Morbid Metamorphosis

by Lycan Valley Press

  “Deal,” Olivia said.

  He started toward the door. Not far beyond it a clean hotel room, room service, a shower, and a comfortable bed awaited. But Hugh only went as far as a few steps before turning back to face her.

  “Olivia,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  He saw that the fear and hopelessness were gone from her gaze. Then, saying nothing more, Hugh drew the policewoman into his arms.

  HYDE AND SEEK

  Nicholas Furr

  The first body was found in Shoreditch, its chest ripped apart, its arms pulled off and hurled into the street, and its head thrown through the back window of a flat owned by a war widow who screamed for most of an hour afterward and relied on a neighbor to call for the police. The Times ran the story as “Has Mister Hyde Returned?” – due to one of the arms being found on Hyde Lane – but what should have been a front page headline was relegated to a later, smaller spot in the newspaper, due to the volume of news still coming from the end of the war in Europe.

  The second body, several months later, earned slightly better space in the august Times. A witness claimed to have seen a “large and hulking man” carry a fairly well-known crime lord up the side of a four-story building in St. Giles and throw him through the bonnet of one of the neighborhood’s few automobiles, which had been parked about 80 feet away and across the street. The large and hulking man, identified by the journalist now as “a Mister Hyde,” was then reported to have leapt down to the street and finished beating the criminal to death with the passenger-side door, which he pulled off the hinges with ease.

  The murders were either dismissed as fantasy or ignored outright by the people of Britain, some of whom still rode the swell of pride at Victory in Europe, though others tried to maintain quiet dignity while coping with the loss of their men or boys in the trenches. But in a few places – police stations, gambling halls, newspaper offices, bookstores – they were a regular topic of conversation. In the Challenger’s Club, it was even more than that.

  ***

  “Conversely,” said Emily Rankin, one long finger in the air, “It’s possible that Dr. Jekyll was the fiction, but the process itself was real.”

  “Nonsense,” responded Sir Douglas Bridgton. “Rubbish. Stevenson knew Dr. Jekyll and wove the story around his contemporary acquaintance.”

  “The author did not know Dr. Henry Jekyll,” Emily Rankin said. “It is your opinion—”

  “And mine,” interjected Tommy Saunders.

  “And yours,” Rankin added, nodding, “…that he did. But you both admit that the good doctor’s name was actually Heinrich Baechle, a Bavarian on fellowship at London Hospital.

  “Heinrich is German for Henry,” Sir Douglas said. “And it’s pronounced ‘Beckle,’ not ‘Bakel.’ It is too much for coincidence.” He smoothed the ends of his thick moustache.

  “You, Mr. Saunders?” Rankin turned to face the young man seated to her right.

  “I think it’s easier to believe that Stevenson knew a murderous doctor than it is to believe that a process existed which could be used to turn a good man into a giant, evil brute,” the handsome young man said.

  “Nonsense! Rubbish!” cried Rankin, in a deliberate echo of Sir Douglas’ words. “We live in a world of science and wonder! We’ve found a way to control the diabetes, to cure infections! We’ve defeated the Spanish Flu! We have radio, automobiles, and trains that travel faster than ever before! And though it is horrible, we have crushed the Hun on the continent using motorized tank machines, bullet-spitting aeroplanes, and clouds of terrible gas! Why is it hard to believe that science and medicine could not change a good man bad, and why is it impossible to believe that a man might have done so already?”

  “Because that would be the work of an alchemist more than the work of a chemist,” opined Lord Parkington, who walked toward them alongside Ruby Santilli. He was of the peerage; she most definitely was not. Parkington waited until she had seated herself before joining the others at the table.

  “These are two different disciplines,” Parkington said, pulling a Meerschaum pipe from a coat pocket, “and the one is not the other. However, I am willing to entertain the idea that someone could transform themselves into their inner wicked self… naturally.” He began to pack the pipe full of rich tobacco from a leather pouch.

  “We have seen stranger,” Ruby added.

  “Like the werewolf of Romany,” Saunders said.

  “Or a daemon at the gates of Hell,” Ruby agreed, nodding. A Sicilian woman who had married a Welshman, she, like the others, had the misfortune of experiencing the horrors of the supernatural. After witnessing a creature of the underworld dragging her husband underground – and after being found innocent of all charges at the necessary inquest – she had found herself in the West End of London, seeking entrance to the Challenger’s Club, where a survivor’s word was often enough to gain admittance. At Challenger’s, the strata of birth and society simply did not matter. Englishmen and women of all stripes suffered the terrifying affronts of the beyond, and as equals the club considered all survivors. The ancestral home of Sir Douglas, the aging adventurer, was haunted by malevolent shades, and several groups of club members, including Parkington and Emily, had seen them. Emily’s tale was that she was the sole survivor of a terrible beast that tore her family apart somewhere on the continent. Now a print-shop typesetter, she was a regular face at the club. Young Saunders’ tale was of nearly being killed by a lycanthrope in Eastern Europe when he traveled as a missionary – and he had scars to show for it. Lord Parkington, on the other hand, never went into detail about his experiences, except once when he was suffering the effects of large quantities of fine cognac, when he spoke of “the faces of animals, the wings of eagles, soaring out of the sky… carrying the others away.” But he had been a club member longer than nearly anyone else, his family had been among the peerage for centuries, and no one questioned his bona fides.

  “If by natural, you mean ‘in the body,’ Lord Parkington,” Emily said, smiling, “could not, perhaps, the blood or the bile or the glands of such a creature be used as the base of a… potion, for instance?

  “Alchemy,” Parkington said, after a long, pensive draw on the pipe.

  “Rubbish,” Sir Douglas added. “Some sort of magical draught from the Orient, perhaps? Nonsense. Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde was almost certainly Henrich Baechle, a German doctor, miserable human, and wicked murderer who suffered terrible illnesses of the brain. Were he around today, he’d not even be a member here.”

  Emily coughed, and the cough became a laugh.

  “Do you disagree, Miss Rankin?” Parkington asked. “Do you believe that Mr. Hyde would have been a member of Challenger’s?”

  “Oh, no. No,” she said. “But I am quite certain he is now.”

  ***

  Emily Rankin stepped through the front door of the club and into the street. She pulled her shawl further up onto her shoulders and shivered. It was a cold September night and the first few tendrils of river fog had drifted in and settled between the buildings. Emily looked both ways before starting to hurry down the lane toward the main road. Glancing back over her shoulder, she spent a moment listening before moving again.

  The man once known as Heinrich Baechle watched, wrapped in an overcoat far too large for him. He had taken two steps out of the shadows when the door to the club opened again and Lord Parkington and two others stepped out. Spying Emily, he called her name.

  Baechle eased back into the shadows and let the gentlemen catch up and walk with her to the street.

  Another time, he thought.

  ***

  “It is on page two this time,” Emily announced, setting a copy of the Times on the chesterfield next to Sir Douglas. “A woman, and this time the reporter has named him ‘Mr. Hyde.’”

  “Whitechapel,” Sir Douglas said, after reading the first few paragraphs. “I believe someone is confusing their serial murderers.” From the nearest armchair, Tommy Saunder
s nodded agreement.

  “This is not the Ripper,” Emily said. “It is Mr. Hyde.”

  “Of course it’s not the Ripper,” Sir Douglas said, pushing his spectacles further up onto his nose. “We know what happened to her.”

  “This one was also pulled apart,” Emily said. “And some of the pieces have not yet been found.”

  “There are quite a few scavengers in Whitechapel.”

  “Animals, as well,” Saunders offered.

  “It would not surprise me if some of them have been carried off and gnawed upon,” Sir Douglas said, with a slight nod toward the younger man.

  “Perhaps Hyde has kept a finger or two as a memento,” Emily said. “It would not be the first time that has happened.”

  “Indeed,” Sir Douglas said. “Tell me, Miss Rankin, why do you believe that this Mr. Hyde would be a member here?”

  “Where else could a man hide himself in quiet safety and yet be aware of all interest in him? Scotland Yard? An office at the Times? No, he would hide here. Few others show as much interest in him, while still believing there might be some truth to the story.”

  “Miss Rankin,” Sir Douglas said, smoothing his moustache, “I believe it is you who are primarily responsible both for the quantity of conversation of the Hyde matter, and also the amount of belief.”

  “Sir Douglas!” she exclaimed. “I do believe you are correct.”

  “Indeed,” he said.

  ***

  Wrapped in his vastly oversized overcoat, Heinrich Baechle followed Emily Rankin for eleven blocks, until she had made her way to her building. He stood in the street below, looking up until he saw her moving in the dim candlelight of her third-story flat. She was smart, she was cunning, and she was annoyingly adept at gaining attention for her theories. It had amused him for a time, but her guessing to his collection of a memento was troublesome.

  He touched the package in the coat pocket. He had her attention, but now it was time to engage her in conversation.

  ***

  Miss Rankin, you are correct, the note read. Indeed, I am Heinrich Baechle, and I am also He Who is Displeasing, He Who is Downright Detestable. You flatter yourself that you know me and you know my ways. Yet ‘tis clear that you don’t understand me – not in the slightest. You may find me at midnight in the alleyway behind the cabinet maker’s shop near the club.

  As you have surmised, I am familiar with the club and I shall gauge the veracity of your interest in me, or your falsehood. But should you not show, be certain that I shall forever Hyde from you, yet you shall never be able to Hyde from me.

  Emily set the note down and looked down into the open box. The torn female hand, a few days gone, lay on its back, its fingers curled up as if reaching for her.

  The steward had found the package in the solarium with her name on a card attached by a bit of string, and had brought her to it. He had respected her wish for privacy and she had opened it alone. She closed the package and set the note atop it.

  Now, she thought. Now I’ll know who he is.

  She smiled.

  ***

  Heinrich Baechle stood in the shadowed doorway of a tailor’s shop and watched as Emily Rankin strode to the entrance to the alleyway across the street. She glanced around, illuminated by the nearest greasy gas lamp, seemingly ignoring the few hurrying passersby and the lone harlot leaning against the wall a few yards away. But she didn’t see him, not where he stood, bundled in his vast, oversized coat. Instead, she touched something on her belt. A bit of metal gleamed for a moment in the gaslight.

  He smiled; she was expecting trouble and had come prepared. It was no matter. He tightened his grip on his cudgel and watched as she moved into the alley and sank into the gloom. Silently, he counted thirty before pulling the cap farther down onto his head and starting across the street.

  The alley was a deathtrap, a short cut gated at the far end, with the only way out the only way in. It suited his purpose well.

  “Good eve—” the harlot began, prepared to raise her bundled skirts.

  He raised the nightstick and pointed it at her. “Away,” he hissed. He slapped the stick against his palm.

  She showed him two fingers in response, but hustled away. He smiled, hurrying through the pool of gas light and into the alley itself on silent soles of rubber. The alley was full of garbage, an oubliette for those that lived nearby. Emily was facing away, halfway hidden behind a teetering stack of splintered crates, scanning the rest of the alley for trouble, when he came out of the darkness next to her. Only an inch or two taller than she, he reached out and shoved – hurling her back against the alley wall. She cried out as she hit, falling forward to her knees. She glanced up at him, recognition and fear sharing the space in her eyes.

  “Tommy!” she cried, “You are Herr Baechle?” She fought to stand.

  “Doctor Baechle, if you will…” Tommy Saunders responded, removing the cap so she could see his face in the hazy moonlight that reached down into the space between the buildings. “At least for the next few minutes.” He swung the nightstick. It struck the nearest wall, a wooden clang echoing around them. “But when the end comes, it will be as Hyde. You did wish to meet him, I gather.”

  “Are you a son or grandson?” she asked, standing, her back flush against the wall.

  “I am he – the original. Stevenson’s madman; the doctor himself.”

  “But you look so young!”

  “I have remained young and healthy by ingesting a distillation of glands from a particular family in Silesia,” he said. “As you have somewhat surmised.” He struck the wall again with the nightstick. “How did you think of the glands?”

  “A bit of science,” she stammered. “It was blood, bile, or the glands. The power had to come from somewhere!”

  “You are correct,” Tommy said. He stepped forward, grimacing at the cracking of bones and pulling of muscles that had began inside him. Emily gasped as he closed the distance between them, now several inches taller than she. He slammed the nightstick into the wall again. It snapped, split into splintered halves.

  Emily cried out. He tossed the nightstick-half away and reached for her. Emily turned and tried to dash away, but he caught her arm and spun her back toward himself. She moved more quickly than he expected; the knife hidden at her belt seemed to appear in her hand. She slashed at his arm. The coat sleeve tore and parted, and the shirt beneath grew red with blood.

  Tommy growled and wrapped his hand around hers, squeezing. Emily cried out, turning the scream of pain into a cry for help.

  He pulled the knife from her hand and hurled it away, then slapped her hard enough to bring the scream to a guttural halt.

  “Tommy!” she said, choking.

  “No, no,” he growled as the cracking and stretching continued, “we are past that now.” He squeezed the hand that still held her and twisted. Emily shrieked as the bones in her wrist and arm splintered and broke.

  Now standing more than a foot taller than she, he wrapped his fingers around her neck and lifted. Her feet kicked the wall as they left the ground and her one remaining good hand pounded against his arm. Again face to face, he moved to within a few inches of her. The coat, originally far too large, was now tight against his shoulders and arms. But the shirt had split and torn and his trousers had ripped along the seams. Only straining black braces held them up.

  “Why do you flinch, little Challenger?” His voice now rumbled more than growled. “Am I still not a handsome lad?”

  “Can’t… breathe…”

  “Not for much longer.”

  “Tell you… something…”

  He snorted, but grabbed the front of her dress with his other hand. He lifted her another inch or two, taking the weight directly off her neck. She coughed.

  “Enlighten me,” he rumbled

  “You’re—you’re a monster!” she managed to say.

  He threw back his head and laughed. As the peal echoed off the nearest buildings, he placed his face le
ss than inch away from hers. Like a lover, he looked into her eyes and found the tears welling in the corners.

  “You thought Sir Douglas was Hyde.”

  “I did,” she was able to say. She reached up and tried pulling the fingers away from her neck again. He maintained his grip, undisturbed.

  “Why?”

  “You’re going to kill me,” Emily said, coughing.

  “Most assuredly,” he answered, ignoring her hand on his.

  “Why did you kill those other people?”

  “I owed money to the one,” he rumbled. “It was easier to kill him than pay him. The woman was to be certain I had your attention. The first was… a bit of whimsy. I was on Hyde Lane; he tried to rob me. It amused me to do so.”

  “This started from your amusement?”

  “There is no better reason to do anything – to pull a nurse apart or stomp a child to death – than for one’s own amusement.”

  “Am I to die to amuse you?” Emily continued to pry at his unmoving fingers.

  “No. You will die because you are too loud. Too many people in the club are listening to you. That is truly clear.”

  “Tommy—”

  “Hyde!” he roared.

  “Mr. Hyde, you wanted to know why I thought you might be Sir Douglas?”

  He glared.

  “I thought you were smart.” With both hands, she kept trying to pry his fingers away from her neck.

  “…and you’re not.”

  He rumbled: “Pardon?”

  “You talk well,” Emily said. “Very well, but you have failed to notice two things. One is that I am using both my hands.”

  His eyes widened. He glanced toward her hands.

  “The other,” she said through gritted teeth, “is that I am once again standing on the ground.”

  He stepped back, unwillingly looking down. Emily’s body had grown and begun to stretch. Her hands, too, had enlarged and the one had healed. She tightened her grip on the fingers that held her neck and squeezed. Bones ground in his hand.