Alex Grecian - Devil's Workshop

“Oh, I’m sure you’re right.”

“He locked the door. Can you open it?”

Jack shrugged and glanced around for a key, but he didn’t care very much whether the girl stayed in the pantry.

“I don’t see a key,” he said.

He set his black leather bag down in a relatively clean space on the table and opened it. He leaned to one side and looked down the hallway. The tailor was still there, hesitating, his hand on the latch, while Hammersmith battered at the other side of the front door.

Kingsley had already started to turn back toward the bedroom when he saw a bald man appear at the bottom of the stairs, facing the door. The man was covered in blood and he was twitching. Kingsley felt torn for a moment, then hurried back to the room. Claire was clutching the bedsheets with one hand, her face pale, her baby squirming in the crook of her other elbow.

“Claire,” he said, “what you undoubtedly feel is the placenta coming. It will not be difficult to deliver.”

“It feels just like before. Not easy at all.”

Kingsley found a scalpel in his bag. He didn’t want to tell Claire that there was an intruder in the house. She might panic. And he couldn’t move her. She needed to remain calm.

“You’ll be fine for a moment, Claire. Just breathe slowly and evenly and I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t leave me!”

He went to the bedroom door, swallowed hard, and ran to the staircase. Fiona was somewhere below and the stranger had an awful lot of blood on his suit.

Behind him, the baby began to cry.

“ W h o are you?” the girl in the pantry said. “I don’t recognize your voice.”

“I’m. .” Jack hesitated, then glanced at the black bag on the table. “I’m a doctor.”

“Can you see. . Is there a constable out there somewhere?”

“Oh, I see him.”

Jack looked through the bag and found what he was looking for. He removed a flannel the size of a handkerchief and a small glass vial. He unstoppered the vial and poured a bit of the colorless liquid onto the cloth, careful to keep it far away from his face. The fumes were powerful. He set the vial back on the table and stepped out of the kitchen just as someone ran down the stairs ahead of him at the far end of the hall.

• • •

“WHO ARE YOU?” Kingsley said.

But he didn’t wait for an answer. He was afraid he might lose his nerve if he hesitated, so he barreled straight at the bloody bald man and knocked him back against the wall next to the front door.

“Don’t move,” he said. Then: “Fiona!”

He looked around wildly, hoping he would not see her body on the floor, shouting as loud as he could, and hoping she was able to respond.

“Fiona, are you all right?”

He had the scalpel in his hand, kept it near the bald man’s throat while he reached over with his free hand and unlatched the door. Sergeant Hammersmith immediately burst into the room, but stopped cold when he saw the bald man, who glared at Hammersmith with fear and rage in his eyes.

“Hongermiff!” the bald man said. “Gie!”

The bald man wrenched himself away from Kingsley as Hammersmith lunged toward them. Too late, Kingsley realized the stranger was holding a pair of sewing scissors. Kingsley brought the scalpel down, trying to stop the bald man’s forward motion or even cut the scissors out of his hand. He sliced through the tendons of the man’s arm as it swept around, and the scissors buried themselves in Hammersmith’s chest.

All three men stopped moving and stared at the handles of the scissors, miraculously stuck to the front of Hammersmith’s shirt, a black enameled double loop magnetized to his body. Then a red stain crept outward from a buttonhole and a thin tributary made its way down the shirt, toward Hammersmith’s belly. The sergeant looked up at Kingsley with a reverential expression. He opened his mouth and a bubble of blood burst against his lips.

Hammersmith fell to his knees and toppled backward against the doorjamb.

Upstairs, Claire screamed and broke the silence.

Dr Kingsley realized that someone was standing behind him and began to turn just as a pair of rough hands grabbed him and stuck a cloth over his mouth and nose. There was a sharp odor and then the room was washed away and he felt himself falling as if he were watching someone else at a great distance.

He thought perhaps he heard Claire scream again, but she was also far away and he couldn’t move and he floated off into a dark and dreamless ocean.

Cinderhouse was frozen to the spot. Jack had come for him. The spider had found his fly. Had he followed Cinderhouse? Had he seen everything? Did he know what his fly was thinking, had been thinking? Or was he genuinely a god, anywhere and everywhere according to His whims?

The front door was still partially open, and Jack nudged Hammersmith’s body aside with the toe of his shoe so that he could get the door closed. He was still holding the handkerchief and Cinderhouse could smell ether on it, even from several feet away. In Jack’s other hand, he held his black medical bag by its handle.

The older man was crumpled against the bottom of the staircase, breathing strong and steady, in a deep drug-induced sleep. Upstairs, a woman moaned, but nobody moved to investigate the noise.

When the door was closed and Jack had turned silently toward him, Cinderhouse heard a faint plopping sound, something splashing nearby. He looked down and realized his arm was bleeding. Blood ran swiftly down and around his knuckles and leapt free of him to the floor, where a dark puddle was forming. The edges of the gash were separated and rubbery, and Cinderhouse thought he could see bone down there at the bottom of that elastic red canyon. As he stared at his arm, it suddenly began to hurt. It hurt very much.

“I told you no more children,” Jack said.

“Ngo,” Cinderhouse said. No. Without a tongue, his n sounds came out as g sounds. But even those were strange and different, like a choking bird. “Ngo, I wag’t gong-ga. .” No, I wasn’t going to. .

“Don’t be afraid.” Jack stepped over Hammersmith’s legs and around the dozing body of the older man and took Cinderhouse by the arm, just above his elbow. Panicked, Cinderhouse batted at him with his other hand, but the muscle wasn’t responsive and his hand flopped about, flicking blood against the walls. Jack smiled, but angled backward so as to avoid the worst of the blood spatter.

“Be calm,” Jack said. “You’ve disobeyed me and you must be punished again. But you did me a great service in freeing me and I do not forget. I am fully aware of what I owe you.”

He smiled again and Cinderhouse looked at his eyes, saw affection and gentleness, and he relaxed, began to refocus his attention on his injured arm.

“Come,” Jack said. “Let’s take a look at that. You’re bleeding a great deal.”

There was now a hungry glint in Jack’s eye. He turned Cinderhouse around and guided him toward the parlor on the other side of the hall. Cinderhouse was amazed by the strength in Jack’s fingers. He hadn’t moved in more than a year. How strong must he have been before his imprisonment?

He walked ahead of Jack into the front room, with its well-used but comfortable-looking chesterfield, the fireplace, and the mismatched chairs. He felt a sharp pain at the back of his neck, like a bee sting, and tried to lift his hand to touch his neck, but his hand didn’t respond. Neither of his arms would move. His knees buckled under him and he fell straight down, collapsing in on himself. He would have hit his face on the floor if Jack hadn’t caught him.