Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [124]
Dr Ravna, sleeves rolled up, was bending over the patient, taking a set of tongs to a wriggling black thing fastened to her chest. The bedclothes were rolled back, and Penelope’s chemise was open. A half-dozen black streaks were fixed to her breast and belly.
‘Leeches,’ Geneviève exclaimed.
Beauregard swallowed his nausea.
‘You damned fool!’ Geneviève pushed the specialist aside and laid her hand on Penelope’s brow. The patient’s skin was yellowish and shiny. She was red around the eyes and angry marks dotted her exposed body.
‘The impure blood must be drawn out,’ Dr Ravna explained. ‘She has drunk from a poison well.’
Geneviève pulled off her gloves. She plucked a leech from Penelope’s chest and dropped it into a basin. Working methodically and without distaste, she detached all the sluglike things. Bloodspots welled where their mouths had been. Dr Ravna began to protest, but Geneviève stared him silent. When the job was done, she rolled up the bedspread, and tucked it around Penelope’s neck.
‘Fools like you have much to answer for,’ she told Dr Ravna.
‘My credentials are of the finest, young lady.’
‘I’m not young,’ she said.
Penelope was conscious but apparently unable to speak. Her eyes darted and her hand took Geneviève’s. Even ignoring the obvious symptoms of her illness, Penelope was different. Her face had changed subtly, her hairline shifted. She looked like Pamela.
‘I just hope your leeches haven’t destroyed her mind utterly,’ Geneviève told Dr Ravna. ‘She was already sick and you’ve dangerously weakened her.’
‘Is there anything that can be done?’ Mrs Churchward asked.
‘She needs blood,’ Geneviève said. ‘If she’s drunk tainted blood, she needs good blood to counteract it. Draining her veins is worse than useless. Without blood, the brain is starved. Maybe irreparably injured.’
Charles unfastened his cuff.
‘No,’ Geneviève said, waving his unspoken offer away. ‘Your blood won’t do.’
She was firm on the point. Beauregard wondered whether her motives were entirely medical.
‘She needs her own blood, or something close. What Moreau says is true. There are differing types of blood. Vampires have known that for centuries.’
‘Her own blood?’ Mrs Churchward said. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Or something close, the blood of a relative. Mrs Churchward, would you be willing...’
Mrs Churchward could not conceal her disgust.
‘You nursed her once,’ Geneviève explained. ‘Now you must do it again.’
Penelope’s mother was horror-struck. Her hands were held to her face, wrists crossed over her throat.
‘If Lord Godalming were truly a gentleman, this would not be necessary,’ Geneviève told Beauregard.
Penelope hissed, eye-teeth bared. She sucked at the air, tongue out to catch whatever sustenance there was.
‘Your daughter will live,’ Geneviève told Mrs Churchward. ‘But everything that makes her who she is could be washed away and you would be left with a blank, a creature of appetites but no mind.’
‘She looks like Pamela,’ Beauregard said.
Geneviève was concerned. ‘Damn, that’s bad. Penelope is shrinking inside, reshaping herself, losing herself.’
Penelope whimpered and Beauregard blinked away tears. The smell, the stifling heat of the room, the cowed doctor, the patient in pain. All were too familiar.
Mrs Churchward approached the bed. Geneviève beckoned her and took her hand. She brought mother and daughter together, and slipped away from them. Penelope reached up and embraced her mother. Mrs Churchward pulled her collar away from her throat, quivering with distaste. The patient sat up in bed and attached her mouth to her mother’s neck.
A shock froze Mrs Churchward. A red trickle coursed down Penelope’s chin on to her night-dress. Geneviève sat on the bed and stroked Penelope’s hair, cooing encouragement.
‘Careful,’ she said, ‘not too much.’
Dr Ravna retreated, leaving behind his leeches. Beauregard felt like an intruder, but remained. Mrs Churchward’s expression softened and a certain dreaminess crept into her eyes. Beauregard understood how she felt. He gripped his wrist