Alchemy of Glass

by Barbara Barnett

  “Suffice to say, Mr. Erceldoune, you are missed, despite the widespread perception in Hay Hill that you were chased away for forgetting your station—and dabbling in business for which you are ill qualified.”

  “And you sir? What do you say?”

  “I, sir, do not know you, and have no reason to either trust or distrust you. I do know I have seen it with my own eyes—the recklessness, the folly of my brother physicians. And evidence that your methods, however unorthodox, are effective—at least more so than theirs. I have for the past week, in fact, been seeking to locate you for counsel on a medical matter.”

  At another time, perhaps, but any moment, the lass might . . . He forced himself from turning toward the quiet rustling behind him, hoping Bell had not also heard it. “Perhaps you might return in a few hours when you . . . and I . . . are in a better state to discuss—”

  “Of course. I shall return. Say, eleven o’clock?”

  Finally, he was gone. Gaelan closed the door, locking it, waiting as Bell mounted a carriage and disappeared into the morning mist. He blew out a long breath, relieved, yet disquieted about what had transpired. He had even forgotten to ask the girl’s name. What devilment had he gotten himself into?

  Gaelan drew back the curtain. “My lady, he’s—” She was gone!

  CHICAGO NORTH SHORE, PRESENT DAY

  CHAPTER 7

  “Beyond Methuselah: The Immortality Option.” Anne held her breath as she read the title of the article, staring at the screen until her eyes burned and she saw nothing else on the Google search page but a blur of light and letters. Dreading what she might discover beneath the headline, not in a tabloid or conspiracy rag but a respected pop-science magazine. Finally, her fingers shaking, she clicked. Three times she read the piece in horror.

  Two hours now since Anne had promised to ring back Preston Alcott. Any moment, he would take the initiative on his own. And therefore, God created the “ignore call” button.

  The Galahad Society once again seemed to be at the heart of the story.

  Our goal, claimed its CEO John Brady in paragraph one, is to benefit all of us, eradicate disease through identifying a truly immortal strain of cells, human cells. People will live longer—disease-free and with a quality of life unknown to humankind here and worldwide.

  Dozens followed Anne’s work on telomeres with keen interest, less to do with the T. nutricula jellyfish than its practical application extending human life—infinitely. A fairly benign pursuit, and so far into the future as to be a futile quest in any of their lifetimes. The subject of amusement over drinks at conferences, and little more. Most of her colleagues had their “fans,” who regularly emailed with theories most often wild and occasionally quite logical, but simply beyond the realm of known science. And would be. For years to come.

  She studied the article a final time and sat back in her chair, nauseous. The Galahad Society seemed a particularly aggressive new strain of immortality junkie. Their scheme? Use their collective vast wealth and connections to procure, the youngest, healthiest, strongest, most attractive athletes—volunteers, all, the CEO claimed—to donate “gallons of their perfect” blood to the “greater good” so members might inject themselves nightly before bed. The one goal? Forestall the inevitability of aging—forever.

  Her revulsion turned to anger and then panic. Had her own work, however indirectly, fueled this mad drive to achieve immortality? More unnerving than anything conjured from the mind of Bram Stoker or Anne Rice. No fantasy. This was reality.

  Move over Nosferatu; step aside Count Dracula. No black and purple cloak needed, no fang teeth to dig into the neck of an unsuspecting victim. These were twenty-first-century vampires—not drinking blood but mainlining it, complete with IV tubes and infusion pumps.

  No photos in the article, fortunately, but the description was monstrous enough to see it clearly without the visual aids: wards filled with young men, their blood transfused to . . . whom? Employers? Masters? Patrons? A macabre experiment aimed at living forever.

  The Galahad Society. In a weird way, the name fit. Be the first to claim the Holy Grail of immortality, as the Arthurian knight had done, but only in the realm of legend.

  What was Alcott’s involvement in all this? His name appeared nowhere in the text of the article. She hit the “find,” button which brought her to the tiny font of a photo caption. A group shot. Eight men, glasses raised, smiling into the camera. “Billionaire tech guru and venture capitalist Preston Alcott drinks to his latest project, called Galahad, at an exclusive club in Los Angeles.” This list of people in the photo included Dr. Anthony Cantwell. A name Anne knew well. And, according to the caption, Galahad’s chief technical officer.

  The grandfather clock chimed four. The day had bled half away. When had that happened? And Alcott hadn’t called. Maybe he’d moved on to the next geneticist on his list.

  Elizabeth Bathory. The name popped, unbidden, into her head. A BBC documentary on the so-called Blood Countess. Hungarian royalty, unlimited funds, accountable only to herself. She’d murdered more than six hundred virgins and used their blood as bath oil in—what was it—the sixteenth century? And all in the vain pursuit to preserve her youth. Anne had seen the program only the week before. Little had changed in this danse macabre with immortality, but for the costumes and the music. And the technology.

  Oh, screw it all. She really did need a break.

  The spicy sweetness of clove and cinnamon, ginger and cardamom greeted Anne as she stepped into Simon’s large, airy kitchen. She breathed it in, let it settle about her like a cozy blanket. The gnawing ache behind her eyes that had commenced with Preston Alcott’s phone call began a slow retreat.

  Simon’s housekeeper sat at the table, working a crossword puzzle.

  “Dr. Shawe. I thought you might like some tea. I took the liberty of—”

  “Thank you. Perfect.”

  Mrs. O’Malley had doted on her since the morning she’d arrived. Fresh biscuits, homemade soups, pressed clothing, and scented towels. Already, Anne felt quite spoiled. Simon’s housekeeper had been kind but held Anne at a—slightly intimidating—formal distance.

  “It was Dr. Bell’s favorite. A custom blend. Do you take milk and sugar?”

  “I do.”

  Anne plucked three brown cane cubes from a bone china bowl and stirred them into the steaming mug along with the proffered milk.

  “Anything else you need?”

  “Please, Mrs. O’Malley. Do join me for a moment.”

  “Very well. I am here to make your stay comfortable and as enjoyable as these things might be. Is there anything amiss?”

  “No, of course not. You have been more than kind.”

  Mrs. O’Malley took the seat opposite Anne.

  “How long were you in Dr. Bell’s employ?” Anne asked, sipping from her mug.

  “Seven years, and a more gracious man you’d never find, but odd, if you don’t my saying. A real odd bodkin, some might say. I asked no questions; kept my tongue. Perhaps if I had been more . . . if I . . .”

  Mrs. O’Malley had no clue, then. “With suicides . . . Well, it is difficult to know what . . .” What could she say?

  “Well, he’d not be dead, would he, had I been minding? And such a young man. I came in just as I always do—I’d been to visit some friends in the city, you see—found him sitting at the dining table. Two glasses and an empty bottle of whisky. I thought he’d gotten drunk, but then—”

  Anne pictured Gaelan and Simon that last morning after she’d left for the airport. A final drink together. Two hundred years they’d known each other. How bizarre it must’ve felt for them both, knowing by the next day they would both be dead.

  “Dr. Bell’s funeral, was it at least well attended?”

  “Just me, I’m afraid. Private affair. And Dr. Bell’s solicitor. You’d have thought that strange friend of his would have been there, for all the help Dr. Bell’s been to him over the years.”

  Ah, Gaelan. “
Do you mean Gaelan Erceldoune?”

  “Something like that, yes. Erceldoune. British chap. Bookseller, I think. Anyway, the solicitor came in from London and it was all very quick, and according to Dr. Bell’s wishes. Two days after I found him, it was all over. Done. I might’ve expected you’d come sooner, being his heir and all. Been at the funeral at least. Not my business, is it dear? Well, the ashes are on the living room mantelpiece—”

  “I had affairs to attend in the UK. Besides, we were not close.”

  And no, it was absolutely not her business.

  The housekeeper stood sharply. “The ashes,” she continued, ignoring Anne, “are to be scattered at a particular location near Gattonside, according to the solicitor’s instruction.”

  Mrs. O’Malley fetched a small note from a tin near the coffee maker. “These, I believe, are the GPS coordinates. The solicitor thought it a strange request since there had been no Bell estate on those lands for more than one hundred years—gone the way of many such estates of the upper classes . . .” Another glare. “As I am certain you are aware. Apparently, the lands were sold off long ago, but for a very small parcel, razed to the ground near the turn of the last century. Nothing there but a field, he’d said. A few gravestones. Bell relatives, I’d suppose.”

  “Perhaps there was some other draw to the place. The setting of a Holmes novel? I’m certain he had his reasons.”

  “He was an odd one, that’s for sure. Well, if there’s nothing else . . .”

  Anne glanced at her watch. Three hours. Alcott had given up. Thank God for small favors.

  “Very well, Mrs. O’Malley. I’m just going out back for a bit of stroll in the garden. I thought I saw a path down to the beach, actually.”

  “Big storm coming. It’ll be pouring buckets quite soon. I was just going to give you a flashlight in case the lights go out. They often do in an intense storm, especially out here by the shore. The winds whip through the bluffs something fierce. You don’t want to be caught out down the rocks in a storm. The path’s not maintained and quite slippery when wet. I’d leave it for a nicer day, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” Maybe she would go out there anyway, let the spring rain flood over her, purge her pain, soothe the remains of her headache. Shoeless and coatless. Stand out there until someone rescued her like the heroine in a Jane Austen novel. “And for all your help these past days,” she added, stepping through the garden doors.

  Except such romantic salvation did not exist. Not now. Not ever.

  The temperature had soared since she’d been out earlier, joined by sauna-level humidity and beads of sweat quickly sprouted on her forehead and above her upper lip in the saturated air.

  Where’s a good onshore breeze when you really need it?

  Charcoal-purple clouds bulged low and foreboding in the western sky, a study in contrast with the cloudless deep blue sky over Lake Michigan to the east. The sun diffused through the leading edge of the clouds to stipple the lake with crested points of silvered sapphire.

  A heron harassed two white and gray gulls riding the tip of a whitecapped wave, an amusing diversion. She could stay here all day, a whole lifetime, a life to which she could easily grow accustomed. Far from her phone. Far from worry about Gaelan. Far from thoughts of Preston Alcott. A respite house. A sanctuary.

  And why not, now she’d become an heiress? Screw everything else. She could afford it. And it was more than tempting.

  The low growl of thunder echoed to the west, far into the distance as the sky had, in the span of only a few minutes, darkened above her head. The rumbling grew more insistent, each crescendo rolling into the next as the storm drew closer and the air thickened further with the rich, moist scent of impending rain.

  Lightning crisscrossed the sky from cloud to cloud as she gauged the distance from where she stood at the edge of the cliff to the house. Plenty of time to make it back.

  What was that formula she’d learned at school? One second per mile between lightning and thunder.

  She counted aloud. “Seven . . . eight . . . crash.” Eight miles, give or take; the storm’s leading edge would be closer. Yet, she resisted the urge to flee before the last possible minute.

  Bring it on!

  Catharsis, that’s what she needed. Desired, hoped for. Always the hopeful one, wasn’t she? “Hopeful romantic,” they teased back at school. Scoffed. Derided. Her, and her chronic naiveté.

  Huge raindrops began to splash, leisurely, like the plinking of violin strings, ricocheting off the brick ledge and the wrought-iron benches. The gulls and heron had already fled the oncoming storm, and ice pellets, which stung like cut-glass shards, spat from the sky. Slowly at first, building to a barrage that drowned the quiet while coating the garden in crystal.

  Lightning shrieked across the sky in a continuous barrage as the rain pelted, cold and stinging. Beethoven’s Sixth—the Pastoral—in real time. Drenched and shivering, Anne bolted across the garden, flying through the French doors just as her mobile rang.

  Had to be Alcott.

  Rallying the presumptive combative tone she usually reserved for telemarketers and phone scammers, Anne touched the green button. She was ready for him.

  “Yes?” No name, no niceties.

  “Dr. Shawe?” Not Alcott. Yet, the voice was familiar. “It’s Andrew Samuelson. From Evanston Lakeshore Hospital in the U.S.?”

  Andrew Samuelson, who’d hoped to engage her in his unthethical little scheme to study Gaelan’s DNA. What the fuck does he want?

  Anne understood the temptation. What would it take, after all? Pilfer a bit of surgical waste from a man whose biological regenerative abilities defied imagination? What’s the harm? And what self-respecting scientist wouldn’t be intrigued? Never mind the slew of ethical violations involved, given Gaelan’s adamant refusal to consent to any genetic analysis of any sort.

  On the other hand, she suspected Samuelson’s boundaries were highly flexible, easy to stretch for a good reason—or price.

  “Dr. Samuelson. As I recall, the last time we spoke—”

  “Yes, and I took what you said to heart. I never touched Mr. Erceldoune’s DNA. Never tested it, never crossed my mind after—”

  “Really.” Yeah. After she’d threatened to report him to the medical ethics board.

  “Look, we have a bit of a situation. It doesn’t involve you directly, but you might get a call about it. An inquiry about . . .” He hesitated. “I wanted to—”

  “Oh, dear! Well, I hope it’s another not-immortal immortal happening into your trauma center.” She put him on speaker as she ran up the stairs to the bathroom, dripping water everywhere.

  “If only. It’s what’s walked out that’s the problem.”

  Hmm. Zombies? She hadn’t spoken to Samuelson in weeks. And only one case would concern her—Gaelan. The Miracle Man, whose critical injuries miraculously commenced to heal in full view of a roomful of doctors. She waited for Samuelson to continue, which he did not. Her turn. “Dear me! Walked out?” Yeah. Zombies.

  Where the hell was her bathrobe?

  “So, there were several samples of our Miracle Man’s tissue scheduled for biowaste destruction. At least one is missing. Possibly up to three.”

  “Got to them before you had the chance, hmm?” She was in no mood to be kind. “It’s been, what, two weeks and only now you’ve figured it out? And what’s it got to do with me, in any case?”

  She flung her wet clothes in the tub and draped her huge chenille robe about shoulders before reclining in the ancient brocade chaise lounge at the end of the hallway.

  “That’s not fair—”

  “Which part?”

  “You know which part, Dr. Shawe.”

  “Yeah. I do. And I’m being entirely fair, by the way. Last I recall, you very much wanted to steal those samples for yourself and have me run the DNA once I got to Salk with their high-tech machinery. Never mind all of that is illegal without consent. Which, to my kno
wledge, he never granted.”

  “Look. I told you. I didn’t—”

  “Maybe someone else had the same idea. Besides, don’t you think it’s rather a moot point, Dr. Samuelson? Our ‘Miracle Man,’ as you call him, is dead.” Anne still had not forgiven Samuelson. The medical ethics board paperwork was still on her computer—unfinished, but . . .

  “Look, Dr. Shawe, I confess to a momentary lapse . . . the idea of having a chance . . . And don’t tell me you weren’t curious and . . . Wait! How do you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That he’s dead.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. She wasn’t supposed to know him—or care. Double fuck.

  “Erm . . . It was all over the British press two weeks ago. Suicide. Gone over a waterfall in Scotland. Crushed at the base. Nothing left. Dead. Mystery over. Finis. And after the entire Transdiff fiasco, I’m the ultimate bête noire to the Salk Institute. I’m finished.” Not badly handled, that.

  “Do you really believe it?”

  “What? That I’m professionally done for?”

  “That he’s dead.”

  No caustic rejoinder for that question. She had no bloody idea, but there wasn’t a moment of hesitation in her reply. “Yes. And, by the way, we’re no small part of what drove him quite literally over that edge.”

  “So?”

  So? What a fucking arse. She sighed, hoping he’d heard her exasperation loud and clear. “What exactly do you want of me, Dr. Samuelson?”

  “Andrew. Just giving you a friendly heads-up, that’s all. You might get a phone call—questions. They’re talking to anyone with access or an interest in the case. Right now, it’s only the hospital biohazard people. Tomorrow it could be the county, the state, CDC. And I’m just sayin’. It wasn’t me. If they ask, that is.”

  Anne sucked in a breath. “It’s a nonstory. Nothing dire about a missing tissue sample. And, as far as I know, no biohazard risk. Our so-called and very nonmiracle man fell off a cliff, didn’t die of plague. What? Are you worried I might suggest you’re behind the missing sample?”

  “You and I are not the only ones who know the truth about that guy. His off-the-charts genetics? Despite what’s been played up in the media. The official line about anomalous errors in the machinery, human error, all that? ‘Conspiracy of errors,’ they called it. Officially, anyway.”