Dangerous Remedy

by Kat Dunn

  ‘You will have to tell James about your relationship with Ada won’t you?’ continued Guil.

  ‘I will. But it’s not the right time.’

  ‘My father would say avoiding a problem is adding interest to a loan you cannot afford.’

  ‘I am not avoiding it!’ Camille aimed a hard kick at the door.

  The brittle wood shattered under her boot, splintering the door frame as the lock was forced from its setting.

  She and Guil surveyed the destruction.

  The door swung open, revealing a dim room containing a cot bed, and a card table strewn with candle stubs and broken clay pipes.

  And a man, watching them with curiosity.

  Camille stopped dead.

  He hesitated, and then a menacing smile spread across his wolfish face as he recognised her.

  She’d already recognised him.

  Dorval. The duc’s henchman.

  Dragging Guil with her, she turned and ran.

  10

  The Chapel

  In the end, it hadn’t taken much searching to find what Ada was looking for.

  The duc’s research notes weren’t locked away. They weren’t even in a drawer. The sheets of paper had been wrapped in a leather folder and weighed down with a pair of forceps. The loose sheets were of varying age, some crumpled and smoothed out again, some stained and torn, others crisp and fresh, the ink still shiny. She’d ignored them at first, distracted by the anatomical drawings and notation. But when she pulled the first sheet out, she realised what they were.

  2 février 1778

  Reports from London and Geneva tell of progress in the reanimation of corpses through the means of Electric Galvanism, but I believe we are truly the first to turn our attention to the application of electricity at the formation of life. The foetus is a creature of pure possibility, imbued with the essence of the divine maker’s spark – if only we can pass through the child a current of our own making, one in tune with the world itself, then what new depths of understanding might we reach in that unceasing quest to comprehend our own nature?

  Ada glanced up at Olympe, heart racing. This was it. The record of Olympe’s creation.

  Olympe was engrossed in a diagram of a Leyden jar for storing electricity. Turning to one side so the notes were half-concealed by her arm, Ada read on. Her hands shook as she turned the pages. It was sick – terrifying. The duc had experimented on Olympe’s mother while she was pregnant.

  And they’d thought the Revolutionaries were the monsters for locking Olympe up.

  Maybe they’d been protecting her from someone far worse.

  13 mars 1779

  I confess myself curious as to an unknown aspect of the child. We began this undertaking with a human foetus, and it was more than clear once it was birthed that it was human no more – no matter how much the mother dotes on it. It is cold like a lizard, with eyes like a devil from hell itself. Yet still one question plagues me. What of its soul? To be sure, the foetus must have begun with one. What have our actions done to its God-given soul?

  She turned the page again, devouring the cruelty and the horror of the duc’s words, noting the dates, the other ‘failed’ test subjects cast aside until each and every word detailed Olympe’s life of confinement and torture.

  She had to show this to Camille. If they were searching for useful information, surely this was it.

  But she hesitated. They would have to leave these notes here, the duc couldn’t know they’d set foot in his grisly hideout. She would never get a chance again to study his methods, the theories at work in the miracle that created Olympe.

  Quietly, Ada drew a clean sheet of paper, quill and ink to her, and began making her own notes as she read.

  28 janvier 1787

  Subject age: eight years, twelve days.

  Report of findings: It responds with no alarm to an electrostatic charge, but the scalpel blade and boiling water both have harsh effects upon its epidermis.

  I have been concerned by recent reports about the conduct of our young trainee doctor, Comtois.

  That explained how the Revolutionaries had known about Olympe to kidnap her in the first place. Comtois must have been involved in the duc’s work before defecting.

  He has been found on a number of occasions to carry on whole conversations with the subject as though it understands human reason, to gift it books and pretty trinkets. To express concern for its pain. I have cautioned him on this – while it may still have the size and form of a human girl, this is no creature like ourselves. This is the first of a new breed. Our farmers breed their livestock to give better meat; kennel owners breed their dogs to hunt more keenly. Why should not we, the great and loyal scientists of King Louis, breed a new creature to protect his glorious reign from this upstart mania of the people?

  Tomorrow, I have ordered we begin testing the subject’s requirement of breathable air by use of the ponds—

  Ada snapped the leather folder shut.

  Comtois must have stolen Olympe from the duc, and now they both wanted her back.

  ‘What have you found?’

  Olympe appeared at her elbow making her start.

  ‘Oh! Just – it’s almost like a diary.’ Ada edged her own notes underneath a bill for candles.

  ‘The duc’s?’ She had taken the folder and opened it to skim through the pages. Her expression was cold and hard.

  ‘You don’t have to read them if you don’t want to—’

  ‘Do you understand them?’ Olympe cut her off. ‘What he writes about his experiments?’

  Ada hesitated. ‘A little. He seems to be a follower of the theory of animal magnetism. The idea that there is an invisible natural force in all living things that we could control and use for all sorts of purposes if only we knew how.’

  ‘You mean like this?’ Olympe held up a bare hand and let the blue sparks dance between her fingers.

  ‘Yes. Or, at least, that’s what he thinks he’s hit on.’

  ‘So I am a science experiment. I am only his creation.’

  ‘No,’ said Ada firmly. ‘Even if he had a hand in your creation, that will never be all you are. Each of us is more than just the creation of our parents.’

  Olympe’s mouth twitched. ‘I don’t like to think of the duc as my parent.’

  ‘Then don’t. Anyway,’ Ada took the folder from Olympe to flip through the sheets until she came across the right one, ‘I don’t think he had as much of a role in making you what you are as he thinks he does. Look here, at this passage. He can’t work out what made his original experiment successful. He can’t repeat it and he can’t work out what he’s doing wrong.’

  Olympe read over the page carefully. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Well, for one thing that he’s not quite the genius scientific mind he thinks he is. And for another, the only variable in the process is you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘He tried to create somethi— Someone like you before and failed. Every time. Until you came along. Maybe what you can do isn’t down to him. Maybe it’s down to you.’

  Olympe was on edge with tension, but before she could speak, something clattered outside in the courtyard.

  Ada froze.

  The noise came again, someone stumbling over the cobbles and crashing into the crates.

  Silently, she laid a hand on Olympe’s arm and drew her into the shadows. Her heart was too loud in her ears. She scanned the room for another exit – there was a door at the back of the chapel. A set of shelves had been stacked in front of it.

  The person was at the door now, struggling with the stiff latch. Ada pushed Olympe behind her. She had put down her knife when they’d started digging through the room, and now several metres separated her from it. She was an idiot.

  Shaking, she picked up the forceps that had been used as a paperweight. A poor weapon, but better than nothing.

  With a curse, the door was shoved open.

  Ada raised the forceps.

  Al
stepped inside, blinking against the gloom.

  ‘Jesus Christ, I’ve walked into a Hieronymus Bosch painting.’ He stared aghast at the two bodies splayed open.

  ‘Who?’ asked Olympe.

  ‘An odd man with a penchant for painting – oh, never mind.’

  Ada sagged.

  ‘Al, don’t do that.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Sneak up on people in the middle of a…’ She looked around at the pickled organs and rotting corpses. ‘Well, this.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were in here, did I?’

  ‘That’s a good point, where were you?’

  ‘Busy. Thought I’d catch you up and see if you needed the services of a handsome young rake.’

  ‘But how did you get in? That climb was hard enough with help.’

  ‘Climb? Front door, dear girl. Big thing with hinges. Walked right through it. You should try next time.’

  Ada rubbed her eyes. She didn’t know what was going to get her first, death by misadventure or nervous collapse.

  Al sidled between the dissection benches, wrinkling his nose.

  ‘Where’s our glorious leader?’

  ‘Investigating the rest of the place with Guil. But I think I’ve found everything we need here. We should go.’

  She slid her notes out of the papers and into her pocket.

  With the smell of death lingering in their clothes, the three of them left the chapel – and ran headlong into Camille barrelling out of another door, Guil close behind.

  ‘Cam! What’s going on?’

  Her hair was flying loose around her face, cheeks pink with exertion and eyes glassy bright.

  ‘Abort mission – we’re not alone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No time – for god’s sake, run!’

  But it was too late.

  11

  The Chapel

  Camille’s hand twisted in Ada’s sleeve and dragged her back into the chapel. The battalion pelted inside just as Dorval lunged after them. The door was too stiff to slam, and his arm wedged through the gap, swiping with the knife clutched in his fingers.

  Camille swore a stream.

  Ada left Guil and Al blocking the door and ran to the shelves on the back wall.

  ‘Quick – help me move these.’ She showed Camille the second door hidden behind the shelves.

  ‘Good work.’

  The shelves were too heavy to move with all the jars and bottles on them so Ada and Camille pulled them off haphazardly. One slipped and smashed on the flagstones spilling acrid liquid over their feet. A lumpy cross-section of liver bounced under a dissection bench. Camille clapped a hand over her mouth, retching at the awful smell.

  Olympe stumbled back, breathing fast, sparks frizzing her hair. ‘No, no, no. Not him. Not here. We have to leave.’

  ‘Working on it.’

  Al joined Ada and Camille to heave at the shelves. Centimetre by centimetre they began to move.

  Guil was left alone in a battle of strength against Dorval. The door shook as though Dorval was throwing his body against it like a battering ram. For a too-brief moment, the door nearly edged closed. But then Guil jerked back from the knife as it cut blindly through the air. A foot, heavily booted, forced itself through the gap; a knee, a shoulder, wedging the door further open.

  Olympe yanked off her gloves and kneeled on the floor.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Ada.

  ‘This power is mine, isn’t it? I control it. No one else.’

  Ada could see the way Olympe’s hands shook, but her unflinching gaze never faltered, her chin held high. ‘It’s your power.’

  The light had dimmed, as though a summer storm had rolled in outside the windows. Shadows swallowed scalpels, acid and bone.

  Olympe turned to Guil. ‘Let him in.’

  ‘We’re not giving up that easily—’

  ‘Just do it!’

  It was too late to make a choice. The door slammed open and Dorval surveyed the room, lip curling over sharp teeth.

  ‘Guil! Get out of the water!’ Olympe shouted.

  She plunged her hands into the thin layer of liquid that coated the flagstones from the shelves to the door. A flurry of sparks spread along her arms and into the turpentine.

  Guil scrambled back.

  Camille’s skin prickled with static. Behind her, another jar burst with the pressure in the air, spraying preserving fluid and a shower of glass across her back.

  Olympe looked up at Dorval, meeting his sneering gaze.

  ‘You know what this does,’ she said. ‘You saw the experiments. The electric charge can move through liquid. If you step in it, it’ll shock you.’

  He snarled at her. Behind her, Guil had joined Al, Ada and Camille in heaving at the shelves. They gave suddenly, screeching across the flagstones far enough for Ada to wriggle into the gap and try the door.

  It was stiff – but unlocked.

  Dorval calmed himself, examining the liquid pooling across the floor. All the way to trembling Olympe.

  ‘He wants you back. Needs you.’

  ‘That’s not my problem.’

  ‘Oh, but it is. Do you really think a bunch of idealistic teenagers are going to keep you safe?’

  A stronger burst of energy pulsed from her hands, rippling through the water like waves in a storm. Somewhere thunder rolled. A specimen twitched and squirmed as it drifted across the tide of liquid.

  ‘I’ll die before I let you get me.’

  ‘Then you will die. Because he will never stop.’

  Olympe still held Dorval’s gaze, the fine hair around her face floating in the static sparking off her skin.

  ‘If I die, maybe I’ll take you with me.’

  He smiled, bright and terrible. ‘You always did make this such fun.’

  And he stepped away, out of sight.

  Olympe let out a cry, collapsing forwards on shaking arms.

  Ada kicked and threw herself against the stiff door, feeling it give. It scraped open far enough for Al to slip through.

  Then Dorval stepped back into the doorway.

  Holding a shotgun.

  12

  Somewhere in the Abbey

  ‘Move!’

  Camille snatched Olympe up by the collar of her dress and dragged her through the door. A shot rang through the chapel, clipping chips of stone from the wall.

  They ran with no idea of where – just away. The abbey was a warren of dark corridors, treacherous rotten floors and locked doors.

  A warren that Dorval knew, and they didn’t.

  At every turn she expected to find him in front of them, at every hesitation she waited for the rip of bullets cracking the plaster. Finally they burst through the front door. The abbey loomed, gargoyles lining the gutters and blank windows cold and lifeless.

  There was no sign of Dorval. Yet.

  Al peered along the muddy road back to the city. ‘Now what?’

  ‘We keep running. He’ll keep coming after us – after me.’ Olympe was looking at her bare hands, gloves abandoned in the chapel.

  ‘We’ll be like sitting ducks walking the main road,’ said Ada.

  She was right. Their early start meant they were now trying to move unnoticed during the middle of the day.

  Camille’s breathing wouldn’t settle, a hitch in her chest made her feel as though she was trying to breathe underwater. Olympe was right. Dorval wasn’t stupid. They couldn’t have lost him so easily.

  ‘So we need to be fast.’

  A forest-green open-top phaeton carriage splashed with dirt was rattling towards them and Camille didn’t hesitate. She pulled her pistol out and stepped into the middle of the road.

  ‘Stand and deliver!’

  The driver yanked the reins and the horses clattered to a stop. Two pale women in Perdita dresses and unpowdered hair sat side by side.

  ‘What’s going on—?’ They caught sight of Camille. ‘Oh, good lord! Highwaymen? This close to the city?’

>   Camille aimed her pistol into the sky and let off a shot.

  ‘Everyone out! Now!’

  The women almost fell over each other in their hurry to get out. Camille directed Al to take charge of the horses and ushered the battalion into the carriage. There was scarcely space for four people to squash inside.

  As soon as Camille was up and squeezed in, half-sitting on Ada’s lap, Al cracked the reins and they were off at a lick towards the smoky roofline of Paris.

  They’d barely gone five hundred metres before Camille heard screaming and twisted to see the women running as a man on horseback burst out into the road.

  Dorval.

  Camille swore and yanked on Al’s coat.

  ‘How the hell did we miss the stables? Faster!’

  ‘You’ll knacker the horses.’

  ‘I don’t care – we only need them as far as the city. If he beats us there we’re dead.’

  Al cracked the reins again and goaded the horses to a gallop. The carriage wasn’t built for such use. They were hurled around so violently it was all Camille could do to stop herself falling out. Slowly, painfully slowly, the Porte St-Denis drew closer. There was no traffic at the barrier, just a bored guard lounging and smoking a pipe. Beyond, the bustle of the city took over.

  ‘Should I—’ Al started.

  ‘Don’t you dare stop.’

  This time Al swore. He was a good horseman, but even he couldn’t jump a carriage over a barrier. The only way was through.

  Camille braced herself.

  The horses jumped. The weighted-down carriage couldn’t follow, and the shafts snapped. The carriage slammed into the barrier, knocking it out of its posts and tangling it in the traces. The horses pulled forwards, dragging the wreckage and the damaged carriage into the city streets as crowds scattered. Finally the traces broke under the strain and the freed horses bolted along the Rue Saint Martin. The phaeton pitched and they tumbled into the street.

  Camille scrambled up, dizzy and aching. She didn’t dare look behind to see how close Dorval was. All she could focus on was keeping them on the move.

  For a moment she was paralysed with indecision, each road spoking into potential salvation or disaster.

  Then Al was tugging at her sleeve and her thoughts.