‘Not at all, Bishop,’ said Renard. He pulled the hessian sack from behind his back, and offered it to Courtney. ‘Quite the opposite in fact.’
‘But…but, Mr Reynolds…surely you don’t mean–’
‘Look, if you don’t want your bloody elixir, by all means—just let me know and I’ll take it away,’ said Renard in a playful tone.
Courtney nearly choked with anticipation. ‘My Lord! You’ve done it, you’ve actually done it,’ he exclaimed, the paleness of his fat, greasy face accentuating his beady little eyes. ‘How? I mean…however did you find it so quickly?’
‘Just a stab in the dark,’ said Renard, as he placed the sack-covered box upon the table in front of the Bishop. He untied the neck, and let the rough material fall open.
The Bishop’s eyes lit up like Roman candles as he saw the dusty box before him. His lip quivered as he traced his fingers over the lid. ‘A very apt engraving,’ he said, examining the silver leaf, figure-of-eight design. ‘The symbol for Infinity—just like the gift that the consumer enjoys.’ The Bishop’s breath was panting furiously now, as if he’d just run up several flights of stairs. ‘How do you open it, Mr Reynolds?’
‘Ah, if you don’t mind, Bishop, I’d rather we concluded our business first,’ said Renard, placing his hand on top of the box’s lid. ‘After all, you’ll soon have eternal life…it’s not like you’re in any rush, is it?’
The Bishop couldn’t tear his eyes away from the box, as if it were calling his name repeatedly. ‘Of course…of course,’ he said distractedly, and he shuffled over to a large oil painting on the wall of Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven. After a few anxious seconds of feeling his finger around the underneath of the frame, the painting swung slowly outwards, revealing a large metal safe behind it.
‘My thanks to you, Mr Reynolds, for services rendered,’ Bishop Courtney said, handing Renard a small leather briefcase. ‘Without your savvy, I don’t think I would have been able to achieve so much. Can I not convince you to stay awhile to watch me open my prize?’
Renard weighed the briefcase up in his hands. ‘Well, maybe I will for a little bit. Perhaps I can get your driver to drop me off in Whitehall?’
‘Whitehall, eh? Yes, I’m sure Melchin would relish the fresh air. Won’t you come closer and join me in toasting our victory?’ said Bishop Courtney, hastily pouring Renard a goblet of wine. ‘To the future!’ he said, lifting his goblet into the air.
‘And your very good health, your Grace,’ said Renard.
‘Indeed! A good health for all eternity,’ chuckled Courtney to himself. ‘This elixir does have properties other than longevity, you see. Once I consume the liquid, I will be infused with God’s light, healing any conditions that I may have, yet ensuring I can never again get sick. It stops time, you might say, to ensure that I shall always remain in the peak of health for all eternity.’
‘You know, once word gets out, everyone’s going to be gunning for you, trying to get their hands on this stuff.’
‘Then I shall have to make sure that I keep it a secret, Mr Reynolds, won’t I? Now, onto business,’ muttered the Bishop. ‘Lord, please be with me. I do this in your name,’ and with a broad grin spreading across his face, he delicately lifted the lid of the wooden box, and peered inside.
The box contained a lush, dark-purple velvet interior, with twelve inlaid pockets. Seated within one such pocket was a single glass vial. Topped with a cork stopper, and decorated with minute golden ivy leaves, the vial looked like something from a fairytale. The plump Bishop snatched it up with his stubby fingers, and held it towards the light.
‘Only the one vial?’ Bishop Courtney said, poking around inside the box. ‘I…I had expected to find more. The box has twelve indentations.’
‘Well, it ain’t been opened since I left Crawditch—like I said, Bishop—I didn’t want to open the thing and it blow up in my face.’ Renard rubbed a rough hand over his jaw. ‘I got me looks to think of you know, and anyway—what do you need with twelve vials of the stuff? You get eternal life no matter how many you have!’
‘Hmm, well…I suppose you are quite correct, Mr Reynolds…one vial is all I need,’ the Bishop said, holding the small glass vial up to the light.
‘Looks just like the other one, you know—the one you’ve got inside your cross,’ said Renard, admiring the sparkling clarity of the liquid inside the vial.
‘Indeed it does, yes…’ agreed Bishop Courtney, ‘the other sibling to the twin.’
‘You can name them Cain and Abel, eh?’ laughed the Frenchman.
‘I didn’t have you down as a man of scripture,’ said Courtney, as he carefully uncorked the tiny stopper, and lifted the vial to his lips, pausing to savour the moment. ‘To your good health, Mr Reynolds,’ he said, eyes closed, feeling the warmth of the liquid trickling down his throat. He licked his lips deftly, and opened each eye slowly, looking around his surroundings as if expecting to be transported to another realm.
Renard stepped a little closer. ‘How do you feel, Bishop?’
‘Wonderful!’ The Bishop licked his lips, his eyes twinkling brightly. ‘Simply wonderful,’ he announced, lifting his arms into the air. ‘I can feel it, Mr Reynolds, like a gentle trickle of energy flowing through my veins. It’s simply wonderful.’
Eyeing the Bishop carefully, Renard teased at his lower lip with his teeth.
‘Mr Reynolds, come join in my celebrations…I feel alive for the first time in years,’ cheered the Bishop.
‘No thanks.’ Renard stood back and leant against the wall, watching the portly Bishop twirl and swirl about the room like a ballerina, as the portly man’s face beamed with elation, his eyes afire with a spark of something akin to sheer, unadulterated wonder. Almost stumbling over to Renard, he clasped at the gaunt man’s fake priestly robes excitedly. His eyes were wide, and his pupils like pinpricks, and a fine, greasy coating of sweat decorated his corpulent face. It was as if the elixir that coursed through his veins had suddenly lit a fuse inside of him. The man stood in the centre of his apartment, his eyes now closed, just letting the feelings wash over him.
Suddenly, the Bishop was racked by a harsh cough, taking his breath away and bending him over double, and his eyes snapped open. He coughed again, a throaty, phlegm-hackle that made Renard wince. The Bishop stared down into his open hand. A thick, congealed puddle of blood sat there, and the Bishop’s stare widened. He glared at the pool of dark blood, as if it couldn’t possibly have come from his own body.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he gasped, wiping a trail of blood emanating from his mouth. He pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and dabbed at the blood, but more was coming after each dab. This was no bitten tongue, or weeping ulcer; the Bishop could feel this dark blood seeping from the pit of his stomach. Each cough spewed it up through his throat, and it splattered onto the tiled floor. Staring in bewilderment at the pool below him, the man fell to his knees. ‘Reynolds…help me, something’s wrong with the elixir. It feels…feels like…it’s burning me up from the inside…eating away at me.’ The Bishop clutched madly at his throat, pulling at his dog-collar, and clawing frantically at Renard. ‘Reynolds! Help me…I beg of you!’
‘Get your hands off, monsieur,’ Renard said fiercely, swatting the Bishop’s hands away from him. ‘You’re bleeding all over me.’
‘What are you…doing? Help me, man,’ squealed the Bishop indignantly, grasping the crucifix that hung from a leather strap around his neck. ‘Antidote!’ he wheezed, desperately trying to unscrew the cross. ‘Reynolds, listen to me!’
A wide, satisfied smile spread across Renard’s face. ‘Hurts, does it, Bishop?’
‘But I…I don’t understand, man…the elixir…burns like acid.’ The Bishop’s eyes now bulged horrifically, and tiny blood corpuscles burst like miniature red spiders across the iris, flooding the eyeball with a bright crimson wash of colour. ‘What’s…wrong with me? You need to help me…take antidote.’
‘Take antidote? Don’t
mind if I do,’ said Renard, as he snatched the crucifix from Courtney’s clammy hands, ripping at the leather strap around the fat man’s neck. ‘You know, Bishop…I’m not so sure about this eternal life thing…it looks awfully painful to me.’
Thick, dark-red blood-tears seeped from the corners of the Bishop’s eyes as they beseeched Renard, imploring the man to help him.
‘But why…Reynolds?’ he said through blood-soaked teeth.
‘I warned you once not to make a deal with the Devil, Bishop…because the odds are always stacked in his favour. You have been taken for a fool, and it is I that have done the taking.’
‘What? What are you saying? I…I don’t understand. Have mercy! Why won’t you help me?’ asked the Bishop, spluttering on a mouthful of blood.
‘Why?’ Renard sneered, an inch from the Bishop’s contorted face. ‘Because I want to watch you die, of course!’ and in that instant, as the Bishop stared into the man’s cold, blank eyes, it was as if his entire face changed before him. The Bishop witnessed the mask of Mr Reynolds fade away—and in his place stood Renard; a man twice as fearsome and a hundred times more cunning than a mere alleyway thug.
‘Mr Reynolds, please!’ begged Courtney.
‘Sorry, monsieur… there’s no “Mr Reynolds” here,’ grinned Renard. Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, the Reynolds persona had shed itself completely now. As the dying Bishop mouthed empty, silent words, hysterically trying to figure out what was happening to him, Renard took great delight in telling him the entirety of his plan. ‘My true name is Antoine Renard, Bishop. I suppose that I should pass on my thanks to you, really. You see, I needed something from you—but I had no idea whether it was as deadly as I had been informed,’ Renard said, his French accent highlighting his machinations in a most roguish fashion. ‘But right now, Bishop, you are currently presenting quite startling proof of the elixir’s power.’
Renard grabbed hold of Courtney’s jaw, squeezing his features into a squashed muddle in the centre of his fat face, as tendrils of blood-tainted spit dripped from the Bishop’s teeth. ‘But not power as some holy gift of immortality…in fact quite the reverse. God’s tools are the Devil’s toys, after all.’
Bishop Courtney snatched his face from Renard’s grasp, and fell to the floor. With a wail of pain, he dragged himself along, finally resting against the door to his apartment. ‘You traitorous monster,’ he slurred. ‘You’ll pay for this betrayal, Reynolds.’
‘That’s Renard, my dear Bishop,’ the Frenchman said, smiling with faux warmth. His body language was now a lot more graceful, more feline, than the thuggish Reynolds, and he strode around the Bishop’s room with renewed confidence, delighting in watching the deformities of agony pass across the priest’s face. ‘It is strange to think that after years of research, my organisation should send me here, back to England where I spent some of my youth. When our scouts heard tales of you Bishop Courtney—one of the Queen’s most trusted advisors, taking an abnormal amount of interest in a little dockland cesspit called Crawditch—well, we just had to take a look for ourselves. Imagine my surprise when I learned what you were seeking.’ Renard pulled a long cheroot of a cigar from his pocket. He grabbed one of the Bishop’s candelabras from the table and lit the cigar, squatting down to blow choking smoke into the Bishop’s face. ‘An elixir of immortality, no less? Your Christian alchemists always did love committed devotees. A lifetime of servitude, and all that, non?’
‘What…do you want…from me?’ gasped Courtney.
‘What do I want?’ questioned Renard, yanking the white cloth from the Bishop’s table, sending wine bottles, goblets and messy plates tumbling onto the tiled floor with a resounding crash. He sat himself upon the table, resting his muddy boots upon an upholstered chair. ‘My dear Bishop…I want nothing.’ Renard delved into his pockets and pulled out a handful of glass vials, each one identical to the Bishop’s, splaying them out like a fan of playing cards. ‘I have in my possession everything that I need. Your Anglican friends spent decades perfecting this stuff—did you honestly think they only made the one vial?’
‘What do you…plan to do?’ seethed the Bishop, reaching for Renard, only to fall flat on his face on the floor. ‘After what you’ve seen…what it can do…it is poison! It…it’s worthless!’
‘Poison it may be, Bishop—but it’s far from worthless. You’re wondering how a godly elixir can become such a potent poison, are you not?’ Renard cocked his head to one side, like a sparrow. ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then! Now, I’m useless at all this chemistry stuff, believe me. I’m much more of a physics man, myself. You know, action…’ Renard lashed out with his boot, striking the Bishop’s ribs, ‘…and reaction, you see what I mean? Now, that I understand perfectly. But my organisation specialises in this kind of thing, so I don’t need to know about it. Did you know that Crawditch cemetery, being positioned so close to the Thames as it is, contains a massive amount of sphagnum peat? I didn’t, but then I didn’t have a clue what “sphagnum peat” is…I thought it sounded like one of those dreadful American prospectors hunting for gold, until one of our scientific types told me that sphagnum is acidophilic moss, incredibly susceptible to the growth of bacteria.’ Renard slid off the table, standing at full height, towering over the Bishop.
‘Over many hundreds of years, that gestation has transformed the elixir from a gift of eternal life into a harbinger of death, especially when the solution is combined with water.’ Renard grabbed the Bishop’s scalp and Courtney spluttered again, spraying a shower of blood across the floor. ‘Are you taking all this in, Bishop?’ he taunted, taking great pleasure in watching Courtney quiver. ‘Of course, I’m sure your lot had no idea that the solution inside that vial is extremely susceptible to contamination from bacteria, did they? Like most great scientific discoveries—we stumble upon them by accident.’ Reynolds paused to shuffle his footing away from a small pool of blood, spreading across the floor towards him.
Bishop Courtney’s strength was ebbing away, as if his entire structure was being dissolved inside him. That was the poison doing its best to liquefy his internal organs. Like most intrusive chemical elements, it operated with an almost sentient awareness—picking off its victim slowly, stripping away one piece at a time. The poison savoured death as much as Renard did, and both were highly proficient at it. Beginning with the base organs such as the kidneys, the poison would force Bishop Courtney’s bowels and bladder into overdrive to compensate for the signals being sent by the brain, before moving onto the liver, lungs, heart and finally the brain.
Renard was enjoying his captive audience, watching the bulky Bishop drag himself along the floor. ‘Can you grasp just what damage someone with a creative mind could accomplish with a weapon such as this, monsieur? I doubt it. You’re probably more interested in your own fate, est-ce que je suis correct? Well…you’ve just ingested pure, undiluted poison…it may take as long as three hours before you die, and the beauty of this poison is that you’ll be conscious every step of the way.’
Bishop Courtney was a broken man, in mind as well as body, as something pinched away handfuls of him at a time. He was flaking away, yet he knew that every word Renard spoke was the truth.
‘There’s nothing you can do, your Grace…for only the antidote can reverse the chemicals that are raging through your body right now.’
‘You’re…insane,’ Bishop Courtney said weakly.
‘On the contrary, my Lord, as you once told me yourself—I am a man of vision!’ Renard said, preening his hair sarcastically.
‘But, you said…you’d help me…you said…’ pleaded the Bishop.
‘I said a lot of things, Bishop. Surely you are not still blind as to how you have been deceived? Must you spend your last, few painful moments of life trying to work it all out? Do you really believe that the success of this little conspiracy of yours was due solely to your machinations? Come, monsieur…you are blind.’
‘Reynolds…how could you?’
&nbs
p; ‘Surprisingly easily, Bishop. You see, there’s one thing you need to know before you die,’ Renard said, a smile of mock sympathy on his thin, gaunt face. ‘I lie…I deceive…I trick, and I scheme -that’s what I do best. That’s Renard! Now hurry up and die.’
CHAPTER XLIV
The Streets Aflame
OBLIVIOUS TO BOTH Commissioner Dray’s fate and what was currently occurring in the annexe of Westminster Abbey, Cornelius Quaint stood underneath the lamplight of Crawditch police station and stared upwards. His eyes were drawn to dark-red stains of blood daubed across the upper floor of the station. He looked around him, trying to guess what had happened, but the tumultuous atmosphere of shock and desperation painted on the faces of the townsfolk around him suddenly stole his attention.
Quaint stepped inside the police station and witnessed a scene not dissimilar to what was occurring outside. As if he were invisible, no one paid him the slightest bit of notice as he walked around the partition near the enquiries desk, and strolled towards Commissioner Dray’s office. Without knocking, he walked briskly inside.
‘Ollie, what the hell is going on? It’s like a bloody circus in this place, and I should know. What are you doing–’ Quaint suddenly froze mid-sentence as he saw Sergeant Horace Berry, sitting at Dray’s desk, his head in his hands. ‘Sergeant? What’s going on? It’s like a madhouse—out there and in here.’
Berry barely looked up, holding a glass of whisky to his lips. His face was pale, and he looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. ‘Oh it’s you, Mr Quaint…what brings you here?’
Quaint pulled up a chair, spun it around, and squatted astride it, resting his arms on its back. ‘Where’s Oliver? I need to speak with him urgently about what’s going on. I don’t care how busy he is—I’m not taking no for an answer!’
‘Well, you’ll have to…because he’s dead,’ said Berry, wiping his nose on his sleeve, leaving a slug’s trail of mucus behind.
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