forcing my bandaged leg through the pants, before stumbling up to my feet.
“My dear boy, are you alright?” asked Doctor Halfpenny.
I held my head and groaned, “I've got a whopper of a headache. What was that?”
The Professor, coming in and looking over his shoulder, answered for the Doctor, “Not what, who.”
Doctor Halfpenny stamped his foot, “Do you mind? This is my surgery, I am with a patient and you are to wait outside!”
“Never mind that. He's all bandaged up, aren't you Laddie? Time to go, time to go. Thank you, Doctor, for all your services, I apologise for the inconvenience – gracious, Laddie, do your buttons up, you're a mess – please forward your bill to my address,” the Professor said, bustling me out the door, “The best to you and your wife, might I add, thank you and good bye!”
The next little while was a blur. When I next came to my senses, I was slumped in a seat in the laboratory. It was dark. I was alone. My head thumped with the rhythm of my heart.
In front of me was a cup of tea, cold but stiff. I successively sipped and groaned, trying to piece together just what had happened.
With an effort I brought my empty cup to the sink and washed it out, wondering just what to do next. I was in the process of packing up my satchel when I heard the key in the door.
The Professor came in, his eyes darting about, “Ah, you're up. Good. Good. Um. How are you?”
“Huh?”
“It's a straightforward question. How are you feeling?”
“Sorry, Professor. If anything, I'm sore and disoriented,” I confessed, “I cannot remember much between seeing Doctor Halfpenny and, well, now.”
I felt awfully dizzy, and sick, so I sat back down. The Professor was looking at me strangely.
“You don't look very well.”
Oddly, a sense of intense melancholy swept over me. My mind grew dark. Tears welled in my eyes.
“I'm not! My leg is so sore. I cannot sit properly because of my back. My head is pounding and I – I feel worthless, Professor!”
I have no doubt that whatever foul beast had caused me my injuries was responsible for the sadness that came upon me that night. The emotion was unnatural, not coming from within me, but from somewhere without.
I burst into tears, “I am so sorry, Professor.”
“Don't be, Laddie, don't be,” he said, “Calm down now, that's better. You are not responsible for what happened. There are forces at play here.”
“Forces? What do you mean?”
“Insidious, evil forces.”
“Insidious? Evil?” I asked, a chill running down my spine.
“A stain on the fabric of humanity! A malignant, maleficent curse!”
“A curse?”
“They are corrupt –”
I was startled, “They? Professor, how many are there?”
The Professor shrugged, “Oh, I don't know. At least twenty in the local area. Only, like the rats that they are, they never hold still long enough to count them.”
“So you've dealt with these things before? Are they that entrenched? What – what can we do about them?” I gasped.
“Nothing, I suppose. Their corruption is a result of the desires of the populace. And, in a way, they are a necessary evil...”
“A necessary evil? Professor, how could you possibly say that something so sinister could be, in any way, necessary?”
He twirled his finger in the air, “Their purpose, their original purpose that is, is noble indeed.”
I blinked. I had that sudden and, unfortunately, common feeling that the Professor and I were on two different subjects.
“Um, Professor?”
“Don't say um.”
“To what are you referring?”
“The journalists, of course! Keep up, Laddie! They were to weed out the sinners, exalt the benevolent, bring news of progress and keep the world informed,” he said, “Now they let their greed for publicity drive them toward stories of shock and scandal. Ha! It's only money-lust, now. Between a story on a new kind of piston design and the naughty antics the local elites get up to, guess which one will hit the front page?”
He plopped into a chair.
“It seems that, after our theatrics, Missus Butterfield lent her tongue to Chester Perry, one of those gossip-mongers.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, indeed. You can be sure that your picture will be in the paper first thing tomorrow morning. While I don't count us as social elites, nor our business anything but professional, they seemed quite enthused with their scoop,” he said, checking his watch, “It is probably going to print right now.”
If I felt sick before, I felt positively nauseous now.
He continued, “I don't need to say it, but I shall: we do not need this kind of publicity. Paranormology will gain approval in scientific circles first, through scientific means, with its merits weighed and tested by our peers. Unfortunately, this will be harder with Chester tailing us.”
I sat up with an effort, “Tailing us? He's not here, is he?”
“He followed me back. I know he did. Like you, I've got keen ears. He can smell a story, and, like a hound on the scent, he'll chase it up until the next one comes along. I've locked downstairs, so he can't get in, but that's not to say he isn't opposed to scaling the walls to listen in at the windows.”
I hobbled to the glass and looked out into the darkened street below. The laboratory was a decent height off the ground, at least twelve feet to the lowest window.
I opened up the window and leaned out, scanning the shadows. Rattles and hums of the evening flow of traffic echoed about. I imagined I saw movement here and there, but, in the state I was in, I could not say for sure.
“You'd best head home, Laddie. Rest up. Heal.”
I closed the window, securing the latch tightly, “Yes, Professor. Oh! What if he is out there and chases me?”
“He already has what he wants from you. However, if you are accosted on the way home, say nothing, tell them nothing, give them nothing. Better yet, let me pay for a cab. Better safe than sorry with these agents of Hades.”
“What about you, Professor?”
“Don't worry about me, thank you, I'll be fine. I've dealt with their type before. You just rest. Take tomorrow off. And the next day.”
“Yes, Professor.”
My Dark Dream
That night I literally fell into bed. I was changing the dressing and applying the ointment that Doctor Halfpenny had given me, when I slipped on one of the used bandages, toppled sideways and crashed onto the bed. Feverish, perspiring heavily and weak, I made no attempt get up.
In truth, I was so exhausted that I just lay there and let sleep have its way with me, although my night was anything but restful.
My dreams were strangely lucid, vivid to the point where I could feel everything about me, smell it, taste it even. I was sitting still and motionless on the drum in the cellar back in the Jolimont Street house, observing bottles dropping off the shelves and smashing upon the floor.
A grinding sounded, as of stones moving over each other, and the floor opened up to reveal a pit into which I fell, tumbling, rolling. I tasted the dirt from the floor as it got stuck in my mouth, felt it rubbing against my teeth. The wind whistled past me as I dropped further and further down, plunging through the blackness marked only by clumps of jagged rock reflecting a gruesome, unholy light coming up from below.
Did I not say my dream was lucid?
The sound of the wind changed to a howling, a screaming chorus of inarticulate words, jeering at me as I plunged into an enormous cavern. I thudded to the floor, uninjured yet dazed, and I took stock of my surrounds.
I tried to stand, only I found that my feet slipped upon a thin film of clear slime. Carefully I tried once more, stooping with my arms out to keep balance as I looked about.
All about was barren, dirty rock, covered alternately in dust and the same curious slime. At first it appeared that there was no order to th
e place, but then I saw that the uneven surface upon which I was standing was actually paved with gigantic slabs, cut sharply, with an alternating number of sides per slab.
The tessellation may have been perfectly set at one stage but now, in such a state of disrepair, the odd angles and moved earth cracked and thrust the jagged edges upward at cruel angles.
A gangrenous glow issued from lanterns carved into the rock walls, ornate with glaring, ghoulish faces that seemed to follow me as I stumbled about, slipping and rolling on the uneven surface.
Not a soul was about, yet I had the distinct notion that something had brought me here, for what purpose I cannot say, and that same something was watching me, a curiosity to the realm, fumbling about in the gloom.
Unseen eyes peered at me from a ruinous structure that dominated the cavern.
I made my way toward this edifice, climbing up huge, smooth stone steps that came up to my waist, each one, and I stood at the top, covered in slime, panting to regain my wind.
Made out of gigantic slabs of rock, it was clearly made for giants. Archways rose so high that the tops were lost in the gloom toward the top of the cavern. Corridors ran so wide that ten men could march at arm's length from each other.
There were no doors, nor windows, only those enormous arches separating one chamber from another. Not a breath of air moved about the place, despite the continued howling and sighing that permeated the cavern.
I came to an atrium, the centrepiece of the monument, and passed by two pillars of black stone inscribed with heavy lines depicting strange symbols in an iconography that I have never seen. The closest I might come to is that of Egyptian hieroglyphs, only these