The Solemn Bell(2)

The Bentley came to rest on its side. Brody lay in a tangled heap of canvas and wood, his limp body hanging half-in and half-out of the motorcar. The big, beautiful engine hissed in agony. One of the headlamps still worked, shooting a sad beam of light awkwardly into the wet earth. Beyond that, there was not a light or a sound, save the faded moon and still-driving rain.

No one would pass here for hours. Help might not come until daybreak. It would be a miracle if he lasted that long.

Brody pulled himself from the wreckage. His leather driving gloves saved his hands from being sliced to ribbons. His Burberry’s greatcoat and heavy tweeds protected the rest of him from the broken glass and metal shrapnel that blanketed the muddy ground.

Brody stood on shaking legs. He felt himself allover. No broken bones, but certainly a couple of bruised ribs. Every time he sucked in air, his chest caught.

He reached over and cut the ignition. The Bentley went quiet. Brody stood in the wreckage, pelted by rain and wind. Cold mud seeped through his trousers. He’d freeze to death out there in the elements—injured, exposed, and sick from withdrawal.

Christ. He needed to go for help.

He took a few tentative steps toward the road. His brown leather brogues sank in mud up to his ankles. Thank God for sturdy boots. They held fast as he put one foot in front of the other, fighting through the mire.

At last, he reached the country lane. Brody climbed through the thorny hedgerow, and stood in the middle of the road. He scanned the nearby hills for lamplight or chimney smoke, but the night was as cold and black as it ever was.





CHAPTER TWO





Brody walked for miles without encountering another soul. He hugged his tattered greatcoat tighter, fighting the wind and rain that cut to his bones, stopping once or twice to vomit.

He was past the tremors stage. Now, he’d entered into gut-wrenching sickness. When there was nothing left in his stomach to heave up, he retched until he spit blood. Damned morphine. He was going to die out here, alone and afraid, without anything to take the edge off.

His muscles cried out in agony. His veins begged for precious morphine. His body couldn’t understand why the needle wasn’t there. It didn’t care that he couldn’t get the stuff in the middle of nowhere. He’d never gone this long without an injection. The pangs had never been this strong—even at their worst—and it frightened him to know just how powerful a hold the medicine had on him.

Brody knew he’d do anything to stave off withdrawal, if only for a moment. He’d walk until his feet bled, until his heart burst from exhaustion. The rain didn’t matter. His injuries couldn’t stop him. He dragged one foot forward, then another. One step at a time toward the promise of morphine that called to him through the night.

A bleak life—living from one dose to the next—but it was his existence now. Before the war, he’d been at Cambridge. He’d had hopes, dreams, and more ambition than he could fulfill in a lifetime. He’d had friends. Girls. Family. Then, the war came and he’d joined up like so many chaps his age. Heading off to France was just another page in his story. Brody had not expected war to be so cruel. He had not expected to see his friends cut down in their prime.

No wonder he needed something to cope. Without morphine to drag him into a dreamless sleep, it all came rushing back. He lived in a nightmare world where the war never ended. His friends haunted his dreams. He saw their deaths over and over again, until he couldn’t take any more. So Brody had gone searching for a cure, and found it packaged in neat, glass vials.

He’d give anything to hear the clink of glass now. To feel the bite of the needle as it kissed his vein.

He doubled over and retched in the road. Brody wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and kept walking. The rain hadn’t let up. The wind twisted the few sparse trees overhead. Not until a flash of lightning lit the sky did he realize there was a gate up ahead.

Brody put his shoulder into it and pushed until the hinges groaned. The iron gate inched open just enough for him to fit through. Luck was on his side so far—he could’ve been killed in that wreck, or forced to die in the elements. But, where there was a gate, there was often a house. He prayed it was a doctor’s house, stockpiled with morphine to the rafters.

Brody walked the narrow gravel drive. It snaked between trees that had been carefully planted hundreds of years ago. Beeches, maybe. He didn’t know—or care. Whatever they were, they sheltered him from the rain, guiding him toward a house that rose up out of the hillside like a dark stain.

He could make out the slate roof and mullioned windows through the tree line. Finally, he reached a walled forecourt barred off by a final, threatening gate. A rusted chain held the damned thing locked tight, no matter how hard Brody shook it.

He tried to squeeze himself through the bars, but it was no use. The old place was secure, even though it looked downright abandoned. Common sense told him to turn back, to find a place where he could actually get some help, but his sick and tired mind whispered to push on. Keep trying. Break the gate down, if he had to.

Brody sank to his knees in the wet gravel. He flattened himself on his stomach, trying to wedge through the space at the bottom of the gate. Of course, that did not work. People who built gates were not fools. They’d perfected the art of keeping intruders out centuries ago. No matter how badly he wanted inside, Brody wasn’t going to crack some long-held secret of gate breaking.