The Elixir

by George Willson

  He lowered the spyglass and looked at the women. “I have a feeling we’ll hear more of this before this time tomorrow.”

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Karian stood on the deck of the ship as it approached the English coast in the waning light. He had fed from the Captain as they approached to ensure he would be filled well enough once they landed so that he could take a couple of days to get his bearings before he would need to feed again. The prospect of being on an island worried him as he would have limited mobility, but he also reflected that he rarely traveled any measurable distance once he had found somewhere to stay.

  He looked down at the captain’s corpse. During the time the captain had been lashed alone to the wheel, he had managed to pull a cross out of his shirt and hold it. He did not beg at any time, but accepted his fate as Karian drained him. Karian decided that he would leave the captain as he died since no one would truly understand what had happened to the crew.

  He had thrown the bodies overboard, and he figured they might wash up somewhere eventually, but it was just as likely that they would sink to the depths of the sea and be lost forever. An investigation would be done, but other than blood stains in the cargo hold, there would be little for them to go on other than a possible assumption that the captain had killed his crew. He had also found the captain’s log, which contained an odd account of their voyage, but since he had tied the captain up at the end, it did not tell how it all ended.

  As he had drawn closer to land, Karian had seen where the port lay, and knowing that the port would allow him to get as close to land as possible, Karian did what he could to drive the ship into it. Since the captain was hindering large turns of the wheel, any course corrections had to be slight, but little by little, Karian got the ship pointed toward the open harbor.

  The crash would attract an unreasonable amount of attention, so he had gone through the crew’s possessions and found a fur coat that would obscure his form just enough as he escaped. He thought that they might even mistake him for some kind of animal, which would only help him since people shy away from animals by their nature. They might even suspect the animal of killing the crew, which was technically true, but by that time, he would be long gone.

  He turned the wheel slightly so that the Demeter would run aground on the eastern shore. With a little luck, he would not hit anything under the water too far out and actually be able to exit onto dry ground. He noticed a few people on the coast here and there watching the ship come in, but he would be able to avoid them easily enough, especially with his disguise.

  The ship moved quickly in the winds of the oncoming storm, which was yet another concern he had. He needed to find shelter quickly, or this journey would have been in vain. He braced himself as the vessel closed in on the land. He heard shouts from the people on shore, but could not decipher what they were saying. Any time now, he would hit.

  With a sickening crack, the bow crashed into the shore and Karian flew forward as the weight of the ship came to an abrupt stop against the island. The wood groaned as the vessel settled onto the bed of the inlet and relaxed its weight. Karian knew he only had seconds to get away before a swarm of men would find a way to board the wreck, look for survivors, and try to figure out what happened.

  He ran to the bow and looked over the beach below him. Already, dark shadows moved toward him, and he jumped without another thought. It was almost too far. He landed as softly as he could, but the height of the fall knocked the wind out of him. He rolled to a stop and struggled to his feet. The voices of the panicked people penetrated his mind, and he knew he had to move. He willed himself to his feet and ran. He did it on all fours like Mutations always have. He knew it would help to reinforce the animal idea he was going for, but at the same time, he was unsteady since his head was still foggy from the fall.

  As he ran, he picked up speed and did not look back. He did not know how many people saw him, and he did not care. He only knew that he had to get off the beach, away from people, and into some kind of shelter to rest and consider what he needed to do next.

  At the top of the cliff behind the beach was a pair of decrepit buildings. One of them was little more than a monument, while the other looked like a church surrounded by a graveyard. There were a variety of houses at a distance from the old buildings along with the harbor town, which he intended to avoid altogether. His priority was to investigate the surrounding homes to find a stable or some other similar outdoor structure that would offer some kind of cover. The place appeared civilized enough, so he knew there had to be something.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  David had recognized the ship described in the morning paper that had crashed at the port in Whitby as the Demeter and automatically assumed the worst. He knew investigating this would force him to go out in the daylight and risk discovery by the human populace, but he needed to see what remained of the possessions they had sent in this method specifically to avoid Mutation problems. He hoped, of course, that the crash of this specific ship was a complete coincidence, but he also knew well that where he was concerned, there was little chance of such a coincidence.

  He had taken the train to Whitby as soon as he had seen the morning edition, and a few hours later, he rode up to the crash site in a cab that he dismissed immediately. He did not know how long he would be here, especially since the considerable cloud cover made it easy for him to move around. He walked along the beach to a man standing near the wreck in order to prevent people from approaching.

  “You can’t go in, sir,” the man said, holding up a hand.

  “I actually wanted to inquire about my belongings that had come over on that ship,” David said. “It is the Demeter, correct?”

  The man turned to the ship and the word “Demeter” was printed across its bow easily confirming David’s question.

  “If you had cargo on this vessel, you’ll need to speak to the harbormaster,” the man said.

  “And where would I find him then?” David asked.

  “Can’t say that I know, sir,” the man replied.

  “I’m going to have some difficulty finding him without a little direction,” David said.

  “Very sorry, sir,” the man said flatly, “but I’m afraid I don’t have that information.”

  “Do you know who would?” David asked. “Where would I normally go to claim my property, say, if the ship had ported normally?”

  “The office of the Harbormaster is there on the docks,” the man said, “but he’s not there, I’m sure, sir.”

  David turned to the building indicated by the man but wanted more than anything else to get on board to have a look around. Based on the stories he had heard, only the captain of the vessel was on board, and not much evidence remained as to what happened to the crew.

  He walked back toward the town and then turned to the cemetery that overlooked the wreck on the beach. The area was clearly frequented by the locals as there were paths and benches scattered throughout the crumbling graveyard. David found it somewhat morbid, and only a bit more disturbing when he realized that the overlook had eroded over time taking the graves along the edge down into the water that occasionally lapped the cliff face.

  A glance over the deck of the Demeter showed it to be completely empty. Unlike below, there was no guard here to keep people back despite the fact that it afforded a decent view of the deck not too far down from where he stood. In fact, he noted that he would be able to jump the distance from the cliff to the deck of the ship. As a Fempiror, his legs were stronger than the average person, who could never clear the distance, and would more likely fall to their deaths as a result of the attempt.

  He looked at the people standing around and decided he would need to wait before making such a jump since that would attract quite a bit of unwanted attention. He could not even be certain that investigating the wreck would yield any information. His best bet for the time being was to go to the office of the harbormaster to inquire after their goods, and perhaps, the man’
s tongue would wag just enough for him to glean some information. This crash was big news, and it was not likely that anyone close to the incident would be quiet about it.

  David caught up to the harbormaster just outside his office on the docks some time later, and he learned what he needed to know.

  “Not uncommon for the madness to set in,” the harbormaster said, “even among the most experienced of crews, these things can happen ‘cause of diseases and such.”

  “What sort of thing do you think caused this?” David asked.

  “Can’t say that I can say for sure,” the harbormaster said. “I saw her come in, and she was certainly moving at quite a pace.”

  “Did you see anything unusual when she finally came to a stop?” David asked.

  “The whole thing was unusual, son,” the harbormaster scoffed. “Man tied up to the wheel like that dead of some kind of exposure. Whole crew gone. Not a thing about this is usual.”

  “Was anything at all alive on that ship when she stopped?” David asked. The harbormaster looked at David sidelong for a moment.

  “Why?” he finally asked. “What was in your cargo?”

  “Only a bunch of inanimate items,” David assured him. “We did not transport anything living in it. I was just wondering if maybe an animal or something might have been on board. Don’t they sometimes carry dogs or birds or anything like that?”

  “Not normally,” the harbormaster said. “Too hard to care for at sea, in my opinion. However, I will say that when she came to rest, some kind of creature jumped off her bow and ran off. Most of the people who got half a look at it think it was a dog or wolf.”

  “Do you think it might have killed the crew?” David asked.

  “Not unless it threw their remains overboard too,” the harbormaster replied. “And let me tell you this: whatever happened on that ship was nothing natural to be sure. Likely the captain went mad and killed his whole crew. The cargo hold where your things lay was not a sight one would wish to behold in his lifetime.”

  “Why?” David asked, instantly worried.

  “It was dried, of course, but there is no mistaking the sight of that much blood,” the harbormaster explained.

  David felt sick. His stomach turned not from the thought of the blood in the hold, but from the fact that something came with them. He knew he could not expect the crates to be fully intact, but he was certain that he would find a man-sized space in at least one of them. Only one Mutation would have been able to make the journey on a ship and live to tell the tale: Karian.

  He thanked the harbormaster and signed for his cargo. He hired a solicitor to transport his cargo to Carfax, but he did not intend to immediately make the return trip with it. He sent a telegram to Voivode to let him know that the cargo was coming, and that he planned to remain in Whitby for a few days. He had work to do here still. Somewhere in this town was a Mutation, and he needed to handle it before anything happened.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  It had been two days since the Demeter had crashed onto the coast at Whitby, and Mina had read about the crash in the papers as well as the fate of its Captain whose funeral was held earlier this day. She felt sorry for the captain and his crew, for the entire business was most unfortunate, though the papers did not have much in the way of information about what had caused the crash beyond the crew having disappeared.

  She and Lucy had sat in the little graveyard as the funeral came right to them before they returned to the Westenra house nearby. In addition to the captain of the Russian boat, two other deaths had been recorded in Whitby recently which the police considered to be unexplained. The first was an old man named Mr. Swales, whom Mina and Lucy had met on occasion when they had spent time in St. Mary’s Cemetery, who had apparently died of a heart attack. The other was a man they had only seen walking his dog along Abbey Lane. The police had told the papers that this man had a broken neck, and was found with his dog still attached to him. The dog, the paper had said, was in such a terrible way that he had to be put down.

  Still, they were determined to make a day of it despite the various goings on around them. She and Lucy had gone for a long walk down to Robin Hood’s Bay for tea, and upon arriving back home, they found that Mrs. Westenra had invited a young curate who had come around to supper. Unfortunately, she and Lucy being as tired as they were from their day were not the best of company and had somewhat of a fight with the young man over this and that before he was finally convinced to leave them.

  On the whole, what might seem like an exciting day merely turned out to be quite dull until Mina and Lucy had retired for the evening. At some point during the night, Mina awoke unexpectedly, and in that moment of unwelcome wakefulness, she recalled Lucy’s tendency to sleepwalk and crept to Lucy’s room to check on her.

  She softly opened her friend’s door and looked across the quiet room. Lucy’s bed was a beautiful four poster with a sheer canopy, and from the door, Mina was unable to see that Lucy was in her bed. However, as she approached the bed, she noticed that the outside doors were standing open, and her heart jumped in worry. Throwing caution to the wind, she ran to Lucy’s bed and pulled back the sheer curtain to find the bed to be empty. With the open door, she had no doubt as to where her friend had gone, so grabbing a shawl from a chair near the door but not pausing for anything else, even shoes, she ran into the night to ensure Lucy did not find the cliffs in her sleep before Mina could reach her.

  The grass was cold on her feet as she ran toward the East Cliff looking all around her desperately hoping for a glimpse of Lucy, but at this dark hour, there was no one about, and the clouds were holding back the moonlight making it that much more difficult to see. The rain had not yet started, however, and she hoped it would stay that way until she could get back home as a soaked nightdress would be considerably more revealing than was proper.

  She approached the cemetery and there on one of the benches, she saw a form dressed in white, but as she drew closer, she thought she saw a second person leaning over the first. She did not know what to make of this, but had to see if it was Lucy. If it were someone else, she prayed they might help a girl in the dark.

  “Lucy!” she called out, and the person who was leaning over the bench looked up at her. Lightning flashed illuminating the entire area, and she could clearly see Lucy lying on the bench. The other person looked like an old man that she had never seen before.

  “Excuse me!” she called out to him. “Can you help us?”

  She climbed over the fence to the cemetery in a most unladylike fashion, but when she looked up again, the old man was gone. She looked all around the area and he was nowhere to be seen, as if he had completely disappeared. She could not concern herself with this at the moment, and made her way to Lucy who lay barely conscious on the bench.

  “Lucy,” she said softly, touching her friend’s head. She was as cold as ice from the night air, and Mina became aware of a light mist covering them. They would be drenched in no time at all. Mina removed the shawl and put it around Lucy’s neck, using a safety pin to fasten it, but as soon as she did, Lucy moaned and reached up to her neck. Mina thought she might have carelessly pricked Lucy with the pin when she secured the shawl, but she could not concern herself with that now.

  “Lucy, come on,” Mina urged. “We’ll catch our death out here.” Mina pulled Lucy weakly to her feet, and the pair trudged across the yard back home. Mina looked again for the old man she had seen earlier, but he was nowhere to be seen. She wished he had remained since she could have used the help to get her friend back home regardless of how improper her attire was at this point.

  Lucy lazily stepped as Mina supported her on the road back to the house. Each step seemed to take an eternity to land and another eternity before the next. The house was visible in the coming rain, but it seemed so far away that she felt she might never reach it. Lucy remained weakened for some reason but still managed to give Mina just enough help that she did not collapse under Lucy’s weight.
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br />   After what seemed like hours, Mina supported Lucy through her bedroom door, and gently lowered her to the floor. Mina closed and fastened Lucy’s doors before turning her attention to her friend who still appeared to be asleep despite their experience. Mina removed the now wet and heavy shawl from Lucy’s neck and noticed the two holes where Mina knew she must have pinched Lucy’s skin and stuck the pin right through it. It was little wonder that Lucy complained.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, still trying to communicate with her friend. “Lucy, please speak to me. We have to get you changed out of these wet things.” Lucy still only moaned, and Mina knew she could not leave Lucy in wet clothes. She swore that she would ensure the door was securely fastened before she went to bed in the future to make sure that Lucy could not get back out. She longed to return to her bed, but she had to take care of Lucy first.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  When the young woman had walked past him, Karian could not believe his good fortune. While he did not have to function only at night, it was far safer for him to do so, but along with that was the fact that no one tended to come out at night. When he saw the woman walking toward the cemetery of the church near the ruined structure where he had spent some time hiding, he knew she would likely be better sustenance than the two older men he had attacked already.

  He followed her warily not wishing to startle her and invoke a scream that might bring other people. Once she got inside the cemetery, he figured he would be safe to reveal himself, but after he stepped in front of her when she sat on one of the benches, she did not react. He picked up that she was actually sleeping despite her mobility. He knew he had to be quick as there was a storm coming, but he had to risk the feeding.