Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

“Two lights,” Newman said. “Where’s the third one? Come out, come out . . .”

I saw Callum’s flashlight beam swing around wildly.

“Where’d he go?” Callum yelled. “You see him?”

“Just keep your terminus out,” Stephen called to him. “He can’t go near you. They’re more powerful now than they used to be.”

“Is that a warning for me?” Newman said. “I still see only two of you. There must be more.”

“There might have been a larger squad if you hadn’t murdered everyone you worked with,” Stephen replied.

“It never had to happen that way. I never intended to kill anyone. It was all very unfortunate.”

“Murdering five people you worked with was unfortunate? Taking on the role of Jack the Ripper was unfortunate?”

“A means to an end,” Newman said.

I was pretty sure Stephen was trying to make him talk to get a sense of where he was, but it was still impossible to tell. The acoustics sent the sound of his voice in far too many directions. Stephen reached over and grabbed me, putting his arms around me. He maneuvered us both over to the wall, then slipped from behind me and pushed the terminus into my hands.

“Hold this,” he whispered. “Keep pressing one and nine. Do not stop . Stay against the wall so he can’t get behind you.”

I wanted to ask him what he was doing, but I was too afraid to speak. I heard him move away, then there was silence. Nobody said a word. A full minute went by, maybe more, with nothing happening at all. I dug my fingers so hard into the number pad that I could feel my nails slicing into it. It provided a small ball of light around my hands, a glow extending six or eight inches at best.

The lights suddenly came back on. My pupils contracted in shock, and it took a moment before I could see clearly. I was against the wall by the entryway arches. Callum was flat against the opposite wall, where the platform area was. We stared at each other.

“Stephen!” he yelled.

“Here,” Stephen said quietly.

Stephen was speaking from inside the ticket area, just behind me. The noise didn’t bounce around so much in there. And from the calm way he spoke, I had a terrible feeling that something very bad had happened. Callum came running in my direction, and I slowly peeled myself away from the wall and looked through the arch.

Stephen was standing on the bottom step, where he had thrown the switch on a set of emergency lights. He was holding his right arm, up near the shoulder. Newman stood a few feet away from him, casually leaning against the old ticket booth.

“Stephen?” Callum asked.

“Someone,” Newman said, “was going to go for the lights.”

“Get him,” Stephen said quietly. “Just get him.”

“What the hell is happening?” Callum said.

“Allow me to explain what’s going to happen,” Newman replied. “Your friend has just been injected with an extremely large dose of insulin. Within a few minutes, he will begin to experience shakes and sweating. Then comes the confusion. The weakness. Then breathing will become difficult as the body begins to shut itself down. The dose I’ve given him is fatal without treatment, but easily reversible with a simple injection. I happen to have a syringe ready to go. I will trade it for all three termini. Give them to me, and he lives. Or we stand here and watch him die. And it won’t take long. You won’t have time to run up those steps and call for help. All three, now.”

“Callum, get him,” Stephen said again. But he already looked pale and was gripping the railing for support.

“You’re a nutter,” Callum said. There was a tremble in his voice.

“The real Jack the Ripper was insane,” Newman replied. “No question. What I want is rational. The terminus is the only thing in the world that can hurt me. If I have them, I have no predators. I have nothing to fear. We all want to live without fear. Now put it down and kick it to me. Both of you. And whoever else is out there.”

“Why don’t you kiss my arse?” Callum snapped. “How about that for an idea?”

“How about you think of your friend’s welfare?”

Callum shifted the grip of his terminus.

“We came down to finish this,” Stephen said. “Just do it, Callum.”

“You kill me,” Newman said, “you kill him. Your choice.”

Callum glanced over at me.

“No surrender?” Newman asked politely. “Maybe you want to be in charge? Maybe that’s why you’re willing to let him die.”

“Callum!” Stephen said. “Rory! He’s right there! Do it .”

“No,” Newman said, pointing at Callum. “This one . . . I understand him completely. He won’t let go of that terminus, not for you. Not for anything. I understand. It makes you feel secure, doesn’t it? It gives you back your sanity. It gives you control. The sight is a curse, and the terminus is the only cure. I have sympathy for you. I do. That’s why I’m here. That’s all I want too.”

There was no sarcasm, no little smile. I think he meant it, every word of it.

“All of this,” Newman said. “The Ripper, this station . . . all of it was just my way of trying to draw out the squad. I developed a plan that brought you to a place I knew well. I always knew there’d be more of you than of me, more than I could fight off. So I developed a plan in which I could get what I needed and you could all just walk away. He doesn’t have a lot of time, Callum.”

Newman leaned against the ticket booth and considered us both. I realized that I was holding up my terminus as well, my fingers poised on the one and the nine. I had done it unconsciously. Callum and I were trapped, unable to move forward.

“I see the way you look,” Newman said to Callum. “The way you hold on to that terminus for dear life. Did one of them get to you, too? Is that how you got the sight? Several of us had experiences like that. We were always a little different, a little more intense. I had my accident when I was eighteen. I’d been given a secondhand motorbike as a gift for getting into Oxford. It was 1978. I was at home, in the New Forest. Lots of dirt lanes to ride on, nothing but ponies in the way. Best summer of my life. Exams done, future ahead of me. It was a perfectly clear evening, the sun still out around nine o’clock, height of June—and I was riding back home from visiting my girlfriend, coming down a stretch of the road I knew perfectly well. Then suddenly, something swung at me, knocking me off the bike. I went flying backward, the bike into a tree. And when I looked up, there was a boy standing over me, laughing. My father’s friends happened to be coming by on their way to the pub, found me and the crashed bike. I told them about the boy. I pointed at him. He was still laughing. They didn’t see him, and I was taken off to the hospital. The doctors assumed, quite reasonably, that I’d been on the bike when it hit the tree and had suffered a head injury.

“I started seeing people—people that no one else could see. I was involuntarily admitted to a mental hospital for observation for a month. You all know the feeling, I’m sure. You know you’re not insane, and yet the evidence that you are seems overwhelming.”

I could tell Callum was listening very carefully to all of this, shifting his gaze between Stephen and Newman.

“As the summer went on, I realized that I had a decision to make. I was either going to remain in this hospital, or I was going to get on with my life. I decided the best thing to do was lie, tell the doctors I couldn’t see or hear them anymore. They assumed I was recovering from my injury, and I was released. I decided, because of my problem, to become a psychiatrist. I was a medical student at Oxford, and when I was done there, I went on to St. Barts. St. Barts is in the old body-snatcher district. If there’s one place you don’t want to have the sight, it’s in the old body-snatcher district, because that place is thick with them, and they aren’t pleasant. But I finished my training, took my exams, and qualified as a psychiatrist. My first position was with the prison system, working with young offenders. It was good work for me—dealing with people who were young, misunderstood, angry. It was a good place to learn about evil. About fear. About what happens to people who are isolated and confined from a young age. And, it might not surprise you, I encountered four teenagers there who had our sight.”