Mad Maudlin

by Mercedes Lackey

  But suddenly Karen's face crumpled into tears, and she turned away. Her two friends put their arms around her, soothing and patting as they led her back toward the Faire.

  When she was sure Karen was going to keep going, Jeanette turned back. Eric had walked away. He'd almost reached the door, and Jeanette didn't know what would happen if he went through it without her. She ran until she caught up with him.

  "Tell me . . . what happened?" he asked, hesitating on the threshold of the open doorway. "What made me come here, I mean?"

  His brown eyes were wide and troubled, searching her face for some hint of hope or reassurance.

  Jeanette felt something twist inside her. He looked so vulnerable, so young and lost. No wonder Karen had wanted to keep him! She had to tell herself that this Eric wasn't real, any more than the Faire that she'd dragged him out of was real. He was a shadow of his true self, a shadow inhabiting a shadow world.

  "You got mugged. You're in a coma. But you'll be okay. Through the door, up the stairs, and you're home," she said gruffly. And you'll never be as happy again as you were here, I bet.

  And if they'd met in real life, someone like Eric would never have looked twice at someone like her.

  "You're sure about this?" Eric said dubiously. "Because I don't—"

  Losing the last of her patience—with herself and him—Jeanette shoved with all her strength, pushing him through the door, and followed him through.

  * * *

  Kayla's fingers were icy cold in his. Her face was white and drawn. Beads of sweat trickled down her face, and shudders of chill wracked her body, but she never moved. A faint halo of blue light, difficult to see in the fluorescent illumination of the hospital room, played over her fingers and Eric's face. Her breathing was deep and raspy, but at least she was still breathing, thank the Good Lord.

  Hosea kept glancing from her face to the banks of machines monitoring Eric. One green line for heartbeat—a steady jagged pulse—another for brain activity, flat and ominous. The steady thump of the ventilator, breathing when Eric could not.

  Suddenly Kayla began to cough and twitch, like a hound chasing rabbits in his sleep. Her fingers jerked and twitched in his grasp. At the same moment, Hosea felt a wave of freezing chill wash into him.

  Jeanette was coming home.

  The EEG monitor eeped and began to mutter to itself, its display showing spiky patterns. At the same time, the blue glow in Kayla's hands expanded and brightened, covering Eric's entire body. Hosea felt the last of the cold pass from her fingers, through him, settling safely back into the banjo again.

  "Kayla!" Hosea said sharply.

  Kayla's eyes fluttered open. "Not . . . done," she said, in thick ragged tones. Her voice sounded slurred, and he wasn't entirely sure she knew where she was.

  "Stop now," Hosea commanded firmly. "Now."

  "But—" Kayla sounded plaintive.

  "Stop," Hosea repeated, putting all the authority he could muster into that one word.

  Kayla lifted her hand from Eric. The azure glow around his body faded and died away. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees buckled. Hosea barely caught her in time.

  He picked her up and deposited her in the chair, though—if truth were told—his own knees weren't as steady as he'd like. Gently he felt her wrist, scanning her face apprehensively. She was breathing normally and her pulse was strong. She'd just overextended herself, or so he hoped.

  Once Kayla was settled in the chair, he ran his fingers over the strings of the banjo. "You okay, Sweetheart?"

  :Leave me alone!: Jeanette snarled furiously.

  Hosea smiled faintly and began detuning the banjo. By the time he had the instrument locked away safely in its case again, he felt better, and Kayla was sitting up.

  "Don't you move, now," Hosea warned her. "You keeled over, and Ah don't want you doing it again."

  "Hah," Kayla said a bit groggily. "Eric?"

  "According to the medical equipment, Mr. Banyon is doing much better," Paul said, coming over to inspect the readouts. "Brain function is well within normal parameters."

  "Then how come he ain't awake?" Kayla demanded, trying to get up.

  Hosea pushed her back down into the chair without effort. He pointed over his shoulder at some of the bags dangling beside the bed. "Ah'd say that the mess o' painkillers they've stuck him with might have a little bit to do with that. Now you just rest here for a few minutes and have some more to drink. Then we're goin' home."

  Kayla opened her mouth to argue. Hosea held up a finger.

  "You're in no shape to finish Healin' him up tonight, and that's the plain and simple truth. And even if you did, it'd be sure to cause more'n a bit o' talk. They can explain away him comin' out of a coma to their satisfaction, but not broken bones that heal overnight."

  "I guess," Kayla muttered sullenly.

  "Now drink up," Hosea said, handing her another bottle of juice. "You're just tetchy from doing all that work."

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Kayla felt strong enough to stand up, though she was pretty sure she wasn't going to feel really warm any time soon. I bet I've got ghost prints on my liver. She stood up carefully, leaning on Hosea for support.

  "Ready to go then? All right," Paul said briskly, unlocking the door and pulling it open.

  Kayla cast a last longing glance back at Eric.

  "Later," Hosea said firmly. "Now walk—or be carried."

  "Bully," Kayla muttered, heading slowly toward the door.

  Eric's night nurse was just coming back up the corridor as they walked out into the hall.

  She walked into the room. A moment passed as the other three watched and listened, invisible, in the hall.

  The call light went on over the door.

  An aide came over to the door and stepped inside.

  "Get the doctor on call now. Mr. Banyon's come out of his coma."

  * * *

  Hosea got Kayla home and made sure she ate something before letting her go to bed. He saw that she was tucked up warmly before letting himself out of her apartment and taking the stairs up to Eric's.

  Just as well Miz Llewellyn wasn't around. She'd have his hide for a rug if she knew what he'd got up to with Little Bit tonight.

  But there hadn't been any way to test Jeanette's idea. Only to try it.

  And it seemed to have worked. Eric was back in one piece—or back in one place, anyway. And Little Bit could take care of the rest, over time.

  Now Beth and Kory would be wanting to know the good news, and Hosea owed it to them to let them know as soon as possible. It was already late. A few more minutes before he got to bed wouldn't make any difference.

  He let himself into Eric's apartment and switched on the computer. Hosea's own finances didn't quite stretch to one yet, but he borrowed Eric's from time to time, or used one of the many public Internet connections available in the city.

  He dug around in his backpack until he found the scrap of paper on which he'd written Beth's e-mail address, and logged in to his Hotmail account. Typing her address into the "To" field, he began composing his message.

  * * *

  "I want to go back to New York," Ria said, pacing back and forth restlessly in the living room of her suite. Her two bodyguards watched her incuriously. There was another one on the outside door. Ria ignored them. They were a fact of life under the current circumstances.

  "It isn't that easy, Ria," Zachary Standish said patiently.

  He was a well-groomed and formidably efficient legal shark; she'd wooed him away from private practice to walk point for LlewellCo in the wake of the Threshold debacle, and had able to keep him busy ever since. Her competitors had been astonished—Standish had made his name by suing corporations, not working for them—but Ria had dangled an irresistible bait.

  "Fair dealing, Mr. Standish. No compromises. Ethics and responsibility. I can always use another still small voice of conscience on my staff. And with what I'm going to pay you, you'll have th
e resources to go after a lot more pro bono work, I'd imagine."

  "Even if it touches on a LlewellCo company, Ms. Llewellyn?" he'd asked.

  "Threshold was a LlewellCo company, Mr. Standish," she'd answered implacably. "I'm cleaning house. Want to help?"

  Neither of them had yet regretted the partnership.

  Zachary had flown down from New York yesterday with his entire staff. They were occupying most of the rest of the floor, and a considerable amount of the resources of Gotham Security as well. Ria had no intention of seeing any of her people take a bullet for her.

  "Zack, if it were easy, I wouldn't be paying you the enormous amount I do. I need to get back there. A friend of mine's in the hospital. I want to sit by his bedside and wring my hands. Do something."

  Though her words were light, they did little to conceal Ria's frustration. It had been almost a full day since she'd heard about Eric's condition, and everything she'd been able to do since then—for him and for herself—had done little to take the edge off her anxiety.

  She'd changed hotels, and surrounded herself with round-the-clock security. She'd thrown up a thornbush of law around herself, including Zachary Standish.

  She'd put Anita on the case back in New York to take the heat off Kayla, and arranged for Eric's transfer (as soon as circumstances would permit) to a small private hospital that she used frequently. The staff there was very discreet. She was also having a room in her apartment outfitted as a fully functional sickroom, in case it would be possible to have him transferred directly there. The report on his condition that she'd gotten from Anita wasn't good, but it didn't particularly worry Ria; she'd seen Kayla work miracles before. None of Eric's physical injuries were a real problem—hell, all of them could be fixed mundanely with enough time and money.

  Except for one . . .

  "Get me out of this city, Zack," she repeated, stopping and staring down at him imperiously. "You're my legal counsel. Do something legal."

  "I am. I'm advising you to stay put. You're in a very tenuous position here. Breaking and entering—"

  "You've seen my statement. I was in the car the whole time."

  "Kidnapping—"

  "I assisted in the rescue of a kidnap victim."

  "Assault with a deadly weapon—"

  "Exactly who am I supposed to have assaulted—and with what? All my entirely legal handguns are still locked up in my safe in New York. Where are you coming up with this nonsense?"

  "From a counter-brief Parker Wheatley filed with the Justice Department this morning, accusing you personally of murder, pillage, arson, impersonating a Federal Marshal, and a few things I actually had to look up. My specialty is corporate law. You need a criminal lawyer, Ria."

  "He's blowing smoke," Ria snapped. Whether Wheatley's accusations were true or not didn't actually matter as much as whether he could drum up political support for them. Did he still have friends in high places—or not?

  "Maybe. But it's going to take time for the smoke to clear away," Zack said.

  "Oh, I don't think so. Either the smoke goes away, and I go home . . . or I go public. I'm sure the Great American Public would really like to hear that the U.S. Government is spending tax dollars kidnapping and torturing harmless bookstore owners and planning to put tea-leaf readers into concentration camps because it's taking the UFO menace so seriously." She smiled coldly.

  Zack winced. "I really don't think you should do that, Ria. If . . . there's a possibility you might find yourself detained as a material witness," he said carefully.

  "Sent to jail for shooting my mouth off, you mean?" Ria began to pace again. "I don't have to be available to break this story, and I'd be a fool to make a threat they could neutralize by just locking me up. I came to them, Zack. If I hadn't, Wheatley would still be going his merry way. I don't expect either gratitude or a long memory for past favors, not in this town. I just expect special treatment now. Tomorrow can take care of itself."

  She sat down on the couch, suddenly tired.

  "I need to get back to New York—which was still, last I heard, a part of the U.S. I'm not going any farther than that. They'll have my full cooperation—including my silence, if that's what they want. Or my testimony. Their choice. I'm not a flight risk, because I'm not a criminal. Just a concerned citizen and campaign contributor. But I have to get home. Now for God's sake, Zack, go find someone to explain that to before I have to renew acquaintance with my friends over at the Washington Post."

  Zack got to his feet, closing his briefcase. "If you're sure that's the way you want to play it?"

  "Yes, Zack, that's the way I want to play it," Ria answered, her voice flat.

  * * *

  The ringing of the telephone jarred Kayla awake sometime—not long enough—after she'd gotten to bed. She opened her eyes. Daylight. Must be morning, then.

  The phone continued its annoyingly cheery chirping, until Kayla finally located it—she'd gone to sleep clutching it, for some reason. She fumbled at it until she hit the "On" button.

  "Hello? Kayla?"

  "Ria? What's wrong?" she croaked.

  "Things are going right for a change, not that I need to tell you. Anita called a few hours ago, but I thought I'd let you get some sleep before I touched base; it sounds like you had a busy night. The official story at the hospital is that Eric has made a miraculous recovery from his coma and is doing much better. They should be willing to transfer him to my private clinic day after tomorrow instead of the end of the week, and then you can really get to work on him," Ria said.

  "Yeah. We did all right." Kayla sat up and ran a hand through her hair, still groggy. And ravenous. She wondered what there was in the fridge that didn't need cooking. Maybe she'd go out. "I wasn't there for most of it."

  "Weren't there? Where were you?" Ria sounded confused.

  "I was sort of there. But he was stuck off someplace I couldn't get at, so we had to send Jeanette in after him."

  "You sent Jeanette Campbell in to find Eric?" Ria was almost sputtering suddenly, and Kayla would have thought it was funny if she still hadn't been so tired.

  "Yeah. Trust me. It was the only way. I still don't have all the details. It was kinda late when we finished up." And linking up with a ghost really takes it out of you. "Ria . . . where are you?"

  "Still in Washington. I've got a few more things to straighten out here—unfortunately—but I'll be home as soon as possible. If I'd known this was going to take this long—and what was going to happen up there while I was gone—I might not have come, but it turns out it was a good thing I did."

  "Yeah, go all cryptic on me," Kayla said, and Ria laughed harshly.

  "How's the other matter coming?" Ria asked.

  Magnus, she means.

  "I'm going to go up and see Eric," Kayla said, "then I guess I better go check out that place Hosea mentioned and give them some money. Then tonight I'm going to go back up to The Place and see if I can't get the three of them to go over there." She was just as sure as Eric had been that Magnus wouldn't move without Ace, and neither one would stir a step without Jaycie. So it looked like all or nothing.

  "It sounds like a good idea," Ria said. "Don't overwork yourself."

  "Like I could, with all the yentas I've got looking over my shoulder here," Kayla said, only half joking. And sometime before the end of my so-called vacation, I've got to make some time to hit the books. I've got a couple of papers due. "Don't worry, Ria. I'll be fine."

  "I'm counting on it," Ria said. "Take care."

  "You too," Kayla said.

  * * *

  Looking at her watch after she closed the phone again, Kayla discovered it was already 2:00 p.m. Better get moving, then. Respectable for her to visit to the hospital and Somerset House, then back here to grubby up to go back to The Place. Kayla wasn't really looking forward to another night spent on unheated bare floors, but the way she felt now, she could sleep on a bed of nails, and she really couldn't afford to spend another night away. She'd manage.<
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  * * *

  She still had her visitor's pass from her previous day's visit to Gotham General. You were supposed to turn them in when you left each day, but she'd kept hers. It was a lot faster that way than having to wait in line at the Admissions Desk.

  But when she got up to Eric's room, it was empty.

  Not empty as in "he was temporarily somewhere else and would be right back." The bed had been made up, the life support machines were gone, the room was obviously waiting for a new occupant.

  Kayla headed for the Nurses' Station at a dead run.

  "Hey! You!"

  The nurse behind the desk looked up from her paperwork with a frown. "Can I help you?"

  "The patient in 2418. Eric Banyon. Where is he?"

  "2418?" The woman consulted her charts. "I'm sorry, there's no one in that room."

  I know that! "Was he moved?"

  "What was the name again?"

  "Eric Banyon."

  The woman consulted her charts with maddening slowness, then checked the computer. "I'm sorry. There isn't an Eric Banyon in this wing."

  But he was here yesterday! And last night!

  Seeing Kayla's stricken expression, the nurse smiled gently. "This is a big hospital, and a lot of the floors do look alike. And patients do get moved, and sometimes it takes a little while for the system to catch up with them. Why don't you check with the front desk? I'm sure they'll be able to find him for you."

  I don't think so.

  But because she couldn't think of anything else to try—other than checking every room on the floor, and she knew she wouldn't get very far with that—Kayla went back down to the front desk.

  "I'm here to see a patient," she said.

  "His name?" the woman behind the desk said.

  "Eric Banyon. Room 2418," Kayla repeated.

  She waited, hoping against hope that the woman would say that Eric had been moved, would say it had all been a mistake, a computer error. But instead, after frowning at the computer for several minutes, what she said was: "I'm sorry. We have no patient by that name here. Are you sure you're in the right hospital?"

  * * *