by George Mann
“And you did? Recover, I mean,” said Bainbridge.
“Of course,” said Pargeter. “I felt rejuvenated. Reinvigorated. It was quite remarkable, as if the weariness had been scrubbed from my bones. I even regained partial use of my arm.” He wriggled the fingers of the hand in the sling to underline his point. “They paid me, and I left.”
“And that was all?”
Pargeter nodded. “It may not seem a lot to people like you, miss, but I don’t mind telling you that it changed my life. The money was enough to take on this place, to set myself up with a reasonable suit and a clerk’s position at a local accounting firm. It’s not much, I grant you, but if it wasn’t for that hospital I should think I’d be dead on the street by now, or in the workhouse, which might as well amount to the same thing for a cripple.”
“Did you remain in touch with the doctor who treated you?” said Veronica. “The man who established this hospital.”
“No,” said Pargeter. “He called on me a few times in the weeks following my discharge, but I’ve not been back there, and I’ve not heard from him for months.” He rubbed absently at his bristly chin. “Why? Is he in trouble? Is that what this is about?”
Bainbridge shook his head. “At the moment, Mr. Pargeter, just like you, all we want is to ask him a few questions. Do you recall his name?”
“Yes. Of course,” said Pargeter. “Dr. Julian Wren. One of the most remarkable men I’ve ever met. He changed my life, and for that, Sir Charles, I owe him everything. I’m sure whatever it is you need from him, he’ll be only too glad to give it.”
“Do you have an address for Dr. Wren?” said Veronica.
“Only the hospital,” said Pargeter. He started to get to his feet. “I can look it out for you.”
“Oh, no. No need,” said Bainbridge. “We’re aware of the establishment already.”
“Yes, of course,” said Pargeter. “Then I’m sure Dr. Wren won’t be too difficult to find.”
“You’ve been most helpful,” said Bainbridge, getting to his feet. “Thank you for your time.” He extended his hand, and Pargeter shook it.
Miss Carstairs was waiting for them in the hallway, pretending to dust a vase, and clearly anxious to know more of what had gone on. Veronica smiled warmly as they passed. “My thanks to you, Miss Carstairs.”
“Was Mr. Pargeter able to assist you as you’d hoped?”
“Oh yes,” said Veronica. “And I’m sure he would be most grateful of that cup of tea now.”
Miss Carstairs smiled. “Thank you, Miss Hobbes.”
* * *
Outside, Veronica looped arms with Bainbridge, drawing an uncomfortable cough from him, as they hastily made for their carriage.
“Poor devil,” said Bainbridge. “To be reduced to that.”
“Do not pity him,” said Veronica. “He’s a strong man, and when he realises that she’s a strong woman, too, he’ll be right enough.”
“Miss Carstairs, you mean?” said Bainbridge, surprised.
“Oh, Sir Charles,” said Veronica. “How can someone so intelligent be so blind?”
Bainbridge sighed. “I never was able to fathom the mysterious ways of women,” he said.
“It’s not the women you need to understand,” said Veronica, “but yourself.”
“You see?” said Bainbridge, as they approached their waiting carriage. “It’s comments like that which I’m talking about. You’re not making any sense at all!” He laughed as he hopped up onto the footplate and opened the door. “Now, to Scotland Yard, where we can set to work finding out where this ‘Dr. Wren’ is hiding, and see about paying him a visit.”
CHAPTER
22
Newbury quit the engine room with a heavy heart. He wanted to rail against the stupidity—admonish the fireman and go directly to the train conductor and berate him for his foolishness. Couldn’t they see the inherent danger in burning revenant corpses for fuel on a passenger train? Couldn’t they see the horror in it?
Instead, he fought the urge, suppressing his instincts to intervene. Newbury had never been able to stand by and witness injustice or imperilment, but this time—despite every fibre of his being screaming at him to act—he stood down. He could not become embroiled in the whys and wherefores of official business here on the train. That would lead to questions, investigations, and the one thing Veronica didn’t have: time. Besides, the situation had already escalated. It was no longer a hypothetical danger. He had no doubt now that a revenant was loose on the train—perhaps more than one. Everyone aboard was trapped, like beasts in an abattoir, awaiting slaughter.
He hurried past Mrs. Wren’s cabin, and through into the dining car, resolute. Things aboard were getting a little too hot, what with the Cabal, and now this. He’d head back to their cabin, tell Amelia to pack her things. They would find a way off the train before the situation deteriorated any further, and take an alternate route to St. Petersburg. He couldn’t afford any further setbacks or distractions.
The dining carriage was still full, although some of the faces had changed, as new passengers had arrived to take the place of others. Waitstaff flitted from table to table, and the sight of a freshly cooked steak made his stomach growl. He briefly considered stopping to collect something to eat, but dissuaded himself, choosing to focus on more pressing matters. There’d be time for food at the next station as they awaited an alternative train.
Newbury navigated around the buzzing waiters and out the other side of the dining car. People were milling about in the lobby of the adjoining carriage, traipsing back and forth from the observation lounge—people with little to occupy their time other than idle chitchat and salacious gossip. He tried not to listen to their conversations lest they infuriate him. He wanted to scream at them that they were all blundering into danger, but they’d either mark him down as a madman, or he’d risk starting a riot.
Minutes later, he was standing outside of the cabin he shared with Amelia. He’d already drawn his key, confident that she would have followed his instructions and locked all of the doors behind her. To his dismay, however, as he inserted the key into the lock, the door to his cabin swung open. Nervously, he examined the frame. There were splinters of wood where the lock had been forced. Someone had gained entrance, and then pushed the door to so as not to arouse suspicion.
Newbury cursed himself for not carrying a weapon, and then, steeling himself for what might lay beyond, he stepped into the cabin; jaw set, alert for any signs of an intruder.
He knew immediately that something was wrong. He could sense it, like a sense of stillness in the air. Cautiously he crossed the room, balling his hands into fists and peering into the shadowy recess behind his bunk. There was no one there. Again, though, the door to the adjoining drawing room stood slightly ajar.
He wanted to call out to Amelia, but dared not risk it in case he inadvertently gave warning to the intruder—although it was likely they’d already moved on.
Carefully, he pushed open the door, his palm slick and sweaty against the wood. The drawing room was in disarray. Everything had been overturned; drawers emptied, vases smashed, a curtain pulled free of its rail, now resting crumpled upon the floor. There’d clearly been a struggle, and a systematic search, too, and with dismay he saw that Amelia’s armchair had been overturned, the seat fabric shredded, and the book removed. This, then, was clearly the work of the cult, and not the train guards, or an errant revenant that had forced its way in.
Newbury swallowed. His mouth was dry. The missing book was one thing, but what about Amelia? What had they done to her? Terrible images spiralled through his mind, of the corpse laid out in the chair, the icon of the horned beast carved into its dead, pale chest. He thought, too, of the monstrous things he’d encountered in London—the men who had once been human, but had been adapted, mechanised, and otherwise transformed through ugly science into slavering beasts.
He closed his eyes for a moment, drawing a deep breath, but all he could see was Amelia�
�s screaming, bloodied face in his mind’s eye, silently mouthing his name. And then Veronica, too, pale and on her deathbed, as her ailing heart finally gave in. How had he failed these women so completely? How had it come to this?
With a curse, he crossed the drawing room and kicked angrily at the door to Amelia’s cabin, in the vain hope that she might still be locked inside. It rattled noisily in the frame.
“Amelia?”
The door flew open with a bang.
“Amelia? Amelia? Are you there?”
He knew she would have followed his advice, given the opportunity. She would have locked herself away in here until he returned. Something had stopped her. The cultists had obviously been lying in wait, looking for the opportunity to strike, and he had allowed himself to be distracted by the revenant murder.
“Damn it!”
Amelia’s bunk had not been disturbed.
He retraced his steps, circling the devastated drawing room, searching for any clues. There was certainly no sign of spilled blood. That had to suggest she’d been taken hostage, rather than murdered outright. Perhaps they intended to use her to draw him out, to lure him into a trap? If so, there was no clue, no sign of where they might have taken her. The room didn’t appear to have been staged in any way.
He glanced at his pocket watch. He hadn’t been gone for long, certainly no more than an hour. And what of Petunia Wren? She must have parted company with Amelia shortly after he had, if she’d paid any heed to his instructions. Was there a chance, then, that Amelia had gone against his wishes and left with the other woman, taking refuge elsewhere? He hoped so.
He knew now that he had no choice. If she were still alive, he would find her and get her to safety. They had to find a way off this train.
The first carriage was as good a place to start as any. If Amelia was not with Petunia Wren there was at least the chance the woman might have seen something useful, some clue that could point him in the right direction. That was what he would do.
Hurriedly, Newbury ran to the door, pulled it aside, and dashed out, straight into the waiting arms of a revenant.
CHAPTER
23
Amelia woke with a start. Her eyes were gummy and the back of her head was throbbing—a deep, thundering pain, like the beat of horses’ hooves against her skull. She took a breath, and tried to move, but her ankles and wrists were bound with what felt like lengths of rough twine. There was something soft pressing against her cheek. She blinked and tried to focus—she was lying on a plush red carpet. Beneath it, like the rumble of distant thunder, she could hear the wheels of the train against the tracks; feel the steady, rhythmic motion of the carriage.
She moistened her lips with her tongue, fighting panic. The last thing she remembered was going to fetch a drink for Petunia. What had happened? There were no stuttering images, no half-recalled scenes—just a horrifying void in her memory. One minute she’d been in the cabin she shared with Newbury, the next she was here—wherever here was.
Wincing at the pounding it set off inside her skull, she turned her head, craning her neck to try to get a sense of her surroundings. The room was lit with gas lamps, and in many ways was similar to the drawing room of her cabin. Only this one was far more sumptuously appointed. A grandfather clock ticked ominously in the corner, and paintings hung on the walls between the windows. The ceiling had been painstakingly decorated with a rococo design, and what she could see of the furniture was of an exceptional quality, the woodwork gilded to suggest luxury.
Much of the furniture had been pushed back, however, to create a large space in the centre of the room. In it, a wooden coffin had been propped upright on a mahogany frame to form a macabre centrepiece. There was no lid, and to Amelia’s dismay the grim, desiccated corpse of a man stared out at her with a fleshless smile.
She stifled a scream. This was no ordinary corpse. Although the body had been dressed in a smart, black suit, she could see that the torso beneath was grossly misshapen, and what was more, strange, fibrous tendrils had erupted from it, like questing vines, poking their way through the flaking muscles and sinews, worrying holes in the fabric and erupting up and out of the coffin, spreading outwards like the uppermost branches of a tree. They curled across the carpet, burrowed into the nooks and crevices of the walls and ceiling. The vines were everywhere, quivering with what she hoped to be the steady movement of the train. Amongst them nestled strange, grey sacs, like bulbous fruit, ripe and ready to be plucked.
Amelia had no idea what had become of this man, how his body had become host to such horrendous growths, and why he was here, on the train, propped inside an open coffin inside a luxurious cabin.
She sensed movement behind her and twisted to try to see, but couldn’t strain far enough because of her bonds. She wondered if it were the cult, if they’d come for her after Newbury had left, slipped into her cabin and struck her from behind. Were they about to do the same to her as that poor man they’d found earlier, carving detestable runes into her flesh before slitting her throat? She gritted her teeth. She hadn’t come this far to die like that.
And then she heard the woman’s voice, and she knew that she had made the gravest of errors.
“Oh, Miss Hobbes, the look on your face is a picture. If only you could see it.” It was Petunia Wren.
“Petunia? What’s happening?” said Amelia. A thousand thoughts flickered through her head, like grains of sand stirred by the wind. Had the cult got them both? Was Petunia tied up behind her? And then it registered—the malign tone in the woman’s voice, and the fact she had called Amelia by her real name.
Petunia was still laughing, finding amusement in Amelia’s predicament.
“How do you know my real name?” said Amelia, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.
“It wasn’t a difficult deduction, my dear,” said Petunia. She was moving. Amelia could sense it. A moment later she’d circled around to stand before the prone Amelia, who looked up at her, trying to discern the expression on the woman’s face.
“Why? What could I have possibly done to you to warrant this?”
“You really don’t know?” said Petunia, with venom. “You really don’t remember? Perhaps you don’t recognise him with all his … enhancements.” With a grunt, she pulled back and loosed a running kick into Amelia’s stomach. Amelia buckled, howling in pain, bringing her knees up in defence against any further assault. She knew it was useless however—she was entirely at the mercy of the other woman, a woman who, for some as yet undisclosed slight, had befriended her, before abducting her and taking her hostage.
“Listen, Petunia, I don’t know what’s going on here. I really don’t.” Amelia drew a breath, her stomach muscles aching from the sudden assault. “But it’s not too late to stop this. Untie me, and tell me what’s wrong. If I can help, I will. There’s no need for all this.”
Petunia dropped into a crouch, reaching out with her gloved hand and taking hold of Amelia’s face. Amelia struggled ineffectively, as Petunia turned her head, squeezing her jaw. She tasted blood as her teeth bit into her cheek.
Petunia brought her own face closer, peering directly into Amelia’s eyes. The malice in her expression was unnerving. She wasn’t thinking straight. “Come now, Veronica, let us be honest with one another.” She released her grip on Amelia’s face.
Amelia’s eyes widened. “Veronica? No, you’ve got it wrong. I’m not Veronica. I’m her sister, Amelia Hobbes.”
Petunia lashed out, striking Amelia hard across the face, so that her head rebounded painfully against the floor. “Lies! All of it lies.” She was scowling now, and Amelia knew that it wouldn’t take much to provoke her to further violence. “Don’t you think that I’ve done my research, that I’ve planned every stage of this encounter; turned it over and over in my mind? No, this has been months in the making. I know that your sister is dead, Veronica. Amelia died during the raid on the Grayling Institute last year. So you can stop it with the pretence, and start facing up to
what you’ve done. You can start taking responsibility for your actions.”
“No,” said Amelia, quietly. “That’s not what happened. I didn’t die there. That’s what we wanted everyone to believe. It was a cover story, and it’s the reason I’m travelling under an assumed name. I’ve been living incognito in a little English village. You must believe me, Petunia. Whatever Veronica might have done to you, they were not my actions.”
“It matters little,” said Petunia, with a resigned smile. “Whether you admit it or not, the result will be the same. I know that it’s you. Always by the side of the dashing Sir Maurice, always ‘assisting’ him with his investigations. You’re quite the little agent, aren’t you?”
“No!” protested Amelia, tears prickling her eyes. She didn’t know what else she could do. Whatever Veronica had done, she must have had her reasons. Yet now this crazed woman was about to enact her revenge on Amelia in Veronica’s stead.
It was not the first time Amelia had faced peril, and she would willingly put herself in danger to save her sister—but if she died here and now, on this train, then there was every chance that Veronica would die, too, back in London. It couldn’t end like this. Not here, halfway across the continent, with no opportunity to say goodbye to those she cared for, no chance of seeing Veronica restored to health.
Nor, though, could she rely on Newbury to assist her. He was most likely embroiled in the machinations of the cult elsewhere on the train. He wouldn’t even know she was missing until it was too late.
No, she had to get out of this one alone.
Carefully, so as not to draw Petunia’s attention, she tested the strength of the twine around her wrists. It bit painfully into her flesh. She curled her fingers around, feeling the edges of the knot, picking at it with the bitten-off ends of her fingernails. Her only hope was to keep the woman talking, keep her gloating, while she worked at the knot to free herself.
“Supposing for a moment that you’re right,” said Amelia. “That I am, indeed, Veronica Hobbes.” She swallowed. “You’re going to have to remind me what it is that I’m supposed to have done.”