Introduction
In the autumn of 1918, US soldiers at naval bases in the United States unwittingly released into the civilian public a virulent form of flu. Origins of the flu are unknown still today, and historical opinions on where it originated differ widely. What is important is that it spread.
Due to Woodrow Wilson’s Sedition Act earlier that same year, newspapers were forbidden from reporting on the spreading sickness, and doctors and nurses were gagged with threats of up to twenty years in prison. The results were hushed or downplayed reports on the disease and its effects. Further aggravating the problem was the fact that this particularly strong strand seemed to strike hardest, not children or elderly, but strong and healthy young adults, who felt no real need for extra precaution.
The only newspapers allowed to report on the blooming epidemic were the free papers of Spain, a neutral country in WWI, the “War that would end all wars.” Hence, the sickness took on the name the Spanish Flu.
Without proper awareness or protection from the virus in the United States, the pandemic plowed through US cities unchecked, striking it hard. Within the course of a few months, the life expectancy for people in the United States dropped by twelve years, and more than 675,000 Americans were dead, with as many as a thousand dying per day in some cities. Fifty million people world-wide would eventually fall to the disease: one-fifth of the world’s human population. For the United States, twenty-five percent of the population was struck.
That same autumn, World War I would come to an end. However, few realize that more people would fall to this quiet but deadly strain of flu than they would to their enemies in World War I and World War II combined….
October, 1918 just outside of Chicago, Illinois
William placed the last of the spell components against the manor’s final attic window and stepped back. The floorboards of the attic creaked beneath his custom leather shoe. He ignored the sound, shrugged off the fine tailored jacket of his three-piece suit, and folded it, setting it aside on a spare wood crate. Then he unbuttoned the cuff of his left sleeve before rolling it up to reveal the intricate lines of what appeared to be an emerald-green tattoo. When he twisted his arm slightly, the markings glimmered in the shafts of light streaming through the window.
He took a deep breath, whispered the words of a shielding spell, and traced the outline of the mark with the fingers of his right hand. It shimmered to life as if lit up from within. He pressed his lips into a fine line against the now very familiar pain, and waited it out until the light faded, and the house was secure.
He then rolled his sleeve back down and stepped away from the window. His shoe bumped up against a rolled newspaper, and he looked down. It was one of dozens of papers strewn across the attic floor. They hailed from various cities across the United States, but their headlines bore a terrible likeness to one another.
…URGES DOCTORS TO BE CAUTIOUS…
…INFLUENZA TOLL INCREASES AS EPIDEMIC CONTINUES TO SPREAD…
…VOLUNTARY FLU BAN URGED…
…INFLUENZA ON INCREASE IN NEW YORK…
…FLU HITS WESTWARD; MANY DIE….
William’s green gaze skirted over the headlines with a hard coldness that only grew harder before he looked up at the door across the attic and strode to it. He opened it, stepped through, and closed it behind him, waving his hand over the knob to make certain it locked securely. He didn’t want Helena to find her way inside.
The newspapers were a gift from Victor Hush. He was flooding William with them somehow, and Will couldn’t rid himself of them. When he burned one, the ashes reconstituted. This wasn’t Victor’s doing however, it was a trait of William himself. He was capable of destroying nothing bearing written history. It was a part of who and what he was.
So he kept the papers in the attic and locked it up tight, claiming it was unsafe due to broken floorboards, mouse traps, and spiders. Old house and whatnot, so that much was actually true. That was the easy part.
Everything else was far more difficult.
The world outside was being infused with wrongness. It was a wrongness that attacked at a molecular level, bringing sickness and death. It was also an unnatural wrongness, one that was completely avoidable, and one that William had to hide from Helena at all costs. Because it was her fault. In a way.
And it was his fault.
But most at fault was Victor Hush and his undying, undeniable, unquenchable desire for the one thing in the universe that could complete him. The one thing in the universe he wanted, and the one thing in that same universe William refused to let him have: Helena.
Victor had promised William that if Helena wasn’t delivered to him, humans would suffer. But William had heard the spiel before. He’d been threatened by the same person for the same reason so many times, he’d lost count. And the answer was always the same.
“Helena will never be yours. Not ever. Not in this universe. Not while I still draw breath.”
“So you say.”
And the bodies began to fall. Every time.
This time however, William found himself fighting harder, with more desperation, and with far fewer compunctions than ever before. This time… he couldn’t lose her. It was as simple and as grave as that. He simply could not lose her.
Something made him pause just beyond the door, some strange sensation like a hiccup in the natural order of things. He took a deep breath, cocked his head, and listened. All he could hear was the rapid racing of his heart, the continued rain falling from beyond the window pane, and the softer sounds of someone moving down below on the first floor of the manor.
But then she opened the front door, and William’s head snapped up. He disappeared from where he was standing and reappeared behind Helena in the front room as she met the milk delivery boy on the threshold.
“Adam! It’s good to see you,” greeted Helena kindly. Adam beamed where he stood, all sun-kissed cheeks and nervousness and bright, shining eyes that were only for Helena. She had that kind of effect on people, especially the opposite sex.
The thirteen-year-old boy joyfully handed Helena a small basket of milk bottles, and then placed a newspaper on top of them. “Oh! I picked you up a paper too, Miss Dawn,” he said proudly. “No extra charge of course. It’s the least I can do.” He rolled forward onto his toes with giddiness and waited for his praise.
Which Helena gave at once. “Thank you, Adam!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been meaning to pick one up, but…” she leaned forward and whispered, “my deadline has been just about killing me and I haven’t had time.”
“I must have known!” said Adam conspiratorially. He leaned in as well and winked, his ability to flirt with a woman nearly unequalled. “And your secret is as ever safe with me.”
Young Adam John Jenkins was one of the very few people on the planet who knew Helena was a student at the local university. But the world as a whole was not ready for women who not only knew how to read, but to study and write, and write well. Helena’s thesis was nearly complete, and she would be defending it soon. But she had decided to keep her career choice a secret from the locals. It was easier that way.
William stepped toward them, moving out of the shadows. The sound of his shoes on the floorboards drew Adam’s gaze and had Helena turning around in surprise. “William!” she said as she grinned. “Adam brought us a paper. It’s been a while, I must admit.” She held the basket of milk out to William for him to take, her attention turning to the rolled-up news rag.
William could feel it all crumbling. Again. He’d been down this bumpy road so many times, and this was how it always began. Perhaps the minute details differed, perhaps the people were not the same, but it fell apart eventually. And there was always one block pulled that set the foundation unsteady.
This time around, this would be it. He could sense the ground shaking, hear destruction coming, feel misfortune churning like a chunk of burning coal in his stomach.