by Wade Ebeling
Wanting to see his new treasures clearly, Charles cleared an area on the ground big enough to place an oblong clay saucer. After adding a thin layer of whale-oil and a short twist of cotton cloth, the open lamp was lit with flint and steel. Fondling each vial like it was made of solid gold, he held them up to the flame in wonderment. Some held a mesmerizing mercurial substance that swirled around and around, as if propelled by some unfamiliar force, while others looked like nothing more than cloudy water. Clinking the glass vials together, Charles’ thought process began to shift. Perhaps, just perhaps, if he returned with these amazing finds, the Camaraderie might be appreciative. It might even make them agreeable to a promotion. The same promotion that he had spent the last few days convincing himself was due.
The drug coursing through him then made Charles ask questions to himself. “What of the killed Deacons? Would the Church think the loss of three of its sanctified men and the escape of two Builders worth some random potions?” Knowing that he had no idea what churned inside the stoppered vials, the drug kept probing. “Are these ancient poisons? Liquids that could extend one’s life? A remedy for constipation?” There was no way of knowing for certain. The drug knew Charles was not the kind of man that would risk life and limb on chance alone, so it forced the truth of the matter to come forward. The arch-bishop had given strict orders. Without the Builder’s severed hands as proof, Charles would have to continue the chase.
The suitcase was searched for hidden compartments, then the other items were fondled for stashed riches. Finding nothing more of interest, Charles tossed the unwanted items back into the case to be disposed of. The petticoats sat on top of this pile, giving the light of the lamp a chance to reveal their true color. Something about the peach hue struck him as familiar. Giving them a second look over, Charles checked the interior for a dressmaker’s mark. A small silk tag gave the name and address of a milliner in Boston, one that he, himself, had been to several times before. Holding the outer petticoat up to better see its pattern, Charles now recognized what he was looking at. It was part of a matched outfit that he had purchased for his mistress.
For nearly a year, Charles groomed the backwoods whore into something that resembled a proper lady. He lavished her with gifts and spared no expense on her training and schooling. After a few set-backs, poor behavior being promptly corrected in an appropriate fashion, Tabitha McKinney had finally become the perfect plaything. Quiet and demure when allowed to join him at balls and feasts, loud and precocious in the private chambers where she was normally sequestered. While adultery was technically a sin, nearly every member of the clergy practiced it with far more zeal than that of their daily prayers, making it easy to justify.
When the contingent of Camaraderie arrived from England, Charles feared the repercussions that he might receive for keeping a woman locked inside the Bastion. Not wanting to completely dispose of his pet project, he had Tabitha placed into solitary confinement within the jail wing, warning the guards that no one should speak with her. After learning that he was to accompany the arch-bishop north, Charles went to tell her that she would be released upon his return, a lie meant to instill false hope. Finding the cell empty had upset him to no end. Adding to his fury was the fact that he could not even formally discipline the guards because this would only make his superiors ask unwanted questions about the woman who had done the unthinkable and managed to escape. Up until this point, Charles assumed that Tabitha had found a way to bribe one of the sentries, possibly by using her body. Now he understood the truth, she had been a Builder spy all along.
Charles angrily crammed the expensive dress back into the suitcase and slammed it shut. He then spun the case around and around, launching it as far as he could into a red dappled grove of staghorn sumac. The opioid would not allow him to feel embarrassed, as a man like him should have been for being duped by the likes of a woman. Only anger was let in. Cursing and stomping like a petulant child, he wondered why his fingers were suddenly sticky. Smelling them made Charles smile. There had been blood on the handle of the suitcase. Tabitha, or whatever her name may be now, was injured badly enough that carrying luggage had become intolerable. The humor of the situation and the anger he felt over the betrayal of trust mixed within him. He laughed in great bursts one moment and swore angrily at the darkness the next.
Eventually, a semblance of calm came over Charles, forcing him to think about what should be done next. All illusions of going back with the potions were gone, replaced by irrational musings of how best to destroy this woman and the man she traveled with. After visualizing Tabitha choking on her own tongue for a while, her face bloating and turning blue, a cogent idea came to him. Checking an issued map of the colonies, which showed all major avenues of transportation, Charles realized that there was only one town close enough worth making for. His chart showed the symbol of a rope ferry on the east side of the river from Newburg. The injured charlatan was obviously in need of medical assistance. If he could get to the doctor’s office before the Builder’s arrived, Charles believed that he might get a second chance, exacting a sweet revenge upon the woman who made a fool of him in the process.
A very large dose of paregoric kept Charles’ energy level up as he made his way north along the river. His flask was nearly empty now, but this did not faze him. In fact, the panic it induced within that hidden part of his soul only served to speed him along. He was certain to find a large batch of the drug just waiting for him in a town of that size. Charles smiled as he ran. His mind showed him everything he wanted. He saw his hands going around Tabitha’s neck, squeezing the lies right out of her. He saw England come into view from the bow of a grand ship and ordained delegates greeting him like a hero. The sloshing of the last bit of opium, while usually the most terrifying thing he could ever think of, did not stop his addled brain from feeling close to victory. The delusion-inducing painkiller flowing through his pounding heart did, however, stop Charles from feeling the temperature dropping.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The inn was packed to the rafters. Most patrons were of the raucous sort, hooting and drinking their worries away, the rest were trapped there by the weather and just happy to be somewhere warm. Luckily for Marcus, absolutely no one was showing any interest in the bathing facilities, so his breach of the back door would go unnoticed until the following morning. The makings of the second ingredient was found inside a small cabinet close to the bathtub. Not knowing how much it would take to refine enough useable sulfur, his backpack sagged under the weight of a ten-pound sack of Epsom salt.
Where the local tavern had been easy to find, the driven snow conspired to hide the location of the doctor’s office from Marcus. For several anxious minutes, he marched up and down both sides of the same streets looking for any indicator that would lead him in the right direction. Marcus had just about given up hope when a fresh set off tracks in the snow caught his attention. The treads were that of a man, one stumbling from an injury or the cold.
Marcus was quite disparaged to find that the tracks led back into the inn. His spirits lifted when he noticed that they had doubled back upon themselves for a short way before turning north down a narrow lane. This was a part of town that, as of yet, was still unexplored. Marcus debated whether to follow the tracks or not. He had no way of knowing whether the man was truly injured and asked for directions inside the Inn or if he was just the town drunk waddling off home for the night.
The Epsom salt needed a huge amount of attention to become useable. It would have to be striped apart, all the way back to its base elements. From there, the sulfur would require hours of painstaking work to become viable, which included subjecting it to an immense heat that, currently, he had no way to produce. All these variables were going to burn time that Catherine was quickly running out of. The worst part was that all the components required them to be finished in synchronous order to produce the Aqua Vitae potion.
With this conundrum in mind, Marcus knew it would all be a moot point if some pe
nicillin was not procured. Catherine had little chance of surviving the coming day without all three components present, provided Marcus could muster the skill to appropriately combine them. There was truly no other option available. The last ingredient must be found if Catherine was going to live. Knowing that the wind and snow would soon cover the trail, hiding what might be his best lead so far, Marcus followed the stumbling man’s tracks.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The ferry master needed a bit of persuading to go out into the storm. A crossbow pressed to his young daughter’s temple did the trick nicely, though. The blathering idiot was dreadfully hard to understand, what with his ceaseless sobbing, so Charles could only get a general direction to the doctor’s office out of him. The freezing wind was a bit of a nuisance but drinking the last of the paregoric after landfall was made let him not really care. The Camaraderie’s Vicar Forane was solidly inebriated at this point, causing the colorful traces left behind by the passing snowflakes to make him feel a bit dizzy.
Despite the poor visibility and a few stumbles over hidden curbs and the like, Charles managed to find the inn with little trouble. Helpfully, the low-brow music emanating from its parlor could be heard a full two blocks away. Finding a moderately quiet table of rustically-festooned commoners close to the door, he asked for comprehensive directions to the Doctor’s office. They dared to ask about his health several times over, offering him a chair and a sober runner instead. Charles managed to hold his temper despite their fussing drawing unwanted attention from some of the other patrons. In a moment of lucidity, he convinced them that the quickest way to resolve the matter was by revealing the whereabouts of the clinic.
As it turned out, the ferry man had gotten Charles close to his goal, he just needed to backtrack a little way. A few stumbles later, a lit candle in the window of a modest home called him closer. Partially blocked from the unrelenting wind, the sign of an apothecary swayed gently underneath a shallow porch. His desire for the next fix had him earnestly knocking on the glass-paned front door. No one answered. Panicked, Charles pounded again, hard enough to rattle the door in its frame.
Used to the odd hours required of a town’s lone medic, the wife of the doctor appeared at the door in a thick robe to usher Charles inside. Pointing to an uncomfortable looking wicker bench, she sighed, “Wait here. Harold’ll be right down.” As she shuffled away in comically large bear fur slippers, the yawning woman lit two bright wall lamps in the studio.
The light revealed the layout of the first floor. Beyond the vestibule where Charles sat was a long wooden table covered in stained linens, which was obviously used for examination and treatment. Long leather belts with buckles on the ends hung down from one side of the table to secure patients unable or unwilling to sit still. Along the back wall, where a hutch might usually stand, were several tall pill-boxes. Next to these was a cabinet with metal grating on the sides and face, which kept the contents inside from spoiling by allowing fresh air to circulate through, it also had a large brass lock on the handle.
Harold, a tousled stump of a man in round spectacles, emerged from an unseen stairwell. As the man with silver steaked hair approached, Charles recognized what a great hiding spot the darkened doorway he emerged from would make. With the windows all shuttered against the storm, if that Builder trollop did show up, she would be forced to enter through the front, placing her in full view even before stepping into the room proper. It was like setting a trap for an already cornered animal. Charles smiled, but it was not at Harold.
“What can I do you ‘fer?” Harold ask cordially, despite the late hour.
Standing and closing the distance with the doctor, Charles asked with a slight slur, “I am looking for an injured woman … One traveling with a man. The woman would be gut-shot, wearing all blue. You listening? The man was wearing green. Now, have you seen anyone like that around here? Anyone who even closely resembles what I have just described? It would have been fairly recently.”
“Ain’t seen nothing like that, mister. Had to pull a sliver out of a kid’s hand earlier. Reckon that’s not of consequence to ya. Was hours ago, anyhow. Been a slow day for the missus and I … Is there anything else I could help you with? Do you want to come over by the fire? Get yourself warm?”
The man was telling the truth. Perhaps Tabitha McKinney was dead, or maybe she was about to walk through the door looking for aid. Either way, it was time for other business. “I do believe you can be of some other help to me. You see, I require some … tonic,” Charles said sheepishly with a wolfish grin.
“How do you mean?” the old man replied, taken aback by the tall man’s behavior. Usually, if someone called at this hour, they required someone to have a bone set or a gash sutured, not a drink.
“Tonic, you understand?” Charles reiterated. Looking at the locked case to make his request clear.
Following Charles’ lusting gaze, Harold felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Speaking very calmly, he tried a different tact, “Son, I don’t give that stuff out unless you need something cut out of ya or put back in … I can help you with … your problem, if’n you want. Make you a nice herbal remedy. Got lots of good stuff in it. Rhubarb … some yarrow, feverfew … other herbs and minerals. Guaranteed to let you get some rest! There’s a cot in back that I’d be obliged to let you use.”
Charles felt his desire start to boil over. The flask hidden in his sleeve was empty, meaning he only had a very limited length of time before the shakes began. Having nearly overdosed himself to endure the last few hours, coming down now would mean more than just an end to his career, it might even cost him his life to stop the binge that abruptly. So heavily had Charles been counting on finding an easy source of paregoric within this town, the mere thought of detoxing brought upon the cold sweats. His teeth already hurt from all the fretful gnashing and his fingers ached from a nearly constant clenching. Having already survived the Builder’s attack inside the fieldstone building, the blinding snow, the bitter cold and the buffoons constantly slowing him down, this old man was nothing in comparison. Charles would not let Harold stand in his way.
Drawing the nocked crossbow was not meant to be subtle, nor was it taken as such. “Listen closely, Harold.” Charles said scathingly. “You will mix me up a nice large batch of tonic, or you and your wife will find yourselves in more than just a spot of bother. I have not come all this way to be stopped by a do-gooder like you! God is on my side, you silly old goat! I believe that we are about to have some company. You understand what I am saying? I would like to be ready for them, if’n they do show. How this goes from here on out is completely up to you ... Now, do I just lock you and your ‘missus’ down in the root cellar, or do I cut your throats and put you down there anyway?”
Fewer than ten minutes later, Charles sat on the third step of the shadowy stairwell taking his third sip of fresh paregoric. The stool that sat in front of him, which was put there to steady his aim when the time came, held the crossbow. Harold and his wife were dead upstairs, their heads smashing in with a heavy poker found near a small stove in the bedroom. Keeping them quiet and compliant was a task that Charles had no mind for once he felt the weight of a full flask. After Harold had mixed the camphorated tincture of opium, there was a small amount leftover in a glass beaker. It was this extra portion that was being gleefully drank in the dark. Mumbling hilarities that only he would have found funny, Charles laughed at the colors swirling through his field of vision, even as his feet burned fiercely while thawing.
A single knock came on the front door a short while later. Charles fought the stuttering of his vision while peering down the length of the crossbow. Nothing more happened for several minutes, and Charles began to believe the knock had been a figment of his imagination. After sitting the crossbow back on the stool, he polished off the contents of the beaker. The tonic was pure. Warmed from being near a pot-bellied stove, the drug took his mind to fantastical places. He imagined himself as a bishop, then as a great leader overseeing the co
nstruction of a massive new Basilica. Letting the imaginings flow, Charles saw himself marching down the illusory marble of cathedral hallways, flanked by willing sycophants.
The front door swung open slowly, a shadow looming just outside the open frame. Unsure of who or what he was seeing, Charles hesitated. The shadow called out in a deep voice, stomping the snow from its feet as it entered. The door suddenly closed, causing the shadow to dissolve back into the din.
The floorboards creaked. Charles took the crossbow back up.
The shadow was back, closer this time. It stepped forward into the light. What Charles saw was not a man, it was a scaled monster. It wore the same green clothing as the fleeing Builder, but the face was highly distorted, looking more like a serpent than a human. Where rosy cheeks and wrinkled forehead should have been, chunky, greyish scales protruded instead, eyes forced into a contorted squint. The beast with long black hair appeared to be made of cracked, flaking stone. It was hideous and frightening image to behold, like a leper in the final stages of its fraudulent life.
Fear took hold, falsely slowing the next few moments. Charles aimed for the mutilated nose of the creature, his hands shaking wildly. The monster took another step forward, coming very close to where the darkened doorway would be noticed. On the verge of panicking, Charles suddenly felt trapped inside the stairwell. There was no exit behind him, nothing but an upstairs bedroom and two bodies. Now fully in the light, it was clear that something dangled from the scaled monster’s claw of a hand.
Charles pulled the trigger.
The crossbow bolt smashed into the center of the creature’s face. The drug and Charles watched it stagger backward from the impact, agreeing that the monster must be fatally injured. In that fraction of a moment, a great sense of joy and accomplishment flooded Charles’ heart. He whooped pridefully and stood up, knocking the stool over.
