Chapter 35: Dr. Mallory

"He doesn't bite or anything, does he?"

It was the ringing of the telephone that woke Geoff Mallory up. He switched on his bedside lamp and nudged his partner.

"I'm not on call." He said, "Are you on call?"

Paul mumbled something that sounded like "no" and nestled deeper into his blankets. Geoff fumbled the phone from the cradle.

"Hello?" He croaked. It was Terry; he sounded frantic and apologetic at the same time.

Geoff was up, dressed, and behind the wheel of his car before he was fully awake. He was driving towards the Brighton Festival grounds where a circus acrobat had fallen. He wasn't sure why Terry had called him and not an ambulance, but Terry was a mate and so Geoff didn't question it. There were some things you didn't question, a friend as old as Terry was one of them.

Geoff pulled up near the location Terry had given him, a trailer in the circus festival's administrative compound. Terry had been working for the Brighton Festival since Geoff had moved there. This was actually the second time that Terry had called him out to the grounds for some special purpose.

He would have expected a tent rather than a trailer, but this whole thing was a bit dodgy to begin with and Geoff was beginning to get a picture in his mind. No doubt some performer had gotten himself into some sort of embarrassing trouble, some sort of sexual embarrassing trouble. On the few occasions his friends had called on him for "special favors" as a doctor, it inevitably ended up this way, the kind of scenario that was simply too absurd to explain to a stuffy trauma doctor even in a place as liberated as Brighton. He and Paul would laugh about it later; the two of them had a collection of such stories after 10 years as both doctors and lovers.

Geoff followed the American, Christian he thought his name was, who had met him at his car, through the maze of trailers. He could only catch bits and pieces of what Christian was saying; he spoke quickly and in the kind of American patter that was as impenetrable as the working class banter one heard in British pubs.

"We brought him in here." Christian said outside of a trailer with the words "Circus Gehlhaar" painted on it in flowing script. "You're not really religious are you?" Christian asked as he opened the door.

"What? I… No. I'm…" Dr. Geoff Mallory stepped through the door and stopped, his mouth open. He wasn't sure what he was looking at. A costume? A man? Both?

"Is… Is this my patient?" He stammered.

A second man with dark hair and keen dark eyes, kneeling on the floor, looked up. "Christian did you tell him nothing?" He said sternly. He turned to the doctor "Yes. This is Kurt. He's an acrobat with our show."

At first Geoff thought that he was American as well, that perhaps this was an American circus. "I'm Dr. Geoff Mallory," he said.

"Wolfgang Wagner. I manage Circus Gehlhaar." With a name like that Geoff was fairly certain the dark haired man was not an American; he pronounced the 'W's as 'V's like a European.

For the first time his patient stirred, moaning and trying to shift his position. Geoff knelt down next to Wolfgang. "Is he?" But Geoff didn't know what to ask. "Is he real?" is what he wanted to say but that didn't make any sense.

"He's a mutant." Wolfgang said quickly, as though it was an uncomfortable subject and he wanted to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. "Kurt was born like this. But, he's just like anyone of us. He's our star acrobat. He was missing nearly all day. I think he fell off the boardwalk. No one knows what happened."

Geoff nodded, situating himself at Kurt's side. Mutants had been covered in his medical school curriculum for exactly two weeks. The instruction had not been part of anatomy or physiology, but rather part of a trauma medicine ethics class and had consisted entirely of instruction on ways trauma physicians could physically and legally protect themselves should a mutant come into their care. There had been a few pictures, some short descriptions; they never mentioned anyone looking like Kurt. There was no mention of any actual treatment.

He pulled a few items from his bag. Geoff shined his small penlight over Kurt's skin. He could see bruises and cuts on his face and hands; "defense wounds" something in the back of his mind told him, but it was hard to get past the sharp teeth and thick, clawed fingers. What could he possibly have needed to defend himself against? The eyes were a menacing yellow under half-mast lids. He reached out towards his patient tentatively when Kurt spoke. It sounded like nonsense.

"Nine bitters of what?" Geoff asked, repeating all that he had understood.

"It's German. He said, 'No, please don't hurt me'." Wolfgang said.

Geoff gave smile. Funny, he had been thinking the exact same thing. "Tell him I won't." He said. He went to move closer and then paused. "He doesn't bite or anything, does he?" Geoff asked. A glance around the room told Geoff he had said the wrong thing.

"Of course not." Wolfgang said in undisguised disgust. "And he speaks English as well as you or I."

"Sorry." Geoff said sheepishly. He put the penlight down and reached out a gloved finger towards the cut on Kurt's cheek that seemed to be bleeding the worst.

There was no warning. One minute Kurt had looked docile, half asleep and the next moment he was up, baring his teeth and planting his sturdy feet against Dr. Mallory's chest. He kicked him across the room.

Geoff hit the opposite wall of the trailer with a crash. He sat unmoving, trying to catch his breath, wondering if they had called the right kind of doctor. Maybe what Kurt needed was a veterinary surgeon, not someone like him. He was a doctor to humans, not to, well, whatever it was that Kurt was.

"I'm so sorry." Wolfgang was at his side, trying to brush him off. "I can't believe he did that." Geoff nodded and climbed to his feet. He couldn't believe it either. At the other end of the room the young American who had walked him here was delivering a lecture in rapid German.

"Really Christian. That's unnecessary." Wolfgang snapped. He turned back to Dr. Mallory. "He said that if he tries that again, the next person to get kicked will be Kurt." Wolfgang shook his head. "I'm really sorry. I… He's so confused. That's not what he's like. We really need your help. Please."

Dr Mallory looked down at his patient, still shivering, and wrapped in blankets; he looked innocent enough now. Geoff was about to say "no" when the trailer door swung open. Another boy of obvious European descent barged in.

"I got it." Lars said. He knelt down next to Kurt and pressed something into Kurt's hand, the pair exchanging a few words in German. When Lars stepped back Geoff could see that what Kurt was holding tightly in his good hand was a string of rosary beads.

Geoff wasn't sure why that changed his mind. He wasn't particularly religious so that wasn't it. And Kurt honestly wasn't any less scary with rosary beads than he was without, so what was not it either. Geoff knelt down at Kurt's side again and realized that it was because the only one in the room who saw Kurt as an "it" or "thing" was him. Everyone else was his friend; they were worried about him. People didn't worry about monsters like that.

"He speaks English right?" Dr. Mallory asked again. Wolfgang nodded and sat back down next to him.

"Kurt, hey, Kurt." Dr. Mallory finally got Kurt's attention by snapping his fingers until he slowly turned his way, staring at him with unfocused yellow eyes. "I'm a doctor. You know what a doctor is right?"

Kurt nodded. "Ja. Doktor." He said.

"I need to make sure you're all right, but I need to touch you to do that. Is that okay? I'm not going to do anything that's going to hurt. I just don't want to you kick me again."

Kurt glanced over at Wolfgang who nodded encouragingly, and responded in German.

"I don't get it." Wolfgang said. "He speaks English. I don't know why he keeps answering in German. But, he said it's okay, he's sorry."

Starting at Kurt's head, Geoff slowly traced his hands down the length of Kurt's body. Kurt remained still this time. When Geoff's hands stopped shaking it began to feel like a normal exam. Kurt was every inch an athlete, beneath skin that was covered with a light peach fuzz of deep blue fur, Geoff could feel taut perfectly developed muscles; like examining a medical school mannequin. There were a lot of cuts and bruises and when he drew his hands along the sides of Kurt's ribs there was the familiar grinding of crepitis, the sound broken bones scraping against each other. His right arm was obviously broken so he left it alone; there was no reason to risk another trip across the room.

Meanwhile Geoff asked questions, most of which were answered by Wolfgang and a few by the boy, Lars. It seemed the only thing they knew for sure was that Kurt must have fallen or jumped from the top of the boardwalk to the sand below. How or why he had done it was still a mystery. It was great enough distance, that acrobat or not, Dr. Mallory was worried about what injuries he couldn't see. Falls like that nearly always meant internal injuries.

Kurt was even less help; he didn't know where he was, what had happened, or how he had gotten there. He answered Dr. Mallory's questions in confused German that even Wolfgang was having trouble translating.

"How about your arm? Do you remember hurting your arm?" Dr. Mallory asked as he and Wolfgang dressed Kurt in the dry clothes Lars had brought.

"What did this happen? Did I teleport here?" Kurt asked, suddenly alert and speaking in English for the first time.

Wolfgang gave a startled nervous laugh. "Don't be silly." He said. He gave Dr. Mallory an apologetic look, as though to say "don't people with head injuries say the funniest things". "Sven carried you here. Remember?" he said.

At Dr. Mallory's request they had cleared out the trailer so it was just the three of them. Lars made the most fuss about leaving and Sven nearly had to carry him out. Christian too was reluctant to leave, but promised to keep everyone outside posted and check back in the morning.

Geoff ran his hands down the length of Kurt's tail. "Do you have full control of it?" He asked.

Again looking somewhat dazed, Kurt gave a crooked smile, "Of course. It's mine. Wolfgang. Tell him." Kurt said, taking longer and longer pauses between each phrase. He slowly let his eyes close.

"Hey, are you okay? Kurt?" Dr. Mallory tapped Kurt's shoulder.

"It's… Pre…Hen…Sile." Kurt said, the last syllable trailing off.

"Hey, Elf, stay awake." Wolfgang said. Kurt's response was to let the rosary slowly slip from his fingers.

Dr. Mallory tapped Kurt on the shoulder again but there was no response.

"What's going on?" Wolfgang asked. "Why did he stop talking? He was okay before."

Geoff sat up straighter, moving much quicker. He didn't like talking patients suddenly going silent either. He rubbed the knuckles of his hand hard on Kurt's chest, but there was no response.

"What's going on?" Wolfgang repeated, watching Dr. Mallory listening through his stethoscope. He suddenly felt like things were going in slow motion, he wanted something to happen fast, anything, anything that would make Kurt open his eyes and start talking again.

"Can you carry him?" Geoff asked.

Wolfgang just stared at him, unable to move or think.

"Pick him up. We have to take him to my car." Dr. Mallory said. "Wolfgang!"

Wolfgang jumped at the sound of his name. "Is he going to be alright?"

"We have to go to my clinic. I can't do anything for him here anyway." He said. "Can you carry him?"

Wolfgang nodded numbly and gathered Kurt into his arms. "Just tell me where to take him." He said.