The Hand We're Dealt - Chapter 23 (Patreon)

Jeffries.

I threw the door open to the hospital complex proper, the copper handle deforming slightly as it impacted against the wall behind it.

“Malcolm!” I shouted like a lunatic, uncaring of the various people… orderlies, staff, and patients currently in the halls. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Many of the staff's eyes widened as they heard me, ushering patients and new-hires into rooms as I chose my path and began to march.

“I just want to talk!” I shouted, my voice echoing. “A little chat, man-to-man before I make good on my promises!”

See, some people would consider this an overreaction.

Some people could shut the fuck up.

“Malcolm Jeffries!” I called out mockingly, affecting a distinguished British accent for a moment. “Paging Dr. Malcolm Jeffries! Please report to surgery for your broken legs!”

“That way, sir,” Emerald whispered, stepping up beside me – still keeping a good distance – and pointing down a hallway.

“Thank you Emerald!” I laughed maniacally. “I'm coming Jeffries! Go ahead and run, it'll be good to get some exercise in before you're laid up!”

Stomping down the corridor, I finally saw the gaggle of black suits cornering a few of the black men in medical-whites. Among them was...

Our eyes met.

The man turned corpse-pale as I smiled widely.

“Malcolm, Old Boy!” I chuckled darkly. “You never call, you never write! I almost thought you'd gotten the fucking hint!”

“That's him! That's the madman who runs this place! He's the Turk responsible for all of this!” Malcolm shouted, pointing a finger at me as the half-dozen burly strong-men squared up. One other man stood nearby, surprisingly clean-shaven for the time period with neatly-trimmed dark hair and looking reasonably well put-together if a bit careworn.

Malcolm Jeffries, on the other hand, was older, his hair having long gone silver and seamlessly bleeding into a stylized set of facial hair that consisted of overlarge sideburns, a lengthy beard, and a generous – if neat – mustache. He was well-dressed with a sturdy cane at his side, though had only developed the slightest hunch in the last few years.

Overall, a man who had the lucky combination of good genes and reasonable habits to live a relatively long life, even for this period.

But I could fix that.

“Emerald,” I barked out, not even breaking stride in my march forward. “Bruised, not broken.”

His guards were stupid, not evil. Or, at least, they hadn't done anything reprehensible that I'd been informed of as-yet. Were that to change, I'd revisit the issue personally.

“Yessir,” Emerald breathed, and was off like a shot.

“Good Lord!” The as-yet-unnamed man cried, stepping back as a petite teenage blender of a girl swept in to dismantle the guards they'd brought along.

Under normal circumstances, sending a tiny slip of a girl like Emerald into a fight where she was out-numbered and out-massed by several orders of magnitude would be a death wish for the girl.

But Emerald had spent the last four years being trained by Hunters.

She'd wanted to be 'useful' after I'd dealt with her father, but had flinched whenever the prospect of helping me with magic came up. So, instead, one of the conditions for letting the guild set up on my island had become housing and caring for Emerald's education in their combat arts. Oh, I'd paid for her care and upkeep, make no mistake. I was ultimately responsible for her well-being, but it wasn't easy to get insular Hunter groups to simply adopt a child who – very obviously – wouldn't become a Hunter themselves.

Even if Emerald never became 'my woman' or whatever, she'd committed herself to becoming my bodyguard.

And sending even a sixteen year old girl with an active aura and combat training to match it... even if the men had their guns drawn and a good bearing on her, it still wouldn't have been close.

Emerald knocked the wind out of one, sent another to the floor, a third was puking his guts up, a fourth was dazed from a double-ear-slap, and the last two were put in holds that sent them to the floor as well. In a span of barely ten seconds, Emerald was standing with her boots resting on the spines of two of them, the others in no shape to offer any further resistance.

I marched through the chaos and got in the older man's face, grabbing a fistful of the thick fabric of his overcoat. When I spoke, it was with a contained snarl that rumbled from my throat. “Hello Malcolm. I thought we had an understanding. This is my hospital.”

Absently, I gave a silent dismissal to the orderly they'd been harassing, who looked relieved beyond words to slip away in the confusion.

“Th-this i-is a st-state quarantine facility!” He stuttered out, shaking like a leaf as I held him in place by the cloth in my hand. “It i-is n-not y-yours to-”

“I came to an agreement with the State of New York through the Bell Medical Trust and its board members,” I growled at the man. “I provide funding and cover any and all costs associated with the quarantine and holding facilities, promise to keep it operating in proper order, and in exchange, the land beneath it would be mine.”

I took a breath, positively seething as I inhaled the scent of various 'medicines' and seawater from his journey over the bay. “The facility may be beholden to the state, but it is owned and operated by me. And me alone.”

“You arrogant child, how dare you-” Malcolm began, apparently finding his spine.

I jerked him upwards. I might not be a professional Hunter or even trained as one, but I knew the basics of reinforcing my body with energy. The very, very basics. While I wasn't doing anything else with it, like casting spells or activating magical items.

Listen, I had other priorities.

“How dare I?” I mocked as I held him aloft, his feet dangling over the floor by a few helpless inches. “How dare you?! You masquerade as a medical professional while serving as a vector for disease and illness in my hospital! You apply leeches and bloodletting to weaken the constitution of my patients while they are already convalescing from sickness! You use poison-”

“MERCURY IS NOT POISONOUS!” He shouted out and raised his walking stick above his head, no doubt to strike me.

I slammed the man into the hallway wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs, but not quite hard enough to do more than that.

I had, after all, promised to break his legs and his legs alone.

“Mercury is a toxic metal which kills contagions, infections, and the tissue surrounding them!” I spat back at him. “It is a poison which lingers in and travels through the bloodstream, doing damage to internal organs, your nerves, and your very brain! When it sublimates into the air, the invisible gas it becomes harms the lungs, causes tremors, and can – in high enough doses – start severe mood swings!”

I took a great breath and clenched my fist tighter in his clothing, resisting the urge to truly harm the man in ways he couldn't even properly understand.

“My little medical crusade may have begun with that single paper on germ theory,” I snarled at him, pressing him tighter against the wall, “but I find it has become my passion to disabuse idiots such as yourselves of their stupidity!”

My peace said, I dropped the old fool and he crumpled to the floor, far too shocked and quivering in fright to put up any defense.

My own shaking, still in the throes of my anger, subsided as I took a calming breath and focused myself.

A sorcerer who gives in to anger is a dead sorcerer.

Not van Beek's exact words, those had been filled with more vulgarities, but close enough.

“Excuse me?”

Another deep breath and I turned to regard the clean-shaven fellow, looking him up and down. Absently, I reached up to push a few stray hairs back into place and make myself look a bit less like a madman. “Hello, my name is Henry Bell. Before you introduce yourself, I would quite like to know if you are in any way associated with the field of medical research or practice?”

Dark eyes stared at me like he absolutely did not know what to make of me and he took a visible breath to center himself. Holding his tongue for a brief moment, he scanned me up and down as he frowned.

“So you're Henry Bell, then,” he finally stated, talking to himself. “I'm the Governor of New York, Daniel D. Tompkins.”

No lie, that made my heart skip a beat.

But I'd had to deal with devils and monsters and all sorts of weirdness at this point.

My face didn't move a fraction. “I'd say it's a pleasure to meet you, sir, but you have brought with you a person whom I expressly banned from these premises for good cause. I am afraid I will be able to offer little in the way of good company until I make good on my promise.”

Malcolm twitched on the floor, looking terrified anew.

“Your promise?” Governor Tompkins asked, flicking a gaze to his men.

“I informed Dr. Jeffries here that, were he ever to trespass on these premises again, I would break both of his legs and force him to swim back to New York City,” I told the other man bluntly.

Malcolm opened his mouth.

My walking stick struck the floor, its tip ringing with intent.

The older man whimpered.

“Don't you think that's a bit... extreme?” Tompkins asked me slowly.

“I deliberately set an extreme punishment so that any normal person with a reasonable sense of self-preservation would know better than to test me,” I replied dryly.

Tompkins hummed, his eyes flicking towards Emerald. “Be that as it may... perhaps you could call off your...”

I could see the moment he realized a half-second too late that he didn't have a word for Emerald. Under normal circumstances, of course, any black woman accompanying a man of stature in the clothes I was wearing... she'd be a mistress at best. A slave, more typically. But Emerald was wearing clean, high-quality clothing; it was sturdy, yes, but it was also presentable in a way that didn't lend itself to menial labor. Practical, but visibly more expensive than anyone would waste on a servant.

And she'd just brutalized several of his men, too.

Can't forget that.

“Bodyguard,” I supplied with the slightest grin.

Governor Tompkins twitched, but swallowed the word and spat it back out. “Bodyguard. If you could call her off, I'd be happy to set aside some time to discuss this facility's practices. There have been concerns raised-”

“Of course there are concerns!” Jeffries shouted, apparently finding his nerve again as he tried to right himself into a more dignified position. “This child is hiding bodies! He must be! A member of the staff! One of the orderlies! They know where the graves are!”

I turned an honestly bewildered stare on the old bastard.

Then, slowly, I looked to the Governor. “My apologies, I'm fluent in sixteen languages at this point, but I don't speak mental invalid. If you'd be so kind as to translate... what 'bodies' is he talking about?”

I mean, I do deal in human corpses as part of the medical trade and that's... well, a legal gray area at the best of times...

Also while the way I ultimately disposed of those bodies after they were dissected wasn't precisely legal, either... there was no way he knew about that.

“Ahh... well,” the governor began slowly, “there have been allegations that you – or The Quarantine in general – have been altering the records you've been submitting to the state to bolster the efficacy of this new 'germ theory.'”

“Oh,” I breathed, reaching up and massaging the bridge of my nose.

“See! He can't even defen-” Jeffries began, and I swung my walking stick out to impact his face, sending him sprawling to the floor again.

Yes, he was an old man and, normally, I wouldn't tolerate violence against the elderly.

But he was a foul little piece of shit, content in his close-minded ignorance, and I hated him.

So fuck it.

“Dr. Jeffries!” Governor Tompkins cried out, stepping forward and rushing around me to attend to the man.

“On the one hand, I understand that it is more than a little ridiculous to accept the word of a sixteen-year-old against the whole of the medical establishment across two continents,” I stated, tapping my walking stick on the floor to a slow beat. “But there are limits to such disbelief. I have published papers, presented studies, funded research, held demonstrations of those who studied my work... and I am slandered by a man who should be old enough to have grown past such childishness.”

“You didn't have to strike him!” Governor Tompkins shouted in reply, the older man's face already swelling from where I'd given him a light slap with my stick.

“That man is a criminal,” I replied absently. “And I'll be suing him for his remarks here and the poison he's whispered in the ears of the state legislature to push this inquiry forward.”

“Regardless of whether or not he's trespassing, he doesn't deserve this manner of treatment!” Tompkins replied, outrage building.

“He is willfully and knowingly disturbing the recuperation of the patients in this hospital and endangering their health further by disrupting the tasks of the staff,” I stated calmly, as if speaking to an idiot. “If you insist on not allowing me to punish him personally, then I will have him thrown in prison for his offenses.”

“You're being unreasonable about this,” Governor Tompkins growled back, standing to confront me. “Have him pay a fine or something, be civilized!”

“If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then the law only exists for the lower class,” I rebutted harshly. “Do you allege that this man – a man who knowingly trespassed and interrupted the duties of essential workers fighting plague outbreaks to preserve the health and safety of the tens of thousands of people in New York City – do you mean to suggest that he is above the law by virtue of his wealth and status?”

Tompkins took a step forward, intending to menace me. He was older, thicker, and stouter than my build suggested. “He was here under my authority as governor. If you have an objection to his presence, rather than resort to the physical violence of your type, you should have come to me. This is an inspection into your potential criminality!”

“An inspection built on hearsay and slander which I was not given notice of beforehand,” I paused for effect, “as the contract I hold with the City and State of New York specifically demands. So thank you for reminding me that I will be filing a formal complaint and may consider legal action on those grounds, too. Mr. Governor.”

“A search for criminal evidence supersedes such things!” Tompkins shouted at me, his face purpling as I remained calm.

“But proceeding with such a search would have necessitated the attendance of law enforcement personnel,” I pointed out, tapping my walking stick pointedly as he stalled out. “I see neither the Watch Captain of the city nor any of his personnel. Nor do I see any marshals or sheriffs. So Mr. Governor, are you admitting to having illicitly appointed yourself with the powers of-”

“Enough of this,” Tompkins barked, throwing his hands out as if to clear the air of my arguments. “This whole conversation is the absurd ravings of a criminal or a low-born-”

I punched him in the face.

He hit the floor like a sack of potatoes.

The hallway was silent for a moment as I inspected my gloved fist with a sigh. “Oh, and your breath stinks of alcohol, you drunk. Emerald, knock them out.”

“Yes sir,” Emerald nodded at the edge of my vision.

Meaty thumps filled the corridor.

I turned to Jeffries and my eyes burned with power as they latched onto his righteously-angry, though still terrified gaze. “Who knows you're here?”

The man spoke, and I planned how best to clean up this mess.

…

I dropped into my office at The Quarantine and allowed myself to lean back fully in the stuffed chair.

“I shouldn't have done that.”

Emerald made a small noise in the back of her throat.

I sighed, deeply. “Speak.”

“He's trying to stop you from saving peoples' lives,” Emerald stated bluntly from her vigil by the door. She wasn't standing at attention or anything, but there was a sharp tension to her seemingly-relaxed lean against the wall that still held the promise of violence from the brief fight in the lower hallway. “They all are. A little violence and magic to dissuade them is a relatively light punishment.”

“Being objectively correct forgives many sins, yes, but not all of them,” I replied dryly, waving a hand at a glass orb and watching as it lit up in a dull candle-like flame to illuminate a bit of the dark room. “I don't need to go around applying mind-magic like that willy-nilly, Emmie. My reputation with the Hunters hinges on the fact that both I and the magicians I hire do not do that.”

Because it was harder to use such tricks on Hunters.

But 'harder' did not mean 'impossible.'

Hence why Qrow had approached me as he did. He almost certainly had someone waiting in the wings with some sort of pass-phrase to ensure his mind hadn't been wiped, someone who'd been watching the meeting from a distance, or something similar. Like he said, we both saw the angles.

“And I don't want to become the type of person who thinks of resorting to such methods first instead of last,” I amended belatedly.

“You've opened clinics to prove your theories,” Emerald stated. “The public thinks well of you, even with their libel and slander. You're helping people. If they can't see that, they don't deserve the respect you give them by trying to talk sense into them.”

I grunted, neither an agreement nor a denial.

I liked to think of myself as a pragmatic person, and I was – usually – but some people just rubbed me the wrong way. People who just would not see. Who were willfully blind when presented with empirical evidence.

“Maybe I'm just angry that the Catholics are upstaging secular governments by accepting my proposals first,” I admitted tiredly, reaching up to scratch at my head.

Intellectually, I had to remind myself that the Catholic Church – for all of the somewhat-deservedly bad reputation it had – was far from the close-minded dogmatic institution people liked to play it up as. In fact, historically, they were the great bastion of learning and continued development of the sciences during the Medieval period. I'd read or skimmed the works of dozens of ecclesiastical writers in the past several years. Everything from medicine to the stars.

Hell, if I remember correctly, Gregor Mendel – the namesake of Mendelian Inheritance – was a friar and an abbot. He even did his research in the church garden.

I made a mental note to keep an eye out for the guy, if he still showed up.

“We can hold them for the night and I'll treat their injuries and apply the necessary mind magic to overwrite the event,” I spoke aloud with another sigh, reaching for my flask... then stopping and pouring myself a glass of clean water instead. “Maybe I'll even include a command to strengthen Tompkins' will if he wants to get sober... though Jeffries will present the larger issue.”

Another complication when one applied mind magic, hypnosis, or brainwashing... whatever you wanted to call it, was that such things...

Well, you magically-command a man to act against his nature once and he'd almost certainly complete whatever task you set him to.

But relying on that kind of magic to create long-term, stable alterations was... tricky.

The first option was simply erasure. Blocking out a segment of time entirely was relatively easy, and you could even come close to purging the memory completely with how thoroughly blocked it might become. The other option, as I'd done with the bullies back in Hanover all those years ago, was to work 'with the grain' of the personality in control of the body. Give them an impulse that properly meshed with their already-extant drives and motivations and it had a much greater likelihood to 'stick,' as it were.

“Hmm... I'll have to probe a bit, see if he's actually that invested in Humor Theory or if he just doesn't want his entire life's work to have been wrong in his old age,” which was an impulse I'd be able to support more if it weren't actively and passively killing people. “If he's a true believer, then I can rely on his attachment to his 'truth' to fix him on beating me with evidence. Confine him to a 'fair fight' instead of this political chicanery.”

“And if he's simply out to keep his social standing, Master?” Emerald asked.

I hummed and looked out into the sunlit-world beyond the shades I'd drawn. “If he's just a profiteer, then we'll need to arrange an accident. Later down the line, of course.”

“Of course,” Emerald echoed, then turned towards the door. “I'll have a quiet word with a few of the staff who were nearby, make sure they understand not to speak about it.”

“Be gentle,” I ordered her sternly, “and I mean my definition of gentle, Emerald. Not yours. None of this mess was their fault, we don't need to compound the experience by threatening them. Just... tell them that our visitors stumbled into a disease ward and had to be contained for the night because they might be contagious or something... plenty of people get irate when they're taken over here forcibly.”

Emerald frowned, but nodded slowly. “As you wish, Henry.”

She left and I sat in the dark room, shielded from the light, and thought about what needed to be done.

It was a very, very long list.

The door opened again, Emerald’s head peeked in. “...and uh, sir?  Dr. Jeffries legs?  Would you like me to…?”

I stared at her a moment, then snorted and rolled my eyes. “No, no… I made the promise, I’ll take care of it.”

~~~

Well, Labor Day stuff ran a bit long, so this is a bit later than I wanted it to be, but... new chapter!

Also! For the first time in, like... a year? At least a year... Mind Games has officially been dethroned!

The Hand We're Dealt has won September's Poll by... three votes! THREE!

Mind Games - obviously - takes up the second spot. With Butler Boy and Paldean Knights coming in 3rd/4th respectively.

Enjoy your hard won victory and I'll try to get 3 full chapters of THWD out this month in recognition of that.

I hope everyone's enjoyed the weekend, though I really wish it would cool off a little bit now that Summer's supposed to be 'over.' We'll see how that goes.

Oh, and for extra research on germ theory/the sanitation movement, check this out: https://youtu.be/TLpzHHbFrHY?si=VNk-6BkgVN5HG5F_