Chapter 23: The Man from Hell

Night Fall, Medicity Hospital

Jerome had spent the better part of the remaining day searching out traces of Dr. Crane. He had accessed traffic cameras and tracked the man. After he had left the station, the doctor had gone to East City Hospital, after which he visited his apartment, he was dark there for some few hours before he left the apartment again and this time went to Medicity Hospital and right now Jerome stood in the foyer of the hospital looking around at the hubbub. He knew that Hector Bishop was admitted here but what on earth, Dr. Crane was doing visiting this place he had no idea. He looked around hoping to find something that he could use. He finally decided to pay visit to the security wing, hopefully they would have records of CCTV cameras. He had asked Eckhard if the AI could access it remotely but such a thing was not possible, not at the current stage anyhow. Along the way he walked past several people who all threw him curious looks, perhaps because of his uniform. He nodded and politely greeted some of them until he found himself at a set of double doors next to which on a chair sat a half-asleep man. He paused to see if the man would wake up but nothing of such happened and so he grabbed the man's keycard and used it to open the doors and entered and almost immediately he was greeted by a wide array of screens, recording nearly every corner of the hospital. There were three people situated in front of all these monitors watching carefully. One of them had of course turned to face him as they knew he was coming. Perhaps they didn't stop him because of his uniform, either way he was in.

He waved his badge in front of their faces, "Senior Constable Jerome Hall, east circle police."

"Constable?" one of them said frowning.

"You can't be in here," another said as well, adjusting his glasses. "This is a secure room."

"Evidently not," said Jerome with a slight smirk. "With the sloth you've posted outside."

The man with the glasses frowned as he stood up and walked over to him, "You can't be in here."

"I just want to know if someone's been here," said Jerome ignoring the man in glasses. "Say at about 5.30-5.45 pm, in between that time."

"Sir, we can't show you footage," said one of the men who had cleanly shaved his head and had grown a neat beard. "Not without a warrant."

"I don't need to see the footage," said Jerome. "I just need to see if Dr. Maddox Crane visited this place between 5.30-5.45 pm and if he did then I need to know what he did here, that's all, you can look and tell me."

"I'm afraid sir, we can't reveal information on a person from CCTV records, not without a warrant," the bald man repeated again.

"So get out" said the man in glasses, his face showing trace signs of anger.

Jerome himself was getting slightly pissed at these people's attitude, he hadn't asked for their kidneys, just some information they could find in five minutes. He had even given them an approximate time slot. He really didn't have time for their ball games, he narrowed his eyes as he looked over each of them, citing the rules.

"I could get a warrant, but as I said, I just need some information, just a location, where he went to when he visited this hospital and who he visited, that's it, okay, I already know he visited here," said Jerome, again trying to compromise.

The man in glasses suddenly pushed Jerome, though nothing happened, other than recoil sending himself tumbling back. He cursed as he righted himself and glared at Jerome.

"Get out, now!" he snarled as he adjusted his glasses and Jerome slowly lost his smile.

He walked up to the man in glasses who was glaring at him so hard now that he would've put a hole through Jerome.

"You brought this on yourself," Jerome muttered before suddenly elbowing the man in the cheek sending his head barreling of to the side as he crumbled to the floor.

Luckily Jerome controlled himself so that he didn't slap the man's head clean off. The other two men immediately got up and extended their batons. Jerome back-kicked one of the man lifting him a few feet off the ground and he dropped straight back down, unmoving. The other hit him with the baton for all the good it did. He grabbed the baton and ripped it out of the man's hand before bringing it down on his head, knocking him out as well.

"You could've just done what I asked but no…you and your bullshit rules," Jerome spat at the man in glasses before taking a seat at the controls.

'Eckhard, you know what to do.'

<>

Jerome watched as one of the many screens in front of him rewound and showed him pictures of Dr. Maddox Crane as the man entered the hospital, he seemed to be in somewhat of a hurry as he rushed through the hospital as if he already knew where he needed to go and he finally stopped in front of an office room.

'Zoom in on that name plate Eckhard and get me that name.'

<>

Jerome froze…lycanthropy? He had heard that term somewhere before, he searched and wracked his brains and the answer came to his forefront.

"The man's a werewolf?" he asked shocked.

<>

"Oh…bloody hell," he said. "A werewolf of all things."

"Wait but Maddox Crane is normal."

<>

'How on earth are they related then?'

<>

'And the relationship carried over?'

<>

Jerome sincerely hoped he wouldn't have to fight a werewolf, he barely survived against those blood thralls, he was fairly sure he wouldn't have the chance against a vampire and he did put werewolves on the same pedestal. He sighed as he got up from the chair and passed one last look at the three men he had knocked out and then proceeded to walk out of the room. On his way out, he threw the keycard he had grabbed back to the security guard, still asleep in his chair before making his way up as directed by Eckhard to Dr. Weaver Wellington's room. He sincerely hoped the man was in and that the man was in a good mood. As he stood in front of a prestigious set of doors with a board above stating Dr. Wellington's full name and his list of degrees he knocked on the door. Receiving no answer, he proceeded to knock again and again there was no reply. Disappointed he was about to turn when he ran into something solid, sending him stumbling back a step which surprised him. Ever since he gained his new strength, he was fairly immovable, even a bus would find it hard to move him. He regained himself and looked at the thing he'd ran into, it was a man, slightly on the older side but still good looking with a tinge of madness in those eyes, much like himself.

"Constable Jerome Hall?" the man asked.

Jerome smiled, he knew who this man was, it was just instinctive, "Dr. Weaver Wellington, then."

"Indeed," said the man and put out his hand for a shake which Jerome grabbed and solidly they stood there for several seconds testing each other's mettle.

Jerome was shocked, he would have lost if he kept the clutch for several seconds longer.

"Come in," said Dr. Wellington pushing past Jerome and opening the door to his office.

Jerome accepted the offer and went in to be treated to a clean pristine but otherwise bland office room. They both took a seat on opposite sides of the table and Jerome made himself comfortable to begin their discussion.

"I had been expecting you," said Dr. Wellington and Jerome raised an eyebrow questioningly. "I'm friends with Hector Bishop, Roselyne Magnier and Gustave Dremont, all of whom I've had the pleasure of seeing today…under some unfortunate circumstances admittedly."

"I've had the pleasure of seeing all of them all as well, though not today," said Jerome.

"Yes,I know, you also put out Hector's lights," said Dr. Wellington with a chuckle, one to which Jerome just innocently shrugged.

"The man tried to kill me on three seperate occasions," said Jerome. "I'm not a saint to forgive him so many times."

"Indeed," said Dr. Wellington with a chuckle. "I assume you're here to find out about Maddox?"

"He was your friend wasn't he?" Jerome asked with a smile.

"Was being the operative word there," said Dr. Wellington. "I will have no more connections with him after tomorrow, he came to me to seek safe passage from this country which I will grant tomorrow, assuming he is still around then."

"He won't be," said Jerome coldly surprising Dr. Wellington a little but then he chuckled again.

"Well that's up to you," said Dr. Wellington leaning forward in his chair.

"No…not just me," Jerome said. "He killed constable Leonard Blake, Leonard is Lillian Blake's little brother and I assume you know…or maybe you don't that Lillian Blake is a vampire leading the Mezzanotte Group's HR division."

Dr. Wellington paused as surprise build up on his face.

"Oh…" he said, the wolf doctor's pristine manners and ability to keep the flow of the conversation seemed to have a taken a hit.

"Oh, indeed," Jerome said satisfied with his reaction. "Plus he's also pissed off the Ninth Order."

Dr. Wellington frowned as he looked over him and Jerome kept up his innocent smile.

"Are you related to the Ninth Order?" asked Dr. Wellington. "Do you work for them?"

"Do you expect me to honestly answer that question?" Jerome asked back, Dr. Wellington sighed at that.

"It's a good thing I didn't stick my head in then," said Dr. Wellington with a wry chuckle.

"A very good thing," Jerome agreed. "Where is he?"

Dr. Wellington looked over him once, contemplating, no doubt on whether to answer him or not.

"Consider everything he's done," said Jerome. "He will not make it to daybreak."

Dr. Wellington finally nodded, "He runs an illegal clinic here in the south wing, the building is owned by the boys in DDF."

"DDF?" asked Jerome curiously.

"Diablo de Fuego, it's a low level gang that used to be full of Mexicans, it's open nowadays, the Mexicans are gone, they own a building here in South Wing, something of a crumbling thing, that's could go kaput any moment."

Jerome nodded, "Thanks for your help."

"Come by again," said Dr. Wellington with a chuckle and Jerome shot him a look.

"Not in any state like Hector," Jerome fired back and Dr. Wellington laughed as he shook his head.

The man was nice, thought Jerome as he walked out of Dr. Weaver Wellington's office, anyhow he had new things to focus on.

'Eckhard, plot a course to that DFI building or something that doctor said.'

<>

Jerome nodded as once again the route appeared in front of his eyes. Smiling, he set off, having bluffed his way to an answer Jerome was feeling fairly pleased. He was however somewhat sure that Lillian Blake would have figured out that Dr. Anisha Maria was not the real culprit, instead it was Dr. Maddox Crane, that attack could be summarized a trigger response but he wasn't sure if she knew that it was Dr. Maddox Crane. The Ninth Order was another name he had just thrown around for the sake of it, the only two people he had seen from that organization was Sergeant Roy Sharpe and Senior Sergeant Robert Deacon. Nevertheless his bluff had the desired effect, Dr. Weaver Wellington had been sufficiently spooked, spooking the werewolf, he laughed at the irony of it.

***

Night Fall, Diablo de Fuego's Building

If Jerome was ever asked to describe a haunting place then he would surely describe this place to great success, torn and ripped fencing, occasionally barbed in areas the trees that stood to the right, forming a blooming forest, the area had no street lights, nor any other lighting to speak of. The building itself had the occasional cracks of lights on different floors and it stood some, five storeys high. The grass in compound had grown past waist level and to the side of it all, there was a barrel that had fire in it. The place seemed something of a nightmare building especially during the night with the dilapidated build and the old feel of it. He himself stood outside the gates with both hands in his pocket wielding a wild smile. Just moments before, Eckhard had confirmed to him that Dr. Maddox Crane was in this building, holed up inside a room on the fifth floor of it all. He took a step inside and heard the howls of wild animals from the forest to the side, this forest led to the side of Witch Mountain and this building was the last in the line, closest to the forest as well. He looked around for people in the compound and there appeared to be no one outside. He walked past the barrel and as he did, he held out his hand, there was heat but nothing comparable to what he felt from Roy Sharpe and as he walked past his right hand caught on fire. He walked up to the destroyed, blackened door with broken glass and knocked on it twice. There was no answer, he grinned widely as he knocked twice more on the door, this time louder and suddenly the lights in the room flickered on and heard sounds from inside as one of them came to door.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Jerome used his non-burning hand to reach in and pull out his badge, "Police, I'm looking for Dr. Maddox Crane."

The man's eyes widened as he stared between the badge and Jerome and then he turned to either run or shout a warning, either way he didn't get time. Jerome dropped the badge back into his pocket as he burning hand burst through the hall in the door and grabbed the man by the neck and pulled him out door and all. He let out a scream before Jerome melted the man's head. He had been wondering whether he could do this, he had thus far witnessed carnomancy, electromancy, pyromancy and telemancy. Telemancy he had very little interest in, but the other three were positively thrilling branches of magic to him and now his nanomancy allowed him to essentially copy these magics and use it for himself, of course he still needed time to control it but the numerous nubots in his body despite being part of him were all organisms in their own right and therefore each nubot could use different magic. This was something he had figured out on the fly but it had worked to some effect. Jerome walked into the building as several men came out warily and to their shock they saw the headless corpse of their comrade.

"What the hell?" one of them said.

"Hell?" questioned Jerome with a raised eyebrow and a wide grin. "You haven't seen it yet, but I've brought it to you as a gift."

He shot forward and his left hand burned whilst his right hand sparked. He ripped through the men in front of him with brute strength, shocking some of them into oblivion, burning the others into a puddle and fairly soon the room itself caught on fire as Jerome tossed about the men that attacked him. He finally reached the stairs and in his sparking hand he clutched the head of a man he had ripped off, it was still smoking from the massive amount of current that had been pumped into it, and its eyes had liquefied. Tonight was a hell of a night and he just felt like letting loose. He threw the head aside and climbed the stairs, nobody would really miss these buggers anyway, they hadn't done enough to become proper villains but they were still criminals and the morality of what he was doing was the last thing on Jerome's mind. He climbed the stairs and reached the second floor to see more brainless as*h*les prepared for his slaughter. He reached out as each of his fingers spiked out into long tendril digging into each of the men charging at him and then it sparked, dropping them all like flies, their popped eye sockets and smoking bodies revealed the fact of their death. His right hand spewed out a heap of flames setting the second floor on fire as well. He moved up to the third in an absolutely domineering fashion, ripping, stabbing, decapitating, bisecting, charring and liquefying, it was absolute carnage and the screams were resounding in his ears as he let loose with wild abandon. What was the point of magic, if you couldn't use it like this. Third floor to the fourth floor, everything was one fire, the only safe place was fifth and flames licked at his heels as they clambered to catch up to his slaughter. Today was the day Diablo de Fuego ended, the fire devils ended in flames. He let out a wide scream as he ran up the stairs only to see Dr. Maddox standing near the ledge of the building's balcony. Crane through him a look crossed between fright and spite, had he seen what happened to the people downstairs, either way he would look positively frightening covered in blood and burned flesh. Jerome was half prepared to let the man jump and commit suicide but as the man took the leap he changed his mind. His hands returned to normal as he reached out with his right and it extended with the same pale gray substance as prior and it latched onto Dr. Crane's legs. He jumped off the burning building as his left hand latched onto the edge of the balcony and he lowered himself and the doctor into the grass. Behind him, Diablo de Fuego's building burned in all its glory and he stood in front of the kneeling doctor who seemed to be trembling in anger or fear, most likely fear.

"Yo-you're the devil," he said. "All those things you did."

"I'm not alone in this world," said Jerome crouching down to get a look at Dr. Maddox Crane's twisted, frightened, tear stained face. "There are others like me."

"No human can do what you did," said Dr. Crane shaking.

"Would a human even do what I've done?" asked Jerome sardonically. "Would a human do what you've done?"

"It was for a profit," Dr. Crane said simply, it wasn't a plea, just facts. "I test out some drugs on the newborns and I get some clean cash for it."

"Then you killed them," said Jerome frowning and at that Dr. Crane looked up at him spitefully.

"Because of you," said Dr. Crane. "I was doing fine, the children were all fine, sure occasionally a test failed, a child might have been disabled, but they were alive, they were all alive but you…you gathered reports about it."

"I did?" Jerome asked in surprise, then he surmised that this might have been what the previous him passed to Leonard Blake.

"I mean, of course I did," said Jerome nodding. "What you did was a crime."

"WHAT ABOUT WHAT YOU DID!?" Dr. Crane suddenly roared and Jerome recoiled as he put two fingers into his ears.

"Jesus, you've got some set of lungs," said Jerome jokingly and Dr. Crane looked at him disbelievingly. "You see Crane, what you did was a crime, what I'm doing is clean up, it's fundamentally different…even if it looks brutal."

"You're a psychopath," he said faintly, he looked like was about to pass out when Jerome charged up one of his fingers and jolted him with it, lightly to keep him awake.

He came back with a scream, his eyes shooting wide open again as he glared at Jerome in fear.

"Don't go lights out on me now," said Jerome with a smile. "You're a psychopath as well, you killed six babies, a constable…my friend, kind of, not to mention your confession about your illegal, illicit drug tests on unsuspecting babies and children."

"What I did…was for survival," he said.

Jerome barked out a loud laugh at that, "Oh that's funny, you're doctor, Crane, you would have had more than enough money even without the shit you pulled, survival my ass, what you did was for greed and then you committed one crime after an another because you saw only one way out, you didn't care how many bodies you piled up to reach there."

"What about you?" asked Crane.

"It's revenge, Crane," said Jerome with a mad smile. "What I did is revenge, the people that want it can't get it for themselves so I decided to act in their stead…it's not justice, it's just revenge."

"So you want me dead," Crane surmised, his uncontrollable shakes, still ongoing.

"Yes I do," Jerome admitted. "You've played long enough."

"Do it then," said Crane somewhat daringly despite his still shaking body and Jerome looked at him in surprise.

He then whistled, "You're not afraid, that's new, but your body…."

Jerome said, "Your body still betrays you."

With a snarl Jerome reached in and pushed past the barrier of flesh, muscle and bone surrounding Crane's heart as his eyes widened at the sudden impaling. His mouth filled with blood which leaked out as he looked at Jerome with an astonished expression. Jerome felt the beat of the heart within his palm and slowly it ceased as the doctor's eyes glazed over and he slumped. As the man died, Jerome licked his lips and with a wild pull he ripped the man's heart out through his own chest, past the shattered bones, spraying blood and ripped flesh. He looked at the shape of the first heart he had ripped out, he hadn't seen a live heart before this but it seemed like a beautiful organ to him. He looked back, still clutching the heart as the building behind him burned to the ground, every single one of them inside had a criminal record he mused, not enough for a death warrant but in the end it didn't matter, not to him anyway. His left hand conjured up a ball of flames which he threw on top of Crane's corpse and then he threw the heart he clutched in after it. What an eventful day, he mused as he walked away and he slicked back his messed up hair and wiped the flesh and blood of his face. He would need a shower when he got home.