The Lazarus Curse Read online

  ‘So why did you come down here then?’ glared Whitlock. ‘Whatever pox has stricken this ship, it’s wiped out over a hundred and fifty people in a matter of weeks. You said you knew what had afflicted us… so go on then, what is it, and what can we do about it?’

  Quaint ground his teeth. ‘I tried to tell you before! I’m from—’

  ‘Dover, yeah, so you said.’ Whitlock picked up a wrench from a worktable and smashed it against the iron gate. The vibrations rippled into Quaint’s body. ‘We can do this all day, mate… but you won’t last much longer if you don’t spill your guts.’ He smashed the wrench against the gate again, and Quaint’s eyelids wavered. ‘So let’s have the truth!’

  Quaint stiffened, riding through the fresh bout of pain. ‘The truth is… you’re really starting to annoy me. This disease has already ravaged this ship, but if we get as far as Dover, it’ll do far more damage! It’s liable to kill every living soul in England, so unless you want the deaths of millions on your conscience, you’ll set me free and do exactly as I say!’

  ‘If anyone is to give orders on my ship, it’ll be me!’ All eyes locked with those of a bearded middle-aged man at the end of the hold’s walkway. The newcomer wore a white uniform like the two officers, with an array of insignias and adornments decorating his chest. Epaulettes with gilded stripes showed his rank, and Quaint’s heart rate sped as he recognised the face of the Silver Swan’s captain.

  Captain Adamson pushed his way between his dumbfounded officers to stand at the foot of the iron gate pinioning Quaint. ‘What the blazes is going on here? Who is this man?’

  ‘It’s me, Captain… Cornelius Quaint,’ the conjuror replied.

  ‘Quaint?’ repeated the captain. ‘Why do I know that name?’

  ‘I sailed upon this vessel to Egypt some weeks back, sir.’

  ‘Cornelius… Quaint?’ the captain said again, stroking his bearded chin.

  ‘Christmas Day!’ exclaimed Quaint, as if those two words were magic commands designed to release him – which in truth, he prayed that they were. ‘My French companion and I dined at your table on Christmas Day last! You asked me to perform some illusions for the crew after dinner!’

  Adamson smiled, as if confronted with a long lost friend. ‘My word! Yes, I do recall you. And your companion also. A most charming woman!’

  ‘No offence, sir, but there are matters of greater importance to discuss, top of the list being my current state of confinement,’ said Quaint.

  Adamson glowered at Whitlock and Gidlow and they rushed off to pull the mechanism to the iron gate. The shutters rose, and Quaint was free once more to take several gasps for air. Steadying himself on the nearby railings, he slumped against a large iron pipe that breached the floor to the ceiling. His back was aching, but he would have time to recuperate later. Now, there was much to discuss.

  ‘Mr Quaint, forgive me… but what exactly are you still doing onboard my ship? Did you not disembark in Egypt weeks ago?’ asked the captain.

  ‘I disembarked, sir,’ confirmed Quaint, ‘but recent events have compelled me to return, events that you are no doubt familiar with. This disease… I know where it started.’

  ‘Tell me all,’ said the captain.

  ‘I will,’ Quaint said, ‘but first you have to stop this ship at once!’

  In the company of Captain Adamson and his two crewmen, Cornelius Quaint arrived at the bridge. He watched as the three men pulled levers, wrenched the ship’s wheel, flipped switches and turned dials. All the while, the Silver Swan complained, seemingly from every nut, bolt and weld. Eventually, she ground to a halt with Dover in clear sight. Still too close, as far as Quaint was concerned. After a brief recollection of events, the small group of men stood eagerly awaiting Captain Adamson’s word, watching him pace around the bridge, chewing on what he had been told.

  ‘You managed to convince old Barnaby to let you come on board my ship, Mr Quaint?’ asked the captain. ‘Not an easy feat.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that I convinced him exactly… ’

  ‘I’ve known that sea dog for nigh on fifteen years,’ continued Adamson. ‘He used to be such a cantankerous old goat!’

  ‘He still is, if it makes you feel any better,’ replied Quaint.

  ‘So, now that you’ve brought word from Dover, you must tell me what our options are. What can we do to cure those poor souls who are infected? Those barricaded in the ballroom for example.’

  Quaint felt his heart clog his throat. ‘I’d love to say there’s a miracle cure, sir, but I can’t. There is no cure. I went to the Fountain Room and spoke to one of the few that are left… there will soon be far fewer by all accounts. Captain, you and your two crewmen are all that is left of this ship’s company… but you’re all just victims waiting to happen. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I see,’ said Adamson, resignedly. ‘So what on earth compelled you to come aboard a ship that you knew was riddled with the plague, man?’

  ‘I haven’t really much time to ask myself that,’ said Quaint. ‘I came aboard to find someone, the woman that I mentioned – the cause of the outbreak. But I couldn’t find her. So, at the very least, we have make sure that this bacterium doesn’t reach land. That’s it. That is all we can hope to achieve. Anything else is out of our hands.’

  Captain Adamson glanced down at the floor, his eyes not looking at anything in particular, trying to find something to focus on. ‘I never thought I’d see the likes of this, Mr Quaint, truly I didn’t. In the weeks since we left Egypt this thing has decimated my bloody ship! The lucky ones were the ones that got off.’

  Quaint’s eyes widened. ‘Got…off?’

  ‘We had to drop our physician off in Portugal a few days back. He was trying to contact the embassy to find some way to help us. I can hardly blame him for not wanting to stick around, considering what was going on.’

  ‘You let this man disembark?’ spat Quaint.

  ‘I was half tempted to get off myself, Mr Quaint! Remember, we didn’t know any of what you just told us… that this bacterium whatsit was eating us up one by one. Dr Hansen was up his to neck in it, and he had no ruddy clue how to fix it. I didn’t see any harm in letting him get off. As our chief medical officer, he was better qualified to explain the symptoms to the embassy.’

  ‘The symptoms are that everyone dies, Captain!’ roared Quaint. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this! I thought the disease was contained to this ship… and now you’re telling me that you let people disembark? How do you know that Hansen wasn’t infected?’

  ‘He looked fine to me,’ said Gidlow.

  ‘The infected don’t wear bells around their bloody necks!’ snapped Quaint. ‘Weren’t you listening? This thing is invisible! All it takes is one single person to pass it on! How could you have been so stupid?’

  ‘Hey, now it’s all very well you standing there all high and mighty, Mr Quaint, but we did the best we could,’ said Gidlow. ‘We tried to keep it under control, and only one person got off and that was Dr Hansen. Ain’t that right, Whitlock?’

  All heads turned towards Whitlock, who was nibbling at his fingernails nervously.

  ‘Billy? What’s up?’ asked Gidlow.

  Whitlock began rocking back and forth on his feet. ‘Someone else got off too… other than Dr Hansen, I mean.’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Quaint.

  ‘A woman. She got friendly with the doctor on the trip, see? I know I shouldn’t have let her disembark, but Hansen said he’d vouch for her. She was a right bossy mare too, on account of how much of a hurry she was in. She had a bloody big wooden crate with her, and it took four men just to get it off the ship.’

  Something stirred within Quaint’s stomach. He had an awful feeling that he knew where this conversation was going. ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Well, like I say, she was a friend of the doctor’s, and—’

  ‘Her name! Tell me her name, boy!’

  Whitlock thumbed his lips. ‘Um… sorry, Mr Quaint, I c
an’t quite remember.’

  ‘North? Pollyanna North?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it! Miss North!’ said Whitlock, completely oblivious to the detrimental effect his words had on the conjuror. ‘Crikey, how’d you know that, Mr Quaint?’

  Quaint spoke as if his words were being dragged from his mouth with a pair of rusty pliers, ‘Because it’s the worst possible scenario. I have to find her.’

  ‘But how?’ asked Captain Adamson. ‘We docked in Lisbon days ago! This Polly woman could be anywhere by now. There’s no way you’ll be able to find her, man!’

  ‘There is if I know where she’s going,’ said Quaint.

  ‘But, hang on, Mr Quaint… you can’t go anywhere now,’ added Gidlow. ‘This is a plague ship, remember? Any one of us could have this bacterium inside of us!’

  ‘Gidlow’s right,’ said the captain. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Quaint… but now that I know how easily this thing can spread, there’s no way I can allow anyone off this ship.’

  Cornelius Quaint buttoned up his jacket, ignoring the captain. ‘I haven’t been in flesh to flesh contact with any of the infected, Captain, and right now thanks to your men what was once an impossible task just got a lot more difficult. So I am going to leave this ship and I am going to find Professor North before it’s too late!’

  Adamson ran his finger inside his collar. ‘Well, then… you’d best do it soon. You know what I have to do now.’

  Quaint nodded. ‘And for what it’s worth… I am sorry.’

  Whitlock tugged on his captain’s sleeve. ‘Cap, what does he mean? Sorry for what exactly? What do we have to do now?’

  ‘Lad, think about it, lad!’ snapped the captain. ‘We’re hardly going to get a warm welcome when we roll up in Dover, are we? Do you really think the authorities will let any of us set foot on dry land? You know what they’ll do once they learn of our condition? They’ll blow us out of the damn water whether we’re infected or not! They can’t take that risk.’

  Quaint looked at Whitlock and Gidlow’s faces as their fate became all too clear to them. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m—’

  ‘We’re at full stop now,’ interrupted Captain Adamson. ‘Whitlock, get to the engine room. Shut off emission valves one to six. Gidlow, go with him. Switch the pressure gauges to zero. All of them, throughout the entire ship! Leave not a single one of them engaged, whilst I charge the engines.’

  Whitlock and Gidlow exchanged awkward glances.

  ‘But, Captain,’ said Whitlock, ‘with the valves shut off, the pressure will—’

  ‘I know what it will damn well do, boy!’ roared Adamson. ‘What the hell are you two waiting around for – an invitation?’ Whitlock and Gidlow sprinted from the bridge as fast as they could, and the captain turned to Quaint. ‘Once those exhaust vents are closed, you’ve probably got about fifteen minutes at the most until the engines rupture. The pressure builds up quickly, even in a ship this size, so you’ll need to be a safe distance away or we’ll drag you down with us when we blow.’

  ‘Understood, sir.’ Quaint turned to exit the bridge, lingering at the door. ‘If there was any other way… ’

  ‘Are you still here?’ replied Adamson. ‘Get off my damn ship and do whatever you need to do. Find this woman. Contain the spread… for all our sakes.’

  Quaint’s lungs burned as he ran from the bridge, down the iron staircase and onto the wide-open deck. Sliding across its wet surface, he reached the side of the ship that he had entered from just as a scream of wrenching metal emanated around his ears. Quaint stared up at the twin funnels of the Silver Swan. They were straining every bolt and weld that held them together, the pressure building like a powder keg. With all the ship’s exhaust vents closed, thousands of tonnes of pressure was compacted into a very confined space. With no exit point to escape from, the stress building up in the engines below would soon create one of its own. The ship’s railings buckled in Quaint’s hands. Twisted metal, wooden beams and decks split asunder, snapping cables and masts, and the deck above collapsed in on itself. Quaint felt the vessel buckle under his feet, his cue to leave the ship and get as far away as he could. Balancing due care and consideration with haste and a thirst for survival, he clambered down the rope, dropping the remaining ten feet into the small rowing boat below.

  Not long after, Quaint was just about back at the docks when the Silver Swan gave up its last, agonising scream. Columns of steam shot into the air as a huge crack formed in her upper decks. As the steam made contact with the sea, hissing vapour climbed into the mid-morning sky. Quaint thought of the poor souls onboard. Every one of them was a wasted life, symptoms of a grander plot and made victims courtesy of one man – Cho-zen Li. He steeled himself, tearing his eyes from the sinking ship. He had other things to think about now, and at the top of his list was finding Professor North. Now more than ever, he was racing a ticking clock and it was ahead by a nose.

  Twenty minutes later, Quaint walked down from the harbourmaster’s tower and approached Madame Destine, stood at the far end of the docks alongside the Horus.

  ‘I think that went rather well considering,’ he said, cheerily.

  Madame Destine clung to his arm. ‘Really?’

  ‘Actually, no. Master Barnaby didn’t believe a word of what I told him about the infection. In fact, he seemed rather more concerned with how he was going to explain to the Red Arrow line that their signature steamship is now lying in pieces at the bottom of the English Channel.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Destine.

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ agreed Quaint.

  ‘So what can we do now, my sweet?’

  ‘We must return to London immediately,’ said Quaint. ‘Things are far worse than I’d feared and twice as deadly!’

  Chapter VI

  The Test of Fate

  The journey from Dover to London took far longer than Quaint had wanted, and his apprehension had increased the nearer that he got to the capital. Madame Destine’s retelling of her vision from the ship did nothing to settle his nerves, because all he could think about was the crew that he had been forced to leave behind. Three more souls that could have – should have – been saved. Quaint was nervous about a lot of things, as it went. Not only of finding Professor North, but of seeing his employees within the circus again. It had been almost two months since he had bid them farewell for Egypt, and he had felt every second of his separation.

  Near the Thames embankment, Grosvenor Park railway station was a modestly sized structure with a slatted glass roof and an atmosphere of grime and dust hanging persistently in the air. Dr Marvello’s Travelling Circus’s engine and four carriages were painted bright green with red swirling trimmings, with a yellow lightning flash adorning the sides, and they stood out somewhat amongst all the rather more sombre engines and carriages housed at the station. As Quaint approached the engine, he looked as if he was almost afraid to take another step towards it as if it might fade away before his eyes. He stroked his hand down the engine, taking a sniff of her oily cologne.

  ‘Ah, Bessie… it’s good to be home.’

  Destine smiled at his boyish wonder. ‘I’ve never seen you so attached to an inanimate object, my sweet. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Never better!’ said Quaint. ‘It’s just… I thought I’d never see her again.’

  ‘Bessie has been well cared for, Cornelius. I am sure that Barracks and Ruby have done a marvellous job on her maintenance… and is that a fresh coat of paint I smell?’

  ‘No expense spared for our return to the fold, Madame?’ smiled Quaint.

  ‘Exactement… especially as you are the one paying for it.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Quaint grumbled. ‘At least from the outside, everything looks normal enough. I guess Butter has kept everything ticking over nicely.’

  ‘Did you ever doubt that he would not keep things just so, my sweet?’

  ‘Not for a second,’ said Quaint. ‘Butter is like a faithful hound. Ever since I found the chap lying in the
snow in Greenland all those years ago, he feels that he owes me some sort of debt. If he did, he has already repaid me tenfold. I hope he doesn’t feel that I deserted him easily.’

  ‘Butter idolises you, Cornelius, and he does not have an unkind bone in his body. He will understand. Although… I admit that you may have your work cut out with some of the others, but they will all come around in time. Who knows, perhaps one day even Prometheus might forgive you.’

  ‘You think the big ox will hold a grudge?’

  ‘Cornelius, there were fisticuffs aplenty in Egypt and he missed out on it. Of course he will hold a grudge!’ Destine said. ‘Come on… let us not dawdle. We have some old friends to greet, and I cannot wait another second.’ She began to move towards the carriage door, but Quaint was fixed doggedly to the spot. ‘Cornelius? This is a happy occasion, is it not?’

  ‘It is. Yes, of course it is. But… what are we going to say?’

  ‘About what, my sweet?’

  ‘You know about what! About what happened to us!’

  ‘I presume that you refer to the magical elixir that bestowed us with eternal life?’

  ‘I do wish you wouldn’t call it magical, Destine!’ snapped Quaint. ‘Anglican alchemists devised that elixir, not warlocks or witches or other such nonsense!’

  ‘I find your definition of nonsense questionable, Cornelius,’ said Madame Destine, smiling at the stony glare of her companion. ‘You are so used to performing miracles that sometimes you fail to notice those occurring around you. You are constantly looking for hidden mirrors and trap doors, yet still you are at a loss to explain our transformation… and I know that bothers you no end.’

  Quaint began to formulate a snappy response, but then he cooled his words. He knew there was little point in arguing with the Frenchwoman – especially when she had a point. Quite annoyingly, she was always right.

  ‘Not everyone is as in touch with their spiritual side as you, Madame,’ he said, tightening his lips. ‘Our friends in there on that train… our family… know that you were poisoned a couple of months ago. They saw you on death’s door, and me shot! Yet the very next day, we were both up and about with a spring in our step as if nothing had happened, and then off we popped to Egypt as if it was all perfectly normal behaviour. Don’t you think they might regard that as a little bit odd – even for this circus?’