The Apollonian Case Files

by Mark A. Latham

  The vampire peered into Marie’s eyes. Her nostrils flared, assailed by the mingled smell of chemicals and sickly corruption.

  ‘Lord de Montfort has already crossed over, child. His influence is great; he was first through the breach. Though this world falls to ruin, he goes now to bring the Iscariot Sanction to another universe. The mirror world will belong to our kind, as surely as this one belongs to the Rift. But as I said – he left a message for you. He asked me to tell you that your uncle died in agony, like a stuck pig, and the sacrifice of his blood was the only contribution of note he ever made to the world.’

  Marie struggled, but to no avail. Two pairs of strong arms held her fast. That it should end like this, with de Montfort far beyond her reach, was the ultimate insult. She hung her head in despair.

  ‘Are we done here?’ the ship’s captain growled. ‘Throw the girl in the brig.’

  ‘No,’ the vampire said. ‘Kill her.’

  The captain looked reluctant, but nodded and cocked Marie’s revolver. ‘Madam, in the name of the Russian Empire I –’

  A great bang cut him short, and the entire vessel shook with singular force. One of the sailors staggered, the captain looked around in surprise. Marie flicked her wrist, and a slender punch-dagger slid into her hand. She jabbed it under the chin of the other sailor. As he gargled his last, she threw the man into Orsini, and ran from the control room, along the corridor and onto the gantry. Outside, everything was aflame. Men fought shadowy, indistinct figures that defied description, but slaughtered with impunity.

  Bullets rang against the railings at Marie’s side. She glanced back; the captain and Orsini were after her. The captain aimed again. Marie took a breath, and jumped the rail. She landed awkwardly on the hard deck. A marine looked at her with shock. She kicked him hard in the groin, and took his rifle from him. Orsini was above her, and now leapt down beside her. Marie fell backwards and fired a shot, tearing into the side of Orsini’s neck, drawing an enraged snarl, but sending him wheeling away. Sailors all around became aware of Marie’s presence, and rushed towards her. The captain shouted something in Russian, and fired again. Marie felt a bullet rip her tunic, draw blood. A flesh wound, but it appeared her luck was running out.

  Men approached from all sides. Orsini staggered to his feet. Marie looked forward at the flickering gate and the hissing waters of the Thames around it. She’d have to take her chances.

  She limped to the gunwales, and leapt over the side of the ship, into the blood-red river.

  NINE

  A young man, eyes dark, skin dry as parchment, reached out with trembling, spindle-fingered hands. Jim thought the youth had been beautiful, once, but certainly no more. Jim remembered loving him once. He remembered letting him die.

  ‘Why?’ the youth rasped, voice like the creaking of a gallows rope.

  Jim pulled back, unable to reply. He saw a light appear behind the youth, a crackling, fizzing golden light, that drew closer, and larger. It enveloped the corpse-like man, and those dark, pleading eyes vanished into the Otherside. The outstretched hand went last, light rippling in its wake.

  Jim staggered away. All-too-familiar shadows flickered behind the shimmering pool. Squamous tentacles and raking claws drove sparks from the surface of the rippling mirror; dark things sought egress from their foul realm.

  Scrit-scratch.

  The noise tore through Jim’s mind. Long talons picked at the meat inside his skull; rusty nails hammering their way out of his head. The Other came.

  Jim stumbled away, then ran as fast as he could, though he knew he could never outrun the shadow of his past. He reached a door in the darkness, and plunged through it.

  The four-poster bed before him smelt of sickly blooms. The sound of quiet sobbing surrounded him. Something pale and awful lay in that bed. Jim was drawn inexorably towards it, not wanting to look, unable to stop himself. He reached out to pull back silk sheets, hand trembling with fear and grief.

  ‘End of the line!’

  A call from the train conductor woke Jim before the familiar nightmare could take hold. Cold sweat evaporated on Jim’s brow. Freezing air rushing through the gaps around the rattling carriage windows. Jim shuddered. He stared out at the rolling Kentish countryside. He took small comfort from the rustling newspapers of his fellow passengers; the vanilla aroma of pipe-smoke.

  ‘End of the line. All change please.’

  The rhythmic clunk of the tracks slowed along with Jim’s heartbeat, becoming steadier, sidings and train sheds rolling into view. Jim took a deep breath, burying the memory of the dream deep. The mission had revived old memories. He knew he could not let the ghosts of the past best him.

  * * *

  Wednesday, 4th October 1893

  NR. FAVERSHAM, KENT

  It was almost two o’clock when Jim finally came upon Bluebell Cottage. It had proved remarkably hard to find, being situated some way from the beaten track. At least the walk had not been unpleasant. He had trodden the narrow lanes that wound between patchwork fields and wild meadow, over which plumes of smoke from the oast-houses carried the rich smell of drying hops. Jim had become lost in the quiet beauty of the Kentish environs quite willingly, little relishing the task ahead.

  He found himself now at the end of a broad path, looking towards the home of John Hardwick. The house itself, despite the name, was not a cottage at all, but a well-proportioned farmhouse, with a thatched roof, and rather too much ivy covering what might once have been a handsome north-facing prospect, now suffering neglect.

  Jim took a deep breath, and marched up the path. He rapped smartly on the door, and waited. On the lintel above him was a weatherworn stone shield, upon which a heraldic dragon stared down at him, unwelcoming. Jim rapped again. There was no answer, and no sound of any kind from within. He tried the door, but it was locked.

  Jim had come too far to give up easily. Instead, he took the cart-track at the side of the house, tutting as he picked his way through long grass, trouser-legs snagging upon stray brambles. A small stable and a row of sheds greeted him at the end of the track, and a gate leading to the back of the house, where at last he heard some sounds of occupation; the splintering of logs beneath an axe.

  Jim stepped through the gate, and followed a narrow path. Beyond, a leaf-covered lawn sloped gently upwards towards a sundered brick wall – little more than piles of rubble – which marked the boundary to fields and forest beyond. Was this the fabled gate through which his doppelganger had once emerged? Jim remembered that much from those days when he and John Hardwick had been more companionable. He paused, morbidly picturing his own double lying dead upon that lawn, at John’s hands.

  Chop!

  Jim shook these foolish thoughts away, and continued through the garden, past a tumbledown woodshed. There, at last, was John Hardwick, bringing an axe down upon a great log, splitting it expertly in a single blow.

  Chop!

  Hardwick toiled in shirtsleeves, the muscles of his scarred arms like knotted cords. His face looked gaunt, older than Jim remembered from only a year past. He was bearded, and his left side was turned to Jim, revealing the unmistakeable eyepatch, doubtless masking Jim’s approach. Hardwick placed another log upon his chopping block. Jim paused, wondering how best to reveal his presence.

  A low growl sounded behind him. Jim jumped, turning to see a black, wolf-like dog, with a pointed muzzle and keen eyes. It hunkered low, baring large white teeth.

  ‘Did you forget your manners, Denny?’ Hardwick said. ‘No need to stand there like some kind of ghost.’ He brought his axe down once more.

  Chop!

  Hardwick left the axe embedded deep in the block and wiped his brow. Only then did he approach, fixing Jim with his one good eye.

  ‘You are here on club business, I take it?’ Hardwick asked.

  Jim glanced to the dog, and cleared his throat. ‘Yes.’

  Hardwick whistled, and the dog ceased its growling. Its posture relaxed, from attack dog to faithful pet
, and it trotted to its master with a wag of its tail. Hardwick patted the dog on the head, and said, almost in a growl himself, ‘Then you’d best come inside.’

  * * *

  Jim sat in silence as Hardwick lit the fire in the dingy sitting-room. He politely refused the offer of brandy, but accepted a glass of water. Hardwick poured himself a brandy, and sat in the armchair opposite Jim. The dog lay down in the corner, licking at a bone.

  ‘Funny,’ Hardwick said. ‘The last time I saw you in my yard, you tried to kill me.’

  ‘I thought about that very thing as I passed by the garden. The wall at the top of the hill there… was that…?’

  Hardwick nodded. ‘I hear you have become quite the agent since I last saw you, Captain Denny,’ he said. ‘Your record is exemplary.’

  ‘I do my part.’ Jim wondered how Hardwick had heard anything about him at all, living out here.

  ‘And you do it well. Britain needs men like you. The world needs you. These Othersiders… they eat away at society, and plot its destruction from within. They are a disease, Captain Denny. You, I suppose, are the cure. It is a heavy burden, is it not?’

  ‘It is.’

  Another silence fell. The fire spat, something pinging against the iron guard.

  ‘Have you heard from Mrs Whitinger of late?’ Hardwick asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, she sends her regards,’ Jim answered a little too quickly, glad of a chance to overcome the awkwardness. ‘In fact, I’m staying at the boarding house now. Right above your old rooms.’

  ‘Why so?’

  Jim struggled to ignore Hardwick’s brusqueness. ‘As you know, after I left the army, well, in a manner of speaking, you know… let’s just say my father did not approve.’

  ‘I trust you bring no trouble to Mrs Whitinger’s door,’ Hardwick said, too fiercely. ‘Or disrepute.’

  Jim girded himself. He would simply have to come straight down to business, for it seemed that chit-chat was now beyond both of them.

  ‘I received the note from Sir Toby,’ Hardwick said at last, saving Jim the trouble. ‘Regarding Bertrand. Said you were the one who found him?’

  ‘I did,’ Jim said, somewhat relieved to be down to business, despite the uncomfortable subject. ‘Although, not “found” exactly… more like “witnessed”. And there is more, I am afraid. Much more.’

  ‘Another?’

  ‘Sergeant Whittock.’

  At that, Hardwick’s expression darkened. He drained his brandy in one swig, and stood abruptly. Turning away, he placed his hands on the mantelpiece, head bowed, shoulders hunched. ‘How?’

  ‘I’m sorry, old boy.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  Jim paused; there was no easy way to say that a man John had great affection for had been brutally murdered; decapitated. ‘We… we don’t know the exact cause of death. I’m afraid we do not have the whole… that is to say, the body has not been recovered.’

  ‘I must hear everything – every detail.’ Hardwick stalked to the sideboard where his decanter sat, poured another, larger brandy, and returned to his seat. ‘Spare me nothing.’

  Jim nodded. He began with his mission aboard the Glarus, the hideous creatures he’d fought in the hold, the deaths of the policemen under his command, and Bertrand’s murder. He related the search of the docks, and of the old Fulham Road hospital; of the horde of ghouls, the Chinese tong, the mysterious woman who had taunted them. Hardwick’s brow furrowed at mention of the paintings. When Jim told him of the gruesome find in the cardboard box, the knuckles of Hardwick’s clenched fist whitened.

  ‘This American – Miss Furnival,’ Hardwick said, when at last Jim had finished his tale. ‘She sounds a singular sort.’

  ‘Indeed she is.’ There was only one thing Jim had not revealed during his narrative, and that was the nature of Marie Furnival. Until he had himself been convinced of her innocence or guilt, it seemed ungentlemanly to prejudice Hardwick. But it seemed that Hardwick suspected already.

  ‘How did she come to be an expert on these “ghouls”?’

  Jim decided to take no chances. ‘Some experience abroad, I shouldn’t wonder. London is not peculiar in its contact with the Othersiders. At any rate, she is a rare thing indeed. She fights as well as any man I know. A fine shot, too.’

  ‘Sounds as though I might like her,’ Hardwick said, though mirthlessly. ‘Very well, I have the facts. I understand there is a risk to my person. So why not tell me exactly why you are here, Captain Denny.’

  ‘Still “Captain Denny” is it? Look, old boy…’ Jim paused.

  Hardwick stared into his glass a little ruefully. ‘We are different people now, you and I.’

  ‘Only because you chose this path. You could have stayed.’

  ‘I did stay. Long enough to become a killer, a mercenary, a spy. I did my duty and more besides. And in my darkest hours, when I most needed a friend, I do not recall seeing you overmuch.’

  Jim felt anger – old resentments – rise within his breast. He had not been prepared for any reprimand, much less an argument. ‘You recall the reason for my absence, I suppose?’

  ‘I do. Jane was a fine woman. I mourned your loss.’

  The words came like a slap to the face. Jane Pennyforth had taken ill with fever just months before their wedding day. Jim had been a somewhat inconstant fiancé throughout their brief courtship, barely noticing the severity of Jane’s illness until it was far too late.

  ‘You know as well as I that she was not the reason. The cause, perhaps, but not the reason.’

  ‘I know. I confided in you my greatest shame, because I thought perhaps our loss would unite us. Instead you chose to stand in judgment over me. Me!’

  ‘Our loss was not the same,’ Jim snapped. ‘You surrendered the love of your life to the Crown. Mine was taken from me.’

  ‘The love of your life? You didn’t know what you had until it slipped through your fingers. That girl was not cold in her grave when I dragged you from a molly-house with the police at the door.’

  That stung. Jim’s many transgressions had been born of shame – a shame he still felt. He had not, at first, loved Jane, as he had once confided in John Hardwick – and only in John – but she had been a fine woman, beautiful, clever, and rich. A smart match, so everyone said. Only after she died had Jim realised the extent of his feelings for the girl. He never thought of her now without wondering if she truly had been the love of his life; without wondering what might have been.

  ‘And I seem to recall likewise dragging you from every opium den in the East End after the Battle of the Thames.’ The words sounded petty even as Jim spoke them.

  ‘I overcame my addiction.’

  ‘Addiction?’ Jim shook with indignation.

  ‘Did I ever judge you for yours?’

  ‘It rather seems you did.’ Jim’s throat was tight with anger. The words stuck there.

  ‘Good Christ, Denny. Even now… You know what Rosanna meant to me, you must know it. Do you think you could judge me more harshly than I judge myself? Let me tell you of that day. I was so convinced of the rightness of it. My own father had betrayed his country – the world – for the love of his daughter. Or, rather, the pale shadow of his daughter. Sir Toby’s implication was clear – like father, like son. Perhaps I would be willing to betray the Order for the sake of Rosanna. I had a duty to prove myself.’

  ‘It is always “duty” with you. Duty and honour; how comforting that must have been for you, knowing that the woman you loved had been made fugitive by your actions.’ At last, Jim gave voice to the crux of the matter; the real reason he had allowed his friendship with Hardwick to sour. Jim had never felt such grief as when Jane Pennyforth had passed, so close on the heels of another tragedy in his life. He wondered, every day, if things would have been different had he been there for her, had he kept his appointments. He had sunk into the depths of despair, from his grief and guilt, and in that despair Jim came to realise the extent of John Hardwick’s betrayal of th
e gypsy woman, Rosanna. The magnitude of it. And he had increasingly come to find that betrayal unforgiveable.

  The dog, which had lain quietly in the corner so far, let out a low, rumbling growl. Hardwick’s face purpled. For a moment, Jim feared Hardwick might strike him, and that his mission must end in failure. But his former friend turned away.

  ‘It was no comfort at all,’ Hardwick said, quietly. ‘How many fugitives have you brought to justice, Denny? How many of these “Majestics” have you captured, or even killed? You have seen only a fraction of what they can do. Rosanna and her sisters, with no machinery, no Lazarus Gate, no etherium… they tore the veil. I saw the evil of the Othersiders; the way they enslaved their own people, their psychics – and what they would surely do to us. And I saw, too, the demons – the Riftborn – ravening at the edge of sanity. I believed I was saving not just our world, but Rosanna also, for only in the care of the Order could she be protected from those… things.’

  Jim had never heard Hardwick be so forthcoming. Perhaps the isolation had changed him. Perhaps Jim’s presence had merely disturbed those memories that had been allowed to lurk too long beneath the surface.

  ‘You speak as though something has changed your mind,’ Jim said. ‘About the rightness of it all, I mean.’

  ‘When I saw what Sir Arthur had planned… I knew what I had done. I knew then that we were little better than the Othersiders.’

  ‘The Nightwatch. So you know?’ Jim asked.

  John nodded. ‘I would have taken Elsbet out of there, had I anywhere to take her where she would not be found. And so I abandoned her. I lost myself to bitterness; to rage. I used that rage to exact my revenge upon the Artist, but even that victory, it seems, was fleeting. I am lost, Denny, just as surely as if I’d been stranded on the Otherside. In truth, I wish I’d stayed there, and watched the world burn.’

  ‘And now? What do you believe now?’