The Winter Garden (IMD #2)

Chapter Ten: Sickness and Soul-Stealing

Chapter Ten:

 

Sickness and Soul-Stealing

“Do you think they will go to the police?” Higgins asked, his voice crackling as he crinkled his papers between his hands and dithered between the back parlor windows nervously.

“Did she see you?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then, how could she identify you?”

The scientist stared down at the nobleman as he languidly drew on his cigarette and let the smoke billow from his mouth and nose. “You’re awfully calm, Lord Rose. Aren’t you afraid the German boy saw you?”

“No, and even if he did remember what I looked like, he does not know who I am.” Mashing the burned out butt into the ashtray beside the divan, he rose. Without breaking eye contact with the jittery little man, he drew closer until he loomed over him and Higgins could taste the ash on his breath. “What I am upset about is how your little experiment was an absolute waste of time! We gained nothing from it, and you promised me results, Higgins.”

Higgins took a step back, but Lord Rose matched him step for step. He swallowed hard before double checking his creased notes for anything he could tell the imposing man to pacify him. “I could only change one variable at a time, but maybe— maybe phase two would have yielded better data. I was certain if we hit him, it would affect her. We should have started with her first.”

Alastair snatched the papers from his shaking hands, ripped them in two, and threw them into the hearth. The man’s gaunt face twisted in agony as almost three months of work curled and crumbled into blackened dust before his eyes. As he reached in to gather what little bits he could salvage, a claw clamped down on his shoulder and dragged him up to his feet. Higgins hung helplessly in Lord Rose’s grasp, forced to meet his patron’s jacinth irises, which seemed to absorb the glow of the hearth and reflect it back in a blaze of rage.

“Forget the experiment, Higgins. We are no closer than we were before to understanding it. You said you had something else to show me. It had better be worth my time because I am in no mood for more of your idiocy. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir! Of course, Lord Rose,” he sputtered as he was released from his grasp and darted toward the two wooden boxes he brought with him to Mayfair.

He unhinged the lid and withdrew a contraption of brass, glass, and wires about the size of a typewriter. The main apparatus resembled a pair of binoculars turned on end with an empty glass jar on one side and an identical one filled with a translucent yet brown-tinted liquid on the other. Holding them in place was a web of curved brass straps laid out like ribs to protect the delicate vessels, but at the shoulder, a long string of intertwined tubes and wires trailed from the solution to a gauntlet of black leather and shining metal. Rubber covered the delicate cables and branched into a strap that fit snuggly into the palm for better grip and comfort. A brace covered the first two fingers and terminated in three long, viper-like fangs. Lord Rose ran his hand over the skeletal apparatus before slipping it into the electric gauntlet. Shrugging the weighty device onto his back, he adjusted the straps and stretched his arm until the cord fell into place.

“What is it?”

“It is a portable version of the machine your predecessor created. Technology has advanced a lot in thirty years, and I couldn’t let you revive the prince consort with a bulky, outdated machine,” he answered with a grin, revealing his crooked and yellowed teeth. “If you can persuade Dr. Hawthorne to finish his part of the project, you won’t need the boy’s potion.”