The Isle of Blood

He stepped around me to the table and said briskly, sounding more like his old self, “Well, what’s done is done. You’ve seen it; you might as well lend a hand. And to answer your question—”

“My question, sir?”

“The one you did not ask. It is empty, Will Henry.”

He set to work methodically, his excitement betrayed only in his eyes. Oh, how those dark eyes danced with delight! He was wholly in his unholy element now. This was his raison d’être, the world of blood and umbrage that is monstrumology.

“Hand me the loupe, and I’ll need you to hold the light for me, Will Henry. Close now, but not too close! Here, put on these gloves. Always wear gloves. Don’t forget.”

He slipped on the loupe and cinched the headband tight. The thick lens made his eye appear absurdly large in proportion to his face. He leaned over the “gift” from John Kearns while I directed the light upon its glistening irregular surface.

He did not move the object; we rotated around it. He stopped several times in our circuit around the table, bringing his nose dangerously close to the surface of the thing, transfixed by minutiae invisible to my naked eye.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “So beautiful!”

“What is?” I wondered aloud. I couldn’t help myself. “What is this thing, Dr. Warthrop?”

He straightened, pressing his hands against the small of his back, wincing, for he had been stooping for nearly an hour.

“This?” he asked, his voice quavering with exhilaration. “This, William Henry, is the answer to a prayer unspoken.”

Though I hardly understood what he meant, I did not press him to elaborate. Monstrumologists, I had learned, do not pray to the same gods we do.

“Come along,” he cried, turning abruptly on his heel and racing up the stairs. “And bring the lamp. The morphine should be wearing off soon, and it’s imperative that we eliminate Mr. Kendall as a suspect.”

A suspect? I wondered. A suspect of

what?

In the parlor the doctor candhed before the supine man, who was now groaning, arms crossed over his chest, eyes rolling beneath the fluttering lids. Warthrop pressed his gloved fingers against the man’s neck, listened to Kendall’s heart, and then pried open both of the man’s eyelids to stare into his jittery, unseeing eyes.

“Beside me, here, Will Henry.”

I went to my knees beside him and shone the light into Kendall’s jerking orbs. The doctor bent very low, so close, their noses almost touched, creating the absurd tableau of a kiss suspended. He murmured something; it sounded like Latin. “Oculus Dei!”

“What are you looking for?” I whispered. “You said he wasn’t poisoned.”

“I said he wasn’t poisoned by Kearns. There are three distinct sets of fingerprints infixed in the sputum coagulate. Someone has handled it—three ‘someones,’ apparently—and I doubt John was one of them. He knows better.”

“It’s poisonous?”

“To put it mildly,” the doctor answered. “If the stories have an ounce of truth.”

“What stories?”

He did not turn from his task, but he sighed heavily. The doctor was like most men in this at least. He was not adept in performing two things at once.

“The stories of the nidus, Will Henry, and of the pwdre ser. Now you are going to ask, ‘What is a nidus?’ and ‘What is pwdre ser?’ But I beg you to hold your questions for now; I’m trying to think.”

After a moment he stood up. He regarded his accidental patient for another moment or two. Then he turned and stared silently at me for another two or three.

“Yes, sir?” I said with a tremulous little gulp. The heavy silence and his unreadable expression unnerved me.

“I don’t see that we have a choice, Will Henry,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know for certain he’s touched it, and the stories may be nothing more than superstition and tall tales, but it’s better to err on the side of caution. Run upstairs and strip the bed in the guest room, and we’re going to need some sturdy rope. I should give him another dose of morphine, I suppose.”

“Rope, sir?”

“Yes, rope. Twenty-four or -five feet should be enough; we can cut it to fit. Well, what are you waiting for? Snap to, Will Henry. Oh, and one more thing,” he called after me. I paused at the door. “Just as a precaution… get my revolver.”

In another half hour it was done. Wymond Kendall lay spread-eagled upon a bare mattress, stripped to his undergarments, bound by wrists and ankles to the four posters, and beside him was the monstrumologist, who had decided to postpond his uher dose of morphine, though he kept the syringe close—in case, he confessed, his faith in the probity of our species was misplaced.

Kendall moaned deep in his throat. Then his eyes fluttered open. Warthrop rose from his chair, his hand dropping casually into his coat pocket, where I’d seen him slip the gun. He offered the disoriented soul what I call the Warthropian smile—thin-lipped, awkward; more of a grimace than a grin.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Kendall?”

“I am cold.”