The Executioner's heart nahi-4

by George Mann

  The Prince blanched. “Indeed I have. A despicable business. You think there might be some connection?” he asked, dubious.

  “I do. I believe the German agents may be responsible for the deaths. If not the Germans, then foreign agents of some kind,” replied Newbury. He was feeling a little hot around the collar, and he rubbed a hand self-consciously over his face.

  “What makes you say that, Newbury?” prompted the Prince, evidently failing to see the connection.

  “The fact that all of the victims so far have been agents of Her Majesty the Queen,” said Newbury, quietly.

  “Indeed?” said the Prince, clearly shocked. “Then it does seem likely that they are being targeted. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover my cousin was behind it. If the Kaiser could undermine the Queen’s position, erode her power and her network of information, it would make a coup-or even an outright war-far easier to achieve.” He shook his head in dismay. “Have you considered, Newbury, that you might also be at risk?”

  “Any or all of Her Majesty’s agents could be at risk, Your Royal Highness. That’s why I’m here,” said Newbury.

  The Prince frowned. “Go on.”

  “I’m hoping to obtain a list of the Queen’s agents, to look for patterns and potential victims.” He sighed. “At present we have very little to go on. I’m working closely with Sir Charles Bainbridge of Scotland Yard, and we’re attempting to identify, if not a motive, then at least a pattern in the deaths, so that we might act to prevent further incidents. I fear there must be a double agent in our ranks, someone who is able to identify targets for the Kaiser. I wish to weed them out.”

  “Have you spoken to the Queen?” asked Albert Edward, his brow creased in thought.

  “Yes,” said Newbury, wondering precisely how he might broach the subject of the Queen’s reluctance to provide the necessary information. The Prince might have spoken honestly to Newbury about his mother back at Chelsea, but that was his prerogative, as her son and the future monarch. Newbury had to avoid causing insult. “I rather fear … well, I fear that Her Majesty does not trust me enough to grant me access to that list of names.”

  Albert Edward threw back his head with a deep, rumbling bellow of laughter. “Ah, it’s like that, is it?” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Of course, she doesn’t trust me much, either. Thankfully there are others at the palace who do.” He nodded, as if weighing his options. His composure returned. “I can get you what you require, Newbury. And if it helps bring an end to the constant threat of war with the Germans, well, then you’ll be doing us all a great service. It’ll take some time,” he said, glancing absently at the grandfather clock in the far corner of the room. “Can you return tomorrow evening? I’m sure I can have it for you by then.”

  “Of course,” said Newbury. “I’m most grateful to you, Your Royal Highness.”

  “Good to have an ally, eh?” said the Prince, jovially. “Well, I feel the same, Newbury. Let’s just say Her Majesty has been a little … confused, of late. She sees enemies where there are none, and doesn’t see the assassins that are already lurking in plain sight.”

  “She believes the Secret Service is out to undermine her,” said Newbury.

  “Well, she might yet have a point there,” replied the Prince. “But it remains to be seen. I’d tread carefully where the Secret Service is concerned, Newbury. I advise you to let that little drama play itself out without your involvement.”

  Newbury wasn’t sure how to respond to this particular revelation. So the Prince, too, had concerns about the legitimacy of the Secret Service. Perhaps there was more to the Queen’s comments than irrational fear, after all? But then, everything Newbury had said to Veronica about Angelchrist was true. He had no reason to doubt the man, and every reason to trust Bainbridge with his life. Surely they wouldn’t be mixed up in something so nefarious.

  Nevertheless … Newbury himself had allowed the Bastion Society’s attack on the Grayling Institute to go ahead. He’d allowed everyone to think that the renegades were targeting the palace, when, in fact, they were out to kill the Queen’s physician, Dr. Fabian, and destroy his work. Newbury was acutely aware that this might have been a death warrant for the Queen, but he did it anyway, knowing what part she played in the foul, depraved experiments being carried out at that facility, and the impact they had on Amelia-and, by extension, Veronica. Perhaps it wasn’t so outlandish a claim as he’d first thought-perhaps the Secret Service, and by extension Angelchrist and Bainbridge, had aligned themselves against the Queen.

  “I must say, Newbury,” said the Prince, mercifully changing the subject. “It’s good to see you looking more … yourself.”

  “Thank you, Your Royal Highness,” replied Newbury, unsure what else to say. He couldn’t very well admit that he’d soon be returning to Chelsea to mix a draught of laudanum, or that within the week he’d be back at Malbury Cross, conducting occult healing rituals on a woman everyone thought was dead.

  “Very good. Well, I’m afraid I have urgent business to attend to, Newbury,” said Albert Edward, reclaiming his cane and levering himself up from his chair. “Trying to rescue an abandoned hotel. Historic interest and all that. Barclay will show you out.”

  Newbury heard the door creak open on its hinges, and looked up to see the butler waiting in the passageway outside. Clearly, he’d had his ear to the door throughout the whole of the conversation. What was more, it appeared the Prince himself had given the man leave to do so.

  “My thanks to you, Your Royal Highness,” said Newbury. “I shall return tomorrow evening as you suggest.” He flicked a quick glance at Barclay, whose expression gave nothing away. “Your assistance in this matter is very much appreciated.”

  “Likewise, Newbury,” said the Prince, distracted again, as if his mind had already returned to the subject of his prior conversation. “Likewise.” He turned his back on Newbury, crossed the room, and once again disappeared into the library. This time, the door clicked decidedly shut behind him.

  “I’ll show you out, Sir Maurice,” said Barclay, pointedly holding open the door.

  With a sigh, Newbury nodded in affirmation. He had a great deal to consider before his meeting with the others that afternoon.

  CHAPTER 14

  The girl-now a young woman-and her father were both taken aback by the sudden, crippling onset of her illness.

  It struck suddenly one night in July, a terrible, excruciating pain in her chest. It felt as if someone were stabbing her repeatedly in the breast with a dagger. She howled and screamed, thrashing about violently beneath her bed sheets.

  The inventor rushed into her room, panic etched on his face, and held her tightly while an ashen-faced neighbour sent for the doctor. He whispered reassuring words into her ear, promises that she would be safe, that he would protect her from whatever it was that was harming her.

  Eventually, the pain abated and she was left panting raggedly for breath, covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The inventor laid her head softly upon the pillow, brushing her long, dark hair from her face, and held her hand while the doctor-an overweight, sour-breathed man close to his dotage-asked her a series of short, pointed questions. He put his head to her back and listened to the beating of her heart, examined her complexion, the whites of her eyes.

  Then, muttering beneath his breath as if he cared not one jot about the girl, her father, or her likely prognosis, he declared that she had a weak heart, giving her no more than a few months to live. The inventor begged him to help her, to offer a means by which his adoptive daughter could be saved, but the doctor simply shrugged and explained that the condition was terminal and close to its end, and that there was nothing anyone could do. He took his payment and left, and with him went all hope of her salvation. The devil was close at hand, and was laughing at her as he waited to claim his prize.

  The inventor wept through the night, and in the morning he sat her down and swore to her that he would find a means to vanquish her disease.


  The only outward sign that there had been anything wrong was the fact that she had begun growing paler a few weeks before the attack. Nevertheless, once the doctor had offered up his diagnosis of a weakling heart, the inventor had blamed himself for not seeing it sooner. He told her he had thought the paleness nothing more than a sign of her burgeoning womanhood-she was now approaching nineteen years of age and becoming more beautiful with every passing day-but his experience with his wife should have enabled him to draw the right conclusion much earlier.

  How unlucky it was that one man’s wife and adoptive daughter should both suffer in this way. He asked her one night if she thought he was cursed, and she smiled and offered him platitudes, all the while believing that perhaps, in truth, he was. What other explanation could there be?

  Up until this point, her life with the inventor had been joyful and free of woe. He had lavished beautiful things upon her and had welcomed her wholeheartedly into his life. He had talked to her of his late wife, of her desire that she should grow to become just like her: a calm, joyful woman who thought of others before herself, who was deeply affronted by the injustices of the world, and who had been as beautiful in her heart as she had in the flesh.

  The girl liked to think of the inventor and his wife sitting together in the drawing room of his great house. As a small child she imagined herself snuggling amongst the folds of her adoptive mother’s elaborate dresses (which still hung in a wardrobe upstairs at the house, and which she sometimes tried on when the inventor went out). She knew, though, that she could never be like this wonderful woman. She did not have it in her to be so selfless, so kind. She tried, of course, for his sake, but all the while she was aware of the evil in her heart, and reminded of the words of the old woman from the orphanage.

  He told her how he had tried to save his dying wife, how he had worked tirelessly to find a means of sustaining her, of halting the progress of the sickness that consumed her, but had failed. He had run out of time and had not been able to complete his research. But that research would stand them both in good stead, now that she, too, was ill. He would return to his notebooks and journals, and in their still-crisp pages he would find the means to save her life.

  She knew he kept these prized belongings in his study at the very centre of the house, but she was barely aware of the arcane things that went on in there. Indeed, she had rarely been allowed to enter the room, which bristled with the spines of leather-bound books, with vials and jars and silver candlesticks and things that even her wide-ranging imagination could barely conceive of. Animal skulls hung from threads attached to the ceiling, and the walls were daubed with strange, elaborate symbols. Clockwork machines ticked constantly, ominously, their tiny innards whirring. A marble slab filled the centre of the room, and the place had an unusual smell of incense, oil, musty books, and sweat about it.

  In the days and weeks that followed her diagnosis, he locked himself away in that room for hours at a time, slaving over what he hoped would be a cure for her condition, a solution to all of their problems. When she pressed her ear to the door, she heard only the ticking of the clockwork machines, the occasional turn of a screw, and his laboured breath. She could not begin to imagine what form this cure might take.

  The inventor would emerge from these long sessions with a red face and dripping brow, and she would go to him and hold him and thank him for all of his efforts on her behalf. She could see how tired he was, but also how driven. She rarely saw him at all during those strange, wild days and nights. Yet he appeared to appreciate these moments of kindness and affection, reminding her that whatever happened, whatever he had to sacrifice, he would not give up on his daughter.

  And so when the attacks came with increasing regularity she tried her best to be strong, and not to think of those fork-tongued demons awaiting her with their tridents and lascivious eyes.

  * * *

  Almost two months passed. The girl became weaker still, and took to her bed, no longer able to manage even the small activities of daily life. The stairs were now a mountain to her, the walk to the privy a mile-long excursion.

  That was when the inventor finally emerged, triumphant, from his study. He burst into her room unannounced, his eyes wild with success. She remembered feeling not joy, but fear at his wild, frenetic manner. He was trembling as he took her hand, squeezed it, and told her how he had finally found the answer to their prayers. He would mend her broken heart, and she would never have to leave him.

  Her relief was palpable. She thanked him profusely for everything he had done and told him that, had he not come to the orphanage that day over ten years earlier and whisked her away from that dreadful place, she would already be dead. He had given her life simply by offering her a place in the world.

  He wept tears of relief. Then, anxious not to risk even a moment longer to the vagaries of the damaged organ in her breast, he scooped her up and carried her down the stairs to his study.

  She remembered how the smoke stung her eyes, how the marble slab was cold and harsh beneath her shoulders as he laid her out before him. Books were propped open on wooden lecterns all around him, and a gleaming object, forged from brass, rested upon his workbench.

  She told him she was scared. He smiled warmly and assured her that she need not fear anything. The procedure would take some time. In the meantime, he would help her sleep. That way, her pretty face would not have to be blemished by any pain she might suffer as he carried out his operation.

  She trusted him without question, so she willingly acceded to his wishes, deeply inhaling the fumes of the foul-smelling chemical he presented to her on a rag. Her mind swirled, and soon the dizziness overcame her, sending her spiralling into a deep slumber.

  She dreamed of devils and demons, of searing flames and eternal damnation. It was five days before she woke.

  She recalled how she struggled to sit up in her bed, the curious sense that her body felt somehow different, awkward and ungainly. She felt the weight of something pressing on her left shoulder. In the darkened room, she imagined it to be a bandage strapped tightly across her chest.

  Whatever her father had done for her had worked. She could sense her body was already stronger, flushed with vibrancy and life. He had fulfilled his promises and saved her from the demons that were slowly eroding her heart.

  Hesitantly, she swung her legs out over the side of the bed and climbed unsteadily to her feet. She fumbled for a candle and lit it from the dying embers of the fire that still glowed faintly in the grate. She carried the candle to the looking glass so that she might examine his work; see how the colour had returned to her cheeks.

  At first the sight of the stranger that confronted her baffled her. Had she been confused and inadvertently gone to the window instead? Who was this demonic woman who glowered at her in confusion?

  Then realisation had dawned on her and she screamed. The sound that erupted from her throat was like none she had heard before. What had he done?

  The woman staring back at her from the looking glass was covered in the same elaborate symbols as the walls in the inventor’s study: circles and whorls, pentagrams and stars, runes and words. They covered her entirely from head to toe. Not an inch of her still-pale flesh remained untouched.

  She tried rubbing at the strange marks, wiping them away, but they refused to be scrubbed clean. They were etched deep into her flesh, as much a part of her now as the tiny blemishes and imperfections that she’d noted as a child. Furthermore, nestled amongst the ink-black tattoos were traceries of precious metals: silver, platinum, and gold. They shimmered in the reflected candlelight, highlighting particular symbols or runes like accents on particular words.

  Worst of all, the tightness she had felt across her shoulder was not, as she had thought, a tightly bound bandage, but the brass instrument she had seen on the workbench in the inventor’s study. It was a brace that fit over her shoulder like a sword guard. She could feel the mechanisms inside it slowly turning, hear the gurgling rush of flui
d as her blood passed through the metal chambers inside. A tiny key jutted from a hole in its surface-a winding mechanism, she realised, with which to operate it. This was her new heart, the clockwork engine that would beat in place of her own.

  On the front of the device, filling the space where her left breast had once been, was a glass panel like the porthole on a ship. Inside she could see the shrivelled remains of her own damaged organ, now black and necrotic and fused to her new, unnatural components.

  She wanted to turn and run from her horrific image, to pretend that she was still dreaming, that the living hell she had glimpsed in the mirror was just another trial, another imaginary torment placed before her by the demons and the old woman. But she now knew the true nature of her damnation. She had been saved from the clutches of the devil by the ministrations of the inventor, but the devil had found a means to punish her regardless: The fallen one had worked through her father, imbuing him with dark intent and the occult powers with which to afflict her.

  Something broke inside of her, then. A cold numbness seemed to spread outwards from the void in her chest until it utterly engulfed her. She had lost her heart, and from that day onwards, she would never feel anything again.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Are you sure this is where Sir Charles suggested we meet?” said Veronica, shielding her eyes from the dazzling afternoon sun.

  “Do you doubt me?” asked Newbury, chuckling.

  “No. But I do know you,” she said, playfully.

  Newbury smiled impishly. “I protest! I am quite innocent, Miss Hobbes. I understand from Charles that Professor Angelchrist proposed the location of our little get-together. Although, I admit, I have been rather anxious to pay a visit since the exhibition opened last week.”

  “Yes, I thought you might be,” said Veronica, grinning. “Well, come along, then. Let’s take a look.” She hooked her arm through his and led him across the lawn towards the entrance.