The Sinister Fate of Joseph Redding

15. A Man of a Thousand Pieces

Gone were the images to come of Frederic's name immortalised in textbooks and carried into the future. Gone was my admiration for finally revealing the truth to end the long-standing feud between Corgaine and I. If anything ... (and at this I could not feel the joy I should have) it proved my own theories simultaneously right and wrong, and smudged the line between science and the paranormal so beyond redemption that I could not at first grasp what it meant for our prospects.

Though I outright dreaded doing so, I skipped ahead to the 15th of October, the day after I'd unwittingly found what became of Viola Howard in Minster Park. What I read next was unlike anything he had written thus far. The letters were indistinct; the spaces between the words hardly in existence. What I saw before me were the scattered, terror-stricken thoughts plucked from his mind that same night, and as I let my eyes glance over their meaning I felt a hot dizziness seize me, yet it left my skin ice cold.

What I read was fear itself. It was chaos.

'Her soul is at unrest. Her soul is lost. Lost amidst the living, the breathing, the seeing, the feeling. It is amongst us she wanders. She does not understand. She does not know what to do. I am disgusting and I am abhorrent. I should not feel sympathy for her. But it's my fault. I let him create a pathogen like no other. A virus of the soul. Because of us she destroys the last shred of purity in me. She will kill those not strong enough. Poison the minds of those she touches. She knows who made her this way and I've seen her. She follows me. She watches me. She knows what I fear; knows what I feel inside. I should not have let him do it. I was too prideful to refuse. So honoured. But I know of the things he has done. I know the kind of man he is. And now, because of my own arrogance – of my own brazen, foolhardy ambition to make my name in discovery – I have created evil.'

It was after reading this haunting passage that I found in myself an element that I'd temporarily lost. I had been witness to countless deaths and horrors that mere words do not hold the power to relieve. Of these I have willingly pursued the mystery into murkier depths as my fears fade into the umbrae of my desire for answers.

Regarding this vile abomination to which I had learnt my dear friend was the cause, this had not been the case. I'd found myself enclosed in fears and desires of another nature, almost that of another man's, but that morning, as I coolly placed Frederic's journal upon the counter, I knew what I must do.

Find Corgaine.

I use the definition carefully, with particular distinction between what I must do and what I should. Had I been a pragmatic, upstanding citizen, I would have kept the journal on my person and given Frederic Emory and Jonathan Corgaine as names towards police investigation without delay. This would spell the end of Frederic's future, and not only one in science. Yet still, after reading of the villainy he had conceived and fashioned in utter secrecy, I considered – and do to this day – that his termination was the best course of action.

It was not without extraordinary difficulty that I returned the journal to him. My reasons for doing so might even sound noble should I so write it – that I sought to protect Frederic and deal with this dilemma privately – though in truth, investigating Corgaine meant a good many other things ... including the investigation of Joseph Redding, and that I could not allow.

Nothing, not even the horrific reanimations and deaths of several living beings would have me consider this an option. Though for a civilian to protect the interests of a guilty party a crime as of itself, I do not regard self-preservation a sin.

And so, I made my decision with deadness in my heart, once again reengaged with my long-absent compass of rationality that, with luck, would guide us towards Corgaine.