“Try not to worry too much, my love,” Giles said, reaching for the coach door. “She is a most resourceful child. She would not do anything stupid. Of that I am sure.”
“Nothing stupid? Nothing stupid?” Charlotte exclaimed. “She is nowhere to be found on the grounds. She has left without even taking a coat with which to keep warm! If she would do nothing stupid, then why must you now search the city for her?”
Miss Pinchstaff hugged Charlotte in close, trying to mask her own upset and offer some consolation.
Giles could think of no answer. “Look, my dears, go back inside. We shall search all night, if we must. Never fear. She will be safe and sound. I have no doubt.” Giles climbed into the coach with the two guards from the rear of the grounds. The men at the gate bade them good luck in their search as they passed into the night.
“So, where do you think we should look first?” one of the guards asked.
Giles produced his medicine bottle from his pocket and took a long draught. He turned to the guards and replied, “I have told the driver to get us to Sacks’ Pharmacy. I am almost certain she is heading for there.”
“What makes you say so?”
“She said something earlier about a present for Mrs Burton,” Giles said. His eyes moistened; his face showed no trace of his joviality.
The coach raced towards the Hyde Park turnpike. Giles and the guards rode with their heads outside the windows of the carriage, hoping to catch a glimpse of the child, praying that she had not managed to stray too far from the house.
Giles examined his pocket watch. It was shortly after 9pm. The pharmacy would still be open if she had made it that far – if that was, indeed where she was headed. He hoped at least she would be safe inside.
The snow fell steadily and had been lying, gathering. The coach jostled occasionally as the horses struggled to find purchase on the icy stone. The driver wisely slowed the pace, although none of the men present wanted to sacrifice speed.
“These streets are dead,” one of the guards commented. “It still strikes me after all these months.”
Giles agreed. “There will be more life beyond the turnpike. But I agree, the city is not meant to be this way. Her soul is gone.”
“Do you reckon it will ever go back the way it was, Mr Burton?” the other guard asked.
Giles felt some relief at the appearance of the turnpike and fortifications there. He turned to the guard who had spoken. “Go back? The city has been destroyed as surely as if it was the end of all days. The destruction is not entirely obvious from the outside, but thousands are dead, and the survivors are changed, decayed, tainted somehow. It would take a miracle for London to come back from this.”
“They say the Grenadier Guards were almost wiped out,” the first guard whispered.
“Shhh, the coachman’s brother…”
“I know. I know.”
“Shhh lads, please,” Giles warned, turning from the window to give both guards a reproachful look for their gossip.
The coach slowed for the approach to the turnpike barrier. Giles leapt from the carriage, slipping slightly on the icy ground. He peered up at the array of rifles that pointed out at him from the fortifications.
“Good evening, gentlemen!” he called.
“State your business,” came the dispassionate response.
“My name is Giles Burton. My fellows and I have an urgent matter to attend to. Have you seen a small child? A girl. She is 11 years old, a mere slip of a girl. She wore a dress, probably no coat.”
One of the men stood tall among the barricade, lowered his rifle and adjusted the ragged bandage on his forehead. “I saw such a child. She walked in with a man and wife but they said she was a stranger to them.”
Giles smiled at Niamh’s cunning. That was her all right, passing herself off as the child of a couple so as not to arouse suspicion. “Did you let her pass?” he asked.
“I did. We had to get some business done with one of them things in the park over there to your back. We let her through and she moved on up Picadilly with the rest of ‘em.”
“Well, that child went missing from my house earlier this evening. She was believed to be in bed.”
Another voice emerged from the fortifications, “What do you want us to do about it, my old fella? We already told you: the child moved on.”
“I would consider it a great kindness if you would open a passage for my men and I to enter the city. I must find the child and bring her home safely.”
“Are you mad, old man?” one of the guards called.
Giles watched as an oil lamp appeared on top of the barricade. “Watch this,” called the guard.
The oil lamp hurtled through the air in the direction of the Hyde Park fence. When the lamp struck the ground the glass shattered, spilling burning oil. In the illumination afforded by the flames, Giles was able to see beyond the fence, glistening eyes and teeth. Dozens of creatures, which at first appeared human, stood at the fence, watching and waiting.
“The minute we open a passage for your coach, they will make a run for it. It has taken months for them to realise that if we put enough shots into them, they will eventually go down. Now they hold back awhile, and wait for the right moment to charge.”
“Perhaps you need more guns,” Giles said. He kept his eyes fixed on the huddled shapes in the Park.
“More guns, more men, more everything. They are just biding their time in the park, picking off anyone they can, beyond the range of our guns. In a night or two, they shall feel strong again and make another run for it. We will manage to pin a couple of them down, burn them, like many times before. It puts the rest off for a while. Then the whole sequence of events starts over once more.”
“I thought they would be more determined than that,” Giles said, staring at the creatures. It amazed him that this occurred every night, only streets away from his home. He had heard the gunfire, but had not realised that the creatures had amassed in such numbers so close to his home. Up until then, he had passed through the barrier without fully appreciating danger on his doorstep.
The guard sniffed. “These buggers are dying. Some sort of wasting disease. Like leprosy or something for vampires. If they was the real vampires, we would never stand a chance. Got to try and stop anyone going near and… feeding them, though. When they attack we try to take a few of them, they try to take a few of us. That is just the way it goes. We need to keep it that way until they starve to death, or a miracle presents itself.”
“Well then, I wish you luck. And when I have found the child, I will have a mind in the morning to write a draft and you and your men shall have the munitions and extra manpower you need.”
The guards seemed unenthusiastic about Giles’ proposal. “The Government has been promising us men for weeks and weeks. Never send nothing.”
“I am a Burton, of the Burton Shipping Company. I have access to money, and men, and guns. I will provision you and arm you. And from the day after tomorrow, from Christmas, you shall have enough resources to sweep that park clear of the demons who lurk there.”
“What? All for us opening a passage for you?” one of the guards sneered.
“No. I would not put you so at risk now that I see the odds you are against. My coach will have to go back to the house. I will proceed on foot with my two men. The supplies are yours, because I admire your courage. The supplies are yours, because you need help to get the job done. The supplies are yours, because I would have no more good men killed by the evil that has torn the heart from this city!”
“Let him pass. Let him and his men pass!” the watch commander called. “Bear, take them over to Freddy, that drunk so-and-so you! Tell Freddy to get that horse and cart round. This gentleman shan’t get his coach through, but we can spare him ours for an hour or two, while he finds that girl.”
Giles turned back to the coach driver as his guards disembarked. “Godspeed, my friend.”
The driver touched a finger to the rim of his hat. “G
ood hunting.”
Once through the turnpike a large brute of a man, who walked with a heavy limp, led the small search party to a horse and cart. A thin, ruddy-faced man sat at the reins, turned to them and said, “Climb on, gentlemen. Tell me, where is ya headed?”
“Do you know Sacks’ Pharmacy?” Giles asked, settling between a crate and barrel on the cart.
“I know it,” Freddy replied.
“Get us there as quickly as you can,” Giles said. “But keep your eyes peeled for a young girl out alone.”
“Lot of orphans about, these days, sir. Lot more than normal,” Freddy said, cracking the reins. “But I shall keep a watchful eye out.”
They carried on without further comment until one of the guards noticed the stench of burning flesh on the air. A column of smoke rose from the direction of Pall Mall.
Giles leaned forward to address Freddy. “Take us down St James’s Street.”
Freddy nodded. “No problem, sir. But beggin’ yer pardon, it will be difficult to pass and even more difficult to see the girl, should she happen to be there.”
“And why would that be?” Giles asked.
Freddy turned the cart and followed others down the street as instructed, preferring to wait a moment to let Giles take it in for himself, rather than explain.
Giles noticed the cart in front of them. A large square of ragged cloth flapped in the breeze, occasionally lifting high enough that he could make out what lay beneath. He saw feet, hands, grey faces, piled up and intermingled. He could not determine exactly how many bodies he was looking at, but he knew it was dozens.
“Every night, they take the dead to the pyres. St James’s Square is one of the places they have been taking them. Lot of people head there at night.”
Giles could see that Freddy was not mistaken. Trails of heartbroken Londoners poured away from the square, and scores travelled inward, bearing their dead. He had not been to the city after dark in recent months and had not heard of this custom. “Why are we burning our dead?” he asked.
“Problem is keeping ‘em dead,” Freddy sniffed.
Progress was slow as carts turned into St James’s Square and, watched by armed guards, people took the bodies down and carried them into the square to conduct their dreary industry.
Freddy drove on, passing the carts with business at the square, but Giles and his guards managed to see into the square itself as they passed. They felt the heat from the pyres and wondered how anyone could stand to work near the intense, red flames. The whole square appeared to Giles to be burning at first glance, but when his eyes adjusted, he could make out dozens of separate mounds.
“We have truly arrived in Hell,” he sobbed.
“They say it is best to burn ‘em the night they die. Some say you have only an hour before they get back up. Others say if the vampires drain them completely, it’s all right, they won’t get up again. I don’t know, though. I reckon burn them all, just to be on the safe side.”
“Thank you, Freddy,” Giles cried, wishing the man would stop talking. He turned away and saw other carts behind them, looked ahead and saw carts streaming in from the riverside. On every one of the conveyances he imagined the beloved child they sought.
By the Hay Market Freddy could take the cart no further, as the road was completely clogged with carts, coaches and pedestrians.
Giles and his guards disembarked and continued on foot, thanking the man who had managed to get them so far. They soon saw what had caused the traffic to stop. One cart had been so heavily laden with corpses that one of the wheels had buckled, then broken, turning the cart over and spilling the grim cargo across the road. The ensuing chaos had seen people trampled by spooked horses and several fights had broken out in which drivers were dragged from their perches and beaten.
“See how they turn on each other?” Giles called to his companions. “So divided they will, each and every one of them, and before very long at all, find themselves consumed by the flames in St James’s Square!”
To the south, gunshots told of the riots outside of the unfinished Parliament buildings. A surge of protestors broke out in a dash north. They slowed before ever reaching Giles and his men, recovering their nerve before idling their way back toward the police line to resume their protest.
More smoke and flames caught Giles’ attention, this appearing to be a building rather than a pyre. “My God, I fear that fire is close to our destination. I pray the child is well!”
The snow fell ever harder and the men slipped on the marsh of waste, snow and ice that had become their path.
One of the guards, frustrated at being jostled by so many passersby, threw a man to the ground, causing others to topple over.
Giles rebuked the guard, who replied, “Why are there so many still out and about? Why must they roam the streets when they are so dangerous?”
Giles considered this. “Perhaps there is no hiding from this evil. Perhaps home is no safer for these poor wretches. If our Queen can be forced to leave her heavily fortified home, then surely the shacks and doss-houses afford no security.”
“Safety in numbers,” the other guard offered.
“Quite so,” Giles agreed. “And like the wildebeest on the great plains of Africa, they swarm in great numbers. Predators can claim only one or two of them at a time and the others… they flee for their lives, moving onward hoping to survive the next attack.”
The comforting smell of roasting chestnuts drifted in the air, permeating the stench of the ravaged city. Giles savoured the scent as he swigged from his medicine bottle. “Not much further to go, men. With any luck we shall find our girl desperately trying to decide which gift to buy for her mother!”
“Hope upon hope, sir!” one of the guards wished.
“And another hope upon that!”
A woman wailed as she emerged from the shadows of a lane, huddling a tattered bundle in her arms. A tiny arm hung lifeless from the cloth. The woman was walking to St James’s Square, following the established order, defying her instinct in order to protect strangers. The sorrow of the scene caused Giles to feel like his heart would burst. He wanted to reach out to her, to hold her, and help her give the child a proper burial rather than burn the tiny body like a tribe of savages would. The woman was followed by a bleeding soldier and an old man whose face was charred ebony-black from a house fire.
Everywhere Giles looked he saw ever more needy citizens, more desperation, more loneliness, more suffering. “I can not bear this! Who could you turn to first to provide charity, without turning your head and seeing a more needy soul immediately afterwards? I have seen too much! Must the city be tortured so before it dies?”
One of the guards grasped Giles’ shoulder. “Take heart, sir. We are close to the pharmacy. Like you said, we shall find her there and then we take her straight home.”
A priest thumped a bible against his chest, tears streaming down his cheeks as he walked slowly toward Parliament Street, roaring for all to hear, “And again he shall walk among us! As foretold and promised, the risen Christ shall walk among us once more and smite the devils plaguing our city! Death, and rebirth as the Lord God wills it! On Christmas Day He shall rise again - not a redeemer, but an avenger, with the Lord’s might as his sword and our prayers as his breastplate!”
Behind the priest followed a cloaked gathering whose fervent chanting almost drowned out the proclamations of their leader. People stood by and watched the procession and others ran into the middle of the road to join them, stirred by the priest’s words.
“To prayer! To prayer, ye heathen bastards! To prayer and temper the Almighty’s armour with your devotion!”
Giles wondered what would happen when the crusaders met with the rioters at Parliament, and all descended upon the police gathered there.
In only a few minutes, Sacks’ Pharmacy came into view.
“Looks like they have been attacked!” one of the men declared.
Giles broke into a run that astonished his compan
ions. He weaved his way through the crowded lane and inspected the open shop front. Inside, the shop had been ransacked, with bottles and earthenware jars discarded or shattered completely, all over the floor. Shards glistened in the light of lanterns positioned about the place. Some militia men and police constables stood in the doorway and worked within the building, some holding handkerchiefs across their mouths, others sweeping the mess into piles with long, stiff brooms.
Giles overheard one of the constables at the door saying, “It is nothing short of a bleeding miracle, I swear to it.”
“Well then, that would be two miracles in one night,” another said.
“Perhaps this is the sign of things to come. Perhaps this is the turn.”
Giles approached the constables and asked, “Might I ask what has occurred here?”
A constable turned from the shop and held up a cautioning hand. “Stand back, sir. There are all manner of poisons and what have you in here, all over the floor as you can plainly see.”
“Please. Tell me what happened,” Giles insisted.
The constable frowned, unable to understand the pleading in this strange old man’s voice. He nodded to the two men who joined Giles, the guards who had managed to catch up.
“They are with me; do not concern yourself with them. It is vital that I learn what has occurred here this night.”
“There was another nest of blood-suckers here. We thought they got them all around here last night, but obviously some slipped through the net.”
Another constable offered, “Perhaps they hadn’t risen last night. They might have just turned tonight.”
“Maybe, who knows?” the first constable snorted, before turning his attention back to Giles. “Anyway, it seems they smelled someone was home here at the pharmacy and they smashed through the plate glass and started tearing the place to bits. They attacked Stanley Sacks, the pharmacist, before we got here. One of them took a girl off the street and made off across the roofs with her.”
Giles raised a hand to his mouth and staggered backwards. The guards braced him and kept him steady. “My God! We are too late!” His hand found the medicine bottle and trembling, he pressed the brown glass to his lips. He drained the few sips remaining and the empty bottle slipped from his grasp into the slush of mud and snow.
The Cabinet of Dr Blessing (The Dr Blessing Collection Parts 1-3): A Gothic Victorian Horror Tale Page 19