The Fountain of Youth

Chapter 28

Nina fell into darkness more than wakefulness as her body donated her life force to the evil society she was at perpetual war with. The chair was sticky under her buttocks from the involuntary urination that had happened while she’d been unconscious during the first few hours she was held. As her blood became less, her blood pressure dipped dangerously. Hypoxia had already been prevalent before having her blood drawn out of her and Nina’s chest was aching far more than the lung cancer could ever batter her with. The lack of oxygen in her system, along with the gradual exsanguination, was draining her of every ounce of energy and rendering her mentally unstable.

During the times she was barely conscious, Nina would talk to herself, but she had no recollection of what she was talking about. Finally, she laughed a lot between petit mal seizures and the awful constriction of her clammy skin, the result of her neurological torment. Her senses were going haywire, sending her already frail body into tremors and chills. Nina stared into the darkness where the blurry, flickering lights of the pump were the only sign that she could still see through her failing eyes.

So many regrets filled her as she tried to remember who she was. Nina felt her memories wane as her life slipped away — her name, her origins, her family. Somewhere in between the fleeting images and sour contrition, Nina thought of a man; no, two men.

“Who are you?” she mumbled behind her gag, relieved that she could hear her voice articulating words. It was her way of maintaining her sanity while her body grew heavier and her heart grew tired of trying. “Hey!” she shouted to the two men who kept her company. “I know you, right?” Then she would laugh to convince herself she was happy, only to feel the nausea pressure her. Headaches had become as common as breathing, and Nina’s well-groomed nails had broken off in the upholstery of the chair from the spasms of agony that blazed through her veins.

There was a dark-haired man with big dark eyes, wearing a scarf. His hair was wild and sexy, and his voice was clear, but she had no idea what he was saying. Next to him stood a taller man, the antithesis of the other. His hair was white, and behind his glasses his eyes were a piercing blue-green. Nina giggled. “I love you. All of you, I mean, all…both of you…you both…”

She frowned, trying to figure out where she was and why she could see these unknown men while there was no light source around her. Her thigh muscles burned like liquid fire as the male figures looked on. Then they’d be gone, and she would weep tears she did not possess. She was alone, except for the chit-chat of pain.

Purdue and Mrs. Patterson rushed through the rain to get to the main building of the fortress of St. Vincent’s Academy. “Mrs. Patterson, wait!” Purdue called softly. “Great Scot, I can’t keep up with you. I think your juice is still strong.”

Mrs. Patterson had to chuckle at the inferior fitness of the young Scottish man. “Maybe so, deary. I won’t be old until they close the lid. Now hurry and keep that crow bar handy. Limber as I might be, I don’t have the strength to deliver a good pummeling.”

“Right,” Purdue replied through wet lips. He tightened his grip on the crow bar the old lady had brought him. “I thought you stayed in the Dean’s house, by the way.”

She looked horrified. “Och, no! You think I could tolerate that harpy for one single day under the same roof? Hell’s bells, no! I live in the aptly named ‘granny flat’ in their yard.”

“And Clara?” he asked. She was his biggest cause for concern; a wildcard that could be anywhere at any time.

“Like Nina she, stays in a cottage on campus grounds. I’m so glad the students have left for the long weekend. My God, she was draining them without keeping track on the amount of energy she took from them,” Mrs. Patterson chattered almost non-stop now that she could tell someone outright.

“The students?” Purdue gasped in horror. “Didn’t she consider the amount of legal repercussions she could subject the college to?”

“My dear, she is not here for the love of teaching,” she said, cocking her head in sarcasm as they made it through an auxiliary entrance to the ground floor interior.

“How does she drain them?” he pressed for information to establish how strong an opponent she would be.

Mrs. Patterson looked up and pointed to the ceiling. “The air-conditioning system, Mr. Purdue.” He was astonished at the amount of trouble Dr. Smith had gone to just to stay young and perpetuate her nefarious vampirism. She was way past any affiliation with the Black Sun. In fact, he suspected that Smith had broken away from her duties in the organization when she married into Ebner’s family.

“How do you know where Nina is, Mrs. Patterson? It’s rather suspect, you understand,” he told the elderly lady, who nodded in agreement.

“I heard an ungodly explosion down in the archive room, even above the clapping thunder and the din of the downpour yesterday,” she reported as they neared the stairway to the basement floor. “So I came to investigate.”

“An explosion?” he asked.

“It sounded like an earthquake, but it was, in fact, one of the walls in the archive room that collapsed when Dr. Gould accidentally toppled a heavy file cabinet. The impact made the wall give way, so that made a ghastly noise. But when I came to check if Nina was alright, I found Christa and Clara circling the poor girl, toting a bloody Beretta at her!” she said as quietly as she could.

“Good God! Did they shoot her?” Purdue asked with an ashen face.

“No, but I know where they took her,” she said seriously.

“Why didn’t you interfere then?” he inquired angrily. “Why did you allow them to draw us away earlier when we were right there?”

“David, such a confrontation would have jeopardized the safety of Mrs. Cotswald and yourself, not to mention the fact that she’d kill my son the moment I was out of the way. She wants St. Vincent’s, don’t you see?” she retorted. “There!” she pointed to the vanishing stairwell.

Reaching the trapdoor, Mrs. Patterson kept watch as Purdue strained to break the lock. It was a hardy, iron contraption that lived up to its name. Purdue took to the hinges instead.

“Clever,” Mrs. Patterson remarked.

“Ta,” Purdue groaned as he busted the second hinge.

With the thunder roaring every few minutes the two of them descended the stairs into the archive room where Nina had made her office. Purdue used his tablet for light, the strong beam illuminating the dusty tomb of papers and records.

“Oh Jesus!” Purdue exclaimed inadvertently as his light fell on the broken wall and the leering skeleton within. The new air that had been let into the chasm had worked at deteriorating the fine bones and clothing, but Mrs. Patterson recognized the style of clothing as belonging to the historian who attended during the early nineties.

“That’s Dr. Dittmar Cotswald, that,” she affirmed while Purdue stared.

“Great. But we aren’t here to free him. Pray to God that Nina is not in the same condition,” he reminded her. “Where is she, Mrs. Patterson?”

“When I was a little girl, Prof. Ebner used to experiment on me and my sister in here,” she struggled to say. Before Purdue could reply, she pulled a hidden lever and the wall shifted aside. Cautiously Purdue shone his light into the small tunnel, looking to his partner for encouragement.

“I wish there were a window here. The lightning would have helped much to navigate through here,” he whispered. Vaguely he could hear laughing, muffled by fabric or wood. Purdue was not a man of colorful imagination or ghostly affinity, but the prospect of what caused those sounds just creeped him out completely. “Well, we have the right weather for the kind of feelings I’m feeling.”

“Yes, I’m scared shitless too, deary,” the spirited old lady agreed. She clung to Purdue’s arm as they progressed and then whispered, “Okay, soon the room should be on your left.”

Purdue lit ahead and there it was, an entrance without any door. The hideous mumbling and laughing were coming from inside. As they drew closer they could perceive the sound of a machine humming while every now and then a beep would sound.

What Purdue saw when he turned the corner far surpassed any horror film he could place with the weather. His light fell on Nina, tied to a grotesque chair, her thigh seeping blood that pooled in a dry coppery mess on the chair. Her eyes had gone from bright and brown to bloodshot and milky, staring insanely at him. Pale blue from the cold chamber, her skin exhibited the dead paleness of a cadaver.

“Jesus Christ, no!” Purdue wept instantly, rushing to pluck the needle from her before it could take another ounce from her.

“No!” Mrs. Patterson yelled, grabbing his hand. “If you pull it out she will hemorrhage…”

“She is hemorrhaging now!” he screamed at Mrs. Patterson, his wet eyes fuming and hopeless. “I can’t let her endure one more second!”

They did not hear Clara sneak up behind them. A thunderous shot echoed through the lower floor as she gunned down Mrs. Patterson. Purdue shouted and lunged forward to punch the gun-wielding woman right in the face. Her nose broke on impact and she fell to the ground, but she tried to shoot again. Purdue kicked the gun from her hand and scooped it up to put in his pocket. Crouching down next to her, he grabbed handful of her hair and hissed, “Get Nina free or I will bash your skull in right here.”

“I know you, right?” Nina slurred slowly at Purdue as Clara removed the gag before removing the needle from her thigh. Purdue sobbed, holding the diminished hand of his ex-girlfriend in his, afraid that it would grow limp while he warmed it.

“Yes, you know me,” he said, smiling through his tears.

Nina smiled weakly. “Aye. You’re Sam.”

Purdue swallowed hard. His heart broke again, but he had to make sure hers kept going. He growled at Clara. “Give her a transfusion! Put her blood back immediately!”

“I can’t do that,” Clara started to explain through collapsed nasal cavities, but Purdue dealt her a backhand that sent her reeling.

“Put her blood back!” he shouted, cradling Nina in his arms. “My God, you’re so thin,” he whispered as her boney body poked his skin. Mrs. Patterson groaned from the corner where she had collapsed.

“It’s too late,” Mrs. Patterson told Purdue. “Her organs are failing already.”

“No! I will fix her. Just give her blood for long enough and I will fix it all,” Purdue insisted, his voice twisting in desperation as he laid his face on Nina’s chest. There was barely any sign of a heartbeat. “I just need to get you to the Faroe Islands, Nina. They have water there that could cure you, give you back your health, and even keep you young! Just hold on,” he cried, “just long enough for me to get you to Sam. He’s waiting, do you hear? Sam is waiting for you.”

He lifted Nina’s small, limp body into his arms and ordered Clara to prepare the machine for transfusion. Mrs. Patterson, having been wounded in the leg, stood up and shoved Clara aside. “The least we can do is try, right?” she told Purdue. “I’m not promising anything, but if we can get a few more pints in she would be able to travel with you.”

“Mrs. Patterson, you are a goddess,” Purdue sniffed.

“I’m no doctor, but even nurses have a duty to provide medical help,” she replied. “Now, get hold of your people on the other side to have a doctor on stand-by at the airport.”

Purdue sat next to Nina, using his tablet to contact Sam while Mrs. Patterson attempted to save Nina with what she could find. She was performing her tasks in the very room where Prof. Ebner had subjected her and her sister to his sick experiments, but she did not care. While Purdue conversed hastily with his friend on the screen, Mrs. Patterson was doing a good job of administering the butterfly needle to Nina’s flimsy vein. She paid no attention to Clara, who was confined to the shower cubicle where Ebner used to bathe his daughters in pesticides.