Crosstalk (54 page)

Ten minutes in, she knew she wasn't going to be able to hold them off. Try as she might to shut the questions out, to shield her answers with Froot Loops and
Bleak House
and songs, some part of her mind was registering the questions and automatically answering them, and as time went on, she'd make more and more mistakes, it would take her longer and longer to recognize the potential danger in a line of thought.

She thought suddenly of Sky telling her about the ESP subjects at Duke whose scores had fallen as they tired. Maybe he had it backwards. Maybe those low scores had happened when they were hiding their ability, and more and more correct answers had seeped through as their energy flagged.

Like mine's flagging right now
. It was only a matter of time before she let slip the clue they needed, before she gave up from exhaustion and told them what they wanted to know.
You can't,
she thought.
You have to protect Sky and Cindy, no matter what toll it takes.
Like Joan of Arc. She had gone to the stake rather than betray her voices.

But I'm not Joan of Arc. I'll break under torture
. Was already breaking. When she looked over at the door, water was seeping in in spite of the sandbags she'd piled against it, and flowing along the spaces between the flagstones, along the base of the adobe wall. And behind it she could hear the dull, watery roar of the voices.

They're going to get in!
she thought, and saw them flooding the ladies' lounge, saw herself huddled under the sink, clinging to the pipe, sitting hunched in the stairwell in her bloodstained hospital gown, and C.B. coming to—

Stop! Don't. Think of something, anything else: Charles Dickens, Cap'n Crunch, Monty Python, McCook, Nebraska, Oliver Twist, orphans, organ transplants…

But it was too late. Lyzandra was saying, “It's definitely someone she knows and is emotionally bonded to.”

“Did you get his name yet?” Trent asked.

“No, but I got an image of a hospital. Did someone come to see her that first night after she had the EED?”

“I can ask the staff,” Dr. Verrick said.

No one saw him,
Briddey told herself desperately.

“Did someone come to see you after you had your EED?” Dr. Verrick asked Briddey through the headphones. “Or call you?”

Oh, God, the phone call,
Briddey thought.
They'll…no! Think of Trix! And tulips and Choctaw Ridge, the Black Hole of Calcutta and psychosomatic symptoms and albino eggplants and soldiers shooting the highwayman down in cold blood…

“I couldn't hear her answer,” Lyzandra said. “She's definitely resisting. It was all an incoherent babble about pirates and lace and vegetables. Can't you do something to make her less resistant? Hypnotize her or give her some kind of relaxant? Valium or Xanax or something?”

No!
A relaxant would lower her defenses. It would let the voices in.

“You're certain a relaxant won't disrupt her telepathic ability?” Dr. Verrick asked. “Or damage it in some way?”

“I'm sure,” Lyzandra said. “I've taken Valium a number of times to open my chakras and make me more receptive.”

More receptive?
Briddey thought, trying not to panic.
More
receptive
?

“And you're sure there won't be any negative side effects?” Dr. Verrick was asking.

You're not seriously going to take medical advice from a psychic, are you?
Briddey thought, but apparently he was, because he said, “There's still the problem of gaining her consent. She'll have to sign a form.”

“I'm sure I can get her to sign it,” Trent said. “We're practically engaged. And if I can't persuade her to cooperate,” she heard him add, and knew she was hearing his unspoken thoughts, “I'll tell her her job depends on it.”

You really
are
a snake,
Briddey thought.

Lyzandra said, “I'm worried that asking for her consent will put her on her guard and make her even more resistant.
I
could take the relaxant instead. It will enhance my ability to hear her—”

And I won't be able to stop her,
Briddey thought, because she had the voices to hold off, too. And they were slamming with more and more force against the door, determined to find a way in. And while she was trying to keep them out, Dr. Verrick would hit her with question after question till she accidentally told them Sky's name—and Cindy's. And delivered them both into Trent's hands.

And there's nothing at all I can do to keep that from happening.
She thought of Bess, the landlord's daughter, helplessly bound and gagged with a revolver pointed at her breast. And of Billie Joe McAllister. What if he'd jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge to keep someone from finding out something—and to protect somebody? And hadn't been able to tell the girl because if he had, she'd have come to stop him?
I can't let that happen.

“I'm administering the drug now,” Dr. Verrick said.

“How long before she begins to feel its effects?” Trent asked.

“Just a few minutes.”

Long enough,
Briddey thought, and moved the radio from the bench to the top of the cupboard and then went over to the door and began dragging the sandbags away from it, singing “Teen Angel” to keep C.B. from hearing what she was doing.

The sandbags were wet and very heavy. It took all her strength to pull them off to the side, and as soon as she did, water welled up and began to flow across the flagstones.

“You should be beginning to feel the drug's effects,” Dr. Verrick said, and Briddey heard Trent ask, his voice full of excitement, “Are you getting anything yet?”

“Yes,” Lyzandra said dreamily. “Something about water and a door. And something she intends to do that she doesn't want us to find out about.”

We can't have that,
Briddey thought, and threw everything she could think of at them—and at C.B.—poems and shoes and song lyrics and the kitchen sink—and just for Trent, water moccasins, rattlesnakes, cobras, pit vipers.

Square, cross, wavy lines,
she thought, dragging the sandbags.
Crosstalk, Cap'n Crunch, corporate spies, calling Dr. Black, please report to the nurses' station, please turn off your cellphones, closing in ten minutes, all personnel will be required to work Saturday due to the paradigm shift and the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, it's a crummy morning out there, folks. Roger that. Rainbows, roses, Rice Krispies…

But it didn't do any good. “I've almost got it,” Lyzandra said. “Ask her again who she's talking to.”

The rivulets were spreading out across the flagstones in a widening sheet. After Briddey dragged the last sandbag away, she had to splash through the water to get to the door.

“There are definitely two people. Ask her directly what their names are.”

Saint Catherine
, Briddey said.
Saint Margaret, Saint Michael, Thomas Hardy, Tobias Marshall, Patience Lovelace, Ethel Godwin, Bridey Murphy, Adelaide…

She put her hands on the bar to let it out of its brackets, and then stopped, looking past the door at the wall of roaring voices rising beyond it, waiting to drown the courtyard and Dr. Verrick's questions—and her answers. And her.

I can't,
she thought, remembering the ladies' room and the storage closet.
They'll wash me over the edge, they'll dash me against the rocks.

“Can you tell who they are?” Dr. Verrick was asking.

“A male and a female,” Lyzandra said. “She calls the female Cindy, but that's not her real name. It begins with an M. Mary, I think, or Ma—”

“McAllister,” Briddey said, lifting the bar. “Billie Joe McAllister,” and opened the door.

“Christ! the sluice gates are going!”

—
D
OROTHY
L. S
AYERS
,
The Nine Tailors

For an endless moment nothing happened, and Briddey thought,
It's not going to get here in time.
They'll hear Maeve's name before it
— And then the voices hit her head on, not like water at all but like a battering ram, so fierce it had to be every single person, every single thought in the hospital:
It hurts, oh, it hurts!…what do you mean there's nothing you can do?…my fault…should never have let him drive…multiple lacerations…stroke…bad news…metastasized…

The force of them flung her violently up against the cottonwood tree, and she wrapped her arms around its wide trunk and clung there, gasping. The voices had been bad before, but these were far worse, throwing up a deafening spray of panic and fury and pain.
I'll never be able to hold out against them,
she thought.

And there was no railing to cling to, no C.B., only the cottonwood's trunk, and it was too big around to get a decent hold. Her hands scrabbled against the rough bark, trying to gain a purchase as the voices crashed against her: …
no chance of
recovery…hemorrhage…tumor…inoperable…but
she's only six…third-degree burns over eighty percent of his…where the hell is that crash cart?

And above them she heard Lyzandra say clearly, “I can hear other voices,” and then cry out, “Oh God, what's happening?”

Briddey glanced over at the radio. It was still on the top of the cupboard, and the water had nearly reached it. “What's wrong, Lyzandra?” she heard Dr. Verrick say anxiously. “Talk to me.”

“…thousands of them!” Lyzandra shrieked, and Briddey heard Trent shout, his voice rising, “Get them off me!”

Oh, no
, Briddey thought.
They're being deluged by the voices, too.
She glanced over at the door as if she might be able to reach it and shut it, but water was pouring through it in a raging torrent and rising by the minute.

“Nurse!” Dr. Verrick called, and then the radio was swept off the cupboard and into the water as it surged against the inside walls of the courtyard, carrying radio and cupboard with it.

“She's having a seizure!” a man shouted as the radio bobbed past her. “Get a nurse in here! Stat!” and she couldn't tell if it was Dr. Verrick or one of the voices because they were all calling for help:
Nurse!
and
Get them off me!
and
Don't let me die…

Briddey needed to call for help, too, or the voices would carry her over the edge, they'd dash her on the rocks.
But you mustn't,
she thought, clinging desperately to the cottonwood's trunk.
If you do, you'll give him away, and they'll burn him at the stake.

The voices and the water were rising faster now—
…never regained
consciousness…terminal…couldn't
save…nothing we could do…save…
—and her fingers were slipping. She was losing her hold. She was going to call for help in spite of herself, to betray C.B., and there was nothing she could do…

Yes, there is,
she thought, and shut her eyes and let go of the tree. And she was in the roiling water—flailing, floundering—and under it, and her mouth was full of water.

Thank heavens,
she thought as she gulped and choked.
Now I can't betray him
. Her lungs filled, and she began to gag, to cough.

But not from the water she'd swallowed. From the smoke.

No,
she thought frantically.
It can't be smoke,
but she could smell the acrid tang of burning, and when she opened her eyes, it was everywhere, so thick she couldn't see the walls or the door, and C.B. had his arm around her, he was holding her head above water.

“No!” she sobbed, fighting against him. “Go away! If you stay, they'll hear you.”

“Not over this din, they won't,” he said, plowing chest-deep through the water toward the smoke-filled courtyard.

“You don't understand! Dr. Verrick's got a psychic, Lyzandra, who can hear everything I think, even in my safe room! They'll find out about you!” She hit wildly at him. “You've got to go!”

“What are you—? Ow! Geez, Briddey, that was my nose!” He grabbed her wrists, pinioning them against his chest so she couldn't hit him again. “What the hell are you trying to do, kill me?”

“No, I'm trying to get you to leave!” she cried, struggling to free herself from his grasp, to dive away from him.

He hauled her back to the surface. “Well, then stop fighting me,” he said, and half pushed, half dragged her out of the water and onto a dry patch of flagstones. It was covered with burning embers, and smoke obscured the adobe wall behind it. She collapsed against the wall, coughing.

C.B. was coughing, too, bent over, his hands on his knees. He was drenched, and his face was streaked with soot. Water dripped from his clothes and down the back of his neck onto the flagstones. “Are you okay?” he asked Briddey between bouts of coughing.

“No,” she said. “Why did you come?”

“You're kidding, right? When have I not come when you were in trouble?”

Never,
she thought.
But this time you weren't supposed to.
“I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to call to you.”

“You didn't. I was already here. As soon as I realized Sedona was famous for its psychics and that one of its most famous ones had red hair, Verrick's going there and wanting to keep it secret suddenly all made sense, and I tried to call to
you
. And when you shut me out, I figured something must be wrong, so I came straight to the hospital to find out what.”

“You came to the
hospital
?” she said, horrified, looking past the courtyard to the reality of the testing room, hoping against hope that he wasn't
here,
that he was somewhere else in the building—on the floor where she'd been that first night, or in the stairwell she'd fled to—and was doing this remotely.

But he wasn't. He was kneeling next to her as she sat huddled on the floor against the soundproofed wall. The headphones lay on the floor beside her, and she was surprised to see that they and the floor were both dry, and so were C.B.'s clothes and hair. She looked down at her own sopping clothes. They were dry, too.

The chair she'd sat in was overturned, and Zener cards were scattered everywhere. The door was ajar, as if it had been kicked open, and in a minute Dr. Verrick would catch sight of C.B. on the camera and come in—

“No, he won't,” C.B. said, “but I'd better shut the door anyway. Correction, doors.”

He stood up with an effort. “Stay here,” he ordered Briddey, and she watched as he walked through the scattered cards over to the testing room door to shut it and then waded back into the water, now only knee-deep and receding rapidly, and over to the open door of the courtyard.

He pushed it closed. That shut out the worst of the voices, though Briddey could still hear their angry murmur behind it. He retrieved the bar, which was floating nearby, and jammed it into its brackets. He slid the iron bolt across and then sloshed back across the flagstones to sit down beside her. He looked exhausted, his face drawn and white under the streaks of soot. His hands were covered with soot, too, and beginning to blister. From the fire. The fire he'd come through for her.

Tears stung her eyes.
C.B., I am
so
sorry
.

“It wasn't your fault,” he said tiredly, and leaned his head back against the wall. He closed his eyes.

“No, you can't do that,” she said, getting to her knees. “You've got to leave. There's a camera—”

“It's okay. I disabled it.”

“But you still have to go. Before Dr. Verrick finds out you're here, before she tells him—”

“She's not telling him anything right now. Neither's your boyfriend, and Dr. Verrick's got his hands too full to worry about us.”

“You don't know that.”

“Yes, I do. I was in the hall outside Verrick's office when you let loose that deluge and heard both him and the psychic shouting, so I can read all three of their scheming little minds. And, trust me, eavesdropping is the last thing they're doing. You didn't just unleash those voices on yourself, you know. The psychic and Trent were both listening to you, and the voices roared straight through you and into them at full blast. They're too traumatized to tell anybody anything right now. Especially Lyzandra. Was Verrick giving her something?”

“Yes, a relaxant of some kind, Valium or Xanax. To enhance her receptivity.”

“Well, from all the medical personnel in Verrick's office right now, I'd say it enhanced her, all right. A relaxant,” he said, shaking his head. “Jesus.”

“Will she be okay? I didn't mean to hurt her. I was just trying to keep her from hearing me. They were asking me all these questions, and I was afraid I'd give you and Maeve away, and I thought if I let the voices in…”

“I know,” he said. “You couldn't have known what would happen.”

“But they're going to be all right, aren't they?”

“Yeah,” C.B. said. “Trent's okay—he's only partially telepathic. And I think I got the door shut before Lyzandra suffered any permanent damage. But if Verrick had given her something stronger…” He shook his head angrily. “The man should be shot.”

“I agree, but right now our priority's got to be getting you out of here while she's still traumatized and won't notice.”

“You're right,” he said, but he made no move to get up.

“If you're worried about me, you don't have to be. I'll be fine. It's you they can't find out about.”

He leaned his head back wearily against the wall and said, “I haven't told you everything.”

And whatever it was, it was bad. “They heard me say your name?” Briddey asked fearfully. “Or, oh, God, Maeve's?”

“No,” he said.

“Then why can't you leave?”

“Because they're still hearing the voices.”

“But I thought you—” She looked automatically over at the blue courtyard door. It was shut and holding, the bar and bolts still in place, and no water was coming in.

“I stopped your voices by using the defenses you already had in place,” C.B. said, “but neither Trent nor Lyzandra has any. If we don't teach them how to erect some—”

They'll keep on hearing the voices, and it will drive them mad,
she thought.
Or kill them
. “But if you tell them how to keep the voices out, they'll know you're telepathic. Can't you put up a barricade
for
them, like you did with Maeve? And like you did with me in the Carnegie Room?”

“No,” he said. “I wasn't blocking nearly as many voices, and that was only for a short period of time—”

“But you'd only have to do it till the relaxant wears off.”

He shook his head. “We can't count on the voices stopping then. The deluge obviously did more than trigger their receptivity. It overwhelmed their inhibitors.”

“So they'll go on hearing the voices forever, like us.”

He nodded. “I'd have to block them indefinitely. And not just take them down to a murmur, but shut them out completely, which takes a
lot
more energy and focus.”

Briddey thought of the toll just trying to keep them from hearing C.B.'s and Maeve's names had taken on her. It had exhausted her completely. And C.B. would have to block them from hearing his thoughts, too—and hers—or they'd know what he was up to.

“Two people are exponentially harder to block than one,” he said. And he was already completely worn out from saving her from the flood.

And the fire
, she thought. And from rescuing her before in the hospital and the theater and the storage room, and getting almost no sleep because he'd had to take her home from the hospital and take her to get her car and rescue Maeve.