Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter 2)

“This can’t be a good sign,” Lucy muttered, backing away from the boar.

“Not necessarily,” I said, studying the unblinking eyes of a stuffed squirrel on the table nearest me. “Plenty of people like taxidermy, and it doesn’t mean anything. Even the professor keeps a stuffed bobcat in his study. A gift from some relative, I think.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Lucy said, shivering.

Montgomery had already gone to the bookshelves, and was now riffling through the leather-bound titles. Lucy occupied herself by inspecting the framed awards and diplomas on the walls. There were no cabinets, no desks or boxes where notes might be stored. The room was exactly as it appeared—an elegant, masculine space filled with leather club chairs and cigar humidors for a dozen or more men to lounge in while they bragged about their accomplishments.

I ran my hands along the seams of the walls and the grand fireplace for hidden compartments, but found nothing. There were more framed photographs on the walls that documented the King’s Club’s history of charitable works. Photographs of the construction of the orphanage, and a framed royal decree dated 1855 thanking the members for their efforts to stop the cholera outbreak. Seeing their supposed good deeds hanging on the wall only turned my stomach. There was no telling what their real motives were. For all I knew, those poor orphans were destined for a terrible fate. After all, that brain in the hatbox had to come from somewhere.

After twenty minutes, we had searched every inch of the room and found nothing about the plans for the New Year’s paupers’ ball, or references to any kind of scientific experimentation they were funding.

“They must store their records elsewhere,” Lucy said, flouncing onto a leather sofa.

I nodded. “Perhaps if we could get a copy made of the key, and come back to spy on them when they’ve a meeting in progress—”

But Montgomery cut me off with a quick signal. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered. “Into the hallway, quick.” He flipped off the light, plunging us into darkness.

I found Lucy’s hand, and we hurried through the doorway. I could hear footsteps coming but the hallways were like a maze, and the echoes of sound fooled the ear. Lucy had just enough time to slip the key into the lock before someone rounded the corner. It was a pair of men with a bull’s-eye torch that shone directly onto us.

“Who’s there?” one yelled.

I felt like a deer blinded by a hunter’s light. Montgomery grabbed our hands and we raced away from them, but Montgomery didn’t know these hallways. I did.

“This way,” I say, rounding a corner that led to a staircase into the basement. The professors often left one of the exterior doors down here unlocked from the inside. We hurried down the stairs, but the men pursued us. A shrill night guard’s whistle echoed through the dark halls.

“Over here!” I hissed as loud as I dared to Montgomery and Lucy. The cadaver storage room was just around the corner, and from there it wasn’t far to the exterior door. There were no windows here to break the darkness, and the only light came from our pursuer’s torch as it flashed columns of light on the walls behind us.

At last we reached the exterior door. I threw myself against it, but it didn’t budge. “Blast!” I said. “The one night they lock it from the outside.”

Our pursuers were nearly upon us, so I felt the grooves and blocks of the wall until my hand connected with a doorknob. I threw it open, heedless of where it led.

The three of us stumbled down a narrow flight of stairs, black as death, which led even deeper to a level I hadn’t known existed. The air was thick with mildew and an earthy smell not unlike the jungle. We huddled together at the base of the stairs, listening. The sounds of footsteps came overhead, but no one approached the door. We waited for what must have been ten minutes, though it felt like an eternity. My fingers felt the wall, but there were no electric light switches, no gas lines, either.

“They must not have fitted this level with electric lights,” I whispered.

The air sizzled as Lucy struck a match, throwing a dim light on the corridors. They were older than I even imagined, part of the original stone foundation. The ground was littered with the husks of dead insects and refuse, and I wasn’t certain anyone had been down here in years until Lucy lowered the candle to reveal fresh footprints in the dust.

Montgomery bent down to pick up a broken candle, and while he and Lucy struggled to light the ancient thing, I wandered to a doorway at the end of the hall. I tugged on it—locked. I crawled to my knees to peek through the keyhole, but it was very dark within, not a single window. Yet in the pitch-black my ears caught a hint of a strange yet familiar sound, almost like rippling water. I leaned closer to the keyhole and nearly choked from the thick chemical smell.

“Over here,” I called. “Someone’s been here recently. It smells of chemicals.”

Montgomery tugged on the door. “Locked.”

“Try your keys, Lucy,” I said.

“These are Father’s personal keys. The only one with the King’s College crest is for the smoking room upstairs.”

“We haven’t many options.”

To our surprise, the fourth key twisted in the lock. My stomach knotted with foreboding worries about why the King’s Club would need a secret room so deep in the belly of the university.

Montgomery drew his pistol. “Stay behind me, just in case.”

The door creaked open. We stepped inside, at first seeing only worktables and rows of cupboards in the flickering candlelight. But on the far wall, Lucy’s candle reflected in what looked like mirrors. The smell grew stronger. In the faint light I began to make out the shapes of a half dozen identical glass tanks, which upon closer inspection were filled with water. We exchanged uneasy glances. Lucy hung back, but I took a step closer to peer into the murky water.

“Juliet,” Montgomery’s voice came with a warning. “Not too close.”

Something roughly the size of a large cat was suspended, unmoving and silent, in the water. As my eyes adjusted to the low light, I could make out the vague shape of a half-formed creature not unlike a large rodent with only a hint of limbs. It was hairless from the tip of its jaw to the suggestion of a curling tail. The mouth was further developed than the rest of the body, powerful and wide like a reptile with a gleaming set of teeth.

Recognition dawned on me. “They’re the creatures from the island. Father’s ratlike creatures, only much bigger.”