The Grenier Ascension - Pt 2

"How can you expect me to believe this?"  Niella asked as she stared at Wendy across Sonny's kitchen.  "Ghosts?  Mind control?  I'm a psychiatrist.  Sonny, do you believe this?"
"I believe Wendy," he said.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the best I've got."
"All I've got too," Wendy said.  The woman looked as if she'd been awake for days; as impossible as her story was, Niella could see she meant every word of it.  But even so...
"Look," she said; "Sonny wanted me to meet you because I have a concern about several of my patients.  I can't elaborate on that to someone outside the hospital, but even if I could do so, I can't accept ghosts as an explanation.  And even if I could do that what you've told me isn't the same as-"

"As what's happpening to your patients?" Wendy finished.  Niella nodded, but didn't say more.  "So where does that leave us?" she asked.
"It leaves us with four people in danger," Sonny said.  "Five if we count Wendy, and we can't rule out more patients being affected.  And the name Count Grenier showing up in both groups."
"All right," Niella said.  "Maybe there's a connection."
"So where does that leave us?" Wendy repeated.  "We can help each other or we can't, but if we can't, tell me now so I can look for something else while I can still function."
The psychiatrist closed her eyes for a moment as if considering.  "Ok.  Without naming names, I'll tell you what's happening to my patients, and we can compare it to your story."

Sonny listened in silence as Niella laid out her patients' dreams; then the three of them teased out the similarities and differences between the two accounts.
"One set of dreams in a gothic castle," he said.
"Eighteenth Century, going by the clothes," Wendy added.
"And the other in a dungeon, maybe Mediaeval," he finished.  "Maybe the same place, maybe not."
"My patients are being abused in their dreams," Niella said.
"But for me and my friends it was more like he was trying to seduce us," Wendy said.  "Except that when I wasn't around the book, it felt different; scarier."
"Is there any way the patients could have seen the book?" Sonny asked.
"I don't think so," Niella said.  "It was called This Restless House, right?  There isn't a book called that in the hospital library."
"I don't know if there even are any copies but that one," Wendy added

"You and your friends could get the name Count Grenier from the book," Niella said.  "My patients would have had to get it from somewhere else."  Suggestion, maybe, she thought; someone dosing Vicky and Lexi with something that made them susceptible, then feeding them the shape of their dreams.  While Wendy and her friends got it from the book.  Even as she formed the idea, she couldn't shake the sense of herself clutching at straws; but the alternative was ghosts.  And whoever was drugging her patients under this theory, it would have to be someone with access to the book themselves.  This Denise?  But how could she have gotten into the hospital?

Wendy watched Niella's face, trying to gauge how much the psychiatrist believed; even if she didn't buy into ghosts, she had to accept something was happening, right?  She seemed concerned about her patients, at least.
"Is there anyone Denise knows who might be connected to the hospital?" Niella asked.
Wendy suppressed a trembling sigh of relief; Niella was becoming an ally.  "I don't know of anyone," she answered.  But Denise is a teacher; she knows a lot of kids and their parents."
"So we find a way to compare the hospital staff records with the students at her school," Niella said.  "Staff too, come to think of it."

"What are you thinking?" Sonny asked.
"Unless we believe in ghosts, the only way to connect these dreams is some kind of suggestion," Niella said.  "Probably helped along with a drug of some kind.  I'm thinking someone is doing this to my patients, and to your friend Denise, Wendy; and whatever they did to Denise had enough of an effect that they could get her to do it to you too.  Is there any way she could have drugged you and, Criss was it?"
"Yes, Criss," Wendy said.  "I guess she could have.  But there's no way."
Regardless," Sonny cut in before an argument could break up whatever understanding the two women had reached; "one of our patients had her first dream last night, and the other the night before that.  If someone is drugging patients, we should both be at the hospital tonight.
Niella nodded.  "I can use the time to look at the personnel records."
"Will you be ok here, Wendy?" Sonny asked.
"So long as I have your coffee," Wendy said.

Sonny's observation left little time before he and Niella had to leave, and the meeting adjourned into an awkward wait, none of the three quite sure what the others believed about their situation.

   ****

Criss had always been able to fall asleep easily, but now it seemed as if she slept most of the time; it was as if the Greens' estate that were the dream, while her true life spent in Castle Grenier.  She wondered if that was what it was like for Denise, and for Wendy when the Count finally claimed her.  The thought of her friends left a vague disquiet in her; the Count had said she would become his bride, but he hadn't said that about Denise.  And Denise was sick, Criss knew that; the Count was making her so, using her life to sustain himself and his ghostly realm.  Criss didn't like the thought of that; but perhaps when he became a Prince he would be able to heal her.  She could ask him about it. Yes; he would be in the library he used as his study.  She strode off through the castle corridors in search of it.

The night outside was howling, and enough of the wind made it in through the windows to make the skirts of Criss's dress whip as much as they had when she danced with the Count.  Her mind flooded with the memory of the first night she had seen him, as he'd taken her around the floor of the ballroom, his presence so complete that she barely registered any of the other dancers or spectators.  His presence now, his touch on her soul, made it hard to think of anything else.  But there had been something, hadn't there?  She paused, leaning against the wall by the window, looking at the streaks of rain outside; she had wanted to ask him something, something important.  Well, if it was important, he'd remind her; she set off in search of him.

   ****

Denise knelt on the floor of her bedroom, head bowed before Billy Green.  Her former pupil had been the one to bring her into the Count's service, and as his reward Denise was to serve him too.  But as he regarded her, he seemed less enthused about the idea than he had been.
"You look like hell," he said.
"I'm sorry, my Lord," she replied.
"He's taken a lot out of you."
"Yes, my Lord."  Denise couldn't remember the last time she'd felt warm; she wondered how much longer she could survive the Count's need for life.
"You should take more time with makeup.  I still want you to be beautiful for me."
"Yes, my Lord."

   ****

Vicky stretched out on the hospital bed.  She was afraid; the dream from the night before had left an ache in her wrists and ankles, her shoulders and hips, her spine, between her legs.  But more than that, she was afraid of the treacherous parts of her own body and soul that thrilled at any touch, even one of violation; those parts of her that longed for the dream to happen again.  Dr Collins had told her she didn't have to be embarassed or ashamed of it; Vicky wanted to believe that.  But she also wanted to be free of it; to enjoy her own pleasure instead of fearing it as an obsession that controlled her.  But she also wanted to dream the dream again; the castle dungeon, the captivity, the presence filling her... the sense that she was needed.

   ****

The lights in Lexi's room were out, though enough brightness filtered through the door from the hallway that she could still see dimly.  The window was a featureless square of black behind its grille. Lexi wished there was a rain, or wind, or something distracting that could help her stay awake.  Two nights running she'd dreamed of the dungeon or torture chamber or whatever it was, and two nights running she'd woken up shaking and exhausted; she knew if she fell asleep she'd be back there, to be hurt and abused.  But there was more to it than that, something she hadn't confessed to Dr Collins; somehow, she was sure that it wasn't just a dream, that the man who haunted her sleep was real.  And wouldn't stop until she was-

Lexi cried out as she felt the rigid wooden length inside her, its corners digging into the walls of her passage.  Her arms were stretched behind her, chained to something she couldn't see; her legs were out to the sides, shackled to rings in the floor.  The pain was in every part of her, sudden and overwhelming, and she couldn't keep it inside, even as she sensed the Count drinking down her agony.  She tried to wriggle her feet closer together, to try to take the weight off of her mound, but the effort strained her hips and ankles.  Then his hand was in her hair, forcing her head round to meet his lips as he kissed her.

"Welcome back to my home," he said mockingly as he released his grip.
"Why are you doing this?" Lexi responded.
"You asked me that before," he said.  "The answer has not changed.  You serve me, you serve a need I have."
Can't you get someone else? she almost asked, but bit the words in an instant before uttering them; if this was real, she couldn't wish it on someone else.  Then her foot slipped slightly, sending a spasm of agony though her hip, and her mound, and up into her passage; she sensed the Count breathe it in, and wondered how long her resolve would hold.

   ****

Niella sat in the office of Carling's secretary, looking through the personnel files.  Completely unethical and easily enough to get her fired if she was caught at it; or possibly arrested, given she was contemplating showing the names and addresses to Wendy.  Contemplating... could she really do that?  Yes, she suspected patient abuse, but to show confidential material to someone outside the hopsital, especially someone who was talking about ghosts... once again she wondered if Carling had been right when she brought her suspicions to him.  Then the name in the latest file jumped out at her.

Darryl Green.

Niella turned to the roster.  Yes, he worked nights.  And he'd been on the night before, and the night before that; and he was on tonight. The name could be coincidence.  It was probably a coincidence.  It had to be a coincidence.  She reached for her phone and called Sonny.

   ****

Sonny prowled through the hospital corridors, one ward at a time.  He wasn't technically on shift, which meant there was nowhere in particular he had to be, but as long as he walked purposefully none of the night staff he passed questioned his presence.  In a way, he'd rather they did; the ease of his patrol made the prospect of another staff member drugging and abusing patients seem all the more plausible.

His phone vibrated; Niella.  "What's up?" he asked.
"Do you know a Darryl Green?  He's been on all three nights."
"Green?"
"He's on the same ward as Lexi tongiht."
"I'll find him."

   ****

Wendy was still in Sonny's kitchen; coffee had made her feel no less tired, and only forcing herself to move about kept her awake.  Fear and doubt gnawed at her mind; fear for Criss and Denise, doubt that Dr Collins, or maybe even Sonny, would believe her enough to help her.  She didn't know where Criss and Denise were; she knew that the hold the Count had on them would prevent them trying to escape.  And she had no idea how to find them unless Dr Collins came back with the information she'd promised and they could find a connection to Denise.

But she did have a way to talk to them.  The whole reason she was staying awake was that she was afraid she would find herself back in the Count's castle if she slept again.  If he did, could he find her?  If he couldn't, whatever followers he had couldn't know where she was.  It was worth the risk... if nothing else just to be able to tell her friends she was fighting for them.

Wendy went into the living room and settled in one of the armchairs.  She lay her head back, tried to relax, and let herself drift into sleep.