Possession (15 page)

“But
I didn’t have a psychotic break,” I demanded. “I wasn’t trying to escape. I
heard a spirit calling me. I felt compelled to go find her. She desperately
wanted me to find her body.”

His
condescending smile froze on his face as he tried to process my words.
That got his attention.

“Her
body is buried in the woods,” I continued. “If you go back there, you’ll find
her skull. I uncovered it. The rest of her is buried out there. You just have
to get some men and dig.” Both the nurse and the doctor were watching me
closely now, and I could tell by the looks on their faces that they didn’t
believe a word I was saying. I had to make them believe. I couldn’t let them do
electroshock therapy on me again.

What
could I do to stop them? I
had
felt a
spirit around Dr. Barton before, but I’d never focused on it or allowed myself
to listen to it. I couldn’t risk him finding out I was a death dealer before, but
now I needed him to believe me when I told him I could talk to spirits. I
decided to open myself to any spirits that might be in the room, desperate for
a way to convince him to take me seriously.

And
there it was—the spirit I had felt before, the one that sometimes swirled
around the doctor. A chilly breeze ran across my hand and a voice only I could
hear whispered in my ear. I spoke, repeating what the spirit told me, “Your
mother…she says she never meant to cause you pain when she disciplined you.”

The
doctor’s eyes narrowed.

I
didn’t give him a chance to interrupt. My words rushed out: “I can hear her.
She’s speaking to me now. Her spirit is in the room with us. I’m not hearing random
voices, Doctor. I’m a death dealer. The dead are talking to me.”

His
eyes grew wide. “No, you’re…you’re a healer.”

I
shook my head. “I’m not. I’m a death dealer. I’ve been through the three
rituals.”

He
walked over and released my right wrist from its restraint. He turned it over
and exposed the blue swallow tattoo. “You, my dear, are a healer. These voices
you think you hear are part of your mental breakdown.”

“No,
I
was
a healer, but then I went
through the rituals. I learned the Death Arts. I do hear voices—the
voices of the dead. I didn’t have a breakdown before. I was possessed by a
spirit.”

“That’s
not possible. Healers can’t be possessed.” But he didn’t seem as sure as he had
been. He looked to the nurse as if to seek her support, and then he turned to
look at the door as though he couldn’t wait to dismiss me along with what I was
saying,

I
blurted out, “Your mother says that as a child you were afraid of the dark.
That’s why she put you down in the basement. She wanted you to grow up strong.
She wanted you to get over your fears.”

He
turned ashen. “How could you—”

I
didn’t let him finish. “I can talk to the dead. Ask Dean. He’ll tell you it’s
true. He knows me from…before.” I just hoped that when they questioned Dean he
would catch on quick enough to cover my lies.

Now
I wished I could have kept my secret longer. A healer turned death dealer… The
word was out. Even though the asylum was isolated, it wouldn’t take long for
this kind of gossip to spread out of the asylum and through the mage communities.
Talk of a healer who’d learned the Death Arts… That kind of gossip might find
its way to Luke’s family. And if they got wind of it—if they knew where I
was—they would hunt me down, and at the first opportunity, kill me.

Time passed after Dr. Barton and Nurse
Harrington left; I’m not sure how much. I lie in bed watching the walls,
wondering if I was ever going to get out of here.

My
mind was still racing with what happened. The overpowering urge that had forced
me to go into the forest…the girl calling
out to me…her spirit desperate with the
need to be found…

Dean
had done his best to try and stop me, but the force calling out to me was too
strong. And then when I found her, when
my fingers closed around her skull, the
vision had come to me of her death. I’d seen the same man Andrew had seen in
his vision, the same man I’d seen in my dream. The moonlight had spilled down
on the killer’s face, illuminating it enough so that I could just make out his
features—especially inside the collar of his open cloak, where the dragon
tattoo wound around his neck. Andrew hadn’t recognized the man, and neither had
I. If he was on the staff or living as a patient in here, he was not someone I
had come across. I wondered if there were patients being held in solitary rooms
who never got out. Were patients tucked away somewhere? And if I kept making
trouble, would I become one of them?

None
of the patients I’d seen so far were extremely violent. Yes, there had been
some incidents when a patient wigged out or made a scene, like I had. In those
cases, the punishment came swift and harsh. But in the next day or two I would
see the same patient once again roaming the halls, usually heavily medicated.
This place was not, as far as I knew, a facility that dealt with the criminally
insane or the hard-core cases. They gave us the run of the place, only locking
down at night. No way would they do that if they were worried about the patients
constantly hurting each other.

The
killer has to be a patient. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Then
it occurred to me how we might be able to identify the killer. So far, Mildred,
Luke, and I had only broken into Dr. Barton’s office. He held the only thing we
had been interested in finding: a spell somewhere amongst his magic books.
Mildred had keys to the whole asylum. It would be easy enough to slip into the
other offices and see if we could find a list of patients. I’d filled out forms
when I was admitted—they had to keep those hard copies somewhere. The
records might not say “here’s the killer,” but they would identify patients
with violent histories.

The
image of the heart beating in the killer’s hands flashed across my mind, and I
choked back a sudden rush of panic and horror and cursed the unfairness of
adding someone else’s horrors and flashbacks to my own growing collection. I
already have enough nightmares to last a lifetime.

Each
time I had visions or an encounter with ghosts in this place, the sound of
screams and pulsing heartbeats had filled the air. It hadn’t been the sound of
one heart beating—it had been the sound of many. The victim in the forest
could not have been the only one whose heart he’d taken. I shook my head,
trying to make sense of it all.

I
closed my eyes and forced myself to concentrate on the truly gruesome thing
he’d done. He’d lowered the still-beating heart to his mouth and taken a bite. And
not just one, bite but several. Why was he eating the heart? Did it give him
some kind of power? I had a lot of questions and no answers. Time was ticking
away; any day the killer would strike again, and we were no closer to finding
out who he was. How could we stop him if we didn’t have the slightest clue
where to find him?

I
physically jumped when the door suddenly opened. Dr. Barton walked in. This
time the nurse was not with him. He walked over to the bed and looked down at
me. “I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he said, reaching over and undoing
one restraint before walking around the bed and letting the other loose.

I
sat up in bed and rubbed my wrists. I took a deep breath. For the moment I was
free, but I wondered…
How long would it last?

He
roughly grabbed my arm and twisted my wrist until my tattoo was showing. “Maybe
you’re a death dealer and you got the tattoo as a sick joke.” His grip
tightened. “But that’s assuming I believe that you can actually talk to the
dead. Death dealers are powerful mages. Those kind of mages wouldn’t allow
themselves to be overpowered.” He let go of my arm and stood there, glaring
down at me. “I’ve heard no spells, I’ve seen no banshees. The only proof you
have of your so-called powers is a few words you
said
you heard from my dead mother’s lips.” He took a menacing step
closer to me and demanded, “Who told you those things about me? Who filled your
head with the idea to pose as a death dealer? You think you can trick me into
believing you’re actually one of them?”

I
resisted the urge to scoot away and instead held my ground. I raised my chin
and stared at him. “It’s the truth. I’m not lying.”

He
waved his arm in the air. “Then show me your powers. Do a spell. Raise a
banshee.”

“I—I
can’t,” I whispered.

He
gave me twisted smile. “I didn’t think so.” He paused for a moment and then
went on. “You should put aside whatever deluded fantasy you have about the death
dealers. Posing as one of them will only put your life in danger. Do you know
what’s going on out there? What’s taking place right now on the outside? The death
dealers are fighting for their lives. Their sins have come home to roost. They’ve
started raising zombies using stolen corpses, and if rumors are to be believed,
a demon they raised has broken free. Every attempt they’ve made to banish the
creature has cost them lives and ended in failure. Even if they manage to stop
the demon, they’ll never be forgiven. Redeemers are earnestly hunting them now,
and as crazy as that cult is, no one is coming to the death dealers’ defense.
They’ve gone too far and all of the mage community has turned against them.”

“No…”
Guilt and horror washed over me. The death dealers are dying…and it’s all my
fault. I betrayed them twice over, and they were being painted with blame for
the messes I made. I’d known it was bad, but I hadn’t known how bad. I hung my
head in shame, but obstinacy made me say one more time, “I
am
a death dealer and spirits
do
talk to me.”

“We’re
going to get to the bottom of this.” Barton stood over me threateningly, his eyes
filled with hostility. “I won’t let you make a fool of me. You’re free to go
back to your room…for now. If this was some kind of trick you pulled thinking
it would get you out of here, you couldn’t be more wrong. You signed the papers
admitting yourself. The only way you’ll get out of here is when
I
decide to let you out.”

I
edged off the bed. I should just stay quiet and walk out the door, but I need to
know… “Did they find anything in the forest?”

“The
cops came. I hope you’re happy.”

I
could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t telling me everything.

“They
found bones.” His eyes suddenly wouldn’t meet mine. “But who knows if they’re
human? They might very well be animal bones.”

I know those are human bones. I held a skull in my hands. We stood
there in silence for a few moments. The gauntlet had been thrown. He had decided that we were now enemies.
He was going to do his best to keep me in this place and make my life hell.

He looked at me again and his eyes narrowed. “I have eyes on you,
death
dealer
,” he said with enough sarcasm to turn the title into a shameful
rebuke. “I
will
get to the bottom of
all this. I give you my word.” He gestured toward the door. “The nurse is in
the hallway. She’ll escort you to your room.”

I
walked past him without saying a word. What was there left to say?

Nurse Harrington stood waiting for me. We walked
in silence back to my room. She opened the door and I followed her inside.

She pointed at the bed. A pile of clothes sat on
the edge. “The doctor thought you might be more comfortable in these.”

I walked over to the clothes. There was a pair of
gray sweats, a plain, gray T-shirt, a pair of white socks, and white tennis
shoes. I had graduated from hospital gowns and slippers to real clothes. Did that
mean the doctor believed me and electroshock was no longer in my future? It
hadn’t seemed that way. More likely, it meant he planned to keep me in here
indefinitely. Mildred wore regular clothes—a series of dresses she’d
brought in with her—and she’d been in here for years. Usually patients
sporting the white hospital gowns were in between procedures or transitory.

I started to change.

The nurse walked over to the window and opened it.
“You missed dinner, but I’ve arranged for a tray to be brought to you.”

“Thanks.” I glanced over her shoulder out the
window. I could see a half-dozen cars parked over by the edge of the forest. “Dr.
Barton was telling me they brought the police in?”

She nodded her head. “They’re out there now,
digging. They think it might be the Kincaid girl.”

I stopped and stared at her. “Who?”

“The Kincaid girl. Her name was Gloria. She went
missing when I first came to work here. It must have been close to…what, twenty
years ago? They always thought she ran away.”

“Why do they think it’s her?”

“They found a necklace like the one the missing
girl wore. I remember it was mentioned in the posters her family put up.” Nurse
Harrington looked back at me. “They plastered them all around town. They never
believed she ran away. It’s hard to believe she’s been dead all these years, lying
just out there in the trees.” She shuddered. “Gives me the creeps, thinking
about it. I go out there now and again to smoke a cigarette on my breaks. But
only in the daytime. I’ve never liked the forest at night. They say it’s
haunted.” She turned away from the window to face me with a curious expression.
“Is it true you’re a death dealer?”

“I am.”
Twenty
years. The girl in the forest went missing twenty years ago. If that’s true, is
her death connected to the recent murders?

“Then you can feel ghosts. You can talk to them?”

I nodded.

“Is that how you found her?”

I walked over to stand next to the nurse and
looked out the window. I could see the policemen moving in and out from under
the trees, carrying bags of evidence to cars parked on the grass. It looked as
if they were about done, and they were packing up to head home. As I watched,
one of the cars at the end of the line turned off its lights, backed up and
turned around, running over the corner of the garden as it left. “Her spirit
called to me.”

She turned and looked around the room. “Do you
feel more spirits in this place? I mean, there have been rumors for years that
the hospital is haunted, but I’ve never really believed them.” She gave me a
sheepish smile. “I’ll admit—when I work the night shift, I don’t like to
walk down the halls by myself.”

Andrew said that even people with the slightest
bit of magic could feel the ghosts in here. I believed him—the ones I
felt were all extremely powerful and desperate to be heard. The nurse must not
have any magic in her if she can’t feel any spirits. “I’ve felt spirits here.”

She raised one hand. “Don’t tell me more. I’ll be
too scared to work after dark. I’d rather not know.”

I looked back out the window and watched a group
of policemen walk out of the forest carrying equipment. Dr. Barton hadn’t
bothered to mention that they found a necklace, or that they might have ID’d the body. He’d wanted me to believe they’d only found
animal bones.

Why did he lie?

* * *

I half expected Dr. Barton to post a twenty-four-hour guard
on my door, so I was both surprised and happy to see Mildred after nightfall.

“What time is it?” I asked when she walked into the
room.

Mildred cocked her head to the side and looked
behind me. “Just past 1:00 a.m.”

If I didn’t know for a fact that the wall behind
me was empty, I would’ve sworn she’d just looked at a clock. Maybe in her mind,
she had. I don’t know how she does it… She must have some kind of internal timepiece.

“Anyone around?”

She shook her head. “The place is empty. All the
staff is, as usual, either asleep or otherwise entertained.”

“Hector and Larry?” I asked, nervous about the two
night orderlies. Out of all the orderlies, they were the most vicious and the
ones I wanted to steer clear of. I’d had my fill of ice baths, padded rooms,
and restraints.

“Both sound asleep at their desks. I passed them
just a few minutes ago. You could hear their snores all the way down the hall.”
She looked me up and down. “No hospital gown.”

I looked down at my sweats and T-shirt. It felt
good to be in real clothes again. “I’m still not sure if I should be happy about
it, or worried.”

“You told them you’re a death dealer.”

The hospital rumor mill churned faster than I
imagined. “You heard?”

“It’s made its way through the place. That and
talk of the dead girl out in the forest.” Mildred walked over and looked out
the window. “She came to you, then?”

“She did. I saw the face of her killer, but I
don’t think it’s going to help us. According to the nurse, the girl went
missing twenty years ago.”

“That’s a long time ago.”

“It is. Look, I know you want to stop these
killings, but I still think our best course of action is to get the heck out of
here while we still can. I don’t know what Dr. Barton has planned for me.”

She turned back toward me. “Electroshock therapy. I
saw it myself on a pad in his office—you’re scheduled to have the
procedure again in two days.”

It was clear that Barton hadn’t wanted to believe
I was a death dealer, but the confirmation that he was going to go through with
the therapy still came as a shock. They’d found a body in the woods—how
could I be lying? There was no way I was going through electroshock again.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”