Bane of Brimstone (The Bill Blackthorne Chronicles Book 1)

by Mike Mannion

  “Got to get the sulphur and arsenic mixture exactly right,” he said to himself.

  When Bill was happy with the mixture he poured it carefully into Feeder Jar Two.

  “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” he said to Ophelia.

  “Are you sure it’s going to work?” she replied.

  Bill looked a little hesitant. “I’m pretty sure I know what I did wrong. But this is science at its cutting edge, for 1872 anyway, so I have it say it contains some element of risk.”

  Ophelia took a deep breath and said, “I’m ready.” She gave Bill a brave smile but deep down she felt very troubled. Not only was she terrified at the prospect of getting into Bill’s strange contraption but she was also sensing Lilith’s rapidly approaching presence. She knew this to be nonsense, Lilith was ceare. But Arddhu senses were never wrong...

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to take your clothes off. The chemicals in the cloth can contaminate.”

  Ophelia looked surprised. “Well if I’m stripping off you boys had better turn around.”

  Bill and Arthur turned their backs. Ophelia took off her many silver rings, bangles and necklaces, then removed her long black dress and underwear and made her way over to the cabinet.

  Lilith had crept unseen into the laboratory and was hiding behind a table. Her bright yellow eyes were watching everything with keen interest. She wondered what the big metal box was for and why a naked Ophelia was climbing inside.

  “I’m ready,” said Ophelia in a tremulous voice as she closed the door.

  Bill felt a huge amount of trepidation as he turned the heavy brass taps just below the feeder jars. Blood and chemicals began running down pipes and into the cabinet. He turned a tap on the gas pipe and heard the hissing of gas. Then – after waiting a couple of seconds to racking his brain, making sure he’d done everything right this time – pulled a large blade switch on the side of the cabinet. It crackled loudly as it sparked with electricity. There was a whoosh of ignited gas and a scream from inside the cabinet.

  “Is that screaming supposed to happen?” said Arthur.

  “I'm not sure.”

  “I didn’t like the sound of it.”

  “I guess it was shock.”

  “Is she burnt?”

  “She's being transformed.”

  “Transformed. Sounds very... scary. So what do we do now?”

  “Wait a few minutes.”

  “This is tense.”

  “And hope and pray that it works.”

  “It’s got to work...” said Arthur, becoming agitated. “I wonder where mum and dad are. I miss Davy, Jimmy, our little Rosie. It's got to work!”

  Bill looked at Arthur’s sad expression and his heart sank. “We’ll get them cured. I promise.”

  The cabinet made muffled fiery sounds and rocked slightly. The blood and chemicals sloshed in the feeder jars as they were pumped down the pipes.

  Lilith moved out from her hiding place, silent on padded feet. Bill and Arthur were a few yards away with their backs to her. She held up the sword and prepared herself to strike them down.

  She ran forward and screamed at Bill, “Die you freak for stealing my best friend!” But her words didn’t come out as expected. Instead, she made a guttural squeaking sound. This was such a shock she stopped and almost dropped her sword.

  Arthur spun round and shrieked, “What the hell’s that?”

  Lilith was a fearsome sight, a giant half human rat on two legs with a long hairy snout and a lethal pair of long yellow incisors.

  “It’s armed! Run for it!” said Bill.

  Arthur and Bill ran around the tables, closely chased by a sword waving Lilith. When she got next to the cabinet she remembered Ophelia was inside. A voice inside her mouse-like brain said:

  That wench is in yon box – off with her head!

  She swung the sword and hit the brass door, so hard it was dented. She saw the jar of sloshing blood and felt very excited – she decided to smash the jar and force the enticing liquid onto the floor where she could lap it up. She took careful aim with her sword.

  Bill could see what the creature had in mind. If the jar was smashed he’d never see Ophelia again. He quickly picked up a glass phial off the table and threw its contents at the creature. It screamed as its right arm began to smoke. Bill had thrown sulphuric acid and it was burning into the creature’s flesh. It dropped the sword and staggered.

  “Is it Arddhu?” said Arthur, who was holding up a scalpel.

  Lilith tried to ignore the searing pain in her arm. She noticed her reflection in the polished brass of the cabinet and was shocked. A long snout! Fur! Pointed ears! What was she looking at? How was this possible?

  Arthur stabbed the scalpel into Lilith’s chest, piercing her heart. Her fur instantly became black and brittle, like burnt straw. Her pink skin turned dark and began to flake away. A few moments later she was nothing but a pile of ceare on the floor.

  “What was that thing?” said Arthur.

  Bill looked him in the eye. “There’s only one explanation – Lilith.”

  “What?”

  “I discovered the properties of transformation using animal blood in this very room.”

  The cabinet stopped moving and grew silent. They both turned to look at it.

  “Is it done?” said Arthur.

  Bill nodded and got to work. He switched off the gas supply and closed the taps under the now empty jars. His mind was in turmoil and his hands were trembling badly. What if he’d failed? What if the mixture was still wrong? What if Ophelia remembered nothing? What if the girl he loved no longer knew him? What if the cabinet was empty? What if... anything could be waiting for him. He was sweating profusely and his stomach was churning as he slowly opened the door and peered inside.

  The cabinet was very hot and full of hissing steam, which made his glasses quickly mist up. At first, he couldn’t see a thing, but then the steam escaped into the room and he saw a girl crouched at the bottom of the cabinet with her legs tucked up against her chest. She gazed up at Bill with a blank expression and he smiled at her hopefully. Ophelia didn’t look any younger, or older, in fact she looked exactly as she did on the first day he’d met her – soft brown skin and long slightly frizzy dark hair. The wound on her forehead had vanished. There was no glowing halo around her head and her eyes were soft and brown, not fiery yellow. As he gazed at her solemnly her mouth slowly split into a wide grin.

  “Bill I love you, you little genius!” she said.

  “You can talk! Are you okay?”

  “It worked! I’m free of it.”

  “You’re cured? You’re really cured!”

  Bill could hardly believe what he’d done. His head full of arcane knowledge was not some imagined fancy, but was proven to be true. He had to resist the urge not to dance around the room in celebration.

  “Cool,” said Arthur popping his head around the door and looking at Ophelia.

  “Do you mind?” she said, “I’m naked in here.”

  Arthur and Bill turned their backs.

  “This is amazing,” said Arthur. “We’ve got to go and get my family. We’ve got the get them inside that thing.”

  Bill smiled and nodded slowly. His realised that future life had opened up before him. He was here in this strange future world that he knew very little about but at least his life now had purpose – he was going to use his knowledge to rid the world of the terrible curse of Og.

  He was going to find a way to cure everyone.

  Epilogue

  In which the talons of Tainn stretch out from the liminal world

  Chapter Twenty One - Escape by Moonlight

  One Halloween night a brother and sister went out ghost hunting. The scariest place around was Barleybrook, so that’s where they went. It was ruined and tumble-down but folks say warlocks come out at night. They met a tall and crooked one who introduced himself as Victor Tainn, who scared them so much their hair turned white. The boy ran home but the girl s
tood rooted to the spot.

  Over the years, the boy grew up but missed his sister and regretted leaving her with a warlock. So each Hallows night he rode his carriage out to rescue her. She was always dressed in white with long white hair, stood hand in hand with Victor Tainn. He beat his horse, rode fast and hard, but she was always far away.

  – Extract from The White Lady of Barleybrook

  – By Elise Teeling, from the anthology, Spooky Tales of Old Middenmere, 1932.

  Professor Julia Jareth – who'd hid away from her cursed nature for many years, had taken Vita Dantis in a desperate hope for normality – was finally facing a dreaded retribution. She was cornered like a trapped animal, with her back to the door of an old stone barn. Four uniformed policemen surrounded her, each carrying a strange rifle with wires down a long barrel and a sharp pincer-like contraption on the end.

  Across the lane, in a dimly-lit field behind a stone wall, stood Lord Percy, with his girls Rosie and Grace either side. It was too dark for the policemen to see but Professor Jareth, with her strange yellow eyes, was able to study his aquiline, leather skinned face as he gazed at her impassively.

  Lord Percy! How she desperately loved him! It wasn't the gentle, slow burning love she'd felt for Simon; this was the brutal, urgent grip of Amor Lepore, thrust upon her by some mysterious paganistic force. It was frantic and all-consuming; but she was ashamed of how it had brushed aside all feeling for Simon. She gazed imploringly into Percy’s eyes but his face remained impassive. Why wasn't he rushing over to save her?

  One of the policemen lifted up his rifle and aimed at her chest.

  “Percy, my love, save me!” she screeched with a grasping outstretched hand.

  The rifle was fired and the pincer-like contraption dug into her chest, sending thousands of volts of electricity through her convulsing body. As she slumped to the ground the policemen turned to where she'd been pointing and saw the shadowy forms of Lord Percy and his girls moving off quickly up the dark lane...

  *

  Percy Valentine was very angry. He’d seen an army of police officers – with their devilish rifles – shoot lightning and render his compatriots unconscious. All his children were thrown into the back of trundling, monstrous carriages. The Underwood coven of Arddhu Og, her newly created family, were being bagged up and taken away like a pheasant shoot.

  He rushed along the lane, past dark stone buildings, and saw in the distance the tall silvery spire of Saint Bede's church illuminated by a flash of lightening. The bestial curse of Og had taken away his humanity but he still remembered with some fondness his wedding day up at that church, one hundred years ago. He could still recall how lovely Rowena looked in her lacy white dress and still feel a pang of regret at being cursed on his wedding night.

  He walked purposely forward, with the girls at his heels, and was soon swinging open the tall iron gates to Saint Bede’s cemetery. He walked amongst the crumbling ivy clad gravestones. The rain fell steadily and it was muddy underfoot.

  He was distracted by the trundling sound of an engine. One of the horseless carriages, a big beast with fat wheels, had followed him up here and was driving through the cemetery gates, its powerful carriage lights illuminating the tress, gravestones... and also himself and his girls.

  “Oh Percy!” exclaimed Rosie, grabbing onto this shirt sleeve, “you won’t let us be shot like the other one?”

  “Master,” hissed Grace, grabbing the other sleeve, “will keep us safe.”

  He'd escaped the carnage down on the village square and hoped for peace up at Saint Bede’s, but this place was going to provide no sanctuary. The carriage pulled to a halt and two policemen jumped out, each carrying a rifle.

  “Release me foul harpies!” he exclaimed, flinging his arms up and forcing the girls to release their grip.

  He pulled the heavy wooden doors to the church wide open and stepped inside. Slamming the doors with a crash, he bolted them shut. He could hear his girls’ anxious pleas outside, wondering why their Master had deserted them, shouting and banging on the door.

  “Please Percy, save us!” Rosie’s voice squealed. She was a slight girl and he knew she'd be doomed without her Master’s presence.

  “I love you!” said Grace in a desperate voice. Here was yet another young girl, lost to Amor Lepore, who had clung to him like a limpet.

  Lord Percy listened to their pleas but felt no great desire to save them. He was growing tired of fawning girls fighting for his attention. He vowed to find a way to dampen down Amor Lepore – the mysterious spell that besots the female of the species was proving to be more of a nuisance than a pleasure.

  He turned into the dark vaulted church and walked swiftly down the aisle. The vicar and his housekeeper were no longer here – he and his girls had been up at the church the day before and he'd watch Grace bite both of them and see then go off into the village to 'spread the word'. To the right of the altar between two stone columns was a door. Percy went through it and climbed a set of very steep spiral stairs that ended with another door leading onto a narrow parapet that ran around the top of the church spire.

  He took a deep breath of wet night air and looked around him. His vantage point afforded a commanding view of the whole of Underwood. From the light of the cloud covered moon and occasional flash of lightning he could see every ancient house, gnarled tree and cobblestone, perceived with eyes sharper than anything human.

  He heard the distant rev of engines and saw in the distance more of the dreaded horseless carriages, moving slowly down the cobbled streets. Policemen patrolled everywhere, clutching rifles. He saw a number of the young boys he’d bitten riding on their motorised bicycles. The moment his teeth had sunk into their flesh he’d perceived what was in their minds – this “biker gang” as they called themselves had been revealed to him as nothing more than a childish bunch of thugs with no real intelligence or charm. Lord Percy’s first taste of cursing and blood sacrifice had awakened in him an insatiable hunger but he now regretted his early choice of victim – mere juvenile fodder with no more wit or reason than a melon.

  How his missed his old life as Squire of Brimstone Manor. How he missed the Underwood hunt, his good and noble friends, and dear sweet Rowena most of all! He remembered the glorious summer balls, his fine cellar and stylish wardrobe– how different to his present circumstances. A social life spent with thuggish boys, his desire for wine vanished but not his appreciation of it, and his attire now limited to a single white shirt with ruffles, thin black trousers and a purple velvet jacket, given to him by a couple of his girls but now sadly wet and stained with blood, dirt and mud. How long ago his old life seemed, so very far away. He was marooned in an alien world of noise and strange technology where good queen Victoria had long since departed.

  His reveries were interrupted by girlish screams. He lent over the stone parapet and gazed down into the dark gloom of the cemetery. Grace had already been made unconscious and was being carried over a policeman’s shoulder. She was thrown roughly and unceremoniously into the back of a horseless carriage – like the corpse of a newly hung criminal thrown into a cart to be taken away for burial.

  Rosie looked up at him imploringly. “Save me Master!” she called out in desperation.

  He was high above her and it was dark and wet, but he could see every pore and line of her young and frightened face.

  When Percy didn’t answer, Rosie turned and began to run away, but one of the policemen took careful aim. A moment later she was stopped in her tracks and had fallen, convulsing, with the crackle and spark of electricity dancing on her back. She was illuminated like a firework in the darkness.

  Lord Percy saw a number of policemen point up at him and gather at the church door. He heard a loud echoing thud. He leant over the edge of the parapet and directly below could see they were trying to force open the church door, barging it with their shoulders. A few more thuds and the door gave way. He watched in terror as they drew their electric rifles and disappeared
into the church.

  He was trapped! About to be forced into an agonised unconsciousness by a rifle that shoots lightning, about to be taken away in one of those infernal machines to God only knows what hell. He looked again at the horseless carriage parked far below him and saw Rosie, unconscious, being thrown roughly into the back. The policeman slammed the door and rushed to join his comrades inside the church. Percy could hear them down below, whispering, searching for him. The door that led to the spiral staircase was opened. In a few moments they’d be out on the parapet...

  Percy got a great and sudden shock when a bolt of lightning came down and struck the top of the church spire, only fifteen feet above him. This was accompanied by the huge boom of a thunderclap.

  He heard a quiet voice inside his head...

  You can jump down yonder, my sweet Lord, and you will not be harmed...

  Percy considered the voice and its order to jump but it was a long way down. If he was injured he’d never escape. Lord Percy clambered over the edge and grabbed onto an ancient drainpipe, but it was thin and corroded and loosely attached to the brickwork. When it moved under his hand he panicked and began scrambling down as fast as he was able. He looked up and saw a policeman pop his head over the parapet and swing his rifle out to take careful aim. Percy’s hand slipped on the wet metal and he fell backwards, away from the spire and out into the night air. He fell backwards and down into the dark cemetery…

  A moment later his feet we on the ground and he was safe. The whispered voice inside his head was right! He’d jumped from a great height and had sustained no injury.

  He dashed off towards the far side of the cemetery, away from the lane that led the village. He leapt over gravestones, skipped around mossy ruts and gnarled tree roots – thankful for the acuity of his eyes – and was soon over a stone wall and into the dark cover of Ogden Wood. As he skipped through the knot of trees he was confident the policemen weren’t following him, was sure they couldn’t move about with any great speed in such a dark and tangled place. The ground rose sharply and soon the trees thinned and gave way to rockier ground as Percy made his way to the top of Ogden Hill. When he reached the summit, he sat on a cold mossy cairn to regain his breath and ponder his predicament.