Compulsion (Asylum for the Mechanically Insane Book 4)

by Sahara Kelly

  Asylum for the

  Mechanically Insane

  Book IV - Compulsion

  Sahara Kelly

  Copyright © 2018 Sahara Kelly

  Cover Art Copyright © 2018 by

  Sahara Kelly for P and N Graphics

  Acknowledgements

  This series has been a challenge and occasionally a heartbreaker – but it won’t let go of my mind even though I’ve put it aside for far too long. When that happens, a writer can do little but hang on and keep creating, and that’s the case here.

  I need to send out a hug to the readers who have written me or messaged me asking about this story – and the final book yet to come. It is that contact, those questions, which have kicked me up my literary rear and reminded me of the debt I owe you. I hear you and you are the most important people of all. Thank you for the renewed commitment – I hope you think it’s worth it.

  Author’s Note

  Once more, I’m going to point out that you’re now reading a Gothic Horror novel. Forgive me, but I’d rather repeat myself than have a reader pick this up and think they have one of my erotic romances. This isn’t one. I draw the line at spoilers before the beginning, but making sure you understand that there are more terrible goings-on than steamy sex is – to my mind – appropriate.

  I will make one comment – in this story I mention “wax flowers”. They were, indeed, delicate floral designs made from wax, often dyed to match the flowers they represented. It was a difficult and time-consuming craft, though, and had fallen out of favor by the latter part of the nineteenth century. It was rediscovered after the Second World War, and for a while ladies took pleasure in wearing them as hair ornaments or brooches. My mother’s wedding headpiece was decorated with white wax orange blossoms. Now discolored and fragile, we still take the remaining few out now and again, just to enjoy the pleasure of looking at a long-lost art.

  This is the fourth in a five-book series, so after the last Asylum novel, there will be more books in the familiar territories of passion, desire and laughter. Those emotions are always there, softening the pain and horror that can sometimes touch our lives, both fictional and real.

  These Asylum tales explore the grey area that exists in humanity – an area that follows the dangerous road between our mortal fallibilities – greed, lust, hatred and so on – and the true definition of madness. A mental state where there is no right or wrong; where human life means nothing, and goals are so far outside the borders of what we consider human that they seem baffling and unspeakable. Compulsion will continue our walk through such darkness – this time the darkness within the human mind - and what can happen when it is revealed. I hope you’ll join me.

  And no matter what you see, just remember to breathe…

  Cast of Characters

  Owners of, and currently residing in, Harbury Hall

  Lord Randall Harbury --- Inherited Harbury Hall after the

  Lady Alwynne Harbury --- ”death” of the heir, Devon Harbury

  Malcolm --- Butler to the Harburys

  Other Household Staff --- Housekeeper, Servants, etc.

  Young Tom --- Mute Servant to Lord Harbury

  Residents and workers in the Harbury Laboratories

  Baron Gerolf von Landau --– Psychological Researcher

  Mr. ‘Enry --- The Cook

  Other Servants --- Residents of Level One

  Several other men --- Inmates, Level Seven and Level Four

  Robert and Arthur, two menacing servants --- the “clean-up” men

  Mary Jones, a maid --- Alias assumed by Portia Fielding

  Other Interested Parties

  Portia Fielding --- Young lady of gentle birth, incognito as Mary Jones

  James Burke, Inspector --- Attached to Lord Lieutenant’s Office

  Mrs. Charlotte Howell --- Antiquarian, Little Harbury

  Devon Harbury – Legitimate Owner of Harbury Hall,

  presently in disguise

  Prologue

  In the forest surrounding Harbury Hall’s elegant grounds. It is late afternoon in January and the snow blanketing everything is touched with fire from the setting sun…

  They were just a simple country couple, young Matthew Doran and his sweetheart, Jane Sanger. It was the perfect evening for them, too, since Matthew had something very special tucked away in a pocket beneath his greatcoat, and he steered his warmly-dressed love down a particular path to a small glade he knew would catch the last rays of the sun and become magic.

  Indeed, it did.

  Jane caught her breath. “Matthew. ‘Tis so beautiful.” She dropped his arm and spun around, entranced by the soft brilliance of the blushing snow.

  “Nay, lass.” He laughed and caught her arm. “There’s something here more beautiful, I’m thinking.”

  She smiled as he lifted his hand and brushed her cheek gently. “You’re a flatterer, Mr. Doran.”

  He shook his head slowly and let his hand cup her chin, drawing her nearer for a quick kiss, mingling the clouds of their breaths in the cold air. “I tell naught but the truth. And I have something to ask you, Jane. Something serious.”

  She blinked and her cloak rose and fell with the deep breath she sucked in past winter-chilled lips. “Oh Matthew.” Soft vapor touched her mouth as her words emerged into the winter chill.

  He fell to one knee and she gasped with excitement.

  Then she screamed, and Matthew almost lost his balance as he pushed back to his feet and spun around to see what had frightened her.

  He damn near screamed himself.

  It was a man, naked as a newborn babe and just as bloody. He stood still, leaning against a white birch that was already dappled with the red liquid pouring from his head.

  Matthew could see no injury to his body, no fountain of brilliant life pumping out. It all came from above his shoulders and had coated him in a curtain of rich droplets, some of which seemed to be freezing as the temperature around them continued to fall.

  Jane moaned pitifully and it was all Matthew could do to stop from losing his tea and biscuits as he stared at the terrible apparition.

  There were no eyes, just gaping bloody holes. He had ears, but they were also erupting with a steady flow of his life’s fluid, steaming a little where it met the cold air.

  His face was stained with the stuff, his hands twitching at his sides and what was so very frightening – his mouth moved but no sound emerged. It was as if he could sense their presence but could not speak to them.

  The horror that once had been a man held them in thrall for long seconds before Jane choked and stumbled backward, disappearing behind a bush. Matthew was vaguely aware of the sound of her vomiting.

  His gut churned, his heart thudded and—fighting the urge to find his own bush—he took a step toward the bloody man. He’d recognized him and knew he was no threat.

  But it was too late.

  The figure crumpled, silent, limbs sprawling loosely and the body going down face first into the pristine snow. Red stains spattered the white, a terrible contrast in the last rays of the sun.

  Matthew gulped and held out a hand as he heard Jane’s boots on snow to his left. “Don’t look, love. Don’t look. Run back to the cottage and have someone summon the authorities.”

  “Are you going to stay here, Matthew? You can’t…” She sounded hoarse and frantic.

  “I can’t leave him. There’ll be animals out as soon as the light fades. Once they scent him, they’ll tear his body to shreds. He’s gone, Jane. We need to let someone know of this. ‘Tis not right.” Determined now, Matthew turned to her. “’Tis Finlay McCardle.”
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  “Oh no.”

  “I’m pretty sure, yes. So I won’t leave him. Go quick, love. Run as fast as you can. I don’t want to be here too long.”

  “I will. I’ll be back before you know it.” She tore off through the snow, her footsteps loud and crunching, breaking the silence, only fading when she was quite some way away.

  He knew it wouldn’t be long. There were workers at the cottage, lads who’d cleared the road and had stopped for a quick drop of Jane’s mum’s elderberry wine. They had a cart with them, the one that pulled the log over the snow and rolled a smooth path for horses and wagons.

  He tried to stop his hands from shaking and stuck them into his pockets. Walking loudly around to let predators know there was no meal here, Matthew felt the ring he’d been about to give Jane. Best leave that matter for now. He didn’t feel up to it and he doubted she’d be in the right mood to say yes.

  His eyes returned to what was left of Finlay McCardle. And the truly gruesome sight of the back of his head.

  It wasn’t there.

  Instead there was a hole, a large hole, from which blood oozed slowly now. Matthew could see pale things within, bits and pieces of them. They seemed like marbles or gravel, which had to be wrong. The head was solid, wasn’t it?

  He didn’t know.

  All he did know was that the hole in the back of Finlay McCardle’s head was as clean and as round as a guinea coin and bigger than a cricket ball. No accident he could think of would make a wound like that.

  Nor would it take out his eyes at the same time.

  Matthew shivered at the implications. This poor helpless man who had only been in the area for a few months was dead.

  Naked, bloody and dead.

  How the hell had he gotten there? What had happened to him?

  Curiosity overcame his anxieties and he sidestepped his way around the corpse as it chilled in its gently bitter grave of snow.

  He squinted into the growing darkness and found what he sought… footprints. A blood-spattered trail of human footprints, red stains marking the direction from which Finlay had apparently managed to stagger, naked, blind, dying and missing half his head.

  Matthew stared at the marks in the snow and then followed the direction with his eyes, looking past the snow-covered treetops to where lights shone like faint blurry stars.

  He knew what he was looking at. And he shivered even more.

  It was Harbury Hall.

  Chapter One

  Devon Harbury shook the snow off his thick coat as he entered the warmth of the cottage he shared with his good friend Inspector James Burke. In his current position as Burke’s “assistant”, Devon was reacquainting himself with the Harbury estate—a property that was rightfully his and would be once again, he knew.

  But for now, it was owned by Lord Randall Harbury, Devon’s uncle. Along with Alwynne Harbury, Devon’s aunt, Randall had appropriated Harbury upon the alleged death of the rightful heir. Of course the heir himself, Devon, wasn’t dead at all, but very much alive and had been incarcerated in the depths of the laboratories beneath the Hall, until a small party of resourceful friends had rescued him.

  There were seven levels of underground facilities buried deep in the hillside. The locals knew there was scientific research done at Harbury. In a way they were quite proud of that fact. After all, they lived in Little Harbury and many were dependent upon the Hall for their livelihood. It was an odd familial kind of relationship that was not uncommon in English villages during the extensive reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

  However, of late there had been things, dreadful things, happening in and around Harbury.

  There had been explosions, fatal accidents, disappearances—and most recently the unspeakably horrid and brutal murders of several London gentlemen and the women who were entertaining them.

  The heinous outcome had been the savage atrocities committed upon the person of Lady Alwynne Harbury, resulting in her current state of complete incapacitation. It was still a hot topic of conversation at the Dead Boar Arms where the villagers gathered to exchange news and gossip over a pint and a game of darts.

  It was also where Devon had spent the last two hours playing—and losing—a couple of games, while downing one of those pints and quietly listening to what people were discussing.

  “You were right.” He walked into the snug parlor and found Burke in his favorite chair, feet up in front of a bright and warm fire, with a tumbler of rich amber liquid on a side table. A book was there, open and face down. Devon deduced the man had been reading. He was priding himself on his growing observational skills. “Reading?”

  Burke raised an eyebrow. “Playing detective again?” He chuckled and sipped his whiskey. “What was I right about?”

  Devon sighed and took the opposite seat, leaning forward and holding his hands to the fire. “Well, firstly it is damned cold, and secondly nobody knows what on earth happened to McCardle. There are plenty of ideas, of course. Wild ones.”

  “Like what?” Burke looked interested.

  “My favorite is the one where some strange brain-eating monster, created at Harbury, escaped and devoured him from the inside out.”

  “Good God.”

  “Precisely.” Devon bent his neck from side to side, stretching it. “In truth, nobody has a solid thought or comment about this other than it is the worst thing they can ever remember. Especially coming on top of Lady Alwynne’s tragedy.”

  “The timing is not good, that’s certain.” Burke stared into the flames. “I know it’s been a couple of months since then and the Christmas season diverted everyone’s thoughts into happier paths. But this…” He glanced at the younger man. “Did you see the body?”

  Devon shook his head. “It was already in the coffin. Nailed down very well too. I checked. The service is this Sunday.”

  “I can understand that. There are always one or two nosy folks trying to get a glimpse of something they shouldn’t ever want to see.”

  “Agreed.” Devon stood and walked to the small bureau where he helped himself to a matching glass of whiskey. “I did learn that the victim, Finlay McCardle, was a newcomer and he’d only been in Little Harbury for a couple of months. He was working as a jack-of-all-trades, it seems. A strong arm for hire. But a bit of a weak mind, it’s rumored.”

  Burke’s eyebrow lifted. “Slow?”

  “Apparently.”

  Both men fell silent as Devon returned to his seat and appreciated the bouquet of the liquor. It was a troubling thought…that somebody could take advantage of a lad who did nothing but help and work hard around a winter-locked village.

  And that they had taken more than advantage. They’d taken his life.

  Burke broke the silence. “Why the back of the head?”

  “What?”

  “Why a hole in the back of his head?” Burke frowned. “The Doran lad has good powers of observation and his statement was detailed. A large round hole in the back of his head, he said. Perfectly round. Round as a guinea coin.”

  “I read that too.”

  “A drill?”

  “God, I suppose so. I can’t imagine anything else that could cut bone like that.” Devon shuddered a little. “It’s a very bad thought, though. I can’t think of any medical reason for it. Not when most of his brains were gone. And his eyes, Burke.” Devon drank again, steeling himself. “Gone. Completely gone. Just like…how did Doran put it? Like something inside his head had blown up.”

  Burke sighed. “Of the many things I’ve seen at Harbury, including explosives, nothing would make a neat round hole the size of a cricket ball. That’s really annoying me. It’s an anomaly. I dislike anomalies.”

  Devon drained his glass. “I dislike the entire thing, of course. Killing like this is…inhuman.”

  “Agreed. But, we’re dealing with warped and twisted science, lad. So we have to push aside our instincts toward humanity and civilized behavior. We have to ask ourselves if this could possibly result from some k
ind of abhorrently bizarre experiment.”

  Once again, Devon shuddered. The memories flooded back. “You’re right. I’ve been free for so short a time you’d think I would immediately see the connection.”

  Burke laughed gently. “You’re healing, Devon. That’s a good thing. Some of our experiences are best forgotten as much as possible. The war. Level Seven at Harbury. Death…things like that.”

  “Yes.” He turned at a sound outside the room. “And it would seem our ladies have arrived.” He smiled at Burke. “She’s helping, you know. Portia is. Just being around her makes me feel alive again. She’s helping me lay all that horror aside.”

  He smiled back. “I had a feeling she would.”

  “And Charlotte too,” added Devon. “She helps both of us, I think.” He grinned.

  “She does indeed.” Burke rose as the ladies themselves erupted into the room.

  *~~*~~*

  Charlotte Howell hurried into his arms and hugged him enthusiastically. “My goodness, James. It’s bitter out there.” She snuggled into his warmth.

  He grinned and hugged her back, rubbing her shoulders with his hands. “It’s January. Probably has something to do with it.”

  A snort came from the other side of the room where Devon was hugging his own cheeky armful, Portia Fielding. “Flippant, Inspector. But accurate.” She disengaged herself from the strong arms around her. “How about pouring us poor frozen females a small drop of that lovely Scotch you rather selfishly hog to yourself?”

  Burke rolled his eyes. “Very well. Sit down, Miss Nuisance, and I’ll pour while you spill the gossip.” He turned. “Or is that your task, my dear?”

  Charlotte shook her head. “No. I’m all talked out. It’s not easy being a shallow-minded female with little on her mind but men and dresses.”