Chapter 9
Phillip twisted in the straightjacket, foam forming on his lips. He still saw Tom looking down on him and leering. Tom's hand was about to touch him. Desperately she snapped at it.
"What happened to him?" Barnabas pulled his hand away in surprise.
"What do you think happened?" Julia asked harshly. "getting up on that platform and playing was too much for him.
She knew the truth behind it, knew that Roxanne had ordered his beer laced with LSD. But she couldn't tell Barnabas that. And the frustration she felt made her even more merciless towards Barnabas.
"But he was doing all right..."
"All right according to you. You were the one who told him to put himself on display."
'It seemed to help him."
"Same as Eileen's knitting needles helped her? You blundered up badly once, but that's not enough for you. You still have to have those crazy ideas of yours. Well, now it is up to me to see if Phillip can be put together again. Amateur psychologists, psha!"
"Lou..." Willie turned on his bed, hoping that by calling her, she would be back with him.
But she wasn't. Nothing he said or did would bring her back. Not for a whole month.
But when the month was over...
When the month was over, what? He had missed her desperately when she had left him for the first time. Had tried practically everything to get her back. And now...now he had pushed her away.
Maybe a whole month wasn't enough. Not if he kept doing these things...
"Phillip freaked out?" Megan bit her lip, shaking.
"He is now in Wyncliffe" Joe said "Julia says it's Barnabas' fault for making him play in public."
"Very likely" Megan's eyes glinted dangerously Her fingers closer around a pencil, strangling it until it broke. She stood silent for a few seconds. "I am going to Wyncliffe." she said "I have to see him."
It was his fault. Phillip was screaming in a padded cell and it was his fault.
Barnabas put his hands to his temples. His head hurt. He had a mental link with Phillip and now was able to hear every one of his screams as if he was in the same cell with him. Worse, he heard the screams and knew what caused them.
He could shut them off, but was unwilling to do so. If he couldn't help Phillip, at least he could share...
He didn't even have the courage to go to Wyncliffe, as Megan had done. No, not even that was too much for him.
"You think that you are the only one?"
He lifted his head in surprise. He though he had been alone.
"You think that you are the only one?" Woodard repeated.
Barnabas shrugged listlessly. "If you want to make me feel lousy, you are wasting your time. I don't think you could make me feel worse than what I feel right now."
"No. It has nothing to do with that. I'll tell you a story. It was when I started practice. I was treating this little girl...she was very sick but she seemed to be responding to treatment. I became very attached to her. Then she took a turn for the worse and she died. It devastated me. It is always bad to lose a patient, and it is worse when you become emotionally involved... There was this guy at the hospital. He didn't like me, and I didn't like him, either. But when it happened he came to see me and told me what... hat I am going to tell you."
"Why?"
"Because you are in the business too. Because somebody should tell you this. I will not got into details as to why Julia isn't the done doing it. Too long and complicated. All right, here it is, in a nutshell: You are going to lose patients, again and again. And it is going to hurt. Not as badly as now, but it will hurt. It is the price you have to pay for all the times when you do not lose them, for all the times you feel good about yourself and your job. There isn't a doctor who hasn't gone through what you are going through now. And they survive it. They pull themselves together and keep going. You'll have to, if you want to keep at it. You might say it goes with the job"
"But I am not really..."
"Yes, you are. The moment you went to work for Julia you entered the profession. And as such, you have a right to some kind of guidance at this moment."
"It is this, then?"
"Yes. Call it professional courtesy. The guy I told you about, well, we didn't become friendlier afterwards. But I respected him more, and maybe that's enough. I am paying off that debt, now."
"You heard about Phillip Todd?" Vicky asked, playing nervously with the keys dangling from her belt.
"Yes. Flipped out in the middle of the concert. Julia's blaming Barnabas for it. He pushed Phillip to play in public."
Vicky shook her head, uncertain. "Still, there is something odd about it."
"Considering what Tom did to him, the only surprising him is that he did not do it sooner." Nicholas grimaced uncomfortably as he spoke. It was something he preferred not to think about too much himself.
"Maybe you are right." Vicky acknowledged. "I seem to forget how your species attaches such importance to matters of sex and bodily functions.."
Nicholas shivered at this reminded as to who really was inside Vicky's body.
Julia shifted uneasily under Megan's gaze.
"It still isn't a good idea for you to visit Phillip" she said.
"I accepted it last night because you said that it was late and he was heavily sedated. But I think I can see him today."
"It might disturb him."
"You think I can't control myself around him?"
Julia knew why Roxanne did not want Megan around Phillip. Nor anyone else, for that matter. Nobody must suspect that Phillip's breakdown had been triggered by LSD and in part maintained by other drugs. while his memory was being probed for the information that Roxanne wanted.
Yet, if Megan saw him in the shape he was, she would carry the talk to Collinpsort and make credible any further reports of catatonia...
Roxanne's eyes met her across the room. She read agreement in them.
"All right, Megan, you can see him." Julia said. "but only for a few seconds."
Phillip stared ahead, numbly, without seeming to recognize anyone when they came in.
"Phillip " Megan spoke softly "how are you doing?"
Phillip didn't respond
"Phillip"" Megan extended her hand.
And in the flicked of an eye, Phillip had jumped away, screaming and pushing against the wall, as far away from her as possible.
"Phillip..."
"That's enough" Julia said. "You have seen him."
Megan went out "Why?"" she asked.
"Ask Barnabas that."
Megan whimpered. The sound scared her. She hadn't whimpered in a long time.
"He hasn't said a word, has he?"
"Not yet. I am working on it."
"Will you tell me when he does?"
"Yes." Julia relented. " I will. I can't tell you how long it will take me, though. I will do my best."
Megan nodded and left.
Roxanne looked pleased. "That was smart, doctor. She will carry the tale to Vicky."
Julia was shocked. "How can you be so sure that Vicky is involved?"
"Has to be. How else would she do the time-hopping trick? And I didn't recover my memory and got called back into action until she came back."
"Called back?"
"Julia, you know that I work for certain...entities. As payment for saving my life when Randall was keeping me away from my coffin, I do certain things for them. I bet you were disappointed when you found out that the sunlight hadn't finished me off as you planned."
"I didn't..."
"Of course, that was Barnabas' idea." she smiled nastily. "I wonder how he likes hearing Phillip's screams in his mind."
"You did this to Phillip just to torment Barnabas?"
"I need to get get information out of Phillip. But if on the bargain I can make Barnabas scream, so much the better."
Julia gulped, scared at the raw hatred in Roxanne's eyes.
"The...entities who employ you, who or what are they?"
"Nothing you need to know."
Louella looked out of the window. Willie seemed so lost, so forlorn, as he stood at a distance, trying to catch a glimpse of her.
She wanted so much to rush to him, but could not. Barnabas had seen to that.
For a few seconds she hated Barnabas with all her being. He had no right to interfere this way! Willie had a right to be upset...
Then the hatred subsided. She knew better than that. Barnabas hadn't bent her will to his. He had given her knowledge. Cold, hard knowledge about herself and Willie. She that very easily the two of them could be locked into a pathological struggle that would end with herself dead and Willie in jail.
She wished she didn't have that knowledge. She wished that Barnabas had allowed her to deny it...
If she'd known what he'd been planning she might have refused to let him bite her...
In which case he would have done it by force. He cared too much about Willie and her not to. And he hadn't really asked, He had just pushed her back, his firmness not wholly hidden by his gentleness, had let her rest on the pillows, and had quickly gotten into her vein and her mind...
A kitten rubbed against the leg. Kitten? They were growing fast. Soon they would be taken to the vet for fixing...
She hugged the kitten, wishing it was Willie instead.
"How's she? Joe asked Tammy.
"The same." Tammy shook her head sadly.
"She can't stay like this forever." Joe protested. "How many days since she went to Wyncliffe? After all, Barnabas bounced back.
"It is harder for her. she also lost Angelique and Chris."
"We have to do something. She can't stay that way?'
"What do you suggest?"
"I don't know..." Joe snapped his fingers. "she always said that there was something fishy about the Leviathan case. The she thinks it did not end. Maybe we could get her interested in that."
"Leviathan? What do you now about it?"
"Not much, but Barnabas does."
