Chapter Seventeen

Peter

I decided to check the clinic first, once the Cullens left there I knew they wouldn't be back but I had no idea when they planned to leave the house so checking out the clinic gave them time to pack and push off. I gave the last staff a good twenty minutes before going round the back to a window I had chosen for entry. It was alarmed like the others but there had been trouble with its sensor and I knew it was disconnected until at least tomorrow morning when the company were coming to fix the problem. I could have overridden it but this was easier and less time-consuming. Sliding it shut behind me I looked around, I was in a treatment room smelling of chemicals and polish. If there were any clue to Jasper's whereabouts it wouldn't be in a publicly accessible area. Opening the door I stepped out into an interior hallway bathed only in emergency exit lighting. I looked at each door as I went along, most just said treatment room, secretary, store, rest room, the usual signage, then I started to find consulting rooms.

Dr Cullen, Dr Thomas, Dr Leigh, Dr Cullen. So the guy was so important he had two rooms and they joined each other back to back, more patients more quickly equaled more money and kudos. I slipped inside the second room marked with his name. It had three doors leading off a waiting area, two treatment rooms with a couch as I suspected and the third a private office with combination lock that was a piece of cake. There were two desks in here, he had so much paperwork he needed a secretary of his own. There was a further door in here which was also locked. The lock on this was a little more tricky but still only took me a few minutes to break the code. Beyond it was a flight of steps leading down to a basement. I hesitated at first, was it just a store-room? Then shrugging my shoulders I headed down, always be thorough, The Major had drummed that into me.

At the bottom were three more doors, fuck he liked his combination locks! The first door led into a huge underground chamber full of bottles, phials and powders all neatly arranged and labelled, the next was empty but just as large but the third was different. A few feet inside the first door was another much heavier sound proofed door. The lock on this one was well used so the combination was obvious, sloppy Carlisle! I pushed the door open on well oiled hinges without a sound. I could hear the sound of water dripping but nothing else. The air was thick with a heavy chemical smell which made me cough. In the center of the otherwise empty room stood a huge lidded tank, was it for the heating? No Peter, think you ass hole, the heating oil would hardly be locked in a subterranean vault! I saw a light switch just inside the door but left it off, I could see well enough as it was. Walking forward I looked around, behind the tank were several pipes leading in and out, each labelled. I turned the first one over, Heating, Nutrients, Sampling. Sampling what for Gods sake?

Climbing up on the plinth I looked for a window, any way of looking in and checking on the contents. Knowing my luck I'd take the lid off and be attacked by mutant cockroaches or something but there was no way of seeing inside. I took a deep breath,

"Bad move Peter. Back off"

The lid which had a lock like a submarine was tight but after a little struggling I turned the wheel and it spun slowly, then I heard a hiss of escaping air. Did that mean something was alive in there? I wasn't sure I wanted to know but cursing quietly I took the lid and moved it slowly away from the hatch. At first I couldn't see anything except the calm surface with the pipes from the back disappearing into it obviously attached to something in this dark liquid. I looked round but there were no gloves or signs warning people to keep their hands out of the acid or whatever shit it was, so I rolled up my sleeve and put my hand into the liquid, it felt the same temperature as my skin and was oily in texture, almost as if it didn't exist which was a real weird feeling. It looked like my hand had been severed at the wrist.

I felt around in the liquid trying to gauge how close to the bottom I could reach then I felt something, it was smooth and firm. Running my fingers over it I pulled my hand out in shock, it had been an arm and hand. Fuck were they keeping body parts fresh in this brew? Why do I always get the shit jobs? Messing around in weird fucking liquids and finding all kinds of creepy things. Knowing I couldn't leave it there although every fiber of my being was screaming for me to put the lid back and run I plunged my arm into the soup again. Sure enough there was an arm and hand. Oh fuck it was a body! I felt a shoulder, a naked chest, a man, and a neck, a jaw line, and then I yelped and jumped backwards off the plinth, the body had moved to my touch. This was too creepy for words, a fucking horror film! Had Carlisle taken to growing bodies in his clinic using drug rehab as a cover? No way was I putting my hand in there again. I looked round and saw a drain pipe at the far lower corner of the tank. Now that sounded like a plan, drain the shit and see what was left, hopefully if it was a monster or mutant it would die out of its natural watery environment.

I opened the valve and stood watching as I heard the liquid gurgling down a drain of some kind out of view. Giving it a good ten minutes without the beast from the black lagoon lurching up from its watery depths I peered in. The tank was half empty now and I could see wet fur or hair or something floating on the surface of the liquid, great a mutant Big Foot, way to go Peter! Unable to tear my eyes away from the gently waving hair I watched as an outline became slowly visible as the water level sank still further. No Big Foot, no mutant, it looked like a man but how could a man live in that goo? It wasn't until the water drained away from the face that the full horror was revealed. My friend lay there, eyes covered by black plastic covers, his mouth and nose also covered, but then he didn't need to breath did he? We vampires could manage fine with no air.

As the last of the liquid drained from the tank I could see the pipes connected to him, Carlisle had found a way of feeding him without using his throat, although how he'd set up this pipe into his venom hardened vein I had no idea but he had, somehow he'd kept The Major fed and by the look of the marks on his wrists and ankles he'd been tied down at some point using chains, not enough venom in his body to heal the scars properly. With trembling fingers I took the plastic guards off his face and he took a deep gasping breath then an arm came up and removed the eye shields and he looked at me unable to focus. I wasn't a doctor but I knew we weren't going anywhere with the pipes still attached so I took the one leading to his arm and pulled. It broke away leaking a red liquid and I smelled diluted blood. The bastard had kept him weak and compliant by starving his body of blood.