Nature or Nurture Ch. 10

But deep in the night, they find out why Sir Malcolm pays so well. They are all fast asleep when a strong knocking on their door drags them out of their sleep. Vincent is not so rueful about being wakened, he has slept fitfully, dreaming of riding through the heath on a coal black horse.

The spindly low shrubs covering the hills around him are no longer in bloom, leaving a colourless, desolate landscape behind. This time, there is a house, but it doesn't do much to enliven the treeless, drab coloured hill it stands on.

It is a huge, castle-like building of weathered sandstone, built to withstand a ruthless climate and in its prime probably neighbours who were just as ruthless. Now, the shutters are in disrepair, the gate askew. A small kitchen plot is set upon by nasty strangling weeds that cover the rest of the garden. One window is open, the drapes fluttering in the chill breeze.

A steady rain pours down on him, he can feel it even in his dream. A shape appears, framed by the window. It is the girl of his tryst in the heath, hair down, a flimsy nightgown too cold for the season barely covering her. She is crying madly.

He feels as if he is just a spectator, not only in his dream, but in the real memory as well. Then he awakens, remembering everything vividly.

When Victor opens the door, Sir Malcolm's manservant is standing there, in a rush to get him over, telling him his skills as a doctor are needed this time. The doctor decides they will all go, he asks Adison to bring her general cures and some Chinese remedies.

Vincent is already dressed and has chosen a gun and a short blade for their defence. He introduces himself to the manservant, Sembene, figuring the dangerous looking man is more than just a pawn in this game his master is playing. The man has a solid handshake, and rather expecting, even fearing, another flash from someone of this company, this guy is quite the opposite: his touch feels grounded, annulling magic so to speak.

Quite a relief, and a good man to have at your back, Vincent is sure. When everyone is ready, they enter the carriage waiting out front, and drive off.

They arrive in the same basement but in another room than where the corpse was, just in time to see Sir Malcolm ready to take a horse whip to a teenage boy, shouting at him in a frenzy.

'Where is your master!'

The old man seems quite mad, hollering again and again, the whip moving down.

They see the cowboy step in to stop the blow before it lands. The boy has clearly been severely beaten already, but shows no sign of weakening or breaking under the abuse. He looks rather wild in both his physical appearance and the expression in his eyes. One might say he is totally mad, or even possessed.

Examining him as well as a raving madman can be physically examined, Victor tells Sir Malcolm, 'If his madness is caused by the same affliction of the blood that the dead body had, he might improve if he receives a blood transfusion. And if that works, it may be useful for other victims, like your daughter.'

The cowboy rightfully objects to using a child as guinea pig, but even Adison can see that the situation is not normal. Though it is hard on the child, the harm done to him before they caught him is probably irreversible, so anything they can do for him would be a mercy.

Meanwhile, Vincent remembers his conversation with Bruce, and what Bruce has told him about Chinese powers. He draws Adison apart and quickly summarises their conversation a few days ago. She guesses that a Chinese herbal remedy may offer the boy some relief, giving the doctor and herself some time to think of something else, maybe consult her Chinese teachers.

She still has the sketch of the body to show them, and as they apparently know something profound is happening here they might have some answers or at least more information. She quickly inventories what she has with her, finding one concoction that may be useful.

Calling over Victor, she wants to discuss using it, 'I have a remedy to strengthen Chi in those who are sickened with parasites and infections. Maybe it will also weaken a possessing entity for a while, to buy us time to find a better cure.'

Victor agrees this may be their best shot, and proposes it to Sir Malcolm.

Surprised at the girl putting herself forward, the gentleman realizes she is not the doctor's assistant but his colleague, with expertise in her own field of knowledge. He is still a bit doubtful, being a member of a male dominated society can after all deform one's judgement quite profoundly, and having been used to strong and well educated women but not to truly expert ones, he needs a bit more convincing.

'Adison treats all our living patients, Sir Malcolm, her talent for healing is almost renowned,' says the doctor, with an involuntary look towards Vincent.

Vanessa Yves, who is very observant by nature, immediately notices, and she wonders. She knows the doctor has a secret, has done something that would outrage the world if it ever got wind of what he did, has this soft looking, pale skinned actor man with the disconcerting eyes something to do with the doctor's little secret? Did Miss Adison heal him with her talents? He doesn't look sick, but of course that would only prove her powers. She means to find out.

Sir Malcolm decides to try the concoction, and to let them know the results. Victor promises to follow up on his idea of blood-transfusion, having an appointment with an expert, a doctor Van Helsing, the next day. But how to give the rabid boy the cure? His madness makes him incredibly strong, and his possession makes him even more dangerous.

'We'll have to force feed it to him, taking care he doesn't strike out, or gets hurt badly himself,' says the cowboy, clearly a real American by his accent.

Vanessa is very surprised to hear the actor add, 'And don't let him get even a taste of your blood, I have been warned that blood holds incredible power to the kind of people that do something like this to other human beings. Spilling your blood here might lead to much greater harm than the boy could ever do to you in person.'

She can feel her jaw drop. It sounds like good advice with blood seemingly the centre of this affliction, but how can he be so certain of this, he's an actor!

Hearing Vincent speak, Adison apparently has thought of a solution.

'That's it Vincent, if anyone can hold him it must be you. And if you hold him, I can force the potion down, I've done that before even with patients unwilling to swallow.'

Now Vanessa starts to seriously doubt Adison's sanity, just when she was ready to set aside her prejudice against the girl's meek appearance. How can she believe that soft skinned, soft-spoken man can ever hope to hold a possessed wild creature, when two hardened men can't do it?

But with an, 'Alright I'll do it, but Victor, please keep his teeth out of my neck!', he moves towards the boy with incredible speed, and has him in an iron grip with both arms pinned to his scrawny body in an instant. Victor has nothing to do, for the pale man's hold on the boy is so absolute that he can't possibly move a muscle.

Adison moves in fearlessly, a lot quicker also than she looks. She touches the boy's face lovingly for a moment, and in an instant she has the bottle drained between his cramped jaws like magic.

'An old nurses' trick', she grins at their stunned looks. She clearly has no fear at all that the possessed boy will escape her friend's grip.

Correction, Vanessa thinks, lover's grip, recognizing the flushed look Adison gives him as she is finished and he prepares to let the boy go without giving him the chance to bite or claw, or even strike back. She's been in that grip before, and she loved every second of it, Vanessa realizes with a short stab of jealousy and a slightly heated feeling of her own.

She doesn't often err in judging people, but clearly she let herself be taken in by Vincent's stage persona and his conversation in the theatre. Of course, he ís an actor, she reminds herself, and having no beard whatsoever would make even a man with more masculine features look soft. But now she knows why they have insisted on taking him along: supernaturally quick and strong, and if he knows how to use that sword as well he's a powerful cure for robbers and footpads.

And for what they themselves are after, she realizes, heaven knows they can use another good fighter when it comes to cleaning out another of those infestations of monsters.

Meanwhile, the potion seems to have had some effect. The boy is more quiet, the madness calmed a little. They prepare to leave the boy for the rest of the night, Vanessa deliberately accompanying their guests to the carriage that will take them home. All shake hands, and though Vincent feverishly thinks of an excuse not to touch Miss Yves, he cannot think of one.

And she seems determined to come really close to him, studying his eyes, for the first time noticing the large scar on his right temple. Taking his right hand with one of her own, and moving towards the scar with her other hand, she says, 'I only see this now, this has healed very beautifully. It must have been a terrible wound. Your work, Miss Adison?'

And though Vincent cannot help making a run for the carriage, it is already too late, she has touched him there, of all places. He just manages to get inside before he is hit by the strongest flash so far. Fortunately, no one can see him where he has collapsed.

Adison covers for him expertly.

'I'm so sorry for his reaction, Miss Yves, that is still a very sensitive subject to him, one he does not like to talk about. And I did indeed help him recover from a great hurt. If you'll excuse me, I'd better see how he is faring.'

And she is inside, leaving Victor to make the final adieus. Which he does befitting his leadership of his little party, though looking slightly guilty to Vanessa's discerning eye. As he enters the carriage too, and it sets off immediately, she returns to the house, thinking she has uncovered part of the doctor's secret: that terrible wound, that the slip of a girl so expertly healed, and that the victim doesn't want to talk about, was caused by the doctor somehow!

In the speeding carriage, Vincent is still unconscious.

Victor and Adison have managed to lift him off the floor and he is now lying in her arms on one of the benches, twitching a little in the throes of a vision.

'Should we pull him out?' Adison asks.

She knows she can do it with the stuff in her doctor's case.

Victor is in doubt.

'He doesn't seem to be suffering, just dreaming very vividly. Maybe he can learn a bit more of his past this way, or our future. Can you get him out just before we get home, so the driver won't notice?'

She nods, resting her head on her lover's. She's tired, it has been a long and eventful day. But she is glad to have been of use and that everything went relatively well. The visions concern her, but they are not fits, and it is actually quite normal for someone with head trauma to get memory flashes years later. She feels Victor seeking her hand to hold it. It is a sweet gesture, he has come such a long way from the bitter and distrusting man he used to be. There is real love between them. She hopes he will be ready for a love of his own someday, but until then, she will be there for him.

They were planning to wake Vincent a block from their home, but as it turns out he comes from the vision by himself, a bit groggy, but coherent. He whispers hoarsely, with distinct humour, 'At least I didn't ravish her. Bet she would have liked what she'd gotten.'

Adison agrees with him that Miss Yves probably likes it rough, and the woman was quite rude to touch him so intimately without his consent. She smiles at him fondly.

'Are you feeling well enough to walk in by yourself? We feel that would be better. And did you have a vision, or just backlash from controlling your reaction?' she asks.

Victor urges her to leave him be until they are safe inside the house, preferably on the big four-poster with a light snack and a glass of wine. But as it happens, they all just manage to find their way to their beds before the long day catches up with them and they fall asleep like babies.

They take the morning off to catch up on some sleep, knowing a summons from Sir Malcolm may arrive at any time, and probably in the small hours of the night. They need their strength for what may come.

Sitting on the very comfortable bed having breakfast, Vincent tells them about his dream, of the lady from his past crying in the window with him standing in the rain looking on. And of the vision caused by Miss Yves' touch, which was a lot more intense and a lot more disturbing.

'I was in a bedroom in what looked like a city apartment, clearly not the rural house of the dream, having really rough sex with her. You both like me to dominate on occasions, but this was another matter: we were hurting each other on purpose, with bonds, whips, mutual beatings and quite a lot of blood flowing through scratching, biting and even using sharp tools.

She gave as good as she got.

I felt lust, and a kind of possessive, overpowering love. It was in some way more a sickness, an addiction, rather than love. Of course, I now know how true, disinterested love feels, or I might have been fooled to think that that was real, for it was so powerful.

I cannot imagine my current self under any circumstance committing such heinous acts in the name of love, so I must accept that these may indeed be memories from my former life, with a lover I had then. Whether that is true or not, I have to consider the fact that I may have been a person without conscience or remorse, able to inflict grave hurt even on someone I truly, passionately loved, and enjoy it, as well as the wounds she gave me in return.

I must have been a sick person, and she seems to have been more than a little mad. I don't wonder nobody came forward to claim him when he lay dying.'

Then he seems struck by a realization, and he almost pleads his friend and his lover, 'In the meantime, as long as I have these visions, I'll need a lot of confirmation of trust from you to remind me I'm a better person now, that I am loved in a healthy way, that I am no longer that charming monster of my dreams.

There must have been so much anger and violence in me, that it is an even bigger miracle than I thought that I didn't kill either of you straight away, in the pain of my re-birth. You chose quite the character to raise, Victor!'

Vincent is clearly mentally exhausted after relating all this, and Adison holds him close, letting him rest his head on her shoulder. Still she cannot help remarking, 'Does it strike you two as odd, that Miss Yves' touch gives such a violent reminder of your past, whereas your dream was kind of mellow, almost melancholy?'

Victor observes, 'She does seem to bring out the worst in a person. She's always asking personal questions, and I've found her studying me several times now, as if she wants to gain leverage over me. She finds it hard to trust people, I think. She crossed a boundary last night though, touching you so intimately, and I'll certainly give a hint to Sir Malcolm that she'd better not touch you again.'

'I'd appreciate that, Victor, I still feel not entirely welcome in that company, but I need to be there when things get dangerous. Having her touch me like that will not help my fitting in. I don't think I'd ravish her anytime, but I don't want to drop on the floor with violent flashbacks every time we meet either.

't Would make a bad impression I'm afraid.

Sometimes I think she may be drawing me out on purpose, and I don't want to become a slave, to her or someone worse, by the power of sex, or who knows, even blood.'

Adison can think of several other things she thinks would likely happen if that crazy woman touched her man again, but she doesn't want to ruin her reputation as a civilised woman. And she knows she can handle Miss Yves, either mentally or physically. So she merely exclaims, 'The power of sex, you mentioned that earlier, I thought we were dealing with an affliction of the blood here, some kind of disease?

And you were going to tell us about Bruce. I heard some, but I'd like to know all!'

And they spend another hour talking about premonitions and Chinese powers. Adison is resolved to visit her Chinese teachers that day to show them the drawings of the sinister body, and ask about the possessed boy. She wants Vincent along to relate his visions, see if they can tell him if they're imaginations or real memories.

Vincent wants to meet up with Bruce and accompany him and Maud to the theatre, preferring to move in groups for safety. Which means that Adison will have to come too, she cannot go home by herself. Victor, who is meeting the doctor of haematology today, will carry his gun and a blade concealed in a walking cane.