An image: that’s all this was. It wasn’t real, he wasn’t real. The Diableron.
“You’re not real,” she said, eyes still closed.
“Beth,” Willem said, his voice now the adult version of him, the same choking one from the night of his death.
“No.” Her voice found strength. She lifted her chin. Staring into eyes that weren’t really her brother’s, she said, “You aren’t Willem.”
With the disappearance of her brother, darkness and the demon appeared before her, and as it had the first time, the horrifying sight startled her. Behind the angry, melting face—the face that would have given her nightmares as a child and the face she was sure could transform into a most beautiful Aglaé—the black, spear-like tail raised. It came to her neck, rubbing its cool wetness over Elizabeth’s skin, and just when it retracted, about to strike, the creature was thrown from her. Elizabeth fell to the ground, trying to adjust her eyes to the swift movement of shapes in the darkness. Snorts and grunts gave the beast away, ones that could belong only to him.
He tossed the Diableron into a hemlock, and with a piercing cry she fell to the ground. The beast stood on all fours, snarling at the dark silhouette that rose with difficulty. They circled each other, she hissing and he growling.
He roared, making her retreat, and lunged for her, his fangs tearing into her neck. It wasn’t until he howled that Elizabeth realized Diableron’s tail had penetrated his side. While a black, mist-like substance poured from her neck and lifted into the air, she retracted her tail from deep in the beast’s flesh.
“Beast!” Elizabeth called, running to him.
While Diableron writhed on the ground, he threw a warning at Elizabeth. Stay away!
Then, in a less commanding, muddled tone, she heard, Elizabeth? and he fell to the ground.
Her knees skidded through the mud and came to a stop before him. She lifted her head at another screech, but Diableron fled, slipping between the trees as quickly as the beast moved. Her last screech, which came from much farther away, was unmistakably a cry of pain.
The beast began to stand.
“Stay,” Elizabeth said, trying to push him down. She moved her hands over his fur until she reached the blood on his left side, warm and wet and spilling. She ripped off her jacket, rolled it up, and pressed it hard into the wound. He howled again, writhing, and she tried shushing him. “It’s all right,” she soothed. “You’re going to be all right.” Her face was wet, not from the tears she’d shed for Willem, but from new ones. She wiped them on her upper arm, still putting pressure on his wound.
Elizabeth, leave, he said, and she shook her head before the words finished in her mind.
“I’m not leaving you.” She looked all around, trying not to panic. He didn’t have long before the poison would overtake him, and if she didn’t do something about his wound soon, she would lose him.
“I need you to walk,” she said after a sniffle, trying to make her voice strong. “Can you do that, Beast?”
Leave me. His eyes drifted. Go home. He said it over and over again. You’re not…safe.
She shook him, and his large, brown-and-gold eyes met hers, though they appeared out of focus. “You listen to me,” she said through her teeth. “She’s gone now, I’m fine. I’m not leaving you, and I can’t carry you. So you’ll either walk with me, or I’ll stay right here with you all night. What’s it going to be?”
As though his deep groan commanded it, he slowly rose to all fours. His legs shook and his head swayed. She lifted her long-sleeved thermal shirt over her head and yanked her arms out of the sleeves, leaving her in her white camisole. She pushed her back upward against his side, to both steady him and supply pressure on the wound, and as quickly as she could, she tied her shirt sleeve to her jacket sleeve. Behind her he wavered, and she pushed her back more forcefully into his side, digging her boots into the soil.
At her release of her pressure, blood began to pour from his side again, and as quickly as she could, she threw one end of the makeshift bandage over his back and retrieved it from underneath, pulling it tight around the thinnest part of his waist. She positioned it with the hood of her jacket balled up over the wound then pulled it tighter before tying the opposite sleeves together. It was almost too short and in the long run wouldn’t do much, especially because blood already saturated it.
“Let’s go,” she rushed. She shoved her shoulder into the wound and steadied him with her hands, trying to be the best support she could be. But she was nearly helpless with a creature so large; if he fell on her, she would be crushed. His legs wobbled and his steps seemed difficult, and words floated in and out of her mind: her name amidst random, incoherent thoughts. “I need you to focus,” she said, trying to guide him in the right direction. But he wouldn’t allow her to guide him to her home. Instead they veered toward the mansion.
The stone wall wasn’t far ahead, but his front legs nearly gave out and he stumbled. She steadied him, urgency giving her limbs strength. “Stay with me, we’re almost there.”
After a few more feet he stumbled again, and she moved just in time for him to fall face-first to the ground. “Beast, get up!” she shouted, shaking him.
Leave me…Elizabeth. He laid his head on the ground, his eyes closing and opening with a heavy drowsiness she could almost feel herself.
“No!” She shook him again, even pulled on his ears. “Please.” She tried not to notice his blood, everywhere. “You’ll be all right if you go with me…”
Don’t cry, he said. With his eyes safely behind closed lids, hers desperately searched the area. There had to be something she could do. She couldn’t leave him out here.
Then she knew. His eyes remained closed when she spoke, and if any of him remained inside, she hoped he could hear. “I’ll be right back,” she said, close to his ear. “I’m not going to leave you. I’m going to get help.”
He moaned, moving his head as though he objected, but she ran anyway, through the trees, until she slammed into the wrought iron fence around his mansion. After sprinting to the gate, she pushed the green button on the panel, panting. She buckled over, resting her hands on her knees as she waited, trying to steady her breathing, but she didn’t have time to wait. She pushed it again, and then again. Finally, a buzz sounded and Arne’s voice came over the intercom.
“Who is this?”
“Arne!” she said in relief, nearly attacking the box with excitement. “Arne, I need you!”
“Elizabeth?” The video screen came to life and a grayscale Arne with disheveled hair appeared. His tired eyes widened, and she didn’t want to know what bloody image his screen displayed. He straightened. “What happened, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, but Henry isn’t. I need your help.” Her voice cut off as her chest closed in on her again, a sob rising to her throat. She tried to breathe.
“Elizabeth.”
She straightened and wiped her face with the back of her hands. “He’s going to die.”
“Elizabeth, Henry is…” He appeared conflicted.
“Dammit, Arne, I know! I’ve known for a while, so you don’t need to cover for him. What you need to do is get out here and help me get him home!”
“I’ll be right there,” and the screen went black.
***
Elizabeth allowed Arne a moment, fighting her impatience. It was lonely under the night sky, even with the chirps of insects, and her chest shuddered with urgency. Within the trees, a yellow square of light reminded her she never turned off her bedroom light. How many people had heard the brawl, and how hadn’t Arne?
Just when panic began flooding in, the gate opened and Arne jogged from the mansion, wearing a robe over his pajamas and house shoes on his feet. As soon as he met her, she ran into the forest, hoping he could keep up. She shoved branches aside as she ran and when she reached Henry, nearly skidding to a stop at his side, from behind her Arne breathed, “Dear God.”
He knelt beside her. “What happened?
” he asked in a rush, shining a small flashlight over the makeshift bandage. Nearly the entire ensemble had been dyed a rich, dark red.
“Stabbed by a Diableron.” His eyes were full of questions when they shot to hers—not questions about what Diablerons were, but questions about how she knew. “There’s no time to explain, but the poison is taking over and we need to figure out how to get him home so I can fix him before he bleeds out.”
Arne grasped the beast’s fur in his fist and yanked, something painful enough to wake him if any consciousness remained inside, and the beast opened his eyes, baring his wild and ferocious fangs. “It’s all right,” Arne said. “It’s me.” After a short second, he nodded. “Yes, it’s Arne.” Elizabeth stayed at Henry’s bottom half, putting more pressure on the wound, and tepid blood oozed from her jacket as she pushed, like excess water squeezed from a sponge. The slimy, slick texture left an unsettling flutter in her stomach, but a deep breath steadied her. Arne threw her a quick glance then added, “Yes, yes, Elizabeth is fine. I need you to come home with me so we can get you mended, all right?”
A pause.
“Yes, you can. You have to.”
The beast’s eyes, covered with an opaque glaze, began to drift again and Arne yanked harder on his fur, making him snarl again. “Now!” Arne commanded. “Up!”
It took him a moment, but he stood, and with Elizabeth at his end and Arne supporting his front, they eventually guided him through the gate and his large front door. The beast stumbled and swayed, and didn’t seem aware of her.
She couldn’t stare at the interior of his darkened mansion, since she focused all her energy on keeping him upright, and just when they got to a large room off the foyer—a sitting room—he collapsed on the floor, lying again on his side. The floor felt like marble, she thought as she knelt next to him, and when Arne flipped on a light switch, illuminating a massive, elaborate chandelier above, she saw it was marble, swirled with black and grey. One foot from where he fell lay a large, intricate rug, covering most of the cold, unforgiving floor. But the only thing registering—besides her blood-stained arms and clothes, and a bloody strand of hair hanging over her eyes—was him, his fur caked in more blood than seemed humanly possible.
Frantically, she felt for a pulse, not knowing where she might find one on a creature like him. But he was human inside, so she put her index and middle fingers together and pressed them against the top of his trunk-like neck, beneath his long jaw bone. She closed her eyes, visualizing the blood-flow in his carotid and willing the pulse to come through his thick skin and fur. It knocked against her fingertips then, ever so faintly: more heightened than usual and only slightly unsteady. “I’ll need to get medical supplies. Maybe from Doc—”
“We have them,” Arne said. “Once in a while, when he gets into it with a wolf or bear, they come in handy. And of course when Eustace shot him last month…”
“What do you have?” she asked, pressing harder on the wound. He wasn’t all the way under because he groaned again, his hind leg twitching. She wondered what went on inside his head, and even though she knew it was, she prayed it wasn’t nightmares.
Arne ran from the room and behind him called, “Everything but local anesthetic!” He returned only seconds later, holding two large black duffle bags. “Sutures, bandages, dressing, and even morphine.”
She looked to him in surprise.
“We had to be prepared for anything,” he said with a shrug.
“How old is the morphine?”
“I cycle through it. The last time I restocked was eight months ago.”
“How did you…?”
“Elizabeth, Henry’s resources are unlimited. We have our ways.”
She looked to the side. “The morphine will relieve any pain he’s feeling, and it may even dull the effects of the poison.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. I don’t know anything about how it’ll react. It could be deadly if the poison was chemical, but since it’s probably a biotoxin…” They stared into each other’s eyes, words not needed. The information on Diableron toxin in her book lacked medical details, if she recalled correctly, but it did mention that the toxin put the brain in some hypnotic, vacant-yet-sleepless state, and that while in that state, victims experience the most excruciating pain known to man, that can, eventually, put them into cardiac arrest. Besides, Henry’s heart rate was more rapid than she’d ever noticed, so the toxin couldn’t be an opioid of any kind. Which meant complications weren’t likely to occur if she injected morphine.
Finally, Arne nodded. “Do it. Do whatever your gut tells you, Elizabeth. Yours is one of the only ones I trust.”
She didn’t allow herself time to doubt what her gut told her, and before she knew it, she was opening one of the boxes holding an eight milligram morphine carpuject cartridge. The liquid was pale yellow in color, almost clear, and she was grateful it hadn’t expired, that Arne had been vigilant enough to keep it stocked. Opening a sterile syringe, she popped off the caps and connected the blunt tip to the cartridge, drawing up all the medication. She shoved it into the robust muscle of his backside—his glutes, if he were in human form—and successfully injected all eight milligrams.
He twitched.
The next instant he jerked into a crouch, his claw ripping down her forearm and forcing a shriek from her chest.
Cradling her arm, she scrambled back until her spine pressed against the wall, her breathing sharp. She made eye contact, but he wasn’t Henry right now, or even the monster he sometimes pretended to be. He was wild and violent, and his eyes said he didn’t know who he was. Arne backed up next to her. “It’s all right,” he said, lifting his hands, and the beast snarled, following it with a deafening roar. They both flinched. “It’s me, Henry: Arne.”
The beast’s eyes began to go slack again, and with a final growl, they rolled to the back of his head and he fell to his side.
Arne stared, slack-jawed. “How much did you give him?”
Still holding her arm, blood seeping through her fingers, she watched the beast on the floor, his chest lifting and falling in a slow and deep breathing pattern—like it did when he fell asleep. “Eight milligrams,” she answered. She’d been taught to start a patient off slow—one or two milligrams. But some people can get ten milligrams safely and judging by the beast’s size, it was only a matter of time before he would need more. Thankfully, there were four more unopened cartridges of morphine and even more unopened syringes.
Before she could dwell on her own pain, or even allow herself to look at it, she released her arm and crawled back to the beast. “In a few minutes I’ll inject more. In the meantime, help me stop the bleeding.”
“Your arm, Elizabeth.”
“It’s fine.” With her hand pushed onto his wound, she tried untying the sleeves around him with her other.
“It’s not, and Henry would want you to take care of—”
“I’m not doing what Henry would want,” she interrupted, turning to him while her hands still worked. She tried to remain steady, but her hands shook and her arm burned, from deep in her muscle. Her back and shoulder muscles were sore, too, from pushing so hard and steadying him so long. “Henry isn’t awake, and right now I’m calling the shots.” She looked back to the beast as she took a large wad of new bandage with her free hand—real bandage—and topped it over the hood, placing more pressure on the area—as much as her strength allowed.
Kneeling beside her, Arne sloppily wrapped her arm with a roll of bandage. She flinched, still unable to look. “This will have to do then, until you get him taken care of. But I do think it’ll need stitches.” She glanced at him, nodding, and he added, “I’m glad you’re here, Elizabeth.”
She wanted to smile, but couldn’t. Her brows pulled together instead.
“He’ll be all right, dear,” he assured. “He’s a fast healer.”
Many minutes passed in silence and with the weakening of her arms, she no longer felt blood satu
rating the cloth. She removed it carefully, then the jacket hood, and though blood caked his fur and surrounded the laceration, it didn’t spill from it. She worked quickly, and from the corner of her eye, her own bandage appeared saturated. Ignoring it, she opened another cartridge of morphine and another syringe. She contemplated only briefly before popping off the caps and injecting it into a different place on his glutes. Arne stood back when she did, but the beast made no movement this time.
After lathering the two-inch laceration just above his hind leg with Betadine, she opened the suture kit Arne had placed beside her. Her fingers were unsteady when readying it and doing so seemed to take an eternity.
A deep breath in, a slow one out. Closing her eyes, she tried to still her hands. Arne was silent, allowing her to work, but she felt his eyes on her arm as she hooked the beast’s furry flesh with the curved needle and weaved the thread through. It was a meticulous process and by the time she’d knotted each stitch, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed. While wiping her brow on her bare upper arm, releasing another deep breath and giving in to the tremors in her hands, she counted nine stitches—perhaps too many, a doctor would say. But right now, she was the doctor.
She snipped extra thread away. “I would say he will need these removed in a few days, but given that he heals fast…I don’t know.” Her voice shook as much as her hands.
“How long will the morphine last?”
She released a deep sigh, sitting back and resting her hands on her knees. At her stillness, pain raged in her weightless muscles and throbbing forearm. In the hopes of once again steadying her spinning head, she took another deep breath before looking at a concerned Arne. “Who knows? Four hours, maybe. I’ll check his heart rate then. He may not need more at all.” She paused. “I find it disconcerting that you have it and know nothing about the way it works.”
“I’ve never had to use it,” he said sheepishly. “Like I said, I’m glad you’re here.” He smiled.
“Arne…did you not hear him in the forest? I would bet the whole town did.”
Hemlock Veils Page 27