CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Silphidae

‘I can’t hold him for much longer!’ Novak heard Mawling bellowing. ‘Lock the door! LOCK IT! NOW!’ She tried to sit up on the stretcher, but Bartholomew Cuttle gently put his hand on her chest, indicating she should stay lying down. She’d been wheeled at a leisurely pace from the infirmary dome, back along the connecting corridor and around the perimeter of the Arcadia dome until they were approaching the laboratory.

Darkus’s dad stepped into the laboratory with Spencer at his heels, leaving her lying outside. Novak stared up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the commotion and shouts she was hearing.

‘What the hell is going on?’

Novak sat bolt upright at the sound of Mater’s voice. Lucretia Cutter darted towards her, with the speed of a huntsman spider. She shook her head, to show she didn’t know, and her mother skittered past her into the laboratory. Silently slipping off the stretcher, Novak crept to the doorway and peeped into the room.

‘It’s Lenka, he, he, got into the pupator. He . . .’ Spencer was standing in front of Lucretia Cutter, staring at the floor.

‘Where is everyone?’ Mater’s head swung in a wide arc, examining the room with her compound eyes.

‘Dr Vikhrov is hurt.’ Novak saw Darkus’s dad crouching down beside one of Mater’s scientists. ‘We need to get him to the infirmary immediately.’

Novak saw a spray of red drops on the glass wall between the laboratory and the pupation chamber. She gasped. It was blood.

‘What happened to the lab team?’

‘I think they ran away,’ he replied.

‘Ran away?’ Lucretia Cutter spat.

Ling Ling stepped forward and bowed. ‘Mawling and I responded to a call for help from Dr Vikhrov,’ she reported. ‘When we arrived Lenka was in there,’ she pointed through the glass wall, ‘attacking Dr Vikhrov. Mawling threw Lenka off as I dragged Dr Vikrov out, and then together we fought with Lenka, driving him back into the pupation chamber. Dr Vikrov managed to lock the door before collapsing to the floor. During the fight the lab team fled.’

‘Lucy, Dr Vikhrov is losing blood,’ Bartholomew said, his voice urgent. ‘We need to stem the bleeding.’

‘Do we know which beetle genome Dr Vikhrov used for the pupation?’ Lucretia Cutter stalked over to the desk, ignoring him. She tapped at the computer keyboard. ‘Which beetle did Lenka have introduced into his DNA?’

Darkus’s dad looked to the door of the laboratory and spotted Novak.

‘Novak, bring in the stretcher.’ He waved her forwards and she saw that his hands were covered in Dr Vikhrov’s blood.

She nodded and quickly dragged it into the laboratory.

‘Novak,’ Darkus’s dad said in a commanding whisper, ‘I need you to pull the handle and lower the bed to the floor.’

She didn’t move. She couldn’t stop staring at Dr Vikhrov. There was blood everywhere, there were gashes across his neck and forehead, and his left ear was gone.

‘Novak, listen to me. Dr Vikhrov needs our help. I need you to lower the bed so that I can lift him on to the stretcher.’ Darkus’s dad had removed his lab coat and was ripping the sleeves out of it, folding them and using them to stem the bleeding.

‘Is he dead?’ Novak asked.

‘No.’ Bartholomew looked her in the eyes. ‘And he is going to be just fine, as long as we get him to the infirmary as soon as possible. You can help me do that, can’t you?’

Novak nodded and sprang into action, lowering the bed and helping Darkus’s dad as he carefully moved Dr Vikhrov on to the stretcher.

‘Oh, no!’ Spencer held up a labelled syringe. ‘Silphidae. I think the genome was from one of the Silphidae!’

‘A carrion beetle,’ Lucretia said, ‘how interesting. Well, that would explain Henrik’s insatiable desire to eat flesh.’ She laughed. ‘Unfortunate that Dr Vikhrov didn’t think of that before he agreed to perform the pupation.’

Bartholomew Cuttle pulled the handle that lifted the stretcher to waist height, taking the remains of his lab coat and carefully wedging it under Dr Vikhrov’s injured head. ‘I’m taking him to the infirmary,’ he told Lucretia Cutter.

‘No.’ Mater pointed at Mawling. ‘He can do that.’

‘But he needs immediate medical attention,’ Darkus’s dad protested. ‘Without it, he could die.’

‘I don’t care if he dies,’ she said. ‘Dr Vikhrov is no use to me any more.’

‘But . . .’

‘I said no!’ Lucretia said, drawing herself up to her full height.

There was silence as Novak watched Mawling wheel Dr Vikhrov away.

‘You will help me examine what has become of Henrik.’

‘He’s still in there,’ Ling Ling said. ‘Inside the pupation chamber.’

Looking through the glass wall at the pupator, Novak stared at the white pod that she’d been shoved into all those years ago. She remembered the three steps, stumbling through the door and curling up on the floor of the pod, frightened. As it was sealed shut she heard fluid filling the outer chamber. Novak didn’t remember coming out of the pupator, just waking up in a bed and feeling like a stranger inside her own body.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Bartholomew Cuttle asked. Novak saw that his face was grey. He looked upset.

She thought about the conversation in the hallway with Dr Lenka, when he’d said he was going to be next into the pupator, and then all their time-wasting in the hospital. He knew this was going to happen! He’d made it happen, in an attempt to save her from the pupation chamber, and now Dr Vikhrov was hurt and possibly dying.

‘I want to see how well the metamorphosis worked.’ Mater clapped her hands together like a delighted child. ‘I’ve never tried it on a grown man before.’ She flicked a switch on the console. ‘Henrik, can you hear me? I’m going to open the door.’

Ling Ling drew back her left leg, moving her hands forward into a defensive stance.

Novak found herself shuffling backwards towards the door. She didn’t want to see what had happened to Henrik Lenka.

The pod wall peeled back in segments, like the petals of an opening flower, and the door of the pupation chamber slid open. Novak’s blood ran cold. Lenka’s face was that of a murderous beetle pirate. One beady compound eye stared at them, underlined by a stripe of chitinous scales running across his face to a decimated nose. They stopped where his top lip should have been. The left side of his face was still human, one cold blue eye staring out of pale acne-puckered skin. His mouth was a blackened pit out of which protruded huge jaws lined with razor-sharp mandibles and dripping with blood. With his one human arm, he held a strange bloody lump up to his mouth and took a bite.

Novak’s stomach turned as she realized he was eating Dr Vikhrov’s ear.

‘Well, hello, Lucy,’ His voice came over the speakers in the laboratory. ‘What do you think of my new look?’ He waved his left arm, which had a black and orange exoskeleton and a vicious claw where his hand should have been.

‘I’m impressed,’ Lucretia replied. ‘I didn’t think you had the courage.’

‘I did this for you.’ There was a scratching noise, chitinous legs against metal, as he clambered out of the pupation chamber, approaching the glass partition. Novak saw that he had two stunted misshapen beetle legs sprouting out of his torso.

‘We’re alike, you and I,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to be alone any more, Lucy. We can rule the world together.’

‘I’m not happy, Henrik,’ Lucretia replied. ‘You’ve chased my scientists away, and hurt Dr Vikhrov.’

Lenka rolled his human eye and laughed – a chilling, gurgling sound. ‘I was hungry.’

‘You monster!’ Spencer cried out and surged forward. ‘Dr Vikhrov’s my friend!’

Bartholomew grabbed his shoulders, holding him back. ‘Spencer, why don’t you take Novak back to her cell?’ he said, gently pushing Spencer towards Novak and the door. ‘Please.’

‘Oh, no, let the boy come at me.’ Henrik Lenka leered at Spencer through the toughened glass. ‘I’m still hungry.’

Bartholomew turned his back to the glass. ‘We can’t leave him in there,’ he said to Lucretia, ‘and we can’t let him out. What do you plan on doing with him?’

She flicked a switch so that Henrik Lenka couldn’t hear them. ‘I’ll tranquillize him. Ling Ling can put him in a cell.’

‘And then what?’

‘He will make a very useful live specimen for you and Master Crips to work with, don’t you think?’ Lucretia Cutter replied.

‘He’s dangerous, Lucy,’ Bartholomew said. ‘He’s a carrion beetle, a dead flesh eater.’

‘Well, then, you’d better be careful, hadn’t you,’ Lucretia laughed, ‘because he really hates you.’