by H. Y. Hanna
“What are you going to do?” asked Caitlyn in alarm as the vet reached for a pair of metal clippers.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m just going to trim them down—”
“What?” Caitlyn stared at him in dismay. Viktor would have a fit if the vet clipped off his precious new fangs!
The fruit bat gave a horrified squeak and began struggling furiously. Liddell looked at it in astonishment and laughed again.
“If I didn’t think I was going crazy, I’d swear that he understood me,” he said with a chuckle. He tucked the folds of the towel more tightly around the fruit bat. “Now, little fellow… if you’ll just hold still for a moment—”
“Wait! Um… er… are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Caitlyn, hovering around him and resisting the urge to snatch the bat out of his hands.
“Oh yes, I do it all the time for hamsters and rabbits with overgrown teeth. Don’t worry; it only takes a moment…” He lifted the clippers and bent over the bat.
Caitlyn looked frantically around. She needed to find a way to distract Liddell… she was just wondering if she could risk shoving one of the metal trays of veterinary tools off the counter and onto the floor when the door to the room was flung open.
The veterinary nurse stood in the doorway, panting. “David! A puppy’s been brought in with its head stuck in a flower pot. It’s really panicking and the owners are very distressed.”
Caitlyn could hear the sound of frantic barking, mingled with raised voices and a child crying, coming from the reception down the corridor. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Liddell put the clippers down.
“Oh dear… I’ll come right away. Here, can you put the bat back in the cage for me?” He folded the towel over the bat and handed the bundle to the vet nurse before hurrying out.
The girl held the bundle at arm’s length for a moment, eyeing it uncertainly, then turned towards the cage. Caitlyn's heart sank. Oh no! She couldn’t let them put Viktor back in the cage again! She started to say something but, before she could speak, the bundle in the towel began to quiver and shake.
“Wh-what’s happening…?” the vet nurse cried, dropping the bundle on the examination table in alarm.
The folds in the towel moved as the bundle grew larger and larger… and the angry squeaking began to sound more and more like an irate human voice… The next moment, the towel slipped off the balding head of a very old man. He was dressed in an ancient black suit and high-collared shirt, with an old-fashioned cravat, and he looked grumpily around.
“Really! It is preposterous, the way I have been treated!” he said, jutting his bottom lip out in an aggrieved fashion.
The vet nurse gave a scream, and reeled back, staring at the old man sitting on the consulting table.
“Oh my God!” She gaped at him. “How… Where… Who are you?”
Viktor climbed laboriously off the table, dusted himself off, and glowered at her. “My name is Count Viktor Dracul, of the Megachiroptera Order, Ancient Guardian of the Other Realms… and I would thank you to stop manhandling me, young lady!”
Caitlyn groaned. “Viktor, I don't think this is the time to start introducing yourself in such detail.”
“Eh? And why not? I have nothing to be ashamed of.” He drew himself up proudly. “We vampires are a noble race—”
“What? Did you say you're a vampire?” The vet nurse gave him a suspicious look. “Wait a minute… you’re having me on, aren’t you? Is this like one of them pranks on the telly? You set me up!” She looked quickly around the room, as if checking for hidden cameras. “This is some kind of joke, isn’t it? Just to humiliate and embarrass me—”
Viktor bristled. “I am most certainly not a joke. And as for humiliation, I am the one who has been poked and prodded in the most demeaning way.” He fingered his jaw gingerly. “Really, the indignities I have had to suffer—”
“Oh my God! Are… are those real fangs?” The vet nurse stared at the yellowed tips visible at the corners of the old vampire’s mouth.
“Of course they are real!” snapped Viktor. Then he conceded, “Well, they are not my original fangs. I lost those fighting a Siberian bolotnik and had to resort to vampire dentures for a few decades… ugh, dreadful things—gave me terrible breath… I did get a pair of new fangs inserted at the beginning of the century, although, I have to say, the dentist was an utter nincompoop! Had no idea what he was doing: fangs kept falling out all the time!” He felt his jaw again. “These new ones seem all right so far, though. New dentist chap in Transylvania. He’s done a lot of work with werewolf teeth and ogre underjaw and seems to know his stuff…” He stuck his scrawny neck out and bared his teeth in the girl’s face. “What do you think?”
The vet nurse stared at the long yellow fangs protruding from his sunken gums, then her eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted dead away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Vik-tor!” cried Caitlyn in exasperation. “What are you doing, scaring her like that?”
“I wasn't scaring her—I was showing her my new teeth,” said Viktor, looking bewildered.
“Oh, never mind… you’d better just leave now,” said Caitlyn crossly. “You’ve caused enough trouble for one day. You shouldn’t even be here in the first place!”
“Well, I didn’t know the basket of fruit was going to be put in the car,” said Viktor, sounding like a sulky child. “I was heading to the Library at the Manor for my usual nap in the corner above the oak bookcase when I caught the delectable scent of…” He closed his eyes and sniffed with exaggerated pleasure. “Ahhhh! The sweet perfume of nectarines! The honeyed aroma of peaches! The luscious bouquet of ripe grapes! That bossy cook woman was looking the other way and it was the work of a moment to shift into my bat form and climb into the basket… Ah! Then I discovered the bananas! That first mouthful was—”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure it was wonderful,” said Caitlyn distractedly, throwing a look over her shoulder at the room door. She could still hear loud voices coming from the reception but things seemed to be calming down and she knew that the vet could return any moment. “Listen, Viktor, you’ve got to get out of here before anyone sees you. There should be a back door to the clinic at the end of this corridor—you can slip out that way unnoticed.”
“I do not need to skulk out the back way!” said Viktor, drawing himself up to his full height and puffing out his bony chest. “We vampires have great powers of invisibility. I can simply glide past everyone in the reception without anyone noticing me!”
Caitlyn gave him a sceptical look. She had witnessed Viktor’s attempts at “invisibility” a few times in the past and they had never ended well. “Why don’t you just try walking out the back way, for a change? Please, Viktor…” She crouched down next to the vet nurse, and was relieved to see that the girl didn’t seem to have any injuries. In fact, she was already stirring. “You’ve got to go!”
“Oh, very well…” Viktor grumbled. He shuffled to the door, opened it, and gave her a huffy look over his shoulder. “I must say, you have the most disrespectful attitude. Your mother always showed great faith in my vampire abilities!”
“My mother—!” Caitlyn stared at him. A hundred questions rushed into her head and words tumbled out of her mouth as she rushed over to him. “Oh my God, Viktor—that’s what I’ve been wanting to speak to you about! You never mentioned her before… you were sort of like her godfather, right? Do you know what happened to her? Were you there when I was born? Why was I abandoned—”
She broke off as she heard footsteps and nearly howled in frustration. Just when I might be getting some answers at last! Then she reminded herself that Viktor wasn’t going to disappear—she could ask him again when she next saw him. The important thing now was to get him out.
“Oh… never mind, Viktor—just go!” She gave him a gentle shove and watched anxiously as he shuffled down the corridor towards the rear of the clinic. Then she turned to see the vet approaching from the other end. He was
squinting down the corridor and frowning.
“Is that… Did I just see an old man going down there?” he asked, peering down the corridor, which was now empty.
“Old man? Where? I didn’t see anyone,” said Caitlyn with an innocent smile. Then she grabbed the vet’s hand and dragged him back into the consulting room. “I’m really glad you came back, Dr Liddell—your nurse has fainted.”
“What?” Liddell dropped down next to the girl. “Sandra? Sandra, are you okay?”
She opened her eyes and looked around in a daze. “Where is he?” she whispered.
“Where’s who?” asked Liddell.
“The vampire!”
Liddell laughed. “What vampire?”
“There was a vampire… well, he looked like an old man, actually, but he said he was a vampire… showed me his fangs—horrible long yellow things—and he changed from the bat… yes, that bat in the cage—it wasn’t a bat at all but an old man and—”
“Sandra…” Liddell looked at her with consternation. “Did you hit your head?”
“No! No!” The girl sat upright and looked around the room. “He was here! Honest! I’m not making it up. I saw him with my own eyes—” She caught sight of Caitlyn and brightened. “She saw him too!”
Caitlyn squirmed as the vet turned to look at her. “I… um… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled.
“What do you mean? You were talking to him!” insisted Sandra. “You even knew his name… you called him Vincent or Vick or something—”
“Sandra, maybe you’d better go to the hospital,” said Liddell, eyeing her worriedly. “Hallucinations can be a sign of—”
“I’m not hallucinating! I’m telling you—I saw him! This old man with fangs who changed from the bat in the cage.” She was starting to sound hysterical. She looked pleadingly at Caitlyn. “You’ve got to back me up.”
Caitlyn glanced uneasily at the vet. “I… er… everything was such a blur—” She hesitated, then took a deep breath and added: “But I think Dr Liddell is right and you hit your head when you fell. You were chasing the fruit bat—it had got loose again—and you must have tripped on something. You tried to grab it, remember?”
She hated having to do this; it seemed so cruel to the girl, and yet she couldn’t admit the truth about Viktor either. She doubted that Liddell would believe her, and then it would be the two of them shipped off to hospital for psychiatric evaluation! Still, she felt guilty as Sandra was led away, still protesting and insisting that she hadn’t been imagining things.
“Whew…” Liddell mopped his brow with a large handkerchief as he came back to join her after leaving Sandra with the receptionist. “Talk about a morning of excitement, eh?”
Caitlyn gave him a weak smile.
“So what happened to the bat?” asked Liddell, glancing at the empty cage.
“Oh! Um… er… it slipped out the door and flew away,” said Caitlyn, rather inanely.
"Really? Hmm… well, I suppose it will probably be all right in the wild—it had good weight on its body and was free of parasites. Still, I would have liked to deliver it safely to a wildlife sanctuary—”
“Um… so would you like to look at Nibs now?” asked Caitlyn quickly to distract him.
“Good gracious, yes… I’d forgotten about the little mite,” said the vet, leading the way to the other consulting room.
Caitlyn realised guiltily that she, too, had nearly forgotten about Nibs in all the excitement. Luckily, they found the black kitten fast asleep in his carrier. He was awake and eager to play, though, the minute Liddell took him out of the cage, batting the stethoscope with his paw as the vet began to examine him.
“I’ve been doing some research since seeing you at Jeremy’s farm,” said Liddell. “But I have to say, so far, nothing quite fits with what we’re seeing here. For example, there is something called ‘fading kitten syndrome’ where kittens don’t gain weight and essentially decline, and maybe even die, from secondary conditions like dehydration and hypothermia. But it usually affects much younger kittens and in any case…” He leaned back to eye the playful kitten in front of him. “Nibs is just far too healthy. Kittens with FKS tend to be weak and lethargic, very thin, with no interest in food…” He produced a couple of cat treats from his pocket and showed them to Nibs, who promptly wolfed them down and mewed for more. The vet chuckled. “No problem with appetite there. Is he active?”
Caitlyn laughed. “Oh yeah! He’s always running around, getting under everyone’s feet. Lately, he’s also started venturing farther away from home and getting more confident about exploring the forest, plus I’ve seen him trying to hunt and catch insects a few times. In fact, he’s behaving exactly how a growing kitten should, except that he’s not getting any bigger.” She paused, then asked, remembering what Pomona had said: “Is it possible that he’s just… well… a runt that can’t get bigger?”
The vet shrugged. “There are instances of dwarfism in cats, where a mutation of the fibroblast growth factor receptor gene causes abnormally short limbs. In fact, some controversial breeders have selected for this trait and created the ‘Munchkin’ breed. But again, Nibs just doesn’t fit the profile. His legs are not disproportionately short compared to his body, he doesn’t have a larger-than-normal head, nor enlarged bone joints, nor bowed legs… as you say, he looks exactly like a normal kitten. Just one that’s not getting any bigger.” He shook his head and laughed. “If it didn’t sound so ludicrous, I’d almost say he was frozen in time!”
Caitlyn was silent. It was the same thing that she had said to Pomona and a new thought entered her head. What if she was looking for answers in the wrong place? What if what affected Nibs had a magical cause, not a medical one?
She realised that the vet was speaking again and hastily dragged her attention back to him.
“…one other possibility is a PSS—a portosystemic shunt. It’s a form of liver defect some kittens are born with; it’s an abnormal connection between the portal vascular system and systemic circulation, which essentially means that they can’t detoxify their blood properly and this can affect their health and lead to stunted growth. Again, Nibs doesn’t seem to be showing any of the associated symptoms but… Well, we’ll run the tests anyway. If you leave him with us, we’ll try to do the scans and blood samples and other tests later today.”
“If it is PSS, is there a cure?”
“Sometimes it can be treated by dietary management and antibiotics… other times, surgical intervention is necessary.”
“Surgery?” said Caitlyn, horrified. “On such a young kitten?”
“Abdominal surgery is the only way to tie off the shunting vessel and redirect the flow of blood from the gastrointestinal tract into the liver.” The vet patted Caitlyn’s hand. “But let’s just get the test results first and see, hmm? To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be surprised if the tests came back negative. I’m grasping at straws here. It’s all a bit of a mystery…” He sighed. “This is as odd as Jeremy’s cows.”
“Oh? You still haven’t got a diagnosis for that either?”
Liddell shook his head. “No, I’m still trying to eliminate several possible causes. It could be botulism or monensin toxicity, although the symptoms and situation don’t quite match—”
“So you don’t think that there could be a supernatural cause?” asked Caitlyn, half joking.
Liddell groaned. “Not you too? Don’t tell me you share Vera Bottom’s belief that it’s all due to a witch’s curse?” He shook his head in exasperation. “I’ve assured that woman several times already that there must be a logical explanation, and Jeremy has spoken to her too, but she just won’t listen! She is convinced that their farm was hexed by Minerva Chattox using black magic. In fact, when I arrived there yesterday morning, she was practically ready to mobilise a mob and hunt Minerva down. It took some strong words from Jeremy to calm her down.”
But what if she hadn’t really calmed down? Caitlyn thought. What if�
��after we left—Vera decided to follow through with her threats? Her cronies were already there with her and they’d all seemed to be equally incensed about Minerva. They could have given Jeremy some excuse and pretended to go out for tea together, then slipped over to Huntingdon Manor to lie in wait for Minerva by the icehouse…
“Now, don’t let your imagination run away with you,” said the vet, obviously following her thoughts. “Vera can be very superstitious and she does tend to get a bit hysterical, I admit, but she’s not a murderer!”
Caitlyn was thoughtful as she followed the vet quietly back to the reception, and was so preoccupied that she barely said a word to James as she got in the car. He started the engine, then glanced at her and said:
“Is it Nibs? Are you worried about him?”
“Hmm?” Caitlyn blinked. “Oh… no… I mean, I am keen to find out why he’s not growing, but he seems so healthy that it’s hard to be really concerned.”
“Then what’s bothering you?”
“It’s this murder… Dr Liddell was telling me that Vera Bottom blamed all the farm problems on a witch’s hex and was even talking about getting a group together…” She turned to him. “Do you think Minerva could have been killed by a sort of… well, like a lynch mob?”
James frowned. “Normally I would have laughed at such a suggestion, but I have to say, I’ve been surprised by some of the reactions I’ve seen in the past few days. I had no idea that so many of the villagers were still so superstitious and fearful about witchcraft and magic.” He paused to consider. “But I highly doubt that Minerva was killed by a ‘mob’. For one thing, a group of people like that would surely make a lot of noise. The icehouse isn’t that far away from the rest of the outbuildings—or the stable courtyard, for that matter. Wouldn’t one of us have heard something?”
