The Apothecary's Curse

by Barbara Barnett

  “They aim to study me, Simon, and I cannot abide that! I fear not only the endless poking and prodding, but what they’d do with the information from it. I’m trying to remain clearheaded about this. I truly am. But I’m near the end of my tether.”

  Simon nodded and placed a hand on Gaelan’s arm. He understood that fear, which had deep roots for Gaelan beyond his own personal safety. How often had Gaelan wondered aloud—vehemently—about what the powerful and ambitious would undertake with the key to immortality? Simon could not disagree. “Are you fit even to stand on your own feet? I know your internal injuries are much worse than they might appear—”

  “I’ve no bloody idea how fit I am, and it doesn’t much matter, does it? I can’t stay here. What if—”

  “Steady yourself, man. Those monitor numbers start flashing again, and they’ll send that army of nurses back in here posthaste.”

  Gaelan closed his eyes and exhaled shakily. “Might you lower the head of the bed? My head is swimming—” He handed the bed control to Simon.

  One glance at Gaelan, and it was obvious there was no way he’d be leaving the hospital on his own feet. Yes, his injuries appeared to be healed, but Simon knew all too well that the process took its own physical toll. It might be days until Gaelan could walk well enough even to make it to the bathroom without assistance.

  Simon tried to reason with him. “Look, as far as I can put together, most everyone is chalking it up to faulty equipment, misdiagnosis, whatever else they can manage to conjure without sounding either too incompetent or bloody off their nut. And with medical confidentiality, etc., the media have little to go on other than anecdotal reports by bystanders. The doctors and nurses won’t say a word for fear of a lawsuit. Still, you’re a bit of a sensation. Seven million views—impressive.” He smirked.

  “Fuck you.” The trace of a grin cracked through the anxiety on Gaelan’s face.

  “Sorry. But at least I made you smile a little. Can you talk about what happened, or should I let you rest?”

  Gaelan shook his head. “No. Stay. And why are you looking so bloody smug, anyway?”

  A nurse interrupted, wheeling a computer cart. “Mr. Erceldoune, how are you feeling? Your recovery is so amazing! Everyone’s talking about it, like you’re some sort of . . . I don’t know . . . Superman or something—”

  “Indeed. Thank you.” Now go away.

  She glanced at the monitors and typed notes into a computer. “There are a couple of police officers from the Highland Park Police who want to have a word with you. Are you feeling up to it?”

  Now what? “Not really,” Gaelan responded, trying to sound as weak as he could muster. “I’m quite tired—”

  “He just has a few questions about your accident. Reports and all.”

  Simon stepped in. “Really, could this not wait? My friend—”

  “Don’t, Simon. Look, I told the doctor already. I recall only fragments, brief flashes, and . . . mightn’t we do it tomorrow?”

  “Mr. Erceldoune?”

  Two young uniformed officers, a male and female, stepped into the room. Gaelan sighed, rubbing his temples. “Look, I’d prefer if we might do this another time and—”

  The female officer spoke, her tone sympathetic. “The doc said it was all right to ask you a few questions.” She looked at the nurse and Simon. “Can you two give us a few minutes? Promise it won’t be long.”

  Police could be a problem. Did Gaelan even have a driving license? Registration for his bike? Papers of any sort? Damnation! Of course he did, didn’t he? “I . . . was just leaving,” Simon said. “Anything you want from your flat?”

  “Only a set of clothing, if you don’t mind.”

  Simon left, listening for a moment at the door, hearing nothing but hushed voices.

  The two officers sat. “Can you tell us what happened?” asked the male officer.

  How many times had he been asked that in the last two hours? He had to be cautious with them. His papers would not stand intense scrutiny. He’d had this identity for the twenty years he’d been in Evanston, but that was before September 11, 2001, when the world became much more treacherous to navigate.

  Could they deport him? He waved off visions of immigration officers taking him into custody, like in the movies. Where would they send him? On paper, he had no real identity, only the manufactured life of some poor sod who’d died somewhere in the UK years ago and fit his description well enough. Gaelan Erceldoune no longer existed except as a nom de guerre, suitable for a dealer in rare books. “I confess I don’t recall much. The road down to the beach was icier than I thought—”

  “Thing is, we can’t find you in the DMV records—”

  “DMV?” What the fuck was DMV? Was that where he got his driving license?

  The female officer took over the questioning. Good. She seemed less intimidating at least. But maybe that was the plan. “People have all sorts of reasons for giving a false name to a hospital, but we have to get your real name—”

  “Yes, well . . . you see Erceldoune . . . it’s an old family name from long before I was born. I own Erceldoune’s Rare Books and Antiquities on Foster in Evanston. The name seems to fit the shop right enough. My business papers and identification . . . my driving license . . . are all under my actual name . . . Cameron Balfour, born Dumfries, Scotland, in the UK.” Gaelan shrugged, hoping it would suffice. No one had been injured but him in the accident, and no damage was caused—he didn’t think so, at least. With any luck . . .

  Her partner interrupted, much less patient. “Mr. Erceldoune . . . Mr. Balfour—”

  Gaelan managed a weak laugh; it sounded genuine enough to his ears. “I generally go by Gaelan Erceldoune . . . easier . . . the business, you know, less confusing—”

  “The tox screen indicates residual THC in your blood. Were you driving impaired?”

  Gaelan tried to sound indignant. “Not at all, Officers. I would never—” He winced; the pain was real, if fortuitous, as it flared from his abdomen to his lower back. “Forgive me, I had the morphine stopped. . . . I hate the thought of drugs in my system. Make me so very foggy,” he managed between gasps. “I—”

  “Would you like me to call the nurse for you?”

  “Yes, thank you. Look, would you mind terribly if we did this tomorrow? The doctors tell me I’ve been unconscious for several days—”

  The female officer glanced at her partner, and they stood. “We’ll be back later this afternoon to get our report. You get some rest, okay?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Officers.” A sudden slicing pain left Gaelan nearly breathless. Perhaps disengaging the morphine was not quite so excellent an idea, after all.

  First Samuelson and now the police; what was next? Gaelan shuddered at the thought. Was the game finally up after nearly four centuries? What would be so terrible about it all coming undone? Here in the twenty-first century with all its amazing technology and advanced science. Perhaps it was time. So what if he was “immortal”?

  Research was drawing ever closer to the heart of it, anyway. Nobel prizes, multibillion-dollar corporations cloaked in veneers of scientific pursuit . . . when in truth all they sought was same holy grail pursued by kings and alchemists for millennia. He and Simon were the key to it all; why not finally resign themselves to the inevitable?

  Because it is a terrible idea.

  LONDON, PRESENT DAY

  CHAPTER 21

  Anne Shawe, MD, PhD, swore at the walls of the empty borrowed London flat. Tomorrow, she would be on the 7:00 a.m. flight to Southern California and a completely new life: a posting at the Jonas Salk Institute, and just far enough away from Paul Gilles. Ex-fiancé Paul Gilles . . . and his grisly new pet project. And his little blonde tart. The romance—the entire sham of it—was dead long before she’d caught the two of them in flagrante delicto in his flat—in their flat. She’d seen too much—knew too much about Paul’s work with Transdiff Genomics not to end it anyway.

  Anne shivered at the im
age of Paul scouring the cavernous bowels of the Imperial Museum, cataloging the preserved remains of Bedlam inmates two centuries gone and matching them with the ravings of a lunatic doctor. In the hopes of what? Finding some elusive key to immortality? Hah! Who did he think he was? Transdiff was supposedly a topflight genetic research firm, and he wasn’t bloody Indiana Jones.

  “Let the poor wretches rest in peace,” she told Director Lloyd Hammersmith. “It’s akin to grave robbing, and I want no part of it.” She’d been emphatic. But Paul wanted in from the start. Well, let him have it.

  She recalled Shakespeare’s epitaph: “Blessed be the man that spares these stones, and cursed be he that moves my bones.” Gilles and Hammersmith were disturbing both stones and bones while salivating over accounts of some long-dead, tortured soul who had the misfortune to be locked away in Bedlam for four and a half years. Why can’t they let him be?

  She brushed her teeth, trying to avert her gaze from the red-blotched eyes that stared out from the mirror. What is black and white and red all over? How much concealer would it take to eradicate the black smudges, which would undoubtedly deepen from hours of travel and jet lag by the time she got to California? Heathrow to Chicago, a ten-hour layover, and then finally on to San Diego and the institute. Maybe she’d just stay there, basking in the Southern California sun and never return to Transdiff—or Paul Gilles.

  Just what she needed and right in her wheelhouse. Turritopsis nutricula. Anne had never been more enthusiastic to snuggle up with jellyfish . . . a fascinatingly immortal jellyfish. And as far from Dr. Paul Gilles and Transdiff Genomics, Ltd. as possible. Screw that, screw him, and screw the bloody, fucking United Kingdom for spawning wankers like Paul Gilles.

  Maybe by the time six months had passed, the Bedlam project would be a dismal failure, Paul would lose his job, and she could return to London triumphant with a new major credential on her CV. Stockholm, here we come! Hey, a girl can dream.

  Anne yawned. She should try to sleep, knew it would be a lost cause; stopping her mind from racing was as unlikely as going back to Paul. She unrolled her sleeping bag and tried to get comfortable enough to respond to the several e-mails awaiting her reply. She opened her laptop just as her mobile chimed.

  “Hallo?” Mum. Again.

  “You’re sure you don’t need a lift to the airport, darling?”

  “No, Mum. I’ve a taxi ordered for early tomorrow already.” Anne opened the e-mail app.

  “Cousin Agatha’s book, are you taking it with you?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  “Did you ever crack it? You seemed quite taken with it, and I thought perhaps Paul, with all his curiosity about it—”

  No more than her own, and she was far cleverer than Paul. It wasn’t a priority; she’d tackle it once she settled in California—and without Paul Gilles’s “expert” advice.

  Four new e-mails. Three from Paul. One from a name she didn’t recognize. “Mum, I’d love to talk, but I’m quite exhausted and my flight’s at seven.” She dragged Paul’s e-mails to the trash folder.

  “Maybe there’s someone there who can help you—”

  “Hmm?”

  “The book. I must say, my own curiosity is quite piqued. I mean, what’s a strange volume like that doing up in Agatha’s attic gathering dust? Must be worth a fortune! You should have someone take a look at it. When you get to the States, I mean.”

  “Sure. I’ll have some time whilst I’m there to dig into it more than I have. I won’t bloody know anyone, so digging into Agatha’s mystery book will be a fab diversion.”

  She opened the e-mail from the unknown sender. Dr. Andrew Samuelson, Evanston Hospital. Who was Dr. Andrew Samuelson, and where was Evanston Hospital? She’d never heard of either.

  Call-waiting beeped. “Mum, I’ve got to run. Another call.”

  “Love you, darling. Text me when you land, will you?”

  “I’ll try. Bye. Love to you and Dad.” She pressed the swap button.

  “Hallo?”

  “Dr. Anne Shawe?”

  “Yeah, that would be me—”

  “Hi. My name is Dr. Andrew Samuelson—”

  “Oh. The e-mail. I just saw it—didn’t read it yet.” A bit odd . . . e-mail and a phone call. Okay. He had her attention.

  “Yeah. Um . . . No. Sorry. No problem. I . . .”

  Anne smiled. The doctor is a bit flustered. Hmm. How many times had she made cold calls over the years? Nothing was more awkward. “So what might I do for you, Dr. Samuelson?”

  “I read your paper in the Annals of Genetic Research. ‘Telomeres and Rapid Tissue Regeneration in Human Subjects: A New Theory.’”

  It had been a very small article. More of a research note. Two years, and it had come to quite a bit of nothing. It was far overshadowed that year by the Nobel-winning telomere research.

  Much more interesting was her research on longevity; now that held some promise—and to her, the key to her own family history. Tissue regeneration was a science fiction better left to Paul and his slew of overfunded defense contracts. But she had published—and lectured—about it, and admittedly, creating a real-life superhero was much sexier than adding a few years—and more quality—to the lives of the elderly and infirm.

  “Look, Dr. Shawe, I’ll come right to the point. I have a patient. Crash victim . . . should have died in the ambulance. But it’s only days later, and he’s practically ready to be released. I can’t explain how that’s possible. I read your note and some of the research your firm is doing—”

  These phone calls came four or five a year. Wild goose chases, all. Other explanations, more mundane, and much more plausible, always proved correct: underlying disease, environmental mutation. . . . “What does the sequencing show? Anything unusual at the telomeres?”

  “He’s not especially cooperative.”

  “Him or his DNA?”

  “Him. Look, I think he’s the real deal. My graduate work was in molecular genetics, and I’m not usually the kind of guy who jumps to conclusions without hard evidence, but—”

  “And you can’t do genetic testing without his consent. Look, I’m in the UK. Where are you?” She was moderately interested. He sounded sincere—at least he believed what he was reporting . . . and why not?

  “Chicago. I don’t suppose I might induce you to pay us a visit, look in on our reluctant patient? I guarantee a paper’s in it, and it will be worth your while. We’re trying to keep a lid on the whole thing, though.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just that weird.”

  His incredulous laugh amused her.

  “Lots of rumors and speculation among the masses and the media, but if it was confirmed to the press that we got a guy in here with the regenerative ability of a—”

  “Jellyfish?” That, she would fly halfway across the globe to see.

  “Problem is, we don’t know how long we can keep him. He’s jittery as a jellyfish, I’ll give you that. Cops are interested in him too. Any way you can do this, and sooner rather than later? I have a feeling this guy is going to bolt as soon as he realizes we can’t keep him against his will.”

  “You’re in luck. I have a ten-hour layover in Chicago tomorrow. I’m on my way to a six-month stint at Salk in San Diego. Can someone pick me up at the airport? I won’t have much time, but I can at least take a look at the records and pay your patient a visit.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll e-mail you the details and his charts.”

  “Can you do that without his consent?”

  “Welcome to his patient care team, Dr. Shawe.”

  Anne Googled Dr. Andrew Samuelson and clicked on his hospital staff bio: “Harvard Medical School, board certifications in surgery, internal medicine, and genetic disorders.” Not bad looking either. Sounded just like the diversion she needed.

  BETHLEM ROYAL HOSPITAL, LONDON, 1842

  CHAPTER 22

  The dead and dying would be thrust into Airmid’s healing well, and she would sing to them
. Her understanding was a gift, her science, magic. All exposed to her healing prowess, they were restored—no matter their sickness—to full vigor through the protection of her great cloak.

  But her father Dian Cecht, god of medicine, was greatly jealous, for she was a more powerful healer than he could ever be. And he scattered her knowledge to the four winds, the language of herbs and medicines garbled and made nonsensical in the chaos. Yet in her wisdom, Airmid had inscribed it all long before that day, in a book of wonders, an indecipherable mystery to any but those rare mortal men in whom she had put her trust.

  The story lingered in the darkness as Gaelan rested his head on the cool stones of his cell. Handley was done with him for this day, and Gaelan cursed Airmid’s name as he had every night for four and a half years, disparaged this most cruel book of “wonders” that robbed him of death and dignity. “Let me not wake on the morrow,” he pleaded in futility, his mouth rusty with blood, his spirit broken, the air so heavy that his words melted into the stifling void.

  But she alone would visit him, a comforter, companion—only a vision, a fever dream, he realized. She sang to him for hours and hours, told him stories of Tuatha de Danann, their wars, their travels. He knew it was his own memory chanting to him, stories told to him as a boy. But for a little while each night, Gaelan would find sweet respite in her voice, and on the morrow Handley would begin again.

  Gaelan gripped his thigh, pressing upon the deep slash; it throbbed, and each pulse of his heart bled hot and sticky through his fingers. But the pressure blunted the brutal agony that had spread over his being. If he could only stay completely still, concentrate on other things, distracting things, he knew it would pass in an hour or two.

  Gaelan jumped at a sound. Was that, too, imagined? Laughter. A whisper of memory from the afternoon’s depravity . . .

  “Have you ever cut clear through to the bone, Dr. Handley? What would happen to your patient then? How long to heal such a deep, deep slice?” Handley had only just received a large bag of gold coins from a certain Lord Braithwaite, a man of particular zeal. “And I venture that sharpness of the blade might affect the pain your subject feels during the vivisection; what say you to that, my dear Dr. Handley?”