And then Angelique’s voice whispered to her, in French-accented English, “Art Cadell, Bessel Island, white house on the beach…”
“Hard to believe, but her prints say she’s the damned nun!” a strange male voice said casually.
“Well,’’ a woman replied, in a clear American tone that was otherwise accentless, “if they can make a monster, I guess they can do most anything.’’
“Christ! She’s burning up! If she gets through this she might be days coming out of it,” the man noted, concerned.
“No, no!” she shouted. “Angelique! Don’t have enough time to save her!’’
“Hear that?’’ the woman asked. “I wish we had a doctor we could trust around here.”
“In these sticks? Can’t risk it. Just keep her cool and keep giving her what you can to break the fever. We lose her, it’s all over anyway.”
But the voices seemed to fade even as she protested, and in the darkness a leering, looming shape rose.
“You can’t save her,” taunted the Dark Man. “Why, you can’t even save yourself.”
It went on and on and on…
It was night when she finally awoke in the same bed. She still felt terribly tired and very weak, but she looked around and saw the black woman there, asleep in a rocking chair and lightly snoring. She couldn’t remember the name, but she had to communicate. She didn’t even know how long she’d been out.
“Hey!” she croaked, her throat raw and sore. “Hey! Wake up!”
The woman stirred, opened one eye, and then was immediately awake and on her feet. “How do you feel?” she asked Maria.
“Horrible. Can I have some water?”
She was given some, but even the water hurt to swallow. Finally she asked, “How long have I been out?”
“Dis is de second night you’ve been here. You been ravin’ out of your head.”
“I—I guess I have. The nightmares were—horrible. Not so horrible as what I’ve seen and what I’ve come through, but horrible all the same.”
“You come from da professor’s island, I t’ink by your ravin’s. You were held dere or somet’ing?”
“Sort of.” She had a sudden sense of urgency. “You know a man named Art Cadell?’’
“I know him. He sometime come here. Why? What you got to do wit’ Mister Cadell?”
“He—he’s a friend of a friend, sort of. That is, he knows somebody I have to get word to.”
“Oh? And who’s dat?”
“A man named MacDonald. Gregory MacDonald.”
“Lot of folks look for Mister MacDonald. He very wanted man. Dey say he some kind of Russian agent, y’know. Dere is big reward for his capture.”
She sighed. “I thought as much. Still, this was the only place I had and time’s running out. She won’t wait for anybody but him or me and I’m in no shape to go anyplace right now.”
“We get some soup, maybe some fruit, in you. You’ll feel better real fast.” With that, the black woman went out of the bedroom and she could hear her go into the kitchen and start rattling pots and pans. She was still out there when a man walked into the room, looking a little sleepy himself. She had never seen him before. He was black, middle-aged and somewhat distinguished looking, but dressed in a faded plaid shirt and old and worn jeans.
“Good evening, Sister Maria,” he said, in a pleasant baritone. His voice was also West Indian, but highly educated and probably Trinidadan or Jamaican.
She started and felt fear rising inside her, but she knew she was too weak to do anything.
“I’m Harold St. Cyr,” he said, settling down in the rocking chair. “It’s Doctor St. Cyr, but don’t let that fool you. It’s quite literally in philosophy, not medicine.”
She sank down but relaxed a bit, realizing that this house was probably used by a lot of dignitaries as a vacation retreat and he was probably the one using it this week. “I’m sorry to barge in on your vacation, Doctor.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. Can you tell me from whom you got Art Cadell’s name?”
“Huh? From—a friend in trouble.”
“Angelique Montagne?”
She grew suddenly wary again, as Paula Mochka came in with a platter holding a bowl of soup and some sliced fruit. She didn’t feel hungry, but she was very weak and knew she had to eat something.
“Yes,” she replied, as Paula fed her some soup from a spoon. “How did you know?”
“Art Cadell,” the doctor explained, “does not exist. It’s one of several hundred names used to identify the origin of anyone just happening on a place like this. We verified that MacDonald gave it in conversation to Miss Montagne, so she must have given it to you. The only question left is whether she gave it voluntarily or involuntarily.”
The soup had some effect, and she began to feel a little better inside. She wasn’t dumb, either, and the implications of all this were most interesting. If they checked on the origin of Cadell, they had to check with MacDonald himself—and they would hardly use long distance communications, which went by satellite these days, to do it. Not if they were on the other side.
“She gave it to me,” Maria told him. “I don’t know any way to prove that, though. We escaped together, but she didn’t come all the way. She’s waiting for a rescue now, I hope, but she won’t wait much longer.”
“Indeed? Why don’t you tell me your story? All the details?”
She managed a slight smile. “How do I know which side you’re on?”
“Fair enough. You don’t. And, the fact is, we’ve expected company here for some time, but not of your type. We felt the place was compromised, but we wished to see who or what would show up or what sort of surveillance would be placed on it. I’ve been spending the summer here, just waiting and incidentally finishing up my book on unique south Caribbean value systems. Not, I don’t hesitate to say, soon to be a best seller, but it will save my chair at Northwestern. We’d almost given up hope that this would pay off at all, and now here you are. I’d say you should tell us what the whole story is simply because you have no choice. Either we are friends who can help you, or we are enemies in whose power you now are and who can get anything from you we wish by other means, or, if you’re no use, we can simply shove you out the door, naked, penniless, on a remote little island with a population of under four thousand and a per capita income of about eight hundred dollars a year. So, let’s hear the story.”
And she told him, starting with her arrival at the Institute, and she spared nothing in detail, not even her encounters with the Dark Man and her fear-induced conversion to his use. He broke in only occasionally, asking a question or two, but mostly let her speak her piece. He was particularly interested in anything she could give him on the Dark Man himself, which was very little.
Angelique’s transformation fascinated him, but he did not question it. He was, however, quite concerned about the thrust of the attack on her core identity.
“They are trying to reduce her to the basic primitive— emotional, not rational, living half or more in the metaphysical realm. Her lack of real life experience makes her very vulnerable to this sort of thing. When they break her, they then plan to slowly build her back up the way they want her to be. I am, however, apprehensive at the ease of her escape when she is so central to them. I fear that this may not be a victory so much as part of the process.”
“Ease! I’ll tell you, it wasn’t easy!”
“But it was. A complex like that would have constant watches on someone so important. Now consider the result. She has been forced more and more into using the metaphysical—their way—to survive, and every time she does she becomes more and more like them. She has killed—not only under their control, but of her own free will—and thought nothing of it. After years of powerlessness, she has felt the heady wine of physical and metaphysical power.’’