Touch of Madness

by C. T. Adams

  21

  A white van emblazoned with the words “Our Lady of

  Perpetual Hope” pulled up to the curb. Mike was at the wheel. Bryan was bouncing up and down in the passenger seat. Tom opened the sliding door for me, then froze, an expression close to horror on his face.

  “What?” I peered around him to see Mary Connolly sitting primly on one of the back seats.

  “What in the hell—” I started to protest, but she interrupted me.

  “Look, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to, but Joe couldn’t get off work on such short notice, so he asked me to be here. It’s important enough to him that I said yes. So can we all act like grown-ups for the duration?”

  The way she said it made it sound like she’d been rehearsing that little speech for the past couple of hours. Maybe she had.

  I looked at Tom. He gave me a small nod and helped me get in.

  I was wearing the coral suit again, this time with a cream colored shell and pearls. Somehow jeans and a tee-shirt hadn’t seemed right for the occasion. I wasn’t the only one who felt that way either. Mary was in a navy business suit. Tom had opted for gray dress slacks and a black dress shirt with the collar left unbuttoned. The only one dressed informally was Bryan. He wore a Notre Dame sweatshirt over faded blue jeans.

  “Hi, Ka-tie! Hi, Tom! We’re going to the hospital, huh? But this isn’t one of the bad trips. It’s a good trip—right, Father Mike?”

  “Right, Bryan.” Mike answered with a smile. But the way his fingers were moving on the steering wheel told me he was trying hard not to get up his hopes.

  I was so nervous I was nauseous. Tom had tried to get me to eat, but I couldn’t even bear the thought of food. Not right now. Funny, I could face a lunatic wanting to kill me, or a pissed-off vampire just fine, but the thought of trying to cure my brother and possibly failing terrified me. I sat between Mary and Tom, shaking like an aspen leaf in a strong wind. It was bad enough that the seat was actually squeaking.

  Don’t let me fail. Dear God, please don’t let me fail.

  Tom’s hand found mine, and he gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s all right, Kate. It’s going to be fine.” His voice was a bare whisper in my ear.

  I closed my eyes, fighting not to throw up. I needed to get control of myself or this was never going to work. I just wasn’t sure how.

  “I’ve never seen you like this before,” Mary said, with a confused, quizzical note to her voice. “Even when Monica planted those eggs in your arm you weren’t this frightened. Why does this bother you so much?”

  Mike spoke before I could. “Because if that had gone wrong, Kate would be the one who suffered the consequences. She’s always worried more about everybody else’s well-being than her own.” His eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror and I squirmed. He was right, but put that way it made me sound all noble, almost saintly. That so wasn’t me. Just ask Father Akins. Not that he’d say anything, secrecy of the confessional and all.

  Mary sat in stony silence, her back rigid. It was almost impossible not to brush against each other in such close quarters, but she managed it. Nor did she say another word during the entire drive. In fact, the silence got so thick that it was even beginning to dampen Bryan’s spirits, so Mike turned the radio on to my brother’s favorite station—the Disney network—to distract him.

  I think all of us were glad when the ride was over and we could climb out and get a little space. Mary took the lead, striding toward the building, her shoes beating an angry tattoo against the concrete sidewalk.

  Mike and Bryan went after her, leaving Tom and me standing by the van.

  “He’s right, you know. You do put everybody else first, even when you shouldn’t. You don’t value yourself nearly enough.”

  I started to speak, but he put a finger to my lips. “It’s going to be all right. We’ll go inside. You’ll help your brother and Dr. Simms’s daughter, just like you saved Rob. You were able to do that. You can do this. I believe in you.” He pulled me close, so that my head was pressed against his warm chest. I took a deep breath, luxuriating in the masculine scent of him. I felt him move until his mouth was next to my left ear. When he whispered, the warm air tickled the delicate nerves. When I shivered against him, it wasn’t with fear. “And when all’s said and done, and you’ve saved the day again, the two of us are going to go home and have wild passionate monkey sex to celebrate.”

  It made me laugh, which helped. I was still nervous, but it wasn’t the bone-deep terror it had been. I looked up into those sparkling brown eyes and managed to smile. “I’ll hold you to that, buddy boy.”

  “I certainly hope so.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  We were laughing and holding hands all the way across the parking lot. “Are you ready?” He gestured toward the front door of the hospital where Simms and a security guard were standing talking to Michael. “They’re waiting.”

  “I’m ready.” I didn’t believe that—not for a minute, but ready or not, here we go!

  Simms put us in a long, narrow conference room. A pair of security guards flanked the door, each of them in a starched white shirt with pale blue uniform trousers and black shoes that exactly matched the leather of their holsters.

  I’d looked around before taking one of the few open seats. I hadn’t liked what I saw. Oh, the room was all right for an everyday, sundry meeting. The walls were plain white, without art work or ornamentation. The fluorescent lighting was bright enough, the carpet tasteful in an industrial sort of way. Even the table was nothing spectacular, just a long rectangular table of plain blond wood surrounded by twelve chairs of bent chrome.

  But there weren’t enough seats for everyone who’d chosen to attend, and I couldn’t figure out why nobody was making an effort to get more. Mike and Mary were forced to lean uncomfortably against one wall, trying to stay out of the line of sight of the video camera that had been set up to record the events.

  Despite the number of people in the room I was cold. Part of it was physical. Cold air was blasting through the vents in the ceiling. But there was a psychological component, too. The whole setup reminded me forcibly of the illfated meeting with Samantha Greeley. I vaguely recognized one or two of the faces from visiting Joe in the emergency room. Otherwise, the only people I knew were the ones who’d come with me. The various doctors all talked among themselves, their voices muted but taut with excitement. All but two of them kept casting surreptitious glances at me in a way that made my skin crawl.

  Bryan was concentrating on the coloring book and crayons Mike had brought for him. Simms’s daughter simply stared into space, a beautiful, vacant-eyed doll of about fifteen, with long dark hair and hazel eyes.

  Edgar Simms rose, and the murmuring that had filled the room ceased as if cut off with a switch. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re all busy people. Why don’t I proceed with the introductions, and then we’ll get this meeting moving.”

  He gestured toward the man to his left, “This is Dr. Leonard Levy,” he continued, person by person. I didn’t pay much attention. I was trying to focus, find my center.

  “Before we get started, I have a few questions,” Dr. Levy said firmly. “As Melinda Simms’s personal physician, I want to know exactly what is about to take place.”

  Shit. I smiled sweetly and turned my attention to Edgar Simms. “Dr. Simms, may I have a private word with you?” I rose, scooting my chair back from the table.

  “Ms. Reilly—” he started to protest, but I cut him off.

  “It will only take a moment.”

  Tom gave my leg a discreet squeeze before I stood and gave me a warning look. I smiled, trying to tell him without words that I wasn’t going to do or say anything stupid.

  Simms frowned at me, but rose. The nearest security guard opened the door for us and we stepped through it into a nice, empty hallway. The guard followed us through to this side, pulling the door closed behind him. He stood by the door, relaxed but ready, with one hand grippin
g his other wrist.

  “Ms. Reilly,” Simms puffed himself up so that he could look down his nose at me. It was supposed to intimidate me. It didn’t.

  “Dr. Simms,” I talked over the top of him. “What in the hell did you think you were doing inviting all these people?”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but I waved him to silence. “First off, I thought I made it clear that I wanted to do this discreetly. But more to the point, what I’m trying to do here involves a psychic trance. Just how am I supposed to manage that with an audience? And a hostile audience at that. Do you want this to fail? Because I can nearly guarantee I won’t be able to achieve the proper trance.”

  “Ms. Reilly, if this succeeds it will be a hugely important medical breakthrough. From what I understand, you managed to save a wolf’s life during battle conditions. Surely you understand why—”

  “No. You understand. I had help when I was trying to save Rob—help I’m not willing, or able, to call on this time. I am not even going to try this until the only people with me in that room are Bryan, your daughter, and one physician. Whether that person is you or Dr. Levy is up to you. You can leave the camera. You can put the security guards outside the door. But I am not going to just sit there and be cross-examined and treated like some kind of criminal.”

  “Now see here!” he snarled.

  “No, you see here.” I stepped forward until we were standing toe-to-toe. “I came here to help my brother and your daughter. I haven’t asked you for a goddamned thing in exchange. I’m not trying to con you. I’m not doing anything wrong. But let me be perfectly clear when I tell you that I am also not going to be paraded in front of your researchers and subjected to God knows what humiliations. Either that room gets cleared right now or I walk, and you lose your only chance at a cure for Melinda. It’s your choice.”

  He glared at me silently for long moments. His breathing was harsh, as though he’d run a long distance. Red anger spots decorated his cheeks. “You’d do it, wouldn’t you? Just walk away and leave your own brother to—”

  Probably not, but he didn’t need to know that. I could find another location and bring in Miles or Joe if I absolutely had to. “In a heartbeat.”

  He shook his head. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists. A deep flush was creeping up his neck. “Doug said you were a ball-busting bitch.”

  His mention of the Denver Thrall Queen didn’t improve my mood. My voice dripped icicles when I said, “You have no idea how much of a bitch I can be. Now make up your mind, Dr. Simms. I don’t have all day.”

  I could see him consider letting me walk. His pride was such that giving in was almost more than he could bear. But he loved his daughter. In the end, his feelings for her won out. “Fine. Have it your way.”

  I stayed in the hall with the guard. He went back into the room alone. A moment later angry people began filing out of the room. One or two gave me dirty looks, most chose to ignore me completely.

  “Kate,” Mary came up to me with Mike and Tom a step behind. “Dr. Simms says you refuse to do the experiment until everyone but Melinda, Bryan, and him leave the room.”

  “That’s right.” I decided to head off her temper with an explanation. “I need to concentrate.” I gave her a rueful grin. “Besides, there won’t be much to see. I’m going to go into a trance and think at them. It’s liable to be a pretty boring show. About like watching me and Monica negotiate to implant the hatchlings in my arm.” I had no doubt she remembered the infinitely tedious stretch of nearly an hour, watching two women staring at each other silently.

  “And you think this is going to work?” Her eyebrows rose high enough to disappear beneath her bangs.

  I shrugged, because I honestly didn’t know. “I saved Rob and the vampires. All I can do is try.”

  Simms glanced pointedly at his watch. He was holding the door open.

  Mary shook her head and looked at me so hard I could feel her power boring into me. “Try hard, Kate. Because if this fails it’s going to kill Joe.”

  No pressure there. “All I can do is my best.” I walked through the door. Simms closed it behind me, leaving the three of them standing outside.

  Simms took a seat at the head of the table, next to his daughter’s still form. I sat between Melinda and Bryan. This was it.

  For a few moments, I concentrated on Bryan and Melinda. I put a finger to my lips when Bryan put down his crayons and opened his mouth to speak. “You need to be really, really quiet for just a few seconds, Bryan. Can you do that for me? Maybe you could sing to yourself in your head? How about ‘London Bridge’? I know you like that one.”

  He cocked his head, curious, but then must have seen the intensity on my face, because he nodded and picked up the red crayon, his favorite color, and started to turn the sky in the barnyard scene the color of fire. He tapped his other fingers in time to music only he could hear.

  I closed my eyes, taking slow, deep breaths. I willed my power to build, felt it filling me like water fills a cup, until it reached the very brim. With every ounce of will, I blocked myself and those in the room from the Thrall. Not even a whisper of this event would escape to reach the queens. Every hair on my body was standing on end, and an electric tension filled the air in the room like the air before a lightning strike. I opened my eyes and saw Bryan staring at me, his eyes wide. It’s okay, Bry. I watched his body relax. He’d heard the thought as clearly as if I’d said the words aloud.

  Take my hand.

  He put down the crayon and took my hand. The touch was the last drop needed to make the cup overflow. I felt my mind slip the confines of my body; as it had when I healed Rob, and before that, when the Thrall egg had hatched in my body.

  I knew I should be frightened, but I wasn’t. It felt good and somehow right, to slide into my brother’s mind—as though I’d been here before. Like walking through a familiar building, I knew where things were stored. It was all still there, like the records in the church’s basement. The boxes were dusty and water damaged, but the files were readable.

  I sent tendrils of power through the scarred passages, felt new pathways form within his brain to connect his old memories to his current awareness. He gave a violent shudder and started to breathe in little gasps, like after being underwater too long. His heart began to beat faster and his palm blossomed with cold sweat I could hear Dr. Simms push back his chair quickly enough for it to fall over and hit the floor. I managed not to break concentration, but only just.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered with my eyes still closed, and he paused. “Give him a few minutes to adjust.”

  Simms didn’t move forward, but he didn’t sit down again, either. He fought against his instinct to rush forward and separate us, but he remained where he was.

  I held tight to Bryan’s hand as he fought back into his own mind. Finally, he let go of my hand, and I could hear his heartbeat steady. But the power in my head wasn’t finished. There was still so much energy. I couldn’t hold it all. My mind burned, until I felt as though my skin might explode and my hair would combust. I needed to use it, get rid of it somewhere.

  I turned to Melinda Simms and took up her hand.

  22

  I woke in a hospital bed. All of the lights were off in the room, the curtains had been shut tight so that not a hint of daylight shone through. An IV was attached to my arm, clear fluid dripped slowly into the tube.

  Tom sat on the opposite side of the bed, his hand holding mine.

  “You’re awake!” His whispered words sounded as loud as a shout. Pain stabbed into my left eyeball like a heated ice pick. I rolled over in the bed, grabbing frantically for something to throw up into, barely managing to grab the little plastic pan in time. The monitors had started beeping vigorously. The pitch was penetrating and loud enough to bring tears to my eyes.

  I hate migraines. I’ve only had four in my life. This was the second one in about a week. Both times it came after trying to manage a psychic healing. If Bryan was okay it wo
uld be absolutely worth it. If not, I was going to be seriously pissed. I knew I should care about Melinda Simms, but I just didn’t. I remembered bits and pieces of touching her mind—finding it horribly disfigured and burned. There was so much damage and it took so much energy, not only to find the memories, find what had been Melinda, but to connect them. I’d used all the power filling my mind, and then some.

  I’d come to know Melinda Simms through her memories, but she wasn’t such a wonderful person—much like Amanda had been. Pretty, popular, and … intentionally cruel … petty because she could be. There was a certain poetic justice to the damage inflicted on her and I’d wondered at the time if someone had given her a bad dose intentionally. Her last memory was of the satisfied look in the girl’s eyes when she’d handed over the syringe.

  I’d also wondered if she was worth saving.

  But in the end, I did—because I also saw those around her who didn’t deserve to live in misery because of her fate. Her father, and mother, friends and a handsome boy who had love in his eyes in her faded memories.

  But either she was better, or she wasn’t. I couldn’t remember how it had come out before I’d fallen off my chair to the floor, weary beyond belief.

  “How is he?” The words came out in a hoarse croak.

  “Bryan is fine. So is Melinda.” Tom’s voice was thick with more emotions than I could sort in my current condition. “You’re not. You … died, Kate. Your heart stopped. You weren’t breathing. It was all they could do to bring you back.”

  I lay very still beneath the stiff cotton sheets and thought about what he said. I didn’t remember dying. Shouldn’t I? The knowledge of that felt … odd.

  The door opened and a doctor came in carrying a manila folder with my name on it. Bright light shone in from the hallway, and I shut my eyes. The afterimage of the light burned against my lids.