Possession (9 page)

Mildred looked away. When she looked back, her
eyes were full of sadness. “No one cares what happens to a bunch of lunatics.
We’re the only ones who can stop it.”

“We can’t risk it,” I protested again. “We have to
get out while we can.”

“You won’t help?” she said, her voice almost a
whisper.

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

Mildred walked over to the office door and
unlocked it brusquely. “I thought you were someone I could count on, child.”

“I promised you we’d take you with us when we go,
and that promise still holds true. We won’t leave this place without you.”

“
If
I’m
still alive by the time you decide to leave.”

I wanted to believe that she was being dramatic or
crazy, but there really was something sinister happening in this hospital. Every
month one of the patients had turned up dead. Who was to say next month it
wouldn’t be Mildred, or me, or Dean? We needed to get out of here. “The sooner
I find a spell that will allow Luke to be in control all the time, the sooner we
can get out of here.”

“I guess I can’t blame you for looking after your
own skin with what you’ve been through. And all those death dealers hunting you…
I don’t want to think what will happen if they ever find you.”

Mildred started walking down the hallway, speaking
over her shoulder. “Okay, child, you go ahead and look in the books, but I’m
not going to risk getting caught.” She paused and asked, “The doors are all
unlocked between here and your room. Can you make it back on your own?”

I gave her a smile. “I can make it back.”

She reached into her pocket and walked back to me.
“I almost forgot.” She handed over the enchanted medallion. “Now that you’re
back, you’ll be needing this.”

I took it from her hand. It felt warm against my
palm. There was still power in it, power that I had filled it with following
Walter’s instructions. Still enough power, I hoped, to help juice one more
spell.

I went into Barton’s office, shut the door, and
switched on the desk lamp. There were two wide bookcases full of leather-bound
books. I started skimming each title, clutching the medallion in my left hand.
In theory, it should protect me from any books that had spells on them, but it
hadn’t protected me from the last book I’d touched. Whatever spell surrounded that
tome had been stronger than the magic in the medallion.

There has to be something in one of them that can help
us. Something he might have missed
.
I
reached for a volume.

Lights suddenly blazed overhead.

“
Looky
what we found
here, Hector. Now what are you doing snooping in Dr. Barton’s office? And how
did you get out of your room?” My stomach dropped. It was one of the night
orderlies, a big, burly man with stringy black hair. Another man followed, and
his massive body filled the doorway. Both men had the soft, rounded form of
athletes that had gone to fat and matching mean eyes.

Before I could react, the first man stepped forward
and grabbed me by the arm.

Since I’d been in this place, I’d kept my nose
clean and followed all the rules. I'd never been put in a straitjacket or
shoved into a padded room. I’d been considered a model patient.

Until Morgana appeared.

The orderly’s grip tightened on my arm. “Do you
remember this one, Hector? She’s the one that spit at you and scratched me last
week.”

Dr. Barton said I’d been depressed and manic. I’d
seen patients like that and how they behaved. The staff often answered erratic
behavior aimed toward them with after-hours payback. When I was Morgana, I’d
wronged these men. Now they wanted their revenge.

I kept my expression calm.
Don’t resist.
The last thing I wanted to do was make them angry and
give them a reason to restrain me. The second orderly came around my other
side. The two men dragged me out of the office and down the hall.

It was only when we passed by the entrance to the patients’
quarters that I grew really concerned.
They
aren’t taking me back to my room.
The halls became darker, and a subtle
smell of mildew filled the air. The hospital became more crowded with spirits
as the living faded behind us. Voices clamored for my attention at the edge of
my mind, but I shut them out.
We were going
to the oldest part of the asylum, a section of the building that was no longer
used. It had become a sanctuary for the many spirits that wandered the hospital…or
perhaps a prison. The orderlies felt none of it. They focused only on me.

Hector finally spoke up. “Do you think this is a
good idea, Larry?”

Larry answered. “Come on, we can’t let her get
away with what she did to us.”

I struggled against their grips, panicking as we
moved deeper into the abandoned part of the hospital. “Where are you taking me?”

“Looks like you need to cool off.” Larry laughed.

They turned and pushed open a set of gray swinging
doors. Inside the room, six old-fashioned bathtubs sat in a row. At the back of
the room was a line of shower stalls.

I desperately struggled to get free. I didn’t know
what payback they had planned for me, but I didn’t want any part of it.

Larry let me go and I scrambled to get away, but
Hector rounded on me and put me in a bear hug. Larry may have been a burly man,
but Hector was a muscle-bound giant.

Larry walked over to the closest tub and turned
the handles. Water started pouring out of the spout. “They don’t use this part
of the hospital much. But when the place gets full they still bring some of the
more unruly patients in here to wash them down.” He lifted the sleeve of his
shirt. A two-inch scratch ran across his arm. He rubbed his fingers over the
scratch and smiled at Hector. “Watch this one—she has sharp nails.”

Larry walked out of the room, leaving me alone
with Hector. I struggled to get free. The more I struggled, the harder Hector
squeezed. He was squeezing so hard I couldn’t catch my breath.

Larry walked back in the room, a blue bucket in
each hand. “She’s a feisty one. Careful, Hector, you don’t want to break her.
She looks like she’s about to pass out.”

Hector’s embrace loosened just a bit.

Larry poured the contents of the buckets into the
tub. I watched as a stream of ice cubes slid into the water. Larry turned and
looked at Hector. “What do you think? Cold enough?” When Hector didn’t answer,
Larry laughed and turned to walk out of the room. “You’re right, a girl with
such a hot temper probably needs a bit more to cool her down.”

A few minutes later he was back with two more
buckets full of ice. He poured them into the tub and turned off the water.
“There, that looks just right.” He walked over and grabbed my arm.

Hector loosened his grip and Larry started pulling
me toward the tub. “Come on, love. This will do you some good. If nothing else,
it’ll make me feel a whole lot better.”

I struggled, and then let my body go limp, hoping
my deadweight would deter him, but it didn’t matter. Larry hoisted me up and
threw me into the tub.

I hit the cold water, and the shock of it knocked
all the air out of my lungs. I felt as though I’d been punched in the stomach.
I scrambled to get out, but a beefy hand came down on the top of my head and
pushed me under.

Not for the first time, I wished that I had a more
direct form of magic at my disposal, something that would rip and tear at
bullyboy Larry. But I was a lame sort of death dealer—I had no banshees
to fling at my enemies. At times like this, my refusal to bind spirits to do my
bidding seemed to be the worst kind of stupidity. Still, I couldn’t force
myself to hold a soul in bondage, no matter the cost.

As the seconds ticked by and my lungs screamed for
air, frustration and anger coursed through me. A wash of adrenaline pumped
through my veins.
I grabbed Larry’s hand, jerked
it to my mouth, and bit down hard. I ground my teeth until I tasted blood along
with the water. Larry yanked his hand away, slamming my head into the side of
the old cast-iron tub as I surfaced. The entire world spun and throbbed to a
distressed pulse in my head as I gasped for breath. My body suddenly seemed
weak and hard to control. I felt a hand grasp my hair and shove my head firmly
under. I tried to renew the fight to no avail.

It was so cold. I couldn’t breathe. My hands slid
against the smooth surface of the tub. I tried to use my feet to push myself
up, but they glided out from under me. The man holding me down was strong.

I was drowning.

Just when I thought I might black out, the hand
let up and my head broke the surface. I sucked in a mouthful of air.

“Easy, Larry. We just want to scare the girl. You
don’t want to drown her.”

Larry shouted. “Did you see what she did to me?
She needs a good dunking.”

Larry pushed me down again. And again. He dunked
me four or five times. Each time he held me down until I thought my lungs would
explode and I would pass out. And then he would let me up, just long enough to
get a mouthful of air before he pushed me under again.

After the fifth time, he let me up for good. I
sputtered water. I was cold, shaking. My teeth were chattering. Larry pulled me
from the water. He threw me to the floor. I hit the hard tile and cried out. I lie
shaking and bruised on the floor.

Larry threw a towel at me. “There now, remember
this
the next time you act up. You try
to bite me again and we’ll bring you back here. Next time I won’t be so nice.”

My muscles were too frozen to reach for the towel.
I just lie on the tile floor, shivering.

Hector spoke up. “We better get her back to her
room.”

They pulled me off the floor and dragged me
through the hallways.

Once at my room, they tossed me inside and slammed
the door shut. I heard keys rattle and the lock turn. I lie on the floor, cold and
scared. They could have killed me…all because of Morgana.

I can’t just
lie here. I’m freezing.
I forced myself off the floor and made my way
slowly to the bathroom. There was a small mirror over the sink
.

I looked at my reflection, shivering violently. A
face that seemed to belong to a stranger stared back at me. The picture of myself
that had returned with my memories didn’t seem to match the face that stared back
at me in the mirror.
 
The prominent Scottish
forehead and chin were still there, but my face seemed leaner, more angular—the
soft roundness that had made me look so young was gone. My wet, dark hair hung
down my face. It was long and unruly now; it hadn’t been cut in a long time. I
pushed it back, thinking how horrified my mother would have been to see the
long bangs hanging over my eyes. My eyes…they were the same hazel color, but
now I could see power—and fear—shining from them.

The softness and innocence I could vaguely remember
feeling had been stolen from me forever by the path I’d chosen.

My shaking hand reached out and touched the
mirror. They could have killed me, but they didn’t. They only meant to scare
me. And they had.

Bastards!
With
a flash of impotent rage, I smashed my hand into the mirror, sending spidery cracks
across its surface and slicing my hand. As blood dripped across my knuckles, I
took deep breaths, trying to bring myself back under control. I stood trembling
with clenched fists as I fought for calm
.
There is darkness inside me. But I wouldn’t let it control me. For a long
second I struggled with my inner demons, eventually wrestling them back into
submission. It wasn’t easy. I felt as if I had run a marathon after a boxing
match, but I also felt stronger, more myself.

I looked into the mirror once more. For a moment,
I forgot what I’d lost and instead just studied the girl staring back at me.
She was lean, though no longer a tomboy with an attractive, willowy frame. Her
body was more filled out than I remembered, but she was still athletic. But it
was the face that had changed the most: rather than “the girl next door,” a
dramatic-looking, pale face with dark hair and haunted eyes stared back at me.

I took a moment more to examine myself before the
stinging pain in my hand claimed my attention. I ripped a strip of fabric from
one of the gowns in the hamper and wrapped it around my hand. The bleeding had
already begun to slow, and the cut looked pretty superficial, but I still shook
my head at my stupidity. Hurting myself did nothing to alleviate my danger or
get me out of this literal madhouse. The mirror would be impossible to hide.

Hopefully no one will go into the bathroom.

I stripped off my clothes and dried myself off as
best I could with a small hand towel. I wrapped a robe around me, made my way
quickly back to the bed, and dove under the covers. I was still shivering, but
I could feel some warmth start to seep back into my body.

It wasn’t until I started to warm up that I
realized something was wrong. I raised my hands and looked down at them. They
were both empty. The medallion I had clutched so desperately between my fingers
was gone. It had been in my hands when the orderlies grabbed me in Barton’s office…but
somewhere along the way I must have lost it. It still had power. We would need it
when we found a spell to help Luke.

And then I realized something worse in a moment of
horror. The orderlies had dragged me into the room, and now any salt lining the
threshold was scattered across the floor.

Without it, I didn’t have any protection from the
choking ghost that roamed this part of the hospital at night.

As long as I didn’t go to sleep, the ghost wouldn’t
bother me. Spirits usually crept up on the unsuspecting. All I had to do was
keep my eyes open for the next few hours until the sun came up.

I jumped at the sound of the window rattling.
There were no curtains covering it, just the bars. Blackness stared back at me.
It’s just the wind blowing outside
, I
told myself.
There’s nothing to be scared
of
.