Chapter 8: Desideratum
Dwight wandered in darkness for less than a moment before he found himself back in the dream realm that usually answered his questions and allowed him to speak most freely with Ceridwen. He breathed heavily as he watched the silhouettes of buildings and people take firm shape in front of him. Colour began to fill each figure with every breath he took. Soon, the illustrated beings and structures were alive and moving around as if he had been the one to stumble in on their activities. He gathered his thoughts and set them neatly in a corner of his consciousness as he moved forward. He was not in the usual classroom that he had been transported to many times before. Instead, he found himself standing in a small piazza where several students sat murmuring about their studies around an enormous fountain. He smiled. It was at this very place that he had learned exactly what Ceridwen was in the first place. He frowned at remembering that he had only recently discovered exactly what Ceridwen could become. He shook away the emotions that began filling him with the memory of only moments past and went to find the girl. If he was going to get all the information he needed about himself before leaving then he would need to make sure that Ceridwen was the one administering it. She seemed too wrapped up in trying to keep him alive to see what he was truly feeling; this would be something he could fully use to his advantage. As he strode through the covered walkways and into the largest building labeled 'Kittery Academy Library', he noticed that the usual sun he had been overjoyed to see in these dreams was now overshadowed by thick clouds. The clouds were not at all typical rain-bearing strata, but instead held the acrid dinge of foul pollutants. He felt himself nearly gag at the sight. One of the reasons Dwight had steered more to the north and to smaller airports was because of his hatred for smog and other natural vices of city life. He was fairly sure that he could have managed moving around among large international and intercontinental airports as well as he did at the smaller, but he couldn't be sure. The more cautious and mature portion of himself felt it too dangerous to try. He walked through the massive stone archway and pulled the brass-ring handle on one of the magnificently large, polished oak doors. As he fully entered the building, he ran headlong into someone.
"Hey!" he exclaimed as he stumbled backward. "Watch where you are going, you clumsy..."
The youth's reprimand was cut short when he opened his eyes and realized exactly who he had bumped. The professor from the other dreams lifted one brow and stared at him reprovingly.
"Talking to yourself, Mr Wrenn? Or do you need to finish what you were saying to me?" the timeless educator said with a smirk.
Dwight felt all of the blood in his body rush hurriedly to his cheeks as they reddened with embarassment.
"Excuse me, sir," he muttered automatically. If nothing else, he was a gentleman. He would not have anyone believe that his mother had raised anything less. The professor folded his arms and stared down at the young form of the vampire with a half smile. "I was looking for..."
"Your research partner? I should hope so. She's been in that library by herself for the past few weeks doing her work and yours. That term paper has to have both your names and input to count on the final grade, young man," the elder said sternly. "You don't want her failing an assignment because of you, do you?"
"No, sir," Dwight replied softly.
Even though he knew that he was not an adolescent boy and that this man was not a true authority figure, his subconscious refused to relenquish the aire of propriety that he had been taught repeatedly to observe, specifically at this age. The man nodded and began to walk slowly past him and down the steps towards the rest of the school. Dwight growled softly and made his way into the nearly silent library where Ceridwen was surely waiting for him. He passed huge rows of towering groups of shelves. This reminded him of the library at home as well as pictures he had made in his mind of enormous libraries mentioned in classic novels. Large marble busts of philosophers, musicians, poets, composers, playwrights, and even a few historic rulers sat atop small pedastals at the end of each row. Above the heads were bronze plaques labeling what was held in the books that lay on the row. Most of them were all too familiar; fiction, history, reference, improvements, language, classics, and so on. He walked for what seemed like a day and a half through the hallways of knowledge, now seeing more bizarre titles on the plaques; favourites, teen years, hopes, strange dreams, recipes not to repeat, and lessons learned away from home. He furrowed his brow and took one of the books from the strange dreams row. It was bound in opalescent green and bore the title 'snake bombs' which was embossed in silvery letters on the front cover. Hesitantly, he opened the cover.
The world around him shifted violently like a single tremor from an earthquake. He reached out to grasp one of the shelves to steady himself. He now realized that he was standing in the middle of someone else's home, the living room to be exact. Before he could look closely at any of the objects or photographs to determine whose domicile he had been transferred to, he heard childish shouting behind him. He whirled around, gasping at the sight of the two children that were shouting at one another. Though he wasn't quite sure how he knew who they were, his mind told him that these children were Jeremy and Ceridwen. He could recognize their eyes, but they seemed so different at the moment. Jeremy couldn't have been any older than eight and Ceridwen appeared to be a toddler again. He found himself more confused than ever. Had the book transported him, or had Ceridwen's mind shifted and forced him into some other part of her? He frowned and moved towards her, reaching one hand out as Jeremy shouted an insult. Out of nowhere, Ceridwen reached behind her and withdrew a large rattlesnake. Shouting back at her brother, she raised her arm and hurled the snake right at him. Dwight watched in horror as the reptile flew through the air, swelling unnaturally as it neared the boy's head. Just as the snake was about to descend in a swollen mess of hissing and flailing onto Jeremy's hair, it burst. The boom caught Dwight off guard and he felt himself fall to the ground. The snake had simply exploded! There were no entrails or bits of flesh still lingering from it, either. It had simply popped like a balloon. Jeremy growled at her, shouting another insult and reaching behind his own back. He withdrew a large boa constrictor and hurled it like a ball at his sister. Ceridwen stood firmly, watching it swell and hurtle toward her as well. The enormous, round boa then exploded in a louder boom than the rattler. Dwight watched in further amazement as Ceridwen simply reached behind her and withdrew yet another snake.
"Stop it!" he yelled thoughtlessly.
The familiar sound of water rushing around him suddenly filled his ears and his vision blurred momentarily. He gasped, suddenly feeling overwhelmed and short of breath. He felt as though he were drowning in some invisible pool. He groaned and struggled for the surface, feeling his mind flailing endlessly while his body responded with only a slight jerk every now and again. Seconds later, he broke through the surface of the pool, gasping for breath. It suddenly struck him that he had simply been standing perfectly still with the book this whole time. He looked down at it for a brief moment before slamming the cover shut and tossing it across the hallway of shelves. The book skidded to a halt before lifting up on its binding and hopping back towards the place it had sat waiting a few moments ago. It leapt gracefully back onto the shelf and scooted snugly into its resting place. Dwight cringed and glared harshly at it for a moment. He hated being confused and he hated dreams that made no sense what so ever.
"It never had any meaning to me, either," a voice behind him said suddenly. He jumped and turned, now staring into the face of the person he had been looking for. Ceridwen reached past him and gently ran her fingers over the scaly spine of the book. "I looked it up in hordes of books for weeks trying to make heads or tails of it, but it just never clicked. I guess it was one of those dreams that tells you your mind is cleaning house."
"Housework, especially that of the mind, is not for me," Dwight said indignantly. He suddenly raised a brow at her in curiosity. "Why are you not angry that I just saw one of your dreams?"
She shrugged and turned to walk away. Dwight moved after her, listening and gathering all the words he would need for the questions he had.
"You're in one of them right now. I'm not threatened by you, Dwight," she said casually. She stopped and turned to him for a moment, rubbing one arm pensively. "At least not when I'm in my right mind."
Dwight cocked one brow in confusion. Ceridwen sighed, shaking her head in both disappointment and frustration. Clearly, the episode that had shown her own evils had made her aware of how fragile she truly was. He started forward as she turned to walk away. The two walked silently down the main hall of the library and back into the study lounge. The area that Ceridwen had been using a moment earlier was painfully obvious to him. He smiled as he noticed the enormous pile of open books, loose pieces of paper, several pencils, one pen, and a small bottle of tea. Scribbles of information were clearly visible on each separate leaf of paper, giving him the impression that the professor had been right; Ceridwen had done enough work for the both of them. He slowly moved to the pile and picked up one of the sheets, examining her writing.
"The Desiderata?" he read aloud. "Is this what our assignment was?"
"If you had taken the time to read the paper he gave us a few dreams ago you would know that," she muttered as she carefully took the paper from him.
"You are still quite testy. Is the moon a factor in your dreams as well?" he asked with a laugh. Ceridwen's expression fell. Dwight could have sworn that he heard a loud thump as her heart dropped to the floor and shattered. He silenced himself and frowned, clearing his throat. Ceridwen hated to be reminded of her illness more than he did. She had never been forced to face it in the same manner. He sighed and reached for her hand, trying to make sure that the line of open communication between them was still healthy. Ceridwen stepped away, plopping down onto the nearest seat. "I apologize. I hardly see why this should trouble you. Surely with all of your intuition and reasoning you would have resigned yourself to episodes such as this every now and again. There is always the slim chance that you wouldn't be able to take the proper amount of serum when…"
"It wasn't the medicine!" Ceridwen exclaimed. Dwight took a defensive step backwards as she breathed heavily. She calmed herself and looked to the side, clearly fighting tears away. "That kind of reaction was far too intense for it to have been a simple miscalculation of the serum. I have never had a reaction that caused me to attack like that. I have only ever… transformed… five times before and each time saw me giving the nearest person a small wound and then passing out in agony."
"Then how do you explain your attack on me a few days after first arriving here?" he asked curtly. Ceridwen was not a hardened murderer by any means, but she was not better than he was. It was disgusting to see her trying to lift her view of herself above anyone else with the virus, or so he thought. "That was hardly a small wound."
"I believe that I already explained that to you, Dwight," she replied with slight irritation as she picked up a small stack of the paper and the pen. "Your heightened hormones, my stress, and the obvious natural reaction to the moon caused that little fiasco."
"Then perhaps that is exactly what is happening again," he offered casually.
"Hardly," she muttered. "I might have been unconscious, but I could hear the nurse speaking to Jeremy. She told him that my blood panel showed a normal amount of the medicine in me. In order for it to make a difference in the issue of my transforming I would have needed to forget to take it for several days. There was some kind of adjuvant causing the lycangrophine to spread through my system like that. Some other influence that I'm not aware of."
Dwight stared at her, realizing that she was just as confused as he was for the first time that he could recall. Having seen a great deal of her memories through her blood months before, he was aware of the fact that Ceridwen was not at all accustomed to being mistaken in the least.
"Can you think of anything that would cause that?" he asked. "When you have researched these viruses, what have you seen that would have caused this type of stimuli?"
Ceridwen turned a shade of pink and looked down, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to put her thoughts into words.
"I – I haven't really studied feline lycanthropy," she muttered.
"What?!" Dwight exclaimed. He stood immediately, forcing every object in his lap to drop to the floor instantly. Ceridwen turned away ashamedly.
"I know how the disease works, transfers, survives, and how it compares to all the other preternatural diseases I've studied, but nothing beyond that," she said sadly. Dwight's eyes took an almost angry tone as he stared at her. "I know how vampiricism and lycanthropy are related and I know something about the virus that many vampires would kill to uncover and utilize, but I do not know much of the details myself about my condition as it were."
"Then who, in God's name, treats your illness and keeps up with it?!" he shouted.
"Why else do you think my brother is accompanying me?" she said with a shrug. He frowned and turned away.
"How do you expect me to trust the information of someone that cannot help herself?" he asked near shaking with anger. How dare this girl lecture him on proper behavior and living with the illness if she was unlearned in her own anomalies! He growled softly and clenched his fist next to his head, grasping a lock of his own raven hair in his hand. He had done this many times as a young man, when upset, to comfort himself. His mother and father had discouraged angry outbursts so frequently during his infancy that it he had developed a natural desire to suppress rage immediately. His mother had found the gesture charming, but others that had seen it had used it as a weapon for mockery. He breathed deeply, trying to piece together some sort of collage of insults and an escape plan that didn't involve too much in the way of bloodshed. His eyes glowed crimson for a moment. It was about time Ceridwen saw what he was truly capable of. Even during their last skrimmage, she hadn't been able to catch a full view of his potential. He turned to her, glaring coldly. "I should have known that you could offer me no more than the books that I have read and the people that have spoken to me in the few quiet moments before their demise."
Ceridwen winced slightly as he hissed the last few words. She gulped and stood, facing him as he began to transform into the older version of himself that could be seen in waking hours as well. He flared his nostrils and moved closer to her. She seemed to be literally shrinking in front of him.
"Dwight, there will not be anyone else that will give you the opportunity that I can let alone the knowledge and comfort. Try and see it from my point of view. I've studied your condition and many others as a student of medicine for some time. I really don't see the point in delving too deeply into my own..." she began calmly.
Dwight roared loudly. Ceridwen jumped backwards and stared up at him in terror. While he hadn't transmorphed into vampiric form, he was glowing with anger and pulsing with hunger. This time the hunger was not for physical fulfilment or even simply blood; the hunger was calling out for justice which he believed had been tossed aside in this instance. She gulped and breathed rapidly as he leaned over her.
"Did no one ever read scripture to you, little girl? Have you not ever heard the adage 'physician heal thyself'? You are no disciple of Hippocrates, you are simply a hypocrite!" Dwight moved forward a step as Ceridwen scooted backwards. He smiled. She had displayed fear of him infrequently, but the displays that she had made showed him that she was, indeed, afraid of him. He snarled, roaring once again as she leaned forward and covered her ears. He stood upright, feeling his form change back to smaller once again while the pleasure of seeing her begin to tremble soothed him. The full rush of power had ebbed. "I had a mind to stay here a while to humour you. I had a heart to pity your pathetic droning and silly theories in the hopes that they might somehow aide me. You can offer me nothing, Ceridwen Nistuart, further than the frequent frustrations that you seem to offer all those around you. It simply amazes me that Jeremiah has not given in to human temptation and put you in your rightful place as both a woman and a creature. When you wake, I will be long departed. You hardly deserve even the release of death for your insolence!"
Ceridwen removed her hands from her ears and stared at him harshly. Her eyes began to glow a familiar green/yellow. Dwight felt his own heart twist in slight fear as the smell of an angry animal now filled his nostrils. He gulped and stood firmly. Ceridwen was not going to win out in this. There was no reason that he, an aged vampire, should be frightened or harmed by an essentially infantile she-cat. She stood slowly and snarled, curling her lips away from her lengthened razor-like fangs for a split second. His jaw quivered a moment as her ears extended into pointed feline appendages once again. Rather than lunge forward or crouch in preparation for an attack, she simply turned her scowl into a smile. She chuckled softly.
"Perhaps you hear this all the time, Dwight, or perhaps you say it more often than hear it; you and I have much in common. More than our ailments unite us, little boy," she said. She spoke slowly and deliberately, articulating each word as if her fingers grazed his throat and she were bringing the point of each nail to his warm flesh with each syllable uttered. He shuddered for a moment, feeling an invisible cold hand at the base of his spine. "We are frightened, you and I. We are nothing more than children trembling before the powers that hold us prisoner. Yes, I know little of my disease by comparison to what I know of yours, but I know enough of mine to live among a family comfortably. Tell me, would you have ever been able to look your father in the eye while transformed?" Dwight growled, now feeling the same power and heat rush to him as before. His countenance changed ever so slightly, but enough to allow the presence of his fangs as well. Ceridwen smiled and moved an inch closer. "Would you have been able to embrace your sweet mother, or would you have acted above her screaming and torn her to pieces as well, feasting on the precious fluids that gave you life as she slipped mercifully into an eternity free of you?!"
Dwight roared once again and lunged forward, pinning Ceridwen against the floor and snarling madly into her face. She hissed and howled back, grasping him behind each elbow as he held her and throwing him painfully to the side. He grunted and climbed to his knees as she stood and crouched, leaning toward the opposite side. He lowered himself as well, stepping towards the right as she moved towards the left.
"I have never harmed an innocent!" he rasped.
"Truly? Only criminals in all your life?" Ceridwen chuckled wickedly. She stared directly into his eyes, bringing both of them to a hypnotic halt. "Then what was the crime of the Sarch woman? Hmm? What atrocity did she commit before you ended her? Or what about that sweet little nine-year old at Wilmington? What did the little girl do to deserve a violent death?!"
"Ignorant liar!" he growled and stepped forward.
"Heartless murderer!" she spat back. As the two flew toward one another and almost locked bodies in combat, a loud voice from behind them broke their concentration.
"Stop this nonsense right now!" a large and rather stern looking woman yelled from a few feet away. The two froze in place, transforming back to school children as they stared in shock at the librarian. Both turned bright red in instinctive embarassment. "Get back to your studies right now or leave this library permanently!"
"Gladly," Dwight muttered. He started towards the door, leaving Ceridwen silent and saddened by both of their displays. He frowned and hurried towards the door, struggling to wake himself. He grunted in frustration. Why wasn't he able to jar himself back to consciousness? He needed to wake and leave before Jeremy had a chance to replace the implant. He could still physically feel that he was without it at the moment. He stopped beside the fountain and closed his eyes. As he once again clenched his fist beside his face, he felt a single tear fight its way free of his eye and heart. He growled more loudly and swiped it away as though it were an insect.
"Calm down, bucko, you're going to gauge out one of your eyes if you do that too hard. You've only got two, you know," a voice near him said sarcastically. Dwight turned quickly and noticed something strange. While a young girl sitting peacefully on the edge of the fountain wasn't a strange sight, especially in this dream; the appearance of the girl was un-nervingly familiar somehow. He couldn't place it, but he had seen her features and heard her voice somewhere as well. She had hair the same tint as Ceridwen's, but it lay slightly more relaxed in a braid plaited tightly behind her head. Her clothing was similar to the girls he had seen in his day; a long, conservative black dress. She must have been no older than twelve as well, but the clothing told him that either she and he were from the same era, or she was a middle-aged woman trapped in a maiden's body. He sneered at her as she moved closer to him. "You've got issues, don't you?"
"Was there a funeral in your family or are you mourning the loss of your own youthful energy and girlish enthusiasm?" he snapped.
The girl smiled coyly and leaned near enough to bite him as harshly as he had spoken to her. He stayed perfectly still as she replied in almost a whisper.
"Actually, my coven is having a field day. Don't tell anyone, you'll scare away all the scholars' blood and virgins' spleens we'll need for our nefarious spell casting as we take over the world for our dark mistress," she replied with the same sarcasm she had used a moment before. He found himself smiling as she stepped away and positioned herself in front of him. "I'm in the drama department. We're doing a musical and I'm playing creepy old Misses Lovett."
"You certainly look the part for creepy," he retorted. He found himself now captivated by her eyes. They were almost Ceridwen's green, but the blue of the sky kept them from being an exact match. He stared more deeply. They were an exact match for his father's eyes. "Break a leg, then; I must be going."
"Not so fast," the girl said as she caught him by the arm. He stopped and stared down at her in irritation. She smiled brightly. "You and Ceridwen just can't get along when she's all moody like this, can you?"
His expression lifted to confusion. His eyes then narrowed once again.
"How did you know about that?" he growled softly.
"Not alot of things in this world are a secret, pal. In fact, count on very little privacy. You can either use that to become the paranoid comic relief for everyone else or learn not to give a hoot. Moving on, though, I think you might be able to help her through this. In fact, I think you might be able to earn your freedom if you cure her," the girl remarked.
Dwight scoffed. "There is no cure for her condition and I am in no mood to come to the little tart's rescue," he huffed.
The girl's eyes glowed with defensive anger for a moment. No, perhaps it was indignation. He shook his head. She was familiar somehow, he had to have known her.
"Then think of it as an investment for you. You think she's been willing to make an exception now. If you kill her sire, then you can pretty much count on getting your flying priveleges restored," she reasoned. He stared down at her. "Oh, you didn't have any, right? Well count on recieving that and a plethora of other blessings from her, Jeremy, and Stephen."
Dwight looked more inquisitively into the girl's eyes. She was being truthful and had nothing short of full confidence in her words.
"Her sire? You think she is reacting to the creature that turned her? That is impossible, it was her father that attacked her and made her ill," Dwight replied.
"He had to have a sire, too. This kind of outburst was without her medication being too greatly altered, and that means recieving it at low levels for a couple of months not just a few weeks, means that the original virus is nearby and is in need of assistance. That's how these things work, you know, like a satellite command system," the girl said with a casual shrug. Dwight's eyes drifted for a moment. The girl's words were a little difficult to believe, this was too simple and certainly not something he was outright concerned with. He frowned as his vision began to blur. The girl smiled kindly. "Think about it for a day, or night rather, and talk to me again. Ask Ceri a few questions, she'll tell you."
Dwight perked up slightly at the girl using Ceridwen's nickname. He hadn't even asked this girl her name or what this connection was that she obviously had to him. He growled loudly as the campus shifted back to his bedroom in the waking world. The growl became an audible cry as his eyes opened. He sat upright and breathed heavily. This business of having a whole other world of people to keep track of in dreams was driving him mad. He grunted and sat on the edge of his bed, gathering his thoughts to form sensible pictures and questions. Suddenly, the door opened. Dwight stood and felt breath and blood leave his body entirely as Ceridwen entered. The same angry glow from earlier still lingered in her eyes. His heart twisted painfully as he noted that they reflected brightly off of the remnants of tears as well.
