SIX
"Magnus, can we please talk? I'm getting really—"
Helen turned on her heel and snapped, "If you're going to say you're worried about me, Will, I've heard quite enough."
He moved and blocked the doorway to her office, and paled when he saw the livid expression on her face. He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, and softened his tone. "I know these past few weeks have been difficult for you, and I'm sorry if I haven't made it any easier. I want to talk to you, Magnus – no, I want to listen. Okay? I just want you to tell me what's going on. I swear I'll hear you out."
Helen eyed him suspiciously, but her tone was hopeful. She was desperate for someone to believe her, to maybe even help her figure out what was happening to her. "You'll let me say my piece, no judgments?"
Will nodded. "You speak your piece, say what's on your mind. And in return I just want you to hear me out too. Sound fair?"
She felt a touch of trepidation, would he really be able to see where she was coming from? But she knew Will had only been trying to help, and was only trying to help her now. They sat back down, and Helen began pulling out the medical texts and journals she had been going over.
"Ever since … ever since I got back," She forced herself past the lump in her throat that formed when she was about to say "when Nikola died" and pressed on, "I have been having a host of odd dreams, but now I'm beginning to suspect they're something more. I've been seeing things in my dreams that can't possibly have come from any previous recollection or past event."
Will nodded gamely, trying to follow her reasoning. "Such as?"
"The last one I had truly couldn't have come from anywhere in my subconscious. I was in Smiljan, a small region in Croatia. I've never been there or seen any pictorial representation of it, but when I looked up photographs of the region … it was exactly the same. How could I have dreamt a place I've never seen before?"
Will blinked, trying to keep his disbelief at bay, and patiently looked at the Picture Almanac. "All right … are you ready to hear me out?" Helen bit back a sigh and nodded. "I think that has a rational explanation as well. We can't always remember exactly what we see in our dreams, and sometimes when we wake we see things in our day-to-day life that we then implant into our memory of the dream. When you dreamt of Smiljan and then looked up pictures of it, your mind probably pasted those pictures into your memory of your dream. It's very common."
Helen looked at him helplessly. "The bite marks? The vial?"
Will dug into his last reserves of patience, determined to be kind and gentle. "There are rational explanations for that as well. I know this is all pretty freaky – but our brains can do some extraordinary stuff." He clasped her hand gently. "This is where you hear me out. I don't disbelieve you, or think you're crazy. I do think that you need closure. This is eating you up, Magnus … it isn't healthy."
Helen trembled slightly. "How can being hit by falling rocks kill a vampire? They're stronger than that."
Will sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. We don't know what happened down in the caverns. Maybe it wasn't the rocks, maybe it was something else."
"Maybe, maybe, maybe. You have no clear answers but you're determined to see him dead."
Will stared at her, mouth agape, and then shook his finger angrily at her. "This is what I'm talking about. I wish you could see yourself from another side – Magnus, you're in denial! And you're taking it out on everyone else. You need to come to terms with what happened instead of trying to twist medical theories and the workings of everyday phenomenon to fit your fantasies."
"How dare you—"
Will got to his feet. "For everyone's sake. The Sanctuary is going to fall apart if you can't pull yourself together. And no one wants to see you crack, Magnus, can't you see that? You need to get better for you. We're just trying to help…"
Helen felt herself shaking, and was about to angrily demand Will leave her alone, but she was hit with a sudden spell of vertigo. He noticed something was wrong with her and immediately came to her side.
"Magnus? Are you okay?"
Helen blinked sluggishly, her vision fading in and out. She heard Will say in a panicked voice, "I'll get help", and gripped the edge of her desk so she wouldn't fall over. Her vision swam and faded to black.
"I see eyes in the shadows…"
Helen saw Nikola turn to her, his eyes wide and frightened. They were in the collapsing caverns, the Shepherd frogs chorus causing the earth itself to quake. She reached for his hand, but it felt as if everything was happening underwater, and she couldn't reach out quickly enough.
"Run, Nikola!"
Something snagged Nikola by the ankle and he was jerked back away from her, falling hard to the ground. He was pulled away into the unfathomable darkness of the cave.
"Nikola!"
"Helen…" She heard her name reverberate around her, echoing within her chest.
"Magnus … please wake up…"
Helen opened her eyes slowly, wincing against a sharp pain in her head. When her vision finally came into focus she saw Will and the Big Guy standing over her. She was in the infirmary propped up against a bed. Will's face melted into an expression of relief and guilt.
"Magnus, I'm so sorry—"
The Big Guy patted Will kindly, but firmly on the shoulder. "She needs space. Go." Will left, his head hanging low.
Helen sat up slowly, gingerly massaging her temples. The Big Guy passed her a cup of tea and bade her to drink. "He means well," he said in his gruff voice.
She sipped at the cup, feeling some warmth spread back to her. "I know … I'm afraid this has been difficult on everyone."
The Big Guy placed his large, powerful hand on her shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. "You should be easier on yourself."
"Thank you, old friend," She whispered as she squeezed his hand back.
Helen walked by Henry's small station in the lab and stopped when she saw the small cardboard box that was still on his desk. She thought he had gotten rid of the mouse already, and was intrigued to find it still there. Perhaps he had forgotten about it.
Frowning, taken in by some strange curiosity, Helen gently picked up the box and opened the lid. She saw the small, still body of Algernon inside, his little paws curled up against his body. He could have been sleeping.
She felt a small twinge of sadness and was about to place the lid back on the box when she noticed the curious absence of something. Smell. Helen gingerly lifted the box to her nose, but could not smell death or rot on the poor creature.
Fascinated, and a little unnerved, Helen lifted Algernon from the box. He hung about limply, unmoving, and certainly looked the portrait of death, but his body was not stiff or cold.
An electrifying through gripping her, Helen brought Algernon over to the scan bed for the MRI. She thought it somewhat humorous to activate the large machine for such a tiny beast, but she had a question tickling in her mind that would not let go.
She set the MRI to only scan for a cycle of fifteen seconds. Her eyes flickered eagerly over the computer screen and what she saw caused her heart to skip a beat.
Brain activity.
The mouse was alive.
Sleeping deeply, seemingly dead to the world, but somehow it was still alive.
"Nikola…" She breathed to herself. Maybe, just maybe … she couldn't allow herself to truly hope for such a thing, but she was rooted to the spot and she stared hypnotized by the faint electronic flickers of the subconscious brain on her screen.
"To your health." Nikola raised his wineglass to her and sipped, the curve of the glass hiding his smile. She saw she held a glass of her own, and sipped at the red wine. Dry, crisp and with only a hint of bitterness in the aftertaste.
She smelled dust and saw that they stood in her wine cellar. She giggled, it was as if they had stolen away down here like disobedient school children to raid the stash of wine in secret.
"Can you remember what my favourite vintage is?" He asked her with a grin. Helen pursed her lips in a small frown of concentration.
"Are we drinking it?"
The sly look on his face confirmed her suspicions, and she sniffed the wine in her glass. She then tasted it carefully again … there was a subtle note at the end, almost reminding her of black currant.
"It can't be a merlot … you hate the stuff. Beaujolais?"
Nikola merely shrugged. "Is it so difficult to pin me down after all these years? Come, Helen. Try harder."
She sipped at the wine again, and tasted only dust. She looked back at him helplessly. His hands reached into the front pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small slip of folded paper. He set down his glass and pulled out a dusty bottle from one of the racks. It was empty, and he slipped the piece of paper inside.
"It's yours if you can remember me…"
"Nikola, how can I forget you?"
He merely raised a finger to his lips and placed the bottle back. Helen stepped forward, eager to see which bottle the small note had been placed into, but he stopped her with a hand to her arm.
His eyes flashed black before returning to their stormy blue-gray. "Try, Helen… try…"