Chapter 4: Bedside Manner
Dr. Amy Lau replaced the cap on the syringe she had used to inject the propofol into the injured man’s I.V. line. “He needs to rest,” the doctor told Adelaide.
“And you need to work on your bedside manner,” chided the older woman. “‘If it weren’t real, you’d still have two nipples.’ Really? You couldn’t have found a kinder way than that to tell the man that he was going to be permanently scarred, maimed for the rest of his life?”
“Bedside manner? I’m an anesthesiologist. I don’t need a bedside manner,” Amy protested. “If people don’t like my bedside manner, I just put them to sleep. It’s what I do.”
“As you have so recently and expertly demonstrated.” Adelaide gave the doctor a look that said even more than her words or tone of voice.
Dr. Amy Lau lowered her eyes, “Sorry, Miss Adelaide. It’s just that I’m tired. Saving his life was difficult. I had to do some things that…depleted me. His wounds—and the thing that made them—weren’t something that the human body can usually hope to survive.” She thought back to the desperate hours before dawn and her struggle to keep the man alive, to keep his life force from being siphoned away by the arcane force that had spawned the wolves.
The older woman put a gentle hand on the doctor’s shoulders. “Yes, dear,” she said gently. “I understand. He’s lucky you’re here. I’m also lucky—and grateful—you’re here. I owe this man, Amy, and I pay what I owe.”
The doctor’s eyes widened slightly at these words, but she said nothing as they left the room, closing the door behind them.
In Adelaide’s library, Amy looked at the stack of books she had pulled for research and selected a likely candidate. Rencontres Historiques Avec des Créatures Non Naturelles was a book she had not read since the early years of her apprenticeship. If she was being honest with herself, “read” was too strong a word. She had skimmed parts of the book, until someone had mentioned an English-language summary. Her French, both then and now, was atrocious, but her memory prodigious. She had memorized the summary in enough detail to win the approval of her tutor. The book, a mid-19th century compilation of tales of encounters with unnatural creatures, differed from most such books in that it had been composed by a practicing sorcerer. The unknown author’s working knowledge of magic allowed them to sift likely truth from myth and to have access to tales unknown to the typical scholar. Despite this, the tome still read like a book of legends and old wives’ tales. Regardless, Amy remembered that it mentioned Abyssal wolves and she had to start somewhere.
She slogged through Rencontres Historiques and took notes on the relevant portions before grabbing the next book from her stack. Its leather cover was stamped STVORENIA in large capital letters. What the hell language is that? Google Translate, already fired up on her laptop, told her that it was likely Slovak and that it meant “creatures.” At least the title is straightforward. To her surprise and delight, she found when she opened the cover that the book was an English translation. Now, all I’ve got to do is read the damned thing.
About halfway through STVORENIA, one of the maids stepped in and informed her that dinner was to be served in the garden. Amy stood and stretched, then made her way from the library via a set of elegant French doors. In the twilight air she followed the stone path around the corner of the house to the insanely picturesque spot in the estate’s extensive gardens where Adelaide liked to have a small table set up and dine. There she found Adelaide, already seated, sipping a glass of wine.
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Adelaide poured her a glass of the garnet-red liquid from the unlabeled bottle. “How’s the research coming?”
Amy sat. “Slowly.” She took up the glass, had a sip, and smiled. Wine would never be her beverage of choice, but she knew quality when she tasted it. Many of the doctors she worked with were self-professed wine snobs, talking endlessly about this-or-that vintage or the bottles they had bought at auction. She wondered if they understood what kind of wines one might find if one had Adelaide’s wealth and her well-cultivated worldwide connections. She wondered also how much the unlabeled bottle on the table before her might have cost, had it been available on the open market.
Adelaide picked up her glass. “You, my dear, have been exceeding expectations. I’ve been making some calls, getting some expert advice. The unanimous opinion was that our Mr. Jeffrey Kirby ought to be as dead as the proverbial doornail. Everyone with whom I’ve spoken is tremendously impressed and wants to know how you’ve managed to keep him alive.”
Amy smiled. “What did you tell them?”
“I told them—” She paused and leaned back to allow a servant to place a large bowl before her. “—that I’ve known right from the start that you had the potential to make real contributions to our Art.”
Unused to this sort of undiluted praise from Adelaide, she nevertheless accepted it as her due. There was no record of anyone doing what she had been able to do last night. Taking up her fork, Amy speared one of the perfectly medium-rare slices of steak artfully arranged atop the salad before her. It all but melted in her mouth. “Well, I’m pretty sure he’s out of the woods with regards to his wounds, but after dinner I’m going to need to get back to the library to see what else I can find. It would suck to have him up and die because I missed some clue in the literature.”
Adelaide shook her head and placed her hand atop Amy’s. “Nonsense. You’ve earned a rest. Besides, everyone I’ve spoken to has put their people to sifting through the literature. That means thirty or forty of the best researchers on four continents are going to be burning the midnight oil. It means that you can get some rest.”
Amy took another bite of the salad, then poured herself a second glass of wine. Rest sounded pretty good.
They ate quietly for a while, enjoying the beauty of the perfectly manicured gardens and the twilight breezes. Adelaide poured them each another glass of wine, emptying the bottle. “Amy?” She wore a serious expression.
“Yes, Miss Adelaide?”
“I’m going to need you to focus on a different aspect of your patient’s welfare.”
Amy suddenly got the feeling that she was not going to like whatever it might be that Adelaide was going to tell her.
“This attempt on my life, you know how serious this is? How high the stakes might be?” She waited until Amy nodded, then continued. “Young Mr. Kirby, without having any idea of what he was doing, stepped in and helped save me. What do you think the people who tried to kill me are going to believe?”
She rolled that around a bit before answering. “They’re not going to believe that some random bystander, just trying to protect a woman he’d never met before, somehow killed an Abyssal wolf without sorcery.”
“We’re going to have to protect him, Amy—just in case they go after him because they think he’s one of us. He’s going to need some guidance, someone to hold his hand and teach him the basic situation, so his own ignorance doesn’t get him killed.”
Amy had trouble keeping the dismay out of her voice when she realized what Adelaide was asking. “Hold his hand? I’ve got a life. Hell, I’ve got a double life as both a doctor and a sorceress. I’ve even got a social life. How am I supposed to find the time to—”
The tone of Adelaide’s voice contained a finality that ended Amy’s protests, ended even the exasperation that had prompted her objections. “I owe him, Amy.”
Amy dropped her gaze for a moment before meeting the other woman’s eyes. “I’ve got this Miss Adelaide. I’ll hold this guy’s hand and try to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed. Let me put this on my plate; you have enough on yours.”