The Apollonian Case Files

by Mark A. Latham

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Jim put a handkerchief to his mouth. There was a vile smell from the cellar, somewhere between a sewer and an abattoir. Crookes chuntered the whole way; Jim ignored him.

  Only two of the men had accompanied Marie, Jim and Crookes this far – Poynton and Sykes, two capable-looking Special Branch constables. Jim suspected that they might find something ‘top secret’ in the sub-cellar, and as such he needed only men who could keep their mouths shut – William Melville was their chief, and so discretion was guaranteed. The remaining eight stayed back, under Carruthers’ command, keeping an eye on Amworth and maintaining a rear-guard. Carruthers seemed happy with being left in charge, and it kept the man out of Jim’s hair for the time being.

  Jim knew he was delaying his mission unforgivably. For as much as he was curious about Crookes’ motives, in truth he was allowing himself to be led by the wilfully rebellious Miss Furnival. He knew this, and let it happen regardless, for John. By delaying his mission, he could buy more time for Colonel Hardwick, and for all he knew it was wrong, he felt it was the least he could do.

  They came to an iron-barred gate, like a cell door, which no key of Jim’s would unlock.

  ‘Open it, Dr Crookes,’ Jim said.

  The old man shook his head, huffing in his aristocratic way, as though never in his life had he been spoken to so insolently.

  ‘Do it, sir, or you will be forced to.’

  ‘I do not have a key. These are Lord Cherleten’s private stores. I hid here, in this corridor, and was unable to go further.’

  Jim shook his head. ‘You may work in service of the Order, Dr Crookes, but you are a man of science, not subterfuge. You’re a bad liar.’

  Jim patted the man down, and Crookes uttered oaths and curses at the indignity. Finally, he found what he was looking for – a key ring. He was about to pluck it from its chain when Crookes snatched them back angrily.

  ‘Very well, Captain, I shall do it. But this is your last warning – what you might find in these rooms is not for your eyes, and will guarantee a court martial.’

  Jim nodded towards the gate, and with a sigh Crookes complied, unlocked it, and swung it open.

  Jim shone a lantern inside, seeing little more than piles of crates in a dank, low-ceilinged room, with a few doors leading off. He nudged Crookes inside, and bade the others follow.

  A pile of perhaps twelve crates lay to the left side of the room. Jim noted Chinese characters on the nearest, but saw that all were nailed shut. He had neither the tools nor the time to open them, and could already guess at their contents. Marie’s expression showed that she followed his thinking.

  ‘What’s in here?’ Jim asked, indicating the nearest door.

  ‘Just an office,’ Crookes said. ‘Lord Cherleten’s office.’

  ‘He has two offices?’

  ‘This one is not the most comfortable, but it is the most secure. Do not go in there, boy, or he’ll have your head.’

  ‘Boy?’ Jim raised an eyebrow. ‘Dr Crookes, you really know how to pique a chap’s curiosity. Key?’

  ‘I really do not have it. This is Lord Cherleten’s office, as I said. Only he has the key.’

  Jim considered this. He didn’t know what he expected to find. All he knew was that Crookes had lied repeatedly, that there was like to be some kind of informant within the Order, and that John even now was probably in dire straits. He really should leave this be and set about his mission. But then, what if Crookes was the traitor? If Jim was forced to destroy the facility, any evidence would be lost also. Jim would never have another opportunity to uncover the truth.

  There was a deafening roar in the confined chamber as Marie fired her six-gun, punching a hole in the door’s lock. She kicked it open. ‘Time for talking is done,’ she snapped.

  The constables stepped away. An unpredictable, gun-toting American woman was clearly beyond their expertise.

  ‘Subtle as ever,’ Jim said.

  ‘You want to know what’s in there, and we don’t have much time. I don’t trust this man as far as I can spit, so let’s look around and get out of here.’

  Jim agreed wholeheartedly, and stepped into the office.

  It appeared as though Crookes was telling the truth. Jim’s lantern at once shone upon a desk opposite the door, exactly like the one in Cherleten’s office upstairs, down to the fastidious arrangement of his cigar box and decanters. Above it, however, in a gilt frame, was a large oil painting. Jim knew the hand of the piece at once, though it took him a moment for the significance to sink in. It was incredibly similar to one that he had seen recently, in the hospital theatre on Fulham Road. He had never seen this particular painting before, but he had heard it described, by John, a few years prior.

  He stepped closer. The painting depicted the aftermath of a battle between monsters: a dragon and a gigantic spider, in the shadow of some crumbling Gothic manse. The spider was slain, sliced open by the dragon’s claws. From the great rent in its abdomen, thousands of its tiny progeny swarmed towards the figure of a woman caught in a tangle of webs. She was dark of features, wearing a yellow dress. The paint around her had been smudged, as though by clumsy fingers. Jim frowned; he felt this was significant, though he could not place how.

  ‘Jim…’ Marie said.

  He turned around. Marie was looking at more canvases, most under sheets. Jim had been so engrossed in the one on the wall he had been oblivious to all else. Now he pulled a cloth away, revealing dozens upon dozens of paintings, of all shapes and sizes, stood neatly in rows. And the one nearest Jim now came into stark focus. He trembled, anger building inside him. The painting was small, a cityscape, London in flames. St Paul’s ruined, demons in the streets, madness and death. He had seen it before, this exact painting. He picked it up, hands shaking. He threw it aside. There behind it was another familiar piece: Paris. Behind that, Moscow.

  Jim spun on his heels and marched from the room. He hoisted Crookes from his feet, pushing him against the crates. The two constables made a half-hearted show of pulling Jim away.

  ‘Where did those paintings come from? When?’ Jim spat. He remembered Constable Dakin, nervously poking around that dark hospital. He remembered keeping the frightened lad alive, only for him to be killed senselessly later, for those same paintings.

  ‘Paintings?’ Crookes wheezed. ‘I have no idea what –’

  ‘Do not lie to me! Good men died for them. Innocent men! You will tell me –’

  Jim stopped as a low cry, like some tortured soul, echoed from the furthest door. He dropped the doctor, who spluttered and dusted himself down, muttering unconvincing threats.

  Marie was already at the door. ‘There’s someone in there. More Nightwatch?’

  ‘Down here?’ Jim asked, although he doubted nothing now.

  The heavy iron door was not locked, but barred. Marie lifted the bar and drew back a pair of latches. Without pause, she entered the room. Jim shoved Crookes aside, and followed Marie, bringing up light quickly. Poynton and Sykes came after, Crookes swept along with them.

  The stench was unbearable. Bile rose in Jim’s throat.

  It was a dark, unsanitary room. Butcher’s blocks sat alongside workbenches and desks, which looked singularly out of place. Meat-hooks hung from the walls. Chemical apparatus and distillation tubes bubbled and dripped. Strange electrical devices lay on one bench, inert, but surely of Tesla design. The walls were lined with reinforced cell doors. In what looked like a medieval crow’s cage, the body of a dead ghoul rotted. Parts of it were cut away like so much meat. Its neck was branded with a number: 72.

  ‘What is this?’ Jim asked, though the words came like a croak. Just speaking made him want to be sick.

  Marie, by contrast, walked slowly past the benches and desks, taking in every bottle and tube, every instrument, until finally she reached a rack of phials and notebooks.

  ‘You should not be in here. Go now, and perhaps we can forget this…’ Crookes managed.

  Mari
e was flipping the pages of a notebook, her face darkening like thunder.

  ‘This is wampyr blood,’ she said, with quiet rage.

  ‘What? Why would they drain these creatures of blood?’ Jim asked. ‘What kind of study are they –’

  ‘No, James, you misunderstand. This is taken from what they call Purebloods. It is what de Montfort collected from the Otherside. We believe it is what he used to create more of his kind from living humans.’

  ‘The Iscariot Sanction?’ Jim asked, agog.

  Marie nodded. ‘It seems as though the Order is trying to replicate de Montfort’s experiments,’ she said. ‘Crookes, what are you –’

  She stopped. Crookes had moved, quietly, unnoticed in the shadows. He now stood beside a cell door, a strange device in his hand, a rod coiled about with copper and brass. The device sparked blue. His other hand was on the door-bolt.

  ‘Put it down,’ Jim said.

  ‘This… this scientific endeavour is for the good of all,’ Crookes said.

  ‘How do you figure that?’ Marie snarled.

  ‘I was warned about you – of your lack of ambition and vision. If your people had learned to control these things, you would never have had to fear the Riftborn. The ghouls are foot soldiers in a war against hell. They are our defence against the things that destroyed your world. And you would dare deny us.’

  ‘You think you can control them? You?’

  ‘After a fashion, perhaps. Our methods are crude, for now, but we will learn.’ He glanced to the racks of blood.

  ‘And the ones who escaped?’ Marie said, unable to hide the anger in her voice. ‘Oh… they were set free, weren’t they? To see what they’d do? You have no idea what you do here. No idea of the cost…’

  ‘Crookes,’ Jim said. ‘Put that thing down.’ Jim reached to his holster.

  Crookes glared at Jim and then at Marie. And then he swung open the door.

  Marie fired first. A bestial scream echoed around the chamber. Three ghouls scrambled from the cell, like racehorses from the traps. Jim darted back, shouting commands at the constables. Crookes threw open another door, and another. A ghoul darted at the doctor, who held up the strange rod, crackling bright with electricity; the ghoul shrieked and shrank away from him.

  Jim tried to intercept Crookes, but his path was barred at once. He shot a ghoul in the head, another barrelled into him. Jim ducked and lunged, trying desperately to avoid whipping claws. He saw Crookes race through the door. Poynton went after him. Sykes heaved a ghoul off Jim, but two more leapt onto the man’s back, biting and tearing until their own snarls were drowned out by Sykes’ screams.

  Blue lightning flashed. Jim found some breathing room, and flicked his pocket-pistol into his hand. Another ghoul died wreathed in energy, pale skin turning black. Marie was by Jim’s side. In the confusion she had picked up one of the same strange rods that Crookes had found. She squeezed the handle, and electricity arced across the upper parts of the rod. The ghouls cowered away from her, expecting pain, and Jim knew from their reaction that they had been conditioned thus. He got behind her as she directed them back. He found another rod, copied Marie to activate it, and joined her. The ghouls screeched and shielded their eyes, cowering timidly as the rods sparked. Together, Jim and Marie herded the creatures into a cell, and slammed the door fast, bolting it behind them.

  Jim could not bring himself to look at Sykes’ body. Instead, he snatched up the lantern, and ran out of the room, in the hope that Poynton had fared better than his comrade.

  Outside, he saw the constable nursing his arm, his jacket singed and smoking.

  ‘Bloody burned me!’ Poynton moaned.

  Jim raced to the iron-barred gate, rattling it ineffectually. Crookes had locked it, and fled.

  ‘Sykesy?’ Poynton said.

  Jim put a hand on the man’s shoulder, and shook his head. ‘Don’t go in there, lad, it’s not pretty.’

  Poynton slumped to the floor, forlorn.

  ‘Maybe Carruthers got Crookes,’ Marie said.

  ‘Let’s hope so. I suppose we’d better shout for help.’

  ‘No need,’ Marie said. She delved into her pockets, and withdrew a set of keys.

  ‘Where did you get those?’

  ‘Uncle Arthur.’

  ‘You really could have said before I threatened my superior…’

  ‘There’s nothing superior about that wretch,’ Marie said, keys jangling at the lock. ‘Besides, you looked like you were havin’ fun for once. Only thing is… if one of these fits, it’ll prove Uncle Arthur knew more than he was letting on. I… I kind of hope they don’t fit.’

  She tried several in the lock, and her shoulders sank when one of them clicked. She swung the gate open, sniffed, and left the room in silence. Jim helped Poynton up, and followed.

  * * *

  Wednesday, 30th December 1891

  SANDRINGHAM

  The prince’s hand trembled as he flicked his cigarette over the ashtray. He looked at Crookes with rheumy eyes, singularly out of place in a man approaching his twenty-eighth year.

  ‘So you see,’ the prince’s physician said, ‘we have explored every avenue. Though Lord Cherleten led us to believe that there was but one more course open to us.’

  ‘Indeed there is, Dr Roche,’ Crookes said. He beheld first Albert Victor, then Roche, and only briefly did his eyes flicker to the figure in the corner, enfolded in shadow. ‘The treatment, however, is of a most exotic and… powerful kind. If it works as we hope, its efficacy will be regarded in no small part as miraculous. If not… I am afraid it could be dangerous. Deadly, even.’

  ‘Given the alternative, Dr Crookes, I am sure you can understand why His Royal Highness is willing to take the risk. The prince’s ailments are of a most sensitive nature, and were they to become known, his betrothal to the Duchess of Teck, as joyous a surprise as it was to the Royal Household of course, would be thrown in some considerable doubt. This is grave indeed. His Royal Highness therefore requests –’

  ‘Enough!’ the prince snapped. He tried to punctuate his command by standing, but his legs buckled and he slumped back into his seat. A pained expression crossed his wan features; beads of perspiration formed on his brow. ‘This protocol is tiresome. As I am still, for the time being, amongst the living, I shall speak for myself.’

  Dr Roche bowed, and averted his eyes.

  Crookes saw now the impetuousness in the young prince – a reckless streak that had caused much gossip at court and beyond. It had led the prince to propose to the lovely Princess Mary despite being afflicted with various ailments – venereal and otherwise. He was prone to outbursts and impulsive acts. From the look of him, Crookes suspected the prince suffered the same haemophilia that had plagued his late uncle Leopold to the grave.

  ‘Your Highness,’ Crookes said. ‘I understand that Lord Cherleten explained to you a great deal about the process when last you spoke. I am here to explain to you the potential side-effects, should you truly choose this course of action.’

  ‘Side-effects be damned,’ the prince said, his voice rasping and weak. ‘Roche here has me on every pill imaginable. I have the damned gleet, Dr Crookes, and it persists for all of these treatments. There is something in my very blood. I sicken for everything. I am dying. What, then, have I to fear from your “Iscariot Sanction”?’

  ‘Your Highness, this treatment carries with it the risk of madness – to lose one’s own personality. We have yet to find a suitable subject for the final tests.’

  ‘You have found one, Dr Crookes. Am I not of royal blood? Am I not granted my status by God Himself? You will find none other as worthy to receive the gift of vitality. Of immortality.’

  ‘Immortality at a price, Your Highness. You will require… procedures, regularly, if you are to prosper in your position. If you are to lead a normal life. And there is the other condition.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I accept it gladly. Make me whole again, Crookes. Make me whole and I shall take command of Ch
erleten’s little army, be assured of it.’

  ‘Very well, Your Highness.’

  ‘We have conditions of our own.’ The figure at the back of the room stood now, and from the dark stepped the Queen, stern-faced and dressed as ever in her afflictions.

  ‘I… yes, of course, Your Majesty.’ Flustered at the sudden interjection, Crookes stood and bowed.

  ‘I have your guarantee that my grandson can sire children after the treatment is done?’

  ‘As much as these things may be guaranteed, then it is my understanding that male recipients of these… gifts… at least, are fertile still.’

  ‘And the child would be normal?’

  Crookes felt himself reddening, for in truth he was uncertain. And yet he recalled the stories he had heard of Lord Cherleten’s doppelganger on the Otherside. Normal? Perhaps not. But normal enough? Yes, that was a story he would be willing to sell. ‘The child would be… special, Your Majesty. Blessed, some might say.’

  Or cursed, would say others, he thought.

  The Queen seemed to consider this for a moment, then nodded. ‘And Princess Alexandra must never know,’ she said. ‘Never.’

  ‘I swear it, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Then you have your answer. Go now, and tell Lord Cherleten that we look forward to his next visit. If we are successful, his position in the eyes of the Crown is assured.’

  ‘I shall convey your message at once, Your Majesty.’

  Dr Crookes bowed low, and smiled.

  * * *

  Friday, 6th October 1893

  ‘We wasn’t to know,’ Carruthers protested. ‘He’s in charge, ain’t he? This fella said so.’ He pointed at Amworth.

  Jim sighed. ‘Which way did he go?’

  Carruthers pointed to the far doors, which led to the Nightwatch wards.

  ‘The sluice-gates, perhaps?’ Jim muttered. ‘But why?’

  ‘Tesla’s submarine?’ Marie asked. ‘Maybe that was always the plan. Perhaps he was to escape in the submarine, and leave this place to be destroyed.’