Iron Heart by M C D'alton & Melanie Page

Author:M C D'alton & Melanie Page [D'alton, M C & Page, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781839190018
Publisher: Vulpine Press
Published: 2020-01-23T16:00:00+00:00

***

It was well into the evening, and Merrick Forsythe sat in the single chair beside his tiny hearth in his lodgings, leafing through his precious copy of Anatomy, Surgical and Descriptive. The brand new textbook for medical students, published in America by Henry Grey, was the most up-to-date treatise ever made and had been acquired with considerable difficulty.

Merrick swirled a fingerful of blended whisky, his one indulgence, and contemplated his predicament.

He considered himself the most fortunate of men. With a generous godfather who had sent him to Scotland to study, procuring him this book among other luxuries, he had the respect if not the liking of his peers. Or he had.

Today the dean had summoned him. Merrick’s career was in his own hands, apparently. He hadn’t been threatened or chastised, not as such. But mention had been made that the university strictly forbade fighting on its grounds.

But what was a man to do? Nothing here, nothing he had ever read, suggested that the organs of lesser species could be used to perform medicine. He would be the first to acknowledge that the frontiers of medicine grew wider every day. Ever since he had read Mantell’s work on animalcules, he had been fascinated by the thought that miasma was the product of tiny creatures in the human body attacking it from within. How then could any rational person suggest using the flesh of an animal to replace human tissue? The idea was preposterous, obscene, diabolical.

A muted flash from his mirror messenger distracted him, and he lifted the fine oak lid to read the text on the silvered glass within. He had seen the elegant hand before, but the words were a shock that shuddered right through him. He stared at them, alternately nauseated, grieved and enraged at the information seeping from within the Somerton enclave.

That stupid tart!

Merrick reached for the decanter, poured a large slug into his glass, then swallowed half with barely a tremor.

As he had not expected events to move so briskly, he had not yet discussed this with his peers. For some reason, they were avoiding him. It might be due to the dean’s disfavour or a sneaking sympathy for the freakish young Somerton. Merrick’s actions there had done him no good and won him no friends, so now, when he needed to win over the hearts and minds of his fellows, he faced an even greater battle.

His words alone would never convince them now. What he needed was a demonstration of some kind, something they could not ignore. If only they could see with their own eyes the evil that had been perpetrated in their very midst.

And it was not only Galena Tindale and the other female students—the monstrous regiment of women bent on corrupting the noble profession of medicine—but the man every student at the university admired. Augustus Somerton was known to be a brilliant lecturer and researcher whose work on compound fractures was now standard medical doctrine. However, he had disappeared into private research, and who could know what other perverted experiments he had conducted since.

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