Smoke on the Water (19 page)

“Doctor!”

Speak of the Tom. The first Tom, phone to his ear, motioned for Sebastian to join him at the front desk.

The man hung up. “County sheriff thought he saw a woman in the woods about two miles west of here. Lost her but he's setting up a block on the other side of that patch. Officer stationed every twenty yards. You want me to go?”

“I will.”

If this escape went like the last two, Mary was going to need sedation.

*   *   *

I didn't sleep. By dawn I was pacing. I tried for a vision—but all I had in the way of liquid was coffee and milk. They possessed a good amount of water but not enough to show me anything without blood for a boost. As I was in solitary, the items available for self-mutilation were few. I'm sure I could manage, but I decided to wait. If I did something too drastic I'd be in this room a lot longer than originally thought.

The guard on duty would tell me nothing. I asked for Dr. Frasier and I was told he was out searching. As I doubted he'd be searching where Mary had gone, I shouldn't be worried, but I was.

I asked if Peggy was in yet and shortly thereafter, she stood outside my door. Even she couldn't get past Dr. Frasier's order of no one in, no one out.

“You rang?” Peggy asked.

“Anything new on Mary?”

She cast me a suspicious glance. “I just received a call from Three Harbors.”

“What happened?”

“She tried to kill a witch.”

“But—”

Peggy lifted her hand. “When I get back, we'll all talk. Maybe you can even get her to make sense, though I won't hold my breath.”

*   *   *

Sebastian spent the rest of the night and most of the morning in the forest with the county sheriff. Not a trace of Mary did they find. It wasn't until he traipsed back to the highway and his phone went buzzing nuts with missed calls and messages that he realized he had been without service the entire time he'd been shaded by the monstrous, freaky trees.

The first several messages were from Toms I and II, as well as Zoe, giving him an update on the boots-on-the-ground search.

Zilch. Zip. Nada.

The fourth was from an irate Dr. Tronsted—as he hadn't called her, someone had snitched. Number five advised him that Three Harbors PD had called the facility and the sixth was from Peggy Dalberg who was headed to Three Harbors to fetch Mary. Sebastian beckoned the sheriff and ended the search, then he got in his SUV and phoned the caseworker.

“Got her,” Peggy said. “We're on our way back.”

“She sedated?”

“They brought someone in to give her something right after she arrived at the jail. There was head banging.”

Sebastian sighed. When wasn't there? “What happened?”

“She turned up at her house.”

“That's understandable.”

“I guess. What isn't is the attempted murder of a witch.”

Mary thought she
was
a witch. Why would she—?

“Listen, she's coming around. I'll see if she makes any sense. If not, we'll try again when we get back.”

Sebastian returned to the facility and ordered Willow released from solitary and brought to his office.

Zoe appeared in the doorway. “Shouldn't I take her to
her
psychiatrist's office?”

Sebastian looked up from his e-mail. “Shouldn't you go home?”

Zoe's eyes widened behind her thick glasses. That
had
sounded a little irritated. Probably because he was. He blamed lack of sleep, along with Zoe's constant hovering. If this kept up, he'd probably have to fire her. As she was very good at her job when she wasn't trying to advise him on his, he hated to do it. But he'd had enough.

“I'm the administrator. I don't have to explain anything.”

To her. He had a sneaking suspicion Zoe had been the one to snitch to Dr. Tronsted, but he couldn't prove it.

Sebastian returned to his e-mail. “Go home.”

Ten minutes later, Willow arrived.

“Sit.” He waved at the chair. “Coffee?”

She nodded. He poured them both some from the pot he'd started as soon as he got back. He handed her the cup and sat on the edge of the desk.

“Peggy's bringing Mary back.”

Willow took a sip of her coffee. “What did she say?”

“Mary? Or Peggy?”

“Yes.”

She turned her coffee cup this way and that. Someone must have recently washed the thing since several droplets ran down the side. He hadn't spilled while pouring coffee, at least not that much. The sun sparked off the moisture. Definitely water and not coffee.

The cup fell, shattering across the floor into two dozen shards. Coffee splashed onto Sebastian's muddy boots and Willow's tennies.

Sebastian leaped to his feet, his own cup falling and breaking. He needed both hands to catch Willow as she pitched forward.

“Peggy,” she said, and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

The phone began to ring.

*   *   *

Dr. Frasier helped me to the couch, made me lie down before he answered the phone. I could tell by the catch in his breathing that what I'd seen in the water was real.

Peggy was dead.

“What about Mary?” He listened. “All right. Thank you for calling. I'll notify her family.”

Peggy's daughter. Her new granddaughter. I wasn't sure how many others would be even more devastated by this news than I was. A fountain of tears leaked from my eyes and tracked down the side of my face to further dampen my hair.

Dr. Frasier moved to my side.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered.

“What did you do?”

I shook my head and tears flew like rain. I'd seen it, but not in time. Why not? Maybe because I'd avoided the water for too long. I'd been selfish, childish, and Peggy had paid the price.

“What did they say?” I asked.

Quickly he told me what I'd already seen. Mary was gone. She'd had the presence of mind to escape while the “bitch-whore” had used her athame on Peggy. To be fair, Mary had tried to warn Peggy that the woman was up to no good. Peggy hadn't listened, and she'd died for it. Luckily for Mary, Peggy had held on long enough to exonerate her and implicate the true killer. I doubted my vision would have been as convincing as Peggy's dying words.

“Would you like to talk to your psychiatrist?” Dr. Frasier murmured.

“No.” There was nothing she could do now. Nothing any of us could.

“Then I'm going to send you back to solitary.”

“No.” I sat up. “Why?”

“Whoever tried to hurt you is still out there.” His lips compressed.

I wanted to run my thumb along them until they loosened up.

“Maybe in here.” He ran his fingers through his hair.

I was so jealous of those fingers.

“I can't risk it. I can't risk you.”

Warmth spread through me. It was almost like he cared.

“I have to deal with Peggy.”

“What about Mary?”

“The Three Harbors PD is pretty motivated to find her, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“They've got some things going on there—”

I remembered what I'd seen at the house, in my vision. An upside-down pentagram on the wall. Black magic? Satanism? There'd been other things in the room my mind had shied away from.

“Are they up to it?” Mary wasn't the run-of-the-mill escapee, and what was going on there did not appear very run-of-the-mill either. What did lately?

“I hope so. We can talk more later, but right now—”

“Okay.” I lifted my hand to be helped up. He took it and electricity zapped between us. We both jerked back.

I got up by myself.

The rest of that day passed, a night, then another day dawned. Then again, maybe it was two. Three? Trying to keep track of time in solitary was like trying to lasso fog.

At some point I asked about Mary. She hadn't been found. I started to get worried. What could have happened?

I requested water; I stared into it for hours and saw nothing. I didn't have much choice.

I reopened one of my hand wounds and squeezed a drop of blood into the glass. As it spread outward, the call of the wild rose, filling the room with the howls of wolves—a lot of them.

“What the—?” The mutter of Deux, who was on duty outside my door, made me think he'd heard them too. I had no time to wonder why.

My hair stirred in a breeze that wasn't. I felt the storm.

No, I
brought
the storm. I had to.

This time the tempest did not come to me. I sent it to …

“Them,” I whispered.

“Willow?” Deux said. “What are you doing?”

I wasn't sure what I was doing, so I ignored him.

Outside my barred window, the sun shone, but the instant I closed my eyes I saw a stormy sky. Clouds billowed—they looked like women. They looked like me, times three.

The cloud women's hair flowed from one to the next, the ends of one becoming the ends of the next. Their cloud fingers stretched toward each other, and when they met, lightning happened. Then rain tumbled down.

“Stop it,” Deux shouted.

How did he know I was doing it? It was a storm. They happened all the time. Though never like this.

The earth shook. The sky went white. I smelled fire, ice, blood, earth.

Two of the cloud women merged—they were one—the third floated apart. No, the third fell backward. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor, clutching at my chest, which felt as if that strange, curved knife—an athame—had been plunged in deep.

The lights flickered—off, on—and in the instant when the eyes flickered too, I swore I saw that knife in my chest. But when I reached up to touch it, I touched nothing but air.

In the distance, at war with the howl of the wolves and the thunder that was the storm, I could have sworn someone was laughing.

Then the darkness descended and I heard, saw, knew nothing more.

 

Chapter 14

“We have been unable to locate Mary McAllister.”

Special Agent Nic Franklin had, indeed, called Sebastian. The agent was in Three Harbors. Whatever had happened to the Gilletts had also happened there. Sebastian didn't envy the man. Sounded like a hellish case.

“I heard Mary made a friend in your facility. Might she have told this friend something that would help us find her?”

“Doubtful,” Sebastian said. “But I'll ask.”

“Detective Hardy said that you directed him to a police report from several years ago, where a young woman attempted to kill a man she thought would stab, brand, and burn her. Can you tell me how she knew this?”

“No. Did Hardy talk to the guy?”

“He's disappeared.”

That was disturbing.

“I really need to find Mary McAllister,” Franklin murmured.

“She's a delusional woman wearing slippers and a jumpsuit,” Sebastian said. “How hard could it be?”

“You lost her in the first place, Doctor. How'd that happen?”

As Sebastian hadn't a clue, he ignored the question and asked one of his own. “Do you know who killed my caseworker?”

“A woman who goes by the name of Mistress June.”

“Catch her yet?”

“The woods are pretty deep and dense.”

“So, no.”

“No,” the agent snapped, and hung up.

“That went well,” Sebastian said.

He slept on the couch in his office that night. When he got up the next morning he appeared as if he'd been sleeping there for days. He certainly felt like it.

He filled out the massive number of reports necessary when a patient escaped, as well as the ones required for the death of an employee. He spoke with Dr. Tronsted, who'd sounded as tired of getting his calls as he was of making them.

“You're going to have to go before a board of review sooner rather than later,” she said. “It would be good if you had something to tell them besides ‘got me.'”

Sebastian had to agree, but it wasn't looking good.

About mid-afternoon, a storm rumbled in the distance. The wind howled so loudly Sebastian could have sworn there was a pack of wolves in the parking lot. He even went to the window and peered out. Oddly, the sun shone on the facility, though the northwestern horizon was a nasty shade of gray-green.

The power flickered. What was it with the electricity around here?

A commotion in the hall had him turning just as Deux appeared. “Dr. Frasier, there's a problem in solitary.”

“Willow,” Sebastian said before he could stop himself.

“How'd you know, sir?”

“She's the only patient in solitary right now.” Sometimes Sebastian wondered how smart this guy was.

“Right.” Deux scrubbed his hand through his hair. “She was staring out the window, kind of like you were.”

“And?” Sebastian followed him down the hall at a fast clip.

“She passed out. I can't get her to wake up.”

“You left her alone?”

“It's
solitary,
” Deux said, as Sebastian started to run.

Her door was locked. Sebastian peered in the window. She was there, on the floor, still unconscious. Unless she was dead. He couldn't tell if she was breathing.

Sebastian found his keys. His hand shook so much he dropped them, then he had a heck of a time getting the right one into the lock. Once he did, he shoved the door open so fast and hard the thing banged against the wall and almost smacked him in the face. Willow never moved.

Falling to his knees, Sebastian set his fingers to her wrist, let out a whoosh of relief when her pulse thudded strong and sure. “Willow?”

Not a flicker of her eye, not a movement on her face. Her chest didn't seem to rise and fall. He set his finger beneath her nose and felt not even the slightest trickle of air. Perhaps the pulse he'd felt in her wrist had merely been the echo of his own thunderous heart.