbrella assholes like yourself, you learn patterns, doctor."
"Goodness, it's so nice to hear someone call me doctor again," said Alexia.
"Don't get too excited, Mengele," said Jill. She regarded Alexia with the sort of look Grayson imagined cops wore during interrogations. "You've gotta agree to some terms if you want my help," she continued, trailing her finger along the rim of the cup and watching Alexia through a haze of steam.
"This should prove amusing," said Alexia, leaning back slightly in her chair. She flicked an imaginary piece of dust off her knee, then arranged herself as if preparing to pose for a portrait. "Go on."
"You turn over your research," said Jill, bluntly. "You turn in everything. Including yourself. You agree to come peacefully into the custody of the Private Anti-Biohazard Service. When we get stateside, you tell us everything, and maybe, if you're real cooperative, we can cut you a good deal in the courts in exchange for your testimony against Umbrella."
A long silence ensued, and then Alexia started to giggle. Then she tossed her head back and howled with laughter. "Wow, what a bloody deal!" she exclaimed between deep, lurching gulps of air.
"You need us more than Chris and I need you," said Jill, unmoved by Alexia's raucous fit of laughter.
"Tell me, Jill," said Alexia, once she'd managed to catch her breath, "what am I guilty of? Do you have any legitimate charges, or are you simply hoping that I hang myself?"
Jill said nothing.
"I thought as much," said Alexia, and she stood up. She wiped the tears from her eyes, the amused grin never quite slipping from her face. She peeled off a glove. "I have a counter-offer." There was a sudden sulfuric reek in the room, and something vaguely chemical creeping in underneath that, white-hot flames licking at Alexia's fingertips. The smoke stung Grayson's eyes, made them water. "I hurt you just enough to convince Chris that working with me is in your best interest."
Just as Jill pulled her gun, the door burst open, and Alfred stormed in. "There you are!" he shrieked at Alexia, in Alexia's voice. "You bloody harlot." The barrel of a bolt-action rifle swung up and leveled off, a red laser trembling in Alexia's right eye. Alfred fired, and Grayson pushed Alexia to the floor, and the bullet hit the wall instead.
Alexia said, "Get off me, Grayson," and tried to wriggle out from underneath him, but Grayson gently pushed her head back down to the floor as another bullet whizzed over them and shattered a Ming vase.
"He's not trying to hit us," Grayson told her.
"Or his aim is just that bloody terrible," said Alexia.
"I gave you everything, Grayson," said Alfred-Alexia, rounding the cover of the armchair and pointing the gun at them. The barrel dug into the space between Grayson's eyes. "And this is how you repay me?" Alfred's hands were shaking as if wracked by a sudden bout of tremors, which made his aim unsteady enough that when he pulled the trigger, the barrel swung suddenly to the left and put a hole in the floorboards.
Grayson's heart jackhammered in his chest. As Alfred fumbled to chamber another round, Grayson seized the opportunity to yank the rifle from Alfred's hands and slam the stock into his knees. Alfred howled in pain, and when he went down, Grayson smashed the butt of the rifle into the top of Alfred's skull, not with enough force to brain him, but to put him down, out of commission. Dazed, Alfred hit the floor. Grayson slung the rifle over his shoulder and hauled Alfred to his feet.
Something strange happened, then: the room seemed to grow more immaterial while Alfred seemed to become more real, like something slowly being pulled out of the background and placed into the foreground. Grayson told Alfred to calm down, and he did, almost as if he hadn't had a choice but to obey him.
Then Alfred said, in his own voice, "Grayson, what happened? My head…"
Grayson said, "Nothing. Just bumped it." Alexia was looking at him, her expression wavering indecisively between fascination and worry. "What?" he asked, peering at her.
"Your eyes went black," said Alexia, finally. "Solid black. When you touched Alfred."
"It's just shadows, Lex. It's dim in here," said Grayson, but he didn't entirely believe that. Something was happening to him. First the ant-zombies, now this. But he didn't have time to ponder whatever weird cell-shit was going on inside him; they needed to care for Alfred while he was still himself, and conscious. He helped Alfred down into the chair, then said to Alexia, "Go get the antibiotics." When she came back into the room with the amoxicillin and a glass of water, Grayson said to Alfred, "We're gonna give you some antibiotics to kill that infection. Okay?"
Alfred nodded. He was quaking all over, his hands unsteady. His face looked even paler than usual, filmed in a thin sheen of sweat. He washed down the antibiotics (Alexia decided the infection warranted five hundred milligrams instead of the initial two hundred fifty she'd planned to start him on) with the glass of water Alexia had brought him. His tired, bloodshot gaze focused on the rifle slung over Grayson's shoulder, and he said, "Why isn't that in my gun-room? That's an antique."
"Thought I heard someone coming through the front doors," lied Grayson. "Was gonna hit them from the balustrade."
"Has Callie come back yet?" asked Alfred.
Grayson looked at Alexia, then Alfred. He thought better than to remind him that she was dead, that she'd been dead for years, just in case Alfred hadn't yet completely shaken off his delusions. Grayson said, "She's not here, sorry." And neither was Jill, Grayson realized; but that didn't matter—she couldn't have gone far, not without the key, or a keycard to ride the lift back up into the facility.
Alfred nodded. Then, "Put that gun back in the gun-room. Immediately."
"Okay, Alfred. I'll put it back."
"I'll go with him," said Alexia. Then she smiled placatingly at her brother, and added, "Just to make certain he puts it back in the right place."
"What do you really want, Lex?" he asked, as they walked down the hallway to Alfred's gun-room.
"You already know."
He stopped walking, looked at her. "I don't know what happened back there." Then he told her about the ant-zombies, how they'd run away from him at the infirmary, and Jill's theory about collateral damage—that he wasn't, nor ever had been, the target the ant-zombies were after. "I got no idea what's going on with me," he concluded, with a frown. "But things have been getting weird."
"What do you remember about the mutamycete?" she asked.
Grayson raised an eyebrow. "I know you were working on some projects with it. Some kinda fungus, right?"
She nodded. "The T-Veronica has plant genes in it. Mutamycete," she told him. "It allows me to communicate with the Root."
"The Root?"
"The Nest. Mycorrhiza," she said. "Where do you think the hyphae come from?"
"And you think my condition has something to do with it?"
"Yes," she said. "You're displaying similar traits to myself. Not T-Veronica traits, but mutamycete traits. You're communicating with the spores via a kind of quorum sensing."
"That sounds fucking ridiculous," said Grayson.
"Grayson, I watched you command Alfred to calm down."
"But Alfred's not a fungus, Lex," he pointed out. "It was a coincidence."
"He's infected with the spores," she said. "Anyone in proximity of the fungal colony is."
"Look, I had nothing to do with it," said Grayson. "It was just a coincidence. Nothing more."