Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (9 page)

 
          
"Can't
you hurry?" he asked, fresh tension in his voice.

 
          
Jonathan
responded by stepping hard on the gas, and the sedan leaped forward into the
fog.

 
          
It
had rained on this side of the Bay, and the twisty streets of the
Twin Peaks
area were slippery. The car
slewed back and forth on the road, and Colin heard a choked sound from Jonathan
as the boy fought the wheel. He held his breath, but the car steadied, and the
engine wailed as Jonathan downshifted to take the last hill.

 
          
"Hurry
. . . hurry," Colin muttered under his breath. "There!"

 
          
Jonathan
jammed on his brakes, flinging Colin and Claire both forward against the back
of the bucket seats. He dragged the wheel around and gunned the engine, making
the car buck and squeal as it lunged up the slanting driveway to Greenhaven.

 
          
Alison
was waiting for them in the doorway. She reached the car almost before it
stopped moving and yanked the passenger side door open.

 
          
"Simon
told me you'd be coming," she said, as Colin climbed out of the backseat.
"And he's rarely wrong about someone in trouble. What's wrong?"

 
          
"She's
a Sensitive who's run into something more than she can handle, I think."
Colin reached into the car and lifted Claire out.

 
          
She
lay in his arms, limp with the long fight against her unseen demons. Alison
clucked in dismay, and beckoned them to follow her. Colin carried Claire into
the house, with Jonathan following behind like a worried duckling.

 
          
As
soon as Colin stepped through the doorway, he felt peace and stillness descend
over him; a nearly imperceptible cessation of the irritating background noise
that was the minds and souls of dense-packed humanity resonating through the
aethyr that surrounded them. Even Claire seemed eased by it.

 
          
"Upstairs,"
Alison said.

 
          
Between
them, Colin and Jonathan carried the unconscious girl up to the guest room
where Colin had stayed on his previous visits to Greenhaven. Simon was waiting
there, wearing the cross, unworldly expression that came from an unexpected
late night.

 
          
The
vigil light was burning on the small altar in the corner
—
Colin guessed that the
Elemental Symbols were Simon's, as Alison's Table of Hermes was larger and
more formal, kept in the converted garage that she used as her Sanctuary
—
and the room smelled of
cleansing incense.

 
          
"Lay
her down on the bed," Alison directed.

 
          
Simon
moved forward to help them, and soon enough, Claire London was stretched out on
the bed. Though the Seal had long since faded, Claire was fairly quiet,
protected by Greenhaven's shielding. Alison knelt beside her, peeling back an
eyelid with the brisk efficiency of one who'd had much experience in tending
an Adept's abandoned body while the soul journeyed far into the Astral Realms.

 
          
"She's
been drugged," Alison said shortly. "I was afraid of that
—
it would take a whole coven
to blast her this way through sheer Will. And she's very weak. Simon, get me my
bag."

 
          
The
young musician moved to obey.

 
          
"Drugged?"
stammered Jonathan. He glanced from the small altar to Alison, his face a mask
of questions
—
and faint, incredulous guilt.

 
          
"But
she . . . All she
—
All she had to drink at the party was the punch,
Professor. There was just a little vodka in it."

 
          
"She
didn't smoke anything? Take some pills, maybe?" Colin asked, though the
pep pills in vogue among the students anxious to be able to pull an all-night
study marathon weren't likely to have this sort of effect, and neither were marijuana
or hashish.

 
          
"No,"
Jonathan said uncertainly.

 
          
"Never
mind," Alison said, as Simon returned with her doctor's bag. "I think
I know what it is. It's dangerous, it's treacherous, and worst of all
—
it's perfectly legal."

 
          
She
opened the bag and withdrew a hypodermic and a phial of clear fluid. "I'm
going to give her a stimulant
—
as much as I dare
—
and then Simon and I will
try to clear her channels and help her rebuild her natural shields. Is she one
of yours, Colin?"

 
          
"I
never saw her before tonight," Colin said with complete honesty.

 
          
"Too
bad," Alison said. "This would work better if there were someone here
that she knew to trust. I don't have the sense that she's a very trusting
person
—
and
why should she be?"

 
          
Alison
tapped the syringe to clear it of air bubbles, then slid the needle into the
soft skin of the inside of the elbow that Simon had already swabbed clean with
alcohol. Slowly she slid the dose into the girl's vein.

 
          
"Professor,
what's going on?" Jonathan demanded. "What are
—
"

 
          
Colin
raised his hand for silence. "Quiet, Jonathan. I'll answer all your
questions later, but right now, we need to give Alison and Simon quiet in which
to work."

 
          
The
two Adepts stood on each side of the single bed, their outstretched arms
forming an interwoven bridge above Claire's supine body. With slow methodical
brushing strokes they began working their way down her body, their hands always
moving in the same direction, as though they brushed lint from a piece of
velvet. They were doing for Claire what she could not do for herself: purging
her higher centers of their inadvertent burden of psychic force, and allowing
them to close and shield themselves once more.

 
          
Colin
was no psychic, but years of training enabled him to imagine what they must be
seeing: the network of conduits, like the branches of a tree, which made up the
channels of energy comprising the Light Body. This etherial self, or Astral
Body, was the component of the tripartite Self that clairvoyants used to
travel elsewhere in the physical realm and magicians used to journey in the
Overworld. It was the Astral Form, or double, that sometimes survived death,
wandering the Material Plane after the demise of the body and the departure of
the soul, giving rise to tales of ghosts and hauntings from those who chanced
to see it.

 
          
When
they reached her toes, they began again at her head, their gestures broader and
more sweeping this time, sending the energy to dissipate into the earth.

 
          
Beside
him Jonathan watched, fascinated. Colin could tell that the boy was responding
to the currents of energy swirling through the room; he'd been right in
thinking that Jonathan Ashwell had an aptitude for more than book-learning.
Colin would have to be sure to steer the boy clear of table-tippers and other
occult quacks, lest he become one of those who founder in the shallows of the
Unseen World, enthralled by flotsam.

 
          
At
last Alison and Simon finished their work, wiping the last of the energy from
their hands. Simon looked drained, his face paper white with the effort he had
made. Alison, with the benefit of far more years of training and experience,
seemed merely tired.

 
          
As
if from nowhere, one of Alison's cats materialized and leaped up on the bed,
curling up against Claire's side and purring loudly as it settled down to
sleep.

 
          
"That's
as much as I can do for her now, Colin; I only hope it's enough. I'll come back
and check on her in half an hour, though she should sleep straight through till
noon
tomorrow, if we're lucky. Just now, I want to talk to you
and your young friend," Alison said meaningfully.

 
          
"Well,
I'm for bed," Simon said, running a long elegant hand through his tousled
black curls. "I feel as if I could sleep until they blow the Last
Trump." Without another word, he brushed past the others and walked away.

 
          
Colin
sighed, the nervous energy that had sustained him during the crisis draining
away now that everything was all right. It was always like this afterward: the
danger-high, and then the low. Adrenaline was surely as much a drug as heroin; did
he somehow seek out situations like this to fill his need for it?

 
          
"Come
on, Jonathan. Claire should be all right, now. And I suppose I owe you an
explanation."

 
          
There
was a fire burning in the fireplace of the long sitting room, and the spicy
scent of eucalyptus logs filled the room. Jonathan collapsed gratefully into a
chair, while Alison moved toward the drinks cabinet. Abruptly Colin remembered
something.

 
          
"Alison,
what did you mean when you said, 'it's legal? Do you know what it was? What did
Claire take?' Colin asked.

 
          
"I'm
not completely sure, of course, but I believe she took
—
or was given without her
knowledge
—
something called
lysergic acid diethylamide,
a synthetic
ergot derivative that's been around since the forties. Sandoz makes it; it's
used in psychotherapy
—
in fact, I've used it on some of my patients, since it
isn't a restricted drug. It affects the midbrain serotonin receptors
—
in essence, LSD throws open
the doors of perception, short-circuiting the brain's censoring
mechanisms."

 
          
She
handed him two fingers of Scotch in a heavy crystal tumbler, and offered the
same to Jonathan. Though he was several years below the legal drinking age, the
boy accepted the glass gratefully, and Colin couldn't blame him. It seemed
foolish that at eighteen an American was old enough to serve in the military
but not to vote, drink alcohol, or sign a binding contract. Matters were
arranged differently in
Europe
.

 
          
"A
short-circuit . . . something that could be disastrous for a psychic sensitive,"
Colin mused.

 
          
"And
Claire certainly reacted like one," Alison said. "The stuff is
useful, but pernicious
—
any home chemist can whip up a batch; it's colorless, tasteless,
and the dose is minuscule; I give it to my patients on a sugar cube, just so we
can both keep track of it. It takes effect almost immediately and lasts for up
to eighteen hours
—
and its effect is powerful, unpredictable. We'll have to
hope that your Claire hasn't been scarred by her experience, but let's see what
she has to say for herself when she wakes up."

 
          
"Is
... is Claire a psychic?" Jonathan asked. "A clairvoyant? Can she see
the future?"

 
          
Alison
and Colin glanced at each other. Which of them should field this most
elementary and troubling of all questions?

 
          
"Claire
is certainly what we would term a 'Sensitive,' " Colin said at last,
"in the simplest sense of being one who is 'sensitive' to a range of
perceptions that come to her on a wavelength that most people are simply not
equipped to perceive. As you'll remember from my lectures, between ten and
twenty percent of all people are born with some sort of psychic faculty, which
usually manifests itself in the form of hunches, lucky guesses, prophetic
dreams, and the like. Some fraction of that number have a stronger gift
—
what used to be called
'Second Sight' and is now more formally known as clairvoyance and precognition.
In them, the Sixth Sense is strong enough that they can manipulate it to some
extent, choosing what events distant in space or time they wish to focus on.