The Last Temptations of Iago Wick Read online

  On previous nights, the man stood in silence. That night was different.

  “Wilburn Cox.”

  The faceless man spoke in a familiar voice. Cox rubbed his sore, gritty eyes. When his vision returned, he could plainly see a spectral Dylan Courtwright standing before him. His tongue was apparently still intact, for he spoke! Though he knew Courtwright was locked in a cell, this apparition seemed to appear to him from beyond the grave with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks.

  “Wilburn Cox,” Courtwright droned.

  “You speak!”

  The specter opened his mouth again, but he produced only garbled, choking noises. He walked toward Cox as though he were taking part in a one-man funeral march. He finally said, “All good things must come to an end.”

  “What?” Cox cried over the rushing wind. His lips cracked, and he could taste blood and the dull dirt of the desert. “An end? Courtwright, what the hell do you mean?”

  His eerie visitor said nothing, but raised one leg after another, climbing into the air as though he took to invisible stairs. He climbed the empty space until he was standing on nothing, twelve feet in the air before Cox.

  It seemed Courtwright stood in mid-air for an eternity. Cox’s heart only grew louder until he couldn’t even hear the roar of the desert wind anymore. It was only then that he realized it wasn’t his heart at all. It was the rapid and ominous pitter patter of drums, the kind of roll that accompanied only death-defying feats and criminals about to drop to their own doom.

  With the sickening creak of unseen wood and rope, Courtwright dropped in mid-air. His body was suspended and limp as though he hung from a noose. He twitched and writhed like the conqueror worm, eyes empty as they met Cox’s. The sand at his feet blew away to reveal yet another body, some casualty of the barren wasteland.

  Edgar Courtwright lay lifeless upon the ground, his own eyes covered by two large and squirming scarab beetles.

  At The Raven’s Nest the next morning, Wilburn Cox nervously tapped his coffee spoon against the table. It was lamentable how his nerves were always getting the better of him.

  His mother had always recommended knitting to soothe the soul. Then, his oldest brother died, leaving the textile mill in the middle brother’s hands and leaving Mother in Wilburn’s hands. He had her institutionalized for her constant nagging. He could only imagine what she would recommend to him now.

  “Mr. Cox.”

  Wilburn Cox gave a start and turned to see Thomas Atchison, the inventor. The tall, fair-haired young man typically carried a rather skeptical look on his hawk-like features, but this morning he seemed almost alarmed at Cox’s reaction. The inventor might have sprained something showing such emotion.

  “Atchison. I apologize. You startled me,” Cox breathed.

  “I could see that I had,” Atchison said. He took a seat across from Cox in the heavy wooden booth. Cox shook his head vehemently. Atchison was another member of The Order.

  “I can see it doesn’t bother you if we’re seen together,” Cox insisted in a whisper. He looked to the other diners at The Raven’s Nest, a dozen people lost in newspapers.

  “Cox, don’t be ridiculous,” Atchison hissed bitterly. “The average patron of this restaurant is not that observant, nor is there any viable information available to them. Yet. With Stewart’s brother working for the police department, I believe we are safe. He’s always protected us before.”

  Cox rolled his eyes and looked back to his spoon, tapping it gently again. Who was this young eccentric to attempt to lecture him? Thomas Atchison was still in swaddling clothes the last time The Fraternal Order of the Scarab had truly powerful numbers. If he hadn’t been Mortimer Peebles’s nephew, as he claimed, The Order wouldn’t have allowed him to join, anyway.

  “Yes, Detective Stewart is an asset,” Cox said, “but I fear he can’t protect us forever. Those Stewart brothers are daffy. All that family history, that inheritance. One throws himself in with the police department, and the other lives in squalor. It makes no sense to me.”

  Atchison piqued his brows but offered no comment.

  “I saw your recent success in the newspaper,” Cox said. “Paulson’s General Store wants to sell your, uh… your…”

  “The Mechanical Valet?” Atchison asked with nothing resembling pride. He more spoke of the self-operating machine set to revolutionize a man’s daily toilette as one would speak of a particularly embarrassing relation. It was the drunk uncle no one wanted to claim.

  The Mechanical Valet was an automaton which shined a man’s shoes, combed his hair, used a spring-loaded jack to help him into his best boots and, if the gentleman was feeling adventurous, even gave him a shave. The machine implied that Marlowe men simply could not take care of themselves, and yet, people were clamoring to purchase one.

  “Yes,” Cox said. “They want to sell it here in Marlowe, and I hear there are a few other shops interested throughout the county.”

  Atchison shook his head. “A funny little thing. Relatively simple to construct. I’ve crafted several dozen at this point. I did not intend for it to garner the attention that it has. Mr. Cox, the work which most thoroughly captures the attention of the public is rarely the best.”

  Cox nodded dumbly. “Um… yes. I imagine you received quite a handsome advance on the invention.”

  “It was healthy enough. However, I’ll maintain my position at the bookstore. Are you well?” the inventor bluntly asked. “You look as though you haven’t slept in days.”

  Some disturbed and high-pitched giggle escaped Cox’s lips. Atchison recoiled. “That’s just the thing: I’ve gotten far more sleep than I’d like.”

  The young man stroked his moustache. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

  Cox surveyed the dining room before looking back to his associate. “Since Courtwright was taken away, I’ve been having dreams.”

  “Hmm. Wonderful. Some people write them all down in a book, Cox. It would make a splendid hobby for you.”

  “Damn you, Atchison! Listen to me, please.” There was enough strife in his voice to capture the inventor’s attention. “I’m having horrid dreams. Frightening, terrible nightmares every night.”

  Atchison removed his gloves, placing them delicately on the tabletop. “And what might be the topic of these nightmares?”

  Wringing his ropy hands, he mouthed, “Courtwright.”

  “Cox, that’s hardly surprising. After all, you did discover him at the scene of the murder—”

  “He killed his cousin, but why would he do that? Courtwright is temperamental but not like this. He knew he had done wrong, cut his tongue out so he couldn’t tell secrets. Of course, he was…”

  Atchison looked vaguely intrigued. “He was what?”

  Cox kept his voice barely above a croak of a whisper. “He wasn’t necessarily well. He frequently takes the Abstractia formula, you know.”

  “I was aware of his little problem, yes.”

  “It is a problem. Courtwright has always encouraged The Order to interfere, to protect the business of his preferred purveyors of the drug and strike down any competitors. That was the cause of that affair at The Marcum Street Slaughterhouse,” Cox said.

  “Hmm. Slaughterhouse? Before my time, perhaps.”

  Cox looked amused. “Let’s just say that once The Order was through, the animals weren’t the only ones butchered.”

  Atchison grimaced. “Charming.”

  “Courtwright uses the Abstractia to go into these trances where—he says—he speaks to Khepri, the scarab god. It sounds mad, I know. He was affected by the drug when he killed Edgar. I could see it in his eyes,” Cox insisted. “Two days prior, I happened to encounter him on Walton Street. He looked gaunt, sickly. He told me he would live forever. He had the secret to eternal life. He would be a god. Dylan Courtwright looked me dead in the eyes and gravely told me this.

  “And now these dreams. These nightmares are strangling me.” He finished his coffee. It was a poor choice of drink
considering his frayed nerves. “Last night in my dreams, I saw Courtwright die over and over and over again.”

  Thomas Atchison leaned forward. “Did it ever occur to you that death might be what that idiot deserves?” he whispered.

  “But each time it happened, I felt… I was dying along with him.”

  The inventor quirked an eyebrow at the macabre and melodramatic statement. There were times Cox wondered what went on in that brain of his. He was an odd young man, married to a Mexican girl and constantly working, working, working. Atchison was too bookish and too scrawny. Pretty Mrs. Atchison deserved a better man, Cox had always thought, but she looked upon the inventor with endlessly adoring eyes. Atchison stood to leave as quickly as he’d arrived. “Cox, I may be able to help you.”

  “Help? How?”

  “There’s a device, something I’ve been perfecting in my spare time.”

  “Certainly not a sister to the Mechanical Valet.”

  Atchison flinched. “No. No, it is not. I shall call tomorrow afternoon.”

  He left before he could ask him for the details or even thank him. Wilburn Cox went back to tapping his spoon wildly against the table.

  The proprietor eventually ejected him from the restaurant for such obnoxious behavior.

  The temple in Wilburn Cox’s nightmares was progressing nicely. Two formidable towers stood at what would soon be a great entrance. Walls crafted of hearty stone reached higher and higher, and yet, there were still no workers in sight. They avoided Cox once again, leaving only their work to speak for them.

  He turned from the temple and gave a start. Two pale hands stuck out of the sand, waving frantically as if he were the last salvation of a drowning man. Fingers curled into claws, and somewhere he heard screams. Muffled by sand, perhaps? The sound swelled and mingled with the wind to create a maddening cacophony which screeched in his ears like a platoon of harpies.

  From the sand came the top of a head with long black hair. The shrieks grew louder as something that was human-shaped pulled itself from the ground. Its hair stuck to its forehead, and its skin appeared to be moist. The strange sight sent Cox stumbling backwards over the thick sand, and he fell. As the screaming mass pulled itself toward him, begging, beckoning, Cox looked away.

  Staggering on his right was a mannish creature with gaping holes throughout its torso. A strange red light streamed from the creature’s wounds. It, too, reached to Cox with something that only vaguely resembled a human hand. Its face was empty, doughy and undefined.

  “What do you want?” Cox called over the roar of the wind and the creature’s awful screaming. Something gripped his wrist. Dreading another creature, he turned his head slowly. He was met only with the sight of a hand, disembodied and bloody with brilliant red ribbons streaming from gaping flesh. It latched firmly onto him. Cox may have opened his mouth to scream. It would do no good.

  Who would hear and rescue him if the builders of temples were never there?

  Wilburn Cox could hardly keep his eyes open when he greeted the immaculate Thomas Atchison at the door the following afternoon. Cox’s shirt was crinkled, his waistcoat undone, and his sandy hair was wild. The inventor, however, wore a neat brown tweed suit. Beside him stood his wife, Sofia. The sun blazed, and everything seemed far too loud, even Atchison’s normally airy voice.

  “Good God, man, you look like an absolute fright,” Atchison proclaimed. Sofia frowned at her husband’s frankness. She was a tiny woman, just over five feet. She looked beautiful in a tailored olive dress. Beautiful for a foreign girl, anyway, Cox thought. He had a feeling a man such as himself could treat her better than the bizarre inventor, but he couldn’t too harshly judge the man who was going to help him.

  Atchison carried a large metal box as Cox ushered him in. Sofia followed with a small case of her own, bound in leather and held shut by two belts across the front. Atchison removed his hat and dropped it onto the coat rack beside the door. “I want to thank you, Atchison,” Cox said. “It was unbearable last night.”

  “You poor man,” Sofia cooed.

  “I have to warn you, Cox, I’m not entirely sure I can help. Your situation will be most helpful in testing this contraption of mine, and if a solution to your problem should arise along the way, then… well, that would be an added benefit,” Atchison said bluntly.

  “Mr. Atchison, please be kind,” Sofia insisted. “This man is in pain.”

  “I’m not entirely unperceptive, Mrs. Atchison,” he said with a smile.

  Cox asked nervously, “Ah, what is it this machine will do?”

  Thomas Atchison held up one long finger. “I will tell you. But first, I must strap you down and apply the proper pieces of the device to your body. Where is your bedroom? I need you to be comfortable. Sofia, did you bring the rags?”

  “Rags?” Cox asked.

  “For you to, uh… bite. You’ll feel an outstanding pain, but don’t fret, it only lasts for a moment. Come, Mr. Cox!” he said swiftly and gave Cox a quick slap on the shoulder. “To your bedroom! There is work to be done!”

  Thomas Atchison called his dream machine the somnioscope. He insisted several times, as his wife carefully strapped Wilburn Cox to his bed, that the machine was not to be mentioned beyond that room. It was still far from being a complete product (“Is this even safe?” Cox fretted), and he would have hated for someone else to get their grubby hands on the idea.

  Atchison explained that the machine worked using the electricity in the brain. The two frightening metallic probes placed deep inside the ear canals were able to tap into the electrical patterns in the brain to craft a rough image of what the subject could see as they dreamt. These pictures were taken every few seconds, allowing the operator to view the dreams through goggles formatted much like a stereoscope. The images, after being transferred to the somnioscope machine, were projected upon a blank card at the back of the goggles for the operator to see.

  It was imperfect. Occasionally images were jumbled, and dreams do not move at the pace of the waking world, causing some areas of emptiness. In addition, other impulses in the brain might interfere. There was a very strange sort of waterfall formation which appeared on the somnioscope, for example, if the subject needed to relieve himself. The machine was still in the early phases of testing.

  And lucky Wilburn Cox was one of the first to try it.

  “The last person upon whom I tested this machine went to the hospital,” Atchison said blandly as he placed the two probes inside Cox’s ears. They pinched terribly.

  “Mr. Atchison, that is not necessary,” Sofia barked. “They were minor burns, Mr. Cox, I promise.”

  “What is the goal here, Atchison?” Cox asked tremulously, eyeing the thick leather straps which kept him firmly in place.

  The opportunity to explain himself pleased Atchison as he stood and paced grandly about the small space. “The very idea of dreams has always fascinated me, Cox. They are like another world to which we can escape, for the better or the worse. We are ourselves and not ourselves all at once in dreams,” Atchison explained. “But what captured my attention most was the concept of the nightmare. Why do our minds play such cruel tricks upon us?”

  Cox gulped. “And… and do you have an answer?”

  “I have learned,” Atchison began, fingers piqued, “that, in some cases, there are creatures, forces which influence our dreams. These are dark, wicked things, and they twist our thoughts. They prey upon us.” Cox must have looked quite incredulous for Atchison added, “You don’t believe me. But I have seen these creatures. They are real.”

  It was not at all the sort of answer Cox expected, but given Atchison’s usual oddness, he really had no right to be surprised. “What sort of creatures are out there?”

  “Spirits. Ghouls. There are many foul creatures in the world, Cox. If you open your eyes to see them, trust me, you will. I have battled them before and won. I also theorize that an outside observer could help identify what is causing your nightmares. If we discover wh
at sort of creature, if any, has bewitched you, perhaps we can determine how to make the dreams stop.”

  “This all seems… idiotic.”

  His mouth became a thin line at Cox’s assessment, and he narrowed his glassy eyes. “Well! As I said: regardless of the outcome, you’ll be a splendid test subject.”

  Atchison sat on a stool beside Cox’s bed. His bedroom was small and very plain compared to the rest of the house. There was no Mrs. Cox with whom he should share the room. There was only a bed, a bookcase, and a simple writing desk. But add the somnioscope, two extra people and quite a lot of tangible apprehension on Cox’s part, and the room was just a bit tight.

  “I will be monitoring your dreams. Should anything happen that I feel puts your life in danger, I will turn off the machine. Of course, I’ll be connected to you. If you go into some sort of arrest, it could possibly disable me, as well,” Atchison sighed, rolling up his shirt sleeves. His jacket had long been discarded.

  Cox’s eyes widened. “And what happens then?”

  “That’s why Sofia is here. Right, darling?”

  Sofia smiled brightly and strapped a pair of thick goggles to her own head. Protection, perhaps? From what? “Do not worry, Mr. Cox. We will take excellent care of you,” she said.

  “Indeed,” Atchison said. “Now, open wide. I’m going to put the rags in your mouth. You’re going to feel an incredible pain when I start the machine, but don’t worry. The body acclimates quickly. …At least, that’s been the case for most bodies. I have experimented upon a total of eight now.”

  “That’s including you, Mr. Cox,” Sofia clarified.

  Cox bit down on the bundle of soiled cotton. There was a vague taste of oil or grease, but he was not made to endure it for long. With a speedy count of 1, 2, 3, Atchison flipped a gold switch and began spinning a great wheel on the side of the machine.

  The burning in his ears was nothing compared to the electric headache which seized Cox’s brain. Like cracks suddenly traversing a frozen lake, the pain shot through his head in all directions. He gave a strangled, muffled cry before gritting his teeth against the disgusting rags.