Then, recovering his senses, he reached for the next full vial and drew it forth, along with the sixth vial, containing the powder.
With one deft movement of his thumbs, he uncapped both vials. Inside the first—green, liquid and light—the solution ceased its movement. He tilted the second, angling the lip of it toward the first, tapping gently, mentally ticking off grains of the powder. The green liquid devoured it, changing color slightly, then regaining its normal appearance, almost as though the powder had been—digested. He recapped both vials, and returned the powder to its place in the wooden case.
To the right of the case, farther along the bench, sat an open carton. Silverman carefully laid the vial down beside the box and reached inside, drawing forth a small leather bag. It might have been easier to work had he unpacked his things, but there was something about the old laboratory, and the asylum walls surrounding it, that made even Silverman want to avoid deeper connection with the place than was absolutely necessary. The less he unpacked, the less he’d have to pack when his work was done.
Silverman opened the bag and pulled out a small kit. The kit contained a syringe, a bottle of alcohol, and a small pouch of glittering blades and tools. He grabbed the syringe, which sported a hideously long needle, picked up the vials once again, and turned toward the door.
At that precise moment, a low moan echoed through the corridors beyond that door, and Silverman froze. The sound was deep, rolling up from the stone bowels of the asylum and rising to a banshee wail that reverberated and echoed back onto itself, forming waves of sound without rhythm or reason. The sound was drenched in pain.
Silverman staggered, bringing one hand to his brow to brush away the sweat and nearly poking out his own eye with the syringe. He cried out, ducking away from this own hand, and cursed softly.
“Damn you,” he said softly. “It’s too soon. I should have hours.” He stared at the doorway, and the dark, shadowed hall beyond. “I should have hours,” he whispered.
The moans rose again, louder than before, and there was a deep metallic clang. He could almost believe the solid stone floor shook.
Under his breath, Aaron Silverman began to pray. He prayed in the ancient Hebrew the words he’d committed to memory, the charm his father had brought to him from the mind and faith of his grandfather and his grandfather’s father. He thought of the ancient, torn shred of canvas, soiled and worn, the spidery lettering etched into that cloth. With his eyes closed, he could see those letters burning brightly—as if they had a life of their own. He could sense the madness behind the verse, could almost see the wild, skewed eyes. He had heard them described so many times they seemed part of his own memory, and not that of his father’s father.
Silverman spoke slowly and very softly, trying not to blend his voice with that other—that horrible, hate-filled sound.
Entering the hall, he took a single deep breath, released some of the pressure he was putting on the vial before he crushed it in his hand, puncturing his skin. Fresh sweat broke out on his brow at the thought of that green, glowing slime slipping into his veins. He had a sudden image of the case in the laboratory behind him, the vials and the thick velvet. This led to further memories, journals, and stories—stories that would be impossible to believe—were the proof not waiting one floor down in a stone room barred with iron.
Silverman shook it off and stepped into the hallway, moving quickly and purposefully toward the sound. Nothing mattered but the vial in his hand, the syringe that would empty it, and the words. He had to speak the words, had to repeat them from memory, just as he’d learned them, or it would all be for nothing. The madness that echoed through the halls would become his own, and the money . . . all that money . . .
There were dim lights strung along the hall, leading down a wide stone stair, and into the shadows below. Silverman took the steps at a trot, ignoring the sounds, which had grown to a constant shriek of madness and a grinding rattle of metal. As he went, he grasped the syringe tightly and plunged it into the lid of the vial. His footsteps grew quicker, and the heaving of his breath threatened to steal the words from his lips, but he couldn’t wait any longer. It had to be now, and it had to be quick.
He hit the bottom step, stumbled, righted himself, and hurried down the hall. The sounds were close now, immediate and maddening. To his right, barred doorways loomed, cells that had lain empty for long years, their iron doors latched and rusted. He passed the first two cells without a glance, but as he came abreast of the third, he slowed, backing toward the center of the hall. Fingers gripped the bars of that third cell, long and sinewy—strong. The bars shook again.
Silverman took a step closer, raising the syringe like a dagger over his head. The words flowed from his lips, but he had no more control of them now than he did of the tremble in his wrist, or the rubbery sensation that threatened to deny him the use of his legs. He slipped toward the barred door, and suddenly a face slammed into it, too-wide eyes glaring at him, framed in wild, unkempt hair. The skin was sallow and pale, and the bars shook harder than they had before, threatening to tear loose from the stone of the walls.
With a cry, Silverman plunged the syringe down and slammed it into the flesh of one of the arms groping through the bars, fingers wide to seek his throat. He felt the needle bite and brought his free hand down on the plunger, jamming it home with a grunt and stepping back, leaving the needle deeply embedded in its target, watching in horror as the arm was jerked inward, catching the syringe on the bar and snapping it off near the center of the too-long needle. Green liquid glittered in the air, splashing the walls and floor in droplets that glowed and hissed. Silverman stepped back farther with a gasp. His heart slammed too quickly—too violently—in his chest, and he feared it would stop. He couldn’t get breath to slip past the knot in his throat, and only the intervention of the wall at his back prevented his toppling to the stone floor.
The screams tore through the air at inhuman volume. Silverman slapped his palms to his ears and closed his eyes. Nothing could have blocked that sound, but he muted it, and blessedly, within moments, the sounds began to fade. The screams receded slowly to wails, the wails to moans. Silverman’s eyes snapped open wide, and he pushed off the wall, moving toward the bars of the cell. His voice rose instantly, returning to his chant, bringing the ancient Hebrew to life through his voice, and trying to imagine that he was in control of the situation.
He stepped closer. The light was very dim, and the bony wrists and yellowed, skinny arms no longer groped between the bars. In fact, the cell’s occupant had retreated to the far wall and slid down to a sitting position on the floor, knees drawn up and head back.
Silverman spoke more clearly, enunciating carefully. There was no reaction within the darkened cell. No motion, no sound. Silverman grew calmer, gaining confidence, and he stepped to within an inch of the bars, staring down fixedly at the man cowering against the back wall. The final words of the chant tumbled from his lips, resonant and strong. For just an instant, as the hall fell silent, Michael Adcott raised his head, staring into the eyes of his captor. The captive man’s eyes blazed with something beyond insanity, beyond rage or pain.
But only for a second. Then those eyes were dead. Blank. Nothing more reflected in their dull black depths but the dim light of the torches in the hall. Silverman watched a moment longer, letting his breathing catch a normal rhythm and straightening his jacket, running one hand back through sweat-soaked hair.
Reaching into one pocket, Silverman retrieved a ring of keys and inserted a large iron skeleton key into the cell’s huge old lock.
“Come along, then,” he said, his voice cracking once, then steadying again. “Come along, Michael. We have work to do, and I’ve had enough nonsense for one day.”
Adcott didn’t move. Not until Silverman’s fingers gripped his upper arm and tugged. Then, with slow, mechanical movements, he levered himself from the floor, leaned against the wall for support, and found his feet. The man did not turn to Silverman,
nor did he answer. When Silverman turned toward the door of the cell, Adcott followed as if drawn in the other man’s wake.
It was nearly three o’clock by the time Holmes made his way to the door of my flat. He stood outside the door, and when I invited him in, he shook his head impatiently.
“Your coat, Watson, and hurry. Timing is crucial, and we have several places to be before evening.”
I didn’t hesitate. Long years as Holmes’s companion have removed several layers of my natural hesitation. There were only two choices: follow as best I could, or be left behind and miss whatever was to come. My coat over one arm, my hat in the other hand, I slipped out the door, and Holmes pulled it tight behind me.
Just as I was turning to go, I saw him bend at the waist, reaching down to run a finger along one of the cracks in the sidewalk. Straightening, he removed a bit of paper from his pocket and carefully folded whatever he’d scraped from the ground inside. I thought to ask what he was doing, then thought better of it. All in its time, he’d say. Why force the words?
There was a carriage waiting at the curb, and Holmes slipped inside. I followed, and without a word from Holmes, the driver was off. I should have liked to ask where we were bound, but experience told me the words would be wasted. Holmes had the predatory, hunter’s gleam in his eye I’d seen so many times before, and I knew he’d speak to me only when he was ready. I contented myself with slipping into my coat and leaning back to watch the streets as we passed.
The carriage headed into the center of the city, and it was only a short time before we pulled to the curb. A quick glance out the window confirmed my suspicions. We had pulled up in front of the morgue.
“Why have we come here?” I asked in surprise. “I’ve told you the man was in my flat, alive and standing as you, or I.”
“If, indeed, the man you saw was the same Michael Adcott you pronounced dead,” Holmes replied, exiting the coach and motioning the driver to wait, “then I would expect without doubt to find that body here. The fact you met a man you believe might be Adcott does not mean the Adcott for whom you signed the death warrant is not dead.”
He fell silent then, leaving me to follow the trail of his thoughts to their obvious conclusions. A brother? A close cousin? Why hadn’t it occurred to me? My ears were burning with the sudden realization I’d acted the fool, but I followed Holmes into the morgue entrance nevertheless. What had I been thinking? That dead men walk?
It was late in the day, and it was unlikely that many would be walking the halls of that dark place, but Holmes entered with familiarity and confidence. There was nothing to do but to follow.
It took a good bit of cajoling on Holmes’s part, but the clerk behind the desk, a dour little man with too-thick glasses and a perpetual frown that creased his brow with deep wrinkles, finally agreed to escort us to where the body of Michael Adcott had been stored. The body was, he assured us, right where it had been left, tagged and recorded.
“I sent you a report earlier this very day, Mr. Holmes, did you not get my message? Do you think he’s up and walked away, then?” the man asked. His voice was grave, but now there was a twinkle in his eye that had not been present as he argued with Holmes at the front desk. “They do that, you know. One day here, the next up and gone, and days later wives and mothers, daughters and friends, are here, telling how they’ve met the corpse on the road and asking after the remains. Sometimes, they’re just not there.”
I didn’t much appreciate the clerk’s levity, but Holmes paid the man no mind at all.
“You saw the man, then,” Holmes asked, watching the clerk’s face with keen interest. “You verified the information you sent personally?”
The old man cackled. “If he’s in my book, Mr. Holmes, he’s in my morgue. There are papers that must be filled out to remove a corpse, and permissions to be granted. No such papers have passed my desk for the late Mr. Adcott, and if there are no papers, there is no reason to look. He is here.”
“Then let us wish him Godspeed on the road to the next world,” Holmes replied. “Let us see Mr. Adcott for ourselves, and then we shall see what we can make of the rest of this business.”
Unfortunately for my own sanity, the remains of the late Mr. Michael Adcott were indeed missing from their slab. No note, no papers of explanation or permission. The numbers and documentation lay neatly in place, but no body accompanied them. The small man was less talkative now, and a sight less sure of himself.
“Perhaps he’s been moved?” I suggested.
The man shook his head, not turning to meet my gaze, only staring at the empty spot where a dead man should be. “There were no papers. No one moves without paperwork. No one.”
“And yet,” Holmes observed mildly, “Mr. Adcott seems to have been in the mood for an afternoon stroll.”
“Shall we search for him?” I asked, ready to button up my sleeves and get to the task at hand.
“There’s no time,” Holmes said, his expression shifting in an instant to the old, familiar intensity of the hunt. “I didn’t really expect he would be here, but without knowing . . .” He trailed off, and I followed him out the door. Without a word, he was back in the cab and holding the door impatiently, as I made to enter.
At just that moment, there was a cry from down the street, and I turned, startled. A young man darted from around the corner of the morgue, tousled hair waving about a roguish face and a scrap of paper clutched tightly in grubby fingers. I recognized him at once, as did Holmes, who rose and exited the carriage, calling to the driver to hold.
Wiggins was the leader of a group of ragged urchins Holmes had called on a number of times in the past. Holmes claimed there was more work to get from one of the little beggars than a dozen of London’s finest, and I’d had occasion to see the truth in this. As always, though, Wiggins’s arrival was a surprise to myself.
“Mr. Holmes,” Wiggins cried, coming to a halt and holding out the paper. “We’ve found him, sir, as you asked.”
Holmes didn’t say a word, but took the paper from the boy’s hand, eyes blazing. He read quickly, then folded the paper and slipped it into one of the pockets of his coat. “The others are posted?” he asked quickly.
Wiggins nodded. “He’ll not slip past, sir. Count on it.”
“I do,” Holmes replied, almost smiling. Shillings changed hands and Holmes had turned away and reentered the carriage before I could ask what was written on the paper, or who the “irregulars” were watching.
I knew better than to ask. I’d seen that expression on Holmes’s face too many times. He was on the trail of something, and until that thing was in his grasp, he’d not share it with anyone. Best to keep to his side, watch his back, and wait until he was ready to speak. The carriage took off without a word from Holmes, and I realized suddenly that he’d already anticipated our next stop. Either the note Wiggins had brought him had confirmed his suspicions, or it was related to another matter.
I watched out the curtained window as we passed deeper into the city, trying not to think of the scrap of paper in Holmes’s pocket, or the pallid face of Michael Adcott, staring at me from heavily lidded eyes.
Silverman walked briskly down the street, hands pressed deeply into the pockets of his coat. At his heel, Michael Adcott followed more slowly, his gait forced and clumsy. Silverman paid his companion no mind. They had to meet Jeffries at the court before the last of the judges left his chambers, and that left little time indeed. Time was slipping through his fingers too quickly, and things he’d expected to have accomplished had evaded him.
The doctor—Watson was his name—was a problem. The man should have seen what was obvious, feared what was less so, and signed off on the paperwork by now. Without that signature, they would be forced to let a court decide Michael’s state, and at the very least, he’d be found unfit to speak on his own behalf. That wouldn’t do. Michael Adcott would not be speaking to anyone, and that was another problem.
For the moment, things were under control. T
he serum—alone—was not enough. That much had been clear in the sketchy notes that had been included with the case that lay waiting in the laboratory at St. Elian’s. Only fate—a bottle of wine—and a loose tongue had given Aaron Silverman the information he needed.
“There was a time,” his father had said, head drooping toward the table and fingers loosely gripping his wineglass, “when we had ways to deal with our problems. There are things we know.” The old man had glanced up to see that his son knew the we in question. “We have always harbored our secrets, Aaron. There was a time when we kept them less guarded—when a rabbi could walk the streets with the respect of those around him. They knew. I know.”
Several glasses of wine later, and a lot of cajoling and flattery on Aaron’s part, and those secrets had begun to surface. Men from clay. The Cabala. Patterns of words and form, rhythm and breath, that emulated the formation of the first man. A mad Arab poet who spoke as if he were in another place and time and stared into distances that were not there. Those words, copied onto the canvas corner of a tent and guarded, studied—shifted over the years and recombined. Al-Hazred, the man had been called, and though he’d been mad, he’d been a prophet as well—a prophet of power. At first the notion had seemed ludicrous. A clay monster controlled by he who gave it life, born of the proper words, the proper earth—the prayers—the faith of the rabbi, and the vision of a madman.
Sworn to secrecy, Aaron had left his father’s home and set out to find a use for his new secret. Money wasn’t everything, he reminded himself often, but no money was certainly something to be avoided. Money was power, and if you were not the one with the power, you were under that man’s thumb. Aaron Silverman would feel the pad of no man’s thumb.
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