Bane of Brimstone (The Bill Blackthorne Chronicles Book 1)

by Mike Mannion

  The Professor filled the syringe with clear liquid from a jar. “You think this amount maybe a little too much?” he said to Doctor van Devlin.

  “Maybe for his size, but we have run of of time and must take the risk.”

  “Just inject the little freak,” snapped Frank with a scowl. “He’s been nothing but trouble.”

  The Professor rolled up Bill’s sleeve and quickly injected the liquid into his arm. Bill tried to protest but found his words slurring. He watched Arthur’s face began to sway and blur. Professor Nox dangled a cut jewel on a chain in front of his eyes. As it spun slowly his mind forgot about escape and he gazed in fascination at the light dancing off its facets.

  Bill heard the Professor’s deep voice, distanced and detached. “You will go back, back to a time before you first woke up in this world…”

  Bill involuntarily obeyed and tried to think back. But his mind found only a black void. The Professor turned a dial on the grey box. The needles on the ammeters began to flick wildly and Bill convulsed. Suddenly a whole world of memories began to open up before him…

  *

  Doctor William Whitebeam’s body was racked with shooting pain. His mind was a jumble of confused thoughts and strange visions. Eventually things became clearer, the pain subsided and he realised that he was lying on his back on a hard stone floor. It felt very cold where it touched his bare skin. Then the pain vanished and his mind cleared. He was naked and shivering badly from the intense cold. He opened his eyes, desperate to see where he was, and found himself in a very strange and scary place. Out of darkness were floating beams of white light that surrounded him and swept all over his body. He perceived that these lights were somehow held in the hands of a small group of people. He couldn’t see their faces as they were hidden in shadow, but he could hear mumbled discussion.

  “Who the blazes are you?” he croaked, then coughed. “I demand that you show yourselves at once.”

  Beryl came forward from out of the shadows and got him to sit up. She wrapped a thick blanket around his shoulders then grabbed his trembling forearm and held it up. Doctor van Devlin appeared, his pale face full of grim fear, holding a needle attached to the end of a long plastic tube. He inserted it carefully into a vein.

  “What is this?” said Doctor Whitebeam.

  “We’re administering Vita Dantis. Be still.”

  The Good Doctor took a few deep breaths and let the chemical soup feed into his body. He was beginning to remember the tragic events of that morning. He was up in his room at the Unicorn. The Apostles were downstairs searching for Rowena. The stagecoach was due to leave in a matter of moments. He knew he had to catch it, had to get back to Middenmere, but the risk of discovery was great.

  He went downstairs and managed to get out of the inn without being found – to the stable yard just a few feet away – but he was ambushed by a group of earnest young men who pulled back the hood on his cloak and demanded to know where Rowena was. His skin became painful in the sunlight and he felt it blister and smoke. They dragged him behind the stable block and threw him roughly to the ground. The last thing he remembered was watching the grim, wide eyed face of a young man as he blasted a shotgun into his chest…

  Doctor Whitebeam came out of his reverie, looked down at his chest and could see it was unharmed. Was his imagination playing tricks? He gave Beryl a determined look. “I must away to the woods to see if Rowena still lives. It is imperative we catch the next stage to Middenmere…”

  Doctor Whitebeam stopped talking and became wide-eyed. He’d just had a sudden and shocking realisation. He knew he’d never see Rowena again and the aforementioned stage had long since departed. He was very far away from the safe and comfortable world he’d known. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness and he could see that the people around him wore strange clothes of bright colours and unusual fabrics. They had tiny watches on their wrists, with no waistcoat to hold a pocket watch. Although it seemed but a moment, many years must have passed before his awakening.

  “Tell me madam, what year is this?”

  “Don’t panic Doctor. It’s 1972.”

  “19… Surely you jest madam! If so then this is a most remarkable feat of resurrection. How did you regenerate ceare of such age? Can you vouch for the purity of the blood?”

  Beryl held up her arm, which was bandaged, and smiled. “I am impressed with your deductive powers, Doctor.”

  “Has science brought understanding to the resurrective powers of ceare?”

  “Science?” said Beryl suddenly growing angry. “You are nothing but Satan’s abomination! We have followed the resurrection incantation from the Almanac Regenerationis. We dance with the Devil because the need of you is so very great. I don’t pretend it’s something to celebrate.”

  The Doctor didn’t quite understand Beryl’s furious rant. “Where am I?”

  “You are in the cellar of Conatus chapel. This is where your cask was laid to rest. It should have been for all eternity.”

  Doctor Whitebeam considered the huge span of time. A hundred years! What marvellous progress science must surely have made! He thought again of the Apostles and the earnest young man blasting the shotgun into his chest.

  “But what of the Apostles? Do they still pray on those who are cursed?”

  “We are the Apostles.”

  Doctor Whitebeam went pale. He eyed the people surrounding him with suspicion and fear. “Your nefarious organisation had me put to death! Now I understand your repugnance madam, but why in God’s name do you bring me back?”

  “Do not dare mention the Lord!”

  “Madam, what do you want of me?”

  Beryl looked at the others and calmed herself. “We have your journal and have studied it very closely. The Apostles of old made a terrible mistake when they smashed up your laboratory. We want you to continue your work, to build another Cabinet of Rebirth.”

  “But…” said Doctor Whitebeam, hardly daring to believe what he’d just heard. Had the Apostles somehow changed over a hundred years? “You’re giving me a second chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is indeed a miraculous opportunity to complete my life’s work. A thousand thanks kind lady!”

  The Apostles led Doctor Whitebeam out of the cellar and into the grounds outside Conatus Chapel. It was the day before Christmas Eve – a day chosen because Michaelmas term was over and all the students had gone home. It was a bitter cold evening and a light snow was falling. Doctor Whitebeam was bare footed and shivering badly under his blanket so Beryl and Mordred wasted no time in saying goodnight to everyone and getting him into the Rolls. As they drove back to Brimstone Manor Doctor Whitebeam became very excited about the car, asking Mordred about its method of propulsion and guessing it was not steam. When they got home, Beryl showed him to his room, which had a wardrobe full of Victorian style clothes, a Hex Box with a supply of Vita Dantis, and his journal on a cabinet beside the bed. A fire was lit in the grate and the Doctor got into bed, still shivering, exclaiming how he may catch a death of cold, but knowing this didn’t happen to those that suffered the Curse of Og.

  *

  Over next few months Doctor Whitebeam worked incredibly hard. He supplied Mordred with details of the equipment he needed, including a pair of spectacles, and soon had a fully working laboratory in the West Wing. Some of the Apostles with scientific training helped him with various experiments until eventually the Doctor’s Cabinet of Rebirth, the Scrinium Regenerationis, was built. A gas pipe was plumbed into the back, Feeder Jar One was filled with a gallon of blood and Feeder Jar Two was filled with a complex mixture of dangerous chemicals that included sulphur and arsenic.

  Eventually the cabinet was ready for its first subject. The Apostles had a secret meeting to decide what to do next. They all agreed that they didn’t want the guinea pig to be the Queen. What if she was somehow destroyed? They would all surely be sent to prison for such a crime. After much deliberation, they decided that the first subject
should be Doctor Whitebeam himself. He had assured them that it was working and forcing him to go inside would ensure his checks and measures were correct. Also, they believed this pagan creature from the past had no real right to exist in their time – so if something happened to destroy him then that was simply God’s will in action. They felt a kind of deep embarrassment that one of the foul pagan creatures, their sworn enemy, was about to save their reputation. Many of their number were very keen to put him to death but they needed his expertise to ensure that the Queen would be safe when she went inside.

  Doctor Whitebeam agreed to be the first subject, desperately wanting to be rid of the curse as soon as possible. He stood outside the cabinet on the night it was to be done with Beryl and Mordred, preparing himself to go inside.

  “I’m afraid, dear lady,” he said to Beryl, “that you must avert your eyes. The gas jets will burn up my body and I require no chemical contamination from cloth.”

  Doctor Whitebeam removed his cravat and started unbuttoning his shirt. Beryl smiled at his old-fashioned modesty and averted her eyes as the Doctor removed the rest of his clothes.

  He took a deep breath and said, “For the glory of science!” then got inside the cabinet.

  Mordred followed the instructions he’d been given. He turned the heavy brass taps just below the feeder jars. Blood and chemicals began running down pipes and into the machine. Then he turned another tap on the gas pipe and they heard the hissing of gas. After a couple of seconds, he pulled a large knife switch on the side of the cabinet. It crackled and sparked with electricity.

  Beryl and Mordred heard a whoosh of ignited gas and a cry of anguish coming from inside the cabinet. They looked at each other, knowing that Doctor Whitebeam was being consumed by a white-hot ball of flame. Beryl felt a tear in her eye. Despite wishes to the contrary, she’d grown very fond of the Good Doctor during their few months together.

  The machine continued working – making strange fiery whooshing sounds and occasionally rocking – until all the blood and chemicals had trickled out of the jars. Mordred switched off the gas and the machine became still and silent.

  “I think, Madam, it is time to open the door,” he said.

  “I’ll do it,” said Beryl, feeling very nervous.

  She pulled the handle, opened the door and looked inside. The cabinet was hot and full of steam. Someone was in there but it wasn’t Doctor Whitebeam. The middle-aged man with large mutton chop sideburns and a quiff of thinning hair had been replaced by... a young skinny boy, no more than eighteen years old, who was curled up in the foetal position at the bottom of the cabinet. Beryl studied his face. It was Doctor Whitebeam, but he’d been transformed into a version of himself thirty years younger!

  “Doctor?” she said.

  “Where am I?” mumbled the boy.

  “You must be disorientated. Try to concentrate.”

  The boy got very agitated. “I can’t remember! Who I am? What is this place?”

  Beryl knew disaster has struck. The cabinet had failed. The Queen could not be saved.

  “Mordred,” said Beryl turning away furiously. “Take this boy upstairs and put him to bed. Maybe when he’s had a good long sleep he may remember who he is and what he’s doing for us.”

  Mordred nodded, guided the boy gently out of the cabinet, helped him put on Doctor Whitebeam’s ample shirt and took him away.

  Beryl was frustrated and angry but also felt pity for Doctor Whitebeam, now transformed into a boy. She realised she liked the Doctor’s thoughtful considerations, courteous manners and gentle concern for others. What if the procedure had partly worked and he was now human? What were the Apostles to do with an eighteen year old boy with no family apart from themselves?

  Beryl was shocked at this unexpected turn of events. He’d been brought to life by her own blood. She was, in effect, his mother!

  Chapter Nineteen - The Good Doctor Goes to Work

  The rifle is hand pumped incapacitant weapon that fires a 50,000 volt barb up to 30 feet. This will induce muscle-spasm electric shock and set the perpetrator unconscious. It is classified as non-lethal but those with heart defects may die.

  – Extract from Taskforce Training Manual, Section 17 – Electric Rifle Usage, 1970.

  Bill woke up the next morning under heavy blankets, in an old bed with a sagging mattress. He sat up, got his glasses from the bedside cabinet and had a good look round. The room was shabby, with peeling wallpaper and an old wardrobe in the corner. He didn’t recognise it or remember how he got there, but guessed it must have been one of Doctor van Devlin’s bedrooms.

  As he stretched, yawned and began to fully wake up, a very strange thing happened. He realised his mind was filled with thoughts and images that were his own but were very odd and unfamiliar. What had been a void was now a long and varied mishmash of detailed recollections, stretching way back. Professor Nox’s treatment must have worked! He knew his former self! It all began nearly one hundred and fifty years ago...

  He remembered his kind but God-fearing mother Jane, his father Fredrick who was a prominent civil servant, and his dear young brother Oscar. How wonderful to know his family again. He’d spent a happy childhood on the south coast, fishing for tiny crabs in rock pools, paddling in the sea and spending cosy evening singing around the piano with Mother and Oscar.

  When he’d grown into a young man he attended Middenmere University, where he was star pupil at Scientiam college. He remembered happy times as an undergraduate in the rooms he shared in Curzon Street with his three great friends, Giles, Freddie and Jack. What dear long-lost friends he once had! He recalled his graduation day, with a double first, and his start of employment as a Government Officer for Science, where he met and married Trudie, his boss’s daughter.

  But not all his recollections were happy ones. Life became much darker when his dear wife was beaten to death by an insane street hawker in Grayschapel. She was carrying their first child. The case was solved when the killer attacked a group of children at Friar’s Gate station. This brute of a man was arrested and executed in Gallows Pole prison. But justice did not stay his pain. He remembered many subsequent years of burying himself in his work – making great advances in the field of occult biology – and privately grieving for his wife and child. Aged forty five, he was made a member of the Royal Society, a great honour, and published distinguished papers that speculated on methods of transformation of the human form. Then he'd received a lucrative private commission from the wealthy Lord Percy Valentine. He'd travelled to Brimstone Manor, met his beautiful wife Rowena and began building his greatest achievement, the Scrinium Regenerationis...

  Bill was shocked. He’d finally discovered who he was and it all seemed so strange. Such a long time ago! He’d just got used to himself as a young lad, a student, but now he was somebody else entirely – a distinguished middle-aged scientist from Victorian England. It was scary knowing he had such a strange past, but in the end he was glad he’d finally discovered the truth. He was still Bill, but now a different Bill.

  He got out of bed, pulled on flared black trousers, white shirt and paisley cravat, and went downstairs to tell Arthur his unbelievable news. As he went into the living room he saw Mordred running a feather duster over the bookcases. Beryl and Doctor van Devlin were on the chesterfield, looking at him with anxious anticipation.

  “Saints be praised,” said Doctor van Devlin. “The injection was not fatal.”

  “Well?” said Beryl. “Did it work? Are your memories restored?”

  “Yes, full restored. I remember everything.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me who I was before?”

  “Would you have believed me?”

  Bill considered this and shook his head. “Where’s Arthur?”

  “Your little friend has been taken care of,” said Doctor van Devlin.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? He’s not harmed I hope?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Beryl.
“He is quite well. When you slipped into the transtemic state he got very agitated and troublesome, so Frank took him off. He’s with the Choral Society, in their safe keeping.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “You will stay here. You are to start work.”

  “I’m leaving! I need to see Arthur.”

  “Mordred, the Persuader if you please,” said Beryl.

  Mordred reached a hand inside his suit and pulled out a short wooden cudgel. He looked at Bill and held it up.

  Bill wanted to make a run for it but realised the lethal looking thing in Mordred’s hand could do a lot of damage. He was a prisoner.

  “Sit down,” said Beryl indicating a chair by the fire. She pressed William Whitebeam’s journal into his hands. “You need to find out what went wrong, work out how to fix the cabinet.”

  He reluctantly opened the journal and studied the contents. What a difference in perception from the last time he’d gazed at these pages! Now the whole thing made perfect sense. The scrawled handwriting was done in his own hand, as were the diagrams. Studying these intellectual ruminations from his former life, Bill couldn’t help but become engrossed, despite his concerns for Arthur.

  He sat by the fire for many hours – with Mordred supplying food and drink – and read through his journal countless times. He knew that his cabinet had some fatal flaw – he’d come out of it a much younger version of himself – but despite considering every aspect of formula, construction and execution he couldn’t see why the Scrinium Regenerationis wasn’t working. After a few more increasingly frustrating hours he snapped the book closed and sighed heavily. It was hopeless! He’d failed to see an error in his calculations.

  He got up and paced the room.

  “I shall call Professor Nox,” said Beryl. “Have him administer some more serum. Maybe your memory is still fogged.”

  “Lady, I am well,” said Bill.

  He considered one of the long mathematic formulas in the book and with a blinding flash of inspiration could see a tiny error. How could he have missed it!