Secret Histories 10: Dr. DOA (15 page)

“No,” I said immediately.

“Why not?” said Molly.

“Because this is no time to be making enemies,” I said. “Let’s go. We have things to do and a deadline to beat. If we can find Dr DOA and bring him down, at least we can avenge his past victims. And prevent any new ones.”

“That’s not enough,” said Molly.

“No,” I said. “It isn’t. But it’s what we’ve got.”

No Greater Love

A
s so often happens with the members of my family, I felt the need to hide something from them. So I gave Molly a significant look, and just casually announced to the Librarian that I was going to look for a book in the stacks before I left. William regarded me with a certain amount of surprise, not to mention suspicion.

“Of course,” he said. “Tell me which book, and I’ll have Yorith locate it and bring it here.”

“I’m interested in a particular field,” I said. “Rather than a particular book. Think I’ll just browse for a while. Run my fingers across a few spines, see what I can turn up.”

“You’re up to something,” the Librarian said resignedly. “Full of obscure poisons and half-dead on your feet, and you still won’t be straight with me.” He smiled suddenly. “Typical Drood. Off you go, Eddie. Do what you have to. But if you so much as dog-ear a single page, I’ll have your guts for bindings.”

He busied himself with the volume before him, leafing through the heavy oversized pages with thunderous concentration; so he could honestly tell the Matriarch he had no idea what I was up to. Yorith
dropped me a wink, and disappeared back into the stacks with his list. I led Molly into a whole different area of the Old Library. She waited more or less patiently until she was sure we were out of the Librarian’s hearing, and then tapped me sternly on the shoulder.

“A book? Really? That was the best excuse you could come up with?”

“The choices are somewhat limited in a Library,” I said. “I could have volunteered to do some dusting, but I think he would have seen through that. Besides, there’s dust here that hasn’t moved since the Venerable Bede decided to jot down a few odd thoughts. I have a horrible suspicion some of it might fight back.”

“What are we about to do that we don’t want the Librarian to know about?” said Molly. “Crack open a book that’s been sealed for centuries and write rude comments in the margins? Steal something? What?”

“I’m going to use the Merlin Glass to transport us directly to the Wulfshead Club,” I said.

“Okay . . . And why do we need to be so secretive about that?”

“Because technically speaking, I’m not supposed to have it. On the family’s orders, I handed the Glass over to my uncle Jack shortly before his death, so he could examine it. But he didn’t have time. He left the Glass to me, unofficially. The Librarian knows, because Jack trusted him to give me the Glass. But the Matriarch probably still thinks it’s in the Armoury, somewhere. And I think I’ll feel just that little bit more secure, having an advantage the Matriarch doesn’t know about.”

Molly nodded slowly. “I don’t want to go to the club, Eddie. Not yet. There’s somewhere else I think we ought to try first. Isabella once told me about this very private medical establishment just off Harley Street. The Peter Paul Clinic. I really believe they can help you.”

I looked at her thoughtfully. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of the place. And Harley Street and its environs used to be part of my regular beat, back when I was a field agent for London. Is it new?”

“Sort of,” said Molly. “And very specialized.”

She met my gaze steadily as I thought that over. She’d never been good at lying to me, but she’d always been very good at misdirection.

“What kind of specialists are we talking about here, Molly?”

“Hopeless cases,” said Molly. “Lost causes. If I’m remembering correctly, they have a really good track record when it comes to saving people everyone else had given up on.”

“Why didn’t you mention them before?”

“Because it’s a long shot, all right? And quite definitely illegal; not something I want to be discussing in front of your high-and-mighty relatives. They wouldn’t approve.”

“Ah,” I said. “One of those establishments . . . Look, Molly, thanks for the thought, but I’m really not keen on wasting time on possible miracle cures. Not when my time’s so short.”

“You can’t just give up!” said Molly. “You can’t just assume you’re going to die! Please, Eddie; I really think they can help you. Listen to me. Let me help you. You have to let me help you.”

“All right,” I said. “For you, Molly.”

She was right. I had given up. I was going to die, just like all of Dr DOA’s victims. I’d come to terms with that. All I had left was one last chance for justice and revenge. But if it would keep Molly happy, to chase after some quack’s home-made remedy, then I’d go along. For now.

I reached into the pocket dimension I keep inside my trouser pocket, and brought out the Merlin Glass. Just a simple hand mirror, at first glance; an oval glass in a scrolled-silver back and handle. Nothing you’d look at twice in an antiques shop. I was always surprised at how light it felt in my hand, given how much historical weight it carried. But that’s often the way, in the hidden world. It’s always the most dangerous things that like to look most innocent. Mr Hyde, spying on the world through the eyes of Dr Jekyll. Molly looked dubiously at the Merlin Glass, not quite turning up her nose.

“You really believe we can trust that thing? Given how many times
it’s let you down? It’s almost like the Glass has developed a mind of its own. Along with a really nasty sense of humour.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” I said. “Considering who made it. But we don’t have a choice. You’ve burned through a lot of magics today. A cross-country teleport spell would wipe you out; wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe,” said Molly, not giving way in the least. “I could still surprise you.”

“You always do,” I said generously. “But this is not the time for you to be left defenceless. Once word gets out that I’m . . . weakened, you can be sure vultures will start to gather. Like the Manichean Monk on the airship. If my family’s enemies smell blood in the water and come looking for me with trouble in mind . . . I’m going to need you strong enough to protect me. For when I can’t.”

“All right!” said Molly. “I get it! When did you get so damned pessimistic, Eddie?”

“Right after I found out I was dying,” I said.

“You’re not dead yet!”

“No, I’m not. I’m just being practical. So, we go with the Glass. Yes?”

“Even after everything the Librarian just said about it?”

“Nothing I didn’t already know,” I said. “And given how many times I’ve already used the Glass, I think if it was going to do something really nasty, it would have done it by now.”

“But what if it is guarding something?” said Molly. She looked at the Glass in my hand as if it were a snake that had just started hissing. “You’ve said before . . . there have been times when you were convinced there was another presence in the Glass.”

“As long as it doesn’t turn out to be a Victorian girl with long blonde hair, or an Oxford mathematics genius . . .”

“If it was up to me, I’d exorcise that Glass with a specially blessed mallet,” said Molly.

I held the hand mirror up before me. Molly looked over my shoulder,
crowding in close. All I could see in the reflection were Molly and me. I looked tired and drawn; she looked . . . stretched thin. I made myself concentrate, studying every detail carefully and looking for something, anything, out of place. The angel had only confirmed what I’d suspected for some time now: When I looked at myself in the Glass, I wasn’t the only one looking back from the other side of the mirror. I didn’t say anything to Molly. I didn’t want her upset. Because the angel had been right, about death hovering over me . . .

In the end, what I thought or felt didn’t matter. We had to use the Merlin Glass to get around because we had a lot of ground to cover. And not much time to do it in.

Molly looked behind her several times, comparing the scene in the mirror with reality, and finally shrugged.

“All right, Eddie. Let’s do it. Maybe we are worrying about nothing . . .”

“That would make a nice change,” I said.

I shook the Glass out to the size of a Door, and instructed it to show us Harley Street. Our reflection was gone in a moment, replaced by a view I recognised immediately; it was the scene half-way down one of the most exclusive, not to mention expensive, streets in London. Where you could find all kinds of doctors and surgeons, alternative therapies and outright quackeries; science and magic and more weird shit than you could shake a caduceus at. Remedies from the Past and the Future, presented by highly qualified men and women with arcane areas of knowledge, professional smiles, and the souls of accountants. Medicine without limits, if you could afford it. Given some of the more outré establishments I remembered from Harley Street, it was just possible someone there might be able to help me.

I felt the first faint twinge of hope, like sensation returning to a numbed extremity. Painful, but encouraging.

People hurried up and down the crowded pavements with stressed and preoccupied faces, intent on their own business and unaware of
the opening the Merlin Glass had made. It’s always been good at covering its tracks. I stepped through into Harley Street with Molly treading on my heels.

London, in the evening. Amber street lights under a darkening sky already speckled with stars, and the thin sliver of a new moon. The fresh chilly air was a relief after the close atmosphere of the Old Library. No one in the street saw us arrive—one of the more useful side effects of the Glass. If they noticed us at all, they just assumed we must have arrived the same way they did, quietly and surreptitiously. Because no one comes to Harley Street for trivial matters, or the kind of problem one wishes to discuss with family and friends. I shook the Glass back down to hand-mirror size, and slipped it into my pocket.

There wasn’t a lot of traffic around; it was mostly black taxicabs dropping off important people. Who stared straight ahead as they headed for their destination by the shortest possible route. And if by some unfortunate chance they should happen to bump into someone they knew, both parties would have the good manners not to acknowledge each other.

An ambulance raced down the road, lights and sirens going. The taxis pulled aside to let it pass. Everyone paused to watch the ambulance go by like it was an albatross, a harbinger of doom. They watched till it was out of sight, and only then started moving again. Breathing a little more easily because the shadow of death had passed them by. Another soldier had stopped the bullet.

“I prefer the ambulances you see in old movies,” I said. “When they had ringing bells, instead of sirens. A far more pleasant sound.”

“People don’t tend to get out of the way of pleasant sounds,” said Molly.

“You’re so practical,” I said.

“One of us has to be,” said Molly.

I looked around. “So, where is this Peter Paul Clinic?”

“Not far.”

“Walking distance?”

“Of course!” said Molly.

“Then let’s get a move on,” I said. “We have things to be about.”

Molly looked at me. “More important than this?”

“Probably,” I said.

“Don’t you have any faith in me?” said Molly.

“In you,” I said.

We set off. Harley Street is basically two long rows of Georgian terraces, tall, narrow establishments crowded together, with astronomically high rents to keep out the riff-raff. Carefully anonymous facades hide all kinds of security measures, to protect patients’ privacy. Lots of doors, but hardly any nameplates. Either you knew who and what you were looking for, or you were probably in the wrong place. Most of the heavy, secretly reinforced doors would only open to buzzers after you’d murmured the right passWords. And even then, you had to get past the heavily armed receptionist.

I looked around, taking it all in. Being in Harley Street again brought back memories.

“All right,” said Molly. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“Just thinking of the last time I was here,” I said. “I’d been sent to track down an important politician who’d made the mistake of going walkabout in the darker backstreets of Bangkok. Where he had a very close encounter with a lady thing. As a result of which he’d ended up pregnant, with the exact opposite of a love child. My family had seen
Rosemary’s Baby
and
The Omen
, so I was sent here to terminate the pregnancy with extreme prejudice.”

“Eddie!” said Molly. “You didn’t . . .”

“No, of course I didn’t,” I said. “Just shot him with an ice needle made from holy water. That did the trick. My life was so much simpler then.”

I raised my Sight to check what was really going on around me in
the hidden world. If Humanity could see who and what it shares this world with every day . . . Humanity would crap itself. Though it has to be said, Harley Street was a special case. With so much Life and Death around, and so many unnatural procedures constantly being practised, the balance between the two states has been seriously disturbed. All kinds of weird shit tend to congregate in Harley Street, and even weirder people.

Ghosts walked in and out of buildings, some of which weren’t there any more. Images trapped in loops of repeating Time, like insects in amber. A group of teenage girl vampires, in heavy caked makeup to hide their industrial-strength sunblock, came trotting down the street in dark goth outfits, hiding in plain sight. An alien Grey walked hand in hand with a Reptiloid—Romeo and Juliet from outer space. Moments like that give me hope. A demonic half-breed in a Savile Row suit and an Old School Tie smiled at me as he recognised my torc. Hellfire burned briefly in his eyes. It looked like he was about to say something, but then he caught Molly’s gaze and thought better of it. The hellspawn bowed politely, and moved on, its shadow hurrying to catch up.