but surely they wouldn't have locked down the labs, there was no reason for it. He opened the book almost frantically, praying that he was wrong and let out a low moan of helpless rage at what was tucked into the sham book's glued pages. A brass medallion with an eagle engraved on it lay in the cut away compartment – part of a key to yet another of Spencer's insane locks.
It was like the punch line to a cruel joke. To get out of the house, he had to find the crests. Once out in the courtyard, he'd have to make his way through a winding maze of tunnels that ended in a hidden section of the garden – where there was an old stone fountain that marked the entrance to the underground labs. The fountain was one of Spencer's fanciful creations, a marvel of engineering that could be opened and closed to hide the facility underneath – provided, of course, that you had the keys: two medallions made out of brass, an eagle on one, a wolf on the other.
Finding the eagle meant that the gate was closed.
And that meant that the wolf could be anywhere, anywhere at all and that his chances of even getting to the lab had just dropped down to somewhere near zero.
Unable to control his fury, he snatched up the medal and threw the book against the desk, knocking the lamp over with a crash and plunging the room into sudden blackness. There was no longer any point in holding on to the wind crest; his perfect plan was ruined. He'd have to give up his edge and hope that one of the others would inadvertently stumble across the wolf medal for him, secreted away somewhere on the massive, sprawling estate.
Which means more risk, more searching and a chance that one of them will reach the labs before I do.
Seething, Wesker stood in the dark silence with his fists clenched, trying not to scream.
TWELVE
Jill heard something like breaking glass and held perfectly still, listening. The acoustics of the mansion were strange, the long corridors and unusual floor plan making it hard to tell where sounds were coming from.
Or if you even heard them at all…
She sighed, taking a last look around the quiet, book-lined sitting room at the top of the stairs. She'd already checked the three other rooms along the gallery railing and found exactly nothing of interest: a sparse bedroom with two bunks, an office, and an unfinished den with a locked door and a fireplace inside. The only switches she'd found were light switches, though she had gotten excited over a rather sinister-looking black button on the wall of the office until she'd pushed it, and found that she'd managed to discover the drainage control for an empty fish tank in the corner.
She'd found some ammo for the Remington, she supposed she should be grateful for that – a dozen shells in a metal box underneath one of the bunks in the bedroom. But if there'd been any hidden crests, she'd missed them.
Jill took out Trent's computer and checked the map, finding her position at the top of the stairs. Just past the sitting room's second door was a wide, U-shaped corridor that angled back around to the front hall balcony. The corridor also connected to two rooms, one a dead end and the other leading through several more.
She put the computer away and drew her Beretta, taking a moment to clear her mind before stepping into the corridor. It wasn't easy. Between trying to figure out what had happened in the house to create monsters and her concerns for and about her team, her thoughts were distinctly messy.
Should've looked closer at those papers…
The office had been simple, a desk, a bookshelf, but there was a rack of lab coats by the door and the papers strewn across the desk had mostly been lists of numbers and letters. She knew just enough chemistry to know that she was looking at chemistry, so she didn't bother trying to read them, but since finding the papers, she had begun to think of the zombies as the result of a research accident. The mansion was too well maintained to have come from private money, and the fact that it had been kept a secret for so long suggested a cover up. She guessed that there was a couple of months worth of dust on almost everything – which coincided with the first attacks in Raccoon. If the people in the house had been conducting some kind of an experiment and something had gone wrong…
Something that transformed them into flesh-eating ghouls? That's a bit far-fetched…
But it made more sense than anything else she could come up with, although she'd keep her mind open to other possibilities. As to her concerns about the team – Barry was acting weird and Chris and Wesker were still missing; no new developments there.
And there won't be any if you don't get going.
Right. Jill put her musings on hold and stepped out into the hall.
She noticed the smell before she actually saw the zombie farther down the corridor, crumpled to the floor. The small wall sconces cast an uneven glow over the body, reflecting off of dark red trim and tinting everything in the corridor a smoky crimson. She trained her weapon on the still body and heard a door closing somewhere close by.
Barry?
He'd said he was going to be in the mansion's other wing, but maybe he'd found something and had come looking for her… or maybe she was finally going to meet up with someone else from the team.
Smiling at the thought she hurried down the gloomy hall, eager to see another familiar face. As she neared the corner, a fresh wave of decay washed over her and the fallen creature at her feet grabbed at her boot, clutching her ankle with surprising strength.
Startled, Jill flailed her arms to keep her balance, crying out in disgust as the slobbering zombie inched its rotting face toward her boot. Its peeling, skeletal fingers scrabbled weakly at the thick leather, seeking a firmer grip and Jill instinctively brought her other boot down on the back of its head, the heavy treads sliding across the skull with a sickening wet sound. A wide piece of flaking scalp tore away, revealing glistening bone. The creature kept clawing at her, oblivious to pain.
The second and third kicks hit the back of its neck and on the fourth, she felt as much as heard the dull snap of vertebrae giving out, crushed beneath her heel.
The pale hands fluttered and with a choking, liquid sigh, the zombie settled to the musty carpet.
Jill stepped over the limp body and ran around the corner, swallowing back bile. She was convinced that the pitiful creatures roaming the halls were victims somehow, just as much as Becky and Pris had been, and releasing them to death was a kindness, but they were also a menace, not to mention morbidly unwholesome. She had to be more cautious.
There was a door to her right, heavy wood overlaid with twining metal designs. There was a picture of armor over the key plate, but like the other doors she'd come across upstairs, it was unlocked.
There was no one inside the well-lit room but she hesitated, suddenly reluctant to continue her search for whoever else was wandering the area. Two walls of the large chamber were lined with full suits of armor, eight to a side, and there was a small display case at the back – not to mention a large red switch set into the middle of the gray tiled floor.
Another trap? Or a puzzle…
Intrigued, she walked into the room and headed for the glass fronted display, the silent, lifeless guards seeming to watch her every move. There were a couple of mysterious grated holes in the floor, one on either side of the red switch, for ventilation perhaps and she felt her heart speed up a little, suddenly sure that she had found another of the mansion's traps.
A quick inspection of the dusty display case decided it for her; there wasn't any way that she could see to open it, the glass front a single thick piece. And something in one shadowy niche at the bottom glinted like dull copper.
I'm supposed to push that button, thinking that it will open the case and then what?
She had a sudden vivid image of the ventilation holes sealing off and the door locking itself, a death by slow suffocation in an airless tomb. The chamber could fill with water, or some kind of poisonous gas.
She looked around the room, frowning, wondering if she should try to block the door open or if perhaps there was another switch hidden in one of the empty suits… … every riddle has more than one answer, Jilly, don't forget it.
Jill grinned suddenly. Why push the button at all?
She crouched down next to the case and took a firm grip on the barrel of her handgun. With a single firm tap, the glass cracked, thin lines spidering away from the impact. She used the butt of the gun to knock out a thick
