by George Mann
In response, the second of the spirits stepped forward, drawing Newbury’s attention. The appearance of this figure—a larger, more rotund character than Templeton Black—was perhaps even harder for Newbury to palate. For this apparition took the form of Sir Charles Bainbridge, his dearest friend.
The doppelgänger was uncannily accurate, to the extent that, had Newbury not suspected otherwise, he might have mistaken the spirit for the real thing. Just like the real Bainbridge, this spectre leaned heavily on its cane, its bushy moustache twitching as it regarded him reprovingly.
Newbury had known Bainbridge for only a relatively short span of years. They’d met soon after Newbury had been inducted into Her Majesty’s service, and although Bainbridge had never spoken of it, Newbury suspected the police chief had been tasked with keeping a watchful eye on the new recruit.
Whatever the reasons, the two men had spent a great deal of time together in the early days of Newbury’s career and had soon forged a lasting friendship. In the years that followed they had been through much together. Bainbridge had been with him at Fairview House, of course, but there were innumerable other instances, too, including the time they had hunted a depraved serial killer through the slums, or their investigations into a phantom cab on the King’s Road, or The Lady Armitage disaster of the prior year.
Latterly, their relationship had been pushed to its limits, with Bainbridge unable, or at least unwilling, to understand Newbury’s continued use of the opium poppy, nor his reasons for dabbling in the occult sciences. Bainbridge wasn’t aware, though, of what had passed between Newbury and Veronica, and the effort Newbury was making to protect them all. Newbury had seen something during one of his opium dreams. Something terrible and indistinct, lurking just around the corner, a disaster waiting to strike. And Veronica’s sister, Amelia, had seen it too.
While Bainbridge wasn’t so closed-minded as to rule out the potential of the occult sciences—as so many others in his profession did—Newbury knew he would be inclined to dismiss Newbury’s visions as hallucinations inspired by the drugs. Veronica, however, had grown to understand the nature of such things through her sister, and had latterly pressed Newbury to continue with his experiments, to attempt to get to the bottom of whatever danger it was that they faced.
Of course, Bainbridge had experience of the occult, and what it could do to a man. He’d known Aubrey Knox in the days before the doctor had gone rogue, back when he was a brilliant scientist working on behalf of the Crown. It was Bainbridge’s belief that Knox’s interest in the occult had fed his hunger for power, and had eventually led him into a spiralling descent of ritual and depravity. It had also been made clear to Newbury that the Queen herself harboured similar opinions on the matter and that, while she had engaged Newbury specifically as a counter against enemies of the Crown who may engage in such dubious pursuits, she was also wary of his interest in such matters.
Both Bainbridge and the Queen had been burned by their experience of Knox and as a consequence they were simultaneously nervous and protective of Newbury. As far as Newbury was concerned, such anxieties were entirely misplaced. Understandable, he supposed, but nevertheless misplaced.
Newbury met the apparition’s gaze. If the spirit proved true to the nature of the man whose form it had adopted, it would be far less forgiving than Templeton Black.
In the event, however, it was not the apparition’s demeanour that disturbed Newbury, but the sudden alteration in its appearance. As he studied his friend’s face, he saw Bainbridge’s eyes begin to bruise and sink. His flesh became pale and lifeless. It was as if he were watching the man succumb to a terrible wasting disease.
Bainbridge staggered back, leaning all the more heavily on his cane. He was growing thinner and more haggard with each passing moment. His eyes seemed watery and distant, as if he had suddenly lost focus, or was seeing something else in the distance, something that wasn’t really there. He clawed at his own face, became nervous, irritable. He no longer looked like Newbury’s friend, but the denizen of some hellish infirmary ward, or else Bedlam itself.
And all of a sudden it struck Newbury what was happening to the spectre. He’d seen these symptoms before, manifesting themselves in the patrons of the opium dens he often frequented. This was the curse of the poppy, taken to its extreme. This was a man wasting away because of his addiction, driven only by his hunger for a drug that offered him no sustenance. This was what Bainbridge feared would become of Newbury if he didn’t find a means to end his own relationship with the drug.
“You’re wrong,” Newbury said, but his voice lacked conviction. “You’re wrong.”
The spirit turned its head and gave the weakest of smiles, before Newbury noticed that its legs had begun to boil away into a cloud of thick, blue smoke. The vapour seemed to seep from the floor, billowing upwards and slowly consuming the figure, swallowing Bainbridge until all that was left of him was the vague impression of a man, a smoky silhouette that soon dispersed to nothing.
Newbury hung his head, exhausted. The alcohol, the poppy and the long hours were beginning to take their toll. He longed for his bed, to be free of the visitations that now plagued him.
There was only one of them left now. Newbury could hardly bear to look at it. This was the spirit he feared most of all, the one that had taken the form of Veronica Hobbes, his fellow adventurer, his assistant, the woman he loved.
If Templeton Black had come in search of forgiveness, and Bainbridge had come to dissuade him from the poppy, what had Veronica come for? Had she appeared merely to torment him? To show him what he could not have?
Newbury lifted his head and offered the apparition an accusatory glower. “And what of you, spectre? Why do you wait until last of all?” He didn’t expect a reply. “Am I now Ebenezer? I’ve already been granted echoes of the past and the present. Do you now come to show me my future?”
The expression on the spirit’s face was pained. Newbury felt his chest tighten. Whether in fear, or with something else entirely, he wasn’t sure. The spirit had captured all the beauty of Veronica Hobbes, all of her delicate strength and femininity, in its efforts to recreate her. It—she—was dressed in a flowing white gown of intricately worked silk that trailed across the floor as she moved. Her dark hair hung loose around her shoulders.
As he watched, the thin figure placed her hands upon her left breast, crossing her palms over her heart.
Time seemed to stop.
It was as if the two of them, Newbury and this ghostly vision of Veronica, had become momentarily trapped within a bubble, a universe all of their own. Everything around them was still and silent; the rest of the world had been shut out. At that moment, nothing else even existed.
Newbury watched in awe.
The lights dimmed until only Veronica was visible, standing alone in the otherwise impenetrable darkness, clasping her hands to her breast. She was limned with a soft, ethereal glow, a white haze, shimmering as if burning with an inner light of her own.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the only sound to pass her lips was the tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock of a clock, which grew in intensity until it filled the entire room, until Newbury had to raise his hands to cover his ears, until it seemed to drown out even his very thoughts.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
It was a dreadful sound, the sound of a life counting out its final moments; the sound of impending doom; the sound of the reality rushing by without them as they were trapped in this abstract domain. There was nothing but Newbury, Veronica, and the ominous ticking of the clock. And all the while, Veronica stood facing him, her mouth open, her hands clasped to her breast, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
Newbury screamed, a wordless, terrified scream. He screamed until his lungs burned, screamed so that he might hear something other than the insistent tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock of the clock. But even that was no use. Nothing could drown out that terrifying, insistent sound.
“I don’t know what t
o do,” he whispered, putting his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to do.”
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, everything was still.
Newbury sobbed in relief. Around him, everything was quiet, save the crackle and spit of the fire in the grate. He glanced up. The apparition had gone. The beautiful, terrifying vision of Veronica had disappeared. The gas lamps burned warmly in their glass bowls. The room had returned to normal. He was alone.
Newbury reached for his empty glass, and realised he was shaking. Pushing himself out of his chair, he crossed the room to the sideboard, still glancing nervously over at the window where, just a few moments earlier, the spectres had stood over him in an unwelcome vigil.
He poured himself a large measure of brandy and gulped it down quickly, welcoming the long fingers of warmth that it spread throughout his chest. His heart was still hammering. He felt light-headed. Had he really seen anything at all? What had it all meant? There had been three spirits, each representing either his past, present or, he realised with a horrible sinking feeling, his future.
But surely that was ridiculous, the result of too much Dickens, of a late night on a full stomach and indulgence in his opium-laced cigarettes. He looked again to the window. There was no sign that there had ever been anything there at all. It must have all been in his mind, a concoction of his fevered imagination. It had to be!
Yet in his heart he didn’t really believe that. The thought sent a cold shiver running down his spine. For if it hadn’t been in his mind... well, that didn’t even bear thinking about. What had the third apparition been trying to tell him? Was Veronica in danger? Was the sound he’d heard, that tick-tocking, the minutes of her life slowly ticking away? He had no way to be sure. But somehow he knew it had something to do with that terrible thing he had seen, that darkness which he knew was coming.
Of all the things he had seen that night, it was this that terrified him the most: the notion that Veronica might be in jeopardy. There was only one answer. He had to continue with his experiments. He had to continue to explore the boundaries between the real world and the spirit realm. Only then could he find a way to prevent whatever it was from occurring. Whatever that might mean for him—whatever the spectre of Charles had warned him of that very evening—he would do it to protect Veronica.
Newbury glanced over at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. It was close to three o’clock in the morning. Bainbridge and Angelchrist would be there in a matter of hours, full of festive cheer, and Newbury had every intention of joining them in their celebrations. He had placed neatly wrapped gifts for each of them beneath the tree. There was one there for Veronica, too, but that would have to wait awhile. He would speak nothing of the night’s events. That would only inspire enquiry from Angelchrist and concern from Bainbridge. No, he would keep his little commune with the spirits to himself for now. He could see no good in laying it out for the others.
Sighing, Newbury set about banking the fire in anticipation of retiring to his bed. He was weary and in need of good company. He only hoped that the spirits were done with tormenting him for the night. It was, he thought to himself with a smile, Christmas day, after all. And despite what Dickens might have him believe, Newbury knew that Christmas was a time to spend with his friends in the present, not the ghosts of the past or the spectres of the future.
As he turned down the lights and crossed to the door, he couldn’t help looking over towards the window once more, just to be sure. He was relieved to see nobody there, lurking in the shadows.
It was going to be a good Christmas. He was sure of it. But the New Year was an undiscovered country, and he feared whatever it might bring.
STRANGERS FROM THE SEA
“Ah, there it is.”
Sir Maurice Newbury ran his fingers along the raised spines of his bookcase until they came to rest upon a particular battered tome. He levered the book out of its home between two similar volumes and carried it across to his chair by the fire, into which he flopped languidly, the book upon his knee. The leather was flaking and the gold print of the title was faded, but still discernible: Hermeticism in the Modern Age.
A half-smoked cigarette, tainted with sweet-smelling opium, dangled from Newbury’s bottom lip, and his suit was rumpled and unkempt. His pupils were narrow pinpricks staring out of dark, bruised pits, and his flesh had taken on a pale, milky complexion. Detritus surrounded him: heaps of scrawled notes, piles of old books, dirty crockery and empty claret bottles—the signposts of days that had passed in a blur of drug-fuelled research.
Newbury hefted the book, blowing dust off the top of its pages. Then, taking another long pull on his cigarette, he rested the spine in his left palm and allowed the book to fall open. The pages fanned, and as they finally came to settle upon a chapter involving ritual embalming and the transmogrification of the spirit, something dislodged and fluttered to the floor by his feet. Frowning, he bent to retrieve it.
It was a cream-coloured envelope, covered in faded, spidery scrawl. Newbury’s eyes widened at the familiar handwriting. It belonged to Templeton Black.
Black had been a dear friend and former assistant, who had died four years earlier during a botched investigation, and Newbury had never quite forgiven himself for what had occurred. He blamed himself utterly for the young man’s death, and not a week went by when he didn’t feel a twinge of regret, wishing he could somehow turn back the clock, live those days over again with the benefit of hindsight.
Newbury turned the envelope over in his hands. His heart skipped a beat. The letter was unopened. How long had it sat there, hidden inside that dusty old book, waiting to be discovered? The postmark was smudged and unreadable.
Trembling, Newbury closed the book and placed it on the floor beside his chair. He took the cigarette from between his lips and flicked what remained of it into the fire. Then, settling back, he ran his finger along the inside of the envelope and carefully extracted the letter within.
There were two pages, each of them covered in the same scratchy, looping handwriting. He swallowed, his mouth dry. How could he have ignored a letter from Templeton? He supposed that, at the time, it had been nothing unusual, a note written in haste between meetings. Something, perhaps, that Templeton would have dashed off quickly to impart some information or other, soon forgotten as the pair of them moved on to the next investigation, the next adventure. Now, though, it was like receiving a letter from beyond the grave, a communication lost in time.
Newbury exhaled, realising that he’d been holding his breath. With a sigh, he smoothed the first page and began to read:
August, 1897
My dearest Sir Maurice,
Knowing you as I do, I don’t expect you shall bother to read this letter when it lands upon your doormat. Indeed, it is my full and firm belief that it will end up heaped amongst the similarly discarded notes on the drawing room carpet at Cleveland Avenue, never to be seen again. (I am often amazed by your ability to disregard your missives in such blatant fashion. I’m sure it must drive your unlucky correspondents to distraction.)
Nevertheless, I felt it necessary to impart a few words, despite this anticipated outcome. Think of this largely, then, as a cathartic exercise on my own part. There are things that need to be said—things that I need to say—and in my present condition, I wonder if perhaps I will have no other opportunity to say them.
And who knows! Rather than discard the unopened envelope, you might fortuitously tuck it inside one of your dusty old tomes to serve as a bookmark, and then happen upon it one day unexpectedly, years from now. I hope then that its contents will prove entirely irrelevant, and if I’m still about in the land of the living, we can share a drink and laugh over it, marvelling at my youthful temerity.
Newbury sighed and gave a hearty chuckle; Templeton had known him so well. He smiled at the fond memory, although he also felt a twinge of deep regret as he considered that last sentiment. How he would dear
ly love to be able to share such a moment with his old friend. To sit and laugh over a drink at his club. If only things had been different. If only...
He read on:
The view from my convalescent bed here in Richmond is not so bad: the rolling hills of Yorkshire in the distance, a picturesque little town, a castle. I’ve known worse, and the people seem cheerful enough. Perhaps we should both venture a little further afield from time to time; London can be an oppressive sort of place, and I wouldn’t want our little episode by the sea to put you off.
(Ah, a slight accident. Please excuse the rather unsightly smear of cigarette ash towards the bottom of the page. The nurses here are, for some God-awful reason, opposed to the old Guinea Golds, and thus I’m sneaking a quick smoke as I scrawl this note on the veranda, unbeknownst to the matron.)
Newbury grinned. This was very much like the Templeton Black he remembered.
I am, I’m told, lucky to be alive. Although the doctor (a handsome devil if ever I saw one) has explained there is little he can do to relieve my symptoms. And so my convalescence has become a waiting game as the infection runs its course. One way or another, the doctor believes it will be over within the week. I cling on to that thought. It represents blessed relief, whatever might become of me.
The fever itself comes and goes. Some days it is almost too much to bear, and I feel as if I am close to combusting from within, as if there’s a fiery inferno inside my chest and the pressure is mounting all the time, seeking a way out. In those moments I long for unconsciousness, but it rarely comes.
When the fever is not raging the days drag by with little to hold my interest, and although there are periods of severe discomfort, it is the nights I dread.
I fear I’m suffering from the most awful night terrors. Ridiculous for a man of my age, I know, but I’m assured they are simply a result of the infection, fever-dreams caused by the invading parasites.