The next day, Wycliff was summoned to the Ministry of Unnaturals by his superior. He arrived at their offices in Whitehall to find a vacant front desk. The fledgling ministry was still in the process of hiring staff and had yet to find a secretary.
Wycliff considered requesting an office in the small, squat building. If he set up a camp bed, he could further reduce his expenditures by sleeping in his office. With nothing else to fill his days, he would be wedded to the job anyway.
He walked down the hall and rapped on a dark wood door.
“Enter,” a voice said from beyond.
Within the office, he found General Sir Manly Powers and Sir Hugh Miles deep in conversation.
“Ah, Wycliff, take a seat. Sir Hugh has some information he wishes to impart.” Sir Manly gestured to a vacant sofa before the fireplace.
“What of Miss Miles? Will she be joining us?” He cast around the room, but she didn’t appear to be hiding behind Sir Manly’s desk. He looked forward to provoking a passionate response from her in the defence of the undead like her mother.
Sir Hugh sat adjacent to Wycliff. The large man leaned forward, arms on thighs, and clasped his beefy hands together. “No. There are things about the Afflicted that Lady Miles and I do not think appropriate for Hannah to hear. Nor is it relevant to the research she undertakes. What I am about to impart to you must be kept confidential.”
“Very well. You have my full attention.” Wycliff had feared the girl might hamper his investigation and here was confirmation—there was pivotal knowledge she lacked. He rested one arm along the back of the sofa as he waited for the surgeon to begin.
“In the summer of 1813, Seraphina and two of her friends—ordinary ladies, not mages—were poisoned by a French agent. It was a cowardly assassination to prevent England’s most powerful mage from helping us to victory. All three women became violently ill almost immediately and within hours, slipped into unconsciousness. Despite my medical knowledge, I found myself powerless and no remedy made any difference to their conditions. Three days later, I held my wife in my arms as her heart stopped beating and she departed this world.” He choked over the words, as though reliving the experience.
A man who loved beyond death, Miss Miles whispered in Wycliff’s ear. He waved a hand to dismiss the phantom. “How long did Lady Miles remain that way?”
Sir Hugh unclasped his hands and stared at his palms. “Two days. I refused to allow anyone to remove her. I was not yet ready to say a final farewell to my heart’s companion. You can only imagine my joy when she sat up and said she felt…odd. Only upon a thorough examination did I discover she had returned to consciousness, but not to life.”
Information was intelligence, and Wycliff hoped that somewhere in the narration about the origins of the Afflicted were clues that would enable him to identify the murderer. “And so she became the first Afflicted. What of the other two women?”
“One had already been buried and she was hastily dug up. The experience of being entombed in a coffin permanently affected Mrs Edgar’s mind. She was hysterical when freed and her erratic fits never subsided. Lady Tennent fared somewhat better, as she still awaited burial. Her husband was alerted to her condition when she banged on the nailed coffin lid. Poor chap nearly had a heart attack.”
Sir Manly chortled to himself and his enormous curled moustache wagged up and down. “Colonel Tennent was always susceptible to frights. Never thought he should have been put in the field.”
Wycliff wanted the facts, not the embellished version more suited to a work of fiction. “Did the women immediately crave brains?”
Sir Hugh leaned forward and poured a glass of water from the decanter on the low table before them. “No. All three women were put under my care because they all felt ill and, of course, had no pulse. My superiors wanted answers, but I was fumbling in the dark to determine what had happened and how to remedy it. The French had an agent posing as a maid to poison a pot of tea, but the woman took her own life before we could question her further.”
“Your wife must have supplied some thoughts from her unique perspective?” There must be some advantage to having an undead mage working for England. She had already mentioned how her magical ability had transformed when her pulse stopped. Since she dwelt with the undead, did she look through the veil she wore from the valley of death? He had stared death in the face and even from this side, the experience had altered him.
“Seraphina said the poison was tainted with the dark arts and that she could taste it as it stole her life. Over the last three years, we have concluded it was a merging of science and black magic. Neither would have worked in isolation. That is why we work together to try to undo what has been done.” Sir Hugh sipped the water.
How did a person recognise they needed to consume human brains? The very idea was anathema and made him shudder. Vampyres, with their need to drink human blood, didn’t seem as obscene; he imagined one sipping what appeared to be red wine from a goblet. He couldn’t think of a culinary equivalent for an Afflicted except for sitting down to a meal of tripe and onions, even if Unwin and Alder labelled their product pickled cauliflower.
“When did their appetites emerge?” he asked.
Blunt fingernails tapped the side of the tumbler in Sir Hugh’s hand. “Over a period of weeks we tried a number of recipes, but the women could not stomach even the lightest broth and their bodies rejected the nourishment. Their hunger grew, but we could find nothing in the kitchens to satisfy them.”
“Not many kitchens stock brains,” Sir Manly pointed out.
“Did they deteriorate without sustenance?” The Afflicted needed to consume on a regular basis to keep the rot at bay. He had augmented his knowledge of the Afflicted thanks to his conversations with Miss Miles.
“Yes. After three weeks, I noticed the discolouration in the extremities. Their complexions took on the grey, dull appearance of the dead. They smelt of the decay nibbling at their bodies. Soldiers pressed cloths to their own faces as the odour grew and spread from our tent. Whispers grew, calling the women undead, for while they had no pulse they walked among us. I began referring to them as the Afflicted, to alleviate some of the men’s fears. The general thought it made their condition sound more medical than ungodly.”
Wycliff agreed with the common soldiers—they were ungodly. A few believed it so vehemently that they had taken to protesting outside Parliament, demanding the undead be expunged from the earth. A position that wasn’t well received when those women were closely allied to men in power. “Did all three women exhibit the same symptoms?”
“In Lady Tennent and Mrs Edgar, the rot ate their fingers, toes, and noses first. In Seraphina, it advanced up her legs at an accelerated rate. Possibly it affected her differently, since she is a mage and the others ordinary. As the flesh and muscles of her lower legs turned putrid, she begged me to remove the limbs.” Sir Hugh halted his narrative and rose from his seat. He paced for a moment or two in front of the fireplace. Then he stopped and stared at the fire burning in the grate, one hand curled on the mantel. “I was a damned fine field surgeon. I have lost count of how many amputations I have performed and of the lives I have saved. But it is another thing entirely to remove your wife’s limbs. She steadied my hand upon the saw when I would have faltered.”
“Not an easy thing when your wife is the patient, old chap. But I think the viscount here is keen to hear how you discovered what the women needed to keep them going, and how that might affect his investigation.” Sir Manly’s tone was solemn but bracing as he prodded his contemporary.
“Of course.” Sir Hugh let go of the mantel. “It was while I removed her legs that there was an incident close to camp. Our soldiers fought a decisive but messy skirmish with the enemy. I was focused on concluding the double amputation on Seraphina, and failed to notice that Mrs Edgar had escaped her captivity.”
“The battle drew her.” It took no effort for Wycliff to conjure the scene in his mind. Death had a particular stench that was hard to escape. Did the Afflicted have better noses when dead, or did their ravenous state enhance their senses?
Sir Hugh nodded. “Quite. I believe the odour attracted her. We have all seen battles—the bodies scattered with a variety of injuries. There are often blows or shots to the head and the brains of soldiers spilled over the ground. She fell upon the remains to satisfy her unnatural hunger. That was when Lady Tennent joined her friend. The odour had likewise drawn her away from camp and she, too, fell on the dead soldiers.”
War does strange things to men. Some become inured to violence, while a few are driven mad by it. While Wycliff could easily summon the memory of a battlefield strewn with fallen men, his mind shied away from imagining the desecration those women had committed. “I assume the women were discovered?”
“A group of British soldiers found them. The two of them were cracking open the skulls of the dead with rocks and shovelling handfuls of brains into their mouths.” The surgeon beat a rhythm on the mantel with his short nails, like the thrum of men marching in time.
Wycliff swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. “Even in the aftermath of a battle, that would have been a disgusting sight.”
The drumbeat fell silent and Sir Hugh’s hand dropped to his side. “The soldiers were enraged to find the women eating their fallen comrades. They opened fire. Bullets riddled their bodies, but they couldn’t stop feeding.”
How do you kill something that is already dead? “Did the soldiers cease firing when they realised bullets were ineffective?”
“Yes. So they switched to their swords.” Sir Hugh returned to the low table for his glass of water as silence dropped over the room.
There was no need for him to expand. Wycliff could fill in the blanks. He had seen men in the throes of battle rage and he suspected that little had remained of the two women once the soldiers had vented their anger. There was one point that itched in his mind, though. Bullets hadn’t stopped the women as no heart beat in their chests. Surely swords would also be ineffective? “Did swords halt their feeding frenzy?”
Sir Hugh blew out a deep breath. “Despite my studies over the last few years, I am no closer to discovering what keeps the Afflicted animated apart from saying it’s magic. We have learned that injuries that would be fatal to an ordinary person are but an inconvenience to them. Despite hacking their bodies in pieces, the women still sought to feed. Severed fingers reached for brain matter in the grass to carry like ants to lips that opened and closed, waiting to be fed. Feet shuffled to other pieces. The soldiers built a bonfire and let the flames consume what was left of Mrs Edgar and Lady Tennent.”
“And that was how you learned what they craved and that only fire can put an end to an Afflicted.” Which knowledge had led to Messieurs Unwin and Alder becoming wealthy purveyors of human brains. Many palms had been liberally greased with coin to keep that information out of the newspapers. It was something of an open secret. People knew, but didn’t want to know at the same time. The less attention it drew, the easier it was to pretend it didn’t happen. Until one of the Afflicted started dining on the servants. “As informative as this has been, how is it relevant to my current investigation?”
Sir Manly twisted one end of his fancifully curled moustache. “Murder requires a motive, Wycliff. You have been focused on an Afflicted satisfying a hunger. Sir Hugh is expanding your knowledge of potential motives.”
The large surgeon laced his fingers together. “When I had finished amputating Seraphina’s legs, she urged me to go investigate. She said the smell was making her stomach grumble and was most compelling and, at long last, she thought it might be something she could eat. I found the soldiers disposing of her companions. From what I saw, even in their dismembered state, the wounds were beginning to heal. If they had not been burned, I believe the women would have pieced themselves back together. The craving is the body’s way of signalling what they needed in order to heal.”
The French had it within their power to create an army that could never be stopped. Soldiers who would keep on fighting even when dismembered. Yet they had used that power to contaminate face powder instead. No wonder they’d lost the war.
Wycliff thought through the implications. “The Afflicted murderer could be seeking to heal a wound. You did suggest that last night.”
“It would need to be a wound large enough that the Afflicted’s usual ration is insufficient. On the Peninsula, I took a brain back to our tent and mixed it with oats. I fed it to Seraphina and told her it was something the men were cooking outside. As she consumed the gruel, the amputation wounds healed completely. It did not reverse the older rot, though. An excess can heal recent wounds, but not anything older than a few weeks.”
“An injury, then, that is perhaps less than a month old and serious enough to require two fresh brains, but located somewhere that it could be concealed to escape notice in company.” Or had the murderer consumed more? Wycliff had enquired of the Runners and magistrates for information about murders in London over the last month that might be similar.
“Yes, given the level of feeding, I would say a rather large and nasty wound. I’m not sure how they could hide it and still attend the Loburn ball.” Sir Hugh unclasped his hands to wave them in the air several inches apart, as though imagining the size of such an injury.
This was information Wycliff could use. The murderer would seek to conceal such an injury, but there might be signs in the way they carried or conducted themselves. “If they have now healed, they will be impossible to find.”
“Unless there is another murder,” Sir Hugh said. “Or another motive.”
Wycliff narrowed his eyes at the former field surgeon. “Another motive? What are you not telling me?”
“One of the soldiers later remarked upon the scene on the battlefield. The women were making moaning noises as they ate. He likened it to the sounds of pleasure his wife made during the marital act.” Sir Hugh’s bushy eyebrows rose up and down.
Wycliff’s eyebrows shot up in silent conversation with Sir Hugh’s. “They found pleasure in the act of consumption?”
“Most of the Afflicted I have studied report a sense of enjoyment or fulfilment upon consuming their daily sliver. A feeling such as you or I might experience when savouring a fine brandy at the end of the day. The two unfortunate companions of Seraphina are the only examples we have of such wanton excess. Given that they had gone weeks without any sustenance, I cannot say if their frenzy was the result of trying to heal or if they were driven by pleasure. I’m sure you can extrapolate the heightened sensation an Afflicted may find in gluttony.”
Now he understood why they had kept such knowledge from Miss Miles. Hardly an appropriate discussion to have with a maiden who would not understand the type of bliss derived. He had thought he hunted a murderer who sought to sate an appetite. He might still be right—he just had the wrong type of appetite. “Could an Afflicted become addicted to large feedings, such as a person who takes laudanum regularly?”
Sir Hugh refilled his glass from the pitcher on the low table. “The majority of the Afflicted are able to control their habit, as might most of us with alcohol or laudanum. But just as some men become opium addicts or drunkards, there is a deficit of character that makes a very few of the Afflicted unable to control their appetite.”
What danger to society did the Afflicted women represent? “At the Loburn ball you told me of similar murders committed two years ago. What happened to those who could not control their hunger?”
Sir Manly and Sir Hugh exchanged a long glance.
“We have a location where they are interred, so as not to be a danger to the general population,” Sir Manly answered. “After the murders, we quickly identified and removed those Afflicted who could not control themselves and who presented a danger to others.”
Wycliff stored the information away. He might have been looking at the problem from the wrong angle. Instead of looking for an Afflicted behind in their bill, he might need to look for any with recent injuries or one who exhibited a tendency to addiction when alive. Or perhaps, one who had escaped this carefully undisclosed location. “Could one have escaped and continued their murder spree?”
“No. Lady Miles erected wards around the property and there is a constant guard. No one goes in or out without our knowledge,” Sir Manly said.
Then someone had escaped their net two years ago. But how had they gone undetected for so long? “I asked Miss Miles if there was any difference to an Afflicted whether they consumed the brain of an aftermage or an ordinary individual. She did not know, but is this also intelligence you have withheld from her?”
Sir Hugh huffed. “No. I keep very little from Hannah. That is not a line of enquiry we have thought to pursue. On the Peninsula, we simply didn’t have the records or the time to verify the origins of the donors I used to keep Seraphina in a stable condition. It is a possibility. You would also need to factor in that the murderer is consuming these minds fresh, whereas what Unwin and Alder supply is pickled.”
“Both victims were aftermages,” Wycliff told them. “The Loburn footman was seventh generation, his ability described by his fellow servants as a vague tingling when someone upstairs required him. The cloakroom attendant possessed fifth-generation magic.” There were so many strands to this tangled web. Which ones were relevant and would lead him to the killer?
Sir Hugh frowned as he considered the possibility. “If there is indeed a difference in the type of mind consumed, then it is possible our murderer may have developed a taste for magic.”
Wycliff tugged at the thread, testing whether it would unravel or entangle him further. “And following that line, they may want to dine on something more powerful next time. How many third-generation aftermages are there in London?”
Sir Manly blew out a breath that made the waxed ends of his moustache quiver. “Too many to watch them all.”
At least Miss Miles wouldn’t be a target. The children of mages were as ordinary and powerless as those without a mage ancestor.
No, a voice whispered from the depths of his mind. She isn’t ordinary. Far from it.