A sneak peek inside ...

Chapter One

Trident House

 

Item# 3767

Desc: A4-bound book containing the scientific notes of Doctor William Whitebeam. Entries dating 1868-1872. Title: The Journal of William Whitebeam.

Notes: Contains references to a cabinet claiming to cure the pagan curse of Arddhu Og through cellular regeneration. THIS ARTEFACT IS DEEMED DANGEROUS TO APOSTLE PRACTICE. NOT FOR GENERAL CONSUMPTION.

Addendum (April 1972): On loan to Beryl Blackthorne for six months for experiment #9145. Stored: Brimstone Manor library.

 

– Extract from Trident House Artefact Catalogue, last updated 1972.

Bill Blackthorne opened the Cabinet of Rebirth’s door. Steam dissipated, and he could see a figure inside, curled, with its legs tucked up against its chest. It was Ophelia – or at least he hoped it was Ophelia.

“Ophelia?”

    She turned her head slowly and looked up at Bill. She didn’t look any younger or older. In fact, she looked exactly as she did on the first day he’d met her – soft brown skin and long, dark, slightly frizzy hair. The wound on her forehead had vanished. There was no glowing halo around her head, and her eyes were soft and brown, not fiery yellow.

    As Bill gazed at her solemnly, her mouth split into a wide grin.

    “Bill, I love you, you little genius!”

    “You can talk! Are you okay?”

    “It worked! I’m free of it.”

    “You’re cured? You’re actually cured!”

    Bill could hardly believe what he’d done. His head, full of arcane knowledge, was not some imagined fancy! He was not insane – it was all true! Bill realised his life’s work had opened up before him. He was going to find a way to cure everyone. He would use his knowledge to rid the world of this terrible madness – solve the mystery of how those bizarre dragon-ceare creatures infected both body and mind. He’d discover the origin of the strange, whispered voice – the voice of some creature called Arddhu Og.

    But there was one huge problem: they were prisoners. Beryl, Inspector Ferret, and the policemen were there, watching, waiting, ready to take them away to God-only-knows what place.

    “Has it worked?” Beryl said, peering into the cabinet.

    “It has,” Bill said defiantly. “A cure for everyone.”

    Beryl gave him a stern look as a cunning smile formed on her fat red lips. “Well, this is fortuitous. We have a test subject. A thorough medical examination will help us confirm if the cabinet is working properly. We have some excruciating tests, but I'm sure you understand your sacrifice – there must be no risk to Her Majesty. Take her away!”

    “Leave her alone,” Bill said as he jumped between Ophelia and the officer who’d moved to take her.  “She’s naked! Let her get dressed. At least give her that.”

    Beryl nodded. The policemen, Bill, and Inspector Ferret, turned their backs. Ophelia got up, stepped gingerly out of the cabinet, grabbed her underwear and black velvet dress, and put them on.

    When she was ready, the officer turned, pushed Bill roughly aside, grabbed Ophelia hard, and twisted her arm up her back. She yelped with pain.

    “I said leave her alone!” Bill said.

    “But darling,” Beryl said, “we must be sure it works. Has she got any younger? Lost her memories?”

    “It works. You don’t need to touch her.”

    “Maybe, maybe not. She could still be contaminated – could still be one of the Devil's Vermin.”

    Ophelia was shoved forward, with her arm pushed painfully up her back. “I'm fine! I'm just like you.”

    “I only hope for your sake you are, my dear,” Beryl said. “If you are fully well, then you have nothing to fear. But if you fail the examination in any way, you’ll be taken to prison with the others.”

    “But-” Bill protested, giving Beryl an imploring look.

    She pointed a bony finger at his face. “And you will have failed us yet again.”

    Ophelia was marched out of the laboratory.

    “And where is the other girl, Lilith? I believe she’s called,” Father Figgs said. “Has she gone with Lord Percy?”

    Bill was about to say he wouldn't help until his friends were returned, but he saw the devilish look on the Inspector's face and his tight grip on the revolver. “Not exactly.” He lowered his head and pointed to the dried-up creature on the floor.

    “Killed?” Beryl said. “Who did this?”

   “We had to. She attacked us.”

   “Excellent. We shall make an Apostle of you yet.” She waved her hand at a nearby policeman, “Collect it up.”

   The policeman stepped forward and scooped the little shrivelled-up dragon-ceare creature into a plastic bag.

   “She fell on a spike but came back – a furry creature with big ears and-”

   “Enough,” Beryl said. “We must be getting on.”

   Bill was forced to help disconnect the cabinet. The two burliest policemen tipped the cabinet over, lifted it at either end, then carried it out of the laboratory. Feeder Jar One and Feeder Jar Two were packed into straw-lined crates, bought in by Inspector Ferret from his car.

    Bill was grabbed and taken outside. It was dark and cold, with a drizzle of rain. He saw a large black van waiting on the drive with its back doors open. The cabinet and all the accompanying paraphernalia were loaded up.

    Bill was pushed roughly into the back of a Morris 1100 police car and was handcuffed to the door, making escape impossible. Beryl sat beside him. The car pulled away, and the black van, which Bill presumed contained his friends,        Arthur (who’d been taken away earlier) and Ophelia, followed close behind.

    “Don’t you dare hurt my friends,” he said.

    “Be quiet.”

    “Where are we going?”

    “To Trident House, to begin your work.”

    “What will you do with Arthur and Ophelia?”

    “I think my soft spot for you has got the better of me in the past. I've been too lenient. You will soon realise that you work for us and must do as I say.”

    “I’ll do what you want. Just leave my friends alone.”

    “They aren’t important. They may die, but they serve the greater good.”

    When he heard these terrible words, Bill was shocked and grew angry, but realised it was pointless arguing. He looked gloomily out the rain-soaked window at the night sky and the knotted, shadowy images of trees speeding past. The trees gave way to low stone houses as they entered Underwood. They passed the Unicorn pub, where all the lights were blazing, but as Bill peered through the etched windows into the bar, he saw that the place was deserted.

    They drove into the village square, and Bill noticed two more black vans parked with their back doors open. Bodies – obviously people from Underwood who'd been stunned unconscious – were being thrown unceremoniously into the back. Bill looked closely and saw something shocking. Two of the people – obscured because of Bestia Marcam but still recognisable – were Arthur’s parents, Daisy and Jim!

    “Stop the car. I must see them,” he said.

    “They are of no importance. Be quiet.”

    The car drove on and didn’t even slow down.

    “But … No! Arthur needs them! Stop this car!” Bill said, pulling on the handle and banging on the window.

    “Stop that! Be quiet, or we’ll have to put you in the same state!”

    Bill stopped pulling at the door and glared at Beryl. “Where are you taking them?”

    “It’s an efficient yet forbidding institute created to process such people.”

    “A what?”

    “Your friend’s parents will survive – in degradation and pain – for a short while.”

    Bill felt too numb to reply. They’d crossed the square and were driving up the road that led out of the village. The houses had their front doors open, and lights were on, but he saw no sign of people. The whole village had been stunned, loaded up and taken away to some God-forbidding place – to suffer ‘degradation and pain’ – it was nothing short of monstrous!

    Bill slumped, feeling the pain of the handcuffs tight against his wrist, and wondered where he was going. Beryl had mentioned a place called Trident House, but he had no idea where it was or what would happen to him when he got there.

    They left the village of Underwood and headed toward the ancient city of Ravensmere. They entered the suburbs but turned onto a dual carriageway before heading into the city centre, travelling north. A few minutes later, the car entered a part of town called The Heath, a place Bill had never been before. It was leafier, with broader streets and grander houses, than the area around Conatus College. Bill saw expensive-looking restaurants, antique shops, auction houses and a red-brick railway station.

    The car drove on. Soon, they skirted the edge of a sprawling park called Hanging Heath. At that time of night, it appeared to be nothing but dark shadows, but Bill saw dim yellow lights illuminating plant-filled greenhouses, a lido and a tennis club. A couple of minutes later, on the other side of the road, they passed a collection of modernist glass buildings that made up Scientiam College – the University of Ravensmere’s science department.

    Then they turned off the road, went through a set of tall gates, and into the grounds of Trident House, which adjoined the park but was separated by a high brick wall mounted with razor wire. The house was an expansive, seventeenth-century, floodlit building with an orangery and a domed cupola. Bill thought it rather beautiful until he saw the heavy iron bars bolted across the windows and the many patrolling security guards, each with an Alsatian straining on a leash.

    “What is this place?” he said.

    “Trident House. It’s your new home.”

    “But ...”

    The car pulled up in a small car park, joining a row of other police cars. A uniformed officer opened the door, detached the handcuffs, and led Bill away towards the house, like a prisoner under arrest. Beryl appeared beside him.

    “But I live at Conatus College halls,” Bill said.

    “Professor Nox was tasked with restoring your memory, and that’s what he’s done. That was why we placed you there, for proximity to the heavyweight equipment. Now you are moving on to your next assignment.”

    “What about Brimstone Manor? Don’t I live there?”

    “The Manor is my home, not yours. You were only a guest.”

    Bill was confused. What exactly did these people have planned for him? “So, you want me to reassemble the cabinet, then what?”

    “You have been transferred to Scientiam to start your job. If we are to utilise your unique skills, you are better placed here at the university’s centre of scientific research.”

    “Don’t I have a say in all this?”

    “Bill, my darling, of course not. You pledged an oath when you joined the Apostles, and so must do as we say, on pain of death! You are a middle-aged Victorian scientist, a member of the Royal Society, albeit from 1872, and are not a pimply young boy, despite appearances to the contrary. With your memories restored, we could say that you are all grown up, so you must start working hard. Try to convince the Apostles you have a reason to be here at all. Some of the hardliners are not so sure. They do not wish you well. Think you should go back to the grave.”

    Bill went pale, gulped, and said nothing. He thought Beryl’s last comment was horribly sinister. Was his life in danger?

    They went under the portico and into the house. Bill found himself standing in an elegant Georgian hallway with a parquet floor and cream-coloured walls filled with paintings of distinguished gentlemen from days long gone.

    “Past presidents of the Royal Society,” Beryl said when she saw him studying the portraits. “You may recognise some of them.”

    He saw an oil painting of Sir George Biddell Airey, a bespectacled, whiskered worthy, who was a friend and in charge during the time of his own membership of the Royal Society.

    Bill was led down a passageway, past several heavy wooden doors. One of these was open, and so Bill peered inside. He saw an earnest young man in a tweed jacket poring over a stack of leather-bound books on a table. Behind him were many mysterious-looking objects made from brass, wood and glass, a pair of enormous bellows, tiny silver boxes, and manacles. Several crossbows of various designs were hanging on the far wall.

    “You seem to have many artefacts here,” Bill said.

    “We have many objects from the past – some weapons, some scientific equipment, and some deemed ‘magical’. We are attempting to rediscover how they once functioned. With your unique history, you may be able to help us.”

    Bill nodded but knew he had no intention of helping. The Apostles had him held as a virtual prisoner and had taken away Arthur and Ophelia to God only knows what fate.

    They stopped beside a lift, and when the doors opened, they stepped inside. It shuddered and clanked, being very old, as it moved to an upper floor. Then the doors opened, and they emerged into a corridor lined with ornate coving and maroon wallpaper.

    “Your room is just down the landing to the left,” said Beryl, leading the way.

    Bill followed, with the policeman close behind. They stopped outside one of the many doors. Beryl unlocked it and motioned for Bill to go inside. He shuffled reluctantly forward into a darkened space. Beryl switched on the light, and he saw that his new ‘home’ was a large square room with faded floral wallpaper, a four-poster bed, a dark wardrobe, and an old writing desk in the corner. A bunch of wilted flowers sat inside the grate of the fireplace. There was a door to his left, and he guessed it led to a bathroom. The room smelled musty, like nobody had been there for a while. Bill noticed thick iron bars crossing the tall windows.

    “Your journal is on the writing desk. You must study it and ensure you have memorised every step of the re-birthing process. Tomorrow is a big day. Nothing must go wrong.”

    Bill saw his journal and was pleased he’d got it back. He’d left it on the back seat of Inspector Ferret’s police car, which had crashed not far from Brimstone Manor – in his rush to escape Lord Percy and his coven of female followers, he’d forgotten all about it.

    “I’m not doing anything,” Bill said defiantly, “until you answer a few questions.”

    “It’s late. I insist you go to bed. You'll find flannel pyjamas in the wardrobe.”

    “Where’s Arthur’s family?”

    “Why should you care? They are nothing but Devil's Ghouls, abominations.”

    He thought of Mrs Small and the acts of kindness she’s shown him – and his frustration grew. “My friend's lost his family. He’s devastated! He needs to see them, to know they’re still alive. I have a great attachment to them myself.”

    “I want no more questions.”

    “What have you done with Arthur and Ophelia? They’d better not be harmed.”

    “Your little friends are safe – for the moment. Now you must rest.”

    “You need me to make that damned cabinet work. What if I made sure it didn’t? Tell me where my friends are, or I may do that.”

    Beryl flew into a terrible rage. Her red lips pursed tightly, and her eyes glared fiercely. “If you do anything to jeopardise what we are doing here, you'll never see your friends again. You will be sent back to the grave! Now you're going to be quiet!”

    She nodded at the policeman, who stepped forward and shoved Bill hard. He staggered back, almost tripping. Beryl and the policeman left, slamming the door behind them. There was a clicking sound. He rushed over, tried the handle, and found the door locked.

    Bill looked around the room in desperation, trying to see if there was a way of escape. He went to the windows and examined the iron bars bolted to the outside frame. He tried to open a window, but it wouldn’t move. He peered outside to see how high he was but saw nothing but an expanse of darkness and drizzling rain. Giving up on the windows, he went into the adjoining room. It was a small bathroom with an old bathtub. Its high and tiny window was also barred and much too small for a person to fit through. Knowing escape was impossible, he sat down at the writing desk in despair.

    He opened his journal and turned to the page containing the long and complex chemical formula required to make the mix for Feeder Jar Two. He saw the part he'd crossed out and replaced by a subtle variation, done when he was at Doctor van Devlin's house – the crucial correction required! Bill had entered the cabinet using the original formula and came out 30 years younger. Hopefully, this new version would work perfectly – it had worked on Ophelia or at least seemed to. He turned to a section at the back called ‘Day Notes’ and gazed at his final entries, recognising his scrawled, spidery handwriting and pondering the vast span of time since he’d written these entries.

He scanned the words at the top of the page and recalled the night a century ago when they were written. His Cabinet of Rebirth – the Scrinium Regenerationis – was ready for use. Lord Percy Valentine, his dear friend and patron, and his wife, Rowena, were to go inside and be cured. But the Apostles took drastic actions when they discovered the strange and evil contamination that defiled their leader and his wife. They didn’t believe in the Good Doctor’s contraption to purge them of this Satanic malady.

    Lord Percy was murdered by a shotgun blast to his chest. But because the madness infected him, something happened to his body, a mysterious process little understood by science. His skin grew dark and shrivelled, and his torso and limbs shrank down and transformed by some unknown force into a small, black, web-winged creature with horns and a pointed snout. It was shrivelled like an old, dried prune and quite dead. This dragon-ceare creature was placed in a stone cask and taken to be stored with all the others in the crypt of Conatus Chapel, where God would watch over the remains and keep them from re-wakening.

Bill took a deep breath and read the final entries in his journal, slowly and deliberately.

 

Fri 9th May 1873 – 1 am. The Apostles marched into my laboratory like an angry mob. They told me such abominations as my cabinet and the drug pumped into veins should not be allowed to exist. It’s God’s role to judge and save, not man’s. I was told to leave Underwood and never come back. I left them with a heavy heart as they smashed up my laboratory, wrecked the Scrinium Regenerationis, the summation of my life’s work, and went to rescue a frightened and wretched Rowena. I stole her away from them to the Unicorn pub in the village, where I scribbled this entry by candlelight in my room. We plan to catch the first stage to Ravensmere.

 

Fri 9th May 1873 – 11 am. A disaster of the most heinous nature has struck us! I’m afraid poor sweet Rowena was consumed by her madness last night. She came into my room and attacked me. Now I am, as she is, enslaved to this wretched malady. She was most upset and confused, but I told her to return to bed. We can still journey to my house in Ravensmere and get the Vita Dantis we require.

I waited for her early this morning in the snug, but she failed to appear. When I went up, I found that she was gone. I saw her journal on the table, and I am afraid to say I stole a look inside. She recorded how she planned to go off into Briar Wood at dawn and kill herself in the old underground mausoleum. Poor sweet girl! I took her journal for safekeeping.

My plan is to wait for the next stagecoach. So here I wait in my room, feeling the strange urges of this most wretched form of madness begin to take hold ...

 

Fri 9th May 1873 – midday.

The stage is outside, but the Apostles are in the pub, searching for Rowena. If I am found and my infection discovered, I will surely be murdered.

I will hide my precious journal, the repository of my life’s work, and Rowena’s diary under the bed. The Apostles may have them destroyed –  I can’t allow that. When I get to Hill House, I will send a servant back to retrieve them.

 

Bill read these words with great sadness, thinking about his two friends. Rowena had been a dear, sweet girl and a faithful wife to Percy. She should have been saved from the madness, not killed by its terrible burden. Lord Percy was once a fine man, Lord of Brimstone Manor and squire of Underwood. How terrible to have seen him only hours ago, transformed by the madness and Bestia Marcam into a foul leather-skinned creature with ferocious yellow eyes, pointed teeth and curled horns. How he wished he could have convinced Percy to come with him to Brimstone Manor, step inside his newly rebuilt cabinet and fulfil his promise from all those years ago, but Arddhu Og now warped Percy’s mind.

    Bill picked up a fountain pen and made a new entry …

 

Fri 9th Nov 1972 – 11:30 pm.

I write these words, dear diary, after one hundred years of sleep, rebirth and recollection. My life’s work, the Cabinet of Rebirth, has been rebuilt and is almost ready to be used on the highest in the land. But this is not a happy day. I once believed that science was the noblest of pursuits; that humanity’s advance out of the cave was based purely on its merits. But now I see that science is nothing more than a tool to be wielded by vain and capricious man for his own self-serving nature. The scientist is nought but a pawn in a game of power and control, and naivety is all that makes him think his work has worth for its own merits. I will henceforth find a new goal in life, one that is free from the servitude of others.

 

Bill put down the pen and yawned. He had a fearful day ahead – with no idea what the Apostles had planned for him or his friends.

*

Early the following day, Bill was awakened by the sound of shuffling in his room. He sat up in bed and saw Mordred, Beryl’s imperious Butler-cum-chauffeur, coming towards him with a breakfast tray in his hands.

    “Good morning, sir. I hope you slept well.”

    “Hello, Mordred. I can't say I did. Listen, before Beryl arrives, I need to ask a question.”

    “Very good, sir.”

    “You don’t know where Arthur is?”

    “A very impertinent question, sir, that I’m not at liberty to answer.”

    The butler placed the tray on the bedclothes over Bill’s lap. It contained a boiled egg with toast soldiers, tea in a silver pot, with a teacup, a saucer and a jug of milk. There was also a bible.

Bill was hungry, and before he realised what he was doing, he found himself tucking into the food with relish.

    “Today is a critical day.”

    Bill looked up when he heard these words and saw Beryl standing at the foot of the bed, with a policeman behind her. Bill noticed that there was a holstered gun at the policemen’s hip.

    “Where's Ophelia?” he said.

    “I said no more questions.”

    “She’s cured. You have no business holding her here.”

    “The cabinet was only to be used on the Queen. You knew this and broke the rules. Her Majesty is the only person deemed important enough to go inside. What happens to the girl is not important.”

    “She's very important – to me.”

    “But I must say your little uncontrolled experiment has proved useful. She's a most interesting specimen.”

    “Don’t you dare hurt her!”

    “Relax, darling. We've been running tests and taking samples. Nothing that won’t heal.”

    “If she’s harmed, I’ll never operate that stupid cabinet! The Queen will be cursed forever!”

    Beryl’s face flushed. “Do not goad us, or you will regret it. As I say, the girl is unimportant to us, but you would find yourself most distressed if she were altered.”

    Bill was about to express his outrage, but he knew it was pointless. He could see that Beryl was deadly serious. He knew without a doubt that if he didn't cooperate, then Ophelia would suffer terribly.

    “What about Arthur? You don’t need to test him. Why don’t you let him go?”

    “We want to convert your best friend to our way of thinking, have a hold over him. But he’s not very cooperative, even when using persuasive methods. The stupid boy thinks he owns you some kind of loyalty.”

Bill picked up the teapot, poured tea into the china cup and noticed his hand was trembling. He was furious but knew he couldn't do anything. As long as his friends were held hostage, he knew he was trapped and had to do what they wanted him to do.

    "I shall leave you now that you understand the situation. Finish your breakfast and come down, but do not forget your journal. You will help prepare the cabinet and may be asked questions. Today we are to be visited by our extraordinary guest!"

    Beryl turned and left the room. Mordred followed, leaving the policeman standing over him. Bill continued to eat his egg and drink his tea, occasionally glancing up at the policeman, whose chubby-cheeked, glaring face made him horribly uncomfortable. As soon as he’d finished breakfast, Bill went into the bathroom, changed out of his pyjamas, got dressed, returned to the room, and saw the policeman's beady eye fixed on him. He put on his thick black glasses, took his journal from the writing desk and allowed himself to be handcuffed again.

    He was led out of the room, along a corridor and down a long wooden staircase that came out into a panelled hallway filled with many curiosities in display cabinets – stuffed bats, owls, thumb screws, wands and carved pentagrams on wooden Ouija boards. Bill wondered what this place was and why it was filled with so many strange and arcane objects.

    He was escorted along another corridor and through a door into a spacious room with faded William Morris wallpaper and white plaster coving. There was a set of French windows at the far side, through which he could see a well-clipped lawn in front of a high wall topped with razor wire. Despite his better judgment, Bill found the room’s contents intriguing. Several heavy wooden benches were filled with laboratory equipment, and many jars of chemicals were lined up in racks – each one was carefully labelled. At the far side of the room stood his Scrinium Regenerationis – the Cabinet of Rebirth – and the two wooden crates that contained Feeder Jar One and Feeder Jar Two, now unpacked and standing on the floor. It was like his laboratory at Brimstone Manor, but on a much larger scale. Bill counted eight men and women in white lab coats working diligently amongst the equipment.

An older man with an unkempt beard was pacing up and down with his hands behind his back. The man had wildly messy hair, a bow tie, a tweed jacket, and took occasional but thoughtful puffs of his pipe. He noticed Bill, grunted his approval and came over to greet him.

    “Doctor William Whitebeam, truly a great honour,” he said, moving to shake Bill’s hand but noticing the handcuffs.     “Get these things off him at once,” he said to the policeman, “he’s our distinguished guest.”

    The policeman grumbled as he took off the handcuffs, then went into a corner and sat on a chair.

    “I call myself Bill now, Bill Blackthorne.”

    “My name is Professor Pandora,” added the man with a grin, “and I am the lead occult archaeologist. It’s an exciting time for us here at Trident House. We have many old and mysterious artefacts, but none as complex or intriguing as your Cabinet of Rebirth. And certainly, no Victorian artefact, if you don’t mind me saying, that is an actual ‘living’ person!”

    “I'm not a specimen in a jar. Why am I here when you have more equipment and people than I ever did?”

    “Around eighteen months ago, we were tasked with finding a cure. Your journal has been one of our artefacts for many years. We studied it with great interest, but our scientists were unable to determine the exact chemical mix required for Feeder Jar Two. We eventually decided that the only way to complete the project was to recruit the scientist who did the original work – you.”

    “So that's why I was brought back?”

    “The man who so palpably failed to crack your journal is called Doctor Duncan. And here he comes now.”

    A tall man with longish grey hair came over and studied Bill with a watchful eye. “Beryl told us you made some adjustments when you used it last on your friend Ophelia,” he said without introducing himself.

    “Is she harmed?” Bill said.

    “She is as well as can be expected, seems to have a normal metabolism.”

    “Can you take me to see her?”

    “Pay attention to what I am saying!” the doctor snapped. “‘More magnesium ions’ were your exact words. I need to know that exact quantity.” The man stopped talking and leaned forward to listen to Bill's answer.

    Bill felt coerced and trapped, but he was also excited to see his work revived and that other scientists were taking an interest. If he told these people how his cabinet worked, then maybe more would be built, and everyone could be cured. Bill opened his journal, pointed to a page containing obtuse mathematical formulae and explained why there was an error in the calculation.  He pointed out the part he had scribbled out and its subtle correction, written underneath. “A two per cent increase in magnesium ions would delay the reaction by just enough time for perfect transformation.”

    Doctor Duncan's eyes lit up, and he smiled. “Of course! I see it now. We must get to work immediately. Feeder Jar Two’s mix must be prepared.”

    Bill was taken to one of the tables and introduced to Rich, a young, eager-eyed scientist with frizzy hair. The table was filled with chemicals in jars, and Bill began mixing these with Rich's help, taking great care with the more explosive ones. Doctor Duncan watched over them all the time, an imperious presence, taking careful notes. After a short while, Doctor Duncan was called away, and Rich's face changed from one of serious concentration to a friendly interest in his lab partner.

    “I can't believe I'm meeting you at last,” he said. “William Whitebeam, the William Whitebeam.”

    Bill gave him an uncomprehending look.

    “I mean,” he continued, “we've been studying that journal of yours for months. It’s some piece of work, like Leonardo's notebooks. I mean, some of those formulas! They veer off on some crazy tangents. How did you think it up?”

    “Well, I did have to make some mathematical leaps of faith.”

    “When we heard you were rebuilding your cabinet at Brimstone Manor, we were keen to get over there and see what you were doing. But Beryl forbade us, said she wanted you to do it alone, unsullied by our input. So, all we did was get your supplies.”

    Bill could see that Rich was a young man who was very talkative and excitable. Maybe he could use this to get information. “So that's how Mordred acquired all the raw materials?”

    “Yeah, he came to us. But that cabinet is so amazing. How the hell you managed to implement theoretical mathematics using clunky old brass pipes and gas, I'll never know. Imagine what you could do with modern technology.”

    Bill couldn't help but smile at Rich's boyish enthusiasm. “I don't have all the answers. Seeing someone come back from the dead, from a dried-up little dragon-ceare, is still a mystery, magic, really.”

“I don't buy into the idea of magic. I don't go in for all that hokey-pokey unexplained stuff, all those books of incantations and mind control. Here we beat madness with science. Anyway, welcome to the team.”

    “Do you like it here?”

    “It's pretty cool. Our work is very hush-hush.”

    “Do you know the place well?”

    “Some parts, but it’s like a rabbit warren full of old junk.”

    Bill paused, wondering how best to phrase his next question. “Do you know where they're holding my two friends?”

    Rich was rambling on and not listening. “But I must admit I’m a bit puzzled by some of the things that go on. There's a small factory in one of the outbuildings where they make huge quantities of Vita Dantis. Not good stuff. More industrial if you like.  Every few days, a van comes and ships it off.”

Vita Dantis is a clear liquid that, when injected into the vein using a Hex Box, stops the lust to spill blood and silences the voice of Og. It can help people suffering from the curse to lead a normal life and allow them to live in the shadows of normal society. But over time, this mysterious concoction of chemicals wracks the body with frailty, depression and arthritis.

    “Where does it go?”

    “To some secret place. Judging by the amount that's made, there must be hundreds of people there, maybe thousands. But I've seen the quality of that Vita Dantis, and I'd hate to think what it's doing to those poor, cursed wretches. Wherever this place is, it must look like some massive freak show.”

    Bill thought of Arthur's family. This must be where they’d been taken. He wondered if this young lad knew more.

Doctor Duncan appeared, and Rich immediately turned his attention to the chemical jars. The doctor pulled out his notebook and watched Bill and Rich with narrowed eyes, taking careful notes as he quizzed Bill on his actions.

​

The day passed slowly, with Bill spending most of his time being questioned about the scientific methods described in his journal. Mordred brought lunch on a waitress trolley, still in his grey butler uniform now, but wearing a flowered pink pinafore. In the afternoon, Feeder Jar One and Feeder Jar Two were connected with great care to the Cabinet, with Mordred giving its brass door a final polish until it gleamed brightly.

Bill tried to ask Rich about the mysterious place he’d been talking about, but Rich was taken off to work somewhere else, and Bill was forced to go through his formula once more with Doctor Duncan as final verification.

*

Outside and beyond the wall surrounding Trident House stood Hanging Heath Park, a vast expanse of well-tended grass dotted with tennis courts, greenhouses, a lido and fountains. The sun was going down, and high clouds, glowing with warm pink light, filled the darkening sky. The strange figure of a young woman dressed all in white appeared out of the shadows. She was riding a sleek black horse that galloped at a phenomenal pace. The purity of colour on her long dress was so intense that the perception of its design was almost impossible to discern. She was around twenty years old, with flowing white hair, and would have been pretty, but Bestia Marcam had made her gimlet eyes red-rimmed and yellow, and she’d grown a pair of curled horns on her forehead. Her skin was leathery and white, threaded with tiny red veins, and a faint halo of light shone all around her. There was something ethereal and ghost-like about her – like she wasn’t really there.

    She got to the wall surrounding Trident House and pulled on the reins, bringing the horse to a quick standstill. She jumped off and approached a thick wooden door in the wall. She grabbed the heavy metal doorknob in her delicate white hand and pushed with enormous strength. The door gave way with a loud crack as the lock was ripped away from the frame. She stepped through and into the grounds.

    A security guard was over in a shed, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper, but his Alsatian dog was outside and immediately spotted the young woman in white. It bounded towards her, growling viciously, showing pointed teeth. The girl looked at the dog and muttered a Dormientes incantation. The dog stopped running and collapsed onto the floor. Its tongue flopped out of its mouth, and it began twitching its hind leg and whining, sounding like it was in some considerable pain.

    The glowing white figure stepped over the dog and quickly approached a side entrance into Trident House. She went through the door and walked along a narrow corridor. The young scientist called Rich, who'd been working all day with Bill, turned a corner and, without realising it, walked straight into her. She was taller than he was, and he looked up into her pale face with some surprise. He had never suffered the madness, so he couldn’t see the Bestia Marcam – her horns, halo or ferocious yellow eyes – saw only a pretty but somehow disturbing young woman’s features. Something about the intense way she stared filled him with gut-wrenching terror.

    “Who ... Who are you?” he stammered.

    The girl’s eyes fluttered as she mumbled a strange curse. Before Rich knew what was happening, she’d wrapped her thin arms around him, pulled him close and kissed him so that her teeth sank into his lips. Blood trickled, and she licked it delicately. Rich fell to the floor unconscious. The figure stepped over him and continued down the corridor without looking back.

    A minute later, Rich woke up and felt stranger than he’d ever felt. He quickly realised that his mind was under the iron grip of some other alien will. How could this be? It was a terrifying feeling. He heard a whispering voice deep inside his head.

    Well, aren't you a clever little fellow? You'll help me do what I a-comes here for.

    “Who's there?” he said, confused and scared.

    He wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. He thought he was going insane. But then he realised that he'd just heard the sinister voice of Arddhu Og, now living deep inside his mind. It meant only one thing – that he'd forever be her slave!