by Amy Cross
And then, somehow, I realize that this is all a dream.
"Wake up," says a distorted voice, sounding as if it's intruding from far away. Seconds later, the whole room seems to shudder, as if it's being rocked from side to side. "You have to wake up," the voice continues.
I get to my feet and turn to look over at the door.
I blink.
And suddenly I sit up in bed and find that I'm somewhere else entirely. A large fire is burning in the hearth, and I'm in a windowless room with a low, domed concrete roof. A nurse is standing by the bed, holding some kind of silk gown, and as I stare at her, it takes me a moment to work out how the hell I ended up here.
"You've been asleep for hours," the nurse says, her voice no longer sounding distorted. "We thought that perhaps it was time to wake you, though. Time is getting along, and matters are a little urgent."
"We?" I reply, still trying to get past the fog in my mind.
"Don't worry," she continues. "You're among friends. In fact, if you'd like to come through to the drawing room, I think everything can be cleared up." She pauses, and after a moment a friendly smile crosses her face. "Please," she adds. "There's really nothing to worry about. You're among friends here. No-one's going to hurt you, not now that you're down here."
"But Dr. Cole -"
"Dr. Cole doesn't come down here," she continues. "You needn't worry about him, not while you're with us. He has his world above, and we have our world below."
I stare at her, and finally I remember being in a small, round oubliette deep beneath Tor Cliff, and then there was a creature trying to pull me down into the flames, and then... I remember falling, but I don't remember landing; I remember flames, but as I take a look at my hands, I realize that I don't seem to be burned.
"Please..." the nurse says, with a hint of desperation in her voice, as she holds the gown out to me. "You mustn't be late. He's already waited long than he expected, so you really should try to hurry along. He can become a little angry, sometimes, if he's kept waiting too long. His time is so precious, you see, and he can't afford to waste even a single minute."
As I start to pull the bedsheets away, I realize that I'm naked. After pausing for a moment, I climb out of bed and quickly get into the gown, tying it tight as the nurse makes her way to the door. Looking down into the fireplace, I watch the flames and try to work out how I ended up in this place, but all my memories seem to be held together by nothing more than a few fragile threads, and nothing quite makes sense.
"Abigail?" the nurse says, waiting in the doorway. "You mustn't keep him waiting."
Figuring that I've got little choice, I make my way across the room and follow her out into the corridor. As she leads me through the shadows, I can't help thinking back to that dream about the spider, which felt so real and so vivid. Hell, right now, I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up again and found that this was all a dream, except that my bare feet are freezing cold and I've always believed that cold feet are a sure sign that things are real.
"Please," the nurse says, stopping at a door and gesturing for me to go through. "He's waiting for you."
"Great," I mutter, stepping into the room. Before I can say anything else, I hear the door swing shut behind me, and I take a deep breath as I walk across what turns out to be a large, red-walled stone chamber littered with desks, cabinets and all sorts of old furniture. Hundreds of candles are flickering all around the place, and although I've got a vague sensation that I'm not alone, I can't see anyone else. There's just a kind of presence, hanging in the air all around me, as if I'm being watched from all sides.
I stop as I reach the middle of the room.
"Hello?" I call out.
"Hello," says a calm voice, and moments later an elderly man steps out from behind a large bookcase. He has something in his hands, some kind of small box that he's tinkering with, and he barely even glances at me before carrying the box over to a nearby desk. "I'm sorry," he continues after a moment, "but you've caught me at a bad time. One of the nurses has developed a fault and I'm painfully low on spare parts. As you can probably imagine, it's not the kind of thing one can simply bodge together with some string and paste."
"Huh," I reply.
"Hang on," he adds, opening the box and peering at its contents. "Come and take a look," he continues. "See what you think."
Cautiously, I walk over to the desk and see that the box contains a set of very small, very intricate gears, dials and levers. As the old man starts to turn a small handle, the gears start to click into life. It's almost like looking at the inside of a clock, except that the aim of this particular machine seems to be to drive a small piston on one side.
"It's an imperfect solution," he says, "but that's life, isn't it? Everything's imperfect. At least this approach has some chance of working." Closing the box, he carries it over to a nearby table, and I'm shocked to see that there's a naked woman flat on her back, with a hole open in her chest. Carefully, the old man places the box in the hole, before grabbing a screwdriver and adjusting something inside the cavity.
"I can come back later..." I tell him.
"No," he replies, "it's alright. I think I'm done here." He takes a small device from a nearby table and uses it to staple the woman's chest shut, and then he stands back with a smile on his face. "It's not ideal, but it should be a lot better than the previous efforts."
"What -" I start to say, before suddenly the naked woman sits up and stares straight at me.
"Clockwork," the old man continues, walking around the table. "I've come to the conclusion that clockwork nurses are the future for Tor Cliff. This one used to be flesh and blood, but she didn't last long, just a few centuries, and that was with a lot of patching things up. I was going to throw her out, but then I decided to conduct a few experiments, and, well, I scooped out all the internal organs and the bits that weren't working, and I replaced them with clockwork. Sure, she'll need to be wound up every few months, but on the whole I think she should be very reliable." He turns to me with a grin. "I shall have to make some more."
"Can I go now?" the woman asks, her voice sounding a little blank and emotionless.
"You'll have to find your old uniform in the store-room," the old man replies, "but yes, I think you should be okay." He pauses. "What do you think, Abigail? Will she pass muster up at Tor Cliff?"
I take a step closer, and finally I realize that I can hear a constant ticking sound from the woman's body.
"There's no way to make her run more quietly," the old man continues. "I know clockwork isn't ideal, but it's better than the previous attempts. Steam-power really wasn't the answer at all. I built a steam-powered nurse last week, and she looked extremely realistic, except for the fact that every half hour she had to vent steam out of the top of her head, which rather gave the game away." He pauses, as if he's momentarily disappointed by the memory. "There was no way to disguise it," he adds. "Hats just blew straight off."
I watch as the naked, clockwork nurse gets off the bed and walks past me, heading to the door. As she passes me, I can hear a persistent ticking sound coming from under her skin, but apart from that she looks to be completely normal.
"Electricity doesn't work very well around here, you see," the old man continues. "We have to make do with the older methods. I've tried just about everything over the years, and clockwork just happens to have the edge. It's a real art, you know; sometimes I feel like a conductor, trying to arrange all the different parts of an orchestra so that they pull in the same direction."
I turn to him.
"I'm sorry," he says, stepping toward me and reaching a hand out. "I should have introduced myself properly. I know who you are, but I suppose you're a little confused." He pauses for a moment. "Welcome, Abigail Hart," he says eventually. "I'm the beast of Tor Cliff."
Chapter Two
Felix
"To say that I'm disappointed would be an understatement," Dr. Cole mutters darkly as he sits behind his desk, staring at us with rel
entless disgust. "A patient and a member of staff, engaging in a private relationship within these very walls -"
"It was my fault," I say firmly, interrupting him in an attempt to get Nurse Silk off the hook. "I was the one who -"
"Don't lie to me, Felix," he replies, clearly not believing a word of my explanation. "Nurse Fletcher has given me more than enough information to reach an understanding of the filthy activities that have been taking place. I have to say, Felix, that in some ways I'm rather impressed. I'd assumed that you were losing the will to live, but apparently there's still some spark in your soul. This is a development that we're going to have to examine in great detail."
"Please," Nurse Silk says, "don't hurt him. It was all my fault."
"Speak when you're spoken to," Nurse Fletcher says firmly.
"I encouraged the whole thing," Nurse Silk continues. "Please, you have to -"
Before she can finish, Nurse Fletcher grabs her by the neck and pulls her back; when I rush to get her free, I'm restrained by another nurse, who has hold of the chain that's wrapped around my neck. I try to break free, but I'm held too tightly and finally I let out a snarl of impotent rage.
"It you hurt her," I say firmly, trying to get free from the chain, "I swear to God, I'll make you pay!"
"Remarkable spirit," Dr. Cole replies, making a note in his logbook. "This really is a surprising turnaround, Felix, and I have to say that it seems to be a genuine improvement. You're a lot more..." He pauses for a moment, evidently trying to find the right word. "Wolfy," he says eventually. "You're a lot more wolfy."
"Let me out of these chains," I reply, "and I'll show you how much like a wolf I can be."
"Maybe I will let you out one day," he says with a smile, "but not right now. Although I admire your positivity, Felix, I can't ignore the fact that you've committed a grave sin and broken several of the most fundamental rules that we hold sacred here at Tor Cliff. I'm just relieved that Nurse Fletcher caught the two of you before things could get out of hand. I mean, my God, the ramifications of such an affair could be extremely serious."
"They were touching each other," Nurse Fletcher sneers. "She let him put his filthy hands all over her. If I hadn't found them when I did, they'd have ended up fouling one another's bodies."
"A werewolf and a vampire," Dr. Cole continues. "I can scarcely imagine what such a union might produce. I've never heard of the two species mixing in a physical manner, but..." He pauses, lost in thought for a moment. "Well," he adds, "I suppose that's something to consider in the future. For now, Felix, I'm afraid that you're going to have to endure a spell in the cells while I come up with a remedial program for you. I won't lie to you, though. It's going to be a long road."
"I don't care how long it takes," I tell him. "As long as I end up with your severed head in my hands, still screaming for mercy -"
"We'll see," he says with a smile, before turning to Nurse Silk. "And now there's the question of what to do with you, my dear." He stares at her for a moment. "There's absolutely no chance that I can ever trust you again. I hope you'll understand that your behavior has been shockingly inappropriate, and that it would be grossly negligent of me to let you loose on our wards again. Poor Felix isn't of sound mind. Frankly, I think you manipulated him and played on his mental weaknesses in order to -"
"That's a lie!" I shout, before the chain is yanked tight and I'm hauled back.
"You've really done a number on the poor wolf," Dr. Cole continues.
"Whatever you do to me," Nurse Silk says firmly, her voice betraying only a hint of the fear that she must be feeling, "I will never -"
"I'm not going to do anything to you," Dr. Cole replies with a smile. "We're not animals or savages here, Nurse Silk. We have certain rules, and when those rules are broken we have no choice but to make amends, but this is because we each, deep down, have the capacity to recognize our own sins and deal with them accordingly." He reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a silver knife, which he slides across to her. "I'm sure you can imagine," he continues, "that you'll only be absolved of your sins if you prove to everyone in this room that you're truly sorry."
"No!" I shout, once again struggling to get free. "Don't listen to him!"
Cautiously, Nurse Silk picks up the knife and holds it in one of her trembling hands. "What do you want me to do?" she asks after a moment.
"That's for you to decide," Dr. Cole replies. "Look into your heart and try to decide what punishment you believe would be fitting. I'm not interested in hurting you, but I do believe it would be beneficial to your soul if you were to express your sorrow and regret in a physical form."
"Don't do anything!" I shout, desperately hoping that I can get through to her.
Ignoring me, she holds one of her arms out and slowly rolls up the sleeve to expose her bare wrists.
"An interesting choice," Dr. Cole says calmly.
"I only..." she replies, with tears in her eyes. "I only wanted to..."
"We don't have all day," Dr. Cole continues. "If you've decided what you want to do, you must get on with it."
I watch in horror as she gently places the edge of the blade against her skin, as if she's preparing to cut herself.
"Go on," Dr. Cole whispers, as if he can't handle the wait. "Show us that you're truly sorry."
"I..." She pauses, with the blade still pressed against her skin, before finally lifting it free. "I can't," she says quietly. "The only thing I did wrong... is that I fell in love." She looks over at me. "It's true," she continues, as tears continue to flow down her cheeks. "It might be against the rules of Tor Cliff, but I can't apologize for the fact that I met you, Felix, or for the fact that I'll do anything it takes in order to be with you."
"Stay strong," I tell her. "I'll find a way to get us out of here!"
"Is this your final decision?" Dr. Cole asks, clearly disappointed.
"I love this wolf," Nurse Silk replies, turning to face him. "I will not apologize for -"
Before she can finish, Nurse Fletcher leans over her shoulder, grabs the knife and flashes it across her neck. Nurse Silk gasps as blood begins to spray from the gaping wound, but as she gets to her feet, she's held tightly from behind. Holding the blade out for a moment, Nurse Fletcher finally drives it deep into Nurse Silk's chest, and although I cry out to her, begging her to stop, she twists the knife before letting the body drop to the floor.
"Well," Dr. Cole says with a faint smile. "Someone had to do it."
"No!" I scream, momentarily managing to pull free from the nurse who has been holding my chains. Racing across the room, I drop to my knees next to Nurse Silk's body, but I can see from the glassy look in her eyes that I'm already too late. I turn to Dr. Cole, but just as I'm about to launch myself at him, the chains are pulled back and I'm send sprawling across the floor.
"Filthy vermin," Nurse Fletcher sneers, standing over me. "Both of you."
I stare up at her, consumed with rage and sorrow, before turning to look over at Nurse Silk's lifeless body. In my mind, I keep replaying the past few seconds over and over again, remembering the horrified look in her eyes as the blade sliced through her neck and then sank deep into her chest. I want to lash out, to rip this asylum apart stone by stone, but I can barely move. It's as if the shock of seeing Nurse Silk's death is too much for me to deal with, and all I can do is stare at her body, desperately hoping that somehow she might have survived.
"Take him to his cell," Dr. Cole says calmly, as if nothing of importance has happened, "and clean this mess up. I don't want blood drying all over the place! It's bad enough that this whole horrible business had to take place at all, without leaving a mess on my carpet."
"No!" I scream, getting to my feet and trying to reach him before being pulled back down onto the ground. Several orderlies rush through the door, and I'm quickly overwhelmed, although I refuse to surrender: now that my initial shock has worn off, I struggle and kick and shout as they carry me away. I don't know how, and I don't know when, bu
t I'm going to make these monsters pay for what they did today. I swear to God, I'll tear them apart and make them suffer.
Chapter Three
Abby Hart
"Hello?" the beast says, speaking into an old-fashioned telephone receiver that's hanging from the ceiling. "Is anyone there? Hello?" Sighing, he lets go of the receiver and turns to me. "God knows what Dr. Cole's up to. He knows there should always be someone available to take my messages, but it's as if he doesn't really care."
"You're the beast?" I reply, still struggling to take it all in. "Seriously? You're the beast of Tor Cliff?"
"That seems to be the name everyone uses for me," he replies, shuffling over to another of his many desks and picking up a dusty old bottle of wine, which he examines for a moment. "I used to take offense, but there's really no point anymore. If they want to demonize me, that's their choice. A name's just a name, at the end of the day, and I'm afraid I am almost at the end of my days." He puts the bottle down and pulls a corkscrew from his pocket, before getting to work on the cork. "I don't know who's going to take over this place when I'm gone."
I stare at him.
"Poor Dr. Cole isn't getting any better," he continues, struggling with the bottle until finally he gets the cork out. "I thought he'd improve over the years, but if anything, his delusions are getting worse and worse."
"Delusions?" I ask. "That he's a good doctor?"
"That he's a doctor at all," he replies, pouring us each a glass of wine. "I'm sorry, was that not clear? Dr. Cole has no medical training whatsoever. He does have some very laudable qualifications in other fields, but medicine and psychiatry are absolutely not his kind of thing at all." He frowns, as if an inconvenient thought has suddenly crossed his mind. "Well, they weren't in the old days, anyway."
"Then why's he in charge of an asylum?" I ask, trying to wrap my head around this madness.
"He's not. God, no. What an absurd suggestion." He hands one of the glasses to me. "He's one of the patients," he continues, "just like all the others up there. The only difference with Dr. Cole is that part of his illness is a kind of delusion of grandeur. He thinks he's a doctor, and eventually I decided that I should indulge him a little. I let him have full use of the equipment up there, and the nurses try to keep some of his wilder fantasies in check."