Kate frantically dug into her jacket pocket and felt a hard glass vial. She pulled it out and fumbled with the cap, trying to struggle against the tendrils. The vial popped up out of her hand and she flailed quickly, catching it in midair. She thumbed out the stopper and stuck her hand with the vial into the pulsing fleshy hole in the creature’s stomach. She quickly turned up the bottle and pulled her hand out, feeling a burning sensation even from that brief touch.
The homunculus jerked and made a gruesome noise. The colony of worms around Kate’s shoulders pulled loose and withdrew. She breathed in a free, cold breath of relief. Suddenly a flood of green ichor roared from of the pulsing gash. The warm goo washed over her face, leaving a metallic stench.
Kate fell back onto the ground, crying out in alarm. Strong hands grabbed her and pulled her away. She felt thick cloths wiping her face and hair, and heard both Simon and Malcolm saying something over top of one another. It was probably meant to be calming, but it sounded like a cacophony of panic.
She realized she wasn’t burning; nor was she in pain. She was merely covered in wet, disgusting ichor. She tried to shove away the men’s frantic ministrations. She grabbed the cloths they were using to scrub her raw, and shouted, “I’m fine! Stop it!”
Both men stood over her, staring in alarm. Simon was without his coat, which she now held in her hands.
“I’m fine,” she said a bit less frantically. “Where’s the homunculus?”
Simon stood and looked around. The creature was nowhere to be seen.
“There.” Malcolm pointed into the air.
Over the steeple-dotted skyline of London, a white shape with large wings labored through the moonlit air. It was a poor flier, but was already closing in on the Thames River.
Kate scrambled to her feet, trying to ignore the cold ooze that dribbled down her back. “We’ve lost it! All that effort, and we’ve lost it.”
Simon laughed as he continued to stare at the flying thing. “Not at all. We’ll find it soon enough.”
“How?” she asked. “It’s almost out of sight now. Why is this funny to you?”
Simon took his damp coat from her hand. He reached inside and withdrew a tube of paper. He unrolled it to reveal a three-foot sheet of vellum inscribed with a map of London and a weird variety of runic symbols around the border. He held up his left hand. “I transferred a rune to the homunculus. And I can now track that rune using this map. Here, Kate, you’ve got a little something just there.” He reached over and used his index finger to scrape a dollop of ooze from her cheek. He flicked it onto the ground. “There. That’s better.”
“How could this be hilarious to you?” Kate couldn’t understand the boyish glee that Simon had on his face. Was he truly that ignorant? Then she realized this must be the aether drunkenness that Simon talked about. It was peculiar and disturbing. She looked at Malcolm, and the dour Scotsman was staring at Simon with confusion as well.
“No,” Simon replied lightly, but ran a rubbery hand over his face in an effort to wrest back control over his wits. He tossed his jacket aside. “Well, that’s the end of that coat.”
“I hope the next one regurgitates on you so I can have a bit of a laugh.” Kate jutted her chin at the map. “Well, start tracking.”
Simon chuckled to himself and spread the map out on the top of a tomb. He pressed his hands against the vellum and began to chant quietly. The lines of the map glowed a faint green, shifting around the streets of London as if it were a living thing. Then there was a green blip just over the river due south of their location at St. Andrews Holborn. Simon took a deep breath and lowered his head.
When he looked up at his companions, there was an emerald fire sparking in his eyes. He laughed again, but it was no longer giddy. It was a dark, brutal laugh.
Chapter Nineteen
Bedlam sat like a squat toad in the midst of its walled grounds on Lambeth Road. The expansive brick building consisted of a central block with a front entrance boasting six Doric columns supporting a central pediment. Wings extended out either side to create a massive structure almost six hundred feet in length.
“Bloody hell,” muttered Malcolm.
“You have no idea.” Simon rolled his map, which had led them here, and stuck it in his waistcoat.
Kate’s stomach plummeted at the sight of the hospital from which she had extracted her sister only a few days before. The ramifications stared her suddenly in the face. Why had Imogen really been brought here days ago? Was Dr. White involved, or was he ignorant of what was happening in his hospital? Her jaw tightened in unbridled anger. What she had seen as a helping hand was now suddenly a vicious lie.
Her eyes snapped to Simon, who was quietly regarding her. “How do we get inside?”
“A window would be the best,” he said. “Preferably an office.”
“The windows are barred with iron,” Malcolm pointed out with a scowl, peering through the gates with their brash rosette circles.