The Apollonian Case Files

by Mark A. Latham

  ‘Look here, Colonel Hardwick. As far as we are concerned, the Artist is the most dangerous man alive. You were once sent to kill him for that very reason, and unless this creature is playing a damned silly game with us, there’s a good chance you failed. Tsun Pen or no, he will be captured and interrogated, and when we have scooped every ounce of knowledge from his evil little brain, we shall hang him. With any luck, we shall avert a war in the process, but I’ll be damned if I shall give in to his demands.’

  ‘Sir Toby –’ Sir Arthur began.

  ‘Sir Toby is not here!’ snapped Cherleten.

  ‘It is not a war against the Russians or anyone else that should concern us,’ Hardwick said. ‘If that etherium is put to use, you know what will follow.’ As he spoke, Hardwick glanced furtively over his shoulder. Jim noticed that Sir Arthur was staring at Hardwick. Or, rather, past Hardwick, also over the colonel’s shoulder, though there was nothing there but darkness. Jim tried to ignore it – who knew what things Sir Arthur saw, or imagined he saw, in the shadows.

  ‘It will not come to that,’ Cherleten went on. ‘The Artist is by his nature craven – he no more wishes to die at the hands of these… “Riftborn” and more than the rest of us. He will turn over all he knows of these foreign spies, and every drop of etherium, in a desperate bid to save his own skin.’

  ‘And what will you do with the etherium?’ Miss Furnival’s continued impertinence again drew a cold glare from Cherleten.

  ‘Why, use it for the Nightwatch, of course. Or, if Sir Arthur’s experiment continues to prove fruitless – as it has so far – we shall destroy it.’

  Jim saw Sir Arthur look downcast, and wondered what the true plans of the inner circle were. They would not be revealed here – certainly not to Miss Furnival.

  ‘We have little time to prepare,’ Cherleten said. ‘The exchange will take place tomorrow. The psychic for the list. Once the Artist is happy that we have delivered on our other promises, he will give us what contraband he has… but all things being well, he will be in our custody before that happens.’

  ‘It rather seems as though I am being sent into a trap,’ Hardwick said. ‘A sacrificial lamb.’

  ‘We do not yet have enough intelligence to ensure your safety, Colonel Hardwick, it is true,’ Sir Arthur said. ‘But the Artist has given us this night, at least. We have means at our disposal to second-guess him, and we shall explore every avenue, you have my word. Sir Toby was adamant that you should be afforded every protection if this plan was to proceed, and we shall stay true to his wishes.’

  There came a knock at the door. Holdsworth entered without being summoned, moving noiselessly to Lord Cherleten’s side. He whispered something in Cherleten’s ear, and then left as discreetly as he had come.

  ‘I think we have done all we can do here,’ Cherleten announced, ‘and said all we can say without further intelligence upon which to act. I suggest we reconvene tomorrow, when our plans are more concrete. I am still to speak with the Prime Minister, and Sir Arthur has much to prepare.’ No one looked happy about leaving with no plan of action.

  ‘That’s it?’ Hardwick asked. ‘Our commander is slain, and we are ordered to sleep on it?’

  ‘Yes, Colonel. And speaking of which, you and Denny have been secured lodgings here tonight. We have men outside and snipers on surrounding roofs. I would strongly advise that you do not leave the club.’

  ‘What about me?’ Miss Furnival said.

  ‘The ordinary members would object to having a lady on the premises overnight. You will go straight home and return first thing. An escort will be provided – we cannot be too careful. Any of us.’

  * * *

  Chelsea Embankment, London, 1.30 a.m.

  Sir Arthur stamped his feet against the cold, and handed his overcoat to Jenkins. His London home afforded almost as many comforts as the Sussex estate, though tonight he found it singularly devoid of cheer. He had dark work to do; work that led him to steal away from the sanctuary of the club like a thief in the night.

  ‘I took the precaution of lighting the fire in your study, sir,’ Jenkins said.

  ‘What? Oh… yes. Good fellow. I shall go up now.’

  ‘Will you be down for some dinner, sir? Only, Miss Marie was asking earlier.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I shall ring if I need anything. I… I am not to be disturbed. For any reason.’

  Sir Arthur trudged upstairs, mind churning over the failure of his Nightwatch. Cherleten’s sneers still stung.

  He took a glance along the hall towards Marie’s room; all was quiet. She was probably asleep after a tumultuous evening. Sir Arthur was glad of that. He entered his study, clicked the door closed, and turned the key in the lock.

  This was his sanctuary. A room of good proportions, unfavourable as a bedroom because of its single, small window overlooking the river that made it somewhat gloomy. It was perfect for Sir Arthur’s needs. Two walls lined with his books of esoterica, a large writing bureau, a comfortable chair. Here, Sir Arthur often meditated. Sometimes, he would pull back the rug in the centre of the room and mark a circle of salt, in an effort to commune with the darker entities detailed in his books of occult philosophy. He had met with no tangible results in that regard, despite several attempts.

  By the glow of the fire Arthur found his candles, tall and black, and lit five of them, positioning them in a rough circle around the room. He placed a small box on the table beside his armchair, and sat down. He rolled up his shirtsleeve, opened the case, and took out a syringe. Sir Arthur looked warily at the needle, uncertain whether or not to proceed. He had attempted this only once before, in a small, controlled dose, with doctors present. The results of the experiment had surprised him, but they were not as spectacular as those achieved by the Nightwatch. And yet he had achieved a greater degree of control over the visions, possibly due to the mundane nature of this world compared to the hell-stricken realm of the Othersiders. The after-effects of the etherium, on the other hand, had been unpleasant, even though the dose had been minuscule.

  He remembered the last time he had done this, years ago. He had seen the girl, Elsbet, before he had ever met her. But at the same time, it had not been her at all, for in his visions – and his nightmares – she was dead, pale, soaked through as though drowned. That was how he’d known, from the minute he’d set eyes on the gypsy girl in St Katharine Docks, that she was special. Well, he could not rely on her now. He could rely on none of them.

  ‘Courage, Arthur,’ he muttered to himself.

  He had to be certain. He had to explore every avenue, as he’d promised. Lives depended upon his success or failure. The Nightwatch was compromised, but Arthur knew that he still had strength left. Was it strength enough to navigate the Eternal Dark? To discern the skeins of fate even more clearly than his Nightwatch? He would soon find out, for there was no one else to trust; no other recourse. And so he took up the small phial of etherium, and drew its entire contents into the syringe. He stared at the needle for a moment; at the brown-gold liquid that must have come at the cost of several lives. Perhaps, just perhaps, he wanted this. He’d missed it.

  Arthur did his best to clear his thoughts, to quell his nerves and prepare himself to commune with the mighty dead. To learn their secrets.

  * * *

  Snip – Crack!

  It was the worst sound Sir Arthur could imagine, simultaneously heard and felt. The slapping of a headmaster’s cane across a schoolboy’s palms; the twisting of a leg from a chicken carcass; the wet champing of a hunting-hound’s jaws around the neck of a fox.

  Snip – Crack!

  Again. The sound of a neck breaking at the end of a rope.

  Arthur stood upon the deck of a ship. The air was freezing. Men stood around him, ghostly white faces turned upwards. They were motionless, indistinct as figures in fog. Tiny glowing lights drifted all about, motes of iridescent dust, like snowflakes gently falling beneath yellow gaslamps. Sir Arthur looked up, where the motes gathered
and swirled in greater quantity, where Lieutenant Bertrand’s body twitched, the hangman’s noose about his neck, trailing up to the rigging of the Glarus.

  Why are you showing me this?

  The mists gathered, thickening in great tendrils, until all was silver-grey. When they again parted, Sir Arthur was standing upon the harbour wall, the Glarus floating silent by the quay. A sound behind him signalled the arrival of wagons. He approached them as they drew up – three beer wagons, the gold livery of Charrington’s Ales painted upon their sides. Arthur looked down at himself; he was dressed in a grey tunic, after the Chinese style. A dagger hung by his waist – he saw through the eyes of another.

  More celestials leapt down from the wagons, bearing arms. They dragged a prisoner from the back of the nearest cart, hooded and trembling. Bertrand. Sir Arthur moved backwards through time it seemed. No; he was being guided by some unseen force.

  Snip – Crack!

  Sir Arthur searched for the source of the hateful sound. He saw only the enfolding mists, obscuring the black river and distant lamplight. Yet he knew something was lurking in the strange fog; some unseen predator that caused his hackles to rise.

  The wagons departed, wheels rolling not along the cobbled harbour, but through thick mud and damp sand. They trailed towards a narrow causeway that rose from an inky sea. Soon they were gone, the last of their lamps vanishing into gloom, and Arthur was alone.

  Snip – Crack!

  He spun around. The sound echoed, impossible to place. For a moment he thought he saw a pair of eyes blazing in the darkness, but they were gone in an instant. He was on an island, overgrown and rugged. In the distance he saw the black outline of a large house. Between here and there, however, lay crumbling ruins, an expanse of overgrown pasture, tumbledown gravestones. A trail wound its way towards the house, and he followed…

  …until he stood instead at the mouth of a tumbledown mausoleum, jagged and ruinous, surrounded by skeletal trees like cracks upon a painted canvas of the night sky. He was uncertain he could truly feel anything, but he fancied it was bitterly cold. The battered doors were weathered and rotten. Arthur stepped forward, hand outstretched as though he were impelled to do so by some unseen force. The doors swung open; for a second he thought he saw movement in the shadows beyond – the impression of large white teeth grinning, of eyes dancing like distant lanterns, of sinewy limbs reaching towards him.

  Come, little blood-sack. Show us the way…

  The voice reverberated like grinding millstones, rising as a deep, guttural quake within Arthur’s belly. Hungry lips smacked beside his ear. Something alighted on his shoulder, pressing hard; bony fingers. Claws scratched at his shoulder, impossibly sharp, picking away the fabric of his jacket, slicing flesh with the precision of a surgeon’s blade.

  Snip – Crack!

  Arthur could not move, try as he might. He shut his eyes tight, prayed it was merely a figment of his imagination in this dark place, this endless night. In all his experience, he had never found a spirit that could do him harm, even when it displayed malevolence. He held on to that thought. The thing at his shoulder was gone. The whispers within him subsided.

  Arthur opened his eyes. He stood now in a large chamber, bedecked with bizarre machinery and apparatus. Flickers of electrical energy undulated along copper cabling, illuminating the chamber in sporadic flashes. Arthur recognised the design at once, for it resembled closely the Otherside technology locked away by Lord Cherleten. There was an inlet in the chamber’s centre. Black water lapped gently at aged stonework. But this was not St Katharine Docks. A boathouse, perhaps?

  Before him, a man worked frantically, hoisting at pulleys, winding handles to power his machines, dashing from pillar to post, examining gauges and muttering to himself giddily. He was thin, with scruffy, dark hair and a large moustache. His face was swollen, black and blue from some accident, or recent beatings.

  Arthur turned his attentions to the room. He had little time, for the visions came thick and fast, beyond his control. He had to discern every possible detail. In the water, something stirred. Riveted metal bobbed just beneath the surface, like the fins of some huge artificial sea-creature. He heard a voice say something in a strange language, and then the words ‘storm hunter’.

  A system of pulleys held the strange vessel fast, by means of chains that led to thick rafters overhead. As Sir Arthur’s eyes followed the chains, he caught sight of something moving in those rafters. He heard the beating of leathery wings, the scraping of claws on aged wood.

  The room was gone. The mist drew in again, swirling orange, flickering with ghost-light. Arthur felt a sense of something vast and empty beyond the mists; or perhaps there was nothing but mist. He could feel nothing beneath his feet, his hands touched only thin air before him. The sense of endless emptiness all around was dizzying.

  Arthur was not alone.

  Snip – Crack!

  Something – several somethings – flitted around him, circling, predatory vultures lurking in the shadow and uncanny fog.

  We will snip-crack your bones, little blood-sack.

  Arthur knew what it was. The Nightwatch cried out in their sleep sometimes. They feared it more than anything. They called it the Other.

  Yesss… Show us the way. Show usss…

  A great shadow erupted from the mist, tearing through even this void with a rapidity and violence that made Arthur scream involuntarily. He shook until he thought he might be shaken free of his earthly shackles and his astral form cursed to roam the darkness for ever. All around him, vast, undulating tendrils snapped like whips. Beneath him, he saw nothing, but he sensed it – a gaping maw; endless rows of pin-sharp teeth, so hungry they could swallow the world.

  * * *

  ‘Uncle! Uncle Arthur!’

  Marie pounded on the door again. No sound came from within. She had heard nothing since the scream, which had made her blood run cold.

  Footsteps pounded the landing behind her, and Jenkins was by her side. He rattled the doorknob furiously, to no avail, and lent his voice to Marie’s, calling to his master.

  ‘Break it down,’ Marie commanded. ‘Do it, man.’

  Jenkins heaved his shoulder against the door, once, twice. At the third attempt the lock cracked and the frame splintered. Jenkins tumbled into the study. Marie barged past him into the room. Sir Arthur lay face down on the hearthrug, beside a dying fire. And for a dreadful moment, Marie thought they were not alone. Something stooped beside him, stroking his head with long black fingernails.

  Marie flung herself towards her uncle, candles guttering in her wake. As the dim light flickered, the thing, the shadow, was gone.

  ‘Oh no…’ Marie knelt by her uncle’s side. ‘Light. Jenkins, bring light!’

  Jenkins was already turning a paraffin lamp to its fullest, and brought it quickly. His face was ashen.

  Sir Arthur’s right shoulder was wet with blood, his shirt and waistcoat crimson. He groaned, and moved gingerly, and Marie helped him turn over, only then realising the extent of his injuries. A row of prick-marks pierced his forehead, and blood trickled from the wounds, his nostrils, the corners of his eyes, and from the blue veins that bulged at his temples, now burst as if from great pressure. Great scratches ran down his throat, and bloody gouges encircled his heart. He was limp and weak, his breathing ragged.

  Marie tried to ignore the syringe upon the small side-table, but she knew at a glance what it contained. She knew also that the thing she had seen was not a mere trick of the light. In that knowledge, she fought every instinct to run, as she had learned to do on the Otherside as a girl. She would be safe here, in this universe, she told herself. The Riftborn could not gain a foothold here, not permanently. And right now, Sir Arthur needed her.

  ‘Call for Mrs Bennett,’ Marie ordered. ‘Tell her to bring fresh water. And send for a doctor.’

  With an unlikely show of vitality, Sir Arthur grabbed out at Jenkins’ ankle, stopping him in his tracks. ‘No. No… doctor.�
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  ‘Uncle, you’re hurt. You need medical attention.’

  ‘McGrath. At the club… No other.’

  Marie looked up at Jenkins. ‘Do you know who he’s talking about?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Mr McGrath is a surgeon. He is a member of Sir Arthur’s… club.’ He emphasised the word ‘club’ so that Marie would take his meaning, and she resisted the urge not to chide Jenkins for treating her like an idiot.

  ‘Then find him.’

  As soon as Jenkins’ footsteps had receded across the landing, Marie cradled Sir Arthur’s head, and hissed, ‘What were you thinking? What have you done?’

  He coughed. He looked sicklier by the second. ‘I have… seen it. By God… you were right.’

  ‘Uncle, if you have brought it into this world… Do you have any idea what you have done?’

  ‘It… showed me… things. Listen, Marie. You must listen…’ He broke into a violent fit of coughing, chest heaving, limbs contorting. Marie held him close.

  ‘You should have listened to me,’ she whispered, tears stinging her eyes. He was so much like the uncle she had known in her own world. Less assured, perhaps, and with a certain frailty, but just as stubborn, just as heedless of danger.

  ‘Damn it, Marie!’ he spluttered. ‘Listen. Charrington. Charrington’s… Ales. Find it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And an island.’ More coughing, followed by a dreadful wheezing. ‘He is on… an island. With a causeway. And a… a machine. A floating machine. No! A submarine. But… beware.’

  He spluttered. Marie cradled his head. ‘Be still,’ she said. ‘Help is coming.’

  ‘No… time. Take these.’ He fumbled in his jacket, and withdrew a ring of keys, dropping them on the floor as strength left his fingers. ‘If I… die…’

  ‘Uncle?’

  Sir Arthur grew limp in Marie’s arms, his eyes appearing almost glassy. He fought for every breath.