The Apothecary's Curse (18 page)

Maybe by the time six months had passed, the Bedlam project would be a dismal failure, Paul would lose his job, and she could return to London triumphant with a new major credential on her CV. Stockholm, here we come!
Hey, a girl can dream.

Anne yawned. She should try to sleep, knew it would be a lost cause; stopping her mind from racing was as unlikely as going back to Paul. She unrolled her sleeping bag and tried to get comfortable enough to respond to the several e-mails awaiting her reply. She opened her laptop just as her mobile chimed.

“Hallo?” Mum. Again.

“You're sure you don't need a lift to the airport, darling?”

“No, Mum. I've a taxi ordered for early tomorrow already.” Anne opened the e-mail app.

“Cousin Agatha's book, are you taking it with you?”

“Of course. Why?”

“Did you ever crack it? You seemed quite taken with it, and I thought perhaps Paul, with all his curiosity about it—”

No more than her own, and she was far cleverer than Paul. It wasn't a priority; she'd tackle it once she settled in California—and without Paul Gilles's “expert” advice.

Four new e-mails. Three from Paul. One from a name she didn't recognize. “Mum, I'd love to talk, but I'm quite exhausted and my flight's at seven.” She dragged Paul's e-mails to the trash folder.

“Maybe there's someone there who can help you—”

“Hmm?”

“The book. I must say, my own curiosity is quite piqued. I mean, what's a strange volume like that doing up in Agatha's attic gathering dust? Must be worth a fortune! You should have someone take a look at it. When you get to the States, I mean.”

“Sure. I'll have some time whilst I'm there to dig into it more than I have. I won't bloody know anyone, so digging into Agatha's mystery book will be a fab diversion.”

She opened the e-mail from the unknown sender. Dr. Andrew Samuelson, Evanston Hospital. Who was Dr. Andrew Samuelson, and where was Evanston Hospital? She'd never heard of either.

Call-waiting beeped. “Mum, I've got to run. Another call.”

“Love you, darling. Text me when you land, will you?”

“I'll try. Bye. Love to you and Dad.” She pressed the swap button.

“Hallo?”

“Dr. Anne Shawe?”

“Yeah, that would be me—”

“Hi. My name is Dr. Andrew Samuelson—”

“Oh. The e-mail. I just saw it—didn't read it yet.” A bit odd . . . e-mail and a phone call. Okay. He had her attention.

“Yeah. Um . . . No. Sorry. No problem. I . . .”

Anne smiled.
The doctor is a bit flustered. Hmm.
How many times had she made cold calls over the years? Nothing was more awkward. “So what might I do for you, Dr. Samuelson?”

“I read your paper in the
Annals of Genetic Research
. ‘Telomeres and Rapid Tissue Regeneration in Human Subjects: A New Theory.'”

It had been a very small article. More of a research note. Two years, and it had come to quite a bit of nothing. It was far overshadowed that year by the Nobel-winning telomere research.

Much more interesting was her research on longevity; now that held some promise—and to her, the key to her own family history. Tissue regeneration was a science fiction better left to Paul and his slew of overfunded defense contracts. But she had published—and lectured—about it, and admittedly, creating a real-life superhero was much sexier than adding a few years—and more quality—to the lives of the elderly and infirm.

“Look, Dr. Shawe, I'll come right to the point. I have a patient. Crash victim . . . should have died in the ambulance. But it's only days later, and he's practically ready to be released. I can't explain how that's possible. I read your note and some of the research your firm is doing—”

These phone calls came four or five a year. Wild goose chases, all. Other explanations, more mundane,
and
much more plausible, always proved correct: underlying disease, environmental mutation. . . . “What does the sequencing show? Anything unusual at the telomeres?”

“He's not especially cooperative.”

“Him or his DNA?”

“Him. Look, I think he's the real deal. My graduate work was in molecular genetics, and I'm not usually the kind of guy who jumps to conclusions without hard evidence, but—”

“And you can't do genetic testing without his consent. Look, I'm in the UK. Where are you?” She was moderately interested. He sounded sincere—at least
he
believed what he was reporting . . . and why not?

“Chicago. I don't suppose I might induce you to pay us a visit, look in on our reluctant patient? I guarantee a paper's in it, and it will be worth your while. We're trying to keep a lid on the whole thing, though.”

“Why?”

“It's just
that
weird.”

His incredulous laugh amused her.

“Lots of rumors and speculation among the masses and the media, but if it was confirmed to the press that we got a guy in here with the regenerative ability of a—”

“Jellyfish?”
That
, she would fly halfway across the globe to see.

“Problem is, we don't know how long we can keep him. He's
jittery
as a jellyfish, I'll give you that. Cops are interested in him too. Any way you can do this, and sooner rather than later? I have a feeling this guy is going to bolt as soon as he realizes we can't keep him against his will.”

“You're in luck. I have a ten-hour layover in Chicago tomorrow. I'm on my way to a six-month stint at Salk in San Diego. Can someone pick me up at the airport? I won't have much time, but I can at least take a look at the records and pay your patient a visit.”

“Absolutely. I'll e-mail you the details and his charts.”

“Can you do that without his consent?”

“Welcome to his patient care team, Dr. Shawe.”

Anne Googled Dr. Andrew Samuelson and clicked on his hospital staff bio: “Harvard Medical School, board certifications in surgery, internal medicine, and genetic disorders.”
Not bad
looking either.
Sounded just like the diversion she needed.

BETHLEM ROYAL HOSPITAL, LONDON, 1842

CHAPTER 22

The dead and dying would be thrust into Airmid's healing well, and she would sing to them. Her understanding was a gift, her science, magic. All exposed to her healing prowess, they were restored—no matter their sickness—to full vigor through the protection of her great cloak.

But her father Dian Cecht, god of medicine, was greatly jealous, for she was a more powerful healer than he could ever be. And he scattered her knowledge to the four winds, the language of herbs and medicines garbled and made nonsensical in the chaos. Yet in her wisdom, Airmid had inscribed it all long before that day, in a book of wonders, an indecipherable mystery to any but those rare mortal men in whom she had put her trust.

The story lingered in the darkness as Gaelan rested his head on the cool stones of his cell. Handley was done with him for this day, and Gaelan cursed Airmid's name as he had every night for four and a half years, disparaged this most cruel book of “wonders” that robbed him of death and dignity. “Let me not wake on the morrow,” he pleaded in futility, his mouth rusty with blood, his spirit broken, the air so heavy that his words melted into the stifling void.

But she alone would visit him, a comforter, companion—only a vision, a fever dream, he realized. She sang to him for hours and hours, told him stories of Tuatha de Danann, their wars, their travels. He knew it was his own memory chanting to him, stories told to him as a boy. But for a little while each night, Gaelan would find sweet respite in her voice, and on the morrow Handley would begin again.

Gaelan gripped his thigh, pressing upon the deep slash; it throbbed, and each pulse of his heart bled hot and sticky through his fingers. But the pressure blunted the brutal agony that had spread over his being. If he could only stay completely still, concentrate on other things, distracting things, he knew it would pass in an hour or two.

Gaelan jumped at a sound. Was that, too, imagined? Laughter. A whisper of memory from the afternoon's depravity . . .

“Have you ever cut clear through to the bone, Dr. Handley? What would happen to your patient then? How long to heal such a deep, deep slice?” Handley had only just received a large bag of gold coins from a certain Lord Braithwaite, a man of particular zeal. “And I venture that sharpness of the blade might affect the pain your subject feels during the vivisection; what say you to that, my dear Dr. Handley?”

“I do not know, my lord. I always try to use the sharpest blades; I do not wish to torture, but merely study this one's unique regenerative properties. I am, after all, a scientist, not a sadist.”

“But are you not curious? Can you know for certain, for example, that a dull blade would not be more humane?”

Gaelan looked from Handley to Braithwaite in terror; the question was ridiculous, but he knew Handley would embrace the idea as soon as he heard the gold coins clink in his greedy fist.

Handley retrieved a knife from a cloth wrapper, and Gaelan flinched. It was old and rusted, filthy with blood and dried gore—probably his own. He sucked in a breath, waiting for the blade's disease-ridden teeth to bite into him. What would it be this time? His arm? The soft tissue of his neck? His leg—the challenge of tough muscle and sinew? He would not scream. He would not give them the satisfaction of hearing him keen and beg for mercy.

“Look at that, Lord Braithwaite! See?” Handley sniveled. “The man barely flinches—truly astonishing.” No miracle there—the magic of Handley's special morphine preparation numbed him from all but the vaguest awareness.

Then even the dimmest recognition of his surroundings had mercifully dissipated into a sieve of nothingness, and long before the blade had sliced through his quadriceps muscle and down to the femur. And now he had only to live through the aftermath.

Gaelan removed his hand from the wound; the bleeding had stopped. However his physiology repaired itself—he'd never understood it—seemed quite backward to him. The wound was nearly closed, yet the pain in his leg would endure for days as the muscle and other tissues slowly regenerated.

If only he would go mad, lose his mind, then he would no longer possess the capacity to care. But his accursed mind remained sharp; there would be no reprieve. Each session, Handley stole a bit more of Gaelan's humanity, small nibbles of his soul, one bite at a time—the snake eating not its
own
tail, but consuming one humble apothecary. And as he stared ahead into the abyss that had become his home, Gaelan knew that somewhere, Simon Bell was laughing.

The midafternoon July sunshine flooded into the haze of Bailey's Pub. Simon Bell sat alone, contemplating the way the light sparkled like small stars in the amber of his ale. It was a diversion between pints number three and four. In November, it would be five years since Sophie's passing, and Bailey's was now home and hearth—away from the denunciation of ancestral portraits, the compassionate tongue-clucking of James, his mother's (and Mrs. McRory's) incessant doting.

Simon looked through the plate glass, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun. He'd counted the months by progress on the railway trestle just across the street. Nearly done now, it was an apiary of activity, a Tower of Babel in the midst of London.

The steady clank of iron mallet upon iron spike, the dull thud of timber falling into place, the spit and spark as metal melted and melded into a filigree crisscross of iron and wood.

He felt it before he heard it: a deep rumble that shook the pub like an earthquake. His ale shivered in the confines of its glass. Then, an otherworldly shriek—a horrifying, thunderous keening like a thousand demons arising as one from the graveyard, the grinding of metal upon metal.

Hands on his ears to stifle the horrifying clamor, Simon gawked through the window as a cascade of metal and wood bent and twisted before him as it bowed to the cobblestones below. The trestle bobbed and swayed at an absurd angle just above the pavement—at once sickening and fantastical. Then the entire street seemed to freeze in place as onlookers took in the scene in stunned silence until all at once, everyone began moving again, descending upon the maelstrom.

His pint abandoned, Simon joined the gentlemen and workers, ruffians and merchants, boys and men racing to pull the injured from beneath the gargantuan iron structure before it collapsed entirely. He wandered toward the heart of the wreckage, wading through the dead and maimed. Limbs without bodies emerged from beneath the rubble, askew and unnatural.

He had just pulled to safety a third man, examining him for signs of life, when another low rumble moaned through Simon's bones as the trestle shuddered once again, an iron dragon spewing green and orange sparks. And then, just above him, the entire structure gave way. From somewhere in the distance came the terrible snap and crush of bone, the tearing of flesh, Simon only vaguely aware it was his.