Camille (3 page)

A small crowd had collected around Strider
now. The two young accomplices from the cemetery watched with
anticipation as the shredded trouser leg inched up exposing a
gruesome flesh wound. I was able to get a clear view of his leg as
I peered around Dr. Bennett’s arm. A quiet gasp escaped my lips.
There were six, deep teeth marks on each side of his calf. One of
the younger boys turned around and retched onto the floor, while
the other stared at the leg in horrified amazement. The red head
decided to skip over for a closer look. She screamed and nearly
fainted onto Strider’s lap.

Dr. Bennett motioned with his arms. “Stand
back and give him some air.” He looked at Strider then down at the
leg. I knew him well enough to know that he was cataloguing dozens
of details in his mind. Dr. Bennett fished his linen handkerchief
from his vest pocket and lowered it to the leg.

Strider’s hand shot out, stopping Dr.
Bennett’s quest for a blood and cell sample.

“I merely intend to wipe away some of the
excess blood and debris.”

Slowly, Strider released his hand, and Dr.
Bennett gently wiped off a good amount of blood. I peered up at
Strider’s face. He was biting his bottom lip the same way he had in
the cemetery. Sweat trickled down his face, and he grew paler by
the moment.

“Enough!” Strider blurted. He upturned the
bottle of whiskey, and the liquid cascaded over the bite marks. A
yell seemed to catch in his throat before he collapsed forward off
the stool into Dr. Bennett’s arms.

Dr. Bennett held the limp boy over one arm
and removed his black neck cloth with the other. He handed it to me
over his shoulder. “There’s a barrel with rainwater outside the
door. Soak this well. The lad’s burning up.”

The alleyway had filled completely with a
dense fog. The icy water soaked through my gloves and my fingers
ached. By the time I’d stepped back inside with the dripping piece
of cloth, Dr. Bennett had Strider laid out on the bench we’d sat on
earlier. His long legs hung off the end of the splintered wood.

Dr. Bennett examined the injury with the
eyeglass he kept tucked in his pocket. The onlookers, including the
two girls, stood back watching the whole scene. The red head
kneaded her skirts with her fingers, and the other girl covered her
face as if trying to avoid breathing in something foul. A fever in
this neighborhood usually meant some dreaded, contagious
sickness.

I knelt down next to Strider’s head and
pushed my hood back but not completely clear from my head. Long
black lashes shadowed his ashen cheeks. The sheen of fever covered
his face. I placed the cold wet cloth over his forehead. His brown
eyes shot open. He jumped to his feet then sat down hard on the
bench. I peered up at him as I reached around for the cloth. His
fever glazed stare fell on my face. I swallowed hard.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” he asked.

Dr. Bennett stood and rubbed his chin from
the swift kick he’d received when Strider shot up. “Mr. Strider,
your injury is worse than you might think. If you let me help
you--”

“I don’t need your help.” His head rested
back against the rough, mold stained wall as he scanned the crowd
from beneath heavy lids. “Goose, Charlie, get me out of ‘ere.” His
two young companions raced to him. Dr. Bennett and I stepped out of
the way, and with some effort, the boys helped their sick friend
stand and hobble out the door.

Dr. Bennett returned to the barkeep. “Does
the boy have a real name? Where does he live?”

The man didn’t answer. Dr. Bennett reached in
his pocket, pulled out three shilling, and held it out on his
gloved palm.

“Strider’s his real name. Nathaniel Strider,
I think. Doesn’t have a permanent home. No family that I know of.”
The man stared down now at the black glove. “Far as I know, he
sleeps in stairwells and on front stoops.”

Dr. Bennett dropped the coins onto the
counter. One rolled off and the man dove for it as if it were a
priceless jewel. I picked up Dutch’s cage. The cat had curled
itself into a tight ball; a striped paw shielded its face from the
cold draft coming in through the door. I followed Dr. Bennett into
the damp night air and trudged beside him back to Whitechapel
Road.

“I will need you to do your best
investigative work this week, Cami. Keep an eye on that boy.”

“I wonder, John, if it is wise to follow him.
Becoming acquainted with him in human form may impair our judgment
when the time comes.” The night had been draining, but the swirl of
dread in my chest and head weakened my spirit even more.

“Don’t you see, Cami? This lad might provide
us with some insight.” He stopped, took hold of my shoulders, and
turned me to face him. The weak glow of the street lamps could not
hide the glint of anticipation in his eyes. “Your father was close
to ending this cycle of mutation. I’m convinced of it. But without
his journal…” He picked up my hand. “I must move forward on my
own.”

I nodded silently, not really in agreement,
but in surrender.

Dr. Bennett hired the only cab in sight. As
we climbed inside, he continued, but I truly did not want to hear
more. “Those teeth marks are deep enough to trigger some cellular
changes. The lad has no idea the trouble he’s in. That is, if he
survives till the next full moon.”

I stared out the window at the blurred
cityscape and held up my hand. “Please, John, I can listen no more
tonight.” I despised being rude to him, but the events of the
evening topped with the mention of my father had filled me with an
unshakeable melancholy. I could not even pretend, as I often did,
that the night had been staged. My bizarre life was all too
real.

Sunlight seeped beneath the hem of my drapes
far too early. We’d arrived home several hours before dawn, and I’d
fallen heavy headed into bed. Amazingly, I’d slept without
nightmares. In fact the hollowness in my stomach brought images of
Manchester pudding and currant jelly with mutton. It was that same
hunger that urged me from my downy covers into the cold air of my
bedroom. Dr. Bennett would already be at work in his lab, and he
would need breakfast as well.

The water in the ewer stand refreshed my face
and arms. My trousers from the night before were still draped over
the foot of my bed. I reached for them and threw them over the back
of my chair. It had been a long while since I’d pulled a dress over
my head. Some time ago, I’d convinced myself that buttery silk
gowns were meant for girls with a social life, not for girls who
lurked in midnight shadows hunting werewolves. Besides, my boyish
disguise had allowed me to venture out alone. Most days, Dr.
Bennett never strayed from the house, content only in his lab
hovering over his microscope or seated in his favorite chair poring
over his books. He hated the outside world and strangers. Only our
midnight hunts lured him from home. From my wardrobe, I pulled out
a green day dress in hopes that a change of costume would boost my
spirits.

I stopped in front of the full-length cheval
glass, a possession from my earlier life, and tied my dark hair up
with a ribbon. A thick, white lock of hair framed the left side of
my face, a constant reminder of my past.

I pinched my cheeks for color, a habit I’d
learned from my mother. I had been named after her, and although
she died when I was six, I remembered a round freckle near her
mouth, the distinctive smell of lavender, and remarkably soft
hands. Often she’d spoken in what I later learned was French. Dr.
Bennett, my father’s closest friend at the time, was the only one
who could speak it with her. My father’s face would scrunch up
small and red whenever they excluded him from the conversation.
Several years after my mother’s death, my father and Dr. Bennett
had had a terrible fight. Their roaring voices boomed from the
study in our house. John stormed out and did not return until the
dreadful night of my father’s death.

The reflection staring back at me looked
foreign in feminine attire. The feel of the soft cotton floating
around my legs made me smile.

Dr. Bennett hunched his shoulders over the
lab table as he stared into the eyepiece of his microscope.
Absorbed in his work, he did not hear me walk into the lab. The
long rows of shelves lining the back wall of the room were filled
with jars of oddities I’d always tried my best not to look at.
Other than that, it was a room I enjoyed. There was a primitively
built cot of wood and canvas strategically placed near a window to
take advantage of the natural light. Very often, I would find Dr.
Bennett fast asleep there with a book on his chest and his glasses
still propped on his nose. The stacks of books in the corner had
been my school mates growing up, and like school mates, some were
dull and some were intriguing.

I peered over Dr. Bennett’s shoulder at the
slides he’d prepared. They were cell smears from his handkerchief.
“I’ll fry some eggs. Would you prefer coffee or tea?”

He didn’t look up from his work but nodded.
“Fine, fine, Cami,” he answered absently. His work would engross
him so deeply; he often didn’t know I was in the room.

I smiled. “Coffee it is then.”

“Cami, run down to the corner to pick up a
paper.” He glanced up for a moment, then refocused on the thin
plates of glass in front of him. “You’re wearing a dress. Very
nice.” His face shot up. “Is everything all right?”

I held out my arms and looked down at the
green stripes of my skirt. “Everything is fine. I just thought I’d
surprise Emily.” It was a lie. I hadn’t really given my sister a
thought when I put on the dress.

“I daresay she will be shocked when she sees
you.” He refocused on his work. “You know, I think I would prefer
coffee instead of tea this morning.”

I smiled and left the lab. My mantle hung on
a hook near the door. I flung it around my shoulders and tromped
down the three front steps to the wet pavement. The newsboy shouted
the headline before I reached him.

“Mysterious death of the fish cart man. Read
all about it!” The boy pulled a paper from his shoulder bag and
handed it to me. I paid him and tucked the newspaper under my arm.
I didn’t need to see the picture or the details. The death was not
a mystery to Dr. Bennett and me.

We relied on London newspapers to keep us
abreast of mysterious dog attacks and possible targets.
Unfortunately, most lycanthropes traveled the smaller towns and
farmlands outside of London. The remoteness and lack of population
in these places made it easy for them to thrive without being
caught. The fish cart man was most likely bitten by one of these
outsiders. Dr. Bennett and I did not have the time and resources to
focus on the rogue beasts prowling beyond the city limits.

I decided a warm plate of eggs cooked
loosely, the way Dr. Bennett liked them, would help soften the
front page news. Dutch circled my legs while I worked. Finally, I
tossed him the bacon scraps I’d saved yesterday morning. The cat
pounced on the pink meat as if it had caught some wild prey and
scurried off to its favorite place beneath the kitchen table. The
coffee smelled comforting, and I poured myself a hot cup and
balanced the bitterness with cream.

With Dutch close at my heels, I carried the
plates to the small sitting room. It was my favorite room in the
townhouse. The walls were once covered with faded green wallpaper,
which I peeled off one day to discover orange paint. Together with
the toasty brown color of the wood floor, I’d decided to call it
the marmalade room. We ate most of our meals at a card table next
to the hearth. Some days we’d sit sipping milk with vanilla and
read or debate, forgetting completely about our midnight
excursions. I filled the grate, lit the fire, and went to call Dr.
Bennett to the table.

He sat in the exact position I’d left him.
“Come before the eggs get cold,” I called from the doorway.

“I knew that boy would be a great specimen.”
He drew his eye away from the microscope and waved me closer.

“We should hurry. I left Dutch alone with a
plate of eggs,” I said as I walked to the microscope. It had taken
a while, but I’d become quite adept at peering through the lens.
For the longest time, all I saw was black, and I pretended to see
things so as not to disappoint him. My face pressed against the
cold metal of the eyepiece. There was a cluster of odd shaped
cells.

I pulled my eye away and looked at Dr.
Bennett. “They don’t look like anything you’ve shown me
before.”

“Precisely. These are blood cells from the
bite. Not only are the shapes of these cells changing, but if you
looked again in a few moments, you would see they are dividing
rapidly.”

“But what does it all mean?”

“I have never been able to study a human who
is going through the first transformation. That lad could help us,
and in turn, we may be able to help him. But we need to bring him
here.”

“Bring him here? A werewolf?” Fragments of
the memory of my father’s death splintered free. A cold sweat broke
out on my skin and the room swayed.

The stool scraped across the floor of the
lab. “Cami, my dear, I’ve upset you.” Dr. Bennett placed a hand
under my elbow and guided me to the stool.

The dizziness had not cleared completely, but
I no longer felt as if I would swoon. “Forgive me, John, but have
you lost your senses?”

“Not at all. Let’s go to the sitting room.
Some food and a warm fire will do you good, and I can explain
myself better.”

The glow in the hearth dried the sweat from
my face and arms. Dr. Bennett cut his eggs into six portions as he
always did. After only one bite, he pushed away his plate and sat
back in his chair. “I’m really too anxious to eat this morning.” He
searched around for something. “Did you not buy a paper?”