That Damnable Nightmare
THE SURGEON, CONNELL, was not pleased when Bode and Weber delivered Elizabeth, doped to the eyeballs, to be stitched up. Gave them an earful about the sooty light of a solitary oil lamp and didn’t they understand that wounds of this nature required prompt treatment and a lot of other blather Bode only half-heard.
Weber was a worry, too. When the older attendant wasn’t bleating about how he might be dying, his skull had broken open, his head ached, and oh, his nose, the looks the arse threw at the girl as they laid her on the surgeon’s examination table in the adjoining consulting room made Bode’s stomach churn. Bode thought the surgeon agreed to tend to Weber first just to shut the man up and get him out the door, but then Weber got all that poor girl and I can wait.
That decided Bode then and there. Didn’t take a scholar to see that Weber would hang around and volunteer my services, seeing as how you’re shorthanded. Bode just didn’t trust Weber’s hands not to wander.
So Bode spoke up about how Kramer wanted Elizabeth bathed. The surgeon went into a snit: That will put me even further behind. And, Who can be expected to work in these conditions? And, It’s not as if she’s the only patient. Etcetera. After giving them both strict orders to remain in the outer room and away from Elizabeth, Connell finally stomped out to complain. Which was fine. Just so long as Graves got herself in here double-quick.
Once the surgeon was gone, Weber gave a nasty grin that, with the cove’s beat-up mug and a nose the size of a turnip, would’ve looked at home on a gargoyle. “Oh, I know what you’re about. You’re hoping Connell does me while Graves puts her”—a hook of his thumb over one shoulder toward the inner consulting room where Elizabeth lay—“to rights. Then I’ll have no need to hang round.”
Just so long as I keep you out here and away from her. “It’s not up to me. I was only relaying Doctor’s orders.”
“Hmm.” Weber screwed up one blackened eye. “You know, I do believe I’m feeling even worse now. In fact, I don’t think I ought to be around patients the rest of my shift. A pity. Means you got double duty. Best get cracking.”
Crossing his arms, Bode leaned against a wall. “I’ll wait.”
“Oooh.” Weber’s lumpy nose twitched. “Worried about your little Guinevere?”
The tips of his ears flamed. “It wouldn’t do for only one of us to stay. Graves’d have my head.”
“Graves.” Weber said it almost like a curse. He crossed to a high, wheeled wooden stand upon which the surgeon had laid out his box of instruments and a bowl of diluted carbolic acid that gave off a sour fume. There was also a double rank of various phials. Weber plucked up a bottle, tilting its label to the light. “You’re lucky the asylum’s shorthanded. Any other time, Graves’d press to have you put out. Though maybe Doctor likes to exercise that fist of his.” Replacing the bottle, he picked up another. “I can still get you sacked, you don’t mind.”
Bode said nothing.
“First intelligent thing outta your mouth all day.” Returning the second phial to its place, Weber squinted at the label of another and grunted his approval. Pulling the cork with his teeth, he tipped a swallow, rolled the liquid around his mouth a moment, then sighed. “That’s more like it. Much better.”
“That’s for patients.” He should’ve kept his mouth shut, but he couldn’t help it.
“Yeah? Well, aren’t you the pot calling the kettle?”
“Whatsat mean?”
“What I said.” Weber plucked up another bottle and waggled it. “Ah … there we go.” Uncorking the second phial, Weber carefully dispensed more tonic into the first bottle. “Not as if you’ve not blagged your share of what ought to go to the nutters.” After a pause, Weber threw him a quick smirk. “Wish you could see the expression on your dial. I know it was you nicked Graves’s old skeleton key.”
Shite. His guts turned leaden. Secreted in an inner pocket stitched to his waistband, that iron key was suddenly as cold as an old bone. “That laudanum’s gone to your head.”
“Oh, I think not. We live on the same floor. I know every squeak of every board. ’sides, you’re not the only one with keys. So imagine my surprise when I come downstairs and find the kitchen door unlocked. After that, it was a matter of taking myself into a nice dark corner and waiting to see who slithered out. But here’s what I can’t figure.” Punching both corks back in with the flat of one hand, Weber replaced the somewhat depleted second bottle. “Where you’re hiding all that food. Can’t be putting it all down your own gullet. So you’re hoarding it, or maybe giving it over as barter.”
No, he’d been gathering it for Tony and Rima. “If you were going to turn me in, you’d’ve done it by now. So what you want?”
“You keep your mouth shut about my helping myself here, and I’ll let Connell take care of your Guinevere. Mum’s the word, and we’re all square.”
“She’s not mine.”
“No? Coulda fooled me, what with you so quick to step in, defend your lady love? Although, tell the truth, I always thought you was sweet on Meme.”
More like the other way around. Bode liked Meme all right; she was very pretty. But there was also something about her that bothered him: an emptiness that was hard to put into words. That she was also Kramer’s assistant made him doubly wary. “None of that’s your business.”
“So you wouldn’t mind? If I had a go at Meme? Because there’s some sweet velvet I wouldn’t mind tipping.”
“Watch your mouth. She’s not a Judy.”
“Boy, all girls is the same under their knickers.” Slipping the first bottle into a trouser pocket, Weber turned his attention to Connell’s open bag. Rummaging around, he said, “Oh now, this is lovely,” and came up with a gurgling silver hip flask. Untwisting the cap, he wafted the open insert beneath his nose and snuffled. “My beak’s off, what with all this swelling, but I do believe …” Upending the bottle, he took a quick snort. “Ohhhh!” Shaking his head, Weber exhaled and gave a dog’s shiver. “ ’At’s strong enough to peel paint.”
Yeah, hope it strips your gullet. He watched Weber disappear the capped flask into an inner pocket and then turn to inspect an array of instruments laid out on a velvet cloth from an open, two-tiered case. Weber lifted out the removable tray to reveal a second rank of surgeon’s scissors, forceps, a large bone saw with an ebony handle, scalpels, and a coiled metal chain with two ebony handles. “Oh, lovely.” Tweezing up an ivory-handled scalpel, Weber tested the point. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, tipping velvet and our dear Elizabeth.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Oh, come on. That girl’s petrified. Kramer poured so much laudanum, it’s a wonder her eyes ain’t met above her nose. Big strapping boy like you, don’t tell me you haven’t thought of her, pretty girl like that. Haven’t you never wondered what Kramer does during those mesmeric sessions, closeted away, in priiivate?”
Bode’s chest simmered. He’s baiting you. Never mind getting sacked for stealing; throw a punch and Weber would crack his skull like a walnut, or jam that scalpel in his eye and call it self-defense. Hurry up, Connell. He clasped his bunched fists behind his back. Move your ruddy baby backside.
“What’s a matter? Oooh, now.” A dried half-moon of scant blood formed a rust ring under Weber’s nose. He looked like a mournful bull. “Is it that you’ve never popped a cherry? Or maybe you’re just a bit of a meater.”
“I’m not scared. Just waiting on the right girl, is all.” Bode, shut your sauce box.
“Really? From all your ruckus, I’d’ve thought she’s the one. What made you take on Kramer like that?”
Damfino. He knew Elizabeth, sure. (How long? He couldn’t recall.) They talked; she was nice when she wasn’t raving. (Actually, she was a sight better than most even when she was.) He wasn’t exactly sweet on her.
In truth … he thought the urge to protect her came from the dream: that damnable nightmare.
SNAPPING AWAKE THAT morning, eyes bugging, sweat pouring. Never had anything like that happen in his life. So much was a muddle, but God, he could still feel it, see it, taste it: the fierce determination in his blood, a bloom of orange light, a wicked blast. Faces of the friends he knew, Tony and Rima, jumbled with others, including a little girl who he actually thought might have been a much younger Elizabeth and … Meme? Yes, but weirder still, whenever he’d seen Meme’s face in the dream, his mind kept whispering, Emma. Made no sense.
But what scared him most: he had died. In the nightmare. He’d felt it happen in that blast of heat he barely registered before his body simply … went away.
There was even more: explosions and blood and broken bodies. A war waged in steamy heat and a dense jungle. An older man, someone he trusted. (And so very much like the inspector that when Battle appeared on the ward, Bode nearly cried out, Christ, Sarge, I thought you were dead! He’d caught himself just in time. What was that all about?) There were also tunnels in this other nightmare world, where something black waited.
But he was awake now, and helping Elizabeth was something he must do. It sounded mad, considering he’d known her … how long? A week? Two? Ten? He wasn’t sure—blame the Peculiar—but deep in his bones he was certain he was supposed to get her out of this place. That saving her was the reason he was here in this accursed asylum.
Which was enough to make a stuffed bird laugh, it was that ridiculous.
“DOING HER DON’T have to be nuffin’ fancy.” Weber’s lips parted in a wide grin that was more gap than tooth. “If you need instruction, I can always do with a dog’s rig. You could watch. Take notes.”
He was this close. Weber was bigger and heavier, but he was a touch taller. He could pull it off. Let Weber have it with a quick snap of his elbow behind the ear, in the throat, the jaw. It didn’t matter. Anything to put the cove down.
So, thank God, the surgeon picked that moment to return with the starched and disapproving Graves and Kramer in tow. Thank God for Graves, who turned that one gimlet eye and suggested he had work to do. Thank God for Kramer, who only stared daggers. Thank God. If he never again saw that gob Weber, that would be too soon.