Galvanism and Ghouls

by Tilly Wallace

  Dunkeith stood in the barn aisle with a leggy bay. He struggled to place a bridle over the animal’s ears as it whinnied in panic, the whites of its eyes showing. The animal danced sideways as Wycliff plunged through the open doors. The horse reared up, before galloping from the stables to the safety of open space beyond.

  Dunkeith was knocked sideways as the horse bolted, and fell. “Damnation!”

  Wycliff focused on the noble as he stalked closer.

  Dunkeith looked up and his eyes widened. Already on the ground, he scrabbled backward, away from Wycliff. He held up his hands as he glanced from side to side. “Easy, boy. Nice doggy.”

  Doggy? Wycliff snarled and it came out as a puff of smoke. He opened his jaws and let saliva drip from his fangs, each droplet hitting the brick floor with a sizzle as he advanced on his prey.

  Dunkeith scurried backward until he hit the solid wall of a stall. He turned his head and sobbed, “I don’t want to die like this. I don’t even like dogs.”

  As Wycliff trod loose hay on the brick floor, the tinder burst into flames beneath him. A fiery trail led to the murderer. Sparks raced along and licked at the wooden walls of empty stalls.

  “Fire. Fire!” Dunkeith pointed and yelled, but he never moved from his spot on the floor.

  The air shimmered beside the fallen lord, as though a cloud of smoke formed, sucked from the burning hay. It hung a foot from the ground and grew to seven feet tall and three feet wide. As Wycliff watched both the murderer and the strange shape, a tear split down the middle and peeled apart to reveal…nothing.

  “What…what is that?” Dunkeith turned his head from Wycliff and stared at the snatch of night sky suspended inside the barn.

  Except it wasn’t sky. Recognition rumbled through Wycliff. The void called to him with a soft voice, urging him to feed it the evil, worthless soul cowering before him. Shadows moved within the inky space, whispering of the torment Dunkeith would face for eternity for his crimes.

  How easy it would be to grasp the aftermage by the throat, toss him through the rift, and have done with him! But if Wycliff did so, there would be no public reckoning. With no confession, there was a slender chance the magistrate would not let Sir Hugh go free. He wouldn’t risk that.

  Besides, justice must be seen to be done. The families of the victims deserved to see Dunkeith unmasked as the true monster. The man had all of eternity to atone for his sins—after he was found guilty and hanged.

  Wycliff placed a large foot on Dunkeith’s chest and the fabric smouldered under his touch. The man sobbed and begged for mercy as a puddle formed under his trousers.

  Coward, Wycliff thought. He called the beast under control and commanded it to heel. He shook his limbs as he regained his form and stood over his quarry, careful to avoid standing in the urine that flowed toward the central drain conduit in the barn.

  The doorway to the underworld shimmered and then disappeared with a pop like the snap of a burning twig.

  Dunkeith’s hands waved in two different directions. “You…? What…what are you?”

  “Justice.” Wycliff wrapped his hand in Dunkeith’s shirt and punched him hard in the jaw. He had the satisfaction of seeing the man’s eyes roll up into his head as he fell over, unconscious.

  He grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him up to a sitting position. His head lolled to one side and his eyes seemed to point in different directions.

  “Oh, is it over already?” Miss Miles ran into the barn and skidded to a halt before the line of ankle-high flames.

  “Yes. I caught him as he was trying to bridle a horse. It didn’t take too much to subdue him.” Lord Wycliff stamped on the burning hay.

  Miss Miles reached for a pitchfork leaning against a post and began separating the hay to put out the flames. “For a man who willingly committed murder to cure his love, I thought he might have put up more of a struggle.”

  Wycliff schooled his lips to resist the urge to laugh, but raised one eyebrow. “Did you want to see him pummel me a little, as Mr Rowley did?”

  Her eyes brightened and he swore mischief danced in her gaze. Before she could answer, a man ran through the open doors with a bucket clutched in his hands. “Fire!” he yelled, before he tossed the contents at the smouldering tinder. Another groom was right behind the first and he also lobbed his full bucket in the same direction.

  Unfortunately, Wycliff stood right next to the burning hay and was drenched from head to toe. His hair was plastered to his face and water soaked through his coat and ran down his trousers and into his boots. He shook himself and the water dripped onto the scorched hay.

  He met Miss Miles’ stare and dared her to laugh.

  She couldn’t hold it in. She dropped the pitchfork and burst into laughter.

  “When you have finished, could you find me a length of rope?” he inquired.

  She stopped the next man who ran in before he also tossed his full buckets. “The fire is out. May I please have some rope?”

  A stable hand fetched a length of rope and Wycliff soon had Dunkeith trussed up like a Christmas goose, and bound hand to foot. His servants were not happy and muttered among themselves, but they stood back and waited to see what would happen.

  Miss Miles leaned on the half wall of the horses’ stalls and stared at the prisoner. “He has such a handsome countenance, yet it gives no clue of the monstrous workings of his mind.”

  Wycliff didn’t see anything remotely handsome about the man. Was that the sort of insipid look she admired? “Imagine if we all wore the visible signs of our deeds. Almack’s would become a place of fetid horror, much like visiting the rotten Afflicted in the Repository.”

  “Why did you kill those women?” Miss Miles asked as the noble showed signs of regaining his wits. “You devoted your life to healing others. How could you descend to such a dark place?”

  “Because they resembled my love. You of all people, Miss Miles, should understand the importance of my work. We must find a cure for the Afflicted.” Lord Dunkeith struggled against his bonds.

  Wycliff rubbed his wet hair with a currying towel and then tossed it over the wall. “What do you mean, they resembled Lady Diana? Why was that relevant?”

  Dunkeith’s eyes were overbright and shone with madness. “It was all part of my plan. If I could not restart Diana’s heart, I would find a body in which to house her mind. But it needed to be as perfect as she is.”

  Miss Miles clasped a hand over her mouth. “No. You cannot justify murder in the name of love. What sort of poisonous love demands the lives of innocents?”

  Lord Dunkeith rolled his head to rest it against the wall. “What would you do for love, Miss Miles? We cannot marry unless she is cured. Her heart is dead and mine is frozen without her.”

  “What you did goes against everything we believe in. To take the life of another by force makes you more of a monster than the stitched-together man hiding in your attic.” Miss Miles wiped a tear against the sleeve of her pelisse.

  “How did you make Frank Fontaine live?” Wycliff asked. How did one creature remain ambulatory while the others did not?

  Lord Dunkeith laughed and it carried a manic pitch. “Magic. The body is immersed in a potion that recreates the amniotic fluid of birth. Then, if the weather cooperates, the fluid is charged by a lightning strike. He has been my only success. The woman did not live long before she failed. The stupid lump of flesh was supposed to dump her in the crematorium.”

  “You merged galvanism with your aftermage gift for the apothecary’s arts. Fascinating,” Miss Miles said. “When did the body with the Afflicted parts go into the bath? Before or after they were stitched together?”

  Dunkeith leaned toward her. “You know of that? That was an early, and unsuccessful, experiment. I thought the body would be a suitable torso, but I discovered that Afflicted remains do not behave in the way I required.”

  Miss Miles stood on the bricks a careful distance from Dunkeith. “Afflicted limbs retain too much inde
pendence.”

  “Yes!” Dunkeith laughed. “When it didn’t behave, I consigned the remains to the crematorium.”

  “Is that what happened to the other people you murdered?” Wycliff reminded the man of the lives he had taken. He suspected the bodies, and any evidence, had been consumed by the magically enhanced flames.

  The noble snorted and looked away. “What does one usually do with rubbish one no longer requires?”

  A group of soldiers arrived, no doubt alerted by Lady Miles, who tracked her daughter by the mage-silver ring.

  “He doesn’t look like the Chelsea monster,” the lead officer said as he peered at the bound man.

  “Monsters rarely appear as we think they should,” Wycliff replied. “Sir Hugh Miles is innocent of any crime. This man murdered Beth Warren, Frank Fontaine, Nell Watts, Tabitha Chant, and possibly many more. His current unidentified victims are on his table in the attic.”

  Two soldiers picked up the fallen lord and ushered him from the stables. Hannah and Wycliff watched as he was loaded into a carriage without any windows.

  “What will happen to him now?” she asked. The servants appeared confused, gathering in small groups to whisper.

  “He will take your father’s cell in Newgate Prison.” There was one good thing—her father would be released and one source of tension in the household would be eased.

  As the carriage rolled out of the courtyard, Miss Miles glanced up at the roof of the house. “We still have much to do. We will need to identify the women up there, so their families can bury them.”

  “We might never find the owners of the limbs, but I’ll have the Runners spread word on the street with the description of the torso. I imagine that, like the others, she probably came to Dunkeith for a potion for some minor illness.”

  They headed back into the house and up the narrow, dark stairs to the attics. The monster still sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. The dead woman was now covered by a sheet.

  “What would you do with him?” Wycliff had an inkling, given what he knew of her nature. He suspected the monster would join the Miles menagerie.

  “There is so much we do not know about him, from what Lord Dunkeith put in the potion that reanimated his flesh, to how long the effects might last. We have much to do, studying Frank and the notes and bottles in this attic.” Miss Miles gestured to the crammed workspace, where every surface was covered.

  “Frank?” He swallowed a smile. She was already calling her latest acquisition by his first name.

  “Yes. That is his name.” She crouched and rested a hand atop one of the creature’s hands. “Will you come with me? I will take you to a new home.”

  “Master?” The monster raised his head and yellow eyes glanced from one side to another.

  “You are not to worry about him any more. He will answer for the things he did. If you come with me, we will look after you.” Miss Miles took Frank’s hand and he held hers as gently as if she were a daisy. He followed her down the stairs and from the house.

  Wycliff allowed himself a silent laugh at the sight. “He’s not going to fit in the gig,” he observed once they were out in the drive.

  Even the placid horse snorted and rolled its eyes at the load it was expected to convey.

  “Bother. We can’t risk a panic by walking into Chelsea to look for a hackney.” Miss Miles tugged at the torn collar on Frank’s shirt, but it did nothing to conceal his gruesome appearance.

  Wycliff was about to go find a hack, when the clatter of hooves made him look around.

  “Old Jim!” Miss Miles called as the family’s elderly retainer drove their carriage into the sweep.

  The man touched the brim of his cap after he pulled the horses to a halt. “Miss Miles, your lordship. Lady Miles sent me. She said you might be needing the carriage.”

  Wycliff opened the carriage door, then bowed toward Hannah. “Your carriage awaits, Miss Miles. I’ll stay here to ensure nothing is touched, and will make arrangements for the woman’s body and the limbs.”

  Miss Miles rested a hand on his forearm. “Thank you. Come along, Frank. Let’s take you to your new home.”

  25

  Hannah took the creature home, where Mary took one look at him, screamed, and fainted. The gentle giant caught the distraught maid before she hit the ground.

  “Do you really think she has a suitable constitution for this household?” Lord Wycliff observed when he returned, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

  “Mary is part of the family. She simply requires time to adjust to change.” Although perhaps she should not bring home any dismembered or reassembled body parts for some time, to give the maid a chance to recover her wits.

  The next day, with the true monster in custody, her father was released from prison. Lord Dunkeith made a full confession and pleaded that he not be thrown into the pits of Hell. While waiting for his execution, he took to spending much time on his knees in prayer, trying to atone for the horrible crimes he had committed.

  Hannah also spent much time on her knees—organising and sorting the clutter in Lord Dunkeith’s attic under a warrant from the magistrate, while the Dunkeith heirs sorted themselves out. The family of the woman was found and she was given a decent burial. No one would be stitching her to other women to create an abomination.

  “The man was a scatterbrain!” her father exclaimed one afternoon, holding up a stack of papers. “His notes are erratic and he didn’t apply any sort of scientific approach to his work.”

  “That would explain why he couldn’t replicate the first result. Perhaps he didn’t know what triggered his success.” Hannah picked up bottles and vials and placed them in a crate.

  They took samples of the yellow liquid in the bathtub, which congealed and emitted a noxious smell like rotten eggs. Hannah drew a sketch of the arrangement of the copper wires and bathtub.

  “How will we make certain this doesn’t happen again, Papa?” she asked as they worked.

  Her father dropped another stack of papers into a box. “The matter has been raised with the members of SUSS, and we have decided that no one will work in secret any more. We are all to open our laboratories to others. We are also amending our charter to include a requirement for express consent before experimenting on the dead.”

  “Will it be enough?” Could anyone stop a determined madman?

  “It is a start, Hannah.” Her father patted her head as she walked past to tackle another bench.

  Once everything was packed up, tidied, and the floors swept, Hannah followed her father from the attic. He closed and locked the door, although no one would be recreating the terrible experiments in there now.

  “There is still one matter outstanding, Hannah,” her father said as the carriage bowled along in the direction of home.

  She stared out the window. For a week now she had managed to forget that horrible interview in the library. “You are home. The matter is resolved.”

  “Hannah.” He moved from his side of the carriage to sit next to her, and took her hand. “I am home…this time. But what if something strikes me down? If you succumb to the French curse like your mother, my estate will go to my cousin. He is a greedy and narrow-minded man who will have no qualms about seeing you and your mother thrown into the street.”

  Her heart grew heavy in her body and she wanted to slump under the woes she was forced to endure. “Is Lord Wycliff any better an alternative?”

  “Yes. While he may be rude and abrasive, he is a man of honour. He vows to protect you and your mother. I believe he is the sort of man who, once he gives his word, will abide by it.”

  Hannah stared at her hand, dwarfed by her father’s larger one. There were days when she didn’t want to grow up. Why couldn’t she be a child forever, protected by her parents?

  Thinking of being a child, she placed one hand over her stomach. She would never know the joy of motherhood. “Either frozen or dead, I cannot conceive and fulfil my duty to provide an heir.”

&n
bsp; Her father pulled her into a hug. “While it is true that children bring a particular type of love into your life, it does not mean you will have an empty life without them. You will find another way to bring joy into your days.”

  Hannah let out a sigh. It was time for her to grow up and assume her share of responsibility in looking after their strange family. Future events would impact not only her, but also Mary, Timmy, Barnes, and Frank.

  Her father kissed her forehead. “Think on it. I know you will do the right thing.”

  She did think on it. Setting aside emotional considerations, there was a pragmatic merit to the offer. Yet still her heart ached for romance. She might have to take up reading more novels. Or she could do something more worthy, like offering a home and education to orphans like Timmy.

  After another day had passed, it was time to address the matter. Hannah went in search of Wycliff, knocked on his study door, and waited for the call to enter. She stood in the middle of the room and clasped her hands in front of her.

  “A few days ago, my lord, you made me an offer. Now that we have apprehended the true murderer and my father has been released, I likewise release you from a promise hastily given.” There, she’d said it. Let them air the matter and put an end to it.

  He stared at her for what seemed an eternity…his black gaze so like looking at a starless night. “I gave your mother my word and I will abide by it.”

  “There is no need, my lord. My father is restored to us and our situation is not so perilous. Given that you have made it clear you are repulsed by the Afflicted, I doubt you wish to be legally bound to one.” How could he bear to stand next to her in church, when he had previously been most emphatic in his desire to see them all herded onto a funeral pyre?

  He rested his hands on his thighs and spoke with slow, measured words, as though he feared spooking her like a nervous horse. “Your father is returned, for which I am thankful. But given that I am not aware that you have been cured, your situation remains perilous.”

  Hannah didn’t need to be reminded of that. She tried to live each day to the full and to ignore the open grave that awaited her with her next breath.