The Apothecary's Curse

by Barbara Barnett

  CHICAGO’S NORTH SHORE, PRESENT DAY

  CHAPTER 19

  Gaelan drifted toward wakefulness, his surroundings unfamiliar. Where is this?

  Panic whispered through his nerve endings as he tried to move his arms, finding them bound. What the bloody hell . . . ?

  Harsh phosphorescent yellow-white light seared his eyes. When he turned his head, the room seemed vaguely familiar: shining steel and drab green.

  The clatter of metal upon metal—instruments in an aluminum pan—pummeled his shredded nerves. Behind him, a steady beep—oddly comforting. Around him, the astringent clean smell of alcohol and strong soap, iodine and starched linen . . . Is this a hospital?

  Memory returned in quick bursts. He is falling, the bike a ball of fire, careening down the bluff. . . . More falling . . . flames. Landing hard, then . . . nothing. A siren . . . being carried, then wheeled . . . An ambulance . . . Christ. He had to get out of here before . . .

  A muffled voice echoed from somewhere nearby. “Three broken ribs. Fracture of the left femur—two places, right tibia. Grade three splenic laceration . . . BP 96/59. Isolated third-degree burns: left arm, right thigh. We’ll need to go in. Get the bleeding stopped. Let’s prep him—”

  The room collapsed into itself as instruments, masked people draped in green, machines, syringes swam in and out of focus like discotheque strobe lights while he watched from outside himself. He was floating, not unpleasantly. Drugs. Very good drugs. . . .

  Handley’s face materialized above him, and the room came sharply into focus as the edge of a scalpel glinted ominously in the piercing white light. He wore a modern surgeon’s mask, but the rheumy eyes, the wire spectacles were unmistakable, the voice a frighteningly familiar patter. . . .

  “Gentlemen, we shall now expose the patient for what he is. What a remarkable specimen of human natural selection he represents, does he not?” Handley’s voice was muffled behind the mask. And there were others in the room, but Gaelan could not see them for the light.

  “Shall we anesthetize him?” an unfamiliar voice reverberated in Gaelan’s ear.

  Handley was adamant. “No. We must understand whether this man feels pain in the same way we do.”

  Gaelan struggled to move, but metal bands secured him to a narrow table. Pressure throbbed against his head; the band around his middle cut into his flesh like a knife with every beat of his heart. His hands and feet prickled and burned as feeling left them, held in a vise-like device, surely of Handley’s own invention.

  A new voice: “Where shall we make the cut, then, Dr. Handley?” He knew that voice . . . ! Gaelan shivered—he was freezing cold, so very cold. And wet. A blanket. Please, a blanket!

  “It is you who funds my research, my lord. Where do you propose I make the incision?”

  “I say cut off his member. Cut it off so he can never use it again.”

  “Here, here!” Lord Kinston’s voice joined in agreement. “My dear Lord Braithwaite. Shall we cut off his presumptuous cock, so he shall know his place and never again endeavor to rise above his station!”

  “Strip him!”

  No!

  Gaelan awoke, breathing hard. He managed a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before letting it out again. In and out. Slowly, in and out. His heartbeat slowed along with his breathing, as he took in new surroundings: pleasant aqua walls. Sunlight pouring into the room. Flowers. He was surrounded by them: roses, daisies, chrysanthemum, and several varieties he’d never before seen—vases and baskets of them. Where . . . ? He sat up. Bad idea, he realized, lightheaded, as he fell back to the soft faux-down of the hospital pillows.

  “Oh. You’re awake! Hallo.”

  Simon? What is he doing here? More to the point, where was “here”? Simon’s feet were propped on his bed as he reposed in an easy chair, doing a crossword puzzle.

  “Simon . . . How—” Gaelan raked his shaky fingers through his hair. Fuck. If only the snare drum in his head would stop, he might swim his way through the fog and concentrate.

  Simon looked up from the newspaper on his lap. “Morphine sulfate. You might be a bit muddled.”

  “Mmm. Morphine.” Ah. A bit?

  “Do you remember what happened? And why you were riding your motorbike up in my neck of the woods?”

  “I don’t—”

  Simon passed the Tribune to Gaelan, pointing midway down the page. “Miracle Man Survives Fiery Motorcycle Crash in Highland Park.”

  As he scanned the article, the crash continued to replay in fractured, staccato jump cuts in the murky bog of his head. “Miracle Man . . . no one could have survived that . . . incredible ER story told by multiple witnesses . . . Is he even human?”

  “Bloody hell.” He shoved the newspaper out of sight. He’d read enough. Fuck.

  “There’s much more. They can’t seem to settle on an appropriate title for you in the media: Superman . . . X-Man . . . Mutant Man . . . none particularly clever, but hashtag MiracleMan is trending on Twitter. There’s a whole subreddit devoted to you as well. Number one on the front page. At least it was yesterday.”

  Gaelan ignored the attempt at humor. How could Simon be taking this all so lightly? “Can you ask for the morphine to be stopped? It’s making my head explode, and I can’t think at all.” Gaelan clamped his hands to his head in a futile effort to subdue the assault.

  “You’re a star,” declared Simon, affecting the exaggerated Midwestern drawl of a game show host. “No idea until I saw you on the telly . . . John Doe. Rather pedestrian.” He gestured grandly around the room. “By the way, the flowers are ‘speedy recovery’ wishes from your legions of fans. You’re practically a religious icon!”

  Gaelan scowled. He had neither the stomach nor patience for Simon’s amused sarcasm. Bloody great. Can life get any fucking worse? He had to get out of here—out of the hospital, out of Chicago. Now was not soon enough.

  Simon’s tone softened considerably. “I came immediately, soon as I realized . . . knowing there would be . . . trouble. There were at least six witnesses, four of whom swore you were dead at the base of that bluff, including one of the EMTs. And two bystanders caught the whole thing on their phones. Spectacular crash, but not really news beyond the local media. Miracle recovery? CNN and twenty-four seven coverage. Last I checked, one of those videos had gone viral. More than seven million views, and—”

  “How bad was it? I mean . . . what happened to me, what was . . . seen . . . after—” How could Simon be so fucking calm? Sitting there, a smile on his fucking face, reciting the facts as if there were nothing at all to be fucking frantic about.

  A knock on the door. “Mr. Erceldoune?” The doctor.

  “Good morning, Mr. Erceldoune; you’re awake. Great. I’m Dr. Samuelson.”

  Simon eyed him warily. “I thought his doctor was a woman —Smithson?”

  “I’m a specialist. . . . Would you excuse us? I’d like to speak to Mr. Erceldoune in private.” He pulled three stoppered test tubes from his lab coat pocket and placed them along with a clipboard on the tray table. Gaelan had a fairly certain idea of the likely topic.

  “My friend can stay—”

  Simon nodded and stood, piling the newspapers on the chair. “Certainly, Dr. Samuelson. Time for a coffee anyway.”

  The doctor pulled up a chair after the door closed. “It’s good to see you awake. Do you remember what happened?”

  “Not completely.” An innocent first question. An honest answer. “I’m still a bit . . . hazy. I’d like the morphine stopped, if you don’t mind.”

  The doctor glanced at the morphine pump and shook his head. “Not sure that’s such a good idea. Not yet. It was lucky your friend recognized you from the news. He gave us a little information, but there are some gaps. So if you don’t mind—”

  Gaelan shrugged, waiting for the axe to fall. “I’m not sure what I can tell you that Simon hasn’t, but—”

  “I confess I’ve never seen anything like it in my twenty years in medicine
. I’m pretty sure no one else has either!”

  Gaelan forced a laugh. “I come from hearty Scottish stock, I suppose—” Gaelan eyed the monitors, watching his blood pressure and pulse accelerate, knowing the doctor could perceive his anxiety ratcheting up just from the rapidity of the beeping.

  The doctor pulled back the sheet to expose Gaelan’s leg, shaking his head. “Five days ago, there was a severe burn on your leg. Right there, on your thigh. I would swear to it in court if I had to, yet—”

  Five days? He’d been out of it for five days?

  The doctor palpated the area just above his right knee, and Gaelan winced dramatically. “Hey! That bloody hurt!” he protested, emphasizing how not healed he was.

  “It looks like a barely peeling sunburn now.” Samuelson shook his head in disbelief. “To be honest, I don’t know how that’s possible.”

  The door opened again, and a young doctor entered, handing Samuelson a folder. “Mr. Erceldoune, great to see you awake! I’m Dr. Smithson, your attending physician. You put on quite the show for us down in the ER. Has anything like that ever happened before?”

  Did she mean the crash . . . or its aftermath?

  Samuelson stared at her—a warning.

  “Sorry for interrupting. Just wanted to check in on you; I will leave you in Dr. Samuelson’s hands. He’s on our genetics research team. . . .” She left quickly, eyes never leaving Gaelan.

  Gaelan tried sitting up again, and Samuelson pushed a button on a gadget. The head of the bed rose slowly. The doctor placed the device in Gaelan’s hand.

  “Better?”

  He nodded, letting out a deep breath, slightly more comfortable now. The beeping slowed. His eyes closed, but he opened them quickly, refusing to succumb to the sleepiness washing over him. Concentrate, Erceldoune! He really needed that bloody morphine pump stopped. Now.

  “Use the cursors to raise and lower the bed. The rest operate the TV and the call button. I’m sure if you press it, at least five nurses will come running in here. Half the female staff has a crush on our mystery Miracle Man.”

  “Thank you, and I’ve long since stopped believing in miracles—”

  “You mentioned your ‘hearty Scottish stock.’ Do you have any recollection of family members, you, yourself . . . anyone who recovered from injuries unusually quickly? Rapid tissue regeneration, we call it—”

  Ah, here it comes. Gaelan concentrated on the yellow roses atop the windowsill, contemplating the practicality of fleeing through the window. “No. . . . I mean to say, I’ve been pretty healthy, yes. Never been in hospital before, so—”

  “The rapidity of your tissue regeneration defies anything within the experience of anyone on the hospital staff. It could be related to an underlying disease, a genetic anomaly, even certain cancers, perhaps something triggered in your organ systems by the trauma itself. I’d like to keep you here a few more days, run some tests, try to get a handle—”

  “No.”

  “Nothing invasive, just a tube or two of your blood. See what makes you the Miracle Man.”

  “No,” he repeated with more emphasis. Tests. Samuelson meant genetic tests. No bloody way.

  Samuelson’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re not at all curious?”

  Curious? Yes, but not enough to let this genetics bloke go prodding about his chromosomes. Gaelan had often wondered whether, somehow, the elixir he’d taken—as well as the one meant for Sophie Bell—had triggered some sort of genetic mutation. He’d read every scientific paper he could find, every journal article, media report, anything on genetics and aging. Perhaps modern science could help him understand their condition well enough to reverse it, even in the absence of the ouroboros book. He owed it to Simon at least to try.

  By now, Gaelan could have a PhD in molecular genetics if he’d an inclination for a formal education. Well, save for all the lab work. But he was not about to let this . . . genetics fellow run his DNA through a bloody gene sequencer. No fucking way.

  It wasn’t that the situation hadn’t its appeal, risk of discovery be damned. What an opportunity it might be. A leap toward the truth, perhaps a way back to mere mortality? An end to this perpetual life of hiding and exile. Tempting . . . so very tempting. . . .

  Gaelan tamped down on the impulse to agree, finding a shred of clarity in the drug-induced swamp of his thoughts. Curious? Yes, he was bloody curious. But what of the consequences? If it had been just him and Simon, that was one thing . . . but allowing a stranger with his own agenda into the mix . . . and the publicity, more unwanted publicity, would follow. Did he really want to subject himself to that sort of notoriety? And what of the risk that the key to immortality might fall into anyone’s hands? The machine’s beeping ratcheted up again.

  “Mr. Erceldoune? Are you okay? I think you went down the rabbit hole there for a second.”

  “Yeah. I’m fine. What did you ask me?”

  “Aren’t you curious about . . . all this?”

  “No. Not really,” he said a bit too dismissively.

  “Of course I understand your reluctance. But this is a chance of a lifetime for . . . medicine . . . and for you as well. Don’t you want to know how this happened? Because I sure as hell can’t explain it!

  “This is my specialty, genetics. My life’s work. I’ve missed four nights’ sleep reading the literature, looking for anything that might explain . . . Nada! Look, Mr. Erceldoune, to be honest, right now the dean and the board are about to chalk up everything we saw as a combination of instrument failure, human error, and mass hysteria—”

  Good. That was fine by him. In a day or two, a week, there would be a new story for the cable news people to chase. And everyone would leave him the hell alone. “Maybe they’re right, then. Look, Dr. . . . Dr. Samuelson, I get it. You want to explain what you think you saw, and to be honest, I’ve no idea what condition I was in when I came here. But I’ve no bloody interest in being studied by you or anyone else. I just want to go home. . . . This is all a lot to process. . . . Never been in a wreck before. . . .” It was such an effort to talk; he was breathing hard with exertion. Gaelan’s heart rate had now vaulted to 150 BPM, the numbers on the machine flashing red. Oh fucking great!

  Samuelson glanced at the monitor. “Look, Mr. Erceldoune,” he said quietly. “Of course, you’re not obligated to anything. Just think about it. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Good. He was backing off. Gaelan whispered thanks to the inventors of the wondrous heart rate monitor and its dramatic beeping. “You haven’t. And I will, I promise. Consider all you’ve said.”

  The door opened again, and Gaelan breathed a sigh of relief. An interruption. Just in the bloody nick of time.

  “Would you mind, Dr. Samuelson . . . the morphine—”

  “Do you want it turned up? I know you said you wanted it off, but it will help you sleep.”

  “No. I still want it off, if you don’t mind. Clouds my thinking.” Something didn’t add up to Gaelan. They already had plenty of his blood—he was sure of it. “Dr. Samuelson, wait a moment. I do have a question for you. I assume you’ve taken samples of my blood; why haven’t you already run those tests?”

  “Have you changed your mind? You’ve only to sign a simple consent form—”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “We can’t run your blood through a gene sequencer without your permission. . . . Something called informed consent.”

  Gaelan nodded. All he wanted to know. At least there was that, and as long as he refused, nothing could be done about it. “Thank you. And I do promise to consider your request,” Gaelan managed with all sincerity.

  CHAPTER 20

  Simon Bell sat in the hospital café stirring his tea, absently contemplating the swirls of sugar and milk as they merged into the whirlpool of Earl Grey. He sighed, the years of running and evasion—the corrosion of Sophie’s endless haranguing—weighing heavily upon him. How had he ended up in this place, years out of his time? A single event—a desperate at
tempt to help his wife—had careered out of control, its reverberations still echoing nearly two centuries later.

  “Excuse me . . . ?”

  A young man stood alongside Simon’s table, a small wire-bound notebook in his hand. Simon stared down into the tea, pretending not to see him, but the lad seemed not to get the hint.

  “Excuse me, but aren’t you Anthony Danforth?”

  Simon breathed out, relieved. A fan, of course, and not another blogger or reporter aiming to badger him about the Miracle Man. The young man likely recognized him from the book signing. He assumed his best auteur pose. “Yes. I am. And what can I do for you? And, by the way,” he said, nodding toward the notebook, “I never do on-the-fly interviews.”

  “Mind if I sit?”

  “I do, actually. Just finishing a cup of tea and then . . .” Simon looked up, and the kid was already gone. Very well, then!

  Simon kept one eye on the lad as he took a seat at a crowded table nearby. Oh, bloody hell. They were animatedly gesturing toward him as they talked. Simon cringed as he caught bits of the conversation.

  “He’s that Holmes writer. . . . Saw him at Barnes and Noble the other day. . . . Danforth? . . . Friend of our Miracle Man. . . . A real X-File. . . . We need to get him!”

  Taking his cue, Simon left his teacup half-full and escaped back to Gaelan’s room.

  When he arrived, a flock of nurses hovered over Gaelan. The monitors were issuing frenzied alarms, numbers flashing red as they fussed with tubes and dials. Not a good sign. What had happened in the short fifteen minutes he’d been gone? Finally, they were alone.

  “Simon, we need to leave. Now. Where’ve they put my clothes?”

  Simon sat on the bed. He knew that look; Gaelan was at the very thinnest edge of his composure. “They’re a ruin. Why? What’s going on? What did the doctor say to you?”