The Apollonian Case Files

by Mark A. Latham

  John glanced over his shoulder. The doors were still shut. He looked about the room. Tesla had disobeyed him and slunk off behind a row of tables, and now peered over at John and this new foe. At least he was keeping quiet. There was no one else in the room.

  John sighed heavily, shoulders sagging, feigning only a fraction more exhaustion and resignation than his weary bones felt.

  And then he struck, adder-swift, the dagger an extension of his arm, whipping towards the Chinaman’s face. And yet if John was a snake, Xiang was a mongoose. The man moved barely an inch, but it was enough to see John fly past him, the dagger missing its mark. John’s insides bunched up as a knee drove into his ribs. He spun, delivering a backhand slash with his own knife. Xiang swiped it away with a palm, barely showing concern for the cut he received, but he had clearly not expected the strike. John twisted to face his opponent; he had learned the formal fighting styles of the east – he had practised them further since encountering Tsun Pen’s men at the Isle of Dogs three years past. He knew never to turn one’s back on a skilled opponent.

  It hardly mattered. John had never fought anyone so fast, and now found himself slashing wildly, the celestial ducking low, then punching. Fast hands, striking five times in combination, shaking John’s ribs. A roundhouse punch to the head, and John was turned about, spitting blood. He dropped his knives involuntarily, staggered backwards towards the doors. Xiang grinned wickedly, and ran at John. The man took flight, both feet connecting with John’s chest, and the world collapsed around John’s ears.

  John crashed through the door, flailing backwards, struggling to keep his feet. He was dimly aware of men all around him, of flickering amber lights, of strange phenomena crackling in the air. The celestial marched towards him. John already knew he had failed in his mission – he was uncovered, whatever hopeful plan he had was dashed. If he were to achieve anything now, it would be to kill this accursed celestial, and take as many of the man’s allies with him as he could.

  The celestial aimed a kick at John’s head. John knocked it aside, and lunged at his foe. Daggers of pain coursed through him as Xiang grabbed his shoulder, hard fingers digging into torn flesh. John grunted, but did not cry out. He would not give his enemy the satisfaction. Instead, he let the pain wash over him, going limp, stumbling. The celestial yanked back John’s head.

  For a moment, the room spun into focus. Faces leered at him, lit by pulsating waves of light. Voices urged the Chinaman to kill him. A great, circular portal flashed, striving to become a solid wall of energy, like a baby struggling to take a first breath; to live.

  John lifted his head to face his foe. The celestial had drawn back his arm, hand held palm outwards, ready to deliver the killing blow. He afforded himself a smile at John’s expense.

  Movement behind the celestial. A metallic ringing. Xiang staggered sideways, and Tesla was there, metal pipe in his hands, looking terribly apologetic. The onlookers went quiet, but were caught flat-footed. John reacted quickest, relieving Tesla of the pipe and shoving the Serbian out of the room. With throbbing head and aching limbs he turned on Xiang again, single-minded, blanking out everything else around him. The celestial lunged at him, but John struck first. The pipe connected hard with Xiang’s shoulder. Xiang stumbled sideways, but still managed to flash a kick to John’s ankle, trying to trip him. John was ready for that; he sidestepped, pressed forward, before raising a knee hard into Xiang’s crotch. John had long learned how to fight in the Chinese style. But he’d also been a soldier, and a prisoner, fighting in the pits of Burma for the amusement of his gaolers. He had not won many of those fights by sticking to the martial code.

  He saw the shock and pain in the celestial’s eyes. John followed with a head-butt to the bridge of the man’s nose, a stiff jab of the pipe to the stomach, a spinning heel-kick to the temple. The celestial went down.

  Someone grabbed John by the left arm. Again, his shoulder burned, and it awoke in John a bloodlust he had long thought buried. He spun, shifting his assailant’s grip into an arm-lock, throwing him to the ground. The man had a pistol in his other hand. John dropped the pipe and took the gun, swinging the man upwards as a human shield, squeezing off two rounds into an advancing figure he could barely see clearly for the sweat, tears and blood in his one eye. He staggered backwards from the room, the man in his grip shouting obscenities in Russian. John almost fell backwards over Xiang, who even now had managed to right himself. The celestial stood, a gaping wound in his head. He tried to adopt a fighting stance.

  For a moment their eyes met. John admired his tenacity. But this was the man who had hanged his most trusted lieutenant. He deserved no honourable death. John raised the pistol and shot the man in the forehead. A promise was a promise.

  And now John’s vision cleared, and his mind also. Who had he been fooling, to deny his nature? This was what he was; this was John Hardwick.

  The Russian shouted again, and John twisted the man’s arm so tight the wrist almost broke. The man screamed in pain. Soldiers were approaching slowly, cautiously, rifles readied, dark silhouettes before the large gate that nigh filled the room – an irregular circle of steel, brass and copper panels, entangled in wires and cables. Yellow light ebbed and flowed from its boundary, sometimes haphazardly, sometimes rhythmically. Something dark scratched at John’s mind – something lurking behind the stuttering gateway, ravening for ingress, waiting impatiently for the energy to coalesce and the gate to become stable. John felt Tesla’s breath at his back, the scientist cowering behind him. The plan, such as it was, was in tatters.

  The Russians took aim. John pointed his pistol first at the head of his hostage and then, when the others did not slow their approach, he aimed at the closest soldier instead. This was it; he would go out fighting.

  And then he stopped. Everything, the very world, seemed to stop. The soldiers had parted. A figure came from their ranks, walking slowly, assuredly towards him; a woman, beautiful and dusky, framed in the light of the gate. At first, for a fleeting moment, John thought it was Elsbet – if not the ghost, then the real girl, the Otherside double, returned to London after all. And then with growing agony, with horror, with elation, and everything in between, he knew who it was who now approached him. The strength drained from his body, the fight left him. He could do nothing in the face of his greatest triumph, his greatest defeat, his greatest regret.

  Rosanna stood only three feet away from him, swathed in a long flowing dress of yellow. She stared at him with such antipathy that John’s heart broke all over again.

  He let the Russian go. The man stumbled away, and turned angrily, only to shrink back at a wave of Rosanna’s hand.

  John had suspected. He had known. But he had not been able to admit it until he had seen the truth of it with his own eyes. Rosanna was the Artist.

  ‘You have returned to me at last, John Hardwick,’ she said, her voice stronger than ever, full of steel and ice. ‘I never doubted that you would, despite the obstacles in your path. It was foreseen.’

  John tried to speak, to move, but no words would come from his lips, and his feet remained rooted resolutely to the floor. The soldiers stepped past Rosanna, and even as one of them raised a rifle-butt ready to strike, John could do nothing. He watched the weapon fall upon him as though the world had stopped turning and time itself had slowed. He felt some small relief as blackness descended.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Jim led the way down aged stairs, into cellars that were surely far older than the dock facility. Low, vaulted ceilings made the dark warren all the more claustrophobic. Rough-hewn stone and slippery brickwork brought the smell of damp to Jim’s nose. This area was well below the level of the Thames, little more than an overlarge damp-cellar, used for some secret purpose.

  They filed through a narrow corridor, and into another large room, like a hospital ward, though in conditions surely unsanitary. Jim noted that this area must lie directly beneath the Nightwatch ward – the one he knew about, at least. He noted also
that the doors should have been locked and barred, but were instead wide open.

  Jim tried to ignore the gasps of his men as flickering electric lights illuminated perhaps twenty unfortunate souls, strapped to metal gurneys that flanked the room, sited between thick pillars. Jim advanced down the aisle, disgusted by what he saw and heard, what he could smell. Low groans, from poor creatures so weak they could barely cry out. Eyes stared at the ceiling from sunken sockets. Susurrating machinery and hissing bellows assisted the subjects’ breathing. Etherium dripped into their veins through long tubes. Worse still, several subjects were attached to large pieces of machinery coiled about with wires, which trailed to wicked-looking coronets embedded in the skulls of the unfortunate Majestics. Jim was certain that not all of the subjects were alive.

  ‘My God,’ one man said. ‘That smell…’

  Jim glared at Amworth, who had limped along with the group, too frightened to be left alone upstairs. ‘You leave them like this?’

  ‘They know no better,’ the man said. ‘In their etherium-addled state, they are inured to their body’s discomfort. It is a mercy.’

  ‘A mercy!’ Miss Furnival snapped. ‘Look at them!’ Amworth instead looked at the floor. Miss Furnival grabbed him by the chin and turned his head to a gurney, upon which lay a callow youth, with a bruised and sunken face, most surely dead, stinking like a latrine. ‘I said look!’ she said.

  Jim pulled her away, for Amworth looked in a terrible way himself.

  ‘The machines that keep them alive… they are powered by electricity,’ the man said, in a small, childlike voice. ‘The attack shorted the circuits. We could not have known. They would have felt nothing. Nothing at all.’

  Jim looked away in disgust, and put an arm around Marie to stop her from striking the fellow.

  ‘Mr Amworth,’ Jim said. ‘Where does that lead?’ He pointed to a large set of double doors at the far end of the room.

  ‘Back to the wards,’ Amworth said, sullenly.

  ‘We can reach the sluice-gate from there,’ Jim said. ‘And these side-rooms?’ The dingy, irregular chamber was punctuated by heavy, iron-shod doors on either side.

  ‘Stores mainly. Most are out of bounds to us.’ He gave Jim a grave look. ‘We do not ask.’

  ‘Our own people have done this,’ Miss Furnival hissed at Jim, ignoring Amworth now. ‘Did you suspect?’

  Jim shook his head.

  ‘You provided these subjects,’ she seethed. ‘You and the colonel.’

  ‘Not willingly. I did my duty, as did John, but not for this. Never for this.’

  ‘Captain Denny… James… if these experiments are successful, the Order will be able to open gates, just like the Othersiders. And you know the danger that poses. They think they’re advancing science. They think they can find riches beyond imagining, and technology, and maybe capture some Majestics and Intuitionists. But you know what else may come through those portals. You’ve seen it.’

  Jim cringed at the thought, for he knew all too well. He saw it in his nightmares each time he slept. He snapped from his reverie at once, abruptly aware that the men were listening to every word, with revulsion and confusion both. He was about to suggest that he and Marie go on alone, when he heard a noise up ahead, prompting the men to raise their weapons in readiness.

  A figure hurried across the far end of the room towards the main exit. Jim caught a glimpse of a white coat and silver hair.

  ‘Who goes there?’ Jim shouted. ‘Answer me, or we’ll shoot.’

  ‘No, don’t shoot!’ came a frightened voice. A man stepped forward into the light, fearful, hands raised. ‘Captain Denny… is that you? Oh, thank God! It is I, Dr Crookes.’

  ‘Doctor, what the devil are you doing down here?’

  ‘I’m in charge, for my sins. I was overseeing some late deliveries when we came under attack.’

  ‘Dr William Crookes?’ Marie asked, as the old man came fully into the light.

  Crookes looked at her as though seeing her for the first time, and nodded warily.

  Marie whispered into Jim’s ear. ‘On the Otherside, this man’s double discovered etherium. This cannot be coincidence.’

  ‘You!’ Crookes said, coming nearer, squinting. ‘Sir Arthur’s niece.’

  ‘The same,’ Miss Furnival replied.

  ‘Dr Crookes,’ Jim said, ‘I am happy to have found you. We are on our way to the sluice-gate, and all survivors of the attack are to come with us.’

  ‘I am grateful, Captain,’ the old man said. ‘We should make haste.’

  ‘Wait.’ Marie looked deeply suspicious. ‘You look in good shape, Dr Crookes, considering all your men are dead.’

  ‘I managed to lock myself in the office when I heard the commotion.’

  ‘Really? That office over there?’ Marie marched over to the far corner of the room, from where Crookes had emerged. Jim was taken aback, but as soon as he saw Crookes’ nervous manner, the way the man hurried after the American in protest, Jim knew she was on to something. He followed at once, waving his men with him.

  ‘This door is locked, Doctor,’ Marie said. ‘How conscientious of you. Care to open up, and let us see what’s inside?’

  ‘That is quite out of the question. This facility contains research of the utmost secrecy, and you are not even an agent.’

  ‘But I am,’ Jim said. ‘Open the door, please, Doctor.’

  ‘I will not.’ He glared at Amworth, who limped along, holding on to a constable as though for dear life. ‘Amworth, you simpering idiot. Why have you brought these men down here?’

  ‘Because I ordered him to, sir,’ Jim intervened. ‘Because Lord Cherleten has vested the authority of this installation in me.’

  ‘In my absence, Captain. But now I am here, and you are relieved of such weighty responsibility. Despite this chaos, there is still a hierarchy within the Order, is there not?’

  ‘There is.’

  ‘Then follow it! Perhaps it is time you stopped listening to this woman and did your duty!’

  That gave Jim pause. Something felt wrong, but then, the most secret installation in the Order was under attack by a psychic, foreign agents, and vampires. Perhaps, Jim thought, it was time to follow orders. Perhaps Crookes was right.

  ‘Damn you men and your duty,’ Marie snapped, pulling Jim out of his thoughts. ‘Look where duty got Hardwick. Look where it’s got you. Do you think these half-dead nobodies here will thank you for doing your duty? You think this coward here –’ she waved a hand at Crookes, who gasped at the affront, ‘– gives a damn for your duty, beyond you bringin’ him grist for his mill? It’s your damned duty that got us in this mess, Captain Denny. When’re you going to stop doing what you’re told, and think about doin’ what’s right instead?’

  Jim knew he was about to attract a world of trouble; he could feel it in his marrow. He worked his stiff hand, making a fist, untangling the aches as he untangled his thoughts. Finally, he set his jaw and turned to Crookes. ‘There is still a hierarchy within the Order, Dr Crookes. You are quite correct. But your role within the Order has ever been kept secret. As such, I do not know you; I do not know your rank; and I have the keys.’

  Jim cycled through the bunch, trying each one in the door, doing his best not to smile at Crookes’ growing protests. When at last he found a key that fitted the lock, he swung open the door, surprised to see that it was two inches thick, heavily reinforced. Beyond it, a passage sloped downwards, floor slick with green-brown ooze. A smell like rancid meat drifted upwards from the darkness.

  ‘Hid in your office, you said?’ Jim asked. ‘Strange-looking office. Perhaps Cherleten doesn’t like you very much.’

  ‘Captain Denny, I warn you,’ Crookes said. ‘Do not go down there if you value your position within this order.’

  ‘That’s the thing about spies,’ Jim said. ‘You never can tell when they’re telling the truth, or when they’re bluffing. Makes them damned good at cards. That’s why I don’t game at the Apolloni
an. Miss Furnival, shall we?’

  Marie smiled deviously. ‘Oh, Captain Denny, you know how to treat a girl.’

  * * *

  We are one.

  John opened his eyes – did he have two eyes now? – and looked about at the faces all around him. Five sisters clad in yellow save for one, all dark of eye and hair, faces still as though carved from rock. The odd one out, the girl in white, stood slowly, and as she did the other four faded away into shadow. The girl’s eyes were closed. She did John a mercy, for he did not wish to see those eyes again. She turned away and pointed.

  Footsteps echoed in the darkness. Someone drew near. A man. He came into view, tufts of grey hair beneath a black hat. Face stern and eyes cold.

  ‘It seems as though you have been blessed with the nine lives of a cat.’ John recognized the voice, and the words. The first words his father had spoken to him that fateful day, when he had returned from the grave to shoot his own son and leave John for dead.

  ‘No…’ It was all John could say.

  ‘You have been on a journey which is given to so few men to make.’

  John felt powerless. He could not move. His father’s words filled him with fear, as though he might be killed once more at the hands of Lazarus. But they were just words. This was not real. How could it be?

  ‘Can you understand what it is to lose everything dear to you, for nothing?’ Marcus Hardwick asked. Echoes; just echoes of words spoken in anger, long ago.

  ‘You are not real!’ John cried.

  Before his eyes, Marcus Hardwick was transformed, shadows shifting, face melting and forming features anew, until Sir Toby Fitzwilliam stood before him. Then came the shot, ringing out, and the old man convulsed. He spat blood.

  ‘We do what we must for the good of the Empire…’ he gasped. He fell.

  John tried to stand, but could not. His feet were as lead, his hands clasped to something – the arms of a chair perhaps, as though he were manacled, but shadows clung to him and he could not see. But he sensed something in the dark, from the black outline of Sir Toby’s crumpled body, a pool of something oily and wet spread across an indiscernible floor. John knew it rather than saw it. Some distant light reflected from it, the growing pool of blood, forming a shape.