Galvanism and Ghouls

by Tilly Wallace

  “Feed me,” he rasped.

  When she didn’t answer, he lunged at the bars and Hannah jumped back. Wycliff moved in front of her and reached behind him to steady her.

  “You’ve killed enough innocent people to satisfy your lust,” the viscount said.

  “Wycliff? Is that you? I knew you would come to rescue me,” Lady Gabriella called.

  “Stay here and do not approach him, Miss Miles,” he said before walking down to the next cell.

  Hannah rolled her eyes. She knew the rules and had no intention of letting Mr Rowley crack her skull open. She found his rate of deterioration fascinating. While he received the sliver a day that was enough to sustain any other Afflicted, he had the appearance of one who had gone weeks without nourishment, not mere hours.

  Since his plaintive plea had gone unanswered, Mr Rowley curled one hand around the bars and thrust the other one through. He growled and snarled as he attempted to reach her. A foul odour came from him, as his internal organs liquefied and seeped through tears in his flesh to stain his clothing.

  As much as it shamed her to admit it, Hannah experienced a small surge of glee as she kept to the wall to peer at Lady Gabriella. Then the glee turned to pity. The lady was rotten inside and out and now anyone who looked upon her saw the true embodiment of her character. For that, she deserved compassion.

  Lady Gabriella still wore the latest fashion, but it was stained with the fluids that leaked from her body. Her once renowned porcelain beauty was now a thing of horror and disgust. Like her beau, her hair had fallen out in clumps. The flesh sloughed from her bones and sagged as she moved.

  “Wycliff! You will release me, won’t you?” Lady Gabriella smiled, but it exposed gaps in her gums where her teeth had fallen out.

  He crossed his arms and remained unmoved by her pleas. “No, madam, I will not. You are a murderess and if you had a beating heart, you would have been hanged until it stopped. You will continue your sorry existence within these four walls until the Ministry of Unnaturals finds another way to punish you for your crimes.”

  Lady Gabriella screamed and lunged at the viscount through the bars. He held his ground as her rotten fingertips swiped the air mere inches from his body.

  “It is she! She has poisoned your mind against us,” she screeched.

  “I find Miss Miles to be eminently sensible. Unlike you.” He held out an arm to Hannah. “Time to leave these criminals to seek atonement from their Creator, Miss Miles.”

  Hannah blinked at him. When he behaved in a civilised manner toward her, she lost her grip on how to act sensibly. “You wanted to ascertain the number of hands on the other Afflicted, my lord.”

  Hannah was relieved when the guard swung the thick door closed and locked it behind them. The noblewoman’s screamed curses became muffled whispers. They ventured into the other block of cells next and Lord Wycliff satisfied himself that the Afflicted men within were all in possession of their left hands.

  By the time they returned upstairs, her father had wheeled Lady Jessope up a hidden ramp and lifted her into the carriage. Another black-clad guard had materialised from somewhere in the building and assisted Sir Hugh in loading the bath chair onto the tiger’s platform on the back of the carriage. After they lashed the chair on with a rope, they were ready to depart.

  Hannah sat next to her father with Lady Jessope stretched out on the opposite seat. Sir Hugh’s eyes shone with excitement as he knocked on the ceiling in the signal to move off. Hannah kept watch over Lady Jessope as they travelled, anxious in case the woman should roll off the seat.

  Reverend Jones had a living with a modest church in Chelsea, an area that had long been a desirable location for the wealthy who wanted to be outside of London. It was also home to the Royal Hospital and the Physic Garden, founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries. Aftermages whose talent lay in potions often visited the garden to source rare and unusual plants needed in their work.

  “Lord Dunkeith has a house in Sloane Square and often frequents the Physic Garden,” Sir Hugh said as the carriage rumbled along the road.

  “Lord Wycliff said the man who took Mr Barnes’ body was a medical man who met him in a field near Chelsea.” Hannah peered out the window, her mind on other things. Where did the monster hide during the day? If it wasn’t Mr Barnes, then who was it?

  “Anyone can say they are a medical person, Hannah. That doesn’t mean it was one of the fine chaps we know,” her father said.

  The carriage halted on the gravel drive outside the church, which was tucked into the corner of a grand estate. The reverend’s two-storey grey stone manse sat across a narrow stretch of lawn from the church. The graveyard was picturesque, its lush grass scattered with wildflowers. Even the gravestones were of a better class than those found in the cemeteries crammed with common Londoners, with the stone here scrubbed free of moss or lichen.

  Reverend Jones, clad in black, was waiting on the gravel and rushed to open the carriage door.

  Hannah and her father stepped down as Wycliff dismounted from his horse and handed the reins to Old Jim.

  “Help me with the chair, would you, Lord Wycliff?” The two men untied the chair and wheeled it to the carriage door.

  Then Sir Hugh lifted out Lady Jessope and placed her on the seat as Wycliff held it still.

  The reverend recoiled and looked away from the once grand lady. “I will meet you at the altar when you are ready.”

  Hannah glared at his back as he retreated inside the church. Then with great care, she arranged the mummified woman’s limbs so that her hands lay modestly in her lap. She wrapped a light shawl around Lady Jessope’s upper body and tucked it in. Next, she draped a square of gauze over Lady Jessope’s head, turning her into an odd bride of Christ.

  “Let us take you to meet Reverend Jones, Lady Jessope.” Her father took hold of the chair and wheeled the silent Afflicted up the aisle.

  Reverend Jones had donned his vestments and waited for them in the chancel before the altar. He clutched his Bible and only glanced at the gauze-covered Afflicted before fixing his attention on Hannah’s father. “Thank you, Sir Hugh, for this opportunity to reunite this poor soul with our Creator.”

  “Lady Jessope believes she should no longer walk this earth, since the French curse stopped her heart. She is most desirous of an attempt to send her to death’s embrace.” Sir Hugh kept a hold on the bath chair.

  “I shall ask God to gather your soul to him, Lady Jessope.” Reverend Jones spoke loudly, as though he thought the lady not only dead, but deaf as well.

  Rasping sounds came from under the veil, and her father bent forward to catch her whispered words. Sir Hugh straightened his large frame. “She asks whether she might join in your prayers, or if it is best for her to remain silent during the ceremony.”

  “Oh. I had not considered that.” The reverend usually attempted his ceremony on the properly dead, who didn’t move or speak. A frown appeared on his forehead. “Perhaps she could remain silent, but we could all recite the Lord’s Prayer when I get to that part?”

  He directed his questions to Hannah’s father, disregarding the unfortunate woman in front of him. Hannah wanted to ask him why he bothered, if he couldn’t even face Lady Jessope or converse with her. The woman was broken and lonely, and deserved to be treated with kindness and dignity.

  The way the reverend overlooked the woman was at odds with his voiced concern to help the Afflicted. Or was he really helping them? What if he strove to help himself in some way? If his religious ceremony worked, he could bring about exactly the outcome Lord Wycliff desired—seeing all the Afflicted cold and still in their graves.

  Society would be cleared of their presence and normal life could resume. Or as normal as possible, since that still left vampyres, lycanthropes, gorgons, and any number of other Unnatural creatures to fit into a seating plan for a dinner party.

  Hannah chided herself for being uncharitable. The reverend had probably never seen an Affli
cted in such a condition as Lady Jessope before. His reticence might be entirely because he had yet to become accustomed to her desiccated appearance. His servant at the door had bolted when they removed her from the carriage. At least the reverend held his ground.

  Still, Hannah tucked her questions away for later consideration.

  “Shall we begin?” The reverend cleared his throat and looked to her father for approval.

  “Are we to do anything?” Hannah asked.

  “If you could recite the Lord’s Prayer with us. Otherwise I would only ask that you direct your silent prayers to our Lord, and ask him to reunite this poor creature with the rest of her soul in Heaven.” He smiled at Hannah, but it was a bland thing, as though done by rote, without any warmth behind it.

  Hannah touched Lady Jessope’s shoulder. Kindness took so little effort, but had great rewards. “I shall pray for you, my lady.”

  A mummified hand lifted and brushed against Hannah’s as Lady Jessope rasped, “Thank you.”

  The reverend began in the same manner as he had during the resurrection challenge. He anointed Lady Jessope with holy water. Then he rested a hand on her veiled head and began to pray in Latin.

  Hannah bowed her head and listened. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Wycliff prowling around the ends of the pews, never staying still. Perhaps he needs to keep moving to avoid a lightning strike.

  “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

  Hannah recited the long-familiar words when that portion of the ceremony was reached. As time ticked by, her attention wandered. She alternated between watching Wycliff pace, and reviewing the notes she needed to make about the conditions of Lady Gabriella and Mr Rowley. Rot had set into their limbs on what they considered a starvation diet. Lady Gabriella’s famed beauty sloughed from her face and dripped to the stone floors.

  The reverend’s voice rose in tone and Hannah refocused her attention on the altar. Reverend Jones now clutched his Bible in both hands as he shook it over Lady Jessope and commanded her remaining sliver of soul to join the rest of it.

  A shiver raced up Hannah’s arm and over her torso. For a moment she wondered if the reverend’s exorcism was working and Lady Jessop’s soul was leaving her wizened husk. Then she realised it was the peacock-feather ring curled around her smallest finger.

  Her mother was summoning them.

  Her father rubbed the bone that encircled his own finger and looked around.

  Her mother would need a conduit to talk to them.

  “Hugh? Is Lord Wycliff still with you?” Seraphina’s voice whispered from the back of the church.

  Hannah glanced upward and found what her mother manipulated to reach them. Above the entrance of the church was a stained glass window of a maid with animals at her feet. The ears on the rabbits and lambs twitched as the woman bent down and peered out at them.

  What Hannah’s body had responded to with a shiver was her mother’s use of magic, not the reverend’s passionate pleas eliciting a response from God. How sad for Lady Jessope that the incoming communication was not the one she so fervently desired.

  “Yes. Wycliff is here,” Sir Hugh replied.

  The glass woman waved a hand and spoke again. “He is needed urgently by Sir Manly.”

  “Dear God!” Reverend Jones exclaimed, staring at the stained glass window that moved. “What is this sorcery?”

  “Lady Miles’ mage silver allows her to locate us, then she only needs to find a nearby conduit with which to get a message to us. It’s rather handy.” Her father smiled up at the young maid clothed in shades of yellow and red cut glass.

  Wycliff gazed up at the stained glass window to address Lady Miles. “I will be on my way. I have my horse here.” He hurried down the aisle.

  “There is no point continuing the ceremony now. It is possible that our Lord’s work will take some time to achieve, and may even require several attempts before the poor unfortunate’s soul departs her earthly form.” The reverend set the Bible down on the altar and removed the stole from around his neck.

  “If Lady Jessope is agreeable, we can try again another day.” Hugh took hold of the bath chair.

  A sob came from beneath the veil and Hannah’s heart broke a little for the woman. To have vested such hope in the ceremony, only for it to fail.

  She knelt and took her hand. “We must try to be patient, Lady Jessope. The reverend says he might need to repeat the ceremony, but we will find a way to end your terrible affliction. Many men have devoted themselves to discovering a solution.”

  Her father nodded to the reverend and then wheeled the Afflicted woman from the church. Outside, the viscount had collected his horse and departed. Without his chilly presence the sun seemed a little warmer, although the season struggled to progress past winter.

  “It is unseasonably cold, is it not?” her father said as they lifted Lady Jessope into the carriage.

  “There is talk that we might not see a summer, which would be a terrible thing for Lizzie’s wedding.” Once seated inside, Hannah stared out the window. Her friend’s wedding was to be the crowning moment for the end of summer, which would be rather difficult if winter refused to budge.

  Her father rapped on the roof of the carriage and it moved off. “Even your mother has no explanation for the cold that has descended upon us. The mages of England and Europe are convening to find a solution. We can only hope it is not more of the French dark arts. If crops fail, untold people will starve to death come winter.”

  Hannah’s heart was heavy. How much more death and misery could dark magic bring to the world, and how could it ever be stopped?

  12

  Wycliff cantered back along Chelsea Road and then cut over to The Strand toward the Ministry of Unnaturals in Whitehall. He let the horse navigate the growing traffic while he considered his situation. There were advantages to residing with the Miles family. Day by day he increased his knowledge of Unnaturals, their distinct abilities and weaknesses. But he trod their floors feeling like an unwelcome interloper.

  The maid Mary squawked and ran whenever she saw him. Sir Hugh appeared to exist in a state of perpetual distraction, and Wycliff wondered whether someday the doctor might walk right through him, presuming him to be an apparition. Lady Miles was unfathomable even though she had extended the original invitation. And Miss Hannah Miles…

  Wycliff nearly trotted into the back of a stationary carriage as he tried to think how to categorise Miss Miles. With her intelligence, determination, and her active role in assisting her father, he had never encountered anyone the likes of her. She evaded any simple labels. Something about the young woman was under his skin and no matter how much he tried to scrub at the spot, he couldn’t remove her.

  He recalled an earlier conversation with Lady Miles in the overgrown garden, when she had said he was adrift on an unfamiliar ocean and needed an anchor. If he were honest with himself, he had accepted the invitation to board with the family because of the dead mage. A voice whispered that she could help with his situation and that Miss Miles would be pivotal if he was to find a tether.

  He set those thoughts aside to consider later, when he was alone. He dismounted from the horse and threw the reins to a waiting urchin with the promise of a coin when he returned. Then he jogged up the wide stairs, burst through the doors, and rapped sharply at Sir Manly’s inner sanctum.

  “Ah, Wycliff. There’s been a bit of a fuss reported down by the Physic Garden in Chelsea.” Sir Manly’s moustache sported extra curls today and would have required an inordinate amount of wax to hold its extreme shape.

  Wycliff bit back a sigh. He had just come from near there. If Lady Miles had imparted that bit of information, he could have saved himself a fair amount of time spent riding back and forth. He held in his frustration and asked a more pertinent question. “What sort of fuss, sir?”

  “A body has been discovered that bears similarities to the limb that washed up. A Runner was sent at first, and he sent back word it was more
our department. He is waiting for you there.” Sir Manly waved a dispatch at him.

  Had more parts of Mr Barnes escaped the crematorium after all? “I shall investigate immediately, sir.”

  Sir Manly handed off the dispatch and picked up another from his desk to wave it at Wycliff’s head. “Good man. Report back when you’re done.”

  Wycliff reclaimed his horse and retraced his steps. This time he bypassed the estate that held the small church, and continued on until he found a crowd gathered at the edge of a field adjacent to the Physic Garden.

  Not too far upriver from where the arm came ashore. He hitched his horse to a nearby tree.

  He found the Bow Street Runner scribbling in a notebook. The man looked up as he approached. He squinted and then tucked away his notebook. “You Wycliff from the Ministry of Unnaturals?”

  “Lord Wycliff, and yes, I am an investigator for the Ministry.” He surveyed the crowd. Men stood with arms crossed or clutching various farm implements. Women huddled close to the men, as though afraid of being snatched if they wandered too far.

  “This was reported this morning. One of the locals said he saw a monstrous man out here last night, but the creature ran off when he hollered and fired a shot. He didn’t get a chance to see what the monster had been about until first light, when he found…her.” The Runner gestured to the sheet-covered form at his feet.

  Wycliff knelt to lift one edge of the sheet. A woman lay underneath. She wore a torn shift that had slipped from one shoulder…where a stitched line bisected shoulder and upper arm.

  “She appears to be all woman,” he muttered. From a cursory glance, none of her limbs looked masculine. This was no remnant of Barnes, but another cobbled-together piece of flesh.

  “It’s the monster! Killing good people and doing that,” a woman yelled from the safety of the large and gloomy-looking man beside her.

  The crowd murmured agreement. “Ain’t right, what he done to her. What sort o’ monster chops up women?”