Chapter 10: Course Overview
Dwight clutched the vampiric manual close to him as he neared the library. Now that he knew exactly where he was, he was able to find the memories to get around without being heard; something he had practiced to perfection in his youth. He grinned at remembering the countless instances as a boy where he had come into the 'formal library' to read in the middle of the night when his parents weren't aware. He dabbled in literature ranging from foreign zoology, engineering, philosophy, all the way to cutting edge fictions that he begged his father to purchase like The Hobbit. Dwight had found freedom from illness in fictions as a youth. He had been many men as a boy that Ceridwen had probably never heard of. He opened the door slowly and peeked in with anticipation. The state of the manor as well as his lack of past senses had made him unaware of the house's identity until he had seen the handle on the cellar door. As he stepped inside he breathed deeply, inhaling the reverent silence of this sanctuary of the mind. The walls, where visible, were oak lined with white carved oddities at the facings. The shelves were fine oak that had been well kept in his absence. He marveled at how well the shelves were still stocked. Either Ceridwen and her companions had taken great care to restore this house to a modicum of the splendor that it had once seen, or they had acquired it from someone with similar sophistication to his family. The later was more likely. He glanced around quickly, noting that Ceridwen had not yet arrived. He turned towards the set of shelves for authors T-W. He strode quietly to the shelf and felt a small twinge of childlike warmth move through him at such memories. He stood in front of a familiar section of the shelves and peered in.
"Where are you? I know there must be at least one of yours here," he thought aloud as he softly stroked the tops of several books in succession. "Twain, Tolstoy, ah! Here you are." The young vampire's eyes ignited with a thousand mixed emotions and thoughts, though all related in some wonderful way. He pulled a copy of The Hobbit from the shelf and looked over it carefully. It was not the one he had read in his youth, but the story was the same. Unlikely weakling saves the day, a perfect message for a lonely young aristocrat suffering from a crippling disease. The polio had gone into remission after only three diligent years of care, but the after effects were staggering. Still, the pages of books like this one had offered more than the solace any counselor or friend might have. Here he was not crippled, wealthy, or young. He was Tarzan, Alan Quatermain, Sir Francis Drake, Huck Finn, and Bilbo Baggins all in turn. Yes, these novels shaped the young man that had become Dwight Wrenn. His expression fell as another thought entered his mind. All the heroes that had been his comforts as a boy; what he had truly become was nothing like any of them. He closed his eyes for a moment, nearly mourning his own future lost so many years ago. Again, it simply wasn't fair.
"He's written hordes more since that one, you know," Ceridwen said from a few feet behind, breaking the pity trying to consume him. He sighed heavily and slipped the book back onto the shelf. The girl moved closer to him, cautiously gauging what it was that he was thinking and feeling. "I always preferred Lewis, myself. He wasn't as long-winded as Tolkien. I suppose Tolkien loved to read his own works so much that he tried to fill all his time in adding more."
"Since when are you an expert on classical literature? I have yet to see you prepare a work that would shadow this man's genius," Dwight replied sternly and defensively. Ceridwen stared at him in confusion and stepped backwards. He frowned. "Then again, all art is essentially subjective and there are no superiors."
"That aside, did you read the first chapter?" she asked as she moved towards a conversational table with two chairs. Dwight slowly joined her, sitting silently and setting the book down in front of him.
"The first three," he said opening the cover and glancing at it again. Ceridwen gasped in amazement.
"In one day, while sleeping as well?" she said stunned.
Dwight smiled. "I read very quickly," he explained.
"But the medical terms," Ceridwen said as she took the book from him, "Didn't you need time to grasp the first set of vocabulary?"
"I took Latin as a boy, Miss Nistuart," he replied with a shrug. "It bored me so, but I suppose it came in handy in the end."
"Well, then," she said as a smile began to cross her face. "You understand essentially what the disease does?"
Dwight glanced to the side and nodded. "It depletes tissues necessary to produce blood, the marrow specifically, in order to create a gland above the spleen that will produce the antibodies for the virus itself."
"Actually, only part of it is a virus," Ceridwen said scooting the book back to him. "The other is a parasitic invasion that reaches the hypothalamus while the victim is in their first stasis, that time where you're healing after being attacked. The other is a virus type organism that sets itself up on the spleen and creates its own gland to produce the antibodies and antigens necessary to keep the parasite in check."
"And where did the parasite come from?" Dwight asked with one brow raised. Ceridwen smiled so brightly that Dwight could have sworn he saw fangs protrude beneath her full lips.
"That, Mr. Wrenn is what I have been trying to prove to my colleagues and superiors back at headquarters for three years. No one has really known what it was, you see, only that it somewhat mirrored lycanthropy. I had to do a lot of digging and abstract thinking to piece together the theory itself and my sister helped me come to the hypothetical conclusion I'm working from right this very minute!" the girl explained with enthusiasm Dwight had not before seen in her. He leaned forward, still waiting to hear what exactly caused or created the parasite. Ceridwen looked around carefully and then leaned in even closer, motioning for him to lean in as close as possible. She had now lowered her excited voice to a whisper. "You see, in order for it to be a type of lycanthropy it would need to affect the body symptomatically, somatically that is, when the creature transmitting the disease would have hormonal surges. Mammals go into heat and therefore phase with the moon which is why people like me have to be cautious under phases of full and new moons. We experience changes then."
"I thought that it was only under a full moon that a werewolf became a werewolf, or as in your case, a werecat," Dwight interjected.
Ceridwen laughed melodically in amusement. "Not at all! The largest swings have a sway over lycan hormones and those are the new and full moons. That's neither here nor there, the point is, the creature would need to be in a different phylum of animal altogether Before the past ten years, the phylum I'm studying wasn't even classified, really."
"Why on earth not?" Dwight asked in astonishment. What kinds of creatures had been discovered in the past decade? Certainly nothing monumental. Ceridwen smiled even brighter. Now Dwight was sure he could see fangs, though not those of a classical vampire.
"They weren't believed to exist at all!" she whispered in a near squeal. Her enthusiasm was quite amusing at this point. She was positively quivering with all the excitement of a newly blossomed teenage girl telling her best friend about the boy she liked that actually liked her back. She scooted as close as possible, leaving barely a hair's breadth between the end of her nose and the vampire's. "The parasite comes from a . . ." she began.
"Ceri, there's been a huge mix up with the shipment of meds. Could you come down here and tell the guys that I'm not being a whiny little girl," Jeremy suddenly called from the hallway. Dwight felt his heart drop as Ceridwen turned her head towards her brother's voice. "Seriously, they're not taking anything I say, well, seriously."
"Coming, Jeremy," Ceridwen called. She turned back to Dwight. "I'll be back in a moment, stay here."
"But what causes the . . ." Dwight said as she rose from her seat and darted out of the library. His mind burned with anger at being denied something he had craved since his infection. His face twisted furiously and he let out a guttural growl. Why couldn't that pathetic little whelp handle his own problems? Wasn't he a trained professional with authority he didn't deserve in the first place? Dwight rose from his own seat and strode towards the thick, velvet curtains covering the bay window at the far left side of the library. He breathed deeply, trying to will his rage away as quickly as possible. If Ceridwen returned and found even the slightest trace of him having changed, she would be able to tell that he was without the device and immediately have him re tagged. He growled even louder at this thought. Relax, you fool, he chastised himself. He put a hand to the side of his face, once again grasping at his invisible cord of willpower. In a few seconds, he felt proper control returned and he found himself able to stand upright and keep a calm expression on his face once more. His skin suddenly began to burn with the presence of an intruder beyond the window. A growl returned to his throat and rage to his mind. This time, the vampire did not try to fight it away. If there was an intruder, which he was sure there was at the moment, then any action on his part would be justified by self defense. He inched towards the window itself and felt his nerves stand more fully on end as whatever was on the other side began tapping furiously.
Dwight inhaled the air more carefully hoping to catch the scent of whatever was behind the glass before confronting it. His expression contorted in nothing short of hatred at recognizing the scent. In one swift movement, he swept the curtains aside, revealing the form of none other than Richard Dees standing at the window. Dwight growled angrily as he stared out at the aging reporter.
"Hey, Dwight, do you have a minute? I think I might have something you . . . " Richard said. The sentence was cut short by the vampire pulling the curtains closed once again. Of all the horrible things to happen! He was so close to discovering one of the essential pieces of information that he was staying around to attain in the first place, and now Dees was stalking about again. He would have to teach the loathsome oaf a permanent lesson if he didn't leave immediately. To the vampire's dismay, and on another level delight, the tapping continued. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment and tried to ignore the grating noise from the window. "Dwight!" the muffled intruder's voice called once again. "I think that cat-girl, friend-thing of yours might be killing people!"
Dwight felt the irises of each eye burn their respective red that preceded a full meal. He whirled around and swept the curtains aside once again. Richard took a step backwards at realizing the emotion ablaze on the immortal's face. Dwight reached down and wrenched the handle free of the door, swinging both glass doors outward as he swept towards the man. Richard felt all of the blood drain from his extremities as Dwight caught him by the throat and held him aloft.
"You shut your filthy mouth! There are few idiocies in life I will tolerate, Dees, and false accusations are among the chiefest of those which I will not!" the vampire hissed coldly. Richard looked down at the vampire in slight amazement.
"You have an awesome way of saying things, you know that?" he choked.
"Leave before I do what I should have done months ago," Dwight ordered.
"Hold on!" Richard protested. "Don't you want to know what she's torn up?"
Dwight roared and walked to the edge of the balcony that served as a speaking area for the moment. Richard had managed to climb up the walls carefully at remembering where he had seen the library located on the blueprints he had confiscated unscrupulously. The man began choking madly and grasped Dwight's wrist in panic. The vampire snarled. The last thing he needed was some kind of uproar against the only individual that could instruct him in what he was and what he could expect. Ceridwen may not have been any sort of fond acquaintance, though some part of him hoped she would be, but she was a useful being for now.
"Ceridwen has never killed, no, never harmed another creature in all of her life. Her adoptive family swears that she has never even fully turned into a werecat," Dwight corrected furiously. "These episodes are more intense than what she is obviously used to, but nothing else has come of them other than frustration."
"So she is turning," Richard said as quietly to himself as possible. Unfortunately, not only did the vampire holding him have keen hearing, he also had a firm grip on his larynx. The grip tightened. "There have been five people found dead in the last eight days," Richard gagged.
"That means nothing to me," Dwight said firmly. He pulled the man's face as close to his own as possible and spoke calmly. "Nor should it mean anything to you. Ceridwen and I are in the middle of a discussion, if you please. Go home, Dees."
"Dwight, I'm serious. If she's on the fritz then maybe you could give her some more of your blood and that would . . ."
Before Richard could finish, the entrance to the library opened. Dwight's eyes widened and he felt fear begin to take hold. If Ceridwen saw him clutching Richard like this, then she would definitely know that the device had been removed. Dwight quickly thrust the reporter behind the drawn curtains and glared at him.
"Not a sound, do you understand me?" he commanded in a whisper. Dees nodded and tried to watch as unnoticed as possible, who had entered the room and made the vampire so nervous. As he had suspected, it was Ceridwen. She glanced around the room in confusion for a moment before noticing Dwight standing at the window. "Is everything with Jeremiah, settled?"
"Not exactly. What are you doing at the window?" she asked moving towards him cautiously. Something was amiss, but she couldn't detect exactly what it was. Her nostrils twitched slightly as she neared him. "Is there someone else in the room?" she asked in concern.
"Not that I can see," Dwight replied. It was his practice to never outright lie whenever possible, and the truth at the moment was that he could not see Dees. "About what you said before you left . . ."
"Another time," Ceridwen said with a dismissive wave. "I'm sorry, Dwight but something happened to our supplies coming in. Jeremy and I are going to the nearest emergency drop off. It's only about an hour away, so it won't take long. While I'm gone you can read the next chapter or make a list of questions you have for me about the first three."
"I still have a question; where does the infection come from?" he asked more urgently.
"Ceri, come on! We don't want to run short on anything for his sake and ours!" Jeremy shouted from the hallway. Dwight glanced in the direction of the door and snarled.
Ceridwen sighed heavily and shook her head. "I won't be gone long, Dwight. Just try to keep yourself occupied until I get back," she said firmly. Dwight felt the urge to seize the girl by the collar and demand that she give an explanation to his question, but the urge was somewhat assuaged by the thought of brutalizing Dees after she was gone. "And no going outside; there have been strange things happening in the surrounding areas."
"What sort of things?" Dwight called after her, knowing well that he wouldn't get a response. Ceridwen was focused and would not turn to respond to anything but a dying scream. He growled and turned back to the curtains, grasping the cloth angrily. To his dismay, cloth was all that he grabbed.
"See, I told you there were some weird things killing people," Richard said from a few feet away. Dwight glanced towards him, wondering how the reporter had moved so many paces, so quickly, and so unnoticed by the senses of a vampire. "Maybe it isn't her, though. Either way, I think she'd be pretty interested in trying to combat it. This is her thing, right?"
"I will give you a gracious five seconds to be back out the window and away from this room before I hurl you into the forest," Dwight growled.
"Hey, I'm trying to do you a favour, alright? Word is that cops have been watching this place pretty closely, if you know what I mean," Richard added. "I'd hate to think what would happen to that poor girl if they thought she was killing people. I've heard some stories from that Jeremy kid about things the average law enforcement agency will do to people like her, and even people like you. It may not kill you guys, but it's still brutal." Dwight turned and stared at Richard in a combination of concern and irritation. "I think that what she's doing is just amazing, don't you? I mean she's taking on a case that absolutely no one else would. According to that Jeremy kid, this whole thing about reforming you was her idea. They were going to . . ."
"Five," Dwight said in a low voice.
"Five what?" Richard asked in confusion. Without another word, Dwight flew forward and took Richard's right shoulder in his hand, dragging him effortlessly out onto the balcony. By the time he had time to speak again, Richard found himself dangling over the edge of the balcony. Dwight released his grip. Richard shrieked and found the presence of mind to grab onto the vampire's sleeve and arm with the force of a bull elephant. "God in Heaven! What did I say!? What?!"
"I gave you five seconds to flee and you stand there chattering like a rodent," Dwight grunted as he tried to pull his arm free from the man. "Let go, you oaf! It is not too far to fall and the recovery time should teach you a lesson in privacy!"
"No! Man, can't you get it in your chrome that I'm trying to get you to do something?!" Richard sputtered desperately. "Put me back!"
"I would have thought after the incident in Wilmington that you might have learned when to walk away," Dwight said annoyedly. "Let go!"
"Put me back! I'll leave, I swear!" Richard shrieked. Dwight heard shuffling in the hallway beyond the library and frowned. If any of Ceridwen's companions saw this, then he would be in for something worse than the microchip. He dragged the reporter back into the room just as the door opened.
"What's going on in here?" a large man in a dark blue, but symbol-less, uniform demanded.
"A friend came to visit," Dwight explained as he motioned towards Richard. The reporter steadied himself and clutched his chest. "We startled one another, that is all. He wanted it to be a surprise and will think better of it next time."
"Is that true?" the operative asked looking directly at Richard. The man nodded quickly.
"Yeah, it's true. I just wanted to stop by and see how everyone was doing." Richard turned his gaze toward Dwight with pleading intensity. "I wanted to make sure Ceridwen was alright."
Dwight felt fire burn in his veins at this. The operative nodded and left the room, instructing them to act more civilized. The vampire stared harshly at the smaller man still standing beside him. "You never seemed like the type to be interested in an intelligent woman," he growled.
"I'm not interested, not really; it's just I think I might be able to start chronicling for this bureau she's working for. It would be more satisfying for me than the tabs and it would be just as satiating," Richard corrected.
"Still lusting for blood and sensationalism?" Dwight mused shaking his head. "I suppose the evening would have been dull without you showing up. Tell me about the murders and I will tell you whether or not it is worth her time." Richard moved to take a seat, noting that the words 'her time' had an undertone of 'my time'. Dwight must have been getting something he wanted from her to feel so inclined. "What makes you think that a werecreature had anything to do with them in the first place?"
"The way the bodies looked," Richard said. Dwight found himself disgusted that the reporter did not shudder at recalling any photographic evidence of the gore he might have seen before coming to call. "That and the moon was full."
"Is that all?" Dwight said with a sigh of irritation. Richard smiled brightly.
"No, there's a lot more," he replied.
"What then?" the vampire asked with near a yawn.
Richard glanced towards the window. "How long will she be gone, exactly?"