Page 13 of The Journal of a Thousand Years (The Glass Library #6)

CHAPTER 13

“ L et him go!” I cried. “He’ll die if you don’t stop draining his blood.”

When Frank Alcott didn’t move, I tried to push past Alex and Willie to reach Gabe. Alex caught me, pinning my arms to my sides.

“Don’t,” he whispered in my ear. “We can’t lose you, too.”

Too .

I closed my eyes. I wouldn’t concede defeat. Gabe’s life was too precious. I loved him. I’d loved him from the moment I’d met him at the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition. I would do anything to save him.

But Alex was right. Rushing in would achieve nothing but a bullet in my head.

I opened my eyes, only to find myself staring into the barrel of Alcott’s gun. If there was a way to free Gabe and not sacrifice any of our lives to do so, I could not yet see it. I willed my mind to focus and not give in to the fog of fear and despair lurking at the edges.

Willie swore at Alcott. “Are you mad? You’re going to kill him!”

Alcott adjusted his grip on the gun. The former orderly didn’t look mad. Nor did he seem cruel. He looked like an ordinary man who was utterly convinced he was doing the right thing. “Stanley told me a man can lose a lot of blood without dying. He knows what he’s doing. He was a doctor before the war took everything from him.”

“He was a medical student !” Willie snarled. “He wasn’t qualified.”

That appeared to be news to Alcott, but he didn’t lower the gun. “I am sorry, but I can’t let him go.”

“Why not?” Alex asked as he released me. “I just want to understand.” Compared to Willie, he sounded calm, and genuinely interested in Alcott. It was his way to lull a suspect to get them to lower their guard.

Alcott seemed relieved to have a chance to explain. “Mr. Glass is too important. His blood could be the key to unlocking the secret of his time magic.”

“That ain’t how magic works, you ignorant moron!” Willie cried.

Alex hissed at her to be quiet. She bit down on her lower lip in an attempt to stop it trembling. When her teeth released it, they left behind indentations.

“She’s right,” Alex told Alcott. “You can’t extract magic from a magician and transfer it into someone else along with the blood.”

“Stanley says it might be possible, but only testing the blood will give answers.”

“He’s not basing that on fact. Don’t believe him.”

“It is based on fact.”

“Gabe isn’t a magician, anyway.”

“Stanley says he is. He observed Mr. Glass in the trenches and realized he was saving himself somehow. Bullets and bombs didn’t hit him, or his friends. That was strange, but not the strangest thing. You see, Mr. Glass would be in one spot then a blink of an eye later, after the bomb had gone off or the spray of bullets ended, he’d be somewhere else. Sometimes he’d even be in the enemy trench, having captured the Jerry shooting at them. No one knew how he got there. No one saw him move.”

“It’s difficult to notice details under fire.”

“Stanley was—is—a scientist. It’s in his nature to notice things, and to experiment. So that’s what he did after he was discharged from Rosebank. He ran tests, and saw that Mr. Glass reacted instinctively when his life or that of someone he cared about was threatened.” His gaze slid to me then back to Alex. “He didn’t save himself consciously. He had no control. It just happened. Just like some diseases that are carried and transferred by blood. The mind can’t will them away. The body can’t always fight them off. Usually a cure requires medical intervention, or death is inevitable. Stanley noticed the parallels between some diseases and Mr. Glass’s magic and thinks doctors can learn how to transfer the magic from Mr. Glass into others along with a blood transfusion, the way some diseases are transferred.”

“Stanley’s theory is flawed. It’s widely known that magicians are born. Magic isn’t in their blood. It’s their essence. Like a soul,” he added, grasping at the analogy.

Alcott jerked his thumb at Gabe. “He’s not a normal magician. No one knows why his magic is different, but the why doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is different, and so it needs to be studied to understand it. If the blood does carry his magic, and it can be extracted and recreated by scientists in a laboratory, imagine the benefits! Every British soldier could be given a transfusion before going into battle. Their chances of survival would increase enormously if time slowed for them when they were in danger.”

That was a specific, and somewhat unexpected example, given what we knew about Stanley Greville. He suffered shell shock from the war. Why did he want to help the military justify sending more troops into battle? Was it about money, after all? The government would pay extremely well for medicine that could give men life-saving magic. Either we’d been wrong about Stanley’s motives, or Alcott’s reasons were different.

Willie swore again. “You’d kill Gabe to make a cure for something that’s not even a disease? For something that won’t even work?”

Mr. Alcott shook his head. “He’ll be fine. Stanley doesn’t want him to die.”

“Look at him! He can’t afford to lose any more blood.”

Alex put a hand out to calm her, and addressed Alcott. “I’ve seen men who’ve lost too much blood. Gabe—” His voice cracked with emotion. He cleared his throat. “Gabe looks like them.”

Mr. Alcott hesitated, then shook his head. “Trust Stanley. He’s a good man. He only wants what’s best for as many people as possible.”

Willie scoffed. “At the expense of Gabe’s life!”

“If he does die, then it’s for the greater good. Why don’t you want to save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives?” He shook his head at her, chastising her for her selfishness.

Willie stared at him, speechless.

I took the opportunity to try and reason with Alcott. “Did you enlist?”

He blinked, taken aback by my question. “I was a stretcher-bearer. My two younger brothers fought.” The sudden shudder of his chin encouraged me to continue. I was on the right path.

“Does one of them suffer shell shock, like Stanley?”

“One does. The other…” He swallowed. “He didn’t make it.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss. I lost my brother, too. I miss him.”

A wave of emotion washed over me, as it often did when I thought about James. We had been so close, because of our family’s constant moves, our cold mother, and our absent father. He’d been my friend, protector, confidant and guide. There would always be a sense of something missing in my life without him in it.

“I understand that you wish you could do something to help your shell-shocked brother,” I went on. “But this is not the way.” I indicated Gabe, although I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. My nerves were shredded and I knew they’d break completely if I saw his vulnerable form again.

“It’s not just the shell shock,” he said. “It’s the deaths…the senseless loss of life. It’s too late to help the ones who fought in this war, but there will be other wars, and there are many still employed by the military. We can save them. It might take years, but it begins with him, with studying his blood. Stanley has assured me he will recover.”

“He won’t if too much blood is taken. You say Stanley believes he won’t take a life-endangering amount, but if that’s so, why didn’t he just ask Gabe to donate it? He could have given just a little over a safe period of time rather than all at once in this filthy hovel. The field tests at the races, the kidnap, the secrecy, all point to Stanley believing Gabe will die from this process and he doesn’t want to be arrested for murder.”

Alcott’s head turned ever so slightly in Gabe’s direction without breaking the connection with us altogether. My words had made an impact. Doubts were setting in.

Alex and Willie were utterly silent. I couldn’t even hear them breathing. Perhaps they didn’t dare for fear of startling Alcott, forcing him to double down on his denials.

“Please,” I begged. “You can’t murder one man to save others. It’s not right. Gabe’s life is no less valuable than anyone else’s.”

“It’s mathematical,” he told me. “That’s what Stanley said. One man to save thousands.” Alcott readjusted his grip on the gun handle and squared his shoulders. It was an argument I’d already lost.

I abandoned it. I had one more card to play. It was my last hope. If I didn’t crack the shell and get through to him after that, then I had no more. The only recourse left was for one of us to charge at Alcott and draw his fire away from the other two who would rescue Gabe. It was a dreadful choice to make. My next words had to work.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Are your parents still alive, Mr. Alcott?”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “My mother is.”

“Do you remember her reaction to your brother’s death?”

“I wasn’t there. I was still in France.”

“But you did see her, later. I’m sure the pain of losing her son didn’t dull in that time. I’m sure it still feels very raw for her, and very painful.” He lowered the gun a few inches, as if it were suddenly heavy. “Would you inflict that pain on Gabe’s parents? He’s their only child.”

The gun lowered further. It was now aimed at my legs in a loose grip. Alcott’s gaze turned distant, and immeasurably sad.

I tilted my head in the direction of Alex and Willie. “Would you inflict that pain on his friends? On his…his fiancée?”

He gave no sign that he knew it was a lie, and that Gabe had ended his engagement. He simply lowered the gun all the way to his side.

Alex rushed forward and grabbed Alcott’s wrist. He disarmed Alcott before I’d even moved.

Willie raced to the bed and pressed a hand on the gash at Gabe’s inner elbow, then raised his arm to direct the blood to flow back the other way. As an ambulance driver in the war, she’d picked up a thing or two from the medical staff.

“Find something to use as a tourniquet,” she said as she set aside the blood-filled bowl. “Sylvia!”

Her bark snapped me to attention. The knot securing the rope tying Gabe to the bedhead was complicated, but I managed to undo it. I wrapped it around his arm, making sure it was tight, then tied it. Now that I was close, I could see the web of blue veins on his pale eyelids and feel his clammy skin. He was cold.

I fetched his jacket from where it had slipped off the chair to the floor and placed it over him, then I sat beside him on the bed and drew him against me, tucking his head under my chin. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him there, warming him, willing him to wake up and reassure me that he was fine. But his eyes remained closed, and his heart fluttered like a trapped butterfly’s wings, weak yet dangerously rapid.

Willie removed her jacket, too, and settled it around him. Then she marched up to Frank Alcott, held at gunpoint by Alex, and punched him in the stomach.

He grunted and doubled over.

Outside, a woman shouted, “Oi! This is private property!”

A male voice responded, but I couldn’t hear what he said. Moments later, footsteps thundered up the staircase.

Alex moved so he could keep Alcott in his line of sight while pointing the gun at the door. He lowered it when a constable barged into the room, followed by two more and a sergeant.

Willie thrust her hands on her hips. “It’s about time!”

The sergeant nodded at Alcott. “Is this the perpetrator?”

“One of them,” Alex said. “He was just about to tell us where his colleague is.”

Alcott shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

Willie balled her hand into a fist, ready to strike again. “You damn well can!”

“I mean I don’t know where he is. He didn’t tell me where he was going.”

“Is he at the Royal London Hospital? In their research laboratories, testing the first batch of Gabe’s blood?”

Alcott shrugged.

I glanced at the bowl. My stomach rolled violently, but I managed not to throw up. I tightened my arms around Gabe. “Speaking of hospitals, Gabe needs a doctor.”

The vibration of my voice must have stirred him. He murmured something I couldn’t quite hear and lifted his head, but the effort seemed too much for him and he rested it against my chest again. That small movement made my heart explode with relief.

I cupped his face and titled it so I could look at him better. Seeing his clear green eyes peer back at me shattered the remaining vestiges of my self-control. Tears rolled down my cheeks. “Hello.”

“Hello.” His voice was barely audible, but it was the most wonderful sound. “Where…?”

“You’re sitting on a filthy bed in a Whitechapel tenement owned by Stanley Greville. Frank Alcott, a former orderly who worked at Rosebank, is being arrested as we speak, and we’re about to take you to hospital. You’ve lost a lot of blood.

“Stanley…” he murmured. “Why?”

“It’s a long story, but you can ask him yourself when you’re better.”

He tried to sit up, but couldn’t, and slumped against me again. A shiver wracked him. “Cold in here.”

“Someone fetch an ambulance from the Royal London Hospital,” I said.

Willie shook her head. “That’s a bad idea.”

The sergeant agreed. “It’ll be faster if you take him in your vehicle.”

“I meant taking him to the Royal London is a bad idea. Stanley could be there. We have to take Gabe somewhere else.”

“It’s the closest hospital,” Alex said.

Willie had a stubborn look about her. I’d witnessed it before. She wouldn’t be moved from her stance. I never thought I’d be so happy to see her return to her demanding, fiery, somewhat irritating self. I wanted to hug her.

She would have voiced further opposition if Gabe hadn’t tried standing, only to find he was too weak. He collapsed back onto the bed.

Alex and one of the constables helped him up, propping him between them. “He needs immediate medical attention, Willie,” Alex said. “The Royal London is closest.”

Willie bit her lip, no longer so sure of herself.

I put an arm around her waist. “We’ll take him to the Royal London and have him assessed. If he requires a transfusion, we’ll all stay and keep guard. If not, we’ll take him home to rest and have his usual doctor check him there.”

She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “His usual doctor went to America with Matt and India, but his colleague will come. All right, we’ll go to the Royal London first. But I ain’t letting Gabe out of my sight.”

Alex and the constable half-carried, half-assisted Gabe out of the room, meeting Cyclops on the landing. Cyclops embraced him. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Gabe said, his voice sounding stronger.

“We’re taking him to the hospital.” Alex then told the constable they needed to carry him down the stairs.

Gabe scowled at him. “I can manage.”

Alex exchanged a smile of relief with his father.

Cyclops pressed a hand to Gabe’s shoulder but didn’t speak. He watched Alex and the constable take Gabe downstairs, then cleared his throat and entered the room. He strode up to Alcott, his fists closed. I thought he’d punch Alcott, but he didn’t. He drew in a deep breath, uncurled his fists and stretched his fingers.

“You’re lucky,” he told Alcott.

Alcott kept a wary gaze on Cyclops’s hands. “Why?”

“Because Gabe’s father isn’t here. I swore to abide by a code of conduct; he didn’t.”

Alcott swallowed again.

“Where’s Stanley Greville?” Cyclops asked.

“I don’t know.”

“We reckon he might be in the research laboratories at the hospital,” Willie said. “Send some men to search it. We’ll protect Gabe.”

She left, but I waited while Cyclops instructed the sergeant to send men to the hospital and take Alcott to Scotland Yard for questioning. Once they were gone, I asked him about Thurlow.

Cyclops removed his hat and rubbed a hand over his head. “He’s still at large, as are the Hobson women. Be careful, Sylvia. He might still target you.”

“Since I’m going to stay with Gabe for now, I’ll have the two best guards with me in Willie and Alex.”

He gave me a flat smile. “Get some rest. It’s been a long day for you.”

I joined Gabe in the back seat of the motorcar and directed him to lean against me. I placed my arms around him and kissed the top of his head. I shouldn’t have. I should have resisted my deep-seated urge to hold him if I was going to leave.

But I could not. The time for resisting my urges would come later. For now, I needed to feel his blood pulsing steadily in his veins as much as I needed to breathe.

Cyclops rested a hand on the door and peered inside, checking on Gabe again. “I’ll do my best to find out what Alcott knows about Stanley’s whereabouts.” From the tone of his voice, he did not sound hopeful.

The doctor at the Royal London Hospital confirmed that Gabe wouldn’t die from blood loss and dismissed the idea of a transfusion when Willie suggested it. “The science behind it is too new. I don’t trust it yet. Besides, he’s not in dire need.” He nodded at Gabe, sleeping on a hospital bed in a busy ward. The pulse in his throat throbbed a little too quickly for my liking, but his breathing was steadier. According to the doctor, that was a good sign at this stage.

Willie began rolling up her sleeve. “If you’re worried about finding a match, test my blood. We’re cousins.”

“It’s not simply a matter of giving Mr. Glass blood from the same group as his own. There are other factors that haven’t yet been studied sufficiently.”

“I saw soldiers get transfusions in field hospitals all the time.”

“Did you see them months later? A year or two? Some died, and the scientists don’t know why. Is that a risk you want me to take with your cousin?”

Willie rolled down her sleeve. “I suppose if he ain’t in immediate danger…”

The doctor hung the clipboard on the end of Gabe’s bed. “He just needs rest.”

The patient in the bed beside Gabe moaned in pain. Nurses in crisp white uniforms and orderlies in blue ones moved around the ward. A policeman appeared in the doorway, shook his head at us, then left again.

The patient in the bed beside Gabe’s threw up.

“We’ll take him home,” Alex told the doctor.

With Gabe sleeping in his own bed, Willie shooed Alex and me out of the room, or tried to. Neither Alex nor I wanted to leave Gabe. I suspected for Alex, it was to protect him. He peered out of the window at the street below, as if gauging how easy it would be to scale the wall. When he checked the window’s lock was secure, I knew my suspicion was correct.

My focus wasn’t on the bedroom’s entry points, however. It was on the figure in the bed. The strong, capable man I loved, who looked so uncharacteristically vulnerable, yet I didn’t love him any less. It brought out a side of me that I didn’t know I possessed, the role of his protector. Willie and Alex could only do so much to keep him safe. I had a part to play, too, and I wanted to play it to the full extent of my abilities. It was all I could think about.

A doctor came and went. Nurse Tilda arrived, too, and promised to stay for as long as necessary. I suspected that was more for Willie’s benefit than Gabe’s. Willie was as tense as a wound-up toy, but Tilda’s presence seemed to calm her.

Mrs. Bristow brought in food, but none of us felt like eating. She, Bristow and the other servants came in from time to time, using one excuse or another. They didn’t fool anyone. They all needed to see Gabe for themselves.

The only visitor who managed to draw us out of the bedroom was Cyclops, and that was only because we didn’t want to wake Gabe with our voices. We left Tilda to watch over him and retreated to the dining room where Mrs. Ling’s delicious Chinese cooking enticed us all to finally eat something.

While he transferred food from the various dishes to his plate, Cyclops told us about the interrogation of Frank Alcott. “I’m positive he doesn’t know where Stanley Greville is at this point in time. Stanley went to test the first batch of Gabe’s blood, but he didn’t tell Alcott where he was going.”

“The Royal London Hospital,” Willie said, as if it were obvious.

“My men questioned the staff, and no one had seen him. I’ve kept some constables there to watch for him, as well as at Milsom Court.”

Willie snorted. “Reckon the whores ain’t happy about that.”

“Alcott told me that Stanley enlisted his help on a recent visit to Rosebank. His first task was to stab Gabe in the shoulder, but he didn’t want to do it. He knew he’d be arrested immediately. So, Stanley concocted a plan to have one of the patients with little hope of a full recovery do it instead.”

“That’s despicable,” I murmured. Stanley had been an excellent actor to keep this side of himself from his friends.

Willie picked up a spring roll from her plate and pointed it at Cyclops. “The attacker said God made him do it. Stanley must have told him he was God. Frank Alcott went along with it, maybe even encouraged the patient, too.”

Cyclops nodded. “He admitted he did. He also admitted his role in this kidnap.”

“It’s too late to deny it! We caught him red-handed.”

“What about the kidnapping attempts prior to the stabbing?” Alex asked.

“Alcott claims he wasn’t involved then,” Cyclops said. “Apparently Stanley hired help when he needed it. When they continued to fail, only then did Stanley resort to someone he knew from his time at Rosebank, someone capable who would be as invested as Stanley once he explained his motive for studying Gabe.”

Willie stabbed a dumpling with the end of her chopstick. “Good job getting him to confess. You must have been real hard on him.”

He looked up from his plate where he was expertly using his chopsticks to scoop up food. “I did nothing unethical.”

She rolled her eyes. “You and your rules. I miss Duke.”

I knew that Duke was a friend of Cyclops, Willie and Gabe’s parents who’d moved back to America. He departed England years ago, but they often spoke about him as if he’d just stepped out to run an errand and would return soon.

Willie popped the dumpling in her mouth, but that didn’t stop her talking. “Duke and I got up to a lot of mischief.” She must have been directing her comment to me because Cyclops and Alex would already have heard her stories. It was so rare for her to include me that I stayed silent and waited for more.

Cyclops got in first, however. “I’m sure Tilda would like to know just how much mischief.” He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his stomach with satisfaction. “I’ve been meaning to spend more time with her.”

Willie glared at him as she stabbed another dumpling with her chopstick.

Alex looked between them, shaking his head. “Can you two stop reminiscing about your delinquent pasts and talk about finding Stanley?”

Cyclops sat forward. “You’re right. This is serious. Willie, I didn’t use underhanded methods to get Alcott to talk. I merely reminded him that he’s in a lot of trouble. He then claimed that Stanley brainwashed him into believing that studying Gabe would have enormous benefits for thousands of men. He’s not taking responsibility for his own actions.”

“Coward,” Willie muttered.

Cyclops turned to me. “I asked him about Thurlow, but he’d not heard of him. I don’t think there’s any connection between them. It just happened that Thurlow wanted to use Gabe’s magic for himself, as Stanley did.”

“What about the Hobsons?” I asked. “He knew Bertie.”

“Alcott says he doesn’t remember him. I believe him.”

I pushed the rice around my plate with my chopsticks. I no longer felt like eating. Indeed, I felt sick to my stomach.

“Are you trying to make a pattern?” Cyclops asked gently.

I set my chopsticks down, my decision made. “Remember when you promised not to tell Gabe that Thurlow and the Hobson women abducted me? I’d like you to keep that promise.”

Cyclops shook his head. “I don’t like secrets.”

“It doesn’t have to be forever. Just while he’s weak. He’ll be worried and that worry won’t help his recovery. He’ll want to get out of bed before he’s ready and look for Thurlow himself.”

Willie and Alex understood my point and encouraged Cyclops to agree. Finally, he did.

“Speaking of not telling people about kidnappings,” Alex said to his father, “have you told Mum about Gabe?”

“Not yet.”

“Best not to.”

“I definitely don’t keep secrets from your mother. Trust me, Son, it’s never a good idea to keep something from your wife. For one thing, she’ll always find out. For another, women are stronger than they look. Sometimes I think they’re stronger than us.”

Willie scoffed. “Only sometimes?”

I hardly heard their banter. I was drowning in my own misery, and everything else was simply background noise to the one thought screaming inside my head—Gabe wasn’t safe from Thurlow and anyone else who decided I was the way to lure him. I had to protect him using every means at my disposal.

I had to leave, just as I’d originally planned.