“Ah.” Bayley stood and prodded the logs in the fireplace with a long tool, stoking the flames. They seized upon the fresh logs quickly, with a throaty growl. Satisfied, Bayley returned to his amply padded leather wingback chair, crossed his legs at the knee, and resumed his idle sipping. “Now then. Where were we?”
“The impetuousness of young Mr. Hicks,” Hereford supplied.
“Ah, yes. So, do you believe him?”
“He claims, rather adamantly, to know nothing of the Trinity Church theft. I’ve pressed him on this issue several times, but the story he retreats to is the same. He is, I suspect, telling the truth.”
Bayley used his thigh as a platform to spill some tobacco on a rolling paper then set about lighting it. He seemed to savor the long inhalation, holding the smoke in his lungs for a long moment, then he exhaled with an exaggerated care, uneager to release the thick cloud from his lips.
“It’s makes no matter, I suppose. Issues of his involvement aside, I suspect the resentment and unease this theft has caused will suit our needs nicely.” Bayley smiled then, the slight crease of his lips tight and chilly.
Hereford tilted his head in agreement then took a sip of hot tea to soothe the soreness lingering in his throat. He had spent much of the morning coughing, but the cold he was afflicted with seemed to ease in the evening hours, its brutality an effect of the morning.
“I understand it caused quite the ruckus at the Common Council,” Hereford said, recalling the Daily Advertiser’s story of heated words and rising tempers between the assemblymen and the illiterates whose interests they supposedly represented. He himself had been more than a bit chuffed to see his advertisement offering anatomy lessons placed alongside a rebuttal to an earlier opine by Humanio from a one “Junior, of Broad Way,” whom he took to be the sanctimonious man-child John Hicks, Jr.
“I have no doubt,” Bayley said. “But this could be the key component that our earlier experimentations have failed to capitalize upon. Think of it, Jonathan.”
Leaning forward in his chair, one elbow propped on his knee to keep the rolled tobacco raised at the ready, Bayley continued. “We have been attempting to draw forth these otherworldly elementals with a rich cocktail of blood and fear and even more than a bit of theatrics.”
Hereford knew he meant the rig of hearts and voltaic piles. But even those minor contraptions had been speculation born of Abd al-Hazred, whose Al Azif spoke of uncaged hearts still beating succulent promises to be savored by the Ancients. The text, however, was unclear on how philosophical, figural, or literal the passage was to be understood. The accompanying spate of Greek, Latin, French, Chinese, German, Arabic, and English translations of the Sumerian original shed little light and, in some instances, only added to the confusion. As the Al Azif was translated and retranslated from one language to the next, inconsistencies had crept in. Several key words had been misinterpreted or replaced with imperfect substitutions. Others, though, had clearly attempted to decipher Abd al-Hazred’s ancient puzzle with modern technology, leaving notes dating back to the Sasanian Empire from the time of 224 AD. The inventor described the creation of a battery using terracotta pots, a cylinder of rolled copper sheeting, an iron rod, and an acidic liquid to generate an electric current. This battery was quite similar to the Leyden jar. Its inventor, a cleric named Ewald Georg von Kleist, had also made notes of his experiments circa 1740 in pages folded into Al Azif. As Benjamin Franklin had previously confirmed, von Kleist noted that linking multiple batteries together produced a stronger charge. Over the years, Bayley had become quite the student of electricity, following the work of Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, who originated designs for the voltaic piles that Bayley had constructed.
“Our scope has been lacking,” Bayley said. “We have been far too narrow in our methodology.”
The thought had occurred to Hereford, but he had not spoken of it to the other plague doctors. Perhaps, upon reflection, he should have spoken of it at least to his mentor, Bayley.
“Those beings we witnessed were drawn by the allure of mass casualties,” Hereford said.
Bayley’s eyes widened in excitement. “Yes! Exactly! Exactly that! What is the fear of but one simple nigger, street urchin, or whore compared to scores ten deep of the wounded and dying, of those whose life is bleeding out from between their very fingers as they stand on the precipice of death’s door?”
Caught up in his whirlwind, Bayley clapped his hands together then screwed the rolled tobacco between his lips, taking to his feet. He puffed away happily, striding back and forth across his study.
“We constrained ourselves in the name of science, of experimentation. And now we have discovered but one mode of practice to be an ill fit toward achieving our goals. Our methodology has been necessarily limited through a systematic process of elimination. We allowed ourselves to be blinded by the vestiges of our welfare, of our own need for secrecy and safety. I believe this was not in error, however, but a simple process to allow for our minds to become both broadened and emboldened. We see now what must be done, and we have practiced accordingly while the stars aligned themselves. Do you agree?”
Hereford had never seen his mentor in such a state of wild, exuberant agitation, and he felt a gust of bravado sweep through him as he was caught up in the moment. “Yes, I do! I do believe this is our time.”
On the battlefield, he had witnessed no shortage of horrors, seen no bottom to the depths of mankind’s depravities. But he had also seen something remarkable, something magnificent and beautiful. Something pure and lovely to counterbalance the plague of humanity. It had approached total awe in its maleficence as, one by one, it sucked away the life of those wounded, dying soldiers. Humanity was little more than sets of warring tribes, trading in rape and murder and slavery, fighting tooth and nail to scrabble out whatever small purchase it could win, and all the while praising God as if he were something other than a righteous joke. Hereford had seen real gods during the war and since that day, he had lived for them. He had killed for them, and if necessary, he would die for them.
The whores he had taken knives and scalpels and axe blades to had been but a meager prelude. The bodies stolen from graveyards were little more than a means to an end, and he saw now the end goal it had all been leading toward. Merely spilling blood was not enough. It must be on a grand scale.
Manhattan was an island of fear. Even the Whites now slept atop their loved ones’ graves to protect the deceased from the brutish resurrectionists, and rowdies roamed the streets, looking for any reason to fight, hoping to take matters of justice into their own drunken hands. Promises of rewards were routinely published in the city’s various newspapers or loudly barked about by urchins in the street. Pockets of violence breaking out within cemetery grounds overnight were no longer uncommon. Doctors and anatomists like Hereford and Bayley were hated for their callous looting and ribald destruction of corpses. Speaking in hushed whispers and with elbows touching, tavern-goers gossiped, and each word passing their emboldened lips held a hint of antagonism, and more to the point, terror and suspicion.
The city was at a tipping point. All that was needed was one solid shove. Then the plague doctors would have their fear and bloodshed, along with the promise of death on a necessarily grand scale, to lure forth their dark and ancient gods.
The specimen was laid bare before John Hicks, Jr. She was middle-aged, and her skin was porcelain white. A chill from the cold earth still emanated from her body even after she’d been stationed overnight in the third-floor dissection room. Her brown hair was tied into a bun and acted as a sort of pillow for her head. The stink of death was still fresh upon her, and he inhaled it greedily as he lowered his head to her bared sex and smiled. Certain that none of his classmates were watching, he quickly kissed her vulva, a thrill rushing through him at such a public display of affection.
His heart very nearly tore free of his chest when a shout cut through the gray skies, and he jerked upright, scalpel in hand. None
of the other students were paying him the slightest attention, and after a moment of further shouts and youthful laughter, he determined the noise was coming from outside. Sure enough, despite the looming presence of black clouds and the promising threat of rain, a group of children were playing in the yard below. He recognized the youngest as Patrick O’Reilly, whose mother had recently passed after a protracted illness. She had sought the consult of Dr. Bayley not long before her expiration. Recovering her from her burial box had been surprisingly easy, given the fever of fear that had gripped so many Manhattanites of late.
A smile spread across Hicks’s lips as he traded scalpel for saw and set to work on the corpse. Although the other students chatted amiably with one another, they rarely spoke to him unless something demanded it and gave him a wide berth in which to conduct his work. He ignored their useless babble, enraptured instead by the sound of metal teeth sawing through soft flesh then sturdy bone. The arm came free at the elbow, and he practically laughed, a fit of mania swelling up within him.
In three paces, he was back at the window, shoving it open. A cold gust blew in immediately, and the students shouted in surprise.
“Close that damn window!”
Holding the arm by elbow stump, he waved the hand outside the window. Affecting a parody of an Irish accent, he called out, “Oh, Patty-boy! Oh, Patty-boy, look what I’ve got here!”
The boy looked up toward the third-floor window, his eyes going large and round, mouth agape. His friends ceased their antics as well, all eyes on Hicks.
“I got your sweet old mum!” Hicks waved the arm back and forth in an exaggerated greeting, baring his teeth in a wolfish smile. “Come watch me fuck her dried-up cunny!”
“Close the window, you fuck!” another shout came.
Hicks could not contain his laughter any longer. He brought the pale, bloodless hand to his crotch, his hips making lewd thrusting motions toward the window. The children were shouting over one another, and he laughed all the harder as O’Reilly’s friends pulled him away from the hospital. The ginger-haired boy was red-faced and furious, tears streaming down his face.
“I’ll even let you have a turn!” Hicks shouted at their retreating backs, cackling madly.
Two of his fellow students gripped him by the arms and pulled him away. Once Hicks was clear, another student stepped into the gap and pulled shut the window, swearing all the while. Hicks continued laughing, a stitch in his ribs and out of breath. He used the dead woman’s hand to wipe away the tears.
Donald O’Reilly listened to his son’s story, apprehension mounting alongside a good deal of frustration as Patrick fought through his competing rage and sorrow. The boy’s anger made him inarticulate, and it took a good deal of time to calm him enough to make sense.
In the days following Carolyn’s passing, Donald had spent much of the time alone in his own grief. He made an effort to stay strong for Patrick, keeping his emotions in check and working to lay bricks every day to keep the boy well fed. As night fell, though, he sobbed quietly to himself, in a marriage bed occupied only by himself and a cold emptiness, until sleep claimed him. He felt himself on the brink, tiptoeing a dangerous edge. His temper was short and his tongue quicker than it had ever been in the past, and he found himself seeking escape in both loneliness and liquor. He had been happy for Patrick to take leave with his friends, allowing Donald the opportunity to cry in solitude. He’d spent much of the morning crying into his cups, killing his pain and his grief with harsh whiskey. Patrick’s words sobered him up right quick and put a rod of hell-forged steel right in his spine.
First, he gathered his shovel. Then he pounded on the doors of men he knew he could trust, fellow masons he worked with regularly. They were hard, solid men who would have his back if the need arose.
As a group, the men, armed with shovels and picks, made their way to the cemetery. Confirmation was needed before all else. Donald took shovel to earth, the churned dirt coming away easily. After a short time, he and his friends revealed Carolyn’s coffin. The head of the box had been broken away. The removed wood had dropped into the hole and was covered by dirt. Aside from earth and rock, the coffin was empty. Carolyn was gone.
His cheeks burned beneath the beginnings of a cold rain. “Now, lads, I aim to bring my wife back.”
He looked at each man squarely, eye to eye, and each nodded his support.
“We’re with you,” their foreman said.
Although many of the men had not lost a family member in such similar fashion, they had at least heard accounts of the body snatching and gossiped about it aplenty as they worked. If not directly impacted themselves, most knew people whose grieving had been made all the worse by those night raiders. The space separating them from the victimized was made all the smaller that day.
“To the hospital then,” Donald said. He led the small group from the cemetery grounds and down Broadway, drawing a crowd in their wake as they marched to the hospital on Pearl Street.
Hawley pushed into the warm, velvety folds of Abbie’s sex as if he were thrusting through the gates of heaven. He gripped her breasts in both hands. Her feet hung in the air just above the shelf of his buttocks, below the network of scars crisscrossing the expanse of his back and hips. She knew better than to touch his back.
Sweaty and breathless, she encouraged him. “That’s it, baby,” she moaned. “That’s it… that’s it.”
His face twisted in a spasm of pleasure as she squeezed the muscles of her canal, gripping him tightly as he pushed deeper.
She laughed pleasantly, her arms tossed overhead across the pillow her kinky hair was splayed upon, then whispered, “Oh yes.”
His hands moved to her hips as he rose to his knees, his breathing growing more ragged and shallow. The sounds of his pleasure were lost beneath the noise of their skin smacking together until he let out a fierce cry and pulled free. Her hand immediately went to his member, enthusiastically stroking him over the rise of her belly as a wave of release jolted through him and left him shuddering in the wake of orgasm.
“Sweet Jesus,” he said breathlessly.
She pumped him a few more times, the last of his seed pooling across her fingers and dripping to the puddle on her belly. Spent, he collapsed next to her, his hands folded across his stomach. She ran her fingers playfully through the damp curls of his chest hair.
“It’s always so nice when you visit me, darling,” she said.
He opened his mouth to speak, but a rowdy noise from the street below cut him off. Men were shouting, their words incoherent. He peeled away from Abbie and strode across the candlelit room, naked still and led by a wilting erection, to the window opposite. The thick drapes were so effective at blocking out the day, he had forgotten it was still early. Despite the overcast sky, his eyes took a moment to adjust to the brightness. A crowd was gathering outside the saloon, led by men carrying shovels, picks, and axes. Turning an ear toward them, he caught snatches of curses aimed at the city’s doctors and word of violated graves. He snickered at the thought that, seemingly, the Whites would not tolerate being victimized. Perhaps Humanio’s work was to be paid off at last. His robbery of Trinity Church had apparently emboldened the rogue resurrectionists to begin targeting White burial grounds with as much enthusiasm as they had previously reserved for the Blacks.
He peeked through the curtains for a moment, watching the angry mob pushing farther down Broadway. If they continued straight on down, they would reach New York Hospital in due time.
Abbie pushed up on her elbows, long curls of black hair spilling over her breasts. “What’s happening?”
“Sounds like they’re going after the doctors, maybe.” He answered with a shrug then set about collecting his clothes off the floor.
“About time.”
Earlier, downstairs, she had briefly shared rumors with him of other ladies in her profession who had gone missing. A few had turned up in the streets, mutilated and dismembered, dumped in alleyways with the trash.
Rumors had stacked up atop one another, trailing through town across a grapevine of speculation and distrust. Missing prostitutes was a thing rarely spoken of, and as far as he knew, the resurrectionists had yet to be implicated in such disappearances. He listened intently to her gossiping nevertheless.
A charge, something electric, pulsed through the air. Manhattan carried a peculiar rhythm on the best of days, but even that felt upset in the commotion. He had to get downstairs, for the sake of Jeremiah and Scipio, and all the things they had lost. He pulled free several bills, folded them, and pressed them into Abbie’s slender hands. “Would you do me a favor?”
When she nodded, he asked her, “Round me up Scipio, tell him what’s occurred and where I’m going. I need him to join me at New York Hospital as quickly as he can. Go now, but please, be careful.”
She nodded again, searching for a towel to wipe away the deposit he had left upon her torso, while he dressed. Candlelight reflected off the sheen of sweat covering her, giving her skin a bronze glow. He took a moment to admire her then finished with his belt and boots. She dressed quickly then followed him downstairs, where they went in opposite directions.
Hers was the quiet path, away from trouble. Salem Hawley followed the noise of angry White men and clattering tools readied for war.
From inside the dissection room, it sounded as if the whole of New York Hospital was surrounded by a mad cacophony. Hicks gazed out upon the yard, and although the windows were shut firmly, the quarrelsome shouting and screamed demands reached his ears. It was all just so much noise, though, with the mob yelling over one another, their message reduced to a thunderously incoherent mess.
The Resurrectionists Page 7