Unholy Fire by Robert J. Mrazek

“all four bottles.… I’ve already taken care of the one in your room.”
    The very thought of destroying the new supply seemed like a sacrilege. At that moment I would have sooner cut off my hand, for I was already feeling the first desperate urges. As usual, he seemed to be reading my thoughts.
    â€œWhen did you have your last draught?”
    â€œAround six,” I said, truthfully.
    â€œWell, I cannot do this for you,” he said. “You must take the first step. After that, I promise to help.”
    â€œHow can you help?” I asked derisively.
    â€œI’ve had some experience in these matters,” he said.
    I was still kneeling on the dirt floor with the open rucksack in front of me.
    â€œStart with the first bottle,” he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “That will still leave you three.”
    Looking to buy time, I picked up one of the brown bottles from the bag and removed the cork. As its earthy fragrance rose toward me, it was all I could do not to tip it to my mouth.
    â€œPour it out,” he demanded harshly, and I did, watching the laudanum soak into the loose hay at my feet.
    â€œNow the next one,” he said, when the bottle was empty.
    As I glared up at him with undisguised loathing, an idea suddenly struck me, brilliant in its simplicity. I would accede to his demands, but as soon as he was gone, I would head right back to Spangler’s.
    I quickly poured the second and third bottles into the hay, grinning in the darkness at the thought of what would happen when Mrs. Warden’s cow ate the opium-laced fodder. As the remains of the last bottle gurgled out of the stem, I again looked up at him.
    â€œSatisfied?” I asked.
    There was a look of amusement on his ugly face.
    â€œI am,” he responded. “Let’s go.”
    â€œGo where?” I blurted.
    â€œYou don’t think I’ve done this just so you can go back to Spangler, do you?”
    I was stunned that he knew him by name.
    â€œAnyway, your conniving quartermaster is no longer in business,” he said, pulling out his watch. “By now he is behind bars at the Capitol Prison.”
    â€œI’m starting to feel sick,” I said, slowly standing up.
    â€œYou will feel far sicker in another hour,” he responded. “In the meantime we must reach our destination.”
    He led me outside. A coach was waiting in the alley. We were no sooner inside than the driver lashed the horses and we were off.
    A dense fog lay close against the city, and the street lamps were but smudges of pale yellow against the rimy night. The gloomy weather only made me more jaded at the thought of what awaited me when we reached our unknown destination.
    As we turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, the orange brilliance of the shop windows cut through the murk, and I could see people moving along the sidewalk, their spectral shapes outlined against the light. Then the coach was climbing the steep grade that led up Capitol Hill. I began to hear a series of clanking sounds, as if men were pounding massive bells with a dull gong. Cloaked by the fog, the noise would stop for a moment and then resume with another series of sharp retorts.
    A horse car passed us on its way down the hill. In the hazy gleam of its interior lamps, I saw a full cargo of boisterous young soldiers, their faces wreathed in smiles. I remembered feeling that same innocent excitement when our regiment had arrived at the Capitol Building during the first summer of the war.
    The fog thinned a bit as we reached the brow of the hill, and the riddle of the metallic noises was solved. Lit up in the glow of hundreds of firepots, I could see men scrambling like monkeys across the unfinished dome of the Capitol. High above us, workmen were pounding bolts into the iron framework on which the outer skin of the dome was being constructed. The stanchions looked like the ribs of some gigantic beast, as the Capitol