chapter twenty-three
THE POISONER
T his evening I was meeting an old friend of my father’s, Dr. William Hayes. He was a professor at King’s College and consulted at nearby hospitals. A peculiar man, to say the least.
His tall and lanky figure could be seen from afar, resembling a scarecrow that deterred the park pigeons. He sat in the folding chair at one of the metal tables, carefully unwrapping a piece of hard candy.
“Dr. Hayes,” I greeted him.
“Alina! So nice to see you again!” He beamed, standing to hug me. “What has your little brain been working on lately?”
“Little things here and there.” I sat across from him.
“Butterscotch?” he asked, offering me a neatly wrapped candy. I shook my head. “I always keep some on me for the children at the clinic. Makes the bloodletting go a little easier.” He sighed.
“I wanted to ask you something,” I started, unsure how to explain the situation. “I’m developing an antidote to a new toxin.”
“What kind of toxin? What are you trying to cure?”
“For a toxic type of blood. I have a sample of the blood and a counterpart that neutralizes it. Is there a way to replicate that but catalyze it so it neutralizes and unravels the toxin’s structure itself?”
“Could be, especially if you have that other counterpart sample,” he said steadily. “Where did you get this?”
“It’s not important. But I do have another question.” I rubbed my palm nervously. “Hypothetically, do you think it would be possible for a human’s body to become poisonous? Like how some plants are entirely toxic from blossom to root?”
“Hypothetically, anything could be possible,” he said pointedly, “unless there is more to your question.”
“Well, maybe it does sound a bit outlandish when I say it that way,” I mumbled. “Anyway, do you think it would be possible to get me into the lab at the college? I would only need it for a few hours a week if there are any vacant labs.”
He paused as if to check a schedule locked away in his head. “I could make some time. But let me check for sure once I get back to my office. I can telephone you if I find any vacant blocks for the semester, if that works?”
“Yes! Yes, that would be amazing.” I smiled. “Do call on me if you find any gaps. I’ll take any.”
“Of course, anything for Jacek’s little girl.” He patted my hand before pausing. “How have you really been? Since the incident?”
I swallowed hard and glanced down, giving an unsteady laugh in response. “Unwell at best. Empty at most,” I replied, squeezing his hand back.
“You would tell me if you needed anything. Anything at all, right?”
“Of course,” I lied. The professor’s eyebrow ticked up in suspicion, but he did not press.
“All right.” He pulled a tight smile, which was a lot coming from a man who was as stern as the clergy.
“Alina?” an accent pipped from behind me.
Dr. Hayes’s eyes narrowed at me and then at the man behind me.
I turned around and smiled. “Viktor! What a pleasant coincidence. How have you been?”
“I am well. I’m surprised to see you here with my professor.” He laughed.
I stood up to give him a tight hug.
“Shouldn’t you be in another class by now?” Dr. Hayes raised a brow at him.
Viktor gave a cheeky grin before raising a shoulder. “Perhaps. At least it’s not your lab.” He looked back at me. “Besides, I was on my way to you, Alina.” He held up a black leather gladstone bag.
“You brought it!” I gasped, leaning close so he could pop open the bag to show me its contents.
“I borrowed it from the lab, so please bring it back in one piece.” He glanced nervously at Dr. Hayes.
“Don’t look at me. I’m not in charge of equipment inventory.
” Dr. Hayes shrugged, standing up and buttoning his jacket.
His tall figure loomed above both of us.
“I’ll be getting back now. I will send word soon about your lab time,” he said to me, then turned to Viktor.
“I trust I will see you in lecture tomorrow? Unless you plan on skipping that too.”
“I’ll be there.” Viktor smiled sheepishly.
“Have a good rest of your afternoon,” Dr. Hayes said. He gave me a farewell hug before tipping his hat then stalking off. As he passed, the pigeons flew off in unison, scaring away the critters in his path.
“How do you know Professor Hayes?” Viktor closed the bag and clasped it.
“He was a friend of my father’s,” I said. “He is usually the one to lend me papers.”
“Ah, I see I have competition, then?” he joked.
“Yes, I have a queue of men extending down the street waiting to give me papers on germ theory and whether or not evolutionary theory holds any weight.” I rolled my eyes. “Walk with me?”
“It would be my pleasure.” He held his arm out to me.
There was no rush to get home despite the quickly cooling weather. The company was enough to keep me warm.
“What are you looking to do with this contraption anyway?”
“I have found someone with strange blood. I want to study it,” I tell him truthfully. “I was happy to have a willing participant.”
“I guess they must be willing, especially if you want to use this on them. Bless their soul,” he said sarcastically. “Do you want me to show you how to use the apparatus? Can’t have you torturing the poor soul.”
“Is this your way of asking to be my lab partner?” I grinned at him.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to helping, but you’re doing the writing.”
“Deal.”
“Will it hurt?”
“Possibly. There’s only one way to know. If you’re going to use this on people, it’s important to feel it,” Viktor explained.
“Do I get to stab you too?” I joked nervously, staring at the long, curved needle in his hands.
“As a reward, maybe I’ll let you.” He smirked, tying the tourniquet around my bicep.
“How kind of you.” I shifted in my seat at the kitchen table.
The blood transfusion apparatus was a tall graduated cylinder with a flared base to keep it upright.
Two long tubes were secured at the base with long, curved needles at their ends.
For the extracting and movement of blood, hand pumps on the side were squeezed to create suction for siphoning blood from one person to the other.
We would use this one way, since it was the easiest way for me to measure and collect the blood.
“Ready?” He peered at me from over the rims of his glasses, positioning the needle at the crook of my arm.
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled, unable to look away.
He pushed the needle carefully into a vein. I was hyperaware of my veins pulsing against the tourniquet and the sharp pain entering my arm.
I flinched, squeezing Viktor’s knee as I watched it go in.
“You don’t need to watch.”
“I do. How else will I learn?”
“Fair.” He twisted a dial on the apparatus before squeezing the pump. The blood slinked through the foggy tube and filled the glass about five milliliters. He pressed his thumb on the puncture and removed the needle. “See? Simple.” He kept his finger on the wound before wiping it with a cloth.
“I was expecting something more from the contraption.” I laughed, looking down at his hand holding my arm. A wave of heat hit me suddenly, nausea rushing over me.
“Alina? You look pale?—”
I rushed to the sink, throwing my head over to heave.
Viktor was already behind me, rolling up his sleeves quickly and gathering my hair at the back of my head so it did not mix with anything unsavory.
“This is why they tell patients not to look.” He tried to lighten the mood. “It’s just adrenaline.”
“Yeah,” I groaned. I could feel the heat subsiding, but the whole ordeal had caused me to work up a cold sweat. I hung over the sink and shivered as I waited to see if anything else would come up.
“How about we take a break, yeah?” He smoothed the stray hair from my face and peeked over my shoulder to check on me. I could feel his hand brush against my neck as he continued to move away any flyaway hairs.
I nodded, afraid of heaving again if I opened my mouth.
“How are you feeling?” Viktor checked the temperature of the cloth he had placed on my forehead.
“You don’t need to fuss over me,” I mumbled as I lay on the couch, book in hand. I glanced up from the words on the page.
“You scared me there. I thought you were going to faint.” He sat on the floor by the other end of the couch. He adjusted the pillow under my ankles before he settled again, picking his notebook back up.
“I am not sick.” I laughed, tapping the back of his head with my foot.
“You are the only thing worth fussing over.” He smiled, making delicate pencil strokes in his notebook. It occurred to me that he was not writing or annotating.
“What do you have there?” I put a ribbon between the pages of my book to mark my page as I leaned up.
“Nothing to be concerned about.” He shielded the paper from me, turning his body away.
“Give it here!” I crawled over and plucked it from his hands.
When I saw the sketch, it was a charcoal drawing of a woman reading. I could only assume that it was myself. He’d somehow even captured my markings. I thought this was the first time I’d seen myself candidly. “I thought I would look meaner when no one was watching,” I joked.
“You only look mean when people are watching.” He took the notebook back from me.
“I didn’t know that you were an artist.” I lay on my stomach to watch him sketch over his shoulder.
“I am many things. I’ve had many years to practice the arts in between studies. I get bored easily when auditing classes that I’m already familiar with,” he said. “Information gets repetitive the more time you spend at different colleges.”
“What other mediums have you dabbled in?”
“All of them. I have always been told I am gifted with my hands.” He smiled over his shoulder. “I enjoyed the theater and painting the most though. What else is there to do when you have nothing but time?”
“You say that you are an old soul. You look like you are barely twenty-five.” I tilted my head at him.
“They said something similar when I posed for an illustration class once.” He grinned, turning the page of his notebook and starting a new sketch. He began sketching a cute critter, something like a ferret.
“What is that?”
“A sable. We have a lot of them at home in the wild. They make for soft coats.”
“How morbid,” I scolded.
“It is true. Anything that cannot be kept as a pet is usually a pelt.” He filled in the beady eyes of the critter on the page.
“You never talk about your home.” I studied him rather than the drawing this time. “What is it like? Do you have a family?”
“I am from a small village originally,” he said. “Otherwise, there is not much. It is a cold and formidable place.”
“What brought you here?”
“Business. I came for a work opportunity.”
“You are working while studying? An apprenticeship?”
“In a way, yes.”
“We should visit the fine art wing of the museum next time you have a free day. I think you would be inspired.” I laid my head down on my folded arm. He was so rigid when focused, yet his hand was light and relaxed as he sketched.
He flipped the page, turning to sit facing me from his spot on the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“Museums don’t inspire me quite like they used to. I’ve seen every painting they have. It is old to me.”
“There are thousands of artworks in those archives.” I cocked a brow. “You couldn’t have possibly seen them all.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But why would I go see those masterpieces when there is one right here?”
I grinned at him and tossed one of the couch pillows, hitting him in the head.
He laughed, adjusted his glasses, and continued.
I lay there studying him. His hand moved nimbly across the paper. His grip on the pencil was firm but skillful. He swapped a few times between two different pencils, smudging the sketch with his finger and erasing parts of it.
“How does it look?”
He turned the notebook toward me, and I gingerly held it closer. There was that familiar face again. Maybe I was a narcissist for enjoying this type of attention, though I did not see the harm in this particular instance.
“If you keep drawing me like this, people may actually think I am pleasant.”
“You are pleasant.” He smiled. “I don’t know why you think yourself to be some distasteful spirit.”
“That is because you do not know me yet.”
“I know you well enough if I am spending my only night off extracting bodily fluids and using you as my muse.” He leaned back on his palms as he sat.
Night.
It was nighttime .
I sat up quickly and glanced at the timepiece on the wall. It was nearly seven thirty at night.
“Apologies. I didn’t realize that I’d kept you so long,” I said hastily, though I was more worried about him meeting my other admirer.
I fear what would happen if my Creature saw another man in my home.
I did not think his reaction would be any different than how he expressed his frustrations typically.
What a mess he would make out of Viktor.
“It is no trouble.” He stood up, rolling his shoulders tiredly. “Do you have a curfew?”
“No, I just remembered I have an early start. I did get a lab time secured. Will you be free on Wednesday?”
“I can be free for you.” He winked, gathering his satchel.
“I will hopefully have samples. I will let you know how I do with the extractions.” I walked with him to the door, trying not to act too flighty. “Five o’clock on Wednesday. Got it?”
“Got it.” He tapped his temple. “I will remember.”
“Perfect.” I smiled, leaning up to hug him tight. “Good night, Viktor.”
I watched as he walked down the steps of my town house, only faintly illuminated by the streetlamps, before he became another shadowy figure in the street.
I closed the door and locked it behind me, sighing as I went back to the living room and plopped on the couch.
He left his notebook on the tea table. Opening it again, I stared at that last sketch of myself.
I was clearly having an identity crisis.
I did not recognize myself if I was not scowling.
Walking over to my bookshelf, I placed the sketch on the eye-level shelf.
I tilted my head as I backed away, admiring the new piece of art.
Maybe this was the first of many. I did not collect art, but maybe I should start.