This is chapter 1 of part 2 which is named after a score piece by Paul Haslinger off the Underworld soundtrack. When listening to it I kept thinking about PD and Ethan and Vanessa especially and it fits into my vision. Give it a listen if you like, it is haunting in a beautiful way.
Eternity and a Day
1
The young doctor crosses the square in front of Grandage Place at even speed. It is already later in the day than he had planned to come, but Dr. Jekyll had known how to keep him at Bedlam.
Upon entering he ignores the newspaper flung through the lid by a careless mailman and now somewhere on the old floor.
"Doctor, you're here at last."
Sir Malcolm stands before him before Victor has seen him coming. There is a sense of urgency to his demeanour that is different to what Victor is used to in this household, causing him to furrow his brows in slight puzzlement.
"Please examine Miss Ives first. She should be awake. We shall wait in the Map Room. Once you join us and everyone has arrived, we shall proceed", Sir Malcolm replies to Victor's unspoken questions and he realises asking any more is not going to get him any more precise answers.
So the doctor hangs his coat up and proceeds to walk down the hall towards the former guest room.
Thin rails of smoke drift up into the brisk, clear air as she exhales deeply.
Her left arm wrapped tightly around her waist as if to steady herself, she stands out on the deserted terrace, smoking silently without feeling any relief of the tension coursing through her frame.
She has barely slept, even when so close to his warmth and his scent which have always eased her mind even at its worst states and his inherent way of being so very alive.
She had listened to his heartbeat all night, even after she had not been able to keep her eyes open any longer and sleep threatened to overwhelm her once more.
Thoughts had lit wildfires in her mind. In her heart.
She loves him. For all he is. And she will protect him the way he has protected her, with all she has. Whatever the cost. She will keep him safe.
She wants his heartbeat. With her. Always. There is nothing she will not do.
In the early hours of morning, she had been wide awake already, her eyes burning from her crying and her entire body exhausted.
Her lips and throat still feel dry.
The gash her own teeth had bitten into her lower lip looks, makes it seem like she had been violated in sleep the night before; like someone had violated her, which is precisely what it has felt like to her.
For now, she refrains from looking at anyone too closely; they need not see her like this, after all. All their efforts, all the time they have given, all their patience, all their endurance – would it all be for naught in the end still?
Victor had done a quick examination on her without pestering her with questions.
He is learning to be sensitive, she has remarked. Learning to be – empathetic. So he has told her what she already knows – the lip, the slightly upset pulse. As if that is something either of them worries about on this very morning.
So the examination is over in minutes and she dresses fully, looking out at a colourless autumn sky.
She has always felt strongly about trusting her first intuition, her gut feeling, above every reason.
And every single cell within her advised her not to tell Ethan. At least not now and most certainly not every part of what she had seen.
It weighs on her and when she closes her eyes, even for a second, the image of him lying before her, drained of blood and life and all that makes him into who he is to her, appears again and clings to her heart with sharpened claws and she has to strain herself to make it leave.
She knows what has to happen. What they have to do. What she has to do.
They will not let her. He will not let her. Ethan has stopped her once and he will not see her run towards the same outcome once more.
A wish tugs at her again, an old one. Escaping. With him. Anywhere safe.
But what place is truly safe when her worst fear has ceased to exist only in her mind? If what she fears most is – an event of their future?
"Join us, will you?"
She flinches involuntarily at his strident voice, but does not turn around.
"Vanessa!"
She turns slightly towards him, never changing her posture.
Sir Malcolm comes to stand next to her. From the corner of her eye, she remarks that his demeanour has softened, ever so slightly.
"I wish you would tell me."
She lets the last tendril of smoke escape her lips and then extinguishes the cigarette in the tiny old porcelain ashtray before her.
When he is still waiting and she still has not answered after what seems years to her, she feels his fingers touch her right shoulder, very lightly and looks up at him.
"You are the only child left to me, Vanessa. You know what you mean to me. I will ask you once more – what did you see?"
She looks into his light grey eyes and swallows, keeping her expression calm and composed.
"Horrible images", she answers at last, her voice too brittle for her own liking, "Famous, familiar fears manifested, Malcolm. Desertion, darkness, blood…and the like."
She hears him stifle a sound, one of exasperation. And barely suppressed, worried anger. His grasp on her shoulder intensifies as he looks into her eyes as if trying to find the answer he demands somewhere in there.
There is an edge of desperation in his gaze that does not fail to hit her.
"I have not heard you cry like that since you were a little girl, Vanessa. Do not try to mock me."
And indeed he had heard her, waiting with his back leaned against the wall in front of the door to what used to be Ethan Chandler's guest room.
He had wanted him to be the first one to enter the room and go to her, and that alone.
And there had been silence beyond that door for a long time.
Malcolm had taken a deep breath of relief. It could not be the illness, then. She would be safe.
It was at that moment this thought of comfort began to sink in with him, that he heard her.
He had seen her cry so often over the course of the last few years that he had come to think of it as something fairly natural, her being a woman of extraordinarily sensitive perception and also, as Malcolm thought, of fragile hormonal state.
It had always rather made sense to him when she cried and he had neither questioned it nor thought of it as more than it was – a physical reaction to an emotion.
It was then, the previous night, when he had sat on the floor in front of the door, basking in the warmth of relief that she had been spared another detrimental and potentially self-destructive-fit, that his heart has been pierced, and almost torn to shreds, by actually, loudly, hearing her cry.
It had taken all restraint there could be found in him not to bolt into the room himself and pull her into his own arms and hold her until she stopped.
He had known Ethan to be the best company for her to be with at that moment though and had held himself back.
Admittedly, the last few weeks have made him sensitive – weakness it would seem to a lesser man – and he had come to worry easily with her.
But this has been something entirely different.
He had known it at the very moment he had listened to her cry in utter distress. Something is different. This is something else.
When she had told him to gather every member available of their group at Grandage Place, he had tried to get it out of her. But she had only spoken of a vision, nothing more.
But he sees her strained, in silent, calm pain as though she is constantly pressing her hands onto a wound that does not cease leaking blood.
He knows her long enough.
So when he looks at her now, gazing deeply into her eyes, he expects an answer.
She blinks, only once, but he sees it.
"It was a dark manifestation of fearsome things", she replies, never breaking eye contact with him, "A nightmare, brought forward as a vision. Nothing more."
That is the moment in which Sir Malcolm's labouriously maintained calm resolve collapses and his grip on her shoulder is tight and his voice louder than he wanted it to be.
"Enough!"
They stare into each other's eyes and she opens her mouth, forming sentences in her head, attempting to figure out what she could say, when a different voice enters their situation.
"What's goin' on here?"
Warmth floods through her at the sound of his voice and she swallows hard, casting her glance down.
Sir Malcolm lets go off her shoulder and seems to shake himself out of a trance, before he can turn around to look at the man who has spoken.
"It's quite alright", she interjects tersely, before he can utter any reply towards Ethan which she knows would be rough at best.
"Don't you think we ought to know what exactly Vanessa has seen, Mister Chandler?" asks Sir Malcolm then, having regained his composure, facing Ethan.
"What we oughta do, Sir Malcolm", Ethan answers, looking the older man straight in the eye, "is take a breath. We've got our people here, we'll figure things out. But we'll not pressure each other", his voice gets a little louder, involuntarily perhaps, "with anything!"
The two men spend another moment looking into each other's eyes, a silent conversation, before Ethan turns to look at her and his gaze softens slightly.
"They're waitin'. Are you ready to come along?"
She nods and suppresses the urge to take his hand as they leave the terrace.
"So, I understand Miss Hartdegen is still unable to join us?" Sir Malcolm asks rather resignedly.
"Romania is far away a place", Victor murmurs whimsically, turning his small leather-bound notebook over in his pale fingers.
Sir Malcolm shoots him a look and it takes the doctor a while until he appears to feel the explorer's stern gaze upon his face. He drops the notebook in his lap then, resting his hands on his knees.
"Is there anything else worthy of note that you could enlighten us with, doctor Frankenstein?"
The young doctor seems to avoid scowling at the older man, so instead he straightens his posture in the leather seat he has grown accustomed to over the time.
"As you might know, I have examined Miss Ives this morning. The vitals are good, by her standards, that is. There were no signs of violence that did not originate…" he pauses, "from herself."
She looks over at him, searching his averted gaze and when she finally finds it, she holds it for a moment until he looks less bashful.
"It was a vision, not an attack", she says then, glancing over to the other members of their gathering. Her voice is clear; a new determination seeks to grow steady roots within her heart now – she wants to stop this, all of it. And she needs to be up to it.
"How he got to me…how he invaded my mind I cannot explain."
Sir Malcolm coughs lowly.
"In his case, invading you seems to come naturally."
Before any of them truly understands what is happening, Sir Malcolm is pressed against the nearest wall, with Ethan's hands on his collar.
Everyone is speechless, even Sir Malcolm himself.
The tension in the atmosphere of the room is thick; it might be cut with a knife if any of them wanted it.
But they are all frozen into place right now and the whole wide room is silent except for Sir Malcolm's strained breathing and Ethan's own, agitated as well, yet calmer.
Two hunters. Yet one of them is more than a man.
Ethan finally speaks first and that in and of itself is a novelty to all of them.
"You will…", he drags the words out in a low voice close to an actual growl, still facing Sir Malcolm, "…apologise."
It takes the older man a moment's duration to consider his options at this very second. Then, he looks sternly into Ethan's eyes, not even offering up resistance to the other man's grasp.
"Mister Chandler, I apologise."
"Not to me!" Ethan answers hoarsely and it seems to her he has even tightened his grasp on Sir Malcolm's collar and she swallows hard at the sight of it all.
Still, none of the other men in the room seem able to intervene, if even just verbally. Or maybe, and she seriously considers that idea, they themselves do not want to.
Sir Malcolm nods and as his eyes land on hers, he utters "I apologise to you, Vanessa. I did not mean it the way it…sounded."
She can only look at them and nod.
"Do you accept his apology?" Ethan asks back, question directed at her, but voice still low and angry enough for Malcolm.
And when all of the men are glancing in her direction and she feels all their eyes on her, she has her gaze fixed on only one of them.
She nods once more and then she puts it all together.
She utters his name out loud, once, but he does not seem to realise she is speaking with him, still completely enwrapped in his anger directed at Sir Malcolm who does not add anything to his apology. What should he say?
She swallows hard as an image appears in her mind, something she had seen a while ago, months ago, so long ago.
Him, in the witches' castle. Teeth and hair and blood and the heat of rage inhibited, lived out.
And when she had reached out and touched him, the only thing of all that had come close to breaking her heart, before he had gone – the look in his eyes.
His face. The beloved, warm brown eyes, terribly filled to completion with intrinsic, visceral sadness, sadness that had her heart tied in a knot.
This very moment is now present in her again, flooding through her being, pulsing through her veins and the same feeling has her slowly stride across, her long dress swaying slightly as she goes.
And after a mere second's hesitation she touches him on the upper arm near his shoulder, the touch of a crumpled, wrinkled, withered feather drenched in dried tears.
Something seems to pass over, to radiate from her skin to his and she feels him begin to take calm, steady breaths underneath her touch, not yet back, but no longer gone.
"Vanessa", he mutters, his voice no more than a soft silhouette of its usual sound and utterly incomparable to the low, threatening tone they all have heard moments ago.
"Let him go", she whispers. "It is all good. For now, it is all good."
She waits with baited breath for his reaction and the silence that has filled the room is filling her ears now, drowning out the quick beating of her heart.
She is acutely aware of the silence now, as aware as she is of all the eyes on them, her and him, in this very moment. She knows instinctively what they all see.
In one quick movement that seems visceral, Ethan's hands lose their grip on Sir Malcolm's collar and as though he had forgotten about all that had happened between the two men, he turns toward Vanessa, facing her entirely, his gaze immediately finding hers.
Behind him, Sir Malcolm steps away from the wall, audibly clearing his throat and adjusting his collar on the way to where he had been seated before.
She has no eye for whatever it is the others do. She catches her breath in her throat.
He has listened to her. And she knows in that instant that the animal within him has.
They both seem quietly overwhelmed as they look at each other for another silent moment.
"Yes, for now it's good. But I don't suppose that's why we were all summoned here, is it."
Victor has spoken into the vacuum and she swallows and regains all of her composure in a second.
"No", she responds in a hoarse voice, breaking her eye-contact with Ethan and glancing back into the direction of the other members of their group.
She feels his eyes on him as she does so, but she withstands the impulse to turn back. They have both been exposed enough. She wants to talk about it with him, but not now. There is still so much they need to…
"I am not entirely d'accord with your tone, dear doctor. I presume we all know Miss Ives would not call upon our help and joined forces to take care of her knitwear", says Mister Lyle in that very moment, reprimanding Victor for his rather harsh interjection, albeit with his usual amount of charm and a lopsided little smile at the end of his sentence.
He then looks at her as though encouraging her to continue.
She nods and lets her gaze wander over each of the men before her.
She feels him move. It seems to her they both are still as deeply connected as though they were still touching or at least still looking into each other's eyes.
She feels him move as he walks over to the leather armchair, sitting down, though on the edge.
"I wish…" she begins, her voice low, "…I would like to keep you out of this. You have seen enough of the dark world beyond our own to deserve no further experience of it."
She does not look at any of them now; she knows she would have looked at him.
"But it is only because of you that I am still alive. So I think you need to know about the vision I had last night."
"Are you sure it was not a nightmare, Miss Ives?" asks Victor. "Nightmares would seem more than probable after all you have experienced in the past few weeks."
"It wasn't."
Ethan's interjection is so lowly spoken that she feels his words rather than hears them.
His voice is once again so close to her as though he has touched her and she resists the urge to close her eyes and ask him to continue, to utter something more, anything. Anything soothing, anything warm.
"If the dark one indeed advanced further into your mind, Miss Ives, I do presume it is a consequence of his taking your blood when you were unguarded."
Mister Lyle's considerations sound serious and thoughtful as he looks over at her, his eyes free of the slightly bashful pity they had held before. He is the professor now, pragmatic and analytical.
She meets his eyes with an apprehensive nod, though still withdrawn, her arms crossed before her chest.
"It is common belief in ancient mythology that through the transition of blood from one being to the other, it is more than simply blood cells that are transferred. A deeper, more intimate connection to the mind of the other; some cultures believe that even memories, emotions, the most personal of thoughts get from one bloodstream into the other in this particular way. A linkage of minds, so to say."
She bites her lip, her eyes trailing aimlessly across the floor as she considers Lyle's words – with dread. After all this time, she is still not let go.
How could she have thought he had let her get away? Had something clouded her mind, the pain, the medication? It would have been so simple, slipping from his grip like this. Too simple.
Sir Malcolm is the first to react to Mister Lyle's words.
"If your deliberations indeed explain what has happened to Vanessa, if this is true – why now?"
Victor furrows his brows as he gazes at the older man from the side.
"What do you mean?"
Sir Malcolm looks increasingly agitated as he responds.
"It has been more than three weeks now that Vanessa is out of his grasp. And even longer I assume, since he has bitten her. More than three weeks that he could have used to pervade her mind at his volition. Weeks in which she was weak. Accessible, one would think. Then why now?"
Everyone in the room is looking at Ferdinand Lyle now as though he had a sort of communication with the dark one himself.
Everyone except her.
"Because he has waited for this moment."
Her voice is devoid of its previous fragility. She states her thoughts, providing her accomplices in this with her own reflections, firmly.
"He has been waiting, all these weeks, for this. Neither my body nor my mind were of use to him, ailing and unconscious. So he has waited while I was recuperating, he has made you think he had let me go, when in truth he needs me in the state I am in now. Conscious. Capable. Considering myself safe…"
Her glance meets Ethan's and she cannot help that her voice is softer now.
"Protected."
His gaze is deep, pensive and inquisitive, he wants to now, he wants to feel what it is she feels and she knows it and does not allow him to. She needs him safe.
And for now, he cannot know that he is the one the dark one seeks to take from her. She knows what he would do. And she will – she cannot – let him.
"But", Victor raises his voice, sounding confused despite himself, "protected, would that not be a disadvantage rather than…"
"He needs to be vanquished", she interjects, uncrossing her arms and letting her glance wander slowly over all their faces.
"He needs to cease existing. For once and for all."
Her voice is hardly more than a grim whisper by the end of it, one would name it softness, tenderness with which she has spoken, had it been a matter of love.
But it is cold, searing contempt. And an unwanted undercurrent of suppressed fear. It is a matter of death.
"An eternity is not enough, Miss Ives?" asks Victor and she knows he tries to joke and his tone is gentle, but there is more and she sees it as she looks at him.
"No", she replies. "No amount of time is enough. His presence has been everlasting. But it will not be so for much longer."
Her gaze trails once more across all their familiar faces.
And once again, it sinks into her heart that they are with her again. That she is no longer alone. But she needs to know.
"I cannot demand anything of you. I will not hold it against you if you decide to leave. There would be nothing to forgive. I cannot promise that this battle will be the last. So tell me honestly. Are you with me?"
She looks at them and one after the other, they look back into her eyes.
"Yes", says Sir Malcolm, followed by Victor and Mister Lyle with the same answer.
Lastly, she looks at Ethan. Something is gleaming deep in the warm brown of his eyes, he seems to restrain himself from getting up from his seat and walking over to her, crossing the small distance and…?
"Always, Vanessa."
She swallows and nods and she does not quite dare to smile as she sees the silent agreement, the familiar small signs of companionship.
If this ends well for her or not – this time, she is not alone.
The blood comes quickly as she cuts her finger.
She traces the tips of her index and her middle finger across the old wooden floors, in the corridor, in the former guest room and upon Sir Malcolm's explicit request, even in the Map Room.
Each scorpion is a being of its own.
First of all, I want to send a heartfelt 'thank you!' to every one of you who has read, given kudos or commented on part 1, especially those of you who had such generous, lovely and wonderful compliments for my writing after the last chapter. Thank you all so much, your appreciation truly means a lot to me. This chapter took longer than I thought because of migraine and some people. Thanks largely to the new Evanescence album, I finally got it on the page. : ) Also, every time I think too long about "the end", it puts salt into my wound and makes me ache to write. Thank you for sticking with me and as always for reading and any thoughts!