Chapter Seven

"Stein? Stein can you hear me?"

A strangled laugh came from the other side of the door.

"Stein, please answer me. What's wrong? Are you alright?"

A wheezing giggle.

"He's lost it," said Spirit, pressing past Marie and knocking on the door sharply. The echoes of his knuckles reverberated throughout the underground hallway, causing Stein to make a sharp pained moan.

"Stein, it's Spirit. We're coming in."

Stepping back, Spirit motioned to the door. "Break it down, Marie." All she could do was nod. She had never seen him so stern before, not even when he had discouraged her from going after Stein all those years ago.

"Stein, we're coming in. We're here to help you, so don't be afraid." Marie shifted her weight and brought her arm back behind her head. In a flash of yellow light, her hand transformed, thickening and lengthening into a broad stone mallet twice the size of the bottom half of her arm.

Behind her, Sid and Spirit braced themselves.

The hammer shattered the door with a deafening crash, blowing it off of its hinges and sending it flying into the laboratory. Marie rushed in, her hand transforming back into its normal state.

"Stein?"

Fingers of light filtered into the pitch black room, leaving deep nighttime shadows in its corners. Marie squinted. On the far side of the room, the edges of an operating table caught the light from the hallway outside. A white sheet covered its contents.

A small muffled snicker reverberated off the walls. Marie shivered despite her determination. She ran her hand against the wall, fingering for a light switch.

"Stein? Are you here?"

A white blur lunged from the darkness, slashing at her throat and snarling with an animal rage she had never heard from Stein before. Sid and Spirit leaped into the room, tackling the cackling figure before he could pin her to the wall. Sid's voice cried out over the scuffle.

"Find the lights!"

Turning her attention back towards the door, Marie searched for the light switch, her heart pounding at the sounds of struggle. Dust covered her hands as she scrambled for the switch. Eventually she found it a little further along the wall. She flicked the lights on and turned.

Stein was pinned to the ground, his body thrashing wildly underneath Spirit and Sid's weight as they tried to bring him under control. The scalpel trembled in his flailing hands, coming dangerously close to the back of Sid's neck. Marie rushed forwards, kneeling down and prying it from Stein's hand. She placed a hand on his head, attempting to send her wavelength into her partner's mind. Stein screamed. Her wavelength quickly recoiled.

"Get the sedative," grunted Sid, "It's in my back pocket."

"But Sid-" If they just gave her a little more time, if they could just let her figure out what was bothering him, then maybe she could-

"Now!" grunted Spirit, Stein's left arm threatening to overpower him.

Marie flinched, but then nodded and slid the sedative from Sid's back pocket. She quickly removed the plastic cap and primed the needle, a small stream squirting from its end.

"I'm sorry, Stein. This is going to hurt a little," she said, holding the needle to his neck.

Stein made an unearthly screech.

"I'm sorry," she said again, choking on the tears building in her throat.

The needle went in. Stein's eyes rolled back in their sockets as his muscles went limp. Sid released the meister and pulled a two-way radio from one of the pockets of his reconnaissance vest. Rising to his feet, he pressed the black talk button.

"Someone get a stretcher in here!"

The Academy medics were some of the fastest first-responders in the world. In less time than it had taken Spirit to rise to his feet, the paramedics waiting outside Patchwork Labs rushed into the room with a stretcher in tow. It took five men to tip the unconscious Stein into a seated position.

"Get him jacketed," said the head paramedic said, standing in the door. "We can't take any chances if he wakes up."

And despite Marie's protests, the Academy's greatest meister, the Academy's most experienced veteran of the war against madness, was shimmied into a straightjacket and carried to the ambulance waiting to take him away.