Дж. Хатчинс - Personal Effects - Dark Art

It inched further still.

No.

I sucked in air. I reminded myself why I was there. I damned my patient, damned myself, and screamed like an unhinged man, an exorcist.

“RICHARD DRAKE! You will PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES! You will PAY for the BLOOD on your HANDS! You will SUFFER, as you made those YOU KILLED suffer! RETRIBUTION, RICHARD DRAKE! YOU ARE GUILTY…”

The sharp pencil tip dug into my eyelid. The orb behind it constricted, rolling madly in the darkness.

Two roars filled the room now, overpowering my voice. One from the Dark Man, a screeching, brain-splitting howl.

“…PAY! FOR! YOUR!” I screamed.

And now another scream, from Drake. One word, louder than us all.

Chernobog.

I heard the world tear open: shredding fabric, invisible electricity, a howling wind from anotherspace.

And then, it was over.

The light flashed on above me, steady and true. I threw the pencil to the floor; it clattered and rolled away. Drake sat in his chair, gaping at the light bulb, squinting like a newborn… and then he looked at me. Saw me.

“…crimes,” I whispered.

He was smiling. Smiling, weeping and nodding. He stood, filled the space between us, and hugged me.

I held him as he trembled and wept. My eyes turned to the walls. The murals had returned, surreal, colorful… and for the first time, I thought, hopeful.

“Whatever you want,” Richard Drake said through his sobs. “Confession, anything. Punishment, yes. Finally, yes. Thank you. Thank you.”

I held him tight. Our words and tears blurred together, there in Room 507.

“Thank you.”

I sank into the black vinyl chair, relishing its aged padding. I’d been nearly dead on my feet for the past two days, so I dared not close my eyes; this moment of being literally “at rest” would likely take me over the edge. The office’s dim lighting—and its oppressive scent of coffee and old books—was comforting, too. I ached for sleep. I ached, all over.

The pain meds I’d received in the infirmary weren’t helping. The pencil holes in my arm and chest had required stitches, as had one of the gashes on my face from Daniel’s attack. I’d come back from Hell, and would have the scars to prove it.

I bit my tongue, opened my eyes wide, tapped my fingers, one after another, against my thumb. Anything to stay awake.

Dr. Peterson closed the door behind me and stepped to his desk. He sat and stared at me with his owlish eyes. His round face glowed pale from the nearby gooseneck lamp. The towers of desk paperwork were a city skyline, it seemed, and Peterson was the moon, judging me from on high, from orbit, ready to mete out my punishment.

He placed the thick folder I’d given him on the desk. Inside was the “Martin Grace” file: the original admittance report, my official conclusions from our therapy sessions, my statement of his competence to stand trial, photocopies of my patient’s confessions to the twelve murders—and finally, the transfer documents that released him from Brinkvale care. Noon was three hours gone, and so was Richard Drake.

And now, it was my turn.

“There are things to discuss, Zachary,” Peterson said, “the most important being: Are you all right?”

I frowned and sighed. I wanted to say no, no, I wasn’t all right; that Peterson’s assignment and my crusade— he’s blind, but help him see —had wreaked a special breed of havoc on my mind and body; that during this adventure, I’d destroyed parts of myself, my job, my family, my relationships; that I’d sacrificed damned-near every shred of myself for a stranger who didn’t want my help; that darkness can be a living thing, a midnight-ocean shark attack, not a great white, but a Great Black; and oh the things I’ve seen/not seen in the past week, Dr. Peterson, it’s just like Henry said: there’s a very large world beside—and beneath and above—this one, and it scraped against me. It changed me.

And for what? I wondered here, as the old man scrutinized me. In so many ways, I hadn’t saved Richard Drake at all. He’d be convicted, slam-dunk, just like Uncle Henry’s case, twenty years ago.

But I think… I think I might have saved his soul.

And wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t that—as I’d said to Drake the day I’d met him—“the goddamned point?”

“I’m all right,” I replied, and smiled softly. “I think everything’s going to be all right.”

Peterson’s mouth was a narrow line. He shook his head slowly.

“I disagree, Zachary. I chose you for the Grace case because of your brilliance with patients: your unconventional ability to connect with them. Defying convention is one matter. Being reckless is another.”

As his eyes continued to probe mine, his hand slid from the desk surface, out of view. He tugged open a drawer and then placed four videocassettes atop Grace’s folder. A three-digit number was written on their labels. Upon each was also scrawled a date from the past week. I noticed that Thursday’s date was not represented here.

It was footage from Room 507’s security camera.

Whatever glint of hope I’d had of keeping my job died right there. This was no longer about my job at The Brink. This was, quite suddenly, about my career as an art therapist.

My stomach churned, turned sour and acidic. He’d seen it all. I’d damned it all.

“Yesterday’s incident with Emilio Wallace forced me to take a closer look at how you interacted with the patient,” Peterson said. His voice was grave. “Martin Grace was a determined man. You were equally determined. There are a great many inexplicable moments on these tapes, Zachary. Your relentless questioning, for instance. Actually, I’m well within my right to call it ‘interrogation.’ During Wednesday’s session alone, your patient said…”

He glanced at a nearby sheet of paper. His voice dispassionately recited the notes as if they were from a play. I remained silent, sickened.

“…‘No. God damn you, stop. Stop. Leave me alone. Don’t. No. Oh no, Almighty God, no.’”

Peterson’s gray eyes flicked back to mine.

“And yet you persisted, Zachary.”

I wanted to throw up. I wanted to give him a reason, to tell him why . I knew I couldn’t.

“There are more than a dozen moments like this,” Peterson continues, “and as the week progressed, you appeared to descend further and further into what I’ll charitably call ‘inexcusably cavalier’ engagements with the patient. This… is very troubling.”

His mouth now sank into a frown. He tapped the cassettes with a wrinkled hand. Cufflinks glinted at his wrists.

“Equally inexplicable and troubling is what’s not on these tapes. Hours of footage is missing, or garbled. Any record of Martin Grace during the nighttime hours is gone, as if they were never recorded. His drawing of the wall murals, for instance. Also missing are moments of your sessions together. It appears that the electrical malfunctions on Level 5 affected more than the room’s lighting.”

I gaped at him, not understanding—and yet understanding perfectly. Perhaps it was the ancient Brinkvale wiring system that caused these blackouts. Perhaps it was something else.

“This footage,” Peterson said, “is an incomplete record of your interaction with the patient.”

He slid the tapes aside with his hand, making room for another piece of notepaper, which he now placed in the center of the desk. It was covered in his elegant handwriting.

“I have also received information that may interest you,” he said. “Despite the District Attorney’s office’s—and police department’s—attempts to quash this rumor, it appears that an individual illegally entered Martin Grace’s apartment on Tuesday. This individual was arrested. He was released without criminal charges.”