The Grenier Ascension - Pt 3

A secure ward for patients considered a danger to themselves; most of them were suicidally depressed, something Sonny had known far too many people dismiss as an illness at all... if Darryl Green was part of the abuse of patients in this ward?  Regardless of anything else that was be happening, that thought made Sonny's blood boil.  But he tried to keep his temper in check as he searched through the halls... there, one of the doors was ajar.

He crept up silently and glanced in through the door.  Green was by the sleeping patient's bed, readying a syringe of something.  Sonny cleared his throat.
Green jumped and spun round quickly, hiding the hand with the syringe behind him.  "Hi," he said, trying to sound normal; "I thought you were off tonight."
"No such luck," Sonny replied.  "I've just been called in for a difficult patient and it needs two of us."
"I..."  But there wasn't anything Green could say to justify returning to what he'd been doing; an orderly shouldn't be giving medication to a patient, let alone in the middle of the night in the patient's room while they were asleep.  "Lead the way," he said, sliding the syringe into his pocket; the movement was smooth enough that Sonny might not have noticed it at all if he wasn't already watching for it.

He headed out of the ward into one of the central corridors, walking quickly to keep Green from taking enough of a breath to question the direction they were taking.  Only when they were at a door leading into a staff room did Green finally grab Sonny's arm and ask where the hell they were going.
"Somewhere quiet where you can tell me what's in that syringe," Sonny replied; might as well go for the direct approach.
"What syringe?"  Might as well go for the futile bluff apparently.
"The one I saw in your hand, and then you put in your pocket."

Instead of another bluff, Green went for bluster.  "I don't need to answer shit from you."  He turned to go; Sonny reached out quickly, as if trying to grapple him. Green turned and aimed a punch at Sonny's nose; Sonny dodged just enough that the blow grazed along his jaw, but it was still hard enough to snap his head to the side with flare of pain.  "Try anything like that again and your job's toast," Green said as he walked out.  Sonny waited till he was gone, then put the syringe in his own pocket.

   ****

Wendy was back in the ballroom where she'd first enountered the Count.  This time it was empty; still as sumptuously decorated and appointed as before, but a place of hollowless and death intead of life and sensuality.  But Criss... she had to find Criss, and Denise, and somehow break the spell that still beguiled them.  But how?  The dungeon?  Was this dreamscape the same place that those patients of Dr Collins were being tortured?  If so, maybe showing that to them would snap them out of it.  Wendy remembered the way from the ballroom to the wing where their bedchambers were situated; she set off at a run.

No one accosted her before she reached Criss's room.  Then again, she couldn't remember the other guests from the Count's ball as anything but a vague impression of their presence; was anyone but the Count and his victims really here at all?  She banged on the door as hard as she could; to her relief it opened.
"Wendy?" Criss said happily; "you're here!  Did he find you after all?"
"No, I came to help you," Wendy said.
"I don't need help.  This is where I should be."
"No one living should be here.  This whole place is a ghost.  The Count's a ghost.  He's what's making Denise sick; you know that, right?"

Criss's face betrayed confusion, an effort to grasp a thought that kept slipping away from her.  Wendy pressed on; "He's going to do the same to you."
"He won't," Criss said.  "He told me; he will make me his Bride."
"His what?  But forget about that; don't you care about what he's doing to Denise?"
"Of course I do!  But... but he'll be able to help her.  I can ask him."
"And the other women he's torturing here?  Will you ask him to help them?"
"What other women?"
"Come with me."  Wendy grabbed Criss's wrist and dragged her out of the room.

Which way?  Down, it had to be down to get to the dungeons Niella's patients had talked about.  Stairs.  Keeping hold of Criss, Wendy set off again.  Back in the direction of the ballroom, through it and out the other side, reasoning that the way to dungeons would be far from the chambers where the Count would put a prospective bride.  The castle was a tiny labyrinth, it didn't need long distances, or a multitude of corners and junctions; it was a place where people were inherently lost... but eventually Wendy found something that resembled a grand entrance hall, with great staircases leading up, and another stairway leading down.  Pulling Criss after her, Wendy descended.

"Wendy, please, slow down," Criss stammered; "You're hurting me, and I'm running out of breath."
Wendy turned; her friend's face was still a mask of doubt and distress.  She sighed.  "I'm sorry Crissy.  But whatever he's making you think, you don't belong here, and you don't belong to him.  Part of you has to know that."
"I don't..."
"Please, come with me.  Let me show you."
"All right."
Wendy hugged her, then resumed her course down the stairs.

It was only a little further on that she could hear the screams; she looked back and saw Criss could hear them too."
"Is that...?" Criss asked, the question tailing off.
"Yes.  Come on."
Another couple of corners and they saw it.  A circular chamber, an array of torture devices that seemed to writhe malevolently in the torchlight... near them, a redheaded girl whimpered in exhausted agony as her limbs were stretched out on a rack; above her, crouched the form of the Count, his aspect devoid of anything human as he drunk down her ebbing vitality.

"No!"  Criss's scream combined anger, betrayal, denial, confusion.  The Count looked up and hissed in rage; in the corner of her eye Wendy saw another movement, another Count, another girl chained in her own torment.  Both Counts glared their hatred at Wendy; in another moment, there was only one Count, right in front of her.  He struck her across the face, sending her stumbling backward; as she recovered her balance, he was holding a spear... he drove it through her stomach before she could dodge.

Wendy staggered again, the strength flooding out of her muscles; she fell to her knees, clawing at the shaft of wood that impaled her... to pull it out?  hold it in place?  But then the Count yanked it free, and she smelt her blood on the air, tasted it in her throat.  She fell forward to the stone floor, her vision going black.
The last thing she heard was Criss's scream, "Wendy!"

   ****

Vicky thought Dr Collins looked as stressed and tired out as she did; she almost asked if the doctor had gotten any sleep last night, though Vicky wasn't sure whether she'd be sympathetic or envious to hear a yes.
"How did you sleep last night?"
Vicky almost laughed at hearing the question.  "I had... the dream started out the same way; I was on the rack, and that guy was on top of me.  But then something way different happened."
"Go on," Dr Collins said.

"There was another girl there.  Two other girls.  I think they were trying to stop him.  I don't know, maybe I'm trying to imagine your help there or something."
"Was it me there?"
"No.  Anyway, it didn't work.  He killed one of them."
"Killed?"
"Yeah."
"How?"
"A spear through her gut.  I know, I know, phallic."
"If you say so."
"I hate it when you do that."
"What did she look like?"

   ****

Once Vicky had left her office, Niella sat in her chair for a long while, trying not to shake.  Trying not to acknowledge the fact that the woman Vicky had described looked like Wendy.  But she did.  But what did that mean?  If it was Wendy, then ghosts and dream worlds were real; it was that simple.
If it was Wendy, then did that mean Wendy was dead?
Niella and Sonny hadn't gone home the previous night.  Sonny was off with a friend in the pharmacy having whatever was in Darryl Green's syringe analysed.  Niella had copied what she needed from the personnel files in the office of Carling's secretary. replaced them, and gotten a couple of hours' sleep before preparing for her regular work day.  Neither of them had checked on Wendy.

Niella took out her mobile and dialled Sonny's house.  The phone rang.  And rang.  And rang.  She looked at the clock.  Then called Sonny.
"Nothing yet, Doc," he said as he picked up.
"I can't get hold of Wendy," Niella said.  "I'm going to plead emergency and go check on her, if I can come by and grab your keys."
"Sure.  Do you want me to come?
"No.  Carling barely wants me here anyway; no sense roping you into his vendetta."
"All right."

   ****

Denise knelt at the feet of Billy Green.  His parents didn't like her wandering around the estate naked, but seemed satisfied with a loose robe; that allowed her Lord enough access to reach down and play with her breasts.  She was glad of the stillness; her greater Lord, the Count, had taken most of her life for himself now, and she had little energy to move about or serve Billy... she let herself lean against his knees, letting the soft rhythm of his kneading lull her nearly to sleep.

Several of the other Greens were arguing nearby.  Her Lord wasn't paying attention, but Denise idly listened.
"You let him take it?"
"I didn't let him.  I didn't know it was gone until I'd left."
"How much does he know."
"Nothing.  He didn't know what it was."
"We can't take the chance."
"You two.  Deal with him."
Denise wondered who they were talking about.  The Greens had always seemed to secure; the thought that anything might discomfit them, or her Lord, filled her with a disquiet she couldn't identify.

   ****

Lexi huddled in the chair in her room, looking out at the rain.  Her appointment with Dr Collins had been postponed.  Lexi was relieved; she liked the doctor, but she was still a psychiatrist.  There was no way Lexi could tell her what she knew; that the Count was real... that Lexi's growing illness wasn't just an effect of her nightmares, but an effect of the Count draining her life away to fuel whatever kind of existence he had out there in the world.  But if Lexi couldn't tell Dr Collins, it meant she was on her own.  Or did it?  If the Count was real, the two women who'd appeared in the torture chamber last evening were surely real too.  Did their appearance mean there were people who might help her? The thought of that was hard to grasp, but Lexi didn't know what else she had to fight with.

   ****

Eve checked her ringing phone.  Sonny.  "What's up, nurse?" she said as she picked up.
"I'm not a nurse, I'm an orderly."
"Orderly doesn't scan.  And doesn't annoy you.  Anyway, what's up?"
"It's about Niella.  She's heading to my place to check on someone there.  But... I think there might be trouble."
"Trouble?"
"As in bad guys that need beating up."
"And so you want me to drop everything and meet her there."
"Erm.  Yes."
"You're in luck.  I can in fact do that at the moment."
"Thanks Eve."

   ****

Criss was pacing back and forth in her room.  She had the run of the Green estate, but didn't want to see any of them right now.  The image of Count stabbing Wendy kept playing back and forth in her mind; how could he do that... why would he do that?  He'd wanted Wendy the way he had Criss and Denise.  And who were those other girls she'd seen?  None of it made sense.  The savage look in his eyes as he'd...
Killed Wendy.
Killed Wendy?
Killed Wendy...
Criss felt the scream bubbling up inside her again.