Silence for the Dead(102)

“Do you need help?” Anna came forward. “Perhaps two of us can lift him.”

Douglas looked up at her. “Oh, hullo,” he said, taking in her unkempt dress and hair. “You’re a bit of all right, aren’t you?”

“This is Anna Gersbach,” I said.

“You don’t say? You’re pretty, but I have to say your family’s a bit of a muck. I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news, but your brother’s been haunting my nightmares for three months.”

Anna had been about to take one of his arms as I took the other, but she blinked at him. “My father is doing it,” she said. “He torments Mikael. I’m very sorry.”

He grunted as the two of us lifted him. I’d never known a man could be so heavy with muscle. “It’s all right,” he said, ever the gentleman. “I was already barking mad.” He looked at my face as we settled him into his chair and wheeled him back to the doorway of the common room. “Don’t fuss, Nurse Weekes. I’m terribly hard to kill.”

“What do we do now?” I said to him. “Where do we go? I thought he would come here to kill the patients.”

“I thought so, too, but he didn’t. I don’t know where he was bloody going. When he shook me off, he headed in the direction of the stairwell.”

I thought of what Creeton had said when he attacked me. He had wanted the key to the west wing, and he had wanted to get his Luger. “He may have gone to Matron’s office,” I said. “He’s looking for a way to get into her safe.”

“He won’t find it,” said a voice.

Behind us, inside the common room, one man had sat up on his mattress. It was Archie, hugging his knees, watching us. I hadn’t seen him move.

“Archie,” I said gently, “are you all right?”

He looked past my shoulder to Anna Gersbach. “He knows you,” he said to her. “The man that comes. He knows you.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Are you here to stop him?” he asked her.

Anna stepped forward, looking down at him, sitting so thin and vulnerable on his mattress. “I was hiding,” she told him. “I was afraid. But Mikael—Mikael came to me this morning. He begged me to help. He told me I was the only one who can.” She swallowed, but no tears came down her face. “He told me Papa is getting stronger, that he’s going to kill someone. He told me to stop it and set him free.”

Archie looked up at her from his sunken eyes, all traces of his stutter gone. “I see his face in my dreams,” he said. “I heard his thoughts last night. They were in my head. If that was your father, I am truly sorry.”

Her mouth opened, but she did not reply. She seemed to have lost her words.

“Do you know how to stop him?” Archie asked her.

Still speechless, Anna shook her head.

“He wants a sacrifice,” Archie said. “He’s tried, and he’s come close.” He glanced at me, then looked back at Anna. “But he’s never succeeded. If he gets his sacrifice, he will go.”

“That means someone has to die,” I said.

“Perhaps,” said Archie, “and perhaps not.” He looked at me again. “Creeton won’t get into the safe. The Luger isn’t in there anyway. You told him that, didn’t you?”

I’d told Creeton that Jack had the combination, but Creeton hadn’t believed me. “Yes,” I said. “Archie, how—?”

“It’s logic,” he replied. “I know what he was after. I know he tried to get it from you. Creeton won’t get into the safe himself, so he’ll move on. He’ll go to the west wing.”

“Why?” Douglas asked.

Archie’s eyes glittered. “Because the one he wants is there. The one he’s going to kill. He’s going to eliminate the weak.”

My breath came short. Creeton hadn’t killed Nina, and he hadn’t killed me. You aren’t the assignment, he’d said to me. I’d thought that meant he was coming to kill the other patients. But it hadn’t.

“Jack,” I said. “Jack is in the west wing. And so is Mabry.”

“We need to hurry,” said Anna.

I turned to Douglas. I reached into my pocket and took out a folded rag. Anna and I had made a stop on our way downstairs from the nursery; there was something I’d needed to retrieve from the nurses’ night duty desk.

I unfolded the rag and pulled out one of the needles I’d taken from the desk drawer and assembled. “If by any chance Creeton comes back, stick him with this.”

Douglas took it from me. His expression was as unsettled as if I’d handed him a live grenade. “I recognize this,” he said quietly.

Of course he did. Every man at Portis House could get the needle if he got out of hand. “It’ll do the trick,” I told him.

He squared away his unease and set the needle gingerly on his thigh, his hand cupped over it. “If he comes back, I’m ready,” he said, determined. “Go.”

? ? ?

“They’ve closed off the west wing,” I told Anna as we climbed the west servants’ stairs. “There’s only one door.”

“Actually, there’s a door through the cellar,” Anna said.