Curse of the Nandi (Society for Paranormals Book 5) (21 page)

The door to the clinic was little more than a flimsy iron sheet tied with sisal rope to a wooden post, and it was open. I peered in, blinking against the sting of the burning kerosene and the obscenely sweet scent of early decay.

“Dr. Ribeiro?” I asked, half-hoping he wasn’t about.

“Miss Knight, oh, Miss Knight!” an enthusiastic voice called out, before a round face appeared before me, the goatee-framed mouth in full smile. “It is being very kind of you to be coming, Miss Knight,” he continued, all cheer and head waggles. “Please do be coming in. Mr. Elkhart too. And Mr. Anderson. Oh, very good, very good. Jonas, you are most very free to be joining us.”

Jonas pretended to be fully engrossed in inspecting the ox harness, and I yearned to do the same. Gideon was correct when he’d commented about the inappropriateness of the nursing vocation for me, for I had no inclination to tending to invalids. It struck me most forcibly at that moment that I actually loathed being amongst the sick and needy, as callous as that might sound. Yet it was less callousness and more an inability to provide solace of any sort. My training was in investigation and defense, not applying plasters and soothing words.

To top it off, my overly sensitive nose could detect every evidence of illness. The only alternative to this sensory overwhelm would be to cease breathing, which of course would have incurred its own inconveniences such as fainting and the like. And the clinic was hardly a suitable place for fainting, or even for sitting. I fervently hoped that none of us would have cause to convalesce within its walls.

While seemingly diminutive from the entrance, the clinic held an impressive number of items, including several mattresses placed on the packed dirt floor, all occupied with workers at various stages of ill-health, including one who could very well have been dead already; that one was on his own in the corner of the room.

A remarkably clean wooden table against one wall was covered with various instruments of the trade, including a few that could have just as easily been found in a torture chamber. Vials of liquids of dubious origins lined a shelf above the table. The low roof provided a sense of claustrophobia to all but the stout of heart or sick of body. The space was lit by a few kerosene lanterns that emitted an oily smoke that stained the glass around the wicks.

Struggling not to gag, I wheezed, “Your note implied a certain urgency, doctor. What is it?”

I didn’t mean to sound as curt as I did, yet Dr. Ribeiro chatted on, oblivious to my rudeness. “I can now confirm we have one death, and one soon-to-be death, from the mutated Bubonic Plague,” he enthused. He gestured to the patient in the corner.

We all peered toward the body of a young Indian man, his thin chest laboring to breathe. The sarong tied around his waist was startling white in contrast to the darkness of his skin and the gloomy lighting. The buboes pocketing his body oozed a yellow fluid tinged with blood. One of his arms was thoroughly rotted, with chunks of flesh in various stages of decomposition, as if belonging to a man several days deceased. It was ghastly and it stunk. That the person was still alive was horrid, and with all sincerity I wished him a speedy death.

Squatting beside the victim was an elderly African man, his small, wrinkled head topped off with gray stubble, his gnarled and heavily veined hands gripping a tatty towel that he regularly dipped into a bucket of water and wiped across the patient’s wheezing chest.

“Your assistant is a remarkably steadfast fellow,” I observed with some admiration.

“Oh yes,” Dr. Ribeiro said, smiling at the man. “That is being so very true as George is very blind, partially deaf, and he is not understanding English. He is having no idea what is next to him.”

I nodded as I extracted a small sachet of powdered cinnamon from my skirt pocket and opened it. “What excellent qualifications he has then.” I inhaled the warm scent of the spice and found some relief therein from the stench that was emanating from the dying man.

“Do you think it wise to keep a Plague victim in close proximity to others?” Father asked, an uncharacteristic sharpness in his tone. He sidled closer to me, as if his mere physical presence would ward off the disease. Drew shuffled his feet on my other side, his werewolf-enhanced eyes and nose detecting all the details I could.

“Oh, no, it’s not being very wise at all,” Dr. Ribeiro said with a head waggle and a solemn gaze. “But there is being no other facility where we can be treating them or anyone, so…” He waved vaguely about his head to encompass himself, the clinic, and the whole sorry situation.

“Where’s the corpse?” Father asked, and I was grateful for his inquiries, for I was struggling between two conflicting needs: to avoid inhaling too deeply all the smells bombarding me while simultaneously breathing in enough oxygen to maintain consciousness.

“I burned it, sir,” Dr. Ribeiro said, his voice hushed. “That is being a certain way to kill the Plague.”

“Then it seems the disease will kill itself off,” Father said. “With one dead and the other about there, surely there’s still a chance to contain it.”

Dr. Ribeiro shook his head and continued doing so for a moment. “It’s being too late. I am already detecting the early symptoms in some others of the Indian workers. A few are already being in a near-coma from the sleeping sickness.”

“Then quarantine them,” I said in a harsh tone which did nothing to disguise my horror.

Again, there was a head waggle. “Miss Knight, even that word is causing people to run away, taking the disease with their very good selves. I am telling them to stay in bed and rest for a few days, and they are telling me they have to be working or be sent home.”

“How many?” Father asked, already resigned to the worst.

“Maybe thirty,” Dr. Ribeiro said with a shrug. “More or more.”

“Thirty?” I gasped.

“More or more,” he replied.

“More or less,” I corrected his English without much thought.

“No,” he said. “I am meaning more.”

“Should we consider taking the Adze up on their offer?” I murmured after a pause. “They would be a lesser evil than this.”

Dr. Ribeiro gave me a puzzled look, so I explained the offer from the African vampires. He mulled over my words for a moment. “It is an option,” he said as he gazed at the dying man. “But would they be contented with that, or would we be having another problem to contend with?” He glanced at Father who seemed preoccupied with the table of shiny instruments.

“A valid point, but at the rate the Plague is spreading, it may be a moot point,” I said. “If the infected stay in camp but continue to work, they will spread it to other workers with great rapidity.”

“And if they leave the camp, they will infect the entire countryside,” Father finished my thought with a grim expression that was far better suited to a vampire than his usual congenial one.

“Then we must be doing the needful. What was the honorable Medical Officer saying to all this?” Dr. Ribeiro asked, and I realized with a start that we hadn’t had the chance to update him on our visit to Dr. Spurrier.

“Nothing of any use,” I replied, not disguising my disgust.

“Perhaps I should have a chat with him,” Father said, his countenance boding ill for the obstinate bureaucrat.

I glanced at the dying man, his wheezing cough feeble. “I have a better idea.”

Before I could explain further, someone from outside called my name. Grateful for an excuse to leave, I hastened out, followed by the others. Upon detecting Mr Timmons’ agitated energy, I wondered if I might not be safer inside the clinic.

“Do you know what your brother Mr. Elkhart told me when I read your note and informed him of your whereabouts?” Mr. Timmons asked without preamble. “He declined to accompany me as, in his words, ‘I dare not risk an infection, for while I might survive, Lilly and the babe would surely not.’”

Dr. Ribeiro’s head wobbled about as he enthused, “A most wise decision.”

“That’s understandable in his case,” I said, “but for me, risk of infection was a minor consideration.”

“Of course it was,” Mr. Timmons said, his tone and countenance dark, his eyes a stormy gray.

“So what’s your idea, Bee?” Drew asked after a discomforting lull.

I pulled back my shoulders, lifted my chin, stared at my husband, and declared, “We need to kidnap the Medical Officer.”

Chapter 25

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard in ages,” Gideon whispered as I hurtled about the cottage, collecting the necessary items for conducting an abduction.

“Of course you’d think so,” Mr. Timmons muttered, although there was a certain gleeful undercurrent to his comment that informed me he wasn’t as put out as he’d previously indicated.

“Chloroform,” I stated.

“Where does one find such a substance in Nairobi of all places?” Gideon asked.

Mr. Timmons and I exchanged a glance. “Dr. Cricket,” we both said, before Mr. Timmons shook his head.

“I think it best not to involve anyone else,” he said as he looped rope into a neat pile that I stuffed unceremoniously into a bag.

“Perhaps not,” I said, wondering what the inventor would say if I again asked for chloroform.

“And it’s not as if we’re capturing a lion,” Mr. Timmons continued as he accepted a few bits of cloth that would do nicely as a gag. “He may be rotund, but he’s no match for your father.”

“Or you,” I added, and was rewarded with a smirk. It seemed I was forgiven for entering the clinic with such little regard for my health. I hadn’t received the slightest lecture, merely a resigned shake of the head and an embrace.

“Why do you have all the fun, Bee?” Gideon asked, sulking above the stone mantelpiece. “I want to hunt lions with chloroform, fight off giant insects, fly across the continent in a zeppelin and kidnap officers of the British Foreign Service.” He sighed with all the drama he could, which was not insignificant, and sank down through the stone and into the fireplace, from where he cast a mournful set of eyes at me.

“Good gracious,” I said.

There was a sharp rap at the front door, and we were all startled by the sound. As we paused in our activity, the soft background of insect chirps and distant animals filled in the silence.

“Beatrice?” someone called to me, and my shoulders relaxed. “Are we set to go?”

“Yes, Father,” I replied as I picked up my walking stick, which in a pinch could be a marvelously suitable replacement for chloroform. Mr. Timmons swung onto his shoulder the bag full of tools for our new trade, and we joined Father outside in the cool darkness.

I’d never been much enamored by the night while living in London, despite (or because of) the need to conduct much of my investigations and inquiries after sunset. Most of the troublesome supernatural beings had an oppressively obstinate habit of being nocturnal. But here in the open spaces of East Africa, night took on a different meaning. Yes, there were still many dangers that lurked in the shadows. Yet the perfumes that the dark activated were heady and delirium-provoking; they outdid anything the most famous perfumeries of Europe could devise. In the absence of the sun, the dust settled and the cool, sweet-scented air embraced all my senses.

We spoke not at all until we reached a small grove of trees near the barn where Jonas stood holding the reins of three horses. One of the horses was snoring.

“Nelly, do wake up,” I whispered as I smacked her neck.

She snorted, which was the politest noise she knew how to utter. Jonas gave us a mocking bow before slipping away into the dark, disinterested in our business as, I presumed, he had business of his own to conduct.

Once we were clear of the Hardinge estate, we urged our mounts into a gallop. Even half asleep, Nelly easily kept pace with the bigger horses. We stayed on the main path where two sets of wagon ruts provided us easy passage. Only as we approached Nairobi did we slow down and resort to stealth.

Dr. Spurrier was accommodated in a well-appointed room in the Stanley Hotel. This was considered a temporary measure as officer housing was being constructed and already one set of apartments was complete and fully occupied. I however suspected the Medical Officer wasn’t displeased with his current arrangement, for the government housing didn’t provide room service, three-course meals, or the entertaining conversations that the hotel’s proprietor, Ms. Bent, so adequately did.