The Journeyman. The hunt for a killer begins.
I'm not a trained investigator so the thought of going out to look for a killer (one who had already had a stab at killing me - literally had a stab at) in a building that was almost the size and population of a small city filled me with dread. My employer and guide since I discovered my raw talent as a witch and the otherworldly inhabitants of my world, our world that we all live alongside whether we like it or not.
I also had a tag along that works here, taking the pain of others for his (its?) nourishment and in daylight appears to be a rotten corpse and (probably worse) in shade looks like a wide mountain man that hasn't seen a razor in about as long as he last saw a bath full of water.
Ludo gave me the facts on the hospital. Originally built in the 50's with a almost total refurbishment in 2012; several new buildings and extension throughout the life of the building and service areas that the public can't go.
Working logically we needed to scale down the foot falls to cover the greatest area in a targeted way.
"Ok." I said. "If I were hunting 'Something' that is killing here." I waved my arms around to emphasis the whole building. "I would start in the morgue where all the dead bodies are." I felt proud for this piece of thinking.
"Possible." Replied Ludo, his face betraying a 'BUT' hanging after that word left unsaid.
"But......" I injected.
"Any Under Fae or Extraxi won't be caught dead in a morgue. We feed off life and have a negative association with the dead as humans do. No, unless we are dealing with a Demon who revels in decay and rot, then we need to head where the life is strongest."
"So we can rule out the wrinkly wards too."
"I would, for now. There maybe a lot of death there and probably the easiest to cover tracks on but it'll be like eating a biscuit when there is a gluttony of feasts elsewhere. No, if I were looking for fast easy prey to regenerate my strength I would want a constant supply of succour and a death rate that wouldn't draw too much attention. A strong life high death ratio if you will."
"Surely there isn't that many places here for that?" I asked. "You work here, ruling out the morgue and those waiting for it, run of the mill stuff like operations and accident and emergency; where else is there?"
"Hold on. I think you may have something. We don't know what the food supply is, its not blood. If a vampire was here I would know about it, Hell you all would know it, there's a reason why everyone knows they exist and the rest of us slip away into the murk."
Ludo went on to explain Extraxi could feed upon many things coming from the 'warms'. Pain and suffering being the most fulfilling but other Extraxi have evolved for different diets such as fear, sadness and grief (some even cause the grief by hurting or killing an individual then feed off the loved ones), panic, some even feed off positive emotions and generate enormous well being in people then syphon it off.
"So accident and emergency would be ideal, so much life force generated post injury to recover and then with the ever present deaths from the serious cases; I think it would be the best place to start. That and they are usually so busy they wouldn't notice a few extra people hanging around for hours."
It was later afternoon, very late. So I asked Ludo to lead the way to A&E. Partially this was because he worked here and knew the way, but there was a bit part of me that didn't want a soulless feeder that preys on my kin standing behind me where I couldn't see him.
This plan was soon changed when Ludo whipped out a wheel chair and asked me to get in
"It'll look less suspicious if an orderly pushes you around the corridors." He said.
Hospitals are busy places, hustle and bustle of nurses, cleaners, doctors, patients and kith and kin - like any moderately busy town centre; but if the general hospital was busy then A&E was like an international airport at Christmas. The waiting room was bigger the my flat in its entirety and filled to the rafters with all manner of people coughing, bleeding, sleeping, talking and on occasion, singing. It looked old and tired, the walls, decoration and most of the uniformed staff too.
"Where do we start?" I asked looking around at the room. The task made worse by a multitude of corridors, cubicles, rest rooms, side rooms and more corridors.
"I can't tell if there are any of my kind about, too much pollution from the humans, but if I were to get closer then it'll be easier to tell. Not only will they stand out to me but hopefully they'll recognise you and run...........or try to finish what they started."
I didn't like the way Ludo smiled at this last statement.
"We'll stay away from well lit or public areas, my kind do not look our best in light and they wouldn't want to be face to face with a mob the size of this and trust me, one look into the eyes of my kind on a feeding hunt will turn all of these people into a mob."
"Xanthic said this thing is new here, so I doubt it'll be a member of staff, ok? So would you recognise someone pretending to work here or hang around?" I mused aloud. "How long can someone be here in A&E before you're kicked out? Do they still have visiting hours? can a relative or something hang around all hours?"
"Um, not sure, possibly, don't know." Answered Ludo, "But I do know with all the checks, back ground and work history that it'll be almost impossible to trick a job here, and with the teams we work in an imposter will stand out really quick."
Ludo stood tall on his heels, breathed in far too deeply for anyone pretending to be human and swept his gaze around then bent low to speak into my ear.
"Night is drawing close, I can feel it. So lets just go, we can plan and think but I always trust in luck, random and chaotic so it is but its going to be the best we can hope for so hold on tight and think lucky."
We swept through the main room, a few eyebrows were raised but the battle hardened staff had witnessed much more anarchic behaviour and a tut from a nurse was all the comment we heard about an orderly racing a wheelchair bound patient through the corridors.
We managed to cover most of the area this way, only a meal trolley and a hard working kitchen hand slowed us down but Ludo for a large 'man' was very spry and escorted myself in that chair out of a serious risk of being scolded (ok 'warmed') by trays of food.
There is a doctor patient confidentiality thingy which means information cannot be passed by any route from consultation room to ....... well here.....but as I was neither a doctor or a patient then I guess that doesn't count.
We had a routine of a quick knock on a door, open it look at the person/people within, mutter an apology and close the door before moving onto the next. An orderly and patient can get away with this if quick enough. What we saw was an education for me and (in Ludo's words after) a mouth watering feast he could not touch.
There was a young man, head down, arse very much in the air with a doctor stitching a wound (caused by sitting on a bottle for a bet).
"I couldn't see his face." I said
"But our Extraxi wouldn't be here for that, and the doctor was human. Very sweet pain in there, do I have time for a quick sip? It'll be better for him than any local anaesthetic."
My look told him very quickly there wasn't and we moved onto the next door.
A woman, naked to the waist and laying on the bed was being looked over by a nurse; on her back a very large and very enflamed tattoo. Blood was seeping from the swellings and her blonde hair matted with sweat and stuck into scabs and congealed fluids.
From the tears of the patient and the stifled laughter of the nurse as she sterile wiped and cleaned,we both came to the conclusion this was not our goal. Neither noticed or cared about our intrusion or exit.
"Did you see that picture?" I asked as the door slowly closed on its spring.
"Two fat ladies riding on tiny mopeds?!" You humans are crazy." Said Ludo laughing with a tear in his eye. In this darkened light they glinted blue and shone with an inner nobility. Its a pity I had seen them red and flushed with diseased secretions pooling in the corners earlier as he loomed over me or I might have begun to like him.
The next couple of consultation rooms had people receiving stitches and/or injections. None jumped out at us (figuratively or literally speaking) and we moved on.
Next was a mini waiting room filled with people on chairs or like me in a wheel chair, most were holding themselves and guarding a personal pain.
"Next up X-Ray, always busy in A&E." Said Ludo, "We won't get into those rooms so easily but we can try."
I was wheeled around the corner and we saw a man, twenty something and in tatty jeans, shaven head, sleeveless tee shirt a very red grazes running up his arms from his wrists to his shoulders. He was more noticeable for his laying on the floor and hanging on for dear life.
"Someone help me" (or words to that effect once extracted of expletives and translated into English from 'street') The voice was loud but broken and whiny like my little niece when she don't get her way. Oh and very very drunk.
"Oh please help me rapidly, I seem to be about to fall off the floor." Again, I translate into words my Mother would be happy to read here. I'm not sure what a Fur King is, but he seemed very keen on calling it every other word.
"He's obviously had a small half a shandy too many." I commented from the side of my mouth quietly. Ludo, his mouth at my ear spoke in a rich tone I had not heard from him before. I felt myself leaning in towards his voice it was so smooth.
"Did you know you humans spend more than half your lives blind?"
I shook my head and felt his bead against my cheek - funny but it felt as soft as puppy fur.
"Your eyes act like cameras, taking still pictures and sending them to your brain. Your brain tries to make sense of what it sees and it judges movement, changes and other things by comparing it to the last picture sent. Brilliant if your brain wanted to keep check on that funny mound in the long grass 1,000,000 million years ago and watch as it slowly gets closer and what are those big white teeth like things; then wow, it looks very dark in here."
He continued. "Well, you are blind for all the gaps in-between the stills; anything from half to two thirds of your waking life. In the blind times the muscles around your eyes move, but the brain is clever enough to move the picture around and keep things central - like a really clever steady cam. But! " This word was said with a flourish and his tempo of conversation increased as he was obviously enjoying himself.
"But, alcohol is just basically sugar right, and such a refined fuel supply for your body that it kicks up a notch; same thing if you give a kid fizzy drink and chocolate; and the eyes start working faster, the gaps get shorter and the brain has to process the information much faster and it starts to skip, so the auto focus that makes the world go steady tells you what you actually see, which is the world bobbing around and you all end up grabbing the bed, lamp post or any convenient friend or stranger.
Fascinatingly though, I get recognised a lot more around club kicking out time even in darkest Winter. Must be the brain not having time to filter out all the superfluous, weird or confusing information and telling you how it is."
"So drunk people see more demons than sober ones?" I asked but believing the theory behind it (I've seen some weird shit when drunk but put it down to a bad glass of lambrisco).
"There is obviously no medical research into this mind you, but toddlers do look at me funny and any drunk trying to mug me as he staggers home soon runs a mile."
I looked at him and the magic i was feeling over his honeyed voice and soft facial hair was instantly back to nought. It wasn't well lit here so he looked human but I would give him a 4, 4.5 at best (I've dated worse, but only with the assistance of.......alcohol).
"Where can we get enough alcohol to get truly plastered?" I asked with a glint of an idea forming.
"There's gallons of the stuff in the staff rooms, but medicinal alcohol might be quicker and healthier for you.......ish." Came the reply, he was obvioulsy thinking the same way as I as he was now starting to manouver my chair around to head back the way we came.
The average NHS wheelchair can pick up a fair pace when needed, and I have to admit I was enjoying the ride, it was fun and there was alcohol to come in the very near future (and if i didn't look directly at him, very plesent company to boot). I had almost forgotten the inhuman animal that was at work hunting its prey in our midst until we got back to Ludo's territorial corridors where he plied his trade and an alarm sounded followed by a London marathon level of runners streaming towards the children's ward.
"We've got two of the kids with fever crashing." Called a nurse to her collegues as they ran past us. "We could lose both of them." They were gone, we were left standing in the corridor. We needed to find strong alcohol - and we needed to find it NOW!.
I also had a tag along that works here, taking the pain of others for his (its?) nourishment and in daylight appears to be a rotten corpse and (probably worse) in shade looks like a wide mountain man that hasn't seen a razor in about as long as he last saw a bath full of water.
Ludo gave me the facts on the hospital. Originally built in the 50's with a almost total refurbishment in 2012; several new buildings and extension throughout the life of the building and service areas that the public can't go.
Working logically we needed to scale down the foot falls to cover the greatest area in a targeted way.
"Ok." I said. "If I were hunting 'Something' that is killing here." I waved my arms around to emphasis the whole building. "I would start in the morgue where all the dead bodies are." I felt proud for this piece of thinking.
"Possible." Replied Ludo, his face betraying a 'BUT' hanging after that word left unsaid.
"But......" I injected.
"Any Under Fae or Extraxi won't be caught dead in a morgue. We feed off life and have a negative association with the dead as humans do. No, unless we are dealing with a Demon who revels in decay and rot, then we need to head where the life is strongest."
"So we can rule out the wrinkly wards too."
"I would, for now. There maybe a lot of death there and probably the easiest to cover tracks on but it'll be like eating a biscuit when there is a gluttony of feasts elsewhere. No, if I were looking for fast easy prey to regenerate my strength I would want a constant supply of succour and a death rate that wouldn't draw too much attention. A strong life high death ratio if you will."
"Surely there isn't that many places here for that?" I asked. "You work here, ruling out the morgue and those waiting for it, run of the mill stuff like operations and accident and emergency; where else is there?"
"Hold on. I think you may have something. We don't know what the food supply is, its not blood. If a vampire was here I would know about it, Hell you all would know it, there's a reason why everyone knows they exist and the rest of us slip away into the murk."
Ludo went on to explain Extraxi could feed upon many things coming from the 'warms'. Pain and suffering being the most fulfilling but other Extraxi have evolved for different diets such as fear, sadness and grief (some even cause the grief by hurting or killing an individual then feed off the loved ones), panic, some even feed off positive emotions and generate enormous well being in people then syphon it off.
"So accident and emergency would be ideal, so much life force generated post injury to recover and then with the ever present deaths from the serious cases; I think it would be the best place to start. That and they are usually so busy they wouldn't notice a few extra people hanging around for hours."
It was later afternoon, very late. So I asked Ludo to lead the way to A&E. Partially this was because he worked here and knew the way, but there was a bit part of me that didn't want a soulless feeder that preys on my kin standing behind me where I couldn't see him.
This plan was soon changed when Ludo whipped out a wheel chair and asked me to get in
"It'll look less suspicious if an orderly pushes you around the corridors." He said.
Hospitals are busy places, hustle and bustle of nurses, cleaners, doctors, patients and kith and kin - like any moderately busy town centre; but if the general hospital was busy then A&E was like an international airport at Christmas. The waiting room was bigger the my flat in its entirety and filled to the rafters with all manner of people coughing, bleeding, sleeping, talking and on occasion, singing. It looked old and tired, the walls, decoration and most of the uniformed staff too.
"Where do we start?" I asked looking around at the room. The task made worse by a multitude of corridors, cubicles, rest rooms, side rooms and more corridors.
"I can't tell if there are any of my kind about, too much pollution from the humans, but if I were to get closer then it'll be easier to tell. Not only will they stand out to me but hopefully they'll recognise you and run...........or try to finish what they started."
I didn't like the way Ludo smiled at this last statement.
"We'll stay away from well lit or public areas, my kind do not look our best in light and they wouldn't want to be face to face with a mob the size of this and trust me, one look into the eyes of my kind on a feeding hunt will turn all of these people into a mob."
"Xanthic said this thing is new here, so I doubt it'll be a member of staff, ok? So would you recognise someone pretending to work here or hang around?" I mused aloud. "How long can someone be here in A&E before you're kicked out? Do they still have visiting hours? can a relative or something hang around all hours?"
"Um, not sure, possibly, don't know." Answered Ludo, "But I do know with all the checks, back ground and work history that it'll be almost impossible to trick a job here, and with the teams we work in an imposter will stand out really quick."
Ludo stood tall on his heels, breathed in far too deeply for anyone pretending to be human and swept his gaze around then bent low to speak into my ear.
"Night is drawing close, I can feel it. So lets just go, we can plan and think but I always trust in luck, random and chaotic so it is but its going to be the best we can hope for so hold on tight and think lucky."
We swept through the main room, a few eyebrows were raised but the battle hardened staff had witnessed much more anarchic behaviour and a tut from a nurse was all the comment we heard about an orderly racing a wheelchair bound patient through the corridors.
We managed to cover most of the area this way, only a meal trolley and a hard working kitchen hand slowed us down but Ludo for a large 'man' was very spry and escorted myself in that chair out of a serious risk of being scolded (ok 'warmed') by trays of food.
There is a doctor patient confidentiality thingy which means information cannot be passed by any route from consultation room to ....... well here.....but as I was neither a doctor or a patient then I guess that doesn't count.
We had a routine of a quick knock on a door, open it look at the person/people within, mutter an apology and close the door before moving onto the next. An orderly and patient can get away with this if quick enough. What we saw was an education for me and (in Ludo's words after) a mouth watering feast he could not touch.
There was a young man, head down, arse very much in the air with a doctor stitching a wound (caused by sitting on a bottle for a bet).
"I couldn't see his face." I said
"But our Extraxi wouldn't be here for that, and the doctor was human. Very sweet pain in there, do I have time for a quick sip? It'll be better for him than any local anaesthetic."
My look told him very quickly there wasn't and we moved onto the next door.
A woman, naked to the waist and laying on the bed was being looked over by a nurse; on her back a very large and very enflamed tattoo. Blood was seeping from the swellings and her blonde hair matted with sweat and stuck into scabs and congealed fluids.
From the tears of the patient and the stifled laughter of the nurse as she sterile wiped and cleaned,we both came to the conclusion this was not our goal. Neither noticed or cared about our intrusion or exit.
"Did you see that picture?" I asked as the door slowly closed on its spring.
"Two fat ladies riding on tiny mopeds?!" You humans are crazy." Said Ludo laughing with a tear in his eye. In this darkened light they glinted blue and shone with an inner nobility. Its a pity I had seen them red and flushed with diseased secretions pooling in the corners earlier as he loomed over me or I might have begun to like him.
The next couple of consultation rooms had people receiving stitches and/or injections. None jumped out at us (figuratively or literally speaking) and we moved on.
Next was a mini waiting room filled with people on chairs or like me in a wheel chair, most were holding themselves and guarding a personal pain.
"Next up X-Ray, always busy in A&E." Said Ludo, "We won't get into those rooms so easily but we can try."
I was wheeled around the corner and we saw a man, twenty something and in tatty jeans, shaven head, sleeveless tee shirt a very red grazes running up his arms from his wrists to his shoulders. He was more noticeable for his laying on the floor and hanging on for dear life.
"Someone help me" (or words to that effect once extracted of expletives and translated into English from 'street') The voice was loud but broken and whiny like my little niece when she don't get her way. Oh and very very drunk.
"Oh please help me rapidly, I seem to be about to fall off the floor." Again, I translate into words my Mother would be happy to read here. I'm not sure what a Fur King is, but he seemed very keen on calling it every other word.
"He's obviously had a small half a shandy too many." I commented from the side of my mouth quietly. Ludo, his mouth at my ear spoke in a rich tone I had not heard from him before. I felt myself leaning in towards his voice it was so smooth.
"Did you know you humans spend more than half your lives blind?"
I shook my head and felt his bead against my cheek - funny but it felt as soft as puppy fur.
"Your eyes act like cameras, taking still pictures and sending them to your brain. Your brain tries to make sense of what it sees and it judges movement, changes and other things by comparing it to the last picture sent. Brilliant if your brain wanted to keep check on that funny mound in the long grass 1,000,000 million years ago and watch as it slowly gets closer and what are those big white teeth like things; then wow, it looks very dark in here."
He continued. "Well, you are blind for all the gaps in-between the stills; anything from half to two thirds of your waking life. In the blind times the muscles around your eyes move, but the brain is clever enough to move the picture around and keep things central - like a really clever steady cam. But! " This word was said with a flourish and his tempo of conversation increased as he was obviously enjoying himself.
"But, alcohol is just basically sugar right, and such a refined fuel supply for your body that it kicks up a notch; same thing if you give a kid fizzy drink and chocolate; and the eyes start working faster, the gaps get shorter and the brain has to process the information much faster and it starts to skip, so the auto focus that makes the world go steady tells you what you actually see, which is the world bobbing around and you all end up grabbing the bed, lamp post or any convenient friend or stranger.
Fascinatingly though, I get recognised a lot more around club kicking out time even in darkest Winter. Must be the brain not having time to filter out all the superfluous, weird or confusing information and telling you how it is."
"So drunk people see more demons than sober ones?" I asked but believing the theory behind it (I've seen some weird shit when drunk but put it down to a bad glass of lambrisco).
"There is obviously no medical research into this mind you, but toddlers do look at me funny and any drunk trying to mug me as he staggers home soon runs a mile."
I looked at him and the magic i was feeling over his honeyed voice and soft facial hair was instantly back to nought. It wasn't well lit here so he looked human but I would give him a 4, 4.5 at best (I've dated worse, but only with the assistance of.......alcohol).
"Where can we get enough alcohol to get truly plastered?" I asked with a glint of an idea forming.
"There's gallons of the stuff in the staff rooms, but medicinal alcohol might be quicker and healthier for you.......ish." Came the reply, he was obvioulsy thinking the same way as I as he was now starting to manouver my chair around to head back the way we came.
The average NHS wheelchair can pick up a fair pace when needed, and I have to admit I was enjoying the ride, it was fun and there was alcohol to come in the very near future (and if i didn't look directly at him, very plesent company to boot). I had almost forgotten the inhuman animal that was at work hunting its prey in our midst until we got back to Ludo's territorial corridors where he plied his trade and an alarm sounded followed by a London marathon level of runners streaming towards the children's ward.
"We've got two of the kids with fever crashing." Called a nurse to her collegues as they ran past us. "We could lose both of them." They were gone, we were left standing in the corridor. We needed to find strong alcohol - and we needed to find it NOW!.
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