Wicked Ways: An Iron Kingdoms Chronicles Anthology

by Douglas Seacat

  “I see. And this file, these are all incidents that occurred in the Yellow Ward?”

  “Patients previously deemed non-threatening sometimes become hostile or paranoid after treatment begins. In my opinion, many of the oddest incidents transpire in that ward. While rare, this has sometimes included unusual actions by that ward’s staff. It is hard to predict who can endure the ravings of the mad without being infected by their delusions. This has been the case, to some degree, since our founding, as that file shows. But over the last five years, Yellow Ward has seen a noticeable escalation in the number of incidents. The turnover rate of orderlies and nurses assigned to it has been just as high.”

  “The staff is frightened of the ward? Presumably it has a reputation now.”

  “We once found an orderly dead in the center of the hall that runs the length on the ward, well out of reach of any patient. He had punctured one of his eyes with his own key and embedded it in his brain. I’m told he likely died slowly, over a matter of hours. Wouldn’t you be frightened?”

  “Morrow, help me,” Kincaid said under his breath. It was the first time he had spoken since he had sat down. “You still good for that drink?”

  Howlett gave a dry, almost calculated laugh and retrieved the decanter. Abigail declined once more and continued to examine the contents of the file as Howlett pulled two glasses from his desk and poured.

  “I’m surprised you’ve kept the ward open after all of this,” Abigail said.

  “We put measures in place to limit the time staff spend in the ward. We rotate people through. Typically we have an orderly present at all times in case of an emergency but not in Yellow. In Yellow, the staff take care of their duties, always in pairs, and leave immediately.”

  “And the patients?”

  Howlett shrugged. “We have far too many to leave Yellow ward vacant. The institution is nearly always filled to capacity. I do what I can, but my hands are tied. Understand that we do vital work here despite these problems. Our patients would be doing far greater harm if we did not exist. I am as eager as anyone to get to the bottom of this.”

  This seemed a feeble statement, given his earlier excuses to Abigail and having seen no evidence of his taking action. But she did not dwell on his protests—her mind was occupied with other matters, such as the letter in her pocket. While she could say nothing of the violent outbursts from patients, having minimal experience in such a field, the sheer volume of accidents related to the staff was alarming, and although she was now thoroughly convinced of the need for an investigation, she was no longer certain she and Kincaid could handle the preliminary stages on their own.

  “You confirmed Nicholas Boden was not the first patient to disappear. How many others have gone missing?”

  “All told, there have been seven disappearances from Yellow Ward. And as I said, we don’t know how they get out, and we don’t know where they go.”

  “I understand, but there’s been nothing to go on? Anything unusual that might point us in a direction?” She sensed he was withholding. She added, “The sooner we solve this, the more quickly things can return to normal.”

  Howlett frowned and said, “Well sometimes, just sometimes, something comes back.”

  “Something…comes back?” Abigail looked up from the file.

  “Never completely. We find a finger. Some teeth. Once we found an entire arm. And in places we had searched before. As I said, only sometimes.” With that, Howlett knocked back his glass and drained its contents in one swallow.

  Something cold took root in Abigail’s stomach. Although she had never met Nicholas Boden, she pictured an abstraction of the missing man in her mind’s eye, his body torn to pieces and littered about a cell. A sudden anger filled her as she watched Howlett pour himself another glass. She had at first reserved blame, thinking he had been doing what he could in his position, but the knowledge that the vanished patients had all likely met terrible ends made her want to slap his glass from his hand. She closed the file.

  “How long is it between when they disappear and when you find remains?”

  “A week. Sometimes more, sometimes less.” Howlett paused. “I know what you’re thinking, but the authorities in Ramarck have investigated on several occasions. They found nothing.”

  “You should have called upon someone with more experience in these matters,” she said. She began counting back the days since she had received the letter from the Bodens, the time it must have taken for it to reach the Strangelight Workshop and then her desk. The letter also mentioned an appeal to the local authorities.

  “When exactly did Nicholas Boden vanish?”

  “Eight days ago,” Howlett said. He swirled his glass and watched the contents slosh about inside the sides. “Likely it’s too late for him now.”

  “You don’t know that for certain,” Abigail said. “I presume no pieces of him have arrived? No remains?”

  He shook his head, looking dejected. Clearly he had not intended to tell her this much. While she ordinarily maintained a degree of unshakable confidence, Howlett’s words and the contents of the file frightened her. The situation was more dangerous than she had realized, and she wanted nothing more than to send a message back to the Strangelight Headquarters in Ceryl and wait for the arrival of a full team. Yet she knew she didn’t have the luxury of waiting. It would take days for the message to reach its destination and for the rest of her team to assemble and arrive. By then, she felt certain Boden would be dead—if he was even still alive. She had to presume he was until she found out otherwise.

  Howlett cleared his throat. “I would understand if you feel the need to tell the family he’s dead. It’s the most likely scenario. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Howlett,” Abigail said as she stood. Kincaid followed suit. “I won’t be going anywhere. If you don’t mind, I would like to examine Yellow Ward immediately. My investigation has just begun.”

  • • •

  YELLOW WARD WAS ON THE THIRD FLOOR of the institution’s west wing. After Abigail’s conversation with Dr. Howlett concluded, he instructed Collins the orderly to escort them upstairs. Before going to the ward, Collins took them to a room containing the records of all current patients and provided Abigail with the files associated with the Yellow Ward. She cradled these beneath her arm along with the incident file from Howlett’s office.

  The walk to the stairwell and subsequent climb was filled with the clang of doors and the shouts of patients who had previously been absent. Collins said little, responding to their inquiries with nods or short answers in the negative. It was only when they reached the windowed double-doors of Yellow Ward that he addressed them with a stern expression.

  “Listen here,” Collins said. “I know you think you’re doing the right thing, that you’re going to find that missing patient, maybe make some discovery, but I’m telling you right now, you’d be better off turning right around and going back where you came from.”

  “We might be better off,” Abigail said, “but the patients wouldn’t be.”

  “You being here isn’t going change anything,” Collins said. “He’s dead. Weird things will keep happening in Yellow. Let it go. You haven’t the slightest idea what goes on beyond these doors. There’s only a record if something is reported, and believe me when I say that everyone who has worked here has seen plenty they won’t talk about so they won’t get locked up. The ward makes you see things. Sometimes you do more than just see them.”

  “I’m well versed in such phenomenon,” Abigail said. “I’ve studied every text ever written on these types of occurrences. This haunting—and I do believe we are dealing with a haunting—is well within my scope.”

  “Reading a few books isn’t going to help you in there,” Collins said, jerking a thumb in the direction of Yellow Ward’s doors, still shut tight. “I don’t want your death on my watch. Please, go home.”

  “That’s enough,” Kincaid said. He set down the equipm
ent he’d been carrying and stepped forward. “We appreciate your concern, but Professor Thorpe is a professional. If she says she can handle herself, that’s the end of it. So, just open the door.”

  Kincaid and Collins stared at one another for a moment, each sizing up the other, until Collins averted his gaze and took his key ring from his belt.

  “Creator, help me. I tried,” Collins said. He slotted a large brass key into the door and gave it a turn. There was a low metallic groan followed by a dull click. Collins held the door open and motioned for them to enter.

  Despite the name, the ward was painted the same bright white as the rest of the facility, though two yellow stripes ran the length of the concrete floor to remind staff and visitors to remain in the center of the hall and beyond the reach of grasping hands. Steel doors with barred windows were interspersed along each side of the ward, and here and there curious faces pressed against them for a look at Abigail and Kincaid. There were fifty cells all told, numbered Y301 through Y350 in the same yellow paint used to make the warning lines.

  “I won’t be staying. If you need anything, there’s a switch on the wall there,” Collins said. He was still standing in the doorway. “It will set off an alarm in the staff quarters, and someone will come to check on you. You can also give the door a good pounding. The west wing is quiet after nightfall, and I should hear you. I’ll be just downstairs.”

  “You make it sound like you’re locking us in,” Kincaid said.

  “Far from it. I’ve been instructed to leave you a set of keys.” The orderly unhooked his key ring from his belt and tossed it to Kincaid. “It goes without saying that the patients must remain in their cells. Some of them can be pretty convincing and seem sane, but don’t let them fool you.”

  “Of course,” Abigail said.

  Kincaid bounced the keys in his palm and seemed on the verge of asking a question but instead simply nodded.

  “Right. Good luck, then,” Collins said, and he headed back down the stairs, the door to Yellow Ward easing shut behind him.

  With Collins gone, Kincaid opened the case he had been carrying and began unpacking the various pieces of specialized equipment. Despite being a novice, he caught on fast, handling the gear with both efficiency and care.

  While Kincaid broke out the equipment, Abigail knelt and opened the animal carrier. A pale grey cat with white paws and underbelly and green eyes emerged. The cat rubbed the side of its face against Abigail’s hand, emitting a low, rumbling purr.

  “Hello, Artis,” Abigail said. She scratched the cat behind the ears. “Sorry we had to keep you locked away for so long. I appreciate your patience.”

  Artis yawned and wove her way between Abigail’s feet. Cats were a common sight for a reason both in Blackwell Hall and alongside Strangelight teams in the field—they picked up on things people couldn’t see. Though many cats roamed Blackwell Hall, Abigail had come to rely on Artis and to view her as special. Named after Caen’s smallest moon, the cat had been in Abigail’s company even before she had joined the Strangelight Workshop. She was braver than most cats and had a particularly strong instinct for detecting the paranormal. The small moon had long been considered an inspiration to those attempting to unravel the world’s mysteries, and over the last few years the cat had proven worthy of her namesake.

  When Artis was through saying hello to Abigail, the cat sauntered over to Kincaid and brushed against the bouncer’s leg. As recently as a week before, this small act would have sent Kincaid into a sneezing fit given his allergic reaction to cats, but now that he had joined the Strangelight officially, he had begun taking an alchemical supplement provided by Cronan Bailey, Blackwell Hall’s quartermaster, that had nearly eliminated the problem. Even so, Kincaid still had a wariness around the creatures that wasn’t likely to disappear anytime soon.

  “Shoo,” Kincaid said, giving his leg a shake and waving a hand at Artis. “Go on. Get.”

  “She likes you,” Abigail said as Artis departed down the corridor.

  “Yeah, well she can go get sweet on someone else.” Kincaid handed Abigail a pistol and accompanying holster. “Be sure they don’t spot you with that.”

  Abigail cinched the holster about her waist and then broke open the breach of the pistol to check that it was loaded. She had rarely fired the weapon during her time with the Workshop, but she always made sure to have it on hand during an investigation. The ammunition had been treated with an alchemical powder known as Ashes of Urcaen and was capable of inflicting damage even to incorporeal beings. She packed it in with the other gear—ultimately, she considered it more a tool than a weapon, but likely the orderlies wouldn’t agree.

  Kincaid had unpacked row after row of vials set in velvet cases and several pieces of technology invented by the Strangelight Workshop. The most impressive of these was Abigail’s portable lumitype, a device used to capture images exposed to Strangelight on spectragraph plates, developed through contact with a number of alchemical agents. Lumitypes were key Workshop gear, but what made this one special was how small it was, built to be carried by an investigator to catch images quickly. Abigail lifted it from its case and began making subtle adjustments to its lenses and light source to accommodate the conditions in the ward. Once satisfied, she opened the back of the lumitype and slotted one of the thin metal spectragraph plates into place. There was a click and then a thin whine as the device began to charge. She stowed the remainder of the spectragraphs in her satchel alongside her notebook.

  With the lumitype ready, she palmed a smaller device from the case and handed it to Kincaid.

  “Hold this,” she said. The device was referred to as a spirit compass. A needle rested in its center, pointing not to directional markers but to a variety of special notational symbols that rimmed the instrument. She didn’t bother to explain their meanings, as learning them would take far too long. “Keep it level and follow me. If the needle moves sharply, tell me.”

  Artis was already halfway down the ward, her tail twitching as she strolled along the center of one of the two yellow lines. Several of the patients spoke to Artis as she passed, their outstretched arms straining through the bars in vain, but the cat paid them no mind. Abigail admired the animal’s calm.

  She pointed the lumitype at the left side of the ward and flicked a switch on the side of the device. With a gentle ticking sound and then a low hum, a wheel of multicolored lenses mounted to the lumitype’s light source began to spin, first lazily and then at a faster clip. Light streamed through the lenses and switching from one color to another in rapid succession before the beam took on a steady purple hue.

  “If any malevolent spirits are present, now would be the time to smile,” Abigail said.

  She looked through the lumitype’s viewer, situated above its main lens, to focus and frame her shot and then pressed the switch under her thumb. The device made a clicking sound followed by a high-pitched whine as the image was imprinted onto the spectragraph plate. Once the sound had stopped, Abigail removed the spent spectragraph and replaced it with a blank plate from her satchel, her hands performing the familiar action automatically. She had the device set for a short exposure, which would not allow for the detection of fainter supernatural emanations but which should suffice for a preliminary sweep.

  “Any activity?” Abigail asked, focusing the lumitype for another shot.

  “Not a thing,” Kincaid replied, looking at the spirit compass.

  They continued down the length of ward together, the lumitype periodically clicking and whining as Abigail imprinted spectragraphs, removing and replacing exposure plates with each shot. Now and then she glanced at the device she had given to Kincaid to make sure the needle was still and that Kincaid continued to keep it level.

  “If the ward had as high a concentration of anomalies as Howlett’s file suggested, the device in your hand should have picked up on at least a degree of activity, no matter how minor,” Abigail said.

  “You think they were making it up?�
�

  “Possibly, but I doubt it. Whatever spirit we are dealing with might exist in a spectrum beyond the device’s range. That, or the source of the activity is intermittent. Let’s hope it’s the former.”

  “How would it be intermittent?”

  “It would mean the spirit or spirits responsible are not rooted to this location as with traditional hauntings.”

  “I take it that’s bad?”

  “Not always, but it can be. Spirits that wander freely tend to be much more potent, not to mention unpredictable. That sort of movement implies a greater will and purpose, which also means a greater likelihood of aggression. Spirits locked into patterns and routine are not only easier to predict and observe, but they’re also easier to resolve so they can pass on.”

  The lumitype clicked and whirred. As Abigail continued her sweep, she took in the faces of the patients. While some exhibited curiosity, many were sunken-eyed and tired. For every patient who had come to their cell door to watch, two more sat huddled in far corners, rocking back and forth or groping at the walls. Some few had their movements restricted by cloth or leather restraints. Here are there was the soft sounds of sobbing mixed with mad cackles of laughter. An elderly man missing patches of grey hair reached through the bars as they passed, whispering the word please over and over, though when Abigail stopped, the man’s gaze seemed to stare right through her into nothingness.

  “What a sorry end,” Kincaid said, looking about at the surrounding cells.

  “Yes. But we should not ignore their words, no matter how mad they seem. Anything might be a clue.”

  “Well, let’s just be careful not to wind up crazy ourselves chasing answers. If this is just yellow, I’d hate to see what ends up in orange, red, or black.”

  As they neared the end of the ward, Abigail stopped in front of the cell labeled Y322 and captured an image of the door with the lumitype. Her gaze wandered over the entrance as she loaded another spectragraph plate.

  “What is it?” Kincaid asked.