The Apothecary's Curse (9 page)

Breathless, Mrs. McRory entered behind him. “My God, Dr. Bell!” she wheezed between ragged breaths. “I heard her from below stairs, sir, and rushed up as soon as . . . What can be wrong with her? Such a turn, and so suddenly—”

Simon sat close by Sophie's side, trembling hands gripping her shoulders, trying desperately to still her wild thrashing. “Do be seated, Mrs. McRory,” he said, unable to wrest his gaze from his keening wife, “before you swoon, and I've two to attend. Sophie, my love?” She did not respond, though her eyes were open and frantic.

Slowly, her wailing weakened to faint bleats.

“Sshh. It's all right; I'm here,” he cooed, brushing back her hair, plastered now to her forehead. She looked right through him with the vacant stare of a lunatic—no sign of recognition within them. But she was calmer at least.

Years of experience fled, along with all knowledge; he was rudderless, lost in the tidal wave of this latest crisis. This was no resurgence of the fever; neither her hands nor brow were hot.

Gingerly, he peeled back Sophie's gown to reveal her left breast: terrible, angry red-purple, twice the size of the other, as if any moment it would burst. “Little wonder, my beloved, you suffer so in pain—even in your slumber,” he murmured into her neck. Cradling her within his embrace, he kissed her hair, vowing vows he could not keep.

He had one weapon remaining in his arsenal, but ambivalence forestalled its use. His singed and throbbing hand exhorted him from beneath its bandages. How could he? Yet how could he
not
?

Sophie broke free of his embrace, sitting upright, looking into the distance. “Anna, is that you? Oh, Anna, my dear sweet sister.” She laughed—a delighted, girlish giggle. “It is so good to see you. Come let us go into Mama's garden and pluck the lavender before she can scold us, and we shall make delicious tea!” Sophie's beatific smile, beaming ear to ear, fractured Simon's heart as she called out in her delirium to her younger sister, dead since childhood.

“I can hear them, I think, Anna. Can you? The fairies! Oh! There is one; I can see her, for she cannot hide her light from us out here.” Sophie giggled, a child again. To another world she had gone, a place he could not follow; she slipped away from his hold, rainwater through his fingers.

He could sit passively by not a moment longer. “I am sorry, my love. I cannot let you go—not yet.” Apprehension growled in his belly; the relentless chill of fear throbbed through his veins along with determination to carry through with the plan.

“Oh, Simon!” she said, her gaze fixed upon something outside his ability to perceive. “Do not look so grim and stodgy! Come, play with us. We're having a walk beneath Mama's heather trees—they are so full of flower, and the fairies dance within their branches as they do in the lavender. Can you not see them? Come! Hurry, or we shall lose sight of them!” Blindly, her hands reached out toward him, pulling at his sleeve.

“Please my love, there will be time enough for that, but you need to heed me now.” Slowly he removed the stopper; this time, the phial did not heat as it had done before.

He filled the attached dropper, the liquid an oily amber. “I need only give you a small amount. Do you understand me?” She nodded, but was she acknowledging him or someone only
she
could see?

Sucking in a breath, Simon slipped the dropper between Sophie's closed lips and released the medicine in the exact amount indicated in Erceldoune's instructions. “Come, my darling, rest easy against my chest.” He settled himself in beside her, nestling her in the crook of his neck.

“Yes, Simon. Much better. Please stay with me.”

Simon blinked in surprise. Was it possible that Erceldoune's elixir had begun to work so quickly? Had it chased away her delirium? “I shall. Of course I shall.” He forced hope back to the far reaches of his consciousness, until it was faint and hidden away . . . until he knew for certain.

“My sister Anna, did I imagine her here with us just now?”

Simon nodded into her hair, kissing it. “Yes, my love. I—” All she needed now was to sleep. Just sleep. “Hush now. Now let us rest, beloved, both of us, and you shall be much improved when we waken.”

Finally, he turned to Mrs. McRory. “I believe we may have seen the worst of it. Please take your leave now and rest whilst you might. I shall call you when she awakens. There will be much to do.”

“Your hand sir?”

Simon had nearly forgotten. The reminder of it once again started up the throbbing. “It is of no matter, a small scrape; I shall attend to it later.”

“Very well, sir.”

Mrs. McRory closed the door to the boudoir, and Simon was relieved to finally hear her slow, plodding footfalls on the stairs.

The fading light of late afternoon painted the walls in flame, doused as evening's darkness descended. The dying embers cast long, dull shadows as Simon waited. Seconds became minutes, a half hour. Nothing—a good or bad sign, he knew not. Just nothing. Sophie's light breath upon his arm tickled, and he savored each tingle as if it were the most precious caress, lulling him to sleep.

And then she tensed, arms splayed, back stiff, arched like a bow—the unexpected movement nearly knocking him to the floor. The suddenness of it caught him off his guard; he recoiled, dazed by the sudden turn. Then just as abruptly, she fell backward, no longer rigid, but convulsing, her movements erratic as her limbs shuddered and kicked. Drawing a candle near, he saw it: spittle gathered at the corner of her mouth foaming and pink in the dim light.

Realization dawned as he spied the cobalt phial on the night table. This was poison's signature, confirmed as convulsions wracked her petite frame.

“My God, Sophie. No. Please, dear God, no!” Leaping upon the mattress, he tried to still her. “Please, Sophie, stop. Stop!” A string of desperate curses intermingled with prayer—to God, to the devil, to anyone and anything that might stop the relentless havoc of bone and flesh. She fought with the bedcovers and with him, and he only hoped the blankets would twist about her enough to tame her chaotic movements.

He climbed astride her, arms bracing her shoulders in a feeble attempt to quell her anguish—and his own. He comprehended too well poison's progression to keep hold even a thread of hope. The pink spittle darkened to red-black, a steady stream down her chin, staining the bed, staining his shirt.

“Do not leave me, Sophie. Do not! Do not—” An inarticulate sob swelled from deep within his chest. “Please awaken, my princess. Please do not leave me alone. Please—”

And then her shuddering stilled, and she lay finally quiet beneath him. Rivulets of sweat ran down his face, mingling with her blood and his tears. Panting from exertion, he wiped his face with cool water from the bedside ewer as he tried to calm his breathing. At least Sophie was quiet now, asleep once again.

Mrs. McRory entered the room without knocking, a candle in hand. “Dr. Bell!” She crept to his side as Simon released a long breath. His housekeeper would make too much of his bedraggled appearance, try to coax him downstairs to dine now that Sophie was resting.

Her fingers curled about his upper arm like a vise. He patted her hand, his voice gentle. “There, there, Mrs. McRory. You see? She's fallen back to sleep. All will be right when she wakens.”

“No, sir, I think—”

Simon's heart stopped as his gaze fell upon Sophie's ashen face—and he died inside.

CHICAGO'S NORTH SHORE, PRESENT DAY

CHAPTER 10

Gaelan slammed the front door of his flat, rattling the blinds along with what remained of his composure. The air was stale, a smothering fug of cigarette smoke and old paper. Letting his battered leather rucksack drop to the parquet tiles, he collapsed into deep cushions of a well-worn sofa.

Visits with Simon Bell were never easy. And with a line on the ouroboros book, Bell would be relentless in its pursuit until he'd be once again disappointed. Gaelan appreciated Bell's singularity of purpose, which lasted long past any hope Gaelan possessed of ever locating it. Gaelan had given up; Simon never had.

And what then, if the book should actually be found? Gaelan recalled very little of it. The irony being that every other horrifying detail of his life plagued him in high relief. They invaded his dreams, his waking hours as well. Unexpected flashes of his past would bleed into his vision at inopportune moments, obstinate, defying every attempt to thrust it all from his mind. And it had gotten much worse these past few days.

He could still visualize the cover of the book; how could he not? But all detail inside was in perpetual shadow, images, writing, color . . . all a blur. And this he had never disclosed to Simon. How could he hope to reverse what he no longer understood?

Gaelan punched a button on the remote control, and a large flat-panel screen illuminated on the far wall, painting it with a mural of the cosmos: constellations, planets, stars near and distant.
Tubular Bells
enwrapped him in a sedative soundscape, transporting him far from the turmoil of his life.

Gaelan never considered immortality quite the calamity Simon had done all these years. What extraordinary events he had witnessed—brilliant. Motor cars and space exploration, electricity and computers, Mozart and Billy Bragg. And Mike Oldfield. Television and video games were magic beyond the wild imaginings of his mortal era. Simon was fixated on his never-ending quest to die. To be with his beloved Sophie. What a terrible waste of an extraordinary life—a rich life, and a comfortable life. A hell of a lot more comfortable than his own.

If they managed to locate the ouroboros book—
and
he could find in it a way to reverse their immortality—would Gaelan choose to end his life? He'd considered the question from time to time when living had grown especially unbearable. But it was a useless game; the book was lost forever.

And now . . . those fucking diaries. Of course fucking Dr. Handley would have documented every last experiment, every scream, every cut, every . . . Memories of Handley were always too near the surface, ever vivid, but more or less consigned to the land of dreams. But now . . .

The distant snap of breaking bone echoed in Gaelan's ear, a harbinger; he braced himself for the attack of images sure to follow, as once again he was forced to relive it. That he knew it was coming, and that it wasn't real, made little difference as he watched the index finger fall away from his left hand, severed. Gaelan blinked hard, and the image disintegrated, leaving him breathless and raw.

Dear God, my name!
What if that was in Handley's diaries as well? He'd never thought to change it, as he'd moved place to place, never thought it a necessity.

Gaelan retched, and the taste of bile and cigarette smoke rose along his esophagus; he reached the bathroom just in time to lose the scant contents of his stomach. Sinking to the floor, knees drawn to his chin, he rested his head on the cool porcelain of the toilet, wondering if there was a point to leaving the dark comfort of the tile.

Restless, he hauled himself from the floor unsteadily. He should read it again, that article; perhaps he'd misread the time or the place—perhaps he had imagined the entire thing. It wouldn't be the first time his imagination had led him astray.

Pushing the mop of hair from his forehead, he sat at a large, cluttered antique desk and opened his MacBook. The article immediately popped into view:

In the midst of a major renovation of the Imperial War Museum at Southwark, workers unearthed a set of diaries in an underground section of the building untouched since it was transformed from Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam) into the museum that now stands in its place. It is believed a physician there maintained the diaries, a so-called “mad doctor”—a sort of proto-psychiatrist—under whose care mentally ill patients apparently suffered many indignities, including possible torture. The finding is important documentary evidence of a time not so distant, when mental illness was treated, not as disease, but with lurid curiosity, even by those calling themselves medical practitioners.

In a surprise turn, the documents and other artifacts have been given over to a British medical research concern for study. It is unofficially reported that the firm, whose name was not disclosed, have contributed a large donation to the museum's renovation efforts for being granted exclusive access to one diary of particular interest to their area of research.

Simon's reassurances had been far from persuasive. “Think about it,” he'd said. “You ‘died' in 1842 on the gallows—as mortal as any man. How would they even make a connection to Mr. Gaelan R. Erceldoune of Evanston, Illinois? In the bloody twenty-first century! And, might I add, thousands of miles from London!”

Gaelan needed a drink. The good stuff. “Ah, there you are,” he purred, falling upon the bottle of Lagavulin, its beguiling amber-green curves beckoning. He poured a tumbler-full, letting it slither down his throat, followed by another, and a third, draining that one as well, until none remained of the bottle but glass and Scent de Islay: iodine and peat. Lag a'mhuilin—hollow by the hill. It fit him to an infinite degree. Perhaps not
by the hill
, so much as
under
it.

He fell boneless into his chair, not yet resigning the battle to remain awake. No sleep. Not until he was numbed up right and proper, transported into a dreamlessness that would endure the night. But Gaelan could no longer fend off the growing fatigue as he drifted between wakefulness and sleep, too exhausted to move, powerless to thwart the inevitable plunge into a surreal conflation of past and present as his eyes slipped shut. . . .

In horror, Gaelan watched himself slice a sharp blade through his arm, elbow to wrist—a demonstration for the punters. “You see? I cannot die! I am impervious.” Francis Handley hooted as he approached from the front of the audience, egging him on.