1888

by Andrew Hastie

  30

  Taken

  The sumptuous, plush seats of the carriage were covered in a deep, red velvet. A good colour for hiding blood stains, thought Maddox as she sat opposite Doctor Knox.

  ‘Venereal disease is at near epidemic levels in some parts of the city,’ he said without looking up from his notebook. ‘It’s a sign of the levels of depravity and corruption that our society has fallen to. The men are to blame, of course. I have examined so many wives who have complained of the symptoms whilst having no knowledge of their husbands’ infections. They would rather see their wife suffer than admit to some torrid affair in a back alley of the Rookery. How does the old saying go? “One night with Venus and a lifetime of mercury,” or in their case fatigue, lesions and birth defects.’

  Maddox noticed how he was careful not to blame the working girls, but it was obvious by his omission that they were part of the problem.

  ‘And the prostitutes?’ she asked. ‘Surely the way to treat the spread is to educate the women who are most at risk?’

  His mouth twitched, a subtle tick that left her in no doubt that she had hit a nerve.

  ‘There is nothing to be done. Many are beyond our help and those that will take advice complain that their customers refuse to use a sheath, preferring to rely on the ineffective remedies of the herb doctors.’

  He put his notebook away and folded his arms. ‘I hadn’t realised you had such a strong opinion on the welfare of the poor. Do you follow Mrs Pankhurst and her suffrage movement?’

  ‘I do,’ Maddox said, ‘I believe women should have the right to vote.’

  Knox’s eyes glistened in the lamplight of the carriage. ‘Do you indeed. I fancy there’s more to you than I had given you credit for.’ He took out a silver hip flask from his coat. ‘Would you care for a wee dram? It’s been a long day.’ He unscrewed the top and offered it to her.

  Maddox knew better than to drink, but she lifted the flask to her lips being careful not to let any of the liquid pass. She was sure it would be drugged. “Slipping her a mickey” was one of the oldest tricks in the book, but when she gave it back, he took a long drink himself.

  ‘I have to say you’re something of an enigma. It seems that Doctor Garrett’s influence attracts the more independent kind of woman, which I find rather attractive.’

  Do you now? Thought Maddox, remembering to stay in character. ‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ she said, feeling in her pocket for the tachyon, but found only the handle of the flat bladed knife. She vaguely remembered that she’d left it in her grandmother’s drawer and wondered if Sabien had found it by now.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked innocently, she needed to find out where he was keeping Mary.

  ‘My laboratory. I have a few private patients who have supported my work over the years. They have afforded me certain indulgences.’ He waved at the carriage. ‘Allowing me to continue my research.’

  The cab jolted a little over the rough cobblestones and Maddox put her hand out to steady herself, touching the carriage door handle.

  The timelines unwound beneath her fingers and suddenly she could see Mary, sitting in the same spot not more than three days before. Knox had spun her some story about how they would go to Paris, to meet a famous doctor and she had willingly agreed.

  ‘Where is Mary?’ Maddox said sternly, dropping the facade of the shy nurse.

  Knox reached into his jacket for something. She couldn’t see what it was, but her training kicked in. She pulled the knife from her skirt and held it out in front of her. ‘Tell me what you’ve done with her!’

  Knox held up his empty hands in surrender. ‘Oh, I think Mary is quite safe my dear.’

  His hand bent awkwardly, and something extended out from his wrist. She felt a sharp pain in her chest and a numbing sensation began to radiate from the dart that was embedded in her shoulder.

  ‘Now that I have you.’

  31

  Acteon Beetle

  [Whitechapel. Date: November 8, 1888]

  Knox’s face was a mask of concentration as he opened the lid of the glass jar. Maddox watched as he pulled out the strange beetle-like creature using a pair of long steel forceps.

  Its shiny black body was as large as her fist and he held it up to the lamplight so that she could see the sharp, razor-like mandibles opening and closing as it struggled to free itself from his grip.

  ‘Megasoma actaeon. The Acteon Beetle. A distant relation of the Egyptian Scarab,’ he explained. ‘I first came across these in the jungles of the Amazon. No natural predators you know. The venom has some delightful side effects, a powerful neurotoxin which immobilises their prey in seconds. As you are no doubt experiencing.’

  Maddox realised that the dart contained a powerful anaesthetic. She’d lost the feeling in her arms and legs; the numbing sensation was gradually making its way up her spine. The gag cut into the sides of her mouth when she tried to scream.

  He dropped the beetle into a jar of green liquid and watched it as the creature slowly sank to the bottom. Arranged along the wall behind him were hundreds of similar jars, each with a specimen of the strangest creatures she’d ever seen. Horrific mutations of animal foetuses were preserved alongside pale-eyed octopi, livid tapeworms and desiccated snakes. It was like a zoo of the dead.

  ‘The anatomy of a creature tells the story of their evolution. Did you know that? I have studied the physiology of many species, comparing their development. Time and circumstance have fashioned them in so many fascinating ways, but some have hardly changed in a hundred million years. You could say I have become something of a devolutionist.’

  He chuckled at his joke, sticking a label onto the jar and placing it with the others.

  ‘Lately, my research has taken a rather interesting turn.’ He picked up an old Egyptian pot and brought it back to the table.

  Maddox was totally paralysed. She could still breathe, but she realised she was trapped inside her own body.

  There were strange scratching noises coming from inside the clay jar.

  ‘I was fortunate to come into the possession of a rather ancient specimen. One that many would consider to be extinct. No, that’s the wrong word — mythical is probably a better term. Have you ever heard of the lost city of Xanthus?’

  She stared at him blankly.

  ‘No? Of course not. What would you know of the ancient wonders of Lycia? Nor the work of the illustrious Sir Charles Fellows.’

  His tone softened, like a parent explaining something to a child. ‘Fellows discovered an ancient civilisation. One that existed before the time of the Iliad, of Troy and Herodotus. It was a glorious but doomed city, a mausoleum for all those that chose death rather than surrender to the Persians. Virtually the entire population committed suicide in the siege of Harpagus.’

  Knox opened the lid, and the smell of decay filled her nostrils.

  ‘What Fellows found in the ruins of the city was even more ancient than the tomb that encased it.’

  He picked up the forceps once more.

  ‘They say that his men refused to touch the Harpy tomb until he’d cleared it. They were ignorant, superstitious men who feared the chamber was cursed. It’s on display at the British Museum you know, they brought it back in crates, all the treasures of the Lycian empire. All except this.’

  He dipped the forceps into the jar and brought out a strange-looking creature. It was the size of his hand, with the wizened, leathery skin of a lizard and the body of a leech. Vicious claws extruded from each of its eight tentacles. There was no face, just a mouth that gaped open from the middle of its wriggling limbs, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth. A short, whip-like tail wrapped around the forceps, scoring the metal with its sharpened scales.

  ‘I believe the Lycians named them Aeschylus, but I prefer the term Cryptid. Fellows kept this a secret his whole life. Tried to have the damn thing buried with him. It has amazing hibernation qualities. When I first heard of its existence I was intrigued. Madame Blavatsky
once described them as evidence of an ancient culture that predated the flood — a true Antediluvian.’

  He brought the creature closer to her face. The smell made her gag, and she realised the drug was beginning to wear off.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid they are rather pungent.’

  Maddox watched the tail unravel from the steel clamps and she tensed as she felt the rough edges of it touch her skin.

  ‘From what I can gather from the ancient texts the cryptid is metamorphic, much like a butterfly. It must gestate in a human host until fully grown. Western science would call it a parasite, but I believe it was seen as something of an honour to be chosen as a surrogate.’

  He moved the creature lower, laying it on her naked abdomen. ‘The neurotoxin should have anaesthetised you by now, you shouldn’t feel a thing.’

  32

  Trial

  [Star Chamber]

  There was a deathly hush as the Xenobiologyst Bigelow took to the stand. One of his arms was completely missing, a metal prosthetic had been strapped in its place with a fearsome looking claw hand attached to the end.

  ‘James Bigelow, you were the senior recovery operative on the Whitechapel case.’

  ‘I was,’ he replied in a deep American accent. The scar down one side of his face twisted his lip giving him a permanent half-smile.

  ‘Can you describe the level of risk that Inspector Sabien’s actions put your team under?’

  ‘Objection. Move to strike!’ exclaimed Sabien’s barrister. ‘There is no evidence that my client was aware of the danger.’

  ‘Sustained. Madame Inquisitor please refrain from leading the witness.’

  Ravana nodded politely and turned back to Bigelow.

  ‘In your own words, can you tell the court what happened when your team were deployed to contain the situation?’

  33

  Incubus

  [Date: 09.10.1888]

  The ice warehouse had been converted into an anatomist’s laboratory. The walls were lined with shelves of gruesome exhibits both human and animal. In the centre of the floor sat a dark gaping well and beyond it a wall of glass-fronted cases, each one filled with a viscous green liquid and the limp, preserved bodies of pregnant women.

  They were dead, their blank eyes staring out into nothing. Withered arms and legs hung in suspension like dolls in water, their bloated bellies distorted balloons, shot through with dark veins.

  Sabien felt his heart beat faster as he moved from one cabinet to the next, searching their faces for any sign of Maddox. Time was running out, he knew that Eddington would have reported her missing by now. Once the alarm was raised the Dreadnought Search and Rescue squad would be deployed as well as the damned Xenos.

  She wasn’t among them and Knox was nowhere to be seen.

  * * *

  Maddox’s grandmother had told him to follow Mary Kelly. The Copernicans had managed to trace her timeline, showing that she had gone to visit Doctor Knox a few days before Maddox’s death. Knox was working at a hospital run by Elizabeth Garrett, and Sabien quickly discovered that so had every one of the other victims. He was an abortionist, albeit for rich, private clients, and had assuaged his conscience by helping out at the women’s hospital, where he had found suitable subjects for his research.

  What he was doing to them was another matter.

  * * *

  The women in the preservation tanks looked like old experiments, failed ones. There were marks on some of the bodies that matched those on Kelly and Eddowes — some of their bodies were ripped open as if something had been torn out of them.

  He heard a noise from deep down in the ice well. It was muffled, like someone was struggling to get free. The pit was deep and there was no visible way down. Sabien searched around for some kind of ladder, until he found a pulley mechanism attached to one wall. Cranking the handle, a set of rusting iron stairs slowly rose out from the darkness.

  He took them two at a time.

  The light from his tachyon seemed to be absorbed by the dark, barely illuminating the stairs ahead of him and the slick, moss-covered walls of the old well.

  Before he reached the bottom, he saw the first of them.

  Their crystalline claws caught in the light, and they hissed, shrinking away from the light of the torch. Hideously malformed reptilian monsters swarmed over each other like rats in a sewer.

  Sabien froze, trying hard not to breathe. There was a mass of them squirming and sliding in the slick ooze at the bottom of the pit.

  It was like staring at hell.

  ‘Step backwards very slowly,’ said an American voice, distorted by the filters of a respirator.

  34

  Monster Squad

  Sabien turned slowly, holding the light steady on the creatures as if trying to keep them at bay. He could hear them moving in the shadows, their claws scratching on the metal at the base of the stairs. His finger hovered over the rewind button of the tachyon, as he lifted one foot and felt for the step behind him. His heartbeat pulsed through his fingers as they held the tachyon steady, knowing that one wrong move and the creatures would take him.

  Above him stood three men in heavy armour with brass helmets like deep-sea divers. The nearest of them was carrying a long weapon made of multiple copper tubes, an icy-blue flame flickered at the end of it.

  He’d never been happier to see a Xeno containment team.

  ‘Step back slowly, no sudden moves,’ repeated the man. His face illuminated beneath the glass of the helmet.

  As Sabien stepped aside the Xeno technician moved forward, lamps on his chest-plate brightening to light up the entire nest. The screams of the beasts echoed up the sides of the pit as the man fired up the argon lance. Sabien could feel the chill on his back as he ran up the last flight of stairs.

  More Xenos were waiting in the laboratory. A team had started to work on releasing the bodies from the glass cases. The floor was awash with formaldehyde and organs. A line of body bags was already forming along one wall.

  A female scientist in a grey combat uniform approached him. She had kind eyes, as his mother would say, full of questions, ones that he had no intention of answering.

  ‘Are you injured Inspector?’ she asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘And your partner?’

  ‘She’s not here.’

  The screams from the ice well died away. A freezing mist of icy vapour swirled up around the three officers as they stepped off the staircase in their heavily damaged armour.

  The first man disconnected his ice lance and dropped it unceremoniously onto the floor. He twisted his helmet through ninety degrees and lifted it off.

  ‘Xargi — nasty bastards.’ He spat something dark onto the floor. ‘You Sabien?’ he asked in a strong American accent.

  Sabien nodded.

  ‘The name’s Bigelow. I’m running security on this crap shoot.’ He pulled on the metal plates across his shoulders and the front of his armour clattered onto the floor

  The woman winced at the noise. ‘James. I assume we’re safe now?’

  ‘Sure. They’re all on ice.’

  ‘What are they?’ asked Sabien.

  ‘Xenoforms,’ said the woman. ‘A long dead species.’

  ‘Aliens,’ Bigelow spat again. ‘The lab picked up traces of their DNA in the wounds of the second victim — they make a pretty big mess when they’re born.’

  ‘He’s been growing them?’

  ‘Incubating,’ corrected the xenobiologyst.

  Sabien looked around the laboratory. ‘Do you know where the Doctor is?’

  Bigelow laughed. ‘The mad scientist?’ He pulled out a cigar. ‘Knox’s long gone.’

  ‘The Copernicans are trying to trace him,’ added the woman.

  Sabien ground his teeth, watching another tank being drained. ‘They won’t like what they find. He’s an Aeon.’

  The woman looked confused. ‘A what?’

  ‘An immortal,’ said Bigelow, striking a match and
puffing on the cigar. ‘Except I thought they were just a myth.’

  ‘I couldn’t work out why I couldn’t see him. Why he could move in and out of the scene without leaving any traces.’ Sabien took out his almanac and showed them the timeline for Knox. ‘Whoever he is, he’s not human — his line is over five thousand years old.’

  ‘And he’s got your partner?’

  Sabien closed the book and sighed. ‘My intern, and she’s in way over her head.’

  35

  Maddox

  [Date: 09.10.1888]

  The streets of Whitechapel were thick with fog, turning the passers-by into pale, distorted ghosts, nothing more than blurred shapes outlined against the orange glow of the gaslights.

  Maddox had no idea how she got out. The drugs in her system were making it hard to concentrate. Everyone was giving her a wide berth, mistaking her unsteady steps for those of a drunk. There was something wrong with her neck, it was hard to swallow, and her throat was on fire. When she tried to speak it was like her tongue was full of needles. She was desperately thirsty, but no one seemed to understand what she was asking for.

  Knox had dressed her like a whore. One man had tried to take advantage of her, but there was something in her eyes that had scared him away. Maddox didn’t care right now, all she wanted to do was get out of Whitechapel, she needed to get back to the station.

  Her belly ached, not like a stomach cramp, but something more serious. She ran her hand over the bump that swelled there. It was gas, she told herself, or something she ate, because the alternative was not something she could deal with right now.