by Amy Cross
I take a deep breath as I realize that this might, after all, be my best chance of getting away from the asylum. After all, even if I get to the edge of this forest before I'm caught by guards, I still don't know where I am or how to get to safety.
"Would you like me to send you home as well?" Dronigan continues.
"Sure," I reply. "If you -"
"It's within my power," he says calmly.
"Do it," I tell him. "Just get me away from this forest as fast as possible."
"My pleasure," he says, reaching out and running a fingertip across my face. Before I can say anything, I feel all the energy starting to fade from my body, and although I try to speak, I simply slump down against the forest floor. The last thing I feel, as my mind fades to black, is the sensation of the leaves beneath my body starting to fall away as two ice-cold arms reach around and gently gather me up into an even deeper and darker sleep.
Chapter Eight
Felix
"Come on!" Nurse Fletcher shouts. "Get out of bed, you lazy beasts! It's inspection morning!"
I knew this moment was coming. Ever since Nurse Silk left my cell, I've been sitting as close to the candle as possible, feeling its warmth against my skin. At the same time, I've become increasingly aware of the slow light of dawn appearing outside my small window, and now the moment has come. I pause for a moment, savoring the last moments of the flame, and then finally I reach out and use my fingers to snuff the candle out.
"Breakfast in ten minutes!" Nurse Fletcher calls out. "Cell inspection when you leave! Make sure your beds are tidy and your pots are arranged neatly by the door!"
With a heavy heart, I get to my feet and start changing into my tunic. Another day of brutality and pain lies ahead, but this time I feel as if I can handle it a little better. All I want, all I need, is one glimpse of Nurse Silk. Somehow, the thought of seeing her face again is enough to lift my soul.
Chapter Nine
Abby Hart
"Welcome home," a voice whispers.
Opening my eyes, I realize that I'm in a darkened room. It takes me a moment to remember what happened to me, but finally I recognize the voice; it's as if Dronigan whispered into my ear before leaving me here, and as I sit up, I feel a strange kind of stiffness in my body. Something's wrong, but I can't quite put my finger on what; it's as if my mind hasn't quite caught up to the truth yet.
"Home," I mutter.
I pause.
This isn't home.
"Breakfast in ten minutes!" a voice calls out. "Cell inspection when you leave! Make sure your beds are tidy and your pots are arranged neatly by the door!"
It must have been a dream. The whole experience with Madeleine and Dronigan must have been some kind of intense nightmare. When I look down at my arm, however, I see the scratch from Dronigan's fingernails.
I guess it was real after all, but in that case, how the hell did I end up back here?
Getting to my feet, I realize that I'm back in my cell at the asylum. I turn and look down at the cramped cloth bed and realize that, somehow, Dronigan must have misunderstood. When I said I wanted to go home, he assumed I meant this place. As I hurry over to the door, I realize that I can hear the other inmates getting ready to be let out of their cells, and moments later a face appears on the other side of the bars, staring straight at me.
"Are you gonna cause trouble this time?" Nurse Fletcher asks.
"I'm not supposed to be here," I stutter, even though I know that there's no way my words can possibly achieve anything. "There's been a mistake. If you ask someone, you'll soon realize that I'm completely normal. My name's Abigail Hart and I've been brought here by mistake."
"No mistake," she says firmly, with a hint of a smile. "In fact, Dr. Cole has specifically cleared his schedule for this morning so that he can spend some quality time getting to know you. That's quite an honor, although I wouldn't expect you to show any gratitude. Some people would pay good money to get treated by such an eminent figure, and you're getting the whole thing for free. If only you had the maturity and intelligence to understand that you're a very lucky young lady."
"But -"
"Don't worry," she continues. "He's going to fix you. All those problems you've been having, they're gonna fall away, and soon you'll be grateful that you were brought here. And who knows? Maybe you'll actually walk out the front gate some day with your head held high?" With that, she turns and makes her way along to the next cell.
"Stop!" I shout, banging on the door in a desperate attempt to get her to come back. "I'm not supposed to be here! There's nothing wrong with me!"
Finally, realizing that this is futile, I take a step back and figure that although I was so close to getting away from the asylum, I'm now going to have to face at least one more day here. In the distance, I can hear someone screaming, and soon others join in until, after just a few seconds, I'm surrounded by a cacophony of anguished moans. Unable to stand it any longer, I sit back on my bed and put my hands over my ears, desperately trying to get a moment's peace.
I can't block the screams out, though. In fact, they seem to be getting louder and louder.
Part Four
Oubliette
Chapter One
Felix
"Forgive me, Felix," Nurse Fletcher says, as she sits at the far end of the yard, "but you still don't look very... menacing. Could we try this again, please, and this time... For God's sake, do your best to give a bit of a performance, okay?"
It's an hour after breakfast, and I've been bought out here to be prodded and tested. While Dr. Cole is evidently busy with his new patient, it seems that I'm to be subjected to ritual humiliation by a woman who apparently knows no compassion. With a stopwatch in her hand and a clipboard balanced on her knee, Nurse Fletcher has spent the past few minutes encouraging me to change into my wolf form so that she can make various measurements. So far, however, I haven't been able to give her what she wants, perhaps because she has brought Nurse Silk along to observe this little experiment.
"What do you think?" Nurse Fletcher asks with a smile, glancing over at Nurse Silk. "Performance anxiety?"
Nurse Silk merely stares at me, with a hint of sorrow in her eyes.
"What's got your tongue?" Nurse Fletcher continues, before clearing her throat and spitting onto the ground. Taking a drag on her cigarette, she fixes me for a moment with her icy stare. "Look, Felix," she adds eventually, "we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is for you to flip into your wolf form for a couple of minutes, show us what you can do, and then revert to this form and head back to your cell. The hard way is for us to sit here, hour after hour, waiting for you to finally realize that the first way would be better. So which is it gonna be, honey?" She waits for me to give her an answer. "What's wrong? You gone deaf or something?"
"I can hear you," I mutter, reaching up and trying to loosen the thick metal chain that has been wrapped around my neck. "I just can't..." Taking a deep breath, I try to find that long lost spark of anger in my soul, but it's not there. I remember my childhood, when I'd play with the other wolves on the Scottish estate, and we'd slip easily and quickly between our different forms. Never, in a million years, did it occur to me that one day I'd have difficulty with the process, yet now I can't seem to find my darker side anywhere; it's as if the wolf side of my personality has either been suppressed, or stripped away completely.
"What's up with you?" Nurse Fletcher asks, looking over at Nurse Silk. "Aren't you gonna say anything?"
"What is there to say?" Nurse Silk replies, keeping her eyes fixed on me.
"He's a dirty, stinking wolf. Hell, he can't even change his form. I mean, werewolves are pathetic enough already, but when one of the damn things loses pretty much his only worthwhile talent, it's hard to see whether there's even any point in him living." She stands up and comes closer to me. "Tell me, Felix," she continues. "Why bother with your next breath? Why not just stop right now and let it all end?"
Staring at her,
I can't help but wish that I could summon the strength to break these bonds and rip her to pieces. I've never killed a vampire before, but right now I'm sorely tempted. For a fraction of a second, I find myself imagining the sensation of her screaming head being ripped, sinew by sinew, from her body, with blood spraying against my face. Even this mental image, however, doesn't stir my soul.
"Here," she continues, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small box, from which she removes a white mouse. "You hungry, Felix?"
I stare at her.
"You wanna eat the little mouse?" she asks, holding the creature out to me. "Go on. Taste some blood, Felix. Where's your killer instinct?"
I take a deep breath, determined not to let her see my anger.
"Pathetic," she says with a pointed sneer, before holding the mouse up to her face and biting its head clean off. She chews slowly, before finally swallowing and dropping the rest of the corpse down to the ground. "You really don't have an ounce of passion, do you?" she continues. "You're nothing but a sniveling little wretch."
"Maybe we should try again some other time," Nurse Silk suggests. "I mean, he doesn't seem to be responding..."
"Not going soft, are you?" Nurse Fletcher asks, turning to her. "Please, not you too. A weak werewolf is one thing, but a weak vampire is a whole new level of horror">
"Of course not, I just -"
"Get over here."
Nurse Silk pauses for a moment, as if she's not sure what to do. I can see the anguished look in her eyes; she doesn't want to arouse suspicion, but at the same time she doesn't want to be complicit in my torture.
"Come on," Nurse Fletcher continues. "I've got a job for you."
I watch as Nurse Silk cautiously gets to her feet and comes over to the center of the yard. I'm desperate to reach out and hold her, to tell her that everything's going to be okay, but I know that to do so would be to betray our connection; the last thing I want is to allow Nurse Fletcher to understand that her colleague has even an ounce of compassion for me. I can only pray that Nurse Silk is able to convincingly pretend to be as cruel and callous as those around her. For her sake, and her sake alone, I hope she can find enough cruelty and venom in her heart.
"Use this on him," Nurse Fletcher says.
I watch as she presses a small knife into Nurse Silk's hands.
"Dr. Cole said not to hurt the poor wretch physically," Nurse Fletcher continues, "but we can always say he did it to himself. I'm worried about you, kid. You seem to be going soft, and we need to toughen you up, so why don't you make a few cuts in this beast's skin. Let's see the color of his blood, eh?"
Nurse Silk pauses, clearly shocked by the idea of hurting me.
"What are you waiting for?" Nurse Fletcher asks. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that you're losing your touch."
"Do it," I whisper, hoping to make Nurse Silk see that I understand her dilemma. "You can drive that blade into my body a hundred times," I tell her, "but you'll never take away the truth that resides in my heart. You'll never change what I know."
"Never?" she asks, with a look of helpless longing in her eyes.
"I know what I know," I reply firmly. "Nothing can shake my faith in those who matter to me."
Slowly, Nurse Silk presses the tip of the blade against my side, and after a moment she starts to press harder and harder until finally the very edge slices through my skin.
"Faster," Nurse Fletcher grumbles, grabbing her hand and pushing the blade all the way into my body.
Filled with a flash of pain, I let out a gasp and instinctively try to push them both away. Although I miss Nurse Fletcher completely, my arm connects with Nurse Silk's face, knocking her to the ground. Barely able to react, I shift away from them and rip the knife from my side, before realizing that this is my chance. Lunging at Nurse Fletcher, I reach out with the knife and, for a fraction of a second, I'm convinced that I'll be able to bring her down; at the last moment, however, the chain around my neck is pulled tight and I'm yanked back to the ground, dropping the knife in the process.
"You see?" Nurse Fletcher says calmly, as Nurse Silk gets to her feet. "You can't be too careful with a dumb animal like this. He might be a fool, but he's still capable, on the primal level, of lashing out at those around him." Reaching down, she grabs hold of my chin and tilts my face up toward her. "It would be very easy to be lulled into a false sense of security by those big, innocent eyes, but the truth is, this werewolf - like all others - is basically nothing more than a brute." With that, she pulls my head a little closer and then slams her knee into my cheek, knocking me back down to the floor.
"Do you have to do that?" Nurse Silk asks, taking a step toward me.
"Careful," Nurse Fletcher replies, "if you keep up like that, people are gonna start thinking you actually give a damn about the monster." She turns and heads toward the door. "Come on, we've got work to do. I'll get one of the orderlies to come and shift Felix back to his cell. There's no point wasting any more time on him."
For a moment, it seems almost as if Nurse Silk might be able to stay with me a moment and perhaps even say a few words. Seconds later, however, she turns and hurries after Nurse Fletcher, and I'm left alone in the cold, empty concrete yard, naked and chained to the wall. I don't blame Nurse Silk for hiding her compassion; in fact, I'd be worried if she did or if she said anything that aroused suspicion. Still, I can't help wishing that the pair of us could get away from here, so that I could talk to her properly and find out what she really thinks.
I want to get out of this place, and I want to take her with me.
Chapter Two
Abby Hart
"I really think you'll come to appreciate Tor Cliff once you've settled in," Dr. Cole says as he leads me up the large spiral staircase that runs through the building like a kind of meandering spine. "We're not monsters here, Ms. Hart. We're doctors, men of science, and we spend all day, every day trying to help our patients. That's what drives us forward, and I can personally assure you that I will not rest until every single one of the poor souls in this institution has been helped."
"How many of you are there?" I ask, looking up at the balcony above us. "So far, I haven't seen too many different faces."
"I'm the only resident psychiatrist here," he continues. "We've had a few visiting fellows from time to time, but I feel that it's better to maintain some kind of uniformity of care, which means, I'm afraid, that the burden of looking after all the patients is entirely mine." Reaching the top of the stairs, he walks toward the large window before turning to me. "I'm in no doubt that I'm extremely lucky. I can work carefully and methodically with each and every patient, and I'm confident that soon I'll have results to back up my theories."
"You know I'm not supposed to be here, right?" I reply. "There's been a mistake. I mean... That's probably what everyone says, but in my case it's true." I pause for a moment. "I guess everyone says that too, huh?"
"Absolutely," he says with a smile. "It's one of the first things that every patient says when they arrive at Tor Cliff. One of the most important early steps involved persuading the patient that he or she is in the right place; we have various methods that we can use, although I should emphasize that your treatment has been, and will continue to be, a little different."
"Don't do me any special favors," I mutter darkly.
"How can you not be treated differently?" he replies. "After all, you come from a very... particular family. You're part of a legacy."
Sighing, I walk past him and make my way along the corridor.
"You don't seem impressed," he continues, following a little way behind me.
"I guess I just wish," I reply, picking my words with care, "that once, just once, someone would take a shot at me because of who I am, instead of who my father was. I mean, if someone's gonna try to kill me, it'd be nice to know that it's because of something I did, rather than because they're pissed off at Patrick."
"You tire of living in your father's shadow?"
"I
'm sure I'll make my own enemies eventually," I reply, reaching a junction in the corridor and turning to him. "Which way?"
"Whichever way you like," he replies with a smile.
"Let me guess," I continue, "they all lead to the same place?"
"Of course not," he replies, slipping past me and starting to make his way along the corridor to the left. "Let us try this route. We can always turn back. But tell me, Abigail... What makes you assume that you're here because of your father?"
"Well, this is an asylum," I point out, "and my father was... a little on the intense side. I take after him in some ways, although I tend to talk a little more."
"So I've noticed," he replies, stopping next to a door and reaching out to turn the handle. "What would you say, though, if I told you that you're here not because of your father, but because of your mother?"
"My mother was just a human," I tell him.
"Just?"
"She was ordinary," I continue. "There was nothing unusual about her. That was kind of the point. The prophecy chose an ordinary girl."
"I know that," he continues, leading me into a large room with various machines dotted around on desk. In the center, there's a kind of bed with loose leather straps hanging down at the sides, and a nurse is preparing some kind of container over in the far corner. "Let me ask you a question, though," Dr. Cole says, turning to me. "Of all the women born on this planet, why was Sophie Hart the one to whom Patrick was drawn? Out of billions of people... why her?"
"There was a prophecy," I reply, "and he -"
"Okay, so why did the prophecy choose her?"
"I guess it had to choose someone," I point out.
He stares at me for a moment, while the nurse brings a set of containers over to the small trolley next to the bed.