The Warlock's Curse

by Hobson, M. K.

  But it was clear that Jenny didn’t share any of these concerns. The fire in her eyes was as clear a sign of that as if she were wearing an “Immunization Now!” button on her lapel.

  “If those ... poseurs ... were forced to take the shot, they wouldn’t be able to flaunt their bad behavior,” she said. “Your brother is on the wrong side of that issue. I tried to get him to see it on our drive down, but he didn’t want to listen.”

  So that’s what Lillie had meant by “full of opinions.” That must have been one heck of a ride down from San Francisco. If there was one thing Will knew about “California’s Man of the People,” it was that he had no interest in listening to opinions that weren’t his own.

  Will couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Jenny bracing Argus on the issue, and this fanned the flames of Jenny’s annoyance. She threw her hairbrush back into the grip and stormed into the bedroom, unbound hair streaming behind her in a glorious halo.

  “I’ll sleep on the couch,” he called after her back, unnecessarily.

  “Darn right you will,” she said, slamming the bedroom door.

  Chapter Five

  Ben’s Letter

  Even though the couches in the suite were deeply cushioned, Will was too tall to sleep on any of them comfortably. At around 3 A.M., he gave up the attempt and stretched, resigning himself to wakefulness. He went out onto the balcony and looked over the channel. The waning moon cast a pallid light over the water, and despite the late hour, barges were being loaded to make the trip down river to the Port of San Francisco.

  On the sidewalk below, he saw a group of young people walking together, heading home. They moved in a somnolent procession, as if on their way to a funeral—it was the same group of Dorians who’d made Jenny so mad at the dance hall. One of the girls was shading herself from the moonlight with a black parasol. It was a ludicrous, pretentious display—but also strangely evocative. And for some reason, it reminded Will suddenly of the mysterious letter from his brother Ben.

  Hurrying back inside, Will went to the hall closet where he’d hung his suit jacket. From the pocket, he retrieved the copy of The Warlock’s Curse with Ben’s letter tucked inside. Sitting down at the leather-covered writing desk, he withdrew the letter, spreading it out flat.

  A single sheet of stationery. He read the words on it again:

  Dreadnought Stanton 32: “The Warlock’s Curse.” Page 153.

  Will flipped through the book to 153, back to the illustration of the magical sigil. He’d thought about that sigil during the drive down, trying to recall what role it had played in the book. All he could remember was that it was part of the magic the villain had used to unlock a magical artifact—a journal or a box or something like that. And in the book, for the magic to work, the sigil had to be traced in blood.

  Will carefully read the relevant sections of text, and they confirmed his recollection. He sat back in his chair, annoyed. Clearly, it was Ben’s intention that he trace the sigil in blood, and that would unlock some kind of hidden text. Which might seem very nifty if he were still twelve—but really? First Ben didn’t send him letters at all, and now that he did, he had to bleed to read it? Besides that, Will had nothing to draw blood with.

  Sighing heavily, he looked around the room, and noticed Jenny’s hat sitting on the small side table. He took the hatpin from it and tested its edge; it was quite sharp. He winced as he jabbed it into his thumb. Squeezing a drop of blood, he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger then carefully sketched the sigil on the page.

  No sooner had he finished than the blood-streaks faded, and letters appeared, shimmering as if they’d been written in silver ink:

  Dear Will, the first line read. Happy birthday.

  Will squinted, pain needling through his head. The words were small and cramped, and they seemed to waver like heat rising on a hot summer day.

  Sorry to have to subject you to a bit of unpleasant magic, but this stationery I borrowed from the Sophos’ office was the best way for me to ensure that this message wouldn’t be intercepted.

  First of all, I want to say that I have always enjoyed your letters. Yes, I did get them. And I’m sorry I never wrote back.

  Will hmphed. That was a good way to start, anyway.

  I would have written you back if I could have, but it was impossible. I made a promise to Father and Mother and Uncle Royce. And honestly, it’s not the promise I care about so much, but if they knew I broke it ... well, you never would have heard from me at all. So I had to wait until the time was right, when I knew you’d be ready to break off from them for good and all.

  Your last letter, written after your argument with Father, told me everything I needed to know on that score. Even though you don’t really know me, little brother, I know you. I know that you’re going to Detroit, I know that you won’t let anything stop you. And I just wanted to say that I will help you any way I can. Father has no right to stop you. It’s your life.

  Just reading the words lifted Will’s spirits. It was the only morsel of encouragement he’d received from anyone in his family, and he hadn’t realized just how sweet it would be.

  Now, if you need traveling money, Father always keeps a few hundred dollars in cash at the back of the bottom left drawer in the desk in his study. If don’t feel right about stealing from him, rest assured that you need take only enough to get you to Detroit. I’ve opened an account there on your behalf, at the National Bank. I’ve put in all the money I can spare. It will be enough to get you set up. I will send more when I can.

  Will flipped over the page.

  Now, I’m sorry to say this, but don’t for one minute think that this is going to be easy.

  Will took a deep breath, swallowed. He looked out the window for a moment, letting darkness soothe his eyes before continuing on.

  You know as well as I do that Father and Mother don’t like being crossed. They will spare no effort to bring you home, if for no other reason than they told you that you couldn’t go. So be careful. Remember, Mother has eyes all over the country. She hears from every one of those damn girls she has ever taken in. You know she’s taken in a lot of girls over the years. And it’s not just her girls, it’s her girls who know other girls. For God’s sake, just watch out for girls in general, won’t you?

  Will smiled. He thought of Jenny’s hair, how it had flowed behind her as she stormed off to the bedroom. He didn’t need his brother to tell him to watch out for girls.

  Now, the good news is that Tesla Industries will protect you. They value secrecy above everything. Once you are safely settled with them, they’ll keep Father and Mother at bay. So just get to Detroit and you’ll be fine.

  I will come and see you when I can. For now, I can only write. One page every night, front and back—every night the charm resets, allowing me to write you something new. This paper is the safest way for me to communicate with you, but I’m afraid you mustn’t write me back. Communication that goes out using the Sophos’ stationery is not monitored (for it is assumed that the Sophos’ letters do not need to be) but he is alerted when new messages arrive—and I guess I don’t need to tell you it wouldn’t go particularly well for me if he were to find out I was using his office supplies to communicate with my long-lost baby brother.

  Running out of room. One sheet just isn’t enough, but it will have to do.

  Be sure to read this letter again after midnight.

  Your brother always,

  Ben

  Chapter Six

  Claire

  27 DAYS UNTIL THE FULL MOON

  Will woke the next morning to the sound of Jenny bustling around softly. She was holding her hat on her head, looking around with annoyance.

  “What on earth has become of my hatpin?” she muttered. Will sat up slowly, muscles cramped from his resigned surrender to the longest of the too-short couches. Reaching over to the writing desk, he retrieved the hatpin and handed it to her guiltily, first checking to make sure it wasn’t streaked with blo
od. She gave him a curious look as she took it, but said nothing.

  “Are you going out?” Will asked.

  “I won’t be coming back to California for a long time.” She pinned the hat to her head, then checked its angle in the mirror. “So I’m going over to the hospital. I’m going to say goodbye to my sister.”

  Will rubbed sleep from his eyes. “I’ll drive you over if you like.”

  “It’s not far by streetcar,” said Jenny, clearly intending to put him off. Then an idea seemed to hit her. He could fairly see it forming behind her eyes. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  “Why would you want me to come with you?”

  “You ... you might be able to help me with something very important.” Her eyes were now fairly blazing with inspiration, and she looked quite resolved. “Yes, you simply must come. But we will take the streetcar ... I don’t want to drive up in front of the hospital in Pask’s broken-down old machine.” She placed a hand on his wrist. “Will you come? Please?”

  Will had originally thought that her outing would be the perfect opportunity for him to sneak into the bedroom and get some proper sleep. But a hand on the wrist! Who could resist that? He found himself recalling what his brother had written him about girls.

  Walking down Weber Avenue toward the streetcar stop, Will pondered what he knew about Jenny’s sister Claire. He knew that while the Black Flu killed many babies outright, in some children the mutations progressed slowly, deforming and disfiguring the victim over many years. What little he knew of Claire’s particular situation had been relayed by Laddie, who had a twisted fondness for such dark gossip.

  “Claire is an absolute hideous wreck,” Laddie had said in the sinuous whisper he reserved for the most shocking horrors. “Have you ever seen pictures of the Elephant Man? Well, imagine him all black and oily and covered with oozing sores. She can’t breathe without some kind of bellows to inflate her lungs. They keep her locked up and feed her raw meat every few days. She tears it apart with her black razor fangs. I imagine it’s quite grisly.”

  Will certainly didn’t believe the part about the raw meat or the fangs. His technological interest had been piqued, however, by the bellows system Laddie had described. He’d been quite interested in knowing how such a system would work. Would it be automatic, or triggered by the victim’s own muscle impulses? Now, however, walking with Jenny, his own morbid curiosity made him feel ashamed. He’d never thought of Claire as a person, just a monstrosity. He certainly hadn’t thought of her as someone’s sister. But she was Jenny’s sister, and Jenny loved her.

  The Stockton State Hospital was large and white, with eyebrow arches and two deep enfolding wings. As they walked through the main gate, Will noticed the tangle of electrical wires that ran into the building from overhead poles. A system of bellows like the one Laddie had mentioned would certainly require electrical power, multiplied by however many patients were kept alive on them. It struck him that if the machines ran on electricity, he could surely power one of them with his Otherwhere Flume. It might be an improvement over being tied down in a hospital. Patients might be able to go home and live with their families.

  “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to,” said Jenny, breaking through his thoughts. But Will was really interested now. What if he could find a way to improve the lives of people like Claire?

  “I might as well,” he said.

  At the reception desk in the lobby, they were greeted by a sister in a simple religious habit of charcoal gray, the large red cross around her neck the only spot of color. As Jenny spoke to her quietly, Will idly gazed at the pair of pictures hanging on the wall behind the reception desk—a picture of a very old man hung next to that of a much younger one. Will recognized them both immediately. The older man was Brother Scharfe, famous as the founder of the Scharfian Fellowship—a strictly observant religious sect best known for its operation of sanatoriums for the “Cursed” (as the church so charmingly termed the survivors of the Black Flu) all over the United States. Despite their tendency toward unkind terminology, they were the undisputed experts in the treatment of victims of the Black Flu, and as such had been contracted to run many state hospitals, especially those with large numbers of long-term patients.

  The younger man in the second picture was even more famous. He was Brother Scharfe’s successor, Brother Phleger. One could hardly pick up a newspaper or watch a newsreel without catching a glimpse of his smooth, handsome, muscularly Christian face, strikingly disfigured by a sickle-shaped black blot across his cheek—the legacy of a childhood bout of Black Flu supposedly overcome by his precocious faith in Christ’s redemption. A fiery polemicist, he was at the forefront of the Mandatory Immunization movement. He regularly thundered from the pulpit on the necessity of the legislation to America’s continued claim to be a Christian nation.

  And even if one didn’t read newspapers or watch newsreels, one could hardly miss seeing his uniquely marked face on the hundreds of thousands of little religious tracts carried by adherents to back doors all across the United States. Will’s family’s home was a prime target for such missionaries, for it was well known in their area that Mrs. Edwards was an unapologetic, still-practicing witch.

  Ma’am never could abide these black-coated Bible-thumpers. While she was genuinely nice to anyone who came to her door looking for a handout—overly so, some might say—she would chase Scharfians off with a broom.

  “Come on,” said Jenny, taking his arm, as the sister rose to escort them to Claire’s room. Will was surprised at how tightly Jenny clung to him.

  If Will was worried about being too obvious in his interest in the bellows that kept Claire alive, he found that he needn’t have been. Even someone with no interest in machinery at all would have found it impossible not to stare.

  It was enormous, and—in Will’s instant estimation—far louder than it needed to be. It would be dead easy to muffle the sound of the chugging air-pump at the mechanism’s heart. But perhaps the Scharfians didn’t believe in such finicky niceties. As Will had expected, thick electrical cords looped down from the ceiling to the machine—but they weren’t even hard-wired in, they’d been screwed, via some kind of adaptor, into a light fixture. It was a very inefficient and inelegant setup—not to mention a fire hazard.

  The machine was so huge it entirely dwarfed the small human figure, wrapped in a colorful knitted afghan, who sat huddled beneath it.

  “Good morning, Claire!” Jenny yelled as she briskly crossed the room. Adding to the oppressive clamor was the distorted screech of organ music from a wireless Teslaphone, which had been turned up to maximum volume to contend with the sound of the bellows. Jenny went over to the tall wooden cabinet and snapped the Teslaphone off, muttering something Will certainly couldn’t hear. Then, going to her sister, Jenny folded the blanket back from Claire’s head. Will froze.

  For once, Laddie hadn’t been exaggerating.

  Claire was so deformed by bony protrusions that her form was only vaguely human. Her blackened skin was encrusted with oozing lesions, the most severe of which were swathed in clean white bandages. Her throat was monstrously distorted not only by the ravages of the Black Flu, but by a silver tube that had been surgically inserted into her throat. The tube was connected by a flexible hose to the large bellows that rose and lowered with a mechanical clack and hiss. Her whole body seemed to distend and contract as the bellows worked her lungs for her.

  Will knew he shouldn’t stare, but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t even Claire’s deformities that transfixed him. It was her left hand. Somehow, her left hand alone had escaped the ravages of the Black Flu. It was a beautiful hand, absolutely unblemished, neatly manicured, mockingly perfect.

  Lifting his eyes, Will realized that Claire was looking at him. Her eyes were sunken and red-rimmed, gummed with thick yellow ooze. Jenny, who had fetched a washcloth and some water from a nearby table, began wiping the crusted matter from her sister’s eyes, her movements both tender and matt
er-of-fact.

  “There you are, now you’ll be able to see a bit better. Let me get your tapper.”

  The “tapper,” as Jenny called it, was a small self-contained device with a single bakelite key on a lever of brass. No sooner had Jenny positioned Claire’s smooth perfect hand over it than her sister began tapping rapidly. A speaker on the device issued a series of loud tones, both long and short. Will recognized it immediately—a Morse machine. Learning the code had been a fad at his school, especially with boys who aspired to a career in the military.

  You’re back soon, Claire tapped.

  “Yes, I wanted to see you,” Jenny said. She did not translate for Will, and Will wasn’t sure whether it was because she wanted the conversation to remain private, or whether she didn’t think it was worth relaying.

  Dad with you?

  “Not this time.”

  Who’s he?

  If Will hadn’t known Morse code, he wouldn’t have had any idea that they were talking about him; Jenny did not look his way and Claire did not move, except the tiny motions of her finger.

  Jenny stood, returning to Will’s side to take his arm. He hadn’t realized he was standing quite so far back in the room until she pulled him forward. “This is William Edwards. William, this is my sister Claire.”

  Will nodded to Claire. Claire swiftly tapped:

  He needs a new suit.

  Jenny smirked, but did not comment. “I’ve told you about him, haven’t I?”

  Boy you liked once, yes?

  Jenny blushed, but didn’t look at Will. “He’s an old friend,” she said, and released his arm quickly. Will stuffed his hands in his pockets and retreated.