by George Mann
Clarence made an appalled face. “I don’t know how you can eat anything in here, let alone cook it on a skillet over that.” He emphasised the last word with a wave of his hand toward the furnace. “It’s not right, Henry.”
Sitton grinned wolfishly, like a child enjoying the effect of his outrageous behaviour. “What harm can it do, eh? It’s just a couple of sausages and a few rashers of bacon. You need to keep your strength up on a journey like this. Mark my words, you’ll soon be wishing you’d listened to me. I’ve done this trip before, remember.” Sitton clapped his hands together, but the thick leather gloves he was wearing deadened the sound.
Clarence shook his head. “You can count me out,” he said, grimacing as he watched Sitton slide his gloves off and pull a shovel from the bucket beside the fire. He reached for the little parcel he’d stashed earlier in the cubbyhole where they stored their personal effects, and began hungrily unwrapping the waxy paper.
“I don’t see why you can’t just make up some sandwiches like everyone else,” said Clarence, watching, fascinated, as Sitton carefully arranged three rashers of bacon and two sausages on the filthy shovel. “You could eat them in your bunk, instead of in here, surrounded by all that.” He nodded at the heap of fuel in the corner, suppressing a shudder.
Sitton shrugged. “It burns just as well as anything else,” he said, nonchalantly. He wiped his hands on his overalls, smearing grease and soot, and then slid the shovel into the furnace. Almost immediately, the sausages began to hiss and spit.
Clarence decided he needed to change the subject. “So, if you’ve done this trip before, you’ve already been to St. Petersburg. Tell me, is it true what they say?”
Sitton laughed. “And what is it they say, Clarence?” He smirked ungraciously, as if amused by Clarence’s apparent naïveté.
Clarence felt his cheeks flush. “Well,” he said. “You know. There are stories. They say it’s not at all like London, that there are enormous palaces carved from the very ice itself, and frost-fingered sprites that come for your children in the night. That the city guard ride the streets on bears instead of horses, and that weird mechanical birds drift over the rooftops, spying on the people below.”
Sitton shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about any of that,” he said, “but you’re right on one count. It ain’t nothing like London, that’s for sure. Frigid cold and full of stinking foreigners.” He slid the shovel from the fire, examined the blackening stumps of his sausages, and returned it to the flames. “My advice to you, Clarence, is to do as I do and mind your own business. Stay on the train and keep your head down. It only takes them a day or so to turn everything around and replenish all the stocks for the journey home. Why risk venturing out? Even if it was true, I can’t imagine why you’d want to see it. The only thing you’ll find in a place like that is trouble, mark my words.”
Clarence nodded, as if acknowledging the sage advice of the other man, but his heart wasn’t in it. He’d keep his own counsel. He’d heard all manner of fascinating tales about St. Petersburg, with its frost-limned minarets, shimmering palaces, colourful bazaars, strange creatures, and even stranger people. He was damned if he was going to work his way halfway across the world only to sit in his tiny bunk and pass up the opportunity to take in the sights. A day wasn’t long, but it was something. It was his, and he would use it to explore. The thought of that day was the only thing keeping him going; the promise of a brief respite, and a break from the dreadful monotony of his labour.
Sitton was over by the furnace again, retrieving his makeshift meal. To Clarence, it looked decidedly burnt, but then he couldn’t even conceive of wanting to eat it. Not there, in that room, with that smell. Even the thought of it was enough to make his stomach heave.
“Do me a favour, Clarence, and throw another one on the fire, would you?” said Sitton, around a mouthful of bacon. “It’s looking a bit low.” He smiled, showing his teeth, which were mottled with little flecks of burnt meat. “I’d do it myself, but…” He trailed off, shoving another mouthful in. It was obscene, and Clarence resented being treated like an underling. Nevertheless, he supposed he didn’t really have a choice, not if he wanted to keep the peace. There were countless days left of this journey, and he’d have plenty more shifts alongside Sitton. They’d have to work together in this confined space. It wouldn’t do to fall out or make things difficult.
Gritting his teeth, Clarence pulled his scarf up to cover his mouth and yanked his gloves from the hook on the wall. They resisted for a moment, caught on the brass peg, but came away when he gave them a second sharp tug. Turning his back on Sitton, he thrust his hands into the soft, worn leather, pulling each one right up to the elbow. Then, with a heavy heart, he approached the heaped stack of fuel in the corner.
Flies were buzzing around the mouldering carcasses, and he waved at them ineffectually in disgust. He swallowed, but his mouth was dry. This was always the worst bit, handling it, and he fought back the bile rising in his gullet.
He reached down and grabbed the nearest hunk of bone, hefting it from the pile. Decaying flesh still clung to it in trailing ribbons, and the scent was thick and cloying. He averted his gaze so that he didn’t have to look at it.
He turned and staggered over to the furnace, stepping around Sitton, who was still scooping the last of the bacon from the shovel. As he swung his arms back to toss the hunk of carcass into the furnace, he felt a sharp prick in the palm of his left hand, and let out a hiss of pain. He dropped the misshapen lump of fuel into the flames and stepped back, not daring to look down at his hand. If the glove had torn …
His palm was throbbing. He looked over at Sitton, who didn’t seem to be paying him any attention. Bracing himself, Clarence glanced down at his glove. There was a long gash in the leather, probably torn when he’d wrenched it from the hook. There, in the palm of his hand, was an angry scratch about an inch long. Blood had swelled to the surface, causing a line of shiny, irregular beads. The soft flesh was puckered and raised.
His heart felt like it was thudding against his rib cage. He thought he might swoon in panic. The heat suddenly seemed unbearable. What was he going to do? What if he ended up like one of them? There was still a chance, of course, that nothing would come of it. He tried to regulate his breathing. It was just a scratch. Nothing but a little scratch, just like every other cut or graze he’d ever had. In a day or two it would be as if nothing had ever happened. It had to be.
“You all right?” asked Sitton, and Clarence turned to see the other man staring at him with a quizzical expression.
“Yes, fine,” blurted Clarence, surreptitiously hiding his left hand behind his back. It wouldn’t do to let Sitton know what had happened. “I’m absolutely fine.”
“You look as white as a sheet. I told you, you should have had some of those sausages.” Sitton’s expression softened. He crossed to stand before Clarence. “Listen, you’ll soon get used to it. Give it a few days and you’ll think nothing of it. They’re just hunks of gristle and bone, after all. What else is to be done with them? All this death, it’s a terrible waste, of course it is, but at least we’re putting it to good use.” He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. He patted Clarence on the shoulder. “Now, why don’t you go and get a little fresh air? I can manage here for a while.”
Clarence nodded. “Thank you, Henry,” he said. “I just need a moment. I’ll return shortly.”
“Mind that you do,” replied Sitton.
Clarence opened the door to the vestibule and slipped through, closing it behind him. Away from the roar of the furnace, the clean, cool air was immediately refreshing, but he felt little sense of relief.
The sting of the scratch in his palm had long since passed, but now there was a different pain—a tight, twisted knot in his stomach. It was a familiar sensation: fear.
CHAPTER
4
The blade cut, smooth and sharp, parting pale, unblemished flesh.
Glossy blood swelled to the
surface as the incision spread across his left breast in a straight, purposeful line. He watched with detached fascination, knowing that in a matter of moments sensation would follow—pain would blossom and, for a few seconds at least, it would consume him in its exquisite embrace.
He exhaled slowly, flushed with anticipation. He welcomed the cleansing pain, the purity of it. It came upon him like a wave, rising until it was almost unbearable, until it filled him utterly. He revelled in it, gritting his teeth and trembling, closing his eyes and throwing back his head, his arms outstretched. He wanted to scream, to cry out in ecstatic prayer, but circumstances dictated he could not. Anything that brought undue attention would be a distraction from his goal.
His breath came in ragged gasps. He felt the warmth of his own blood trickling over his body, spattering onto the tiled floor—splashes of crimson against the pearly white porcelain; obscene, vital.
The pain receded and the moment passed. His hands dropped to his sides. He open his eyes, was appalled by the sudden, stark mundanity of his surroundings, the drabness of the compartment. It was as if the intensity of the past few moments had somehow bleached the world of all its vitality.
He glanced down at the knife, still clutched in his left fist. He turned it over, examining the polished ivory blade, now slick with a dark and violent red. His lifeblood trickled through the intricately etched channels inscribed on its surface, highlighting them slowly as the fluid ran; whorls and eddies describing visions of Hell, of minutely carved parapets and towers sprouting like fingers from an endless sea of flame, of angels and demons battling for supremacy, locked in an eternal stalemate.
The bone seemed to draw the blood into itself, channelling the fluid as it picked out each of the tiny details in its surface, slaking its thirst, feeding.
The blade had been carved from a splinter of human femur, sometime in the distant past, long before the forging of the world. So the tale had been laid out for him by his masters: that the Horned Beast himself had fashioned the weapon from the thigh bone of Adam, in the youthful days of the human realm, when Heaven and Hell were already ancient beyond imagining and all battles had already been lost and won.
Humanity, he knew, was nought but the plaything of Gods: a simple pawn in the great game of the universe. All he and his brothers could do was hope and strive for an echo of that greatness, to do the bidding of the Master in the hope that one day they might help to turn the tide of the war and shatter that eternal stalemate. They were good for nothing else; all else was sin.
He lowered the blade, placing it reverentially on the ground before him. Everything was silent but the gentle creaking of the carriage as it rocked back and forth, the distant sighing of the engine. In the confined space of his cabin, he could almost believe he was at the very centre of the universe, communing with the Master himself.
There was, however, work to be done. The Keeper reached for a fresh cotton handkerchief that he had placed on the tiles during his preparation rites, and dabbed at the wound in his chest, removing the sticky blood that had already begun to coagulate around it. He ignored the pain—he had done this so many times before that he had become well accustomed to it. His body was covered in ropey, silvery scars; a map of his pain and worship. That was the role of the Keeper: to feed the blade, if not through the blood of others, then through the sacrifice of his own.
Tonight, he had given it but a taste of what was to come. The moment of revenge was almost upon them.
Soon he would retrieve what was rightfully theirs, what the nonbeliever had taken from them. Even now, he could hear the echo of his brother’s instructions:
“Pick your moment well, Keeper, and then strike without mercy. Retrieve what has been lost, and do not suffer the thief to live. Ensure he pays for what he has inflicted upon us.”
This, the Keeper knew, was how it should be. That payment would not come only as death, but in the utter deconstruction of the man and his sanity. Plans had already been laid, victims carefully selected.
Within hours it would begin. The blade had needs, and the Keeper would tend them well.
CHAPTER
5
“Ah, good morning, Miss Hobbes. Come in. Find a seat. You’ll have to forgive me for a moment.…” Bainbridge trailed off, distracted. He hadn’t even looked up at the sound of her knocking, presumably ascertaining the nature of his caller by virtue of her distinctive, polite cough.
He was standing, hunched over his desk, his palms splayed on the worn leather writing surface. He appeared to be studying a fan of yellowing newspaper clippings and what Veronica took to be recent typescripts of police reports. His brow was furrowed, so that his bushy, greying eyebrows were knitted together across the bridge of his nose. The worry lines on his face appeared deep and well worn; crevices in an ancient, stoic, rock face.
He was brooding, she decided, irritated by something he’d read.
Dutifully, she did as he’d suggested, closing the door behind her as she entered his office. It was a disconcerting sort of place, devoid of personal effects, save for a small portrait of Bainbridge’s late wife, Isobel, in a gilt-edged frame on the desk. Veronica had visited Bainbridge here many times before, and it never failed to astound her how unlike Newbury he was in his habits. For a start, his papers were all filed neatly in a lacquered walnut cabinet in one corner, rather than heaped idly upon the carpet. Surfaces were uncluttered by needless trinkets and esoteric junk, and there were no discarded plates, crockery, or wine bottles slowly mouldering away in the corners. Nor was there a constant fug of sweet-smelling smoke hanging over everything like a smothering blanket.
No, what Bainbridge’s office lacked was personality, character. The same critique could not be levelled at the man himself, of course—Veronica found him as pleasant and infuriating a man as she had ever known—but something about the room made it feel devoid of life. It wasn’t lived in.
Perhaps, she considered, that was the lot of a policeman, the only way to retain a sense of perspective, to avoid everything being coloured by the dreadful things they saw. Perhaps Bainbridge needed to keep the place empty, soulless, in order to draw a separation between this, his life as a chief inspector, and his real life as a man.
Or, she considered, dropping into a chair beside the cold hearth, perhaps he was simply too busy.
He emitted a heavy sigh. “Forgive me,” he repeated, wearily, as if he knew the apology was redundant, but felt the need to say it anyway. He looked over, smiling warmly. “You look well.”
The compliment was welcome, but Veronica didn’t feel she could return it. He looked tired and beaten down. Diplomatically, she steered the conversation in a different direction. “Is there anything I can do?” she said, inclining her head to indicate the stack of papers he’d been reading.
Bainbridge gave an exasperated shrug. “Two reports of missing nurses in St. Giles, amongst other things. Just trying to make sense of them. Something’s not right, not adding up.”
“Go on,” prompted Veronica. “Tell me.”
He seemed to weigh up the idea for a moment before continuing. “The circumstances are almost identical. Both women had recently taken on extra shifts at a new hospital, well-paid evening work in addition to their other positions. Both of them went to work last Tuesday and never returned home. Neither has been heard from since.”
“So they’ve been missing for over a week?” said Veronica, surprised. That didn’t bode well. But then, these things rarely did. “Have you enquired at this new hospital where they worked?” she asked, realising immediately that it would, of course, have been the first place Bainbridge’s men would have looked.
Bainbridge shook his head. “That’s just it. We can’t find the place. No one seems to know exactly where it is. Even the women’s families are unsure, and we can’t find any record of a new institution in the area. All we have is the half-remembered name of their employer, a Dr. J. Reynolds, or Renfrew. Something like that. It seems as if the whole operation was ve
ry secretive, which only adds to my suspicion that something untoward has occurred.”
“How odd,” said Veronica. “I don’t suppose there’s very much you can do without further information.”
“I fear not,” said Bainbridge, frowning. He came around from behind his desk. “Damn infuriating.”
“And the other things?” she prompted.
Bainbridge looked confused.
“You said ‘amongst other things.’”
He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Oh, the usual business. I’ve been going over early newspaper reports of the plague revenants, seeing if I can’t turn up another mention of this strange mutation we saw yesterday. I have to admit, Miss Hobbes, the whole thing has me feeling rather unsettled.”
“Everything about the revenants has me feeling unsettled,” agreed Veronica. “Did you find anything? In the newspapers?”
Bainbridge shook his head. “No. Nothing. There’s no mention of anything even closely resembling the monstrous cadaver we saw yesterday.”
“And Dr. Finnegan? Has he reported on his findings?” she asked.
“Not yet,” replied Bainbridge. He looked around, reaching for his cane, which was propped against the edge of his chair. “But he should be expecting us. If you’ve the stomach for it, his laboratory is in the basement.”
Groaning inwardly, Veronica stood. It wasn’t a question of whether she had the stomach for it—she knew that she did—but all the same, it didn’t mean she particularly relished the idea of spending more time in the vicinity of the ghastly corpse. “Very well, Sir Charles,” she said, placing a hand on his arm and trying to sound enthusiastic. “Lead on!”
* * *