Chapter 8
Afterthoughts
The next 2 weeks went into a manic motion. George parents' arrival from Windermere had coincided with the delivery truck of a fully equipped nursery; that plus a frantic son and his friend carrying bags of nappies could have been giving away. The real clue was the sound, the roar coming from the house of a very hungry baby. Then silence which followed.
The Sands Sr rushed to the house, to be welcomed by the view of Nina nursing a wave of soft brown curls. Just as quick as he has expressed outrage at been left starving for one single milli-second, the new-born likely disgusted by the besotted admiration of his family went to sleep in front of their gaze.
- He…She…How cute!
- He is a he and we have not decided yet on a name.
Nina and George exchanged heavy looks. A battle of wills no doubt was going on. Tom left silently the room, heading toward the stairs, where only supernaturals could see Annie looking down from the upper floor.
- He is adorable and not one scratch on him. Are you really sure he…changed? At all?
The parents had frozen in shock when the ghost had been goaded to admit that, well, yes, in some sort of way, though she was not 100% sure, it was early days, and hum, beside, Baby was choke full of maternal hormones which could explain why, hum, why a cute baby had …somehow …been born very, very hairy and looking like a surprised cub. But just as quickly, it had reverted to human shape when the baleful influence of the full Moon had stopped. Mind you, it was just as bewildered and surprised. That must be the "be born" thingy. Werewolf cub or human miniature version, baby was a boy.
A lusty boy with powerful lungs and all the trimmings to make it sure it would never be a Gina. Norge was still debatable but weird. Blond it may have been at the beginning; but it had quickly taken the route of darker hair. And it was still darkening with a soft wave leaving open the door of actual locks. Just like any newborn, the iris had shone blue; now it was steadily turning mahogany. The good thing was that it had lost the startled look of the beginning. Baby had accepted the 2 giants who fed him, cared for him, keeping him dry and warm. He was clueless at the cooing noises they made when they held his minute hands or tickled his perfect footsies. He just went with the flow, happy in the confidence of his parents` undying love.
His God parents too, by the way. Tom and Annie embarked with enthusiasm on the responsibilities going with the title. McNair Junior would teach him a few tricks his anxious father would feel compelled not to mention. A bit neurotic, this George mate. Nina was a different feather. No nonsense Nina, but she was a mother. All over anxious, and fussy. A mother. The mother he missed so much. One must not complain. Life had taken his father, life had given him a brother and a sister…and a friend. A see-through friend. A friend who needed a friend.
Baby-sitting had been high on Annie agenda. That was when she had believed Mitchell and she would find a solution to their "problem". How could she physically care for a human ten-pounder bundle of love .The vampire could have deal with the practicalities of body care, while she would have provided the psychological entertainment. The ventriloquist duo was dead before the baby had even been born.
More than once since she had died, she had felt Life had passed her by. Life had dealt her very poor cards. Lamentable live boyfriends, a lamented dead one. When they had lived in Bristol, she had felt alive somehow. At the time, Mitchell truly believed he could abstain from blood; he could overcome whatever was ruling his genes. George main problem was the washing and mugs of tea. Their trio was invincible. Nina and the baby, which was George trio. Only Tom was relating, understanding her loneliness, that cruel hole in her heart.
Finding the truth about her death had made no difference in her ghosting, touring Purgatory and a second visit made no difference. Now falling in love after death, and losing her vampire lover still made no difference. No door, no nothing. No compelling need to get across the white light. No even one bloody door, when the stake had gone through his chest, turning him into smoke in less than 2 seconds. Time enough for George to say at least something relevant, something loving to Mitchell. Tongue-tied she had been, which was of a smarter scale than her staggeringly weak past tense "love of her life". Thanks, Mitchell to have visited us and good bye. See ya! A heartless goodbye, no surprise he chose suicide.
He deserved better than this cold adieu. Love was not on her menu. Physical, intellectual, spiritual, alive, dead, her problem was that she was unable to love anyone properly, decently, humanly. The writing was on the wall. She stopped wondering why she had been sent to Hell. The answer had been there all the time; she was a curse to her lovers.
She brought the worst out of them. She was virtual with boyfriend#1 goading him to show what a bitch she was over the internet, icy frigid with boyfriend#2 hence the unwise decision to try a threesome to warm her up, so needy and clingy Owen had seen no other way out but kill. The last straw being the tall Irish man running out of the jail of her own making, begging his mate to free him. Death, deader death was better than her. The monsters were not prowling outside. They were here, in her…
Gilbert dead in 1985, found love and was freed after some 25 years of ghost prison. Was that her fate? A lonely ghost, seeing people falling in and possibly out of love
But able to love, able to be alive through love. Nice. Gilbert, her friend. Here again she has not seen, not listened to the subliminal messages. One could only hope this good deserving soul would find in Lia the love of his afterlife. Lia, now was made of the stuff good babysitters are made up. Reliable, sensible, efficient, up to the point.
All the qualities she had …not.
Chapter 9
A name is a name
All the Sands and relatives were crowding the kitchen like courtiers around the Sun King. Said King was deeply asleep in his carrier chair sitting on the said kitchen table. Unbothered by the discussion.
George the third was ruled out.
- We do not need a mad man.
Ruled out also Norge.
- We do not have Norwegian relatives
Rufus came and went, unnoticed. Tim, Brian? Naahh…Female names were not discussable. Gina? Really for a boy? At this point, George started to shuffle, shiftily. Nina knew that look. He was going to say it, he was saying it. Once it was said, it would never be the same.
- Mitchel… I mean Mitch. Mitch Sands. I like it.
The older Sands looked at him, incredulous. There had never heard of a Michael or Michel or whatever their son was mumbling about. From the frown Nina had, her family was also Mitch-free. This was going to turn ugly.
The baby woke up.
- Mitch, baby Mitch. You like it, little one.
If she had not known babies do not wink, she would have sworn this baby of hers had winked the left eye to his father. What was going on? She must be imagining things, she was tired.
Baby turned his gaze to her, managing a fair attempt at smiling, winning his mother heart over.
- Yes, that is my baby Mitch, my Mitchell boy.
A proper name was a cause for celebration. Grandpa went down to the cellar, blissfully unaware his walls were a bit scratchy. Grandma started digging an old cake recipe book, Mummy went on rocking the sleepy head, while Daddy went upstairs to inform the God-father and mother their charge had been given as a protection, as a guiding light, as an example to follow, as a very important symbol for his future life the name of a mass murderer, albeit a nice one.
Tom did not mind. His father has taught him to recognize the unsuspected depth, to see the real soul behind the appearance in people. In his way, he had liked the vampire. A decent bloke. He knew deep down that just like him Mitchell had had no choice in his condition. Both had been made, but both would have rejoiced at being boringly normal.
It came as a shock to Annie. She had not discussed with George on Nina for that stance how the dramatic events of "that" night had played on her. From Now on, she was going to be obliged to pronounce loud and clear the name her lips would not call. Somewhere, someone was having a laugh. A sick sense of humour, undoubtedly.
Meanwhile the hero of all that soul-searching was burping on his mother shoulder. This baby needed proper feeding, serious feeding. Addiction being milk. Feeding sorted, burping sorted, back to business. Sleep. In a proper cot. Hence the nursery.
- Look at him, Annie. I do not know if it is the human or the cub in him, but I swear he needs more milk ounces that a regular, you know human-human baby. Oh my God, is he going to grow as fast as my pregnancy went?
- I don't think so. He is now almost a week old, and he is still quite snugly in his new born clothes.
- Let's wait for the next full moon. Then we shall know for sure…
The werewolves were worried. What would the change mean for a 4 week old baby? The tender bones breaking, the little heart attacked all those very delicate organs in full failure. The embryo, the foetus had survived. Would the baby survive?
- Have you been contacted by the health visitor yet?
- Err, no. We, we need to visit the doctor…with Baby.
Baby could not care less about vampires or doctors. Baby was Baby. Baby gazed at the ghost. Was he seeing her? Who was he? Who would he be, become? Baby had all his life to live. And he started this long life of his with a werewolf curse. Would he, should he feel the burden over his shoulders? Baby, being Baby, chose the only answer available to babies, when they are warm, fed, dry and loved. Better sleep it over. He moved close to his mother chest, almost purring and carried on his sleep. From his contented sigh, his parents, Annie and Tom knew that he was happy.
There was no cause for concern, yet.
Chapter 10
House call.
In everybody life, there is a moment when you have to undress, roll up your sleeve if your lucky or drop your trousers. For babies, it is nappy free time then pain. Unsuspecting his parents' treason, Little Mitch was doing his best at his favourite activity: sleep. A discreet inquiry had found out the French GP was visiting relatives in Scotland, with her dog. What a surprise. The Asian locum could not give more information. She would soon be back.
George wanted answers and quick. What was that nonsense Annie had been rambling about? A perfectly human able to see ghosts without not so much as a Hello, how do you do. A dog turning into a human at Full moon. Copycat werewolf on reverse. What next? Mermaids? She had been nice to Nina. She had helped Annie. She better give prompt answers.
Again and again, Tom had had a look at the deserted Edwardian house where Battie lived with her Hound. Tonight, the lights were on. This house was going to get unforgettable guests. The 2 male dogs knocked vigorously on the front door.
- How come I am not surprised.
The black dog was sitting on his rear as the door opened. The electrical clinch had been pressed from…somewhere. The CCTV must have decided the unseen host enough information to make her feel safe and let them in.
- Come in, come in. I am in the winter garden room.
- Hi, George. I take you are Tom. Our sincere condolences. Your father was a very, very nice man.
- You knew Dad?
- Who do you think was at the end of all those immunizations you had? Werewolf cub born or made, cub you were and in need of a medical adviser. My Dougal and he met up north. A deep one, your dad. He knew we would do our very best to keep you two under the radar. By the way George, do not worry. Jonathan and Elaine Wyatt and their new born girl Cuddly have left the village for unknown whereabouts. But their NHS number will be useful. Will have to find a solution for the Social Security number. Leave it to Doug, he will deal with it.
The next thing the 2 men were exposed to was surreal. Battie opened a bottle of Single Malt, poured some in a dog bowl and the dog went on drinking after a growled "thank you". What finished them off was the casual
- And you two, what would you drink?
- Like…like it, I mean like him.
- You want to know what happened to us, I suppose.
- That would be nice.
- We met through an exchange student scheme. He was reading Medicine at Edinburgh; I was doing the same in Paris. We had the same interests in woman's health. We wanted to make a difference. We got married, joined doctors without borders. Which was thrilled at finding 2 young consultants? Our first mission was in Sudan, in Nubia. We may have been smart, we were not very rich and this trip, we called it our "honeymoon". How ironic!
The dog of unknown breed put his head on her feet, looking ever so sad. This time, Tom and George knew this was not a joke.
- Near our hospital, was an archaeological camp. The team had found an undisturbed tomb, just under one of those Nubian, black pharaohs pyramids. We …we thought we could have a stroll at night where they were digging. We were possibly a bit drunk, we knew we should not have trespassed; we should not have entered the tomb. Inside, were laying the day finds. Especially a black canope vase, with an Anubis head on it. It was weird, that vase. It was …malevolent. Doug wanted to have a better look at it, he tried to carry it out as to get a better view under the full moon, he was tipsy, tripped over some stone, let it fall. The fluid in it spilt over, on his bare hands, on him. It literally went for him, getting into his skin, like it was absorbed, that thick black oil. That was it. THAT WAS IT. My loved one disappeared and the dog was there. And I knew it was my Doug, my beloved Doug.
It was like a horror movie. Except this time, it was real. No outlandish mummy malediction, a straightforward story, clinically described without pathos and drama. A medical casebook history about the dangers of alcohol. The seldom discussed dangers of a walk on the wild side, under a full moon.
- I understand why Dougal sees Annie, knows about us. But you! You are human! You are human, aren't you?
- I am like you, modified. But it seldom shows. For all I know, people like me are all around. Unseen, undiagnosed, undetectable, untraceable. The unknown of the unknown.
- I am an antidote. A boring antidote.
Chapter 11
The mother of all stakes.
- What do you mean? For a woman your age, you are not ugly.
- No offense meant Doug; your wife is a bit on the shady side of fifty and she could shed a few pounds, but she is not an antidote. That is not a nice thing to call a lady.
Tom was outraged by such ungallant behaviour. He was very old fashioned when it came to womanhood. Females were frail creatures to be protected, cared for and respected. His notions might have been antiquated, but they had endeared himself to the 100% female population of his new home. Ruth, Nina, Annie were in awe of this gentle boy. One thing was sure; his fan club was steadily growing.
- Thanks Tom. I meant antidote as counter-poison. I sort of cure vampirism …radically.100% success rate. The patients do not complain. Not that they have the time to complain. One bite, one drop of my blood and …shhhhh…they turn into smoke. Some people have a walking stick, I am a walking stake. They do not even have the time to dig deep. A simple nip of the smallest fang and voila.
- This is…amazing. Imagine, with you sharing this…thing with humanity, no more vampires. I mean, no more contagion, no more risk…
- And what do you do with the actual living ones? The actual vampires, we put them in a zoo? We eradicate them. 99,8% vampire free world, like those bacteria killing spray.
Annie suddenly interjected. She must have been all along standing by the glass doors; she had heard all as the tears were rolling on her cheeks. Heard about the Farquarhsons tragedy and the antidote thing.
- You are spot on Annie. At first, I thought: well at least, it is useful in a weird way. Then it stopped as some vampires started to turn up and used my…condition as a way to commit perfect suicide. That poor Carl, it was so…so sad. He was so…heartbroken, so humble. Asking me if I could, me, a doctor, end his life.
- It was euthanasia! I do not mind bad vampires getting retribution; I draw the line at killing decent beings, good people, nice people. Those…people, they have a soul, you know. Complicated, ok, but a real wonderful human soul none the less.
Nina would be pleased the killer had got his punishment. Wait, no so sure. His girl friend had a tough moral compass. But anyone who was sincerely trying to make amends found a friend in her. Carl has killed his lover, true. But his despair had been sincere; he really could not live without this gentle Austrian. Mozart's buddy could not go on without the pianist who played so intensely the Requiem. Now both would meet …again?
Mitchell had explained him roughly what Purgatory was. One thing it was not was being hot. The heat wave which had accompanied Mitchell smoke did not bode well for the vampire, for any vampire in that matter, for anyone in fact.
Better not express that particular concern to Annie.
- So, they bite you and they die.
Yeah, sadly does not work for the Inland Revenue Service people. Told you.
- How…how did you get…altered? Drank a magic potion?
- Worse, self-injected! Don`t look at me like that. When Dougal got…modified, I went berserk. Went all over, looked everywhere for help. At one point, in Congo, met that witch doctor; he was mumbling something about the Fangs of Night. I thought he meant werewolves, thought it was the antidote for us .Like a make or break. I could not let my husband down, I had to do something. He gave me some herbs! Herbs, but he was serious, deadly serious. I reduced the herbs to a blend, mixed it with saline, and injected. At worse, I thought, it would lead to an abscess. Mind you, I fainted after it. It was so painful. Woke up with Doug licking my face, and barking madly. Very angry, you were, Dear.
- One evening, in Paris, some vampires got us cornered. They looked at Dougal like he was a rare thing, then jumped on me and became history. That is how we realized that I had been changed too. Albeit in a very, very demure way. Story of my life. Supernatural yes, but understated, bourgeois. Pfff...
This was looking good …or bad. They all were supernatural, in their own calling, different. Some had it better, some had it clearly worse. At least Nina, Tom and he were human 27 days out of 28. Dougal had got the short straw.
- Do you know if …if there are other types of…of people, you know, like us, but…different…like mermaids?
- No, not mermaids.
They call themselves mermen. Though since the Navy went co-ed, they have started having some mer-women. Which is nice for them? I mean at one point it was turning into a Village Sub marine People.
Chapter 12
Then what?
George had seen it coming. When one starts with werewolves, then vampires quickly followed by ghosts, one starts to realize that the supernatural may be a bit more crowded than the original Bristol trio. Mitchell had mentioned the bigger than the "scarier than us". Now he knew, or he was about to know; and it was not going to be pretty. Mind you, he was going to feel a lot less alone.
- How? How long have you known?
- How did you learn?
- What do you know?
Tom, Annie and George questions burst at the same time. The answers followed the same disjointed flow.
- There are numerous advantages to join a non-profit charitable organisation. You travel abroad, no questions asked, you get into …interesting action and you meet people, hoards of people, different sort of people.
- They have taken us at face value: a divorcee and her dog doing good work. They have accepted my interest into the…occult, the weird. The subscription to Fortean Times, "funny" quirks. All being unaware that I was in serious earnest.
- Thirty years of dabble into the Other side. Could write an encyclopaedia, I suppose.
- Where shall we begin? Western, eastern, fly pan-unnatural…
Clearly taken by the notion of mermen, Tom wanted to know more about them. Battie discovered their existence on the ferry between Dover and Calais. Talk of a P&O experience. Apparently, Pirates of the Caribbean Bill Nighy stand-in was not wearing a mask. Mermen did not do gorgeous.
Japan offered foxy ladies, a mix of were fox and ghost women, Navajos went for shaman wizards, African tribes went for big cat shape shifters and New Zealand had a thing with dwarves. And there were more, but she was not privy to all the spectrum of genetic aberrations. "A lot". As things go, the enumeration was boring and missing the point.
- What do you mean by we are missing the big picture, here?
Annie knew Battie was given a wide berth to what happened after. Was it by sheer ignorance or because the older woman refused to divulge information?
- Ghosts, dogs, fang-boys are genetic mutations. Why are those lethal mutations happening? Lucy Jaggat was unto something.
- That…that nutter?
- Jaggat was a brilliant scientist, future Nobel Prize. Until she became a born again Christian. We have lost a lot when she went over the top with that religious craze. Changed her perspective. But she had seen some pattern emerging.
- We are far from being as clever as she was or is, for all I know, yet we have gone further afield. Call us the lab technician unit for the supernatural world. Why in heaven sake Vampires do not target Harvard or Oxford? Why do they go for the low life instead of the brainy one? Beats me!
Informed that Jaggat would never get official recognition for her outstanding work, Battie shook sadly her head at the loss. Such a brilliant mind lost and lost this way. That book of hers, that Pitiful "Genetics of evil" should have got her sectioned. This unicist concept in itself was rubbish. Everyone knows there is not such thing as one gene fits all in genetics!
George whose IQ was well above 150 was now paying attention. Something was going on, what it was, he did not know. When CessNA was mentioned, he was all pointed ears. Those oddballs, those, that Spanish Inquisition, they were dangerous which meant they were still around. Keen on solving for once and for this entire evil supernatural world, while the supernatural world dreamt of getting a TV license and get on the career ladder.
From what he was able to explain to Nina later that night, there were a lot of things going on and the distinction between good and evil was not between human and supernatural. The difference was between good humans and supernaturals against evil supernaturals and humans. No, Battie was not planning to publish her findings.
The frontier between human world and their own was not a straight distinct line. Some humans were fully aware of his, her, their existence; some wanted to help, some wanted to benefit from it, some wanted to play with forks and torch, some wanted to be a part of it.
Most people on each side were decent, including the vampires and the ghosts.
Where did Annie go?
Chapter 13
The Great game, make it plural!
The General Medical Council would have been worried for her patients, if they had been privy to Battie conversation. Here she was standing, shaking her finger and speaking to nobody, to thin air. If they had been "different", they would have seen Annie listening and trying to memorize what Mrs Farquarhson was saying.
- Ghosts are …different, vampires are also different. There is something atypical. Like a different level. You are dead, they are dead. Most of the supernatural, the overwhelming majority are alive. They have a life; they will die and cross those doors of them.
- But you refused your door, and at the beginning, you had no door at all; same goes for vampires. Worse, they turn into smoke…and very hot air. One could get a severe burn if you were to touch their skin when…they fade. When the photograph turns to ashes…
She knew, she had always known deep inside. That gnawing fear. Where was he now? Please let it be just Purgatory. Slowly, she divulged more than she had intended about herself and her lover/boy friend. Their friendship had ended weirdly to say the least. Did that mean she had never really loved him, caring only in a very sisterly way, confused, mistaking deep affection for real love?
Those mutations, there were too many of them, playing on too many genes, loci, chromosomes. It meant that countless attempts had been made, like a Frankenstein Monster movie, but exponentially. Statistically, it was impossible, and the unique evil gene theory was plain wrong. But something was happening, too many monsters. Somehow, somewhere, someone was playing God and fiddling with our humanity.
No way, she was not going to say Roswell or Area 52. But she knew when it all had started; there was a year dot. Possibly a few years dot. The dinosaur extinction could not be ruled out as werewolves had some elements common to some sort of mammalian cynodont reptiles. Again it had happened in the early days of cave humanity as Lascaux walls bore proof of a shape shifter posing in his Stag outfit. Then when Stonehenge was built, again the mutations had carried on. One thing was sure, in those days humanity notion of scientific research was inventing the wheel. Who was it then?
The irruption of aliens was comical, except it was not. But she would have been the first to proclaim her faith in it to avoid facing the consequences of what she heard next. Flying saucers would be pleasant scenery compared to what came next.
Ghosts and vampires did not fit the picture. There was something else ongoing. The Old Ones knew more than the basic vampire. That was when she heard about Star Trek. In one episode, Kirk was playing with a three-dimensional chess board. Humanity whatever form it took was living in a three dimension world. Once we passed away, we moved dimensions. Why, no answer to that except that was what happened. Preventing human souls to move to their rightful direction, call it new dimension was wrong. The playing God thing was real then. Ghosts were stuck in Purgatory or on Earth, eternal prisoners, pawns? Of a game nobody knew about.
Earth dimensions were 4: 3 bidirectional height, width, depth and 1 unidirectional Time. Annie really regretted not to have paid more attention to what her Sixth Form teacher had been droning about. But she was getting the message across. When one dies, the soul is able to move to a 4th or 5th dimension. When turned ghost or bloodsucker, they were stuck here.
Only by finding the answer to their own riddle, and that was far from easy, could ghosts be set free, and some were never freed. As for Mitchell and his kind, a worse fate was expecting them. They were probably jumping over to either a 3rd or a 6th dimension, at best very dangerous for their survival, at worst real death, really erased from humanity. Who were those beings able to play with dimensions? Those were very, hugely, immensely powerful beings.
God and Devil? As souls were the pawns of that Great Game. That she did not know. As far as she knew, whoever those chess players were, they were making the ones responsible for the werewolf curse look like Mickey Mouse Apprentice Sorcerer. Kiddies.
There was no way she could help Annie. Who ever knew the answer to her riddle, who ever had the key to her locked room, knew his business, which was to torture Annie. Why her? Why Mitchell? Was he still alive? She thought it was likely. She had no contact with those who crossed the doors. Some supernaturals had been able to …go and come back. But Annie was the first one she had met and Annie was unable to provide any scientific data.
Mind you, the hallways and the rooms smacked of guinea pigs put in specific cages undergoing specific lab tests. More the ghost was revealed the broader picture, more she was terrified. Hell as seen through Kemp eyes was bad, but Hell made, created by mad scientists was worse. Who knows, Mitchell innocent namesake, that little boy who started life with a curse, that beautiful child was the direct consequence of some crazy man, creature, extraterrestrial, God, Demon. Call it what you want, the ghost was going to make sure he would pay. Little Mitch would be safe. She would see to it.
That and making sure feeding intervals were scrupulously respected. In the nursery, lower lip quavering, the vampire godson was contemplating starvation. Since 30 seconds, his organism had taken notice that he was hungry. The pain was unbelievable. The Hunger was excruciating. He needed to feed, now! Then, milk formula found its way as Mitch was ready to air his lungs out. Baby would have smiled if he had not been so busy swallowing the liquid flowing from the bottle.
Tomorrow was another day when she would report to the adults. Now was Baby time.