"Each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor." –Edgar Allen Poe
-o-
The carriage grumbled along the gravel drive, bumping here and there over larger stones and tottering around turns. A drop of rain dashed against the window in a quick spatter, and then was accompanied by a sudden torrent. Water lashed down on the roof of the carriage as it pulled up next to a stone building in the outskirts of London. The creaky door was tossed open; a parasol popped out first, then a heeled slipper, and at last a woman.
Her attire was simple, practical, and stark white. Roundish spectacles sat on her nose, and silver-blond hair was pulled up in a bun. "No need to wait, sir, I'll be here for some time." She called up to the driver, and handed him a few damp notes.
"Aye, miss. Good luck to ya." The man snapped the reins and the carriage clattered away down the road.
The woman entered the foreboding stone building. Inside, the main room was lined with steel bed frames and thin mattresses. It smelled distinctly of disease and minerals, musty water sitting too long. Patients stuffed the tiny hospital to the brim: crowding the beds, clustered against walls and lying on cots in any free space they could find. Nurses rushed back and forth, no more than six for three times the patients. They picked their ways around the men and women groaning on the floor. One stopped briefly at the doorway, carrying a teetering tray of various mixes and vials.
"Oh, thank heavens you've got here, Olivia!" She gasped in relief. "We were wondering if you were comin' today, we were!"
"It's the least I can do to help out here whenever I can, Jacqueline." Olivia tossed her coat aside and shook out her parasol with a quick swipe. "Now, who's in the worst condition?"
"Ah, well, that's the thing." Jacqueline shifted the tray, glass jingling. "They all are. Seems some kind o' sickness has gotten to 'em. I'd take a look at her, though. Bit worse than the others." A nod to a girl curled in the corner, not moving.
"I'll take things from here." Olivia shifted her spectacles and hurried over to the girl. When she knelt, water soaked into her already damp dress. "Hello, there. Can you speak?"
A long pause, a cough, a drop of blood on the floor. The girl was barely a woman, sixteen at the most. Her hair was greasy and wet, sticking to her face like black veins. Eyes like hollow marbles blinked hazily at her. "Y-yes."
"Sit still, dear. I'm going to take a few quick tests."
"Can…am I gonna die, miss?"
Olivia hesitated, stethoscope frozen halfway out of her bag. "Of course not. Now, deep breaths." The heartbeat was fluttering, hardly audible. It was the heartbeat of someone close to death. "When did you start feeling sick?"
"'Bout…a week ago." The girl coughed again, harder, and wiped the blood on her already stained skirts. "Started gettin' bad yesterday. Ain't got...nowhere else. Parents died last year."
"I see." Olivia traded out the stethoscope in her bag for a vial of a watery, pale green fluid. With an eyedropper, she squeezed out a bit and held it over the girl's mouth. "Open."
After giving the medication, she stood. "I'll be back soon. Try not to move too much."
Until night fell, the doctor moved around the entire building, giving what medicines she could to the sick, but mostly trying to diagnose what they could all be suffering. From what she could gather, all symptoms had set in more or less a week ago, with no provocation or reason. Some people were coughing up a little blood, and many were shivering with a fever she couldn't measure. With little to do for them, her solution had to be quick, or else risk having them all die.
"Stay here with these people," She told Jacqueline, the last remaining nurse now that everyone else had gone. "I will be back within the hour. I think I can fix this."
As calling a carriage would take too long, Olivia began walking down the street. The only solution was to get medicine from a better hospital, one that was not run on volunteers. The rain from earlier had weakened to a light, humid mist. At a corner, she stopped for a breather. Already nearly six blocks from the hospice, she stretched back and fanned her face.
"Impossible to walk in these…" Olivia cursed, leaning on a lamppost to remove her slippers and rub her feet. A glow above the buildings caught her attention, a dull orange that made the skyline go black. "What's that? The sun?" She checked her watch. "That's not possible, it just set. So then what…?"
She chewed her bottom lip, indecisive. After considering it a moment more, she shouldered her parasol and marched back the way she came. It seemed to take longer getting back to the hospital; a long, agonizing trek back through the dirty streets and puddles of stagnant water. It took until right before she rounded the corner that she smelled the smoke, and when she saw the hospital, there was nothing left that could be done.
Flames lapped up the sides of the building; it was jagged, angry fire, not the soft flicker of candles or hearths. Ashes fell with the rain like snow, staining her white clothes with patches of watery gray. Sparks jumped off the hospital by the thousands like a migration of fireflies. A few bystanders peeked out of their houses, edged worriedly onto the street.
"Did you see what happened?" Olivia demanded, turning on a man standing next to her.
"Can't say I did. I'm jus' seein' it now myself." He scratched his head. "Now I think of it, saw some noble-lookin' bloke leavin' there a while back. Oi, where're you goin'!"
No time wasted, Olivia ran to the consumed building. The doorway had buckled in, so she climbed in a smoldering hole in the wall. On the way inside she stumbled over something, a body in nurse's clothing. Charred corpses were huddled at the door; patients who had died trying to escape. Other, more recognizable lumps were lying here and there further into the wall of smoke. A curled, tiny body was in the corner, holding her legs.
With the faintest shadow of hope, Olivia tripped and stumbled her way to her. "Hello? Hey! Miss! Are you all right?"
The doctor pitched forward when the board under her foot caved with a burst of irritated sparks. Her hand shoved the girl's shoulder, and her head raised. "It's you." Her voice was nearly inaudible, a tiny wheeze. Blood was dried around her bottom lip.
"I'm going to help you out of here." Olivia gathered her up with one arm, and with the other, neatly swung her parasol at the wall like a hammer. The blackened beams exploded out, and she hopped out of the new hole. "Is anyone else alive in there?"
The girl only shook her head. Paths of tears were cut down her cheeks, clear trails through the grime coating her face. Olivia set her down on the pavement across the street.
"Don't move. I'll be right back."
"Thank you." The girl whispered, coughing lightly.
Olivia ran back to the hospital and dove back through the hole she made. Now that she was back inside, she could hear someone groaning in the back of the room. She recognized him as a man she'd treated earlier, one of the few without the mysterious disease; he'd only had a simple sprained ankle, but a support beam dropped on him right before her eyes with a magnificent crash. The groaning stopped instantly. Holding an arm over her eyes at the growing heat of the fire, Olivia was forced to jump back out the hole in the wall for the last time, as the building collapsed in on itself.
"There, at least…at least I saved you." She panted, putting her parasol over her arm and turning to the sick girl. "Now, how's your…"
Olivia faltered. The young woman was staring up at the sky, her eyes glazed and hollow. Her mouth hung open in a half cough, a drop of blood at her lip. The doctor dropped to her knees and held the girl's hand, ice cold now but with lingering warmth at her wrist. She bowed over the tiny body and closed the staring eyes, murmured a prayer under her breath and crossed herself.
"How messy." A lofty voice proclaimed behind her. "Though you have a remarkable talent for quick thinking, and skill with medical equipment."
Olivia turned around and looked up. A man stood over her, all narrow—narrow face and eyes, narrow frame and narrow hands, dressed in the pristine suit of a butler. He bowed to her, though it felt like mockery. The distinct smell of sulfur came off him like a perfume, though it could have just been the fire.
"What do you want?" She muttered.
"What do you say to a job?" He smiled faintly at her. "Room and board included, fair pay, and many benefits."
"I don't care about any of that." Olivia stood, brushing herself off. "As long as I can help people, I'll be happy."
"That can be arranged." The man bowed again. "My name is Sebastian Michealis."
"I'm Olivia, Olivia Downey." She responded, with a glance to the girl's body. "And I accept your offer."
-o-
-First chapter done, wow. Please tell me what you think! I have many plans for this story, but I have a lot on my plate so I want a little feedback before I invest more time on it. :P
-Tl;dr, review!