Possession (33 page)

Nurse Harrington’s words came back to me from long
ago, when she first explained the shock therapy to me:
“You’re completely still—well, except for your left foot. They
need a way to see if the shock is going through your system, so they don’t numb
your foot.”

But I’m not numb.
I could wiggle both my feet and my fingers.

“Doctor, the patient is under.” It was Nurse
Harrington’s voice.
No, I’m not!
The
words screamed inside my head.

“Good. Let us proceed.” I recognized the voice. It
was Dr. Barton.

I felt fingers at my forehead, and cold plastic
things being pressed down against my skin. And then the mask was removed, but
before I could make noise, something was shoved into my mouth. The beeping of the
machines got louder.

“Okay, let’s get this show on the road. Nurse
Harrington, you may proceed,” the doctor commanded.

No, wait—

The thought barely entered my mind when the pain
hit. My body bucked. It was a white-hot fire. It soared through my limbs, it
coursed through my blood, it rammed into my brain. My body thrashed up and
down. My arms and legs twisted hard against the restraints. I jerked and
twisted again and again. There was nothing now but the pain. It consumed me.

And then it was gone. I lie still and breathless
against the table.

The object was removed from my mouth, but I
couldn’t speak. I could only suck in a mouthful of air. Breathing was painful.
My muscles, my limbs, they hurt as though I had been run over by a truck.
Wendy… Wendy… Help…

A voice whispered into my ear, “Oops… Did I forget
to give you the numbing medication? My mistake.” It was
Weatherton
.
“You
deserve
to feel the pain. All
the trouble you’ve caused me. All the plans I had, ruined. I could’ve gone on
for months, maybe years, quietly enjoying my kills. But no, you had to stick
your nose into my business. Bring attention to what I was doing. Hunt me down.
I’ll make you pay.” Then the voice was gone.

With great effort, I managed to turn my head to
the side.
Weatherton
was standing close by. I could
see the madman shining out of the nurse’s eyes. And then horror filled
me—
Weatherton
was standing over a body.

Dr. Barton lie dead on the floor. His throat had
been sliced from ear to ear, and a pool of blood slid down his white coat and
onto the floor.

Weatherton
gave me a
smile. “The good doctor objected when he realized you weren’t immobilized. He
thought we should stop, since your body was moving all over the table.” A loud
laugh came out of his mouth. “You looked like a bucking bronco, you did. The
good doctor was getting on my nerves anyway. It’s better now that it’s just the
two of us.”

Weatherton
walked over
to a machine. His fingers glided toward a knob below a range of numbers. “What
do you think? More volts? Ready for another round? How many do you think we should
do this time?”

No, no, no, no,
WENDY
—

He twisted the knob.

The electricity ran through me, and my muscles
jerked and jumped. Tears streamed down my cheeks as the pain raced through me.

And then it stopped.

I lie on the table, gasping for air. The pain was all-consuming.
My head throbbed. My muscles and limbs ached as though I’d been severely
beaten.

Weatherton
let out an
evil laugh. “How many volts do you think it will take to get all those pesky
memories burned from your mind?”

I felt a breeze across my face. I could have cried
with relief.
Thank the Goddess, I’m not alone
.
Ghostly fingers slid across my arm.

Weatherton
reached for
the knob, and the lights overhead flickered. He hesitated. Then he reached
again toward the machine, but before he could touch it, the lights flickered
once, then twice, and then went out.

There was a pounding noise at the door, then it
burst open and light streamed in. With the light came a rush of bodies.

I heard a woman scream, and the table suddenly
jostled as someone pushed against it.

Then there was nothing but silence.

The lights in the room flickered back on. Mildred
was standing over me with a mop in her hand. She was holding it high above her
head like a weapon.

Luke leaned down next to me. “Are you okay?”

I look into his eyes. Blue eyes stared back at me.
Not Luke. Dean
.

The restraints around my legs and hands were
released, and strong arms helped me sit up.

“Do you know who I am?” Dean asked, his eyes
anxious.

“I-I…know you.” The words came out as a whisper. I
sucked in a deep breath. It still hurt to breathe. I wondered if I’d broken a
rib. My body was battered and bruised and there was a horrible pain radiating
from the center of my forehead.

Dean helped me to my feet. My legs were shaking. I
started to fall, but Dean leaned over and lifted me into his arms. He carried
me out of the room.

“Where is he?” I demanded weakly.

“The doctor? He’s dead,” Dean answered.

I shook my head. “N-no. The nurse. Nurse
Harrington.”

Dean looked down the hallway. “She ran away as
soon as we came in.”

Mildred waved the mop around. “She was huddled
against the wall when we came in. Seeing Dr. Barton killed traumatized her, I
think. Who was it, child, who came in and killed the doctor? Did you get a good
look at them?”

“I’m okay. You can put me down.” My face was only
inches from Dean’s. His grip tightened around me, and for a moment I thought he
was going to ignore me altogether, but then he gently lowered me to the ground.
As soon as he did, I unclasped
Weatherton’s
bracelet
from my wrist and threw it to the ground. Free of the charm, I had my powers
back. I was no longer defenseless.

For the first time, I looked at Wendy. She looked terrified.
I reached out a hand, and she grasped my fingers in hers.
Thank you
. Her eyes softened.

I looked over at Dean. “How did you guys find me?”

Dean moved closer to me and reached out as if to
take my hand, but his fingers stopped short of touching mine. “Wendy. She knew
something was wrong. After you left she came and found me and we went looking
for you. We couldn’t find you anywhere. Dean’s expression turned grim. “Then
Sabrina came. The girl
that died
last
month. I haven’t communicated with the other side since the second trial. I’ve
made a point of closing myself off from it as much as I could. I can feel when
things are in the room, but I do things to distract
myself
so I don’t make contact. But I couldn’t keep the girl out.
When we were looking for you, she popped up and wouldn’t go away. She told me
where you were and that you were in grave danger.”

Weatherton
said he
forbade his
victims’ spirits
from
helping me. I wonder what that little tip will cost Sabrina’s spirit.

“There were orderlies waiting for me in the hall.
There was no way I could get away. They drugged me when I started to put up a
fight.” But that wasn’t the important information. I turned shakily and announced,
“
Weatherton
is inside Nurse Harrington.”

They all gasped in surprise.

I looked over at Wendy and asked, “Couldn’t you
tell she was possessed?”

Wendy looked down at the ground, embarrassment
coloring her face. “I’ve never been around that nurse. It was always Caroline
or one of the orderlies that did things with me. Maybe if I had been around her
longer… There was something odd, an echo I could hear when she was in the room
with us, but I didn’t have time to think much about it before she hustled you
out.”

I wondered if
Weatherton
had kept his distance from Wendy on purpose. He would have known she was a
reader. He would’ve been worried that if he spent too much time with her, she
might spot the wrongness inside the nurse he was squatting in.

But Andrew had been around Nurse Harrington quite
a lot. I’ve seen the two of them together often in the common room. Andrew
never mentioned that there might be anything wrong with her. How much would the
protection pouch Andrew wears mute his powers?

Wendy was watching me closely. “The pouch wouldn’t
make a difference. It keeps the voices out of your friend’s head, but he should
have sensed that something was wrong with the nurse if he’d been with her for
any amount of time.”

If that’s
so, why didn’t Andrew say anything? Why didn’t he warn me?

I shook off the thought, trying to focus on what
we should do next—find
Weatherton
, and show him
just what I’m capable of. That idea stopped me cold.
Weatherton
was in Nurse Harrington’s body, but she didn’t know he was in there. She wasn’t
a killer. There had to be a way to get him out without harming her.

“What now? Do we go
after
Harrington? I mean,
Weatherton
?”
Dean asked.

“I don’t think
Weatherton will give up so easy.
He was hoping to turn my mind
into
mush with the shock therapy. He wanted to
turn me into an empty vessel so he could hop in. He blames me for ruining his
twisted plans.” I couldn’t stop a sob from escaping my mouth. “He didn’t give
me the drugs to numb me. I felt everything when the current ran through me.”

Mildred sounded shocked. “You’re lucky you didn’t
break any bones. I’ve talked to patients who went through the treatment years
ago, the way they used to do it in the past. Are you okay, child?”

My whole body ached. I felt bruised from head to
toe. “I’m sore. I feel like I’ve been hit by a semi and my head feels three
times too big. I have a terrible headache, but I’m here in one piece. I know
who all of you are. I know my name.”

“If he had gone through with it…if he had been
able to complete the therapy…” Dean trailed off.

Wendy looked up and down the hallway. “
Weatherton
doesn’t seem like the type to run scared. He
might be regrouping and waiting to come after you again.”

I looked back into the room. “We can’t stay here.
Someone will come along soon. When they find Barton’s body, they’ll think I had
something to do with his death.”

“You wanted to get out of this place. We might
have no choice but to make a break for it now,” Dean said.

“It’s too risky trying to escape in the middle of
the day.
They’ll see us running
across the yard. We need to figure out how to turn the electricity off. The
switch is in the gatehouse, but there’s a guard. We’ll have to get rid of him
somehow…unless it storms again and the rain shorts the fence out.”

Dean closed the door on the horrible room with its
torture table and stink of blood and death, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He
turned back to us. “The storm is raging again. Maybe we’ll get lucky and
everyone will decide to stay inside where it’s warm and dry.”

“If we aren’t lucky, they’ll catch us all and put
us in padded rooms. If we’re drugged and in straitjackets, we’ll be sitting
ducks for that lunatic,” I answered.

“What other choice do we have? We have to run,”
Dean demanded.

“How do you suggest we escape? We can’t just waltz
out of this place in broad daylight.”

“I heard the nurses talking—there’s supposed
to be a big storm tonight, and when the old electric fence gets wet enough, it
shorts out. The way I see it, we have two choices,” Dean answered. “We can make
a run for it now and take our chances that the storm will short out the fence
and cover us, or we can head to the vacant part of the hospital. Hide out. Hope
no one comes looking for us. And then when it gets dark, we make a run for it.”

Wendy’s eyes were wide. I could tell both ideas
scared her.

“What if
Weatherton
has
the same idea? What if he heads there to hang out? Or heads back to his ritual
room to do more of his…twisted mojo?” I demanded.

“If we run across him in that part of the
hospital, empty like it is, then all bets are off.” Dean’s eyes narrowed. “We
beat him until he stops getting up.”

“It won’t be
him
we’re beating,” Wendy said, speaking my thoughts aloud. “Nurse Harrington is an
innocent victim in all this. She didn’t ask for that monster to jump inside
her.”

“If we come across her, we won’t kill her. We’ll
just knock her unconscious, tie her up, and head for the hills.”

And leave a
killer behind
? Dean’s look was calculating, and I wasn’t sure I believed
his attempt to placate Wendy. If we found
Weatherton
,
could we overpower him? He’d been working ancient, powerful spells—magic
we didn’t really understand. What kind of magic did he truly possess? And were
we a match for it?

I took one shaky step forward and stumbled on the next. The
adrenaline that had been pumping through me since I’d been saved from the
electroshock left my body, and I slumped toward the floor.

Dean reached out and caught me. He slid his arm
around my waist and pulled me tight against him. “You’re not okay.”

“I just need a minute,” I said, leaning heavily
against him. But I could no longer think clearly. White-hot pain filled my
head.
I need to stop moving. I need to lie
down.

He watched me for a minute and then looked at
Wendy and Mildred. “If we’re going to make a run for it, Colina needs time to
get her strength back. We’ll head for the vacant part of the hospital. We’ll
hole up until Colina gets a chance to catch her breath, and then we’ll make a
break for it as soon as it gets dark. Wendy, will you be able to sense a hospital
posse heading our way?”

“I think so,” Wendy whispered.

“Then that’s the game plan. Any objections?” Dean barked.

There were none.

Dean continued. “We should split up. It’ll look
suspicious if we all head down the halls together. It’s between meals, so
unless they’re looking specifically for us, we’re just patients taking a casual
stroll down the halls. No one should look twice at us. I mean, why would they?
They don’t have a reason.”

Mildred spoke up. “That all changes when they find
the doctor’s body.”

Wendy took a few steps until she was in front of
me. “We’ll meet in the room where we got the Ouija board. I’ll go with Mildred
and show her the way.”

I managed to nod my head. I regretted the motion
as a wave of pain flashed across my temples. I closed my eyes. When I opened
them again, Mildred and Wendy were gone.

“Ready?” Dean asked, wrapping his arm around my
waist and shouldering most of my weight. He started moving us both forward. As
we moved, my shirt rode up and I could feel the warmth of his fingers against
my skin. I clung to him, struggling not to weep in his arms. I wanted someone
to comfort me. I forced the pain, the fear, the horror of what almost happened
back and tried to focus on the hallway in front of me.

We made our way slowly through the halls. We
passed both patients and staff, but no one tried to stop us.
It was only at night that the place
went on lockdown. As long as we looked nonchalant, no one would bother us. But
like Mildred said, all that would change when they found the doctor’s body.

We rounded a corner and came face-to-face with
Andrew.

He gave me a shy smile. “Colina, I haven’t seen
you in the common room. Do you want to go play a game of checkers?”

“Not now, Andrew,” Dean answered distractedly.

“What’s wrong?” Andrew took a step closer. His
eyes went wide as he took in my weak stature, and an expression of concern came
across his face. “What happened?”

You want to
know what happened?
I wanted to scream at him. Anger pumped through my
blood, and for a blissful moment I forgot my injuries.

I pushed myself away from Dean and rushed forward,
knocking Andrew against the wall. “Did you know the killer was inside Nurse
Harrington?”

“What are you—” Andrew looked scared.

“You were around her so much…how could you be so
close to that psycho without sensing him inside her?” I grabbed the front of
his sweatshirt and bunched the material in my hands. I pulled Andrew forward
and then shoved him hard against the wall again.

“I swear I didn’t! I swear I don’t know anything.”
His voice was getting hysterical.

“I want the truth! Are you working with him? Are
you helping him murder these people?”

“I’m not! I’m not!” Andrew was now crying.

“Colina.” Dean’s hand clamped down on my shoulder,
and he pulled me back. I reluctantly let go of Andrew’s shirt, and his hands
came up as if in surrender. “I liked Nurse Harrington, she was always nice to
me. I…I knew something wasn’t right. But I didn’t
want
to know. I didn’t want to get involved!”

“You felt something, and you didn’t warn anyone?
You didn’t warn
me
?” At that moment,
I wanted to kill him. My fingers reached out, and I would have gone for him
again if Dean hadn’t wrapped his arms around my waist.

Andrew’s voice came out in a sob. “I thought I was
imagining it.
I often see things that aren’t
real…hear voices.
” His face was full of anguish. “It’s usually all in my
mind—I’m not right in the head. I swear, if I’d thought I could stop
people from getting hurt…” Andrew shrank from my glare and another sob escaped
his mouth.

Dean’s voice hissed in my ear. “Cool it. There’s a
nurse at the other end of the hall talking to an orderly.”

I turned my head and saw the two white uniforms
deep in conversation. They hadn’t noticed us yet.

“Keep this up and they’ll lock us all up. Is that
what you want?” Dean hissed at me.

“No.” I lowered my hands and forced my anger back. I looked Andrew
in the eye. “Why couldn’t you trust me? Why didn’t you just tell me, and let
me
decide whether or not to worry?”

“I didn’t want to know. I’m so sorry.” Andrew
reached out his hand, and his fingers touched mine.

At the contact, his eyes rolled back in his head
and his body trembled. He fell as if shoved back against the wall. After a few
moments, he seemed to come back to his senses. He slowly straightened. When he
looked at me again, fear filled his face.

What did he
see? Why is he looking at me like that?

Dean let go of me and gave me a gentle shove.
“Start walking. They’re looking our way.” I stood staring at Andrew. “Colina…get
moving!”

I stumbled forward.

Once down the hall and around the corner, Dean put
his arm back around me. “I don’t believe Andrew purposefully helped that
madman.”

The anger had deserted me. In its place,
exhaustion and pain flowed back into my limbs. “He didn’t warn us. That’s as
good as helping him.”

“He was too afraid.” He leaned in and whispered, “Colina…
How long did you suspect
Weatherton
was inside of
me?” His expression was sad, but he looked more resigned than upset.

Of course he
heard. He hears everything that happens when Luke is aware.
“I thought it
might be you, but I suspected everyone,” I admitted.

“I can’t blame you,” he said, but he sounded hurt.
“I probably would have done the same thing. I’ve been thinking about it—we
can call the cops once we’re on the outside, but no one in here is equipped to
handle this kind of thing. I should call my mom. She can contact our guild, and
they’ll come and help out.”

He paused for a long moment. “That is, if the
hospital will take help from death dealers. My guild, the
Garmr
,
has always been one of the most respected death dealer guilds. We aren’t as
high and mighty as the Phoenix Guild or as creepy as the Dragon Guild. My mom
was telling me how things have changed while I’ve been away. I know our kind
has always been on the fringe, but she says it’s gotten really bad. Death
dealers are scattered and being driven from their homes, guilds have been fractured…some
people are injured and unable to find help or sanctuary; dozens have been
killed.”

He paused for a moment, looking off in to space
with distant worry. “I have to get back to my guild…my family. I need to be
there to protect them. They’ll be calling all the able-bodied fighters to
protect the homestead. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened and I
wasn’t there to help.”

His eyes were full of concern. I hadn’t heard him
speak about his people this way before, so passionately hoping to help. “My mom
said it all started with some girl who raised up zombie-like creatures and a
demon
. This girl apparently has powers
that no one has seen before. She started all this trouble.”

His words left me speechless.
Dean doesn’t know who I really am or what I’m capable of? How can he
not know?
I took a moment to think—he hadn’t been able to really
comprehend what was going on around him until I saved him from drowning in the
bathtub, so he might not have understood Luke and my conversations about my
powers.
What will happen when he finds out?
What will he think of me when he realizes the evil I unleashed? When he learns
I’m the source of his family’s problems?

Dean leaned in and asked, “Has your guild had a
lot of issues?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Can you imagine being able to
raise the dead? Zombies! I would never have thought such a thing was possible.
Mom said that all the guilds are hunting this girl, and for good reason. She’s
made it to the top of the death dealers’ most-wanted list.”

What would it be like to look into the face of the
guy I loved and see him looking back at me with fear and disgust?
It won’t be Luke who hates me,
I
reminded myself,
it will be Dean.
Luke
knew all of my secrets and he hadn’t stopped loving me. But if Dean knew who I
really was, would he turn me over to his guild? How much can I tell him? How
much can I trust him?

We stopped, and Dean
sent me a questioning glance. I’d been too silent for too long. I tried to put
distance between myself and the story. “No, I can’t imagine someone raising
zombies. It sounds like wild, crazy rumors. Are you sure it’s even true?”

“It’s true. Mom said word about the zombies has
spread like wildfire.”

What’ll Dean say when he finds out three hundred
of his kind were murdered because of the things I’ve done? I couldn’t help
myself—I asked the one question that had been haunting me. “What do they
plan to do with her when they find her?”

“Most of the guilds are calling for her head. I
don’t think she’ll have a chance to go to trial. My guess is that a mob of
vigilantes will kill the girl on sight. Someone will see that she pays for her
crimes against our kind.” He pulled me close and we started moving again.

I tried not to pull away
defensively, despite the fear and guilt that threatened to overwhelm me. If
Dean and his guild ever found out that I was the zombie-raising,
demon-releasing girl, the very hands now wrapped around me might kill me. There
was no safe place for me. When I got out of here, I’d still be hunted. I’d
still be forced to run.

* * *

We had to backtrack a half-dozen times. It took me a few
tries to find my way to the vacant part of the hospital. Suddenly all the
hallways looked alike. I could have sworn a few of them had shifted. Is it
possible for hallways to morph and move? Is it possible for a building to be
alive?
I felt it again, the sensation
of the walls expanding in and out.
It’s like this place is breathing.

I pointed to my left. “I know it’s that way. It has
to be that way.” I shook my head and winced at the pain.

Dean stopped and moved in front of me. He peered
into my face. “What is it?”

“This headache is crazy-bad. I can barely think.”

“Not surprising, considering the volts of
electricity that raced through your head. It was a close call.” He lowered his
voice. “I thought for a second there that we were going to be too late.”

“You were worried about me?” I joked, and then
felt uncomfortable as those intense blue eyes swung my way.

“I was terrified. You were in danger. I don’t
think I’ve ever been so scared.”

The way he was looking at me made my heart beat
faster. “Dean…” My words caught in the back of my throat. He started to move
forward, and for a moment, I thought he was going to pull me into his arms and
kiss me. Instead, he paused as if reconsidering, and then took a step back.

“I know you’re in love with Luke.” He gave me a
ghost of a smile. When I didn’t say anything, he whispered, “I worry about you.
About your safety.” He looked uncomfortable. “If we don’t make it out of here
alive…”

He looked so worried. I was touched that he seemed
as concerned for me as he did for his family and his guild.

I reached out and grabbed his hand. It was warm in
mine. “We’ll make it.”

I started to pull my hand away and his fingers
tightened. “You sure about that?”

I felt shaky, mentally exhausted. In need of
comfort.
It would be so easy to put my
head on his shoulder and feel those strong arms wrap around me
.

But this was not Luke. This was Dean.

Luke knew what I really was. He’d seen the
terrible, reckless things I’d done and he still loved me. The world might think
me a monster, but Luke did not.

How would Dean react if my secrets came out? I
knew Dean cared about me, but that would all change if he found out what I was
capable of. If he knew I was the girl who raised the zombies and a demon—the
reason his people were being hunted and killed—his feeling would quickly
change. And then would I be facing a new enemy? Would those blue eyes stare at
me with hate instead of compassion?

I gently pulled my hand out of his and gave him a
smile. “I’ve made it out of worse situations.”

He smiled back at me. “Now
that’s
hard to believe.”

I wanted to tell him everything I’d been through,
all the awful situations that I’d found myself in since I first stepped into
the magic shop.

But I couldn’t.

* * *

It was dark in the empty wing of the hospital, but it wasn’t
the pitch-black we’d encountered last night. Rays of light shone through open
doors and cracks between the bricks in the walls.

We walked into the room marked with a crescent
moon.

Dean looked around at the scattered equipment and
rotting ceiling. “Lovely.”

“You should see the room that has walls painted in
blood,” Wendy said, standing by the windows. She and Mildred had apparently
arrived before us.