The Long Night

Chapter Three: The Crow in the Clinic

When he woke again, he was laid out on a soft surface. He heard the murmur of voices somewhere above him, but when he tried to take a quiet breath, a cough rattled through his chest. The voices quieted and Harry would have tried to move to defend himself, if he hadn't then recognized one of the voices as his godfather's.

"Harry?" called Sirius, and Harry opened his eyes to a squint at the sound of his name. Sirius was smiling at him, pale and tired-looking, seated in a wheelchair much too big for his frame. Leg very obviously gone, just below the knee. But very much alive.

"Where are we?" Harry asked, struggling to sit up. There was a small table beside his bed, and there lay his wand. He pocketed it, casting his gaze about the room in a quick sweep. 'Some kind of infirmary?' he thought, because what he'd first thought was a bed was actually some kind of simple gurney. It wasn't the only one in the room.

"In Iosefka's clinic," said a woman's voice, and out of the darkness in the far end of the room stepped a woman dressed in the strangest, most elaborate clothes Harry had yet to see in this cursed town. She had a mask shaped like a bird covering her face and a cloak the color of smoke wrapped around her body. "I thought you a Hunter, so I didn't object to the ministering of blood in your case."

Her heavy boots made the wooden floorboards creak as she stepped closer. Harry glanced up above his head, where what looked like two jars filled with blood hung from an IV-stand. "…Blood ministration?"

Sirius grimaced. "I was out cold, or I would have put a stop to that. They assured me that it wouldn't be dangerous to have it done just the once, though." He glanced up at the blood and though he didn't actually move, he seemed to shudder internally.

"The two of you are the only ones in this town not taking blood as a regular measure," said the woman with the bird mask. From her voice, she was probably around Sirius age, maybe even a bit older. "And after slaying poor, blood-mad Vicar Amelia, I should say you're the only ones who truly deserve it!" She laughed lowly to herself, though Harry didn't understand the source of her mirth.

"If we ever make it back, you and I are damn well going to learn healing spells," Sirius muttered quietly to Harry, who nodded. It was a miracle they'd made it as far as they had with only the bare-bones healing spells they knew. Hopefully, when they made it back, Madame Pomfrey could regrow Sirius' leg. Harry was sure he'd read that skilled Healers could regrow limbs. And certainly Sirius seemed more irritated than upset about being one leg shorter. His overt lack of concern calmed something in Harry. Though knowing his godfather, that lack of concern could just as easily be a mask of bravado.

"I do think that's enough blood for you, young man," said another woman coming through the doorway, walking with the brisk steps Harry associated with professional healers.

"So if you're not here for the night of the Hunt, what are you here for?"

"Eileen, it is really none of your business!" said the woman sharply. She turned to Harry and fluffed the pillow under his head gently. "My name is Iosefka, and this is my clinic. You have had a terrible time of it, as I hear! Though fruitful. And do not think that I am not thankful. It was a great service you did, though you had no obligations to us or our town," she said, and her voice was as sweet and soothing as rainwater.

"You're welcome. And thank you for – treating us," he said, though there was some apprehension at the thought of that infected blood running through his veins. "My name is Harry. I guess you already know Sirius?" he continued with a glance at his godfather.

"Indeed, and he's quite the charmer," said Iosefka with a glance at Sirius, who smiled wanly.

"Oh, do stop flirting like witless teenagers," said the woman called Eileen, crossing her arms over her chest. Her hands were covered by heavy leather gloves that creaked when she bent her fingers.

"You are ever so staid, my friend," Iosefka said with a sigh. She glanced over at Harry. "Though you should be glad Eileen came to your rescue! You might not have survived this night without her aid."

"Ah… thank you?" Harry hedged, and Eileen tilted her head at him in acknowledgement.

"Do not thank me for doing my duty, and granting me access to the first Vicar's skull besides. You are not Hunters driven mad by the hunt; you are not man-beasts to be put down, and you are not here to seek a cure to some unfortunate ailment. So answer me this: what are you here for?"

"I've already told you –" Sirius began, but the woman cut him off with a sharp gesture. Though Harry couldn't see her eyes, he could still feel the weight of her gaze resting on him. She had such presence, this masked woman. Sirius huffed but quieted, giving Harry a gesture he thought meant 'go ahead'.

"It was an accident. We were in a fight – somewhere else, nowhere near this cursed town, and then we were – I guess, transported here." It sounded so inelegant and improbable when he said it like that. But Eileen nodded.

"Your friend said something similar. I suppose he was telling the truth, after all."

Sirius bared his teeth at her, looking for a brief moment like his Animagus form given human shape. Iosefka huffed, but she made no comment.

"Well, I suppose we'll have to try helping you home. Though how to do that, I have no idea." Eileen sighed. "Insight, perhaps?" She cast her gaze to Iosefka, who shrugged.

"Can you hear the crying of the child?" asked Eileen, refocusing on Harry.

Harry blinked, confused. "What child?"

"Can you hear the singing, then?"

"Is this some kind of riddle?" Sirius asked, brows furrowed in obvious irritation. Iosefka shot him an apologetic smile, but didn't elaborate.

"What about the Church Doctors? White-garbed, corpse-faced and carrying lanterns… have you encountered them?"

"There was a man like that outside the Cathedral. With the giant…" Harry said and Eileen nodded in apparent satisfaction. "Uh, he was a doctor?"

"'Was' being the operative word in this case. As blood-mad as the rest of them." She shook her head, not seeming particularly concerned. "But his lantern, when you encountered him – did it spit bulbs of light at you?"

"Yeah?" said Sirius, and Harry had some vague memory of that too.

"You must have killed a respectable amount of beasts to have acquired that much insight," said Eileen.

"Or else we already had that much 'insight' before we even came here," said Sirius with a snort. He looked irritated, brushing off imaginary lint from his shoulder and slouching deeper into his wheelchair. He patted the empty space where his leg met an abrupt end, his brows drawing together.

"What kind of insight, exactly?" Harry asked.

"It allows you to see the world as it really is. As ordinary people cannot."

'Well, wizards see more then muggles, I think… We can see through enchantments that block muggle sight. Maybe it's something like that?' Harry thought, though he didn't voice the question out loud. Though they had a power all their own, the people of this town weren't wizards.

"That's very nice and all," said Sirius with a tone of voice that informed everyone exactly how 'nice' he thought it was. "But all we want is to get back home. We were in the middle of something when we ended up here, and there are people in need of our help back home."

"Gehrman's notes, perhaps?" murmured Iosefka.

"Perhaps." Eileen gave the impression that she was frowning, though her mouth couldn't be seen through the mask. "To the Workshop, then."

-.-.-.-

Sometime in the period Harry had been unconscious, night had fallen. Sirius had assured him that he hadn't even been out for an hour, but in that time the sun had fallen below the horizon and a bright white moon had taken its place.

Their small group moved through the area surrounding the great Cathedral, what Eileen called 'the Ward', and she led them through a building and across rounded stone walkways in a tower. Finally, balancing on rickety wooden bridges, they'd been able to jump their way down to the nook that hid the Workshop's door. Or in Sirius case, float his wheelchair down with the help of magic. Why the door was so inaccessible, way down inside an old tower, Harry couldn't guess at.

The 'Workshop', as Eileen called it, appeared very deserted and unused to Harry's eyes. Its interior looked as though a hurricane had whipped through it. Or like somebody had left in a hurry. The floorboards were upended and books and yellowed papers lay scattered about. Ratty curtains hung on either sides of a statue at the far end wall and in a corner, a doll with a ruffled skirt spread about its porcelain legs was seated. What caught the eye most keenly, however, was the altar in the middle of the room.

"What are we looking for?" Sirius asked finally, when Eileen seemed content simply to sweep her gaze over the scene.

"We need to look through his notes," said Eileen. "He was a very knowledgeable man, never close to falling into the blood-mania even in his Hunter's days." She sounded approving. "Never any need for a Hunter of Hunters to go after him, oh no."

While Eileen scanned the yellowed papers scattered over the floor, Sirius wheeled over to the closest bookshelf and began sorting through the books. With the help of magic, that was less of a task than it otherwise would have been.

Harry snuck a glance at the altar. There was something about it. It didn't look any more or less creepy than anything else in this town; a couple of unlit candles and a smattering of discarded books. But there was something… off. About the one open book in the middle.

He drifted over. It was like when he heard Voldemort through his nightmares sometimes, those ears on the inside that let him listen in on Nagini's attacks half a country away. It was with that same sense, those internal ears, that heard something from the book. 'A voice…?'

He took a step closer. It wasn't like Voldemort's cold, ugly voice. This was a deep hum of a voice, androgynous or multi-gendered, singing a song without words. It sounded like an ocean, maybe, or perhaps a choir. Or a storm with thunder rolling in.

Harry reached out and the voice reached back. A pale yellow flame curled up from the book's opened pages - and there, immediately, was that sense of wrongness he'd felt when the Vicar had transformed. Something slick and horrible and - wonderful was trying to squirm into him, into his head through his ears. Harry picked the withered, curled thing in the middle of that yellow flame and held it in his hands. It sang to him so sweetly, so dreadfully. It was a lullaby; it was a dirge.

Harry put it carefully in his pocket. It didn't belong there, but what he wanted to do with it – what it wanted him to do – he wasn't sure. 'It's probably some dark artefact,' Harry thought, feeling a little dizzy, like the world was spinning too quickly on its axis. 'It's probably some horrible cursed thing.' But it didn't feel dark in that way, like how the beastly Vicar had felt. She hadn't sung to him with her otherness, with her wrongness. This thing, this little helpless thing, had such a sympathetic voice.

'I'll decide later,' Harry thought, shaking the cobwebs from his mind and taking a deep breath. As he let it out, he focused on the book from where the little flame had sprung.

It's in the babes, or of the babes. What have we done? And what for? This endless night. This endless Hunt. The Paleblood curse is a fair enough consequence for what our pride has wrought. We should have left the sea alone, we should have let our curiosity rest. This nightmare is without end…

There was such a desperate sense of grief in the words, though Harry had no idea what the writer meant. 'And it doesn't get us any closer to answers about how to escape Yharnam.'

"I've got something," said Sirius suddenly, and Harry was jerked out of his musings. Sirius straightened and turned the chair to face him and Eileen, a thin book clasped in his hand hand. He read out loud, "'Of those few of us not left to the madness of the nightmare, I alone can help the Hunters to the Yharnam sunrise again. I alone can help them back into the waking world.'"

Eileen snorted. "That's something. Or it would have been, if Gehrman was still around."

"He's dead?" asked Harry and forcefully wrestled his own growing hope down. Eileen glanced his way for a moment, then huffed out a breath.

"He dwells in the Dream, and the Dream is for Hunters alone."

"Can you dream about him and ask how to get out of here, then?" said Sirius with a tired scowl. Eileen chuckled.

"That is not how it works. But yes, I can ask." She quieted. "The Doll might know…" she murmured, seemingly to herself.

Sirius looked further annoyed. "…So we'll meet back at Iosefka's clinic after you've spoken with this Gehrman."

Eileen nodded, though the movement was unenthusiastic. "Be careful. It's quite the mess you've gotten yourselves caught up in. And tonight of all nights."

A/N: I like Eileen, and it was fun to write her. This chapter is on the shorter side, but I consider this to be the end of the 'introduction arc'. Tell me your thoughts? I love Bloodborne's atmosphere and I really wanted to get it right.