Death of Connor Sanderson_Prequel to Fire & Ice Series

by Karen Payton Holt

  Connor stared Rufus down, watching his barb hit home and angry annoyance clench his opponent’s fists. The faint purple line of a broken nose cut across the perfection of the mask as Rufus hung onto the remnants of a malicious smile.

  Taking a step closer, Connor looked down at the six-foot tall Rufus, who suddenly seemed much shorter recoiling under the weight of Connor’s glare. “Do you want me to break your nose again? I’m sure Mary would thank me.”

  Connor’s words spawned a subconscious gesture as Rufus’ index finger dragged down the side of his healing nose and swept along the fading bruise on his cheekbone. The malicious smile became fixed and brittle as he said, “I’m sure she would. Was she suitably thankful last time? Spread her thighs for you, did she? Was she-?”

  Scorn stiffened Connor’s smile. He closed a fist around Rufus’ shirt front, effectively strangling his words. He froze as his cold knuckles dug into the young man’s throat, and his own chest echoed with the cadence of the pumping current of blood massaging his clenched hand.

  An unsettling feeling of panic rattled at the cell door inside Connor’s head at yet another sign that every sensation in his body was alien to him. He heard the capillaries creaking in Rufus’ neck as if they threatened to burst. Before the young man registered it too, Connor eased back to human pressure. I don’t want others to question what I have become. He absorbed the shiver rolling through Rufus’ body as the chill of his iron grip bit into his victim’s skin like freezer burn.

  His gaze darkened to steel-gray flint in a face sculpted in ice, and Rufus’ arrogant expression splintered, a flash of alarm stirring in the depths of the narrowed brown eyes.

  Connor’s own vision clouded as he played out the crystal-clear recollection of a night, three weeks before. It was the last time he had laid a hand on Rufus Clare.

  It was the night when Connor checked on a patient on ward B, and, determining that the young man’s delirium was pain induced, he decided a dose of laudanum was in order. He cast a glance around, looking for the attending nurse. The squeak of rubber-soled shoes scudding over waxed linoleum drew his attention.

  The matron was pushing the medication cart along the foot of the beds at the far end of the ward. She had her nose firmly buried in the notes on her clipboard, and he paused, taking in the dark blue crescents framing her eye sockets which dressed her face in a state of exhaustion. Even the crisply starched fabric of her navy-blue uniform could not disguise the slump of her shoulders.

  Recognizing a fellow sufferer of that dog-tired feeling, Connor took pity on her. She must be going off duty soon. There will be a night nurse along in a minute. His searching gaze took in the empty nurses’ station, a glazed partitioned area which housed a utilitarian wooden desk with a lamp sitting upon it. The glowing gas mantle cast a yellow glow upwards over the ceiling with more enthusiasm than down onto the shadowy surface of cream-colored blotting paper and an abandoned ink pen.

  Following logic, Connor walked slowly from the ward and searched the empty corridor. Maybe the night shift has yet to arrive. He shot his cuff and glanced at his watch. It looks as though I have no choice. Reluctant to add to her burden because he admired Matron Hartnell, he turned slowly, rehearsing an apologetic tone inside his head. The sudden swell of a muffled groan stopped him in his tracks as he cocked his head and listened, rotating on his heel to face the direction from which it came. Silence had descended once more, but he knew he had heard it.

  Someone is hurt. Without hesitation, he was moving with a stealthy long stride, straining his ears for the groan that he knew would follow. He was not disappointed. A dull thud accompanied by a panicked whimper fractured the stillness, and Connor rushed forward faster now. He broke into a short sprint and skidded to an untidy halt outside the door to the linen storage.

  Cold nervous sweat dampened his brow as his hand closed on the brass door handle. He yanked the door open, and for a moment the tangle of limbs wrestling on the floor froze every muscle in his body.

  It took a moment for his brain to catch up with his eyes as the musk of male sweat filled his nose. The back of the man’s neck flushed dark red, and the grating groan rasping through his anger-tightened lips scraped over Connor’s eardrums. The young nurse pinned beneath his bulk was terrified. The stillness of her body filled Connor’s mouth with bile; he recognized it as immobilizing fear. Her glazed eyes stared at the ceiling, and a helpless keening noise escaped between the fingers of the large hand molded to her white face.

  The man’s body rocked with jerking urgency while he scrabbled on his knees, fumbling with the buttons of his pants. His fingers dug into the girl’s thigh as he shoved it roughly aside and the sound of cotton fabric tearing cut through the air.

  The renting sound galvanized Connor into action and he roared as every sinew tightened in rage. Surging forward, he grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his loosened pants. Adrenaline fed Connor’s anger as he yanked the man up into the air, lifting and pulling him back sharply.

  The man’s features reddened and a yelp of protesting rage exploded from him. He staggered awkwardly, his heels scrabbling for purchase on the slick waxed floor and his hand reaching for the support of a wall. He bellowed in surprise as Connor spun him around and glared into his face.

  Connor registered the lust smothered expression of Rufus Clare in the fraction of a second before his fist landed a blow dead center of the tense features, and Rufus’ nose collapsed with a satisfying crunch.

  “You sick bastard.” The words burst from Connor as he yanked Rufus sideways and rammed him up against the wall. Closing his grip to frame Rufus’ jaw and lift his chin, Connor pushed his own face in close as he spat, “You slimy, little toad.”

  Satisfaction spiked inside Connor, as he buried a vicious uppercut into Rufus’ abdomen, driving the air from his lungs in an anguished grunt. He stepped back and watched his victim double over clutching his stomach as, coughing and gasping, he dropped to his knees. Connor’s cold glance took in the gaping button fly of his pants and the wet stain on the fabric. Disgust curled his lip, acid-bile scouring a fiery trail up into his throat as he growled quietly, “Get out of here, Clare. Before I kill you!”

  Ignoring the staggering footsteps as Rufus launched his crouched body from the wall and ran, Connor stepped past the swinging door of the linen closet and paused on the threshold. His shadow sliced across the nurse’s shocked features, and, turning her face away, she snatched in a petrifying breath. The silence in the linen closet was chilling.

  The fight with Rufus had happened so quickly that now, suddenly faced with being gentle, Connor felt as though his limbs were made of lead, and his concern forced him into moving only in slow motion.

  He carefully pulled a linen sheet from a nearby shelf and wrapped it around the young nurse’s trembling shoulders to cover her torn bodice. He eased her skirts down over her thighs, trying not to notice the red welts decorated with oozing beaded droplets of blood. Rufus’ nails must have dug in.

  “Mary. It’s okay. It’s Doctor Sanderson,” he said gently as he lifted her and folded her slight frame into his chest.

  Her stiff body, locked tight with shock, was cold. Her hip grated over his muscled torso and, as her elbow dug into his ribcage with every forceful stride he took, he welcomed the jabbing pain as a distraction that prevented him tracking Rufus down and beating him to a pulp.

  Anger burned a hole in his chest as he took off down the hallway to the infirmary. He collected the matron in charge of the pastoral care of the younger, more vulnerable student nurses, along the way.

  That had been three weeks ago, and the cap on the well of Connor’s anger was threatening to blow like an oil geyser as he stared into Rufus’ face once more.

  Connor’s knuckles were healed, but glaring at Rufus, the memory still swilled revulsion in his stomach. Connor happily focused again on the ruptured purple vein which ran across the bridge of his nose, following the fracture line perfectly. “Not so prett
y now.”

  Rufus Clare bared his teeth in a smile, and almost lost his life.

  Connor froze as he battled with the surging desire to rip Rufus’ head off and taste his blood. A storm of electrical impulses scattered through Connor’s cerebral cortex, clenching his gut with a gnawing hunger that he instinctively knew was not for food.

  “Just say when and where, Sanderson. I’d be ready for you this time.” Rufus chin jutted in aggression, but his sweat stank of fear.

  Glancing at Lester, Rufus’ perennial side-kick, Connor asked, “You’d want to be this maggot’s second? Defend this scum?” His gaze darted back to bore contempt into Rufus’ brain. “My guess is, Marquis of Queensberry rules are not really your style. You’re more of an ambush kind of guy.” Connor smiled as the pulse in Rufus’ throat stroking over his knuckles pounded harder. “If you think you can take me, Rufus, feel free to try. But I promise you, things will never be the same again. For either of us.”

  Connor watched closely, primed on a hair-trigger of control, waiting for Rufus to decide their fate.

  Rufus shrunk in Connor’s grasp, lowering his eyes and admitting defeat.

  With a fixed smile, Connor slowly released his grip. He tidied Rufus’s collar and brushed imaginary dust off his cowering shoulders with a measured stroke of ivory clad fingers. Connor took a deep steadying breath, and embraced a feeling of relief as the sharp blade of hunger dulled to an ache that he could wrestle with, and win.

  “I don’t think you will be here much longer, Sanderson.” Rufus swallowed hard as his words grated through compressed vocal chords. “The hospital board of governors have convened, and your days are numbered. I don’t have to fight you to finish you.”

  “The board? And, how is Uncle Cecil?” Connor’s tone dripped with sarcasm.

  Rufus patted his breast pocket. “I have a letter to deliver to Sir John. You are out of favor, Sanderson.”

  Connor waited for the weight of frustration to press down on him. Losing his hard-earned ground with Sir John should matter. But he found, at this moment, with the ethereal laughter which had seemingly oozed from the walls inside the morgue still ringing in his ears, he did not care. I have more pressing concerns.

  He smiled sweetly as he said, “Sir John is not a fool. Do your worst, Clare.”

  Connor turned on his heel and whisked away along the corridor, resuming his journey to the lecture hall. His preternatural acceleration chilled the sudden sweat of fear which blossomed on the handsome faces of Lester and Rufus as they stared into a blank space. The hair on their napes prickled as though someone walked over their graves.

  Before Connor turned the corner and set his sights on the signage directing him to his mentor’s teaching wing, he had already dismissed the pair, his mind racing on ahead.

  Chapter 4

  Connor passed through the double doors at the end of the featureless, antiseptic-odor tainted, white tiled corridor, and into the warm embrace of wood paneled walls and thickly carpeted floors. Gas flames in the wall-brackets were set to low, supplementing the daylight which struggled through the small panes in the leaded-light windows. They dissipated the gloom in the tastefully decorated hallway.

  Hanging portraits of eminent physicians punctuated the row of large, brass-framed mirrors which made the most of every shaft of light slicing through the air. Connor became momentarily distracted by motes of dust dancing like a snowfall of fire-flies in the bright funnel ahead as the sun rejoiced in a moment of triumph.

  Putting his palm to his watch, Connor considered checking the hour, but, as though an electromagnet inside his head had been activated, his hand fell away as he instinctively knew exactly where he was on the continuum of time.

  I am late.

  After the morning he’d had, finding Reggie and entering the lecture hall without attracting Sir John’s disapproval would be the easy part.

  He strode carelessly forward until the sun’s rays glinted across his hair, picking out filaments of cobalt blue in the raven black sweep, casting a penetrating blaze over his concentrated expression and burning his flesh. He gasped and shielded his face as a tingling sensation crawled beneath his skin. It burns like acid. What on earth? Connor blocked the sunlight with a bent arm and a twisted shoulder, and moved quickly into the shade.

  He froze in the awkwardly folded posture of a Machiavellian villain, imagining a blistering epidermis as fiery heat sizzled over his cheekbone and his lips tightened in a grimace of pain.

  He had to know. Carefully tilting sideways, his reflection slid into view in the mirror on the wall opposite. A network of angry, red capillaries glistened like a patch of red lace draped over his cheek. He leaned closer and rubbed a curious fingertip over the mark. Not sore, just hard. Using his thumb, he compressed the tissue over his cheekbones in a masochistic massage and the red cotton-like threads felt like fuse-wire buried beneath his skin.

  It’s barely a first-degree burn, so why did it feel like Dante’s inferno? And sunburn in three seconds? For a moment, his brain hit a brick wall as he shuffled through myths and legends, and did not like the one that was trying to tear the wool from his eyes.

  His stubborn nature came to his rescue. I shall rule out the probable, and only then will I entertain the impossible. Deep down, he preferred the prospect of madness to being a monster.

  He continued on, his left shoulder scuffing the wall as he gave the puddles of light spilling over onto the carpet a wide berth. Still fifty yards away from the double doors which opened into the amphitheater, the colorful tone of Sir John delivering a lecture played across his eardrums; each word rang crisp and clear. Connor acknowledged another truth. Hypersensitive hearing.

  Like a Christian preparing to enter the Coliseum, he laid his cold palm on the warm wood of the door and inhaled deeply, dragging the air over his palette and tasting his surroundings. He battled with the cacophony of the human flavors of eighty-plus students seated just the other side of those doors. A clawed grip closed over his skull, and the veins pulsing at his temples throbbed inside his eyeballs, tinting his vision with a blood-red filter. What now?

  Agitated. That was the only word to describe how he felt.

  He remembered to ease the door of the lecture hall open with painful care and, imitating his usual fluid gait, he descended three steps, crossed the aisle and slipped quietly into a vacant space on a wooden bench. If I treat every object as though it is made of spun glass, I should be safe.

  He closed his eyes, and breathing in a calming meditative rhythm eased the knots in his stomach. When he opened them again, the redness clouding his vision had faded. He watched the myriad of human gestures playing out before him as an orchestration of distraction, and he felt serene.

  An insidious infusion of tranquility weighted his sluggish bloodstream with lead, making his arms feel heavy. His movements met the resistance of wading through water as he reached up to rub his hand over his strong jaw.

  Anxiety melted away and he was in control as he unwittingly discovered the semi-conscious state of vampire sleep. Just as horses in the wild sleep standing up, ready to flee from predators, vampires had their own instinctive survival technique, sleeping only one part of their brain at a time.

  The trance-like state clung for a moment longer and then a laser sharp jolt of awareness jerked through him, waking up the temporal area of his brain... and he felt refreshed.

  Skulking in the back row of the amphitheater was not usual for Connor, but he had some serious thinking to do.

  Down below, Sir John stood in the pit of the teaching arena. The concentric circles of seating rose higher, the further away from the epicenter of learning a student chose to sit. Although, Sir John appeared smaller to those hiding at the back, the thirty degree gradient gave each student a clear view over the heads of his fellows.

  Final year students chose the front row seats, close to the action. Today, Connor’s seat was empty, and Sir John’s keen eye landed there with pointed frequency. He usually addre
ssed most of his remarks to those he considered talented, and Connor was the epitome of that, dedicated, talented and destined to be an innovator.

  Mr. Donahue was lying on a trolley in the repose of a sleeping sun worshiper, although the blue tinge to his skin gave a lie to that perception. For Connor, the congealed blood congested in the man’s arteries was the biggest give away. He could detect the stagnant consistency from a distance of thirty feet. His attention wandered to the room full of warmly percolating students.

  Interesting how each one smells different.

  The smell of the English oak paneling on the walls created a mellow fragrant marinade for all the other scents assaulting Connor’s nasal lining. He started with the students seated closest and worked his way along each row of the eighty or so young, floppy-haired, young men.

  The scribbling of their pencil leads were akin to a herd of cats scratching at the bark of a tree. Some pencil leads are harder than others, so some of the cats have sharper claws than others. Connor smiled at the absurdity of his own analogy.

  His eyes rested on the back of each head as he tuned into the vibration of the heart cantering inside each chest, collating the information. His learning focus today was to make sense of this hypersensitivity. Will it pass? Like a viral infection?

  Connor already knew the answer to that, but in case he needed confirmation, his hackles rose and burning embers crawled under his skin as though he were again bathed in sunshine. He glanced across the amphitheater, and into a pair of dead, fish scale-reflective eyes, the color of mother of pearl.

  The figure leaned forward until the face was undressed of its shadow, and a handful of bony digits waved slowly in a gesture of acknowledgement.

  Connor expected fear. He did not expect relief. The prospect of answers was a heady infusion which brought a smile to his lips. Ah, Malachi. Confusion creased his brow. Where did that name come from?