Page 12 of Beecham’s Infirmary for the Affluent Afflicted (My Darling Malady #1)

IN WHICH THE FALLEN HEIR IS TRANSFORMED, THE FURNACE BURNS brIGHT—AND WHY HASN’T THE LAUDANUM WORN OFF YET???

D isappointingly, the high dose of laudanum did not seem to kill me, nor the pain. It did, however, make me ragingly drunk.

Better drunk than dead, I say.

I wrench myself from the cold tile floor, where I appear to sit in a dark cell. My hands fly to my face; my teeth are still missing, and I’m freezing . My cheeks feel like I’ve been standing in a draft, my chin and neck still crusted in blood.

My vision adjusts quickly in the dim light. A guard of some sort stands armed with a rifle outside the only barred exit, propped and snoring against the wall opposite the cell door just feet from me. Oil lamps flicker beyond, no sunlight to be seen.

Padded walls lined in copper mesh. A distant orange light, flickering around the corner.

In the long moment it takes me to realize I’ve been made prisoner, I notice the other swaying figures in the center of the room. Pale shapes, hollow-eyed. Their breathing wet, harsh, and shallow.

A woman, her face sunken, lips cracked and bloodied, shivers in a dress of chiffon and lace now black with soot. Her throat is torn, bleeding wounds in the shape of the collar I’d worn just minutes—hours?—ago.

I’m not wholly sure they’re alive, but their blood smells half sweet, half rotten. As if they’re not wholly edible, but would do in a pinch.

Wow , I think, licking my lips and shuffling away until I hit the padded wall. I am a jackass.

My stomach growls violently in response.

A ghostly child stands close to her, and next to him, is the figure of a man crumpled upon the floor. I’m positive he’s not breathing, because my pounding head has afforded me a new level of delirium: Whether or not I am imagining it, I can hear every sound in the room.

The whimpers of the child. The reassurances from his mother, laced in terror.

Grating metal against stone around the corner, from where the flickering orange light roars to life. Shifting stone or sediment of some sort. An iron door on poorly-oiled hinges, creaking open. Embers float into the dark after each plop of stone.

Through the haze, fear grips me—albeit distantly. A fucking fire.

I’m about to be incinerated, aren’t I?

I begin to laugh. What else is there to do? But the sound is like sandpaper down my throat; I shove my hand into my pocket and pull out that last bag from Amah. I don’t know what those cooling herbs did for me, besides probably heighten the effects of the laudanum, now that I think about it.

To give you strength when the cold tries to break you.

I am, undoubtedly, a freezing and broken man. And if I have the choice to be warmed by herbs or flame charring skin, I’ll choose the first in every godforsaken lifetime .

Holding the dripping wad of fibrous herbs above my tongue, I prepare for the worst—when the child makes a ghastly noise of surprise. The man beside him has shifted a leg.

“He’s alive,” the boy croaks, despite his mother’s desperate shushing. The skin of his mouth has been ripped at the corners, and four of his top teeth are missing, too.

“Rigors, probably,” I comment, without a single thought.

As the woman cradles his head and shoots me a deadly glare, the shovelling sound around the corner stops abruptly. Terror fills her eyes, and she tugs her son closer.

“What’s that noise?” the unseen presence tending to the furnace growls.

Quickly, I shove the entire wad of herbs into my mouth and nearly choke, chewing twice before swallowing it whole. If I’m lucky enough, it’ll give me the fire—the strength to do something about the person approaching the strange, pale family across from me.

If I’m unlucky, it kills me. Then, none of this is my problem anymore, is it?

As soon as it’s down, my body roars to life, as if a torch is lit in my chest. I place one foot under me, just as he rounds the corner and grabs the leg of the stirring man despite the hoarse protests of his family.

But the newcomer doubles back upon seeing me rise to my feet, looking like he’s seen a ghost. He might as well have.

“You,” I growl, sauntering across the room, my steps awkward, like a sad revenant. “Put him?—”

And then … everything goes black.

Pain blooms in my right shoulder.

“Shoot it in the head, you buffoon!”

I’m halfway in the arms of the coal-shoveller, half sprawled on the floor, as if I’d fainted on him.

I make to speak, to snarl as another blast echoes throughout the room, but the sound is lost on my newly bloodied mouth; I lick my lips—it’s my own blood, oozing from my bottom lip.

My missing teeth are not only there , but lengthened into two pairs like Alma’s had been.

But these ones are different. Deeply rooted within me.

I stagger to my feet in shock as the woman, boy, and newly awoken man cower in the corner. My left shoulder sears in agony this time, blood splattering their faces?—

But I don’t spin to glance at who’s shooting me, or has such poor aim, he should probably give the rifle to the kid to finish the job. I don’t think about the fact that my head’s one lucky shot away from being blown to smithereens.

All I can think of is what to do next.

I slam the coal-shoveller against the padded wall and sink my teeth into his throat. Deep into it. His blood is ecstacy, an instant drug to my own parched veins, singing with power. It sprays everywhere, covering me, but I swallow what I can.

The moment I feel my racing heart stop—or slow, whatever it’s doing I dislike it—I’m centered. Home. Whatever has been clawing its way out of me is here now, urging me forth. What once was weakness is now adrenaline pumping through me.

I spin and punch the armored rifleman in the face, dodging his last shot.

It doesn’t fare too well for him; I think his skull is smashed in on the side, but there’s no time to look.

My gaze snaps upon the family in the corner, arms up, to show them I’m safe.

Or, at least the safest thing in the sanatorium.

Either way, they peel themselves off the wall; I’m at least relieved they seem more frightened by the now-dead fellow with the gun.

It appears one of the man’s knees have been bashed in, likely in an attempt to protect his wife and child. I scoop him up on my shoulder.

I shake the rifle free of the corpse at my feet and hand the strap to the woman, but she’s frail.

Bled out, and left to die on the cusp of a curse—or magic, or laudanum poisoning, or whatever it is that has brought me back to life.

I wonder if they understand they’re stuck in some sort of limbo, at least halfway to what I am.

I barely understand it myself.

She takes the weapon onto her shoulder and nearly collapses from its weight.

There are more footsteps echoing from above; we must be under the city. Under Beecham’s.

Instinct grabs hold of me, most vile and absurd.

Without thinking, I bring my palm to my mouth and slice it on my teeth.

Then, I shove it in their faces, first the woman, then the boy, smearing and ensuring it’s entered their mouths.

I don’t know what I’ve just done, or the life I’ve damned them to.

All I know is, it’s the best way to give them the fighting chance that was promised upon entering the infirmary.

Instead of gagging, they lap at it, their faces still wrenched in disgust—but they ingest my blood anyway, scooping it off their cheeks and onto their tongues, almost as if they cannot help themselves.

I do it to the man on my shoulder last, then bolt for the open cell door. “Hurry,” I shout, beckoning for the woman and child to follow. “ Hurry! ”

I push forward into the lamplight and smash a guard and a nurse into the wall before finding the staircase they’d descended around the corner.

With the family on my tail, I ascend.