Authors: J.F. Penn
“I see the fury in your eyes, Detective, and it inspires me. I shall make Polly a perfect specimen for my collection. She will live on here amongst the monsters, labeled and tagged, her spine a source of fascination in death. And will it hurt you more, I wonder, to watch me take pleasure with her body or to see me cut her into pieces?”
Mascuria looked into Jamie’s eyes and she stared straight back at him, daring him to make any move on her daughter. He laughed and reached around the body, flipping Polly over so that she now lay on her front. Her body couldn’t lie straight on the table, and the deformity was clearer from the back, the twisting exaggerated. Jamie screamed, moaning into the gag, wrenching on the hook in an attempt to get to her daughter.
“When dissecting a body,” Mascuria began, pointing at the corpse as if giving a lecture, “the guts are the first parts to putrefy so usually one would begin by slitting open the abdomen, folding back the flaps of skin and fat and removing the digestive parts, stomach, intestines, spleen, gall bladder and pancreas. Then one would open the chest, sawing apart the ribcage to remove the lungs and expose the heart.” His fingers danced down Polly’s spine, dipping between her buttocks as he smiled at Jamie’s fury. “Of course, the mastery of dissection requires intricate knife skills, but also brute strength to saw through bone and hack off the parts not required for a particular preparation. Removing the limbs so that I have a nice, clean torso to work with is always a good first step, because a big part of the artist’s job is deciding what to leave out,” Mascuria grinned wildly as he saw the panic in Jamie’s eyes. He turned and wheeled over a trolley, on which were laid out scalpels of various sizes and a large bone saw. “I think I’ll start with removing her legs.” He reached for a scalpel.
Chapter 24
The door slammed open, hitting the wall inches from where Jamie hung behind it. Mascuria froze, one hand holding Polly’s leg and the other clutching the scalpel above her thigh. His face fell as he saw who had entered. Jamie tried to twist around but she couldn’t see.
“Edward, darling,” Esther Neville’s crisp British vowels filled the room. “Do you really have time for that?”
Mascuria’s eyes flicked to Jamie and the door was pulled back. Esther stood there, no trace of the mousey scientist, the grieving mother or wronged wife remaining. Instead she was the proud ruler of this underground domain, channeling dark spirits below while she created abomination in the labs above. Her clothes were curious, her waist nipped in with a corset and the dress an extravagant eighteenth century costume, out of place in the modern lab. Esther’s serpent green eyes drilled into Jamie.
“Detective, why am I not surprised to find you here?” She stepped forward to check that the bonds were secure, nodding her head. “Good job, Edward.” Jamie could see that Mascuria reveled under this compliment from his mistress. “But we already have a vivisection subject for the Lyceum tonight.” Esther paused and Jamie could see that she was considering the options. “I’d like the Detective to witness her future fate, but we can get more for her at an exclusive event, for those select few who might enjoy intimacy with her kind of flesh.” Esther stepped closer, her smile one of triumph. “And what do you think of the wonders we have here, Detective?”
Esther pulled away Jamie’s gag, wanting to hear her speak. Jamie’s mind flashed over all the insults she wanted to spit out, but she still held onto some hope that she would get out of here. Perhaps Esther could be goaded.
“You’re just sick and depraved. There’s no real science here.”
Esther’s eyes flashed with anger.
“Of course, I couldn’t expect a mere police detective to understand, but this is truly magnificent work.
We’re developing weaponized teratology. By introducing pathogens into an environment, we can corrupt a region, making the inhabitants into monsters who will be rejected, murdered and thrown into mass graves. We can target genetically, causing extra limbs to sprout from bodies, horns from heads, perversions of nature. It will justify the killing of those groups in the eyes of those considered normal, but more than that, it becomes a judgment from God, afflictions sent as punishment for sin. Humans are so ready to slaughter those considered Other.”
Jamie thought of the gas chambers of Nazi Europe filled with the bodies of the Other - Jews, gypsies, the mentally ill and those considered defective. She thought of Rwanda and the description of ‘cockroaches’ stacked in mass graves, seen as inhuman by people who were once their neighbors. It was terrifying to think that this lab could hold the key to unleashing atrocity on an even grander scale. But she still didn’t have all the answers.
“What has the Lyceum got to do with this?”
“Why, Detective, it’s just a little fun, in the medical tradition of course.” Esther did a little twirl in her costume, meager breasts pushed up by the tight bodice, full skirts swinging. Against the backdrop of the bottled remains, her delight was all the more macabre. “The Lyceum Medicum Londinense is an old institution, first started in 1785 in the days of the great anatomist John Hunter to replicate his experiments, a crucible to facilitate his scientific legacy. Hunter only trusted his own eyes, so now, in turn, this is what we offer in the resurrected Lyceum. We experiment as Hunter did, exploring the very edges of human experience. Unlike you, most people don’t get to see the dark side of reality anymore, it’s all so sanitized. They don’t get to see death or experience the end of life until they meet it themselves in some pathetic care home. But people want a taste of the extraordinary in their boring lives, they want the freak shows, the crazies. Otherwise this world is just one long dull day after another. These elite seekers are desperate for a glimpse of the other side. They crave this interaction with the dead, for it is like seeing our own future. On the slab, we are all the same.”
Esther stepped closer, holding Jamie’s gaze. “At the Lyceum, we remove the veneer of civilization and deliver raw truth through vivisection of the body. We want our members to see, to weep and experience deep pleasure. It matters not what they feel, only that they feel something. This becomes an addiction, an expensive one, for sure, and when we find a new member, we try very hard to find them an experience that will change them. Religion offers a way to look into the divine, but the Lyceum offers a way to look into our base physical selves. For what truth is greater than the realization that we are meat, mere chunks of flesh that can be cut away? If we dissect to the last capillary, will we find the essence of the person? No, we cannot, because it has already gone.”
Jamie saw the promise of her own death in Esther’s eyes, an end through flayed flesh and agony. Where Mascuria delighted in the dead, Esther was addicted to killing. It was a perfect partnership.
“Enough.” Esther turned and addressed Mascuria. “Use the ketamine and dress her in something more appropriate, then string her up next to the altar. And Edward, I mean now. You can return to your - specimen - later.”
Esther strode from the room, her heels clicking on the stone as she walked away. Mascuria rested the scalpel gently on Polly’s back and patted her buttocks.
“I’ll return for you later,” he whispered, almost lovingly. He looked up at Jamie and the veil in his eyes came down, obscuring any humanity. He picked up a syringe from the surgical table and then filled it from a bottle.
As he walked towards Jamie, she began to struggle, aware that ketamine was a powerful sedative but also that it could produce a dissociative state, hallucinations and visions. She wanted to remember Mascuria’s perversions and she wanted to punish him for it.
“It would have been better for you to watch your daughter’s preservation than to experience Lady Neville’s particular pleasures,” Mascuria said. “But now, you have no choice.”
He pressed the needle into her arm and within seconds, Jamie felt a heaviness in her limbs and her eyelids drooped. She forced them open again, as the winch lowered her to the floor, but she couldn’t fight the drug and she slipped into unconsciousness.
Chapter 25
Jamie became aware of the bonds around her as she woke and it took her a few seconds to figure out what was happening. Her body felt as if she were underwater, heavy and compliant, the sedation of the ketamine still in her system. She was lying on a chill stone floor, hands cuffed in front of her, wearing a mask with tiny slits for her eyes that obscured her facial features. As her senses slowly returned, Jamie realized she was only wearing a sheer black wrap over her own underwear. That bastard Mascuria had stripped her as he had the bodies of the dead. For a fleeting moment, Jamie wished to be next to her daughter on the slab. But then she remembered how much Polly had believed in living until it hurt and making the most out of every minute that we have the grace to be alive. Jamie grasped at a glimmer of hope, that she might make it out of this and revenge the abuses inflicted on Polly and the other innocent victims here.
She moved slowly, trying to take in her surroundings, fighting to clear her head. Still gagged, her throat hurt from the raw material and she was desperately thirsty. She pulled against the chain that bound her cuffs to the wall and managed to lever herself up, resting back against the stone, finally able to see. She was in a twin chamber to the Inner Temple of the Hellfire Caves, but it had been transformed into a dark cave of corrupted medical history.
The walls were hung with twisted poles wrapped with bloody used bandages, a tribute to the red and white staffs of the original barber surgeons. There were skeletons attached between them, posed in positions of torture, their limbs stretched in crucifixion. Candelabra stood around the edge, throwing an incongruous warm light into the dark space and giving off a pungent scent. Tendrils of smoke licked the walls, clouding the cave with a heady atmosphere.
Behind an altar was a long wooden pole, an intricately carved snake curled around it, forked tongue flickering to taste the air. Jamie recognized the rod of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing and medicine, but here it resembled some kind of demonic god. Around an empty central space were rows of tiered seating facing the altar where she sat. Jamie wondered who the members would be, since the original Hellfire Club had been made up of aristocrats, businessmen and politicians. Could it still be so powerful?
Jamie heard footsteps and slumped in her bonds, pretending to be drowsy as Mascuria came to check on her. He lifted her chin, and she groaned softly, playing the part. His fingers dug into her jaw.
“Time to wake up. After all, you’ll want to watch the entertainment tonight and reflect on your own future.” She opened her eyes slowly to see Mascuria’s excited smile. But she realized that his enthusiasm wasn’t for her bondage, it was for something that appealed to his darker nature, and Jamie felt a heavy sense of foreboding at what was to come. He forced her to her feet, adjusting the chains so that she was held tighter, standing against the wall, shackled by her wrists and ankles. The sheer wrap barely hid her body and she shivered as the cold seeped into her exposed skin.
“The chill is preferable to being center stage, believe me,” he said, pulling out a hip flask. “But this will warm you up.” He pulled her gag away and holding her chin firmly, poured some of the liquid into her mouth. The wine was strong and some dribbled down her chin, but Jamie gratefully swallowed it to assuage her thirst. Mascuria tipped another swig into her throat, and Jamie started to feel light-headed. Mascuria saw the question in her eyes.
“A touch of hallucinogen. Altered reality will help you experience the heights of the ritual tonight, since I believe our guest is an acquaintance of yours.”
Jamie’s thoughts flashed to Blake, Missinghall, the nurses at the home. Who could it be? She dared hope it wasn’t someone she cared about, but with the thought of what might come, she pitied the victim, whoever it was.
A drum beat started, a heavy, slow thudding that echoed around the chamber. It seemed to signify the start of proceedings because silhouettes started to enter the room, emerging through the smoky haze.
“Watch carefully, Detective, for this will soon be your fate.” Mascuria whispered, slipping away from her into a shadowy tunnel at the side of the room.
Jamie watched as the figures walked slowly in, wearing buttoned long coats covered by hooded capes. Their faces were obscured but Jamie could tell by their stature that both women and men were present. Some glanced in her direction, some for a longer time than others, but she could see none of their features. Each wore the leather apron of the anatomist that Jamie had seen in the paintings of Hunter’s time, and they carried small wooden cases. Some had handsome canes with finely wrought handles to complete their eighteenth century costumes. They filed into the tiered seating as the drum began to speed up, a double beat like a heart pounding.
A figure stepped from the shadowed corridor. Esther Neville, resplendent in a swirling black cape over her extravagant dress. Her hood was back and she didn’t hide her face, which was now made up with gold and metallic swirls around her eyes, matching the detail on her costume. As she strode to the front of the altar, the drum pounded harder and faster and Jamie felt her heart thumping in time, jumping to the rhythm, making her blood race. She felt heady with the noise and the smoke that made the figures weave in front of her.
As Esther raised her hands into the air with a dramatic gesture, Mascuria wheeled in a metal gurney covered in a white cloth. Strapped on top of it, naked and struggling, was Rowan Day-Conti, his elaborately tattooed body arching in terror. Jamie gasped to see him restrained, and desperate to help him, she twisted in her chains, pulling against their hindrance. Bands round his wrists, ankles, waist and neck held Rowan to the table and, although he writhed in his bonds, Jamie could see that he would not escape them and neither could she reach him.