Hemlock Veils

A pause.

“Yes, you can. You have to.”

The beast’s eyes, covered with an opaque glaze, began to drift again and Arne yanked harder on his fur, making him snarl again. “Now!” Arne commanded. “Up!”

It took him a moment, but he stood, and with Elizabeth at his end and Arne supporting his front, they eventually guided him through the gate and his large front door. The beast stumbled and swayed, and didn’t seem aware of her.

She couldn’t stare at the interior of his darkened mansion, since she focused all her energy on keeping him upright, and just when they got to a large room off the foyer—a sitting room—he collapsed on the floor, lying again on his side. The floor felt like marble, she thought as she knelt next to him, and when Arne flipped on a light switch, illuminating a massive, elaborate chandelier above, she saw it was marble, swirled with black and grey. One foot from where he fell lay a large, intricate rug, covering most of the cold, unforgiving floor. But the only thing registering—besides her blood-stained arms and clothes, and a bloody strand of hair hanging over her eyes—was him, his fur caked in more blood than seemed humanly possible.

Frantically, she felt for a pulse, not knowing where she might find one on a creature like him. But he was human inside, so she put her index and middle fingers together and pressed them against the top of his trunk-like neck, beneath his long jaw bone. She closed her eyes, visualizing the blood-flow in his carotid and willing the pulse to come through his thick skin and fur. It knocked against her fingertips then, ever so faintly: more heightened than usual and only slightly unsteady. “I’ll need to get medical supplies. Maybe from Doc—”

“We have them,” Arne said. “Once in a while, when he gets into it with a wolf or bear, they come in handy. And of course when Eustace shot him last month…”

“What do you have?” she asked, pressing harder on the wound. He wasn’t all the way under because he groaned again, his hind leg twitching. She wondered what went on inside his head, and even though she knew it was, she prayed it wasn’t nightmares.

Arne ran from the room and behind him called, “Everything but local anesthetic!” He returned only seconds later, holding two large black duffle bags. “Sutures, bandages, dressing, and even morphine.”

She looked to him in surprise.

“We had to be prepared for anything,” he said with a shrug.

“How old is the morphine?”

“I cycle through it. The last time I restocked was eight months ago.”

“How did you…?”

“Elizabeth, Henry’s resources are unlimited. We have our ways.”

She looked to the side. “The morphine will relieve any pain he’s feeling, and it may even dull the effects of the poison.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t. I don’t know anything about how it’ll react. It could be deadly if the poison was chemical, but since it’s probably a biotoxin…” They stared into each other’s eyes, words not needed. The information on Diableron toxin in her book lacked medical details, if she recalled correctly, but it did mention that the toxin put the brain in some hypnotic, vacant-yet-sleepless state, and that while in that state, victims experience the most excruciating pain known to man, that can, eventually, put them into cardiac arrest. Besides, Henry’s heart rate was more rapid than she’d ever noticed, so the toxin couldn’t be an opioid of any kind. Which meant complications weren’t likely to occur if she injected morphine.

Finally, Arne nodded. “Do it. Do whatever your gut tells you, Elizabeth. Yours is one of the only ones I trust.”

She didn’t allow herself time to doubt what her gut told her, and before she knew it, she was opening one of the boxes holding an eight milligram morphine carpuject cartridge. The liquid was pale yellow in color, almost clear, and she was grateful it hadn’t expired, that Arne had been vigilant enough to keep it stocked. Opening a sterile syringe, she popped off the caps and co

He twitched.

The next instant he jerked into a crouch, his claw ripping down her forearm and forcing a shriek from her chest.

Cradling her arm, she scrambled back until her spine pressed against the wall, her breathing sharp. She made eye contact, but he wasn’t Henry right now, or even the monster he sometimes pretended to be. He was wild and violent, and his eyes said he didn’t know who he was. Arne backed up next to her. “It’s all right,” he said, lifting his hands, and the beast snarled, following it with a deafening roar. They both flinched. “It’s me, Henry: Arne.”

The beast’s eyes began to go slack again, and with a final growl, they rolled to the back of his head and he fell to his side.

Arne stared, slack-jawed. “How much did you give him?”

Still holding her arm, blood seeping through her fingers, she watched the beast on the floor, his chest lifting and falling in a slow and deep breathing pattern—like it did when he fell asleep. “Eight milligrams,” she answered. She’d been taught to start a patient off slow—one or two milligrams. But some people can get ten milligrams safely and judging by the beast’s size, it was only a matter of time before he would need more. Thankfully, there were four more unopened cartridges of morphine and even more unopened syringes.

Before she could dwell on her own pain, or even allow herself to look at it, she released her arm and crawled back to the beast. “In a few minutes I’ll inject more. In the meantime, help me stop the bleeding.”

“Your arm, Elizabeth.”

“It’s fine.” With her hand pushed onto his wound, she tried untying the sleeves around him with her other.

“It’s not, and Henry would want you to take care of—”

“I’m not doing what Henry would want,” she interrupted, turning to him while her hands still worked. She tried to remain steady, but her hands shook and her arm burned, from deep in her muscle. Her back and shoulder muscles were sore, too, from pushing so hard and steadying him so long. “Henry isn’t awake, and right now I’m calling the shots.” She looked back to the beast as she took a large wad of new bandage with her free hand—real bandage—and topped it over the hood, placing more pressure on the area—as much as her strength allowed.

Kneeling beside her, Arne sloppily wrapped her arm with a roll of bandage. She flinched, still unable to look. “This will have to do then, until you get him taken care of. But I do think it’ll need stitches.” She glanced at him, nodding, and he added, “I’m glad you’re here, Elizabeth.”

She wanted to smile, but couldn’t. Her brows pulled together instead.

“He’ll be all right, dear,” he assured. “He’s a fast healer.”

Many minutes passed in silence and with the weakening of her arms, she no longer felt blood saturating the cloth. She removed it carefully, then the jacket hood, and though blood caked his fur and surrounded the laceration, it didn’t spill from it. She worked quickly, and from the corner of her eye, her own bandage appeared saturated. Ignoring it, she opened another cartridge of morphine and another syringe. She contemplated only briefly before popping off the caps and injecting it into a different place on his glutes. Arne stood back when she did, but the beast made no movement this time.

After lathering the two-inch laceration just above his hind leg with Betadine, she opened the suture kit Arne had placed beside her. Her fingers were unsteady when readying it and doing so seemed to take an eternity.

A deep breath in, a slow one out. Closing her eyes, she tried to still her hands. Arne was silent, allowing her to work, but she felt his eyes on her arm as she hooked the beast’s furry flesh with the curved needle and weaved the thread through. It was a meticulous process and by the time she’d knotted each stitch, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed. While wiping her brow on her bare upper arm, releasing another deep breath and giving in to the tremors in her hands, she counted nine stitches—perhaps too many, a doctor would say. But right now, she was the doctor.