The Isle of Blood (Monstrumologist)

nothing else.

You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars.

You may not understand what I mean.

You will.

A sallow-faced little man was waiting for us in the lobby of our hotel, the Great Western at Paddington Station, upon our arrival in London. He wore a topcoat of Harris Tweed over a cashmere suit and sported the worst haircut I had ever seen; his hair looked as if someone had hacked at it with a dull knife. I would later learn that Dr. Hiram Walker had been a barber—among other things; he’d once made a go of sheep farming—before entering the field of aberrant biology. He had bid adieu to all of his customers except one: himself. He smoked a pipe, walked with a cane, hummed nervously through his nose, and regarded the world through small, shifty eyes, like a cornered rat. Those eyes lighted for a moment upon the powerful physique of Jacob Torrance with undisguised distaste; clearly he was not pleased.

“Torrance,” he said in a nasally British accent. “I did not expect to see you.”

“Or you would have brought me a small token of your affection?”

“Hemmm,” Walker whined through his alphorn nose. His gaze darted bird-quick to me. “And who is this?”

“This is Will Henry, the son of Warthrop’s former assistant, James,” answered von Helrung, laying a hand upon my shoulder.

“I am Dr. Warthrop’s apprentice,” I said.

“Ah, yes. Quite. I seem to remember seeing you about at the last congress. Come to fetch your master, have you?” He turned to von Helrung without waiting for a reply. “The matter has proved more complicated than I first reported, Dr. von Helrung. They are refusing to release him.”

A bushy white eyebrow rose slowly toward the old man’s hairline. “What do you mean?”

Walker’s restless eyes roamed the crowded lobby.

“Perhaps we should find a spot with a bit more privacy. Since receiving your telegram, I’ve had the unshakable impression that I am being followed.”

We went up to our rooms on the third floor, overlooking Praed Street, where von Helrung ordered a pot of tea. Torrance requested something stronger for himself, but his old teacher preferred that his former pupil keep his wits about him.

“Whiskey is what keeps them,” Torrance protested. He winked at Walker. “The stable to the wild stallion my erudition.”

Hiram Walker answered with a disdainful sniff. “I am surprised every time I see you, Torrance.”

“Really? And why is that, Sir Hiram?”

“Because it is reasonable to assume you have been killed in a bar fight. And stop calling me that.” He sipped his tea and said to von Helrung, “It is outside their protocol to release a patient to anyone outside the immediate family without an order from a magistrate or upon the recommendation of the attending physician.”

“But surely you explained to them the circumstances of the case?” asked von Helrung. “He is confined under false pretenses.”

Walker shook his head. “I explained nothing. I made only the most general of inquiries, since I do not know the precise circumstances of the case. Hewas brought there, I was told, by his nephew, a Mr. Noah Boatman—”

Torrance guffawed. “Noah Boatman! Boatman—Arkwright. Ingenious.”

“May I continue? Thank you. A Mr. Noah Boatman, who claimed his ‘uncle’ had suffered a complete mental collapse, brought about by the recent death of his wife, who was mauled to death by a tiger—”

“By a what?” interrupted von Helrung.

“A tiger. A Bengal tiger, while visiting her sister in India. He believed himself to be, according to the nephew, an American monster hunter by the name of Pellinore Warthrop. His real name was William James Henry, and— Please, Torrance, would you be quiet? Von Helrung, perhaps we should order him up some whiskey—a gallon, so he can drink until he passes out. Now, what was I saying?”

“You’ve told us enough,” von Helrung said with a heavy sigh. “The rest is not difficult to guess. Mein Freund obliged the devious schemer by insisting he was an American monster hunter named Pellinore Warthrop. Thus, by telling the truth he validates the lie!”

“But there is more, Dr. von Helrung. And here it gets rather… well, bizarre. Warthrop also claimed, according to my sources, that his ‘nephew’ is a British double agent in the employ of the Russian secret police.”

“That’s it!” cried Torrance, leaping from his chair. Walker flinched, as if expecting a full frontal assault. A bit of tea sloshed from his cup. “‘They’ll hunt me down like a dog,’ he said,” Torrance continued. “It’s the first set, von Helrung!”

“Who?” asked von Helrung. “Who is the first set?”

“Okhranka! Oh, he’s a devil, this John Kearns! Of course. I am a fool for not seeing it. No wonder Arkwright was frightened to the point of soiling himself. That explains the fear, and the fact that he was a double agent explains the bravado. I’m guessing now that the Brits don’t even know about the nidus. It’s a Russian job through and through.”

“The nidus?” Walker echoed, his small eyes widening by half.

“I spoke out of turn,” said Torrance, with an abashed look toward von Helrung, whose cheeks had gone ruddy.