Wild Boy and the Black Terror

by Rob Lloyd Jones

  “I reckon Lucien knows something about all this,” Clarissa said. “Did you see his face when he saw that card? Pink as a boiled ham.”

  Marcus was about to reply when a shot of pain struck his skull. He tried to hide his grimace but it reflected around the room’s mirrors. He slicked back his hair, trying to gather his composure, but when he spoke again his voice was softer than usual, distant.

  “I have not always been in charge of this organization,” he said.

  Clarissa’s head rose again from behind the screen. Marcus rarely told stories about the history of the Gentlemen, and he never spoke about himself.

  Wild Boy and Clarissa had asked, plenty of times. They’d searched the palace for Marcus’s bedroom, but not found it. They’d probed for information about his family, but got none. Wild Boy had studied him for clues, but their guardian’s clothes were always so perfectly pressed that it was hard to detect anything other than what he’d eaten for breakfast.

  But now, for the first time, Marcus was volunteering information. Wild Boy shifted from the windowsill, listening carefully.

  “There are secrets within secrets,” Marcus said.

  “You mean secrets so secret that not everybody at the secret organization knows about them secrets?” Clarissa asked.

  “Precisely. Incidents that occurred before my time in charge of the Gentlemen. It is possible that this case involves one of those events, a particular event with which Lucien was involved. That is all I can say for now. But I assure you that I shall be speaking with him.”

  “I got a few things to say to him an’ all,” Clarissa said. She laughed, relishing the thought of her next encounter with Lucien Grant.

  Marcus’s grip tightened on the top of his cane. He watched the dressing screen for a moment, and then limped closer to Wild Boy. He spoke in a whisper. “Should I be worried?”

  “Eh?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Wild Boy did – of course he did. He’d seen, too, how quickly Clarissa’s temper had flared in the Tapestry Room. She’d almost punched Lucien in the face before she was dragged away. Clarissa had always acted tough; that was how they got by in their world. But lately the anger had grown worse.

  She never spoke about what happened at the circus – her mother had turned against her and hunted her with dogs. Nor did she mention her father, who had abandoned her years before. She pretended that both subjects were miles from her thoughts. But sometimes Wild Boy got the feeling they were so close that they almost crushed her.

  “I’m coming out!” Clarissa called. “Wild Boy, if you mock me I’ll break your arms.”

  Wild Boy hopped from the windowsill, fully intending to mock her. But as Clarissa stepped from behind the screen, the words stuck in his throat.

  She looked beautiful.

  Her hair shone like fire, her eyes sparkled, and her pale skin was delicate rather than unhealthy. Marcus told them that princesses and queens had been dressed in this room, but Wild Boy couldn’t imagine any of them looking better than Clarissa.

  She shifted in the dress, acting uncomfortable. “What do you think?”

  Wild Boy shrugged. “Looks all right.”

  Marcus limped closer. For a second, all of the pain and tiredness eased from his features, and he smiled. It wasn’t just a hint of a smile. It was a big, broad grin, and it warmed up the whole room.

  He offered her his arm. “Gideon is waiting with our carriage. Shall we?”

  Clarissa glanced at Wild Boy. The two of them had hardly been apart over the past few months. It felt strange to be separated, even for an evening. But they both knew he couldn’t come; the reason was reflected in the mirrors all around this room.

  Wild Boy wanted to say something – a joke, anything to make her stay a little longer. But it was as if all the words had been sucked out of him. Seeing Clarissa like this, he realized for the first time how easy it would be for her to have another life. A life without him at her side.

  He was glad to see her pull on her old boots, shoving her lock picks into one of them.

  “I’ll steal some posh grub for you,” she said.

  And then she was gone. The golden sequins on her dress shimmered in the lamplight as Marcus led her away.

  Wild Boy stared at the empty corridor where the only two people in his life had just left. He turned and considered his reflection in one of the room’s broken mirrors, a shattered vision of scruffy hair and sudden, desperate sadness. He knew right then that if they were ever thrown out of the palace, he would leave Clarissa. She wouldn’t want him to, but he would have to, because the only place he could go would be the fairground. And he would never let her go back to that world. He would never let that happen.

  This case was his chance to make sure it never did. He was convinced that if he could solve it, they could stay in the palace as long as they wanted. Everything would be fine.

  Then – a scream.

  Wild Boy had never heard a scream like it; a cry of pure terror that came from everywhere at once, ringing around the mirrored walls. Several Gentlemen charged past the room.

  In the corridor, Prendergast had begun to scream and thrash as if those invisible demons had suddenly attacked him. Dr Carew struggled to control him as Prendergast collapsed to the ground and convulsed like a fish plucked from the sea. Black froth bubbled from his mouth, but somehow he continued to scream. A single word rushed along the corridor and swept through Wild Boy like a wind, freezing his bones.

  Malphas.

  The scream stopped.

  Prendergast lay still.

  Wild Boy edged closer. “Is he…?”

  He didn’t need to ask. It was clear from the look on Dr Carew’s face that Prendergast was dead. Whatever had infected him had killed him.

  Now this was a murder investigation.

  7

  The corpse was not easy to carry.

  The moment Prendergast died, Lucien Grant ordered two Gentlemen into action. They were Black Hats – military men – and Wild Boy guessed that they had carried bodies before. But those were normal bodies; limp things thrown over a shoulder. Prendergast’s corpse was not limp. It was stiff as firewood, locked in the twisted, frenzied position in which he had died. The neck cords strained, and his hands were rigid and curled like cocks’ claws.

  Only Prendergast’s head hung loose, lolling at the throat, so that his hair hung down and his eyes rolled to the limits of their sockets. Wild Boy tried not to look, but the dead man’s gaze followed him as the corpse swayed with the Gentlemen’s hurried march.

  He tried to rush to the front, but one of the Gentlemen shoved him against the wall. He scrambled up and kept following, resisting the urge to kick the man in the legs. This was supposed to be his case. But Lucien had taken control, ordering Dr Carew to follow.

  Dr Carew scurried alongside Wild Boy, his flushed face beaded with sweat. He nudged his spectacles up his nose, trying to gather his composure. “Mr Grant, I must protest. This patient was entrusted into my care.”

  “He is no longer your patient, Dr Carew,” Lucien replied. “He is a corpse. The only reason you are here is because you are an expert in rare diseases. I assume that means you are qualified to conduct an autopsy?”

  “Autopsy? That is quite out of the question. Any dissection of a body requires paperwork, an ordinance of medical—”

  “Dr Carew.”

  Lucien stopped by an open door. He held his candle high as the Black Hats carried the corpse through, manoeuvering its stiff limbs through the narrow entrance.

  “You are new to our organization,” he continued. “Otherwise you would know one thing about the Gentlemen: we are not concerned with paperwork. Her Majesty has been threatened. We need to know what happened to this man, and we need to know now.”

  “Even so, I must protest.”

  “You have, doctor. Twice. Now get in this room.”

  Dr Carew shot a panicked look over his shoulder, as if considering an escape. But with
Marcus away, Lucien was in charge. Clutching his medical bag, Carew stepped into the room.

  Lucien lowered his candle, dazzling Wild Boy with its glare. Wild Boy tried not to react, but couldn’t help shrinking from the flame that threatened to singe the hair on his cheek.

  “This is my bloomin’ case,” he said.

  “Your case?”

  Wild Boy moved closer, letting the flame crackle his hair. “Unless you know something special about it?”

  Lucien stepped back. “Not at all. We are all on the same side.”

  Like bloomin’ blazes we are. Wild Boy passed through the door and into a windowless room. The brick walls were black with soot, hooks hung on chains from the ceiling, and the fireplace was almost as large as the caravan that had once been Wild Boy’s home. The air was as sharp as pickle vinegar.

  A waist-high wooden slab filled half of the room, lacerated with cuts and grooves. A smaller table was laid with a collection of medical instruments that gleamed in the candlelight: surgical knives, hacksaws, weighing scales and a copper microscope. They were spotlessly clean but, judging from the splatter marks Wild Boy spotted on the floor, the tools had been used.

  “What is this place?” Dr Carew asked.

  “Originally, one of the palace kitchens,” Lucien replied. “Now we use it for something else.”

  The Black Hats dumped Prendergast’s corpse on the slab as if it were a sack of potatoes. One of them began to cut away its clothes with the surgical knife, revealing naked, twisted limbs. Prendergast’s whole body was black and white. Inky veins streaked across his arms and up his neck, shattering the poor man’s face.

  Lucien reached over and closed Prendergast’s eyes. “Doctor,” he said, his voice rumbling around the room. “Tell us what happened to this man.”

  The force of his order offered no possibility of resistance. Dr Carew sighed and set his medical bag on the table. “We shall begin with the heart.”

  Prendergast’s ribs spread open with a wet crack. Dr Carew cranked the handle on the retractor, stifling a cough as a cloud of brown gas rose from inside the body.

  Wild Boy wrapped an arm around his nose. He had seen dead bodies before, and body parts, but never watched one become the other. Sick rose up from his stomach but he swallowed it back down. He needed to stay focused, to search for anything that might help him with this case. Apart from the card with its strange name – Malphas – Prendergast’s twisted black and white corpse was the only clue he had.

  Dr Carew took a surgical knife from the table and snipped something inside Prendergast’s chest. A spurt of green goo splattered across his spectacles.He wiped the glasses on his apron and continued his work.

  Wild Boy was impressed. Dr Carew had seemed meek in front of Lucien, his gaze always darting over his shoulder in hope of escape. But now the eyes behind the doctor’s spectacles were needle sharp, totally focused. He was clearly in his element.

  Dr Carew lifted a large, dripping organ from the body and laid it on the weighing scale.

  “Well, doctor?”

  Lucien stood on the other side of the kitchen slab, his deep breaths rustling his side-whiskers. His hand trembled as he held his candle closer to the corpse. “I trust you have discovered something we can tell the Queen?”

  Dr Carew dipped a quill in an inkpot and made a note in a ledger. “That is a perfectly healthy heart,” he said. “Perhaps we will learn something from the other organs.”

  For Wild Boy, the next hour was one long struggle not to throw up. He watched Dr Carew extract a sausage-string of intestines, then slice open Prendergast’s stomach and tip its contents into a bucket. Things got even worse when the doctor sawed off the top of the corpse’s head like a boiled egg and dissected his slimy brain. That was too much for Wild Boy, who grabbed the bucket and added the contents of his own stomach to Prendergast’s.

  He rose, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He expected to see a sneer on Lucien’s face, but the Gentleman just stared at the splayed open corpse. Lucien’s hands trembled harder as he opened his silver tin and snorted another pinch of snuff. Brown powder stained his nostril and caught in his grey whiskers. He noticed neither. Again, Wild Boy wondered if Lucien’s interest in this case went beyond his desire to impress the Queen. Was something else troubling him?

  “Anything, doctor?” Lucien asked.

  Dr Carew looked for a place to wipe his hands, but his apron was entirely smeared with gore. He held them dripping in the air. “Strange,” he said. “I see no indication whatsoever of disease.”

  “So what done Prendergast in?” Wild Boy asked.

  The doctor stared at him, translating the question in his head. “Ah! Cause of death.” He prodded part of the corpse’s brain with the end of his quill. “Well, from the inflammation of the nucleus amygdala in the temporal—”

  “In English, doc,” Wild Boy said.

  “Terror,” Dr Carew said.

  He nudged his spectacles with a finger, leaving a red smear on his nose. “It seems that Prendergast was affected by something that left him in such a state of terror that, eventually, his body could not handle the strain.”

  “He was scared … to death?” Wild Boy said.

  “It is impressive that he survived so long,” Dr Carew continued. “The man’s mind must have been strong, able to cope with the fears. A weaker person would have died in seconds. Although that might have been a more desirable fate. This poor man suffered unlike any I have seen.”

  Lucien snorted another pinch of snuff. He exhaled, filling the kitchen with a rush of stale breath. “Might he have been given a hallucinogenic?” he asked.

  “A what?” Wild Boy asked.

  “A hallucinogenic,” Dr Carew said. “A drug that affects the brain, causing visions that are not real. In this instance, terrifying visions. Prendergast saw his darkest memories. He was trapped in a nightmare.”

  “He might have ingested or inhaled such a substance,” Lucien said.

  Dr Carew glanced at Wild Boy. “Swallowed or smelled.”

  Wild Boy knew what ingested and inhaled meant, but neither made sense. Prendergast had simply opened a parcel sent to the Queen. He hadn’t been drugged.

  “So there could be a human agency behind this,” Lucien muttered.

  “Human?” Dr Carew said. “What else might it be?”

  Lucien cleared his throat, as if he’d accidentally coughed out the wrong words. “What can you tell me, doctor? We fear that whoever did this might have targeted the Queen. That means the killer could still be targeting the Queen. Can you formulate a cure?”

  Dr Carew leaned over the microscope, studying a sliver of Prendergast’s brain. “Perhaps if I knew what he was exposed to I could develop a cure. There are tests I could conduct at the hospital. Consider this sample, for instance.”

  Lucien set his candle beside the corpse and leaned over the microscope.

  Wild Boy hung back, feeling sicker than ever. But it was no longer the corpse that turned his stomach. It was Dr Carew’s diagnosis. Scared to death.

  For the second time that night he felt an urge to run as far away as possible from Prendergast. But, again, he forced himself to stay. He was convinced that Lucien knew something about this case. The man had obviously been waiting for Dr Carew’s results. So what would he do next?

  Thinking fast, Wild Boy grabbed Lucien’s candle and bent the edge of its pewter tray so the wax dribbled over the side. He replaced it on the table just before Lucien turned, grabbed it and marched from the room. The Gentleman didn’t notice the wax drips that marked his path.

  “Keep me informed of any developments,” he ordered.

  “Go soak your head,” Dr Carew muttered.

  Wild Boy looked at him, surprised.

  The young doctor shrugged, putting his ink pot and quill back in his bag. “Lucien Grant is a bullying toad,” he said. “Now, I must prepare Prendergast’s body for transport to the hospital. Would you lend me a hand Mr … Master… What exactly should I
call you?”

  He looked up, but Wild Boy was gone.

  8

  Wild Boy’s coat snapped behind him as he set off on Lucien’s trail. He knew he had to be careful; despite his assignment from the Queen, he wasn’t allowed to wander the palace alone. Whenever a Gentleman passed, he ducked into hiding – first sliding beneath a chaise longue, then behind a dusty Ming vase that he nearly knocked over in his rush to remain unseen.

  Steadying the vase on its stand, he continued his hunt, seeking out the fresh drops of black wax from among others glistening on the floorboards. He plucked a candle from a mantelpiece as the trail led him through a drawing room with pikes and spears arranged in patterns on the walls, then out to an arched cloister that framed the palace’s smallest courtyard. He’d never been here before. Judging from the waist-high brambles that filled the courtyard’s small central garden, nor had many others.

  He crept around the cloister, through stripes of moonlight and shadow. It wasn’t hard to follow Lucien’s path anymore, a lonely trail of wax drops that led to an arched door in the corner of the courtyard. Wild Boy’s heart thumped from the thrill of the chase, but he wished Clarissa was there. Sneaking about wasn’t as much fun without her.

  The door opened with a creak that echoed around the darkness beyond. Wild Boy stepped through it, eyes scanning for danger. Shelves rose on every wall, each crammed with leather-bound books and ancient-looking scrolls. Sheets of cobwebs hung like net curtains across the stacks. Cockroaches scurried across spines.

  “A library,” he whispered.

  From the reek of stale breath that lingered in the air, it was obvious that Lucien had just been here. Wild Boy followed another drop of wax, and then another. His frosted breaths hung in the air like ghosts, and his trembling hand caused the candlelight to skitter across the stone-flagged floor. He heard footsteps and stepped back against one of the bookcases.

  The steps grew louder, echoing around the cold stone gloom.

  And then – thud. The library door slammed shut.

  Wild Boy released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Lucien was gone, but why had he come here in such a hurry? Lowering his candle, he followed the trail to the rear of the library, where multicoloured moonlight streamed through stained glass.