#newton blackrod | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mrhyde-mrseek · 1 year

Text

SCIENCE MOST SINISTER - PART FIFTEEN

CW: Vomiting/emetophobia, slight body horror, disturbing imagery.

Gwen stood in front of the mirror that leaned against the wall of her bedchamber, holding the antique knife in front of her chest.

Behind her, Newt’s reflection wrapped an arm around her shoulders. His mouth moved with the words he spoke in a gentle, soothing tone. “You have no reason to be afraid, my love. Do you recall my instructions?”

She nodded; her throat had closed up, and her words became lodged beneath the blockage.

Despite the fact that it was nearing the end of November, the temperature had stubbornly refused to grow colder than eleven degrees Celsius. Today, however, the weather had taken a turn for the worst: dark clouds gathered on the horizon, and frost dusted the ground like ash. It was as though the sky knew the gravity of what the House was about to do.

She laid her head on Newt’s shoulder. In the light from the gas lamps, both her and Newt’s dark eyes appeared to shimmer; Gwen’s left eye, a startling gold, practically glowed in contrast. She watched her reflection a few moments longer, then closed her eyes.

“What if we fail?” she whispered.

“Oh, Gwen.” Eyes still closed, she felt Newt kiss the top of her head. “We will not fail. I promise you.”

She stood up straight. “And how do you know?” she demanded, now looking at him straight on. “How can you be so optimistic that absolutely nothing will go wrong?”

“I never said nothing will go wrong. We may encounter obstacles we never anticipated. All I said was that in the end, we will succeed in ridding you of your curse and this house of its demon.”

There came a knock on the door. Victor poked his head inside the bedchamber. “Holmes has returned,” he announced.

Gwen looked nervously at Newt. Now was the time. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself and stepped out of the room after Victor, Newt following close behind.

Halfway down the stairs, she found that Holmes had not come alone. He stood in the entrance hall with two strangers, a young man and woman, both of whom were in eager conversation with Van Helsing.

Van Helsing glanced up at the sound of Gwen and Newt’s footsteps. “There you both are. Newton and Gwen, I would like to introduce Jonathan and Mina Harker. We believe they could be of great assistance to us.” He gestured to the couple.

Gwen descended the final few steps. “Dr. Guinevere Crowley. This is my colleague, Dr. Newton Blackrod,” she said.

Mina smiled warmly. “Holmes told us you were the one carrying the curse,” she said to Gwen. A bolt of panic shot through her, which must have shown on her expression, as Mina continued, “I have been through a similar ordeal quite recently, so I understand your fear well.”

Gwen’s eyebrows shot up. “You have?”

Before Mina could elaborate—if she was going to at all—Holmes asked, “Newt, are we ready to proceed?”

“Yes.” Newt nodded in the direction of the laboratory, where the other House members waited.

“Then let us go.”

In the laboratory, Newt and Van Helsing moved the table aside and pushed the hidden door open, revealing the staircase beyond. Holding a lantern aloft, the professor led the way down them.

The demon knew they were coming. Gwen could feel it deep in her bones. Gruesome shapes emerged from the walls in the flickering lantern light, rolling eyeballs and crooked teeth and twitching, ghoulish fingers; but when she tried to look at them directly, they scuttled back into the shadows.

Laughter filled the cellar by the time they reached the foot of the stairs. A hot, rotten stench hung in the air. Gwen clutched Newt’s knife so hard her knuckles turned white. The well sat only meters away, looking as unassuming as any normal water-well, but they all knew better.

A moan sounded near Gwen’s ear. Griffin’s breathing had become labored, and he was whimpering erratically as though in extreme pain. Unsure what to do, Gwen stared at him. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet all day, and now she had no idea what was wrong. “Griffin?” she tried tentatively.

At first, he didn’t respond. Then a chuckle crawled out of his throat, a laugh that escalated to a mad cackle. But something about it did not sound entirely like Griffin—it was too cold, too forced, like an amateur actor ordered to laugh on cue without any previous practice.

An invisible hand seized her by the wrist. She let out a yelp as she felt him try and rip the knife from her grasp. Newt yanked her away and held her to his chest. “Griffin, what the hell are you doing?” she cried.

The hollow, growling voice that answered was most definitely not Griffin’s. “I cannot allow you to proceed with this, Guinevere,” it said.

Then he coughed, and spat a black liquid onto the floor. A ripple passed through the air where he stood, and suddenly a pair of eyes became visible in the place his head should be. The sclera was still translucent, but the irises were a bright blood red.

“By God, he’s been possessed!” Van Helsing ran over and grabbed Griffin by the arm. Griffin fought him madly, an inhuman growl rumbling in his chest. Holmes darted forward and helped Van Helsing tug him back away from the others.

“Gwen, you must do it now!” the detective shouted, struggling to pin the thrashing invisible man against the wall.

Swallowing hard, Gwen nodded. She approached the well, raising the knife.

An enraged roar shook the walls, coming from seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once. Black tar erupted from the well. Dripping tendrils lashed about the room, searching blindly for someone to grab onto. The liquid seeped into the cracks in the floor, and the stone tiles swelled like a wave, throwing them all off their feet. Gwen hit the ground hard on her side. Newt’s knife was knocked out of her grip and sent skidding across the floor.

A cry made her whirl around. The well-liquid had latched onto Harker’s ankle and started to drag him toward the well. Mina and the Time Traveller lunged for him and caught hold of his arms. She made to run over to help, but the Time Traveller said through gritted teeth, “We have him, get the knife!”

The knife. It lay across the room, amidst a tipped-over stack of crates. But when she attempted to retrieve it, she was forced back by the swinging tendrils of well-liquid.

She caught Newt’s eye. Understanding immediately what she wanted him to do, he made a dash for the knife, dodging the demon’s wild attacks.

He reached the crates successfully and snatched up the knife. Before he could even turn around, a globule of tar landed on his foot, splattering across the floor. He tugged at it, but it would not budge. “Gwen, I’m stuck!” he shouted.

“Throw the knife to me!” She held up her hands. He pulled back his arm and tossed the knife handle-first across the cellar. It flew over the well, and she stretched up on her toes to reach it. Miraculously, she managed to catch hold of the handle, though she nearly missed it entirely.

A piercing shriek, like nails scraping across a chalkboard, rang out in protest. She bent over, hands clamped over her ears. Enough with this nonsense, she told herself; and, gathering all the courage she could muster, she ran to the well and plunged the knife into the center.

The blade pierced something solid that pulsed with a steady rhythm. A grating, skull-rattling groan shook the cellar, as though coming from the house’s very core. All at once, the black liquid retreated into the well, swirling in a whirlpool down and down and down into the depths of the earth. Gwen felt a jolt in her abdomen, and then agony so sharp and so hot that for a moment her vision turned white. She gagged as something dark gushed from her mouth and down into the well.

At last, at long last, the cellar fell completely silent. Her legs gave out, and she slumped onto the well, exhausted and breathless.

Then, she heard a crack. The ancient bricks were beginning to crumble into dust. She gave a cry of alarm as the wall beneath her collapsed, causing her to lose her balance.

Before she fell, a pair of arms grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away from the hole. Watson looked down at her, spectacles knocked askew, appearing utterly shaken. Trembling, she gave him a weak smile. “Thank you.”

Newt hurried over and helped her to her feet. For a while they merely gazed at each other, panting and grinning like fools. Then a curious mixture of a laugh and a sob bubbled up in Gwen’s throat, and then they were both in a pile on the floor again, heads buried in each other’s shoulders, wrapped in an embrace so tight they soon found it hard to breathe.

A fit of coughing brought them back to the present. Jekyll was leaning on Hyde’s cane, using it to help him to stand. He glanced about the room in wonderment—and Gwen saw that his eyes had returned to their normal unclouded blue, and the scales on his arms had disappeared.

He caught her eye and shook his head disbelievingly. “It . . . it worked,” was all he seemed able to articulate.

Their plan had worked.

Then Gwen remembered Griffin. At some point during the battle (most likely when she had stabbed the demon), Griffin had collapsed, and Holmes and Van Helsing had lowered him to his knees while still maintaining a secure grip on his arms just in case. Now he seemed to be returning once more to consciousness. His eyes, Gwen noticed, had become fully invisible once again.

He groaned. Still in a daze, he slowly became aware of his situation. “What are you . . . why am I . . .” he muttered, never quite finishing any of his sentences.

“Shall we let him go?” Holmes asked, but Van Helsing held up a hand.

“Wait,” the professor ordered. “We are not yet certain it is truly him.”

“I think it really is him this time, Van Helsing,” said Gwen.

“I believe so, too, so release me!” Griffin snapped, having regained enough sense to be put off. “Holmes is practically trying to break my arm.”

Holmes and Van Helsing finally slackened their grip. “My apologies, Griffin, but you were trying to kill us,” Holmes said.

“Was I?”

Van Helsing’s brow furrowed. “How much do you remember?”

“I can’t recall a thing since the previous night.”

“Perhaps we should discuss memory capacity upstairs,” the Time Traveller suggested, “and leave this place to rot, shall we?”

“And bar the door,” Victor added with a shiver.

Most of the House proceeded up to the laboratory. Gwen and Newt lingered behind with Van Helsing and the Harkers and watched as they went about setting demonic entity-repelling symbols around the perimeter of the well. Gwen leaned her head against Newt’s shoulder and sighed contentedly.

She was free.

8 notes · View notes

mrhyde-mrseek · 1 year

Text

SCIENCE MOST SINISTER - PART TWELVE

For a while, it seemed to Gwen, time halted. She, Newt, and the other House members remained frozen in an eternity-long staring match, some unknown force holding them all in place.

Then she found she was able to move again, and dashed between the opposing parties just as Griffin accused Newt, “It was you who broke the time machine. It must have been!”

“Broke the—what?” Newt glanced at Van Helsing and shook his head, looking utterly baffled. “What on Earth is going on? What—and who—are you invisible?”

Gwen tried to peer past the crowd gathered in front of the Time Traveller’s workshop, but she couldn’t see a thing. She rounded on Griffin and snapped, “Newt has been with me for several minutes. There is no conceivable way he could have broken anything, nor any reason why he would want to.”

Pointing at the invisible man, she took a step closer. Half of the House members immediately flinched away from her. A pang of guilt struck her heart, and she backed up, lowering her hand. Newt laid a hand on her shoulder in comfort.

Either not noticing this or not caring, Griffin asked, “And who is Newt, exactly? I don’t recall you ever mentioning anyone by that name before.”

“I invited Newton here,” Van Helsing interjected before the altercation could become any more heated. “He is an archeologist and associate of Gwen’s. He believes he has found a way to reverse the effects of her curse.”

Jekyll lifted his head at this. “He . . . he has?”

Newt cleared his throat. “I have. But might there be a better place to discuss this than a dimly-lit hallway? I doubt my explanation will be particularly short.” (At his comment on the poor visibility of the hallway, Gwen realized, looking out a window, that the sun had nearly dipped below the trees. Had it really been that long?)

While the others proceeded back to the study, Gwen lingered behind. She crept to the door to the Time Traveller’s workshop. He knelt on the floor surrounded by a sea of metal levers and plates, shoulders drooping as though they held the weight of the world. He seemed not to have heard a word of her and Griffin’s prior conversation. She knocked lightly on the frame.

He jumped at the sound and blinked as if coming back to life. He was surprised to see her out of her bedchamber. “Gwen?”

Gwen opened her mouth, but no words left her tongue. She had no idea what to say to him. Here was his life’s work, his pride and joy, lying in pieces around him. “I am so, so sorry,” she whispered.

She wished to comfort him somehow, but restrained herself; she did not know if she should go into the room, or if he, too, was afraid to be near her. She decided not to take the risk. With one last sorrowful, apologetic look back, she turned away toward the stairs.

She discovered that the others had been waiting for her to join them. Although there was space for her to take a seat on the sofa, she chose to stand by one of the bookshelves, far enough away from them to avoid causing unease.

Newt stood in front of the fireplace with his hands folded behind his back. “This is a rather lengthy explanation, and I will go off on a bit of a tangent, so please do not interrupt me until I have finished,” he warned. “It starts, interestingly enough, with this house.”

The House members exchanged looks of puzzlement as Newt continued.

“I have known about Gwen’s curse for about a year; I found out on accident, but those details are not necessary. I have spent months studying it; at the same time, I have been in contact with Van Helsing. We have been working together to find a cure, but before now, neither of us had been successful.

“Two nights ago, Van Helsing sent me a letter. He had just returned from traveling abroad to find a note sitting on his desk signed by an anonymous figure who calls themself ‘the Mastermind’—I can safely assume by your reactions that you all know what I am referring to?” he added.

“He sent us a copy of the message, in hopes we would be able to decide it,” Victor supplied.

“He did the same with me. Naturally, I was confused at first. I had no idea what billiard room of what house the note was referring to.”

“So he told you of us to give you context, thus supplying you with knowledge of our location and the ability to investigate it,” Holmes said before Newt could.

Newt’s eyebrows shot up. “How does he do that?” he asked. Then he flapped his hands, waving away any response. “Anyways, yes—to decrypt the message, I had to do research on the history of this house. And what I uncovered is . . . intriguing, to say the least.

“Now, returning to Gwen’s curse, from what I assume, the reason why it has lain dormant for so long is that it needs some kind of secondary vessel to enable it; such as the pendant. In this case, I suspect the curse is being guided by something more supernatural.

“Centuries ago, the original owner of this house became obsessed with matters of the occult. He discovered an ancient grimoire—which has since been lost to history, I’m afraid—and used it to attempted a summoning ritual. Somehow, he performer the ritual wrong, and the demon he had summoned became trapped in the house.”

“And what does any of this have to do with Gwen?” Griffin asked impatiently.

Newt held up a finger. “Let me explain. I have not been able to find much about the grimoire or the demon itself, but I have gathered enough information to formulate a theory. I think the reason why Gwen’s curse has reawakened is that the demon has attached itself to it in order to stay . . . well, not alive, per se, but to retain power.”

“In summary,” Holmes said, “every single event that has occurred in this house since we were contacted by Van Helsing can be traced back to a demon, who is, if I am correct, the unnamed Mastermind who sent the professor that message.”

“Correct.”

Gwen’s heartbeat raced. She couldn’t tell if it was due to excitement or terror. “If we destroy the demon . . .” she murmured.

Hearing her, Newt nodded, eyes glimmering. “We can eradicate the effects of your curse,” he completed.

~•~

A growl rumbled in the demon’s throat, a growl that went unheard by the men and woman gathered in the study. This was not how things were meant to go! They weren’t supposed to know!

No matter, it thought. It still had one weapon left against them. One that was—you could say—much easier to conceal.

10 notes · View notes

mrhyde-mrseek · 1 year

Text

SCIENCE MOST SINISTER - PART ELEVEN

The stranger stood before the rusting, rotting iron gates, gaze switching between the hastily written address in his hand and the house it belonged to behind the gate.

The stranger’s name was Newton Blackrod, and it was only on a stroke of luck he had been in Europe meeting with a French symbologist when Van Helsing had requested his help. Upon hearing the professor’s message, he knew he had no time to lose, and up and left as soon as he could.

Travel case in hand, he went up the overgrown path to the door, where he was faced with the iron head of a gargoyle, clenching a knocker between its fangs. Without fear, he banged on the door.

He stood on the steps for about a minute, playing idly with an antique knife hidden in his pocket, before the lock was drawn back at last. Van Helsing peered out, and Newton saw his broad shoulders relax when their eyes met. “Ah, wonderful, Dr. Blackrod. You’ve come earlier than I expected.”

Newton was waved inside a dim entry hall. He could hear voices in an adjacent room, arguing in hushed tones. Looking at Van Helsing, he asked, “Is she . . . where is she?”

“She’s locked herself in her bedchamber, and will permit entry to nobody. Hopefully she will allow you to speak with her.”

The noise from downstairs became smothered by the deep silence of the upper floor. After indicating the correct door, Van Helsing turned and went back down the stairs to attend to whoever the whisperers were.

Newton stepped up to the bedchamber door, took a deep breath, and knocked twice. Immediately, Gwen’s voice—dull and bleak, so unlike her typical inquisitive manner—mumbled, “Leave me in peace.”

“Gwen?”

There was stunned silence. Then, breathless with disbelief: “Newt?”

Newt smiled. “May I come in?”

In a flash, the door was opened, and he was yanked inside the room. He soon found himself locked in a kiss, and flung his arms around Gwen, holding her tightly.

Then he felt her begin to shake. Surprised, he pulled away. Tears leaked from her eyes, dripping down her cheeks and onto the collar of his shirt. “Th-this is all my fault,” she sobbed. “I should have known, I—I could have prevented this all from happening—“

“Van Helsing told me everything. None of this was your doing.” He brushed a loose curl behind her ear, but she shook her head desperately, lips pressed together.

“My curse is responsible for this. I thought I would be safe here, but now Jekyll is going to die, and it will be all my fault—and—and they will cast me out just like last time, just like in America—my curse will be responsible for the death of another!”

She collapsed into his arms. He could do nothing but hold her as she cried; he did not know how else to show her she was safe.

At last, her sobs turned to miserable hiccups, and he urged, “Gwen? Will you look at me, please?”

She lifted her head. Her golden-brown eyes shone in the light of the open window. “That is why I’m here. Van Helsing contacted me to help you.”

“How can you possibly help me? The disease is incurable, and the curse is permanent.”

“I believe I have found a way to break it.”

She stared at him, searching for any sign he were making a joke. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am, I promise! But I fear it is a bit more complicated than I’d like. . . .”

~•~

“You foolish man!”

Griffin yelped when the medical volume Wataon had been holding flew through the air and clipped his shoulder. The doctor gaped at him, then shook his head incredulously. “Do you truly wish to share Jekyll’s fate?”

“Well, none of you would have accompanied me,” Griffin retorted defensively. He waved the ancient journal in front of the other House members. “While the rest of you were busy sitting here in despair, I took it upon myself to investigate. And see! I was successful.”

“You nearly drowned in the well!” the Time Traveller protested. “Imagine if you had—none of us would ever know. We may never have found your body.”

Griffin stuttered, searching for a sensible rebuttal. “Well—would you like to know what I found, or would you prefer to chastise me more?” More aggressively than was strictly necessary, he thought, only after the fact, he threw the journal down on the sofa between Holmes and Victor, causing the latter to flinch away from him.

Holmes picked up the journal. Silently accepting a handkerchief from Watson, he wrapped it around his hands and gingerly turned the yellowed pages with one long finger. “Where did you say this was hidden?” he asked.

“In a hole beneath one of the tiles.”

“Then it must have belonged to the first owner of this house—maybe even the man who built it,” he murmured.

He flipped to the back of the journal, and his brow furrowed in confusion. “A page has been torn out.” He looked up. “You say you found nothing else in the hole, correct?”

Griffin shrugged. “There may have been a loose page or two, I can’t say for certain. It was filled with spiderwebs, so it was difficult to see much else besides the journal itself.”

Holmes made a dissatisfied humming sound, then returned to the journal, the others crowding around him to read.

Griffin, however, stayed where he was. A strange ache thumped in his head. He had noticed it when he’d returned to the laboratory, but had dismissed it as nothing to be concerned about. Now, however, the edges of his vision were tinted grey, and he found himself growing dizzy.

He was about to mention it to Watson, when from somewhere upstairs there came a tremendous crash, and he practically leapt out of his skin. The Time Traveller’s eyes lit up with panic. He jumped to his feet with a wordless cry and sprinted from the study just as Van Helsing entered it.

The professor glanced first at him, and then at the other House members. His mouth opened to voice his bewilderment, but he was interrupted by a shout of anguish from the Time Traveller’s workshop.

Griffin was the first to reach the workshop. One glance inside, and his heart plummeted to the pit of his stomach.

The Time Traveller knelt on the ground amid the mountain of bronze gears and quartz crystals that had once been his beloved time machine, clutching his head in despair.

“Oh, no . . .” Watson was the first to his side as the others clustered, frozen in shock, near the doorway. “Time Traveller, I—I am so, so sorry,” he said mournfully.

“It’s gone.” For the very first time since Griffin had met him, the Time Traveller’s voice was dull, monotonous, drained of all emotion but empty grief. “All gone. Everything I have dedicated my life to . . . this machine took over two years to build, and now . . .”

Right then, there came an exclamation of, “Hello!” from near the door. Griffin spun around and peered past the heads of the others.

At the end of the hallway stood an unfamiliar man in a long brown coat, eyes wide behind his glasses, Gwen half-hidden behind his arm.

11 notes · View notes