Death of Connor Sanderson_Prequel to Fire & Ice Series

by Karen Payton Holt

  Death of Connor Sanderson

  Prequel to the Fire & Ice Series

  By

  Karen Payton Holt

  Copyright - Karen Payton Holt: 2018

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author, except for 'brief quotations' as part of articles of critique or review.

  No part of this publication may be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

  The story is a work of fiction.

  All characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  If you are here, you are about to read my book and to start out on an adventure.

  Think ‘Twilight’ meets ‘Game of Thrones’, with a dark twist, and you are in the right mindset to enter the world of Fire & Ice.

  AVAILABLE NOW:

  BOOK ONE in the Series:

  Fire & Ice: Awakening

  Available in Paperback on Amazon

  Paperback and Hardback available in bookstores:

  A5 Paperback ISBN 978-1-9996614-0-3

  Hardback ISBN 978-1-9996614-1-0

  Available on Kindle & FREE on Kindle Unlimited

  BOOK TWO in the Series:

  Fire & Ice: Survival

  Available in Paperback on Amazon

  Paperback and Hardback available in bookstores:

  A5 Paperback ISBN 978-1-9996614-2-7

  Hardback ISBN 978-1-9996614-3-4

  Available on Kindle & FREE on Kindle Unlimited

  Three upcoming releases are:

  BOOK THREE: Earth Walker

  BOOK FOUR: Heart of Stone

  BOOK FIVE: Invasion

  For the latest news on the publishing dates visit my websites:

  karenpaytonholt.com

  Karen Payton Holt on Facebook.

  @karenpaytonholt on TWITTER.

  We are on an epic journey, but this is where it all began for Connor.

  London: 1910

  I hope you enjoy the book – this is the prequel to the Fire & Ice series,

  and I welcome your support!

  I dedicate this novel to the people who believed in me.

  They drove me forward, and, at times, gave me a much-needed kick up the posterior.

  This is for my mum, Sylvia, and my friend of forty years, Steve.

  With special thanks to my Uncle Michael and my Australian friend, Craig – both of

  whom read the first four chapters of an early draft, and kept asking,

  “When can I read the rest?”

  Death of Connor Sanderson.

  *Warning, adult themes are contained in this book.

  London, 1910. Bram Stoker’s Dracula had made barely a ripple in the pool of human consciousness, and it would be another 12 years before Nosferatu breathes life into a vampire on the big screen.

  Chapter 1

  Doctor Connor Sanderson rolled over in his trestle bed, hearing the creaking beneath his weight and not knowing for certain if it was the juddering of bed springs, or his bones grating through his skull. It seemed louder than usual. The sweat-stained padding of his cot fell far short of being comfortable. The meager hospital accommodation encouraged a body to keep moving until exhaustion was complete.

  Settling his shoulder blades back onto the sagging mattress, he peeled tired eyelids open and stared at the mustard-colored ceiling. The cracks decorating it appeared to have laid down a labyrinth of new shoots overnight. They reminded him of a family tree. He always thought of himself as a ripe plum hanging on the thickest branch, but, this morning, he felt drained and more fitting to a prune. I feel so lethargic, what the hell is wrong with me?

  The thought percolated. A memory danced around the edges of his tired brain, but, the more he tried to capture it, the faster it raced away. His mother’s adage, along with a sepia-tinted picture of her delicate features, came to mind. “Memories are like love; stop looking and they’ll come and find you.” Complete rubbish, but heck, what else have I got?

  Connor heaved a deep sigh and trapped the breath inside, along with the word ‘OUCH’.

  Swinging his legs over the side of the bed and moving awkwardly to a sitting position, he lifted his cotton lawn nightshirt and craned a stiff neck to peer down the length of his hard, ridged abdomen. Everything looked normal - an edifice of boulders covered in the velvety texture of peach-toned skin - but the process of breathing had pressure inside, as though his lungs were already full and trying to burst.

  T.B., pleurisy, pneumonia? His speculation was tempered with the certainty that the symptoms did not fit. I can’t become ill now, I’m just getting somewhere with Sir John. He has just noticed me.

  Planting his feet hip width apart, he put his palms on his knees and straightened his spine. Closing his eyes, he ran over the familiar territory of his body, attending to the tension in every muscle, in an inventory of how he felt. Everything feels... unusual.

  Connor laughed gently and shook his head. Get a grip. What did you expect? He had just worked sixteen hours straight and spent the remainder of the night on a cot that only allowed sleep when he was too exhausted to think anymore. By the time night had fallen and he rolled onto the down-filled mattress, his thigh muscles were aching as though he had been wading through molasses, and his bones felt like heavy rods of iron.

  The Royal Eye Hospital in St George’s Circus had only been a teaching hospital for four years and competition was fierce. Connor would be twenty-five next birthday and was too busy operating on eyeballs to gaze into any with romantic intent, but, he at least had a promising career. Home and hearth will come later. I’m not losing my place on the team, not now.

  Opening his eyes, he manipulated his neck, digging his fingers in hard to ease tight muscle as he stretched out his shoulders and rose to his feet. Suddenly six-foot and three-inches seemed far too lofty a height for the pumping station of his heart to manage. Flecks of burning ash, like white-hot wisps dancing around a bonfire, clustered in front of his eyes.

  He sat down again, fast.

  “Damn. Low blood pressure? Vertigo? What on earth-?” Connor dragged his hands down over his tight face, freezing as his fingertips faltered over a hardened network of capillaries under his skin.

  Confusion drove him towards the mirror for a closer inspection. His fingernails dug into fists when he pushed himself up from the bed more carefully this time. He moved forward, testing the ground as though he feared his world would drop away from beneath him.

  Nothing behaved like it should, and he felt like a paraplegic rediscovering the use of a forgotten limb. When his hands gripped the chipped rim of the small porcelain sink, he felt a spike of satisfaction at having made it.

  He looked into a mirror, finding a clean spot on the tarnished silver-foil trapped between two sheets of glass.

  The early dawn of another gray day in London struggled to break into the room through the rippled, hand-crafted panes in the window. Finally, Connor got the angle right, and enough rays of light reflected in the mirror for his eyes to gather them and build an image.

  Turning his cheek to one side and then the other, the silver threads under his skin taunted him as they etched and faded when he moved. Connor leaned closer, stretching his cheeks in a ghoul-like expression. He peered hard into his rattled gaze, unnerved by the brittle jet-black glitter of anxiety in his wide pupils, and a cold sweat broke out on his clammy skin.

  “Are they paler?” he mutter
ed, feeling foolish at the thoughts escaping his mouth.

  Mr. Banks, the guy with the hemorrhage inside his eyeball, the blood clot darkened his eye-color to navy, tinting the lens. Connor had also seen pigmentary glaucoma. That disease made eyes appear lighter, but the onset would not be this fast.

  He stared at his irises, assessing their startling light-blue color, with striking cobalt rims, and wondered aloud, “Are they lighter?”

  His black hair lay in a disheveled mess across his forehead, and his chin was dark with stubble that needed the urgent attention of a cut-throat razor if he was going to make it to Sir John Creedy’s study by seven a.m. The longer he stared at his tight, blank features the more ridiculous he felt.

  “For goodness’ sake man, pull yourself together.”

  He sucked in a huff of frustration which made his ribcage ache, straightened, and yanked his nightshirt off over his head. A puzzled frown cut into his brow when he noticed a greasy brown stain smeared over his chest and shoulders.

  Striking a match to light a candle, Connor held it aloft and rubbed at the space below his clavicle with a wet finger. A cleaner patch confirmed it was not a shadow. “What in God’s name?” The hole in his memory rattled like bones in the closet. What happened last night?

  A surge of panic felt like a cold wet flannel on the back of his neck. A grimace cramped his features when needles of pain shot up through the base of his skull, and sweat erupted on his brow as a vise gripped his temples. With an agonized groan, he dropped to his knees and vomited over the hard flagstones. When the retching spasms faded to dry heaving which burned his throat, he rocked forward and rested his hot brow on the cold stone floor.

  The respite was short-lived as his muscles jerked violently, and he keeled over onto his side. He clutched his stomach, feeling like a fist of pain had reached in, twisted his guts, and was trying to rip them out. Connor’s last conscious thought was, ‘am I dying?’.

  His slack body lay where it had fallen until the hot-ash burn of pins and needles penetrated, and the black clouds parted. His face was stiff where his cheek had pressed into the hard cold flagstone. For a moment, opening his eyes and seeing the fallen extinguished candle, embedded in a puddle of cold wax, his disorientation was complete.

  The confusion dissipated when his nasal lining burned with the bile of his stomach contents, and his guts ached. How long was I out? He felt like a coach and horses had driven over his body. His stiff limbs ached when he fought to stand up. Avoiding the urge to look in the mirror, he walked with a labored stride through to the small bathing room, and finding relief in routine, he mindlessly kept moving.

  He wound open the faucets to fill the bath, listening when the pipes clattered with more ferocity than he had ever heard before. Stripping his vomit-soiled clothes from his body, he stepped into the water, and recoiled at the biting pain of the scalding liquid. His nerve endings danced on that point where ice and fire felt the same and he looked for the steam which should be condensing on the mirror. Nothing.

  With a scowl, he directed a blast of ice-cold water into the tub. How can it be boiling? Great. The tank must be rusted up again. Must get Baxter on to it. He ignored the worm of discomfort which suggested that maybe, it was his flesh that was cold.

  Uneasy and disgruntled, but not understanding why, he tried again. Stepping into water that was merely hot now, he lowered himself down, reclined back onto the slope of metal. Billowing clouds of pink stained the water, before the eddying currents of his body movement swept them away. What on earth?

  Puzzled, he rubbed his fingers over the stain on his collarbone and inspected them in the dim light. Blood? He sat up fast, the water sloshing over the side of the cast iron bath and soaking the floor.

  A wave of disgust drove him under the water again, submerging him completely. Then he surged upward like a deep-sea diver rushing to the surface, sluicing both hands through his saturated hair. Grabbing the bar of carbolic soap, he frantically rubbed it over his neck and shoulders. He stood up and continued the harsh treatment down over his abdomen, which felt tender beneath the rigid girdle of muscle. After he scoured every inch of his skin, he stepped out, snatched a white towel from the wooden rail, and repeated the brutal scrubbing, drying himself with the rough cotton fabric.

  Without pausing, naked, he strode across the small room back to the basin and stood in front of the mirror. Driven by the distraction of perpetual movement – if he didn’t stop, he didn’t have to think – using a soft bristled brush, he lathered his jaw and neck with shaving soap. He frowned in fierce concentration while he focused on each grazing sweep of the cut-throat razor. Running the blade methodically up his neck, he leaned his head to one side and then the other. Ouch.

  He pressed his fingertips to his jaw, inspecting a line of small bruises that formed a crescent shape on his neck. He leaned in closer, rubbing harder, and picked at the scabs he found. They came away easily, with no bleeding. So, three days old? Staring hard into the mirror failed to jog his memory. Three days? Nothing to do with last night, then. And the blood?

  Connor shrugged, shaking off the confusion. He at least felt clean when he pushed his arms into a starched white shirt, buttoned the fly on his high waisted charcoal-gray trousers, and pulled the suspenders in to place. He donned a V-neck waistcoat, and threaded the chain of his pocket watch across his chest from one button hole to another, leaving it hanging in plain view over his breast pocket.

  Running a tortoise shell comb through his hair smoothed the raven wing sweep back from his forehead, forming a sleek black skullcap which accented his chiseled features. Most of the nurses considered him handsome, with a streamlined nose, full lips, and high cheekbones that arrested their glances. But, the most compelling aspect of his attraction was that he was oblivious of the effect these attributes had on female hearts.

  He filled his mind with the day’s grueling timetable of lectures and surgical rounds, and ran from the puzzle pieces inside his head which were fusing into pictures he did not want to look at.

  Snatching up his jacket, he pulled open the door and fled down the gloomy hallway. His footsteps rang out, bouncing from the walls, and a headache that he had not registered before, amplified the sound to an eardrum piercing volume. Pushing both arms into his jacket at once and jerking the thick flannel fabric up over his shoulders, he headed purposefully to his morning meeting with Sir John Creedy.

  Chapter 2

  Connor descended the steps which led down into the public area of the hospital, opened the door at the bottom, and stepped into the whitewashed corridor. He paused abruptly when a harsh cocktail of carbolic soap, uric acid, and antiseptic stung his sinuses, as if he had walked into a wall of stagnant water. Distaste curled his lip, and he glanced at the high-level vent in the wall opposite and cursed softly. He expected to face the odors of stale sweat on fevered brows and the soiled bedding of the incontinent, on the wards, but not here in the students’ quarters.

  “The damn place is falling to pieces. The ventilation shafts from men’s’ surgical must be blocked.”

  Closing the door behind him, he hung onto the door handle to steady himself. His head jerked around – a sickly sweet aroma clung to his nasal passages and flooded his mouth with saliva. The familiar rustle of cotton under starched linen whispered through his head, but he waited a seemingly interminable time for the young nurse to finally appear.

  As she approached, he focused on her delicate features. A frown flitted across his face when her softly gasped breath, ricocheting from the white walls, curled a knot of inexplicable excitement in his stomach. Most of her brown hair was demurely swept back and hidden under a starched cap, secured like a bonnet under her chin. Her throat was covered by an impeccably-starched white detachable collar, which formed part of her crisp white apron, and her back was ramrod straight, and yet, he could almost taste the air of agitation which surrounded her.

  Connor battled with confusion as her footfalls were accompanied by a galloping beat, li
ke a mallet tenderizing a bloody steak. When she drew closer, the wet pounding sound separated into four harmonized hammer strikes, and an accompanying shushing descant note. His gaze darted around the corridor. What is that sound?

  “Are you feeling unwell, Doctor Sanderson?”

  “Not at all. I am quite well, thank you, Nurse Ramsey.” Connor forced a calm response, dismissively turning his head to look back along the corridor in the direction from which she had come. His heart galloped in his chest and vibrated through his ribcage with the thudding of a jungle drum beat.

  “Well, if you are sure,” she said. She seemed unwilling to tear her gaze from his stony expression. Her apron swished when she busied herself, brushing an imagined speck of dust from the fabric.

  His jaw clenched as the symphony of the wet clattering sounds became faster, and a rouge flush stained her cheeks before she moved slowly away.

  Connor remained rooted to the spot, swallowing the sudden taste of citrus which filled his mouth, and waiting for the palpitations to subside. I must get checked out. Vomiting, and now, palpitations.

  When the corridor came back into focus again, it was empty. The clattering inside his head faded to the dull headache once more, and he felt cold. And bone dry? Not drenched in the clammy perspiration that should follow an adrenalin rush of emotion. So palpitations was no longer a likely explanation. And I have never found Nurse Ramsey fetching, in any event. Although, for the first time, it hit him that she harbored feelings for him. How do I know that? The air around her had hummed with a magnetic charge that tingled through his fibers. But it was my heart, I felt. It had to be.

  Worry cast a shadow of intensity over his face. Raising a hand to the upright starched collar embracing his own throat, he pressed a cold thumb pad to his carotid artery and found a sluggish and disturbingly slow pulse. Very slow, no wonder I passed out.