Control the input! Keep it clean! His defenses were crumbling. His eyeballs were straining inside his head. His body was disintegrating under the impact of the sensory overload. And still it continued, the images pouring into his mind, his skull shuddering with noise and turbulence. And among the madness and confusion the crow-grown immensely large-flying past him in a mighty rush of air.
And now he was inside a vast, many-tiered chamber spiraling downward into blackness. One moment he was looking down into this labyrinth and the next he was falling, falling down the wide vertical shaft, getting closer and closer to the blackness beneath him. Doors-millions of doors-spinning past the edge of his vision. His mind struggling for a fingerhold, scrabbling for something with which to anchor his sanity. Frankie. He could sense her anxious probing, but it was so faint, so faint, like fingers tapping against glass. Oh, God, he couldn't hang on any longer. He couldn't process-
Sudden quiet. The silence of infinite spaces. Then he heard her voice. Gabriel. The word a desolate moan.
I am lost… A whisper traveling down the long corridors, bouncing off the steep walls, echo upon echo. Lost… Lost… Lost… Gabriel… Don't leave me here…
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The smell was the first thing he registered. Disinfectant. And then the green dusk of a hospital room. He was also aware of a gentle clicking sound against the windowpane. Rain?
He was hooked up to monitors. There were tubes stuck in his arm. He touched his hand to his forehead, and his fingers recognized the gauzy feel of a bandage.
Slowly his eyes traveled around the room. A Formica nightstand. A matching dresser. A chair with a crumpled blanket, tossed to one side as though someone had vacated the chair only recently. There was a paper cup on the nightstand.
He saw all of this without any sense of curiosity. For a while he simply lay there listening to the rain tapping against the window. He closed his eyes.
When he woke up again, the room was bright with light. On the seat of the chair next to the bed, the blanket was neatly folded.
The light hurt his eyes and he closed them again quickly.
"Gabriel."
He turned his head on the pillow-wincing at the pain skewering through his neck-and peered through slitted eyes at the figure standing on the other side of the bed.
"Gabriel. Look at me." Frankie brought her face closer to his. "Hey, you." She was smiling.
"What…" His voice was a croak. Behind Frankie's shoulder, a nurse in a navy blue uniform poked her head around the door for a few seconds before disappearing again.
He tried again. "Am I OK?"
She was still smiling. "You will be. Are you thirsty? Do you want some water?"
"How long have I been here?"
"Five days. Three days in intensive care. You've been drifting in and out a number of times."
"I don't remember."
"Well, you've been mostly out of it. Are you in pain? Shall I call the nurse?"
"No." He moved his shoulders awkwardly against the propped-up pillows. Now that he was actually able to focus on his surroundings, he didn't want to be drugged up. He wanted to know what had happened.
As if anticipating his next question, Frankie said, "Dr. Dibbles will be here soon to explain everything to you. It was a close call. The brain aneurysm ruptured and they had to operate. But you'll be OK."
"Good to know." His thoughts were cotton wool. He tried to concentrate on Frankie's smiling face. "What about you, Frankie? Are you OK?"
"I'm one hundred percent. Although I did come out of that ride with one hell of a migraine, I'll tell you that. But I'm all right now."
"No bad dreams, huh?"
"No dreams whatsoever. I can't even recall the ride at all, to tell the truth. I have no memory of it. Nothing, not even fragments. It's as though the slate was wiped clean. Weird." She hesitated. "And you? Do you remember anything?"
An image flickered through his mind. A dizzying replication of doors and winding corridors. A woman's voice whispering, the sound fragmenting into a kaleidoscope of echoes: Don't leave me here…
He felt suddenly very tired. "I remember."
"She's here, you know."
"What?" He stiffened and his stomach knotted involuntarily.
Frankie nodded. "Four doors down."
"Why?"
"She's in a coma. But they don't know why." Frankie watched him steadily. "There was no physical trauma to the brain. No brain swelling or brain bleeding. Not like with you. She's simply… unconscious."
"How did she get here? Did you-"
"Not on your life." Frankie's voice was emphatic. "I wasn't even aware she was in the hospital. Apparently the cleaning lady discovered her unconscious and called for an ambulance."
"How do you know all this?"
"By chance. Morrighan has a cousin who came to visit. We met at the coffee machine and she and I made friends."
Frankie smoothed the hair from his forehead. "But don't worry about any of this stuff right now, sweetheart. You should rest."
"I suppose so." His voice sounded exhausted even to his own ears.
Frankie leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Go back to sleep. We can talk about it later."
He placed his hand on her wrist, holding her back. "Frankie… thank you."
"Oh," she smiled again. "You're welcome."
"No. I mean it. I owe you everything." Tears came to his eyes. "When that door flew open, I started falling… falling into darkness. And that's when I felt your mind reaching out to mine, hooking on. You saved me."
"Shh. Go to sleep."
He closed his eyes obediently. Frankie's voice came as though from far away. "Everything is going to be fine now. It's all over."
That evening he went for a walk. He was hooked up to an intravenous drip on wheels, and he had to drag the entire contraption with him. The wheels made an unpleasant squeaking sound on the linoleum.
He shuffled down the corridor using baby steps and feeling like an old man. He was not in pain, but he was so weak. The idea that his muscles would regain their former strength seemed almost inconceivable.
It was late. The evening meal was long finished and the last visitors had left. The wide corridor down which he was moving was empty. He could hear the sound of a television set coming from one of the rooms behind him, but most of the rooms leading off the passage were darkened.
Four rooms down, Frankie had said. He stopped just inside the doorway.
The room was only dimly lit, but there was enough light for him to see. Her face was pale in the gloom. Her hands rested flaccidly next to her body. She did not look sick. If it weren't for the wires and machines you would have thought her asleep.
Hesitantly he moved closer to the bed. She was very still. He could hardly see the movement of her breast as she breathed. Her eyes did not roll inside the lids. Her fingers did not twitch.
Was her mind still as well? That beautiful, corrupted mind?
She had approached life as though it were a blood sport. She had been a warrior. Now she was a sleeping princess. But no prince would be coming to her rescue.
Don't leave me here…
Her desperate plea would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Where was she now? Was she walking through endless passageways? Was she desperately searching for a clue, a sign, something that might make her remember the order of places and the order of things? The knowledge of it was a shadow on his heart. It was diabolical. To search for order and find only confusion. To know the horror of being lost forever.
They had joined in a battle of the minds, the two of them, but he felt no victory. He felt only loss and a profound sorrow.
"Morrighan," he whispered.
The lovely face remained completely blank.
"Forgive me."