Chapter Text
The night of Dr. Reid’s brief reappearance echoes in Waverley’s mind over a series of fitful sleeps. He regrets not telling the young egoist off a bit more. At the same time, he mourns the loss of a fine practitioner from his hospital. For all his flaws, Reid clearly has a scientific mind. Had Swansea seen something in him that Waverley can not? A way to reign in his ambitions?
Reid must have brought the Pembroke something besides his frightful trunk.
Mere weeks go by before the next damnable ruckus which brings Waverley marching from his office. The scolding he prepares for the nurses’ unprofessional hollering, however, dies in his throat at the sight laid before him: two men, barely recognizable as such.
The fear and urgency in the nurses’ calls can be forgiven, he supposes. The glimpses he catches of the newest patients as they are carried away do not inspire hope. They were well and truly mangled. Limbs splayed at odd angles, thick wool overcoats ripped open and stained crimson. The sight is particularly gruesome for workmans’ injuries; they are certainly not unionists.
A nurse’s stern call rips Waverley from his wandering thoughts as he is whisked into an operating theater. Contrary to what polite society may expect, late-night emergency surgeries can be rather serene. The hospital’s halls are quiet, save for a few well-known night owls, and the night shift’s staff are (largely) the most stubborn and reliable men and women of the Pembroke. Waverley has clear, hopeful expectations for the surgery before him.
Of course, it is foolish to put much faith in expectations these days. The rough, jagged tears and deep puncture marks littering the workman beg a number of questions. Just as peculiar are the clean sutures across the poor man’s ribcage. Waverley, as a doctor often must, shoves his curiosity to the back of his mind. He cleans and aligns, stitches and mends, saving what he can of a man unlikely to work in his field ever again. Unlikely to work at all, if he is without some luck. That the patient will live was, perhaps, a small mercy.
Hopefully the man has a family to return to.
That would typically be the extent of Waverley’s considerations towards his patients’ personal lives, but alas, he can not be so lucky.
“The men who just came in, they hunt vampires.”
Why this night of all nights Waverley finds himself unable to simply walk past Thelma Howcroft is beyond him. He knows he will come to regret it, he often does. Unfortunately, ignoring a patient, especially as the acting administrator, is rather irresponsible. So, he turns and listens.
She whispers as though telling a secret, pale fingers picking away at any little blemish nails can find upon her skin. “They missed me last time because I became one with the shadows.” Her smile is small, but holds an unnerving confidence.” I showed them mercy, spared their lives. They have returned anyway, the petty mortals.
“Miss Howcroft…” Waverley has to catch himself, politely clearing his throat while he discerns the best response. The poor creature is delusional, though telling her as much has already proven quite the waste of time. However, despite the clear absurdity of her claims, the woman does seem familiar with their newest patients. He can see it in the sturdy set of her eyes, which have not once left the closed doors of the operating theater.
Given no further response, Thelma continues: “Dr. Reid brought these men in, one over each shoulder. I saw him take away their guns and wooden stakes. They thought that they would be a match for me, that their mortal weapons could pierce my dead flesh.”
“They had weapons in the hospital? Miss Howcroft, you must report matters such as that sooner! Are you sure-”
“Of course I am sure.” She scoffed. “And it is of no matter to me. The hunters are weak and now even more so. They will surely leave this hospital come sunrise and my unholy sleep. They will flee their failed mission and take their sweet blood with them.”
The highwire dance of speaking with this damnable woman nearly sets Waverley ablaze, and will surely present him with a headache upon his retirement to bed. Still, he is a professional, and a deep steady breath provides him the patience to check on poor Miss Howcroft’s health and bid her a good night.
If Waverley Ackroyd never again hears reference to Jonathan Reid it will be far too soon. The man is clearly involved with something untoward. Something which involves the men he had dragged from near death into the hospital. The men who bore weapons, as confirmed by a rather rattled Nurse Branagan. The men in outfits which, now that the adrenaline of emergency care had worn off, strike Waverley as familiar.
He wishes the pieces would not fall together, that he would have the wherewithal to contact the police. He wishes he was not heading to his office and exchanging his whitecoat for a cool summer night’s overcoat. Oh, how the poor administrator wishes.
But wishing had never done one much good.
This abysmal reasoning keeps Waverley a semblance of sane as he greets one Milton Hooks and regrets a decision he cannot quite remember making.
“You want what?”
“I’m sure you heard me quite well. And please, do not take me for a fool. Your position here remains despite your behavior, not for blindness of it.”
The driver chews a bit on the end of his cig before spitting it to the ground with a huff. “Things must be really going to the shitter if even our esteemed administrator is trawling around for secondhand revolvers. An’ what if I told you I don’ have any? I’m showing you all I ‘ave.”
“Then, Mr. Hooks, I would call you a liar.”
“I ‘ave a doctor here willing to spend top dollar on a Webley, I’m not stupid enough to throw that offer away for nothing.”
“But you may very well hide your inventory to protect your position here. Or, maybe, that of Miss Hawkins?” The man’s incredulous look drops flat in an instant, the glare nearly breaking Waverley's measured composure.
“I’ve a shotgun. Not as discreet, but gets the job done; whatever job it is a doctor needs a gun for. I won’ judge you. Just leave Pippa outta this.
‘Gets the job done’ indeed—what would any Londoner in his right mind need with a shotgun?! “You boast a secret weaponry trade and have nothing more rational than a shotgun?”
“Oy, there’s been a lot of business lately. I’m sure you can understand, bein’ here yourself.” The following silence must make it clear enough that Waverley is not in any way in the market for a double-barrel, for what emerges next out of Milton’s mouth (past a plume of fresh smoke) are the makings of a deal.
The following evening, Waverley Ackroyd tucks a revolver into his coat pocket and sets off west.
The Reid family butler is polite enough at the door, and the cup of tea Waverley hesitantly accepts is frustratingly fine. The leaves steeped dark and bitter, but with a bit of sweet cream the flavour reveals itself like a flower in bloom. An expensive Chinese import by the label, clearly sourced in the last century. It seems Reid Sr. had been as opulently wealthy as his son.
It is a shame when, a few long minutes later, the current head of the Reid household finally emerges from whatever business he had deemed necessary to complete. A shame, because it means the end to Waverley’s sipping at the lavish brew. No more distractions, no more escape.
The doctors hold each other’s hard stares through stilted pleasantries, neither seeming to blink as often as appropriate. The butler needs no formal dismissal, and with a curt nod he sets off into the manor's depths. It is left to Waverley to break the silence once privacy is assured.
“What happened to Edgar?”
His question may as well have been thrown to the void. With all the grace of a man untethered to the world, his ‘host’ merely floats past him. And, curse him, Waverley once again dashes social niceties and catches him by that cold wrist.
“If you would excuse me,” Reid starts, voice low and smooth like the open string of a cello, “I will fetch us both some tea.”
“Your butler served me while we waited, thank you.”
“Then I will make some for myself.”
He pulls his wrist in toward himself, a sharp movement clearly meant to be final. Instead, his captor lets himself be pulled in right along, using the momentum to drive the taller man back against the waiting wall.
“No. You do not get to stall this any longer.” Waverley fists his hand into fine fabric and digs a shoulder into cold hard ribs. Still unanswered and yet undeterred he leans in, pushing with more and more of his weight until the incredulity in Reid's eyes turns dull and unreadable.
“Whatever do you mean, doctor?” It is not a question, not really, but it is commitment enough to the conversation to release the man. Then, Waverley took him up on the veiled dare—he had no bluff to call.
“You can play the prodigy, but do not play the fool. You always stick your nose in people’s business, ask questions you have no business asking. Not once after the day of his vanishing have you asked after Dr. Swansea. I checked with the rest of the staff, with your business associate Mr. Hookes, even with your butler.
“And?”
“That means you know something. More than we do.”
The rustling of fabric as Reid brushes down his rumpled shirt rings much louder in the room than it should have. Only hurried breathing—adrenaline, unavoidable—rises above it.
“You requested we stop stalling. So ask what you mean.”
Okay, then. “Will Edgar be returning to the Pembroke?”
“No.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yes.”
Rational expectation dulls the pain. He keeps his composure, his eye contact. Just one more.
“How are you involved?”
The immediate shift that ripples through Reid’s icy countenance sends Waverley’s hand to his hip.
Click
The pair mirrors their earlier motions, a slow dance which can only end with the inadvertent investigator all but cornered.
Click
Oh how he hates always being right.
Click
Pride is a sin. Even when earned, it comes at a cost.
Click-
“Are you asking if I killed Edgar?”
He stops, thank the Lord he stops. The clap of dress shoes was a convenient cover for the rough slide of the secondhand revolver’s hammer, but a gun feels almost worthless as Waverley tilts his chin up to look Reid in the eyes. Nevertheless, he holds his ground.
“No, I did not kill Edgar. It was the Guard of Priwen. The men you and the rest of the night shift saw dragging his bloodied body out through the front door.”
“So you have gang connections. Unsurprising, given the state of the chap you pulled in off the streets last night. He was badly mangled, and so young. It is a tragedy.”
“They are not a gang, and I am not with them.”
“And I do not believe you. I am sure you are smart enough, Doctor, to understand why.”
Reid’s lip pulls up into a snarl, only for an instant before he meticulously schools his expression once more. It is like looking into the eyes of a hunting dog: trained, heeled, but still only one step away from a wolf.
“Believe what you want.”
“Gang activity may go overlooked out East by the Pembroke,” Waverley speaks evenly, cautiously. “But it would not be so here in the West End.”
“You will not report me.”
“Do not pretend to know me, Dr. Reid.”
“You will not.”
“AND WHY NOT?”
Before he can regret his shouting, the wind is knocked from already-strained lungs, ensuring he can shout no more. Waverley’s world blurs, then refocuses on fingertips like icicles drilling into his brain. When his mind finally returns enough to see, it is more a curse than a blessing.
In the eyes of the good Dr. Reid is a look he has seen only in the dead.
Whether thought or pure, terrified instinct, Waverley ducks out of the chilling grasp and leans in, pressing the gun he’d been palming flush to Reid’s abdomen. The brick wall before him gasps then, low and raspy as though he had been the one manhandled. The shock is as evident as it is unexpected, and as it is short-lived.
“You will not shoot me here. I may not know you, as you say, but I know that much.” The statement is nearly frustrating enough to prove itself false. Still, as Reid drapes a hand over the gun’s waiting barrel, Waverley stays his. He feels as though swirling vines have rooted him to the ground, tying each finger down to the revolver’s grip and curling around his dry, tight throat.
“Remember this fear…”
The imposing force before him raises the gun to the side, resets the hammer,
“... if you ever think to report me.”
And slowly brings it down into the very pocket from whence it came. Not a breath, centimeter, nor second is spared. Then, the instant the gun is returned, the muffled ringing which had overtaken the air between the doctors is pierced by the sharp call of the butler.
The dissipation of the thick ether rings through Waverley’s eardrums like the shot of a cannon, but seemed not to affect the master of the house. Rather, he dismisses the old man with a friendly smile and some light words indiscernible to his stunned compatriot.
Like a daydream, or perhaps a nightmare, Waverley finds himself out in the dark only a blink later. The reek of nicotine and sickness stings like the cold, but either is preferable to whatever stands behind him, past the jagged stone facade.
Waverley leaves as quietly as he arrived.