“You have to get him out,” I said. “You have to.”
“Kitty,” Jack said.
I turned to him. “He can’t stay there.” I looked at Mabry and West, trying to tamp down the panic in my voice. “He’s the catalyst,” I said to them. “Think about it. He’s the center of all of it, the one whose energy they take. And he’s getting worse.”
West took my meaning right away and turned green. “Jesus,” he said. Jack’s gaze searched my face as he put the pieces together himself. Mabry had paled but he stayed silent, as if something terrifying were occurring to him.
“For God’s sake,” came Paulus’s incredulous voice. “You’re not making any sense. Are you as mad as the rest of them?”
I turned back to him. “It’s wrong, and you know it,” I said. “Deep down, you know it. Get him out.”
He didn’t give in. But he looked back at me, the knowledge flickering behind his eyes. I didn’t know what he thought, what he believed, what he might have pieced together, and I didn’t care. I didn’t let him go. And so he was still looking at me, and he was caught by surprise when Jack grabbed one arm and Mabry grabbed the other.
They twisted his arms up behind his back, bent at the elbows in a painful posture, as Paulus kicked out with his big legs. In the same moment West twisted in his chair and got his arm around Roger’s neck, squeezing with one huge biceps. Roger’s reaction lifted West almost completely off his chair, the halves of his legs swinging, but he held on. Roger was strong, but smaller, and he grabbed for purchase at West’s muscled arm, held in place.
“Kitty!” said Jack. “Quick!”
There was no time to go around the table, so I stepped up onto my chair and launched myself straight across it, grabbing for Paulus’s waist. His ring of keys hung there, clipped to his belt; I grabbed for it and fumbled with the clasp, trying to pry it open. Paulus lifted his hips and torso straight off his chair, heaving, and I nearly lost my grip; I got it again and worked at the clasp as he struggled beneath me. As I lay flat on my stomach on the dining room table, my skirts thrown up and my legs kicking as my own chair went flying, I wondered in a flash what Matron would have thought.
Well, that’s just too bad.
I unhooked the key ring and snatched it off Paulus’s belt. Then I rolled off the table and ran.
I pounded down the corridor and into the common room. There was no direct way to get to the west wing indoors, as all the doorways were bolted shut; the only way would be to go up a flight of stairs, through the door Jack and I had used before, and back down another staircase. The quickest way to the library was outdoors, straight through the garden and cutting across the grounds to the other end of the building. I took the low steps in the common room two at a time and I flew to the French doors, unlatching them and running out onto the veranda.
The rain was pounding down in a solid sheet. I crossed the veranda and leapt down the steps into the garden, water in my eyes. My cap was gone. I heard shouts behind me, the crash of overturned furniture. My boots clapped on the cobblestone path of the garden as I turned left and then right, and then I was through the garden gate and out into the untended grounds.
I was soaked through already. It was summer rain, chilled but not freezing, driving hard from the sea winds. The ground squelched under my feet and mud flew. I heard the heavy pounding of male steps behind me and harsh male breath. I turned my head for a fraction of a second and saw Roger, head down, arms pumping, chasing me for all he was worth and gaining. But Jack had come out a side door and was heading straight for him, as lithe as an animal. “Run, Kitty!” he shouted, and I turned ahead again and pumped faster, my legs churning under my skirts. The main wing of Portis House flew by and I focused on the barred window and barred door of the godforsaken library, which came into view.
I wouldn’t have long. If Jack was tackling Roger, it meant Paulus was free. Paulus was big, he was fast, and he was quiet. His legs were longer than mine. He’d give me no warning, just grab me the way an owl swoops down and grabs a mouse. He was double my size and weight, built for wrestling unruly patients. I had to outrun him, but I wouldn’t have much time.
I kept the door to the library in focus and pushed my whole body, pain blooming in my chest, water and sweat soaking down my back. When I got to the door, I was running so hard I couldn’t slow and I more or less crashed into it, hitting it hard. I fumbled with Paulus’s key ring in my wet hand and put the right key in the lock just as two huge arms came around my waist from behind.
“Archie!” I screamed. “Archie!” I gripped the door as Paulus lifted me off my feet, as easy as if I were a child’s doll. I turned the knob and pushed the door open as hard as I could, screaming Archie’s name again. Paulus pulled at me as the door swung open with a groan.
And then we stopped.
We froze where we were. Perhaps our position was a bit ridiculous—both my feet off the ground, my torso neatly tucked under one of Paulus’s arms like a suitcase—but we didn’t notice. There was only that dark doorway, and silence but for the sound of the blowing rain. I was suddenly cold. This was the bad place, the worst place. The place where whatever it was, whatever horror it had been, had happened.
Paulus felt it, too. There was no light in the isolation room; the electric fixture was off, and a paraffin lamp would have been deemed too dangerous to leave with the patient. Paulus put me down and stepped forward into the dark doorway, where the rain blew through the open gap.
There was no sound, no movement from inside.
“Archie,” I said. I pushed past Paulus and walked into the room. There was an awful, sour smell. It was so dark I could not see my feet, so quiet I could hear only my own rasping breath. “Archie, answer me.”
Silence. I recalled the layout of the room from the time I’d looked in the window, and stepped hesitantly in the direction of the bed. I thought I could hear breathing. Breathing is good, I told myself. Breathing is good.
I put my arms in front of me and took another step. My foot hit something; I reached down and touched the brass bedstead. I felt along the bed, patting lightly with my hands. Relief rushed over me as I felt a foot, an ankle, a calf that was both bony and warm. “He’s alive,” I called out.
I glanced back at the doorway, but at that moment Paulus turned away, his attention distracted. Swinging lamplight came up behind him, making his shadow sway on the walls. Jack stepped into the room, soaked with rain, holding a lantern. “Kitty?”
“Here.”
“Jesus God,” Paulus shouted, his voice hoarse. “I just saw something.” He clamped a hand on Jack’s shoulder, and Jack turned; the lantern moved, and light played over me and the leg I was holding up, a thin body lying on its side on the bed, knees and arms drawn up. It was Archie, and he didn’t move.
“Where?” Jack said to Paulus.
“Stop!” Paulus shouted out into the rain. “Stop!”
I leaned close to Archie. “Archie. Are you all right?”
“It’s too late,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t,” I coaxed him. “I’ve come to get you out of here. Come with me.”