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“The numbers of dead grow by the day” Charles announces, throwing his hat onto my desk as he collapses into a chair.
He looks exhausted and I can smell blood on him, it makes my throat burn all the worse and I am forced to hold my breath. Still, I can find pride in the fact that I can bear to be around the young medical student. A year ago I could hardly look a human in the eye, two years and I could not walk the streets without my throat driving me close to insanity.
I put down my book and regard him solemnly “You have been at an autopsy?”
The practice has only just been legalised, and then in only cases of the plague, I long to be in the room and to learn from the brilliant men that conduct them, but my sorry state prevents it. Therefore I rely more than I would like on Charles to tell me about the findings.
“It was truly fascinating” he replies, eyes bright with enthusiasm “I wish you would come”
“My religion” I protest, an old excuse but a reliable one.
“I know, I know” Charles waves his hand as if shooing away my excuses “But Carlisle, you would not believe the secrets the human body hides!”
“I will content myself with books for now” I answer, hoping beyond hope that a day will come where I can perform such an autopsy myself “Has any cause been found yet, to the plague?”
Charles shakes his head “no, and every day more fall dead in the streets, still we are better here, I hear that in London close to fifty thousand lie dead”
“London?” I ask, the news of my home as unwelcome as it is shocking.
“Carlisle I know you do not wish to return,” Charles says earnestly “and I do not think you should, but you must have family still that you worry for”
“I told you I have no one” I lie, but the faces of my friends and neighbours swim in front of my eyes, how many lie dead? How many at this moment are suffering?
“Many young medical men are making a living as plague doctors” Charles continues “you are clever Carlisle you could do a lot of good here, but I do wonder that you do not wish to aid your countrymen”
“I do,” I tell him “but I do not think I could help”
“You should think on it,” Charles says gathering his hat “We should do what we can to aid in this time” with those words he leaves me alone, to my books and to my minds wild imaginings of London.
…
The streets of Paris are always quieter at night, but now with every house locked and every window barricaded I feel I am walking through a city that is already dead.
From inside a house, I hear a woman weeping desperately, and even from a distance, I can smell the death in the house. The door opens and a strange figure sweeps out. It is not quite human in shape and for a moment all my father’s ghost stories come back to me. Before I remember, I am the monster now.
The Figure is odd. Its head is a bird, like the Egyptian gods of old, but the body is a mans, clad in a long leather coat. The scent is undeniably human though. Intrigued I cross the street, to meet the man head-on.
“You should not be out now,” he tells me, voice muffled by his queer mask.
“I am a medical student” I respond, it gives me a reason to be here and perhaps lends me credibility my youthful face otherwise lacks.
“As am I” the man in the mask responds “I am treating plague victims hereabouts”
“Dressed like that,” I ask sceptically
“You have not seen this before?” his voice is disbelieving, he gestures to his face “this mask protects me from the ill-humour of the patients, the beak is stuffed with herbs you see, to prevent miasma, and this coat too, protects me from the illness. It very practical and highly modern you must have read of it?”
“I have not” I tell him, but his description has lit up a part of my mind I thought long dead, for the first time since I fell to the vampire's bite I feel I could truly do something good.
I bid him farewell and hurry away mind racing, I have to hunt but then. Then I must find a way to procure a suit like that. It is what I have longed for, with the long coat I may once again walk in the sun, and the herbs will cover the scent of blood, I will be able to enter sick rooms and offer aid for the first time in my life.
My thoughts turn to London. I know I should not go back, but dressed like that who would recognise me? And I know that I can help, I do not sleep, do not tire, I cannot fall ill, I can help so many. For a moment this life feels like it isn’t a curse but a blessing a chance to do what others cannot and I can’t keep the smile from my face as I break into a run towards the woods outside Paris. I may be a monster but that need not mean I cannot be good.
…
I have been away from London for two short years only, but in that time it has changed beyond recognition. The streets are empty and half the houses I pass bear a red cross on the door. The few market sellers I visit will not accept coins even from my gloved hand and tell me to place my money into a bucket of water. I wonder at their method, it is not against all I have read, yet it does not strike me as very effective.
Still, those people are healthy yet, they are not the ones I should fear for. The people I fear for are the ones I am walking towards. St Giles has the most infected, it is where the plague in London is said to have started, and even the boldest doctors fear to go there. It was also my home once.
The people here are desperate, they call out to me recognising my outfit and I go where I am called. There is little I can truly do, I leech those strong enough and gives herbs to the weaker. Some begin to recover under my care, most do not.
And yet for all my failure, I refuse to give in. Trial and error tell me what herbs work best, and I read reports from across Europe religiously. At their behest I begin to recommend tobacco, it is an odd new plant and the smoke smells ill to me and yet reports suggest it may be our best hope. I also clean my tools in vinegar which does at least seem to work. But the illness is worse than I could have dreamed, instead of being there to help cure people I begin to feel I am more comfort to those in their last days. I pray with the dying and hold their hands, I comfort the families and give them what little money I can spare to spare their loved ones the plague pits.
My work exhausts me and yet I feel as alive as I have felt since my heart stopped. I am good at this, I was born for this, and I want to be better. It gives me something to live for and for once I am living.
…
It was inevitable of course that I would cross paths with someone I know. All my life was here, and all the people I loved.
The house I am called to is familiar at once and I know who lies inside. Mary Denny is the younger sister of one of my best friends. One of the men who died the night my life was changed forever. Will had been fiercely protective of little Mary and I am almost glad he is not here to see her like this.
She lies very still and pale, bright red hair spread around her face like a halo. Her fingers are black and painfully cold, and a trail of blood trickles from the corner of her mouth. Looking as she does I could see my Father proclaiming her a Vampire, insisting a stake be driven through her frantic heart. Thank goodness I am much more practical than him and know a vampire when I see one.
“Can you cure her?” her mother asks wringing her hands “I have already lost one child..”
“The disease is advanced” I answer, unwilling to give false hope “would you so kind as to fetch me a bowl of water?”
“She only fell ill last night,” her mother says desperately not moving “She can't die”
“I will do all I can,” I say, and Mrs Denny moves away reluctantly.
As soon as she is gone, I pull the mask from my head allowing me to see without the obscuring lenses. It is as I feared. As soon as I heard how fast the illness had progressed I knew, all the cases I had seen like this had died in a few hours, there is truly nothing I can do for this girl I cared for.
Mary stirs suddenly opening her bright green eyes and gazing about wildly.
“where am I?” She asks desperately, her glazed eyes not focusing on my face.
“You are safe,” I tell her softly and she calms.
“Carlisle,” she says her voice just a whisper, as she falls back into unconsciousness.
I take her blackened hand in mine and watch her laboured breathing, wishing I could do something, anything.
Her mothers footsteps on the stairs distant me, and I fall back pulling on my mask again.
“I am so sorry, there's nothing I can do with a case like this,” I tell her and the bowl of water I asked for tumbles from her hands to the floor.
“Please” she begs, and my dead heart aches.
“I am so sorry, all we can do is comfort her now”
“You are good, to be honest,” She tells me through tears “others would force false cures on us”
“Honesty is the little good I can give,” I tell her, wishing I could give them more.
A voice from outside the house distracts us both. Someone, a child I would guess, is calling up to us.
Pushing open the window I stare into the street where a small boy stands.
“Are you a doctor?” He calls
“yes”
“You have to come quick”
“I have a patient here..”
“you should go” Mrs Denny interrupts “I will bear this alone, you may do more good”
“Who needs me?” I ask the boy.
“Someone important” he answers in a yell “Pastor Cullen”
….
I have not set foot in my house since that fateful night, and even now, even with the plague seeping into every corner, it feels like home.
The boy runs ahead of me up the stairs and to my Fathers bedroom, I pause outside, steeling myself for what I must face. Inside other clergymen and members of my Fathers flock are gathered around his bed. It takes my breath away that so many educated men could be so foolish, to place themselves in this danger and then perhaps to take the plague home with them on their clothes.
“You must all leave,” I tell them with all the authority I can summon into my trembling voice.
There are protests but I insist, allowing only one to stay and aid me. It is when the room has cleared that I finally can see my Father.
He had always been a strong man, even when age had pushed me to take on some of his duties, and to see him looking so weak shakes me to my core. He does not look as far gone as Mary and yet I can smell death in the room.
I move to work, trying to forget who it is I am treating, his pulse is weak and I quickly realise his temperature is dangerously high.
“How long has he been like this?” I ask his retainer.
“Close to two days” They answer “I begged him to call a Doctor but he would only pray”
“You should have called earlier,” I say unable to keep the anger from my voice “I may have been able to save him then”
I regret my words immediately as the man looks like to cry.
“I am sorry,” I say my voice softer “there is little we can do but pray, perhaps you can fetch his Bible?”
The young man nods and hurries away and I’m stuck with a hideous sense of deja vu, the pattern is unyielding and depressing, and yet now that I know the people it strikes me all the stronger. I stare down at my Fathers sleeping body and wonder, what would he think of me now? A monster that tries to help the sick, I wonder if he could cope with the contradiction. Somehow I doubt it.
Still, as if moved by a force beyond control I once again remove my mask and reach for the hand of the dying. My touch startles my Father awake and he stares at me through his feverish haze as if he had never seen my face before. And in a way, I suppose he hadn’t.
“Carlisle? My son, is that really you?” He asks his voice weak “I had thought you were dead”
“I am dead,” I say, and my eyes sting unable to cry the tears I long for.
“That's right,” He says nodding “I was scared you had become a monster”
I am unable to answer, I can feel once again the burning pain I felt as I lay in that cellar, forcing myself not to scream for fear the man lying in front of me would kill me, I can hear the words he would call from his pulpit, of evil and magic, and yet I am here in front of him and he does not see me for what I am.
“Am I not a monster?” I ask quietly.
“No,” he says “I can see you here and I think you must be an Angel your face it is the face of one that is truly good, have you come to claim my soul?”
“In a way,” I say softly, and my Father nods resolutely
“Then so be it” He lies back but starts up suddenly eyes more feverish than before “My cross!”
“what of it?”
“You must have it, Carlisle, I would not have it fall onto the hands of evil”
His words make little sense if he thinks I’m dead, and yet I cannot ignore them. He had looked into my eyes, the eyes of one he should see as evil and called me good, I cannot ignore this last command.
“I will take care of it” I promise, and he lies back eyes closes, and his breathing slows.
The room is full of contradictions, I cannot trust any of his sentiments in his illness and yet he has been kinder to me in last moments than in the previous three and twenty years. I want desperately to believe that he sees me as good that he, at last, trusts me, that my form hasn’t changed me. This visit was a mistake perhaps, and yet I am glad I came, I sit back and watch my fathers breathing slow. The young man runs in with a Bible and together we recite a prayer. I leave the house feeling disorientated and half-dead myself as I leave a man passes on cart, bell in hand.
“Bring out your dead!” He calls into the evening and I close my eyes, this feels at last like the end of the world. Wasn’t that what the ministers said? Don't plague and death herald the apocalypse? And yet I know it is not the end of the world, only the death of the last remnants of my life here. Soon I will truly have nothing and as I stand on that empty London street in 1666 I feel as alone as I ever will.
…
That night I return to my Fathers church. Behind the pulpit where he once held court his cross hangs. It is large, cumbersome, and made of dark wood. I have never touched it before, but I know he carved it himself during his long walk from Wales to London. The wood is from the town that shares my name, and I feel connected to it despite everything. Solemnly I remove it from the wall, it is light in my hands and yet there is the weight of history to it. I heft it onto my shoulder and leave the church, and though I long to, I do not look back.
As I walk away I can smell burning, perhaps a house fire, but I turn away from it and head up towards Hampstead heath. The streets are dark and quiet but by now I am used to that. Above me the stars are bright and the moon close to full. Despite everything, the world is beautiful this night, and on the heath, a gentle breeze stirs in the trees. I pause then closing my eyes and breath in the sweet scent of the heather. Yet there is something behind it, the smell of smoke still.
With a dawning realisation, I turn around and look back to the city. It was not a small fire, the city itself is ablaze and bright flames leap into the September sky. I am frozen in awe, it is beautiful and awful and there is nothing I can do. So I stand on Hampstead Heath my Fathers cross in my arms, while London burns before me.
…
252 years later.
There is something horribly familiar about Chicago's empty streets as I make the short walk to the hospital.
Much has changed in the years since I left London and yet I still have so much to learn. This illness has been unprecedented and while our medicine is much improved there are still so many I can’t save.
One such of those patients is the first I go to. Elizabeth Masen lies in her bed, red hair spread around her head like a bad memory. She is feverish and yet still there is something lucid in her soft blue eyes.
“Come here Doctor Cullen please” she calls, and I go to her, kneeling by her narrow hospital bed.
“My son” she starts and I wince, her young son Edward lies in the bed next to her, he is near as ill as her and I know there is little chance I will be able to save either of them “Please Doctor I know you can save him”
“I will do all I can” I promise feeling as useless as I did two hundred years ago.
Elizabeth moves suddenly, gripping my arm with unprecedented strength.
“I know what you are” she hisses “And I know you can save him, promise me you will, whatever it takes, don’t let him die”
“Whatever it takes” I repeat stunned, there is no way she can know what I am and yet.. she seemed so sure.
Elizabeth seems to take my words as a promise and releases her grip, sinking back and letting unconsciousness claim her.
Still shaken I move to the next bed where Edwards condition has worsened terribly overnight. He lies still, breathing laboured and pain in his bright green eyes. He hasn’t got more than a few hours and I have a decision to make. I think of Mary and my Father and all the others haven’t been able to save. Would it really be better to condemn them to this life? To choose to save and damn them all at once? To remove their choice? And yet I have this power shouldn’t I use it?
“I need to take him to intensive care,” I tell a nurse, taking hold of Edwards hospital bed.
“They’re overwhelmed” she protests, but I ignore her, wheeling the bed from the ward.
As I enter the hallway I break into a jog. I won't lie that I'm not curious, curious if this will work, curious about the limits of my power. I had dreamt once in a small room in Paris as I worked to control my thirst that one day I would be able to save those no one else could. And finally here in an overcrowded hospital in Chicago, I have the chance to do just that.
There is a part of me, the puritan desperately moral boy that begs me not to do this. And yet I killed that version of me the night my father died and London burned. His qualms are not mine anymore. And so I study my scars and make my plans, ignoring the phantom pain in those bite marks that will never quite go away.