Moonscorn

Chapter Ten

"Couldn't loosen them up a bit, could you?" Hysteria asked. "I might not have a hand by the time you've stuck a syringe in me."

"Hysteria Scorn. Your attempts at sarcasm have never worn well on me."

She snorted in amusement. She didn't know if any attempt at humour from anyone had ever worked on him. A true visionary in the most demented sense of the word, here was a man who pushed the idea of mad scientist to its limit. All he needed was his hair to turn that classic stark white of a lightning strike, and he'd be all set for a 1940s horror movie.

The surgery/mortuary/chamber of horrors was plain on the walls, thankfully for her. When she'd first been brought to The Conservatory, she'd had an image of lots of posters showing peoples insides, eyeball charts and such. Maybe even blood dripping down the walls. Now she'd gotten used to the clean, stark white, and it still unnerved her. Sawbones knew everything on those charts. What he didn't know was inside her.

To save her from complete doom and gloom, a young woman with purple hair and bright shining eyes behind comedically large glasses skipped into view. She beamed with a Marylin Monroe smile which, despite her aversion to people that smiled too much, somehow made Hysteria comfortable. Dr Flicker Stewart, Sawbones's right-hand woman, actually gave a damn about her patients. She would cut you open but give you a Tom and Jerry sticker and a lollypop afterward like a five-year-old at the dentist. All the humanity that Sawbones might have had was many years ago drained from him and transferred into Flicker's dancing grace.

Still, Hysteria didn't want to mess with her. Flicker knew more about her insides than she did, and anyone that knew how a werewolf operated was formidable to go up against in a fist fight. Especially if you were a werewolf.

"When I heard you hadn't been sleeping well, I got worried," Flicker said as she loosened the straps by a hole.

"Nothing more than usual," Hysteria said with a shrug, or as much as one can shrug when leather straps are across your wrists, legs, and torso.

"Maybe it's something to do with Venus."

"Venus?"

"Yes. Venus is unnaturally large at the moment, something that happens only in seventy-three-year cycles. I'm still gathering evidence, but even Fluffy's been feeling the blues recently, trying to get out."

"He's young. He needs time to get used to the Lunoxine. It kills at first."

Fluffy was a sixteen-year-old werewolf they'd recently brought into The Conservatory. Hysteria didn't know him too well, but there'd been something especially traumatic that happened to him, even more than usual for werewolves. Nice enough, but messed up. Who could blame him?

Flicker pulled her face into one of genuine sorrow as she brought round a glittering silver tray of sharp instruments of torture. "Maybe. I still think Venus might be having an adverse effect, though."

"Surely it's more likely to be the sun."

"The sun is constant. It doesn't change. Venus, however..."

Her musings on astrological forces manipulating lycanthropic biology were interrupted by Dr Sawbones. He tapped Flicker on the shoulder and asked her to move out of the way, which she obliged with a pout of extreme proportion.

"Are we going to have a fuss today with the bloods, Hysteria?"

"That depends on you," Hysteria replied. She respected Dr Sawbones to a certain extent; he obviously knew his biochemistry and was, admittedly, responsible for the development of the current tablets she was on, which were not miles better than the previous lot but a noticeable improvement nonetheless. Despite this, it didn't mean she had to like the guy, and he could have done a lot of work on his bedside manner in the past few years.