Chapter 19: Alexis

Chapter 19: Alexis

Dr. Morris stared at me gravely, the stethoscope hanging from his neck. He took off his glasses, then rubbed them with a tissue before opening his mouth. I held onto Will’s hands. They were cold and unmoving.

“The good news is,” Dr. Morris said slowly. “He is stable.”

“Could you be a little faster?” I asked vexedly. “I see you’re deliberately taking longer than usual!”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I do not know how to tell you this without it coming off as extremely difficult. I am trying to find the right words. As I said, the good news is that he’s stable. The bad news is that he’s stable in a condition that we would not like him to be stable in. He’s unconscious, and it’s been several hours, and he’s not woken up. A few more, and we’ll have to consider him comatose. Every time Mr. Will Grimm comes in, his body is in worse shape than it was before. I just did the blood test, and there is an altogether new compound in his body wreaking absolute havoc. That’s why he’s in this state,” Dr. Morris said, sitting down beside Will. “Is there something that you have to tell me?”

“What is this new compound doing to him?” I asked, afraid to know the answer to this question.

“Consider his body a battlefield, if you will. The experimentations that Edward Beckett did to him are army number one. Now, this new compound that has entered into his system, let’s call it army number two. Will’s white blood cells and his body’s immune system are army number three. There’s yet another compound in his system that’s working with the antibodies in fighting off the poisons. Let’s call that army number four. I think I know where the last compound came from. Vincent procured it for him, didn’t he?” Dr. Morris asked.

“Yes. Vince came with a potion many weeks ago. They nurtured Will to health,” I said.

“I’m afraid that potion’s effect has run its course. Right now, army number one and two are winning the war against army number three and four. If this keeps up, Will’s body is going to disintegrate under the duress of this constant battle,” Dr. Morris said.

“What can we do?” I asked nervously, holding Will’s hands tighter.

“Why don’t you begin telling me about how he got this new poisonous compound into his body? Then we’ll discuss a course of action,” Dr. Morris said.

So I told him, as bluntly as I could, how Blair and Maurice and Ralph had prepared Wolf’s Bane and had injected Will with it. I shared with Dr. Morris how I had initially thought Will to be dead as a result of Wolf’s Bane’s effects. Dr. Morris listened intently, taking several notes, then looked up at me quite seriously, shaking his head.

“No one, not even Will, can stand so many changes in his body. As I said before, this is beyond my ability to heal,” Dr. Morris said.

“Why am I not surprised?” I said sarcastically. “Is there anything that you can do at all?”

“Well, yes. I can administer some adrenaline and bring him back to consciousness, but that’s not really a solution,” Dr. Morris said.

“I’ll take it. Just wake him up. I’ll do something on my own,” I said fiercely.

The doctor nodded, then disappeared in the back and appeared with a huge syringe filled with clear liquid. He injected it in Will’s chest, then stood back.

At first, Will did not budge, but then he immediately rose, his eyes wide awake. He panted at first, then looked all around, aghast.

“What happened to me?” he asked, covered in sweat.

“Wolf’s Bane. It’s poisoning you,” I said, trying to keep myself together.

“That’s not good,” Will said, still panting heavily. He fell on the bed and covered his face. “Did you get the groceries?”

My voice broke slightly as I could not hold myself back any longer. “Yes. John delivered the groceries to the house. Are you worried about groceries right now? You’re not well! The doctor says you’re dying.”

“Ah, well, tell the doctor I have already died once, and it didn’t stick,” Will said.

Dr. Morris just stood there, shaking his head gravely, then said, “Perhaps it would be better for you to rest and recover at home. We must not forget that you’ve put your body through so much in the past few days. It could just as well be the toll of all the hectic activity. People are known to collapse from exhaustion.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it, doctor,” I said.

“I won’t,” he said. “If the chemicals in his body aren’t neutralized, we’re looking at renal and liver failure. Without his vital organs working for him, Will won’t have a shot at surviving. There. I didn’t sugarcoat it. Our only medical recourse is blood purification. I can get him started on a drip tomorrow, then see how the bloodwork tests against immunogens. If it’s a positive change, then we can continue that treatment while also administering basic drugs that can take care of the pain and the inflammation.”

“No,” Will said, taking away his hands from his face and staring at the doctor. “There won’t be any need for that.”

“You can’t just give up!” I pleaded.

“No one’s giving up. I have another recourse if you are willing,” Will said.

“If it’s a non-medical fix, I best not be here; otherwise, I’ll risk putting my medical license in jeopardy,” Dr. Morris said.

“Why’s that, doc? They don’t teach magic as an elective course at Johns Hopkins?” Will asked and laughed.

“Laugh all you want, but trust me when I say that as a werewolf and a man of medicine, I have seldom seen magic and medicine work together. Whatever you’ll end up doing is going to be purely risky,” Dr. Morris said.

“I trust Alexis. I know she won’t fail,” Will said, looking at me and smiling weakly.

***

Will was still conscious when I took him back home. He was weak, but at least he was able to talk to me and discuss what he’d had in mind back at the clinic. I took the liberty of taking one of the clinic’s wheelchairs to escort Will back to his house.

“Will, Vince is gone. We can’t expect him to return to wherever he went to get you another potion,” I said. “So unless you have something truly tangible, we’re lost in the woods.”

“I do have something truly tangible. The last time I was in the clinic, I was unconscious, remember? I didn’t have a say in what was happening to me and what types of treatment I was being given. Vince had a stroke of genius, but that was all it was. We need something else. And tonight, at the clinic, I saw it with my own eyes. Dr. Morris forgets that he’s part of a tradition of werewolves. He’s more medically inclined. In his clinic, there are books that the original healer who came with us from Germany brought to America. Books of ancient medicine that werewolves had been using for centuries to cure illnesses. I can bet my life on those books. There’s something in them that’s going to help me,” he said. “I can promise you that.”

“Then I’ll break into the clinic and just get the books,” I said, getting up.

“Sit down,” Will said, smiling at me. “I am the Alpha. So long as it falls under the jurisdiction of this commune, you won’t have to break into any place. You can just go into the clinic and get the books. They’re mine, after all.”

“But your illness is so novel. Do you think they had poisons such as the ones running through your body back in those days? Are there any antidotes for such modern illnesses in those books?”

Will struggled to sit up in bed and only barely managed to prop his body up by his elbows. He looked at me intensely, then said, “The wisdom in those books predates and transcends anything we know today. The potions and treatments stated in those books are more potent than anything modern medicine has been capable of doing.”

“Then why haven’t people used them? Why not use them for cuts, bruises, lesions, cancer?” I asked.

“Because the price is too high. The ingredients written within those books are hard to come by. They require a pilgrimage to find. Not to mention the method of preparing those potions. Back in the old days, the Norse folk practiced this magic and perfected it into a craft. After hundreds of years, those who practiced this craft formed their circle, separate from the werewolves, separate from the Norse. They are whom we today call the witches and wizards. Potions are their domain. Magic is their bread and butter,” Will responded, but with much difficulty. His breath was shallowing, and it was getting difficult for him to stay up. Already, his face was straining. He winced a couple of times.

“Are you going to be okay while I’m gone?” I asked him nervously, coming back to him and holding his hand. He didn’t look well. His face had gone pale. His body felt cold to the touch.

“I am afraid you are on your own on this one, Alexis. It seems fate has played a terrible joke on us that it’s separating us so soon after we just came back into each other’s lives. It appears that, yet again, my life is in your hands. Please do save me. I desire to live many years with you by my side,” Will said, his words stuttering, getting slurred and jumbled.

“I’ll save you, I promise,” I said, kissing him on his forehead.

When he did not respond, I broke the kiss and looked at him. He had gone unconscious again. I immediately checked his pulse and breathed a sigh of relief to see that it was still there.

There was no more time to waste.

I immediately left the house and raced back to the clinic, hoping that it would still be open at this time.

I caught Dr. Morris just as he was about to shut the clinic up. He turned to face me and then sighed in resignation. “You simply will not relent, will you?”

“Doctor, I have to go to the clinic. There are books…books that I need,” I said.

“I can assure you that none of the books in there are going to help you in this venture,” he said, shaking his head. At that moment, I wanted to punch him in the head to stop him from shaking it.

“Just open the fucking door!” I snapped.

He clicked his tongue, then turned around and opened the clinic’s door.

I barged in and headed for the bookshelf.

“Let me make it easier for you,” Dr. Morris said. “If it’s Old Age wisdom you’re looking for, the books that the original Grimm pack brought with it to America are on the top shelf, gathering dust.”

I looked at the top of the shelf and saw the old leather-bound books.

“There are many that do not concern you,” Dr. Morris said. “I’m assuming you’ve come here for the ones dealing with life-saving potions?”

“Can you be any less snide about this?” I said angrily, frowning at him.

“It’s not that I do not have faith in the books…. Well, I’ll be honest with you. As someone who went to medical school and then pursued a specialization, I believe that everything that is stated in those books contradicts everything that modern medicine has taught us,” Dr. Morris said.

“And what about when you shift into a wolf, Dr. Morris? Is there anything in your medical books about lycanthropy?” I asked, taking one of the books from the shelf.

“I see you’re the one being snide now,” Dr. Morris said. “In any case, the book that you hold in your hands contains a vast array of potions. It’s called the Liquid Mana and other Concoctions. My dubiousness about the matter aside, if there’s something that can help Will, it’s in that.”

Fate seemed to be guiding me, it seemed. Why else had I grabbed the one book out of the dozens of leather-bound volumes that lay atop the top shelf? I opened the book carefully, then placed it on Dr. Morris’s desk. The table of contents had several sub-sections dealing with crithomancy, love potions, sleeping concoctions, tinctures for insanity, decoctions for everyday maladies, stronger mixes for serious illnesses, and then, at the very last, there was a section that said: For when nothing else works.

Not knowing what that entailed, I immediately sifted to the end of the book and came across arcane texts written in Old English about potions that could cure blindness, heal leprosy, reanimate the dead, and perform a revitalization on the terminally ill.

“The Full Moon,” I read aloud, reading from one of the potions listed in the book. “A potion made from a coalescence of ingredients that serve one dire purpose. They bring a fallen wolf back to life. In times both normal and chaotic, sometimes, a wolf might get affected by the guile of their foes, whether they be warlocks, vampires, sirens, the undead, or other manner of cunning creatures capable of cruel crafts. The Full Moon can serve as an antidote to all contagions, maladies, ailments, and lurgies save for death itself. So long as a wolf is still breathing and alive, the Full Moon can serve its primary purpose, that is, to bring about the wolf in full health.”

I looked up at Dr. Morris, who, instead of sharing in my discovery, simply shook his head again.

“That right there is a fable, if anything,” he said. “I doubt if it’s of any credibility.”

“You lack faith, doctor. You’re a disbeliever,” I said. “These are the words of our ancestors. How can they misguide us?”

“Have you, by any chance, looked at the ingredients? That’s why I say it’s a fable. Look. It says that the ingredients needed for creating such a potion include moon dew, frost from a mountain, pink-flowered common yarrow, and stellarum. Do you even know what stellarum is? Such a thing does not exist! And you have the gall to call me a disbeliever. Where are you going to find moon dew and frost from a mountain? How are you going to get stellarum, whatever the hell that is?”

I ignored him. Instead, I took out my phone and looked at what stellarum meant. It was Latin for starlight and was a term often used for bioluminescent mushrooms that grew in the mountains. At night, when they glowed, it looked like starlight had landed on the mountains. It did not take me long to locate where stellarum grew in America. As it happened, the wiki-guide stated that it grew in the mountains north of Maine. One such mountain was visible from Fiddler’s Green. It was a single mountain called Greyback Mountain. The locals used to call it the lonely mountain. I figured that I’d get frost from a mountain and stellarum from there. What else remained? Any flower shop in the vicinity would be able to provide me with moon dew and pink-flowered common yarrow.

“When Will’s all healthy and walking and talking again, I’ll come back here and make you eat crow,” I said to the doctor. “And I’m taking this with me!” I pointed at the book.

“If your potion can truly heal him, I’ll hang up my coat and take up making potions full-time. Happy?” Dr. Morris said. “For Will’s sake, though, I truly hope your venture succeeds.”

***

The task that lay ahead of me was not easy by any means. The added restriction of the time made it an almost impossible feat. Will was slipping. As of right now, he was just unconscious, being monitored by Dr. Morris himself, who had assured me that he’d oversee Will and make sure that he was kept in a stable condition while I went off to find the ingredients for the potion.

A single road led to the foot of the mountains. I stood at the end of that road, staring up at the winding path that twisted along the length of the mountain. In my hand, I held a jar, hoping to catch the frost of the mountain in it. In my pocket, I had a pouch in which I’d put the stellarum.

“You’ve got this,” I whispered to myself, daunted by the task that lay ahead of me. But the fear of anticipation was nothing compared to the terror that prevailed in the knowledge that if I failed, Will would most certainly die.

I would not let my mate die.

And so I trekked and hiked up to the mountain as surefootedly as I could, occasionally slipping, frequently stopping myself from falling down its steep steps. I did not know for how long I climbed. All I could focus on was the step ahead of me. Luckily, I did not have to climb to the top of the mountain, which would have been impossible without the right gear and training, to find a batch of stellarum growing along the mountainside. I plucked them out and bagged them, then hiked further till the first frost appeared ahead of me. I put fistfuls of it in the jar, then began my descent.

On the way back to the commune, I stopped at the flower shop and bought the yarrow and the moon dew.

But my real trial began when I sat down alone in my house to prepare the potion. The instructions were exceedingly difficult. A single misstep, a slight miscalculation, would result in failure.

I could not risk failure.