Savage Wings: Book Three of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 33

Taken from the journal of Benjamin Garrick, physician. 

October 3rd, 1692, Sozopol. 

I hath lost all semblance of time. 

Hours, days, weeks, months, it matters not. What is time when death is suddenly no barrier? What is time when thou canst transcend from life to death and then back to life again? Time seems inconsequential now, as does a great many other things that may hath bore some significance before.

Before what thou may enquire? Before these hands, which once were only capable of healing, became things of such monstrous brutality. Before the darkness came. 

Before I became the darkness.

I digress of course, jumping ahead with no thought to relive the time that hath been lost to me, but that is the way of things now. It seems of little value to linger over my past life but for the sake of this journal, I shall return, if only for a short while. 

Let me go back to before my transcript within these pages did reach an abrupt halt after the boy Emil died, for that is not where the story ended.

In the week following the boy's death, I did tend to another young man who had fallen ill, throwing myself into yet another desperate attempt to save another poor soul, but my heart had grown weary and I am ashamed to confess that I had begun to think often of deserting the town. More than once I had gathered my belongings about me in preparation to scurry away in the black of night like some common thief, however something always prevented me from leaving. I had become quite fond of Sozopol and its townsfolk. I felt bound to them and perhaps, bound to my determination that I would find a cure, no matter how grave the situation became. 

There had begun to be much talk of the Devil, with many claiming that the Beast himself had claimed the town as his own and that everyone who dwelt here was now cursed. I found it hard to believe it was the Devil's work, it seemed naught but fanciful myth, but still I couldst not very well dismiss the idea that the malady which had struck the people was not of natural origin. Too many times had I felt the hair on my neck rise and the cool prickle of Death's touch hover about my back as I journeyed home of an evening. Too many times I had bolted my door and let the hot sting of rum numb me into oblivion so that I did not have to consider what preyed on the inhabitants of a town that had become, quite by accident, my home. Each night, the sensation of being followed had grown stronger and I tried to convince myself that it was my furtive imagination stalking me from the shadows and not something more sinister, but alas, I was wrong about that, as I had been wrong about a great many other things since arriving in Sozopol. 

T'was the fifth night of tending to the young man who had sickened after Emil had died. His name was Gavril, a sturdy young carpenter of amiable nature who had been fighting the sickness with the strength of Goliath himself and it was on that day that I had been encouraged a little by his progress, seeing in him a steadfast refusal to submit. A touch of colour had returned to his pallor and his fever had appeared to diminish ever so slightly. On leaving his home that night, I felt buoyant for the first time in weeks, scarcely daring to believe that this time the illness would not prevail and yet unable to prevent the seed of hope from growing deep in my heart. So lost I was in the possibilities that crowded my mind, that all thoughts of the previous nights had deserted me, that was until I heard the footsteps. 

Now, on my previous journeys, I had never heard footsteps. Any suspicion I held that something had followed me, was simply that alone: a suspicion based solely on a feeling, never a sound. Yet that night, I did hear footsteps, neither fast nor slow, heavy nor light. They could well have been the footsteps of some townsperson on his way home but intuition told me that this was not the case. Once again I felt that that same chill down my spine, that horrifying invasion of eyes upon my skin and I turned to see who or what did follow me. Through the thick mist that had rolled in off the sea, I could see nothing and no one, but I was certain that something lurked there and call it madness if you will, but after witnessing so much suffering and so much death, I felt my resolve finally snap. With legs that trembled so, I stood my ground and dared the Devil to show himself.