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Ygor sat on Dr. Victoria’s work table, for once the subject of her scientific curiosity, and not the helping hand in bringing those curiosities to life. He swung his legs, back and forth, back and forth, until Victoria snapped at him to stop.
“For the last time,” she grumbled, working at snipping the long string of stitches crossing his forehead, the last of a dozen similar wounds all over his body. “You need to hold still.”
“Ygor is holding.”
“And stop talking.”
It was three days after Ygor had last been brought back– an experiment gone wrong. He didn’t remember anything beyond looking up to see the ceiling of the catacomb caving in, and even that was spotty– and his arms and legs were still tingling with excess electricity. He wore his elbow-length gloves even now, because touching anything– the brass door knobs on doors in the Manor, and much of their laboratory equipment– would deliver little shocks.
According to Victoria, this was normal. As was the pain in his chest and the rapid jackrabbit pace of his heart. It felt like a horse was galloping around inside his ribs. It made him twitchy and anxious. The sheen of sweat coating his forehead shone under the over-bright fluorescent lights, and made the gash crossing it widthwise sting.
“Yow!” He exclaimed, when Victoria went to snip the last of her neat suturing, but a spasm of his shoulder jerked his head to the side, and the scalpel nicked his right temple. “Careful with that.”
“Stay still, then!” She snapped. “Like I told you! There.” She plucked the last of the black thread from his skin. “You’re done. Get out of my sight.”
“Of course, Doctor.” Ygor hopped down from the table, using his shirtsleeve to dab at the new, much smaller, —but still bleeding— cut as he shuffled from the lab and down the stairs, away from the attic proper.
It seemed to take forever to reach the bottom floor, lit only by oil-fueled sconces mounted high on the walls, spaced many feet apart. The dim eased the migraine pounding behind his eyes, but failed to loosen the tension from his shoulders; this was the last illuminated floor of the Manor before one reached the catacombs, where sources of light were few and far between. His anxiety kicked up as he considered the floor, squeezing his throat tight and making it impossible to breathe. If he went down there, it could all collapse on him in an instant.
Ygor took one step toward the hatch, then another, before his numb feet gave out beneath him and he collapsed to the floor, clamping one hand over his chest. His heart beatbeatbeatbeat in his ears, so strong and loud it must be rattling his body, vibrating him like a tuning fork. He couldn’t feel his hands; his breath came in quick, rattling gasps.
Shadows pressed around him, the ceiling above swam and swirled. He was going to die.
“Creature?” A voice asked. A shape appeared, hazy, above him. A pair of eyes glowed deep, sinister red.
Ygor couldn’t help the whimper that escaped him. If it wasn’t a structural collapse, it was one of Dr. Victoria’s monsters come to take its due.
But the clawed hand that descended did not tear and rip at him; it brushed the hair back from his clammy, sweaty forehead and withdrew again. Ygor immediately missed its cool relief. “I told her this would happen if she didn’t bring you back slowly, instead of all at once.”
Dracula knelt, his broad cloak whispering across the hardwood floor. The sound was lost under Ygor’s hyperventilating.
“You are safe.” Dracula said, taking one of the assistant’s limp hands and stroking it. “Calm yourself, creature.”
He watched and waited as Ygor’s eyes rolled behind the lenses of his goggles, the whites bloodshot, pupils all but engulfing the iris. After several minutes they fixed on him, finally, and Dracula heard when his heart rate began to slow, his breathing evening out to its normal rasping wheeze. But he didn’t push. Didn’t dare. Not yet.
He knew for certain it was over when Ygor’s fingers tightened around his own, giving a weak squeeze through his thick laboratory gloves. “Are you ready to sit up?”
Ygor’s Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. But he nodded, and allowed Dracula to brace one hand against his back and ease him up, where he had to pause to breathe, his scrawny chest heaving.
“Ygor couldn’t feel his arms and legs.” He said quietly. He pressed his free hand to his chest. “Ygor’s heart was fast. I thought the ceiling would collapse. Like . . . like . . .” he trailed off.
Dracula inclined his head. His fangs caught the weak torchlight and glinted. “Like the catacombs.”
“Y-Yes.”
“She was foolish to send you down there.” Now calm and semi-clear headed, Ygor flinched at the mention of his master, and despite a flash of hot anger Dracula forced himself silent on the topic. “Do you feel prepared to return?”
A pause. All the answer he needed, really, but he waited, eternally patient, for: “Does Ygor have to?”
“No. Not right now, at least.” But eventually. Dracula brought the hand he had placed at Ygor’s back to cup the back of his head, burrowing his fingers into that jet black hair in the way he liked, and pulled him so he leaned into his chest. He never let go of his hand. “We can wait for a little while.”
“The vampire will stay?” So hopeful. So willing. It made him want to tear out throats.
But he forced down his fury. Said instead, “Of course.”