One-Eyed Jack (33 page)

She shrugged. “No deaths, luckily.
Just minor injuries. At least so far.”

I shuddered. “That’s good.”

“
So, we go in,” she said.
“Lead the way.”

I led the way.

Skees did well enough until we got to
the elevator, where he suddenly decided he would take the stairs. I
didn’t blame him, especially since we were only going up one
floor.

I had a friendship to maintain,
though, so I rode up with Mel, then led the way to the first kid’s
room without waiting for Skees.

I didn’t worry about whether he could
find us; I knew he was bright enough to realize that if he always
went in the scariest direction, he’d eventually find
Mel.

I glimpsed a couple of night-things
here and there in the hallways and open rooms, but I didn’t see
Jenny. The first kid’s room was apparently hosting a little family
reunion – both parents were there, and a few other adults who might
have been aunts or uncles, or maybe grandparents. I stuck my head
in and looked around.

No Jenny. No ghosts or
ghoulies.

The man I took for the girl’s father
turned to glare at me, but the glare turned to something else as
Mel came up behind me. “Oh, God,” he said. “What is it? Has
something gone wrong?”

“
No, no,” I said. “Wrong
room. Sorry if we worried you.”

Mel heard me and backed
off.

I could tell from her expression that
she hated this, hated the effect she was having on sick kids and
worried families, so I hurried on. If we kept moving it shouldn’t
be too bad, I thought.

The second kid was sound asleep. He
looked so pitiful, lying there with an IV in his arm; for a moment
I thought he might be dead, but then I knew that was the curse
again. The kid was breathing; he was fine.

There were no visitors there,
supernatural or otherwise. We moved on as the boy started to
whimper in his sleep.

“
Nightmares?” I
murmured.

“
Every time,” Mel
replied.

I nodded, and we moved on to Number
Three.

Skees had caught up to us by this
time, but he was watching from a relatively safe distance. I waved
to him as I pushed open the unlocked door of my third candidate’s
room.

I heard voices, and expected to see
another family group, but when I peered around the door, I only saw
the kid sitting up in bed – and Jenny. She was standing at the
bedside. Her dress was white again, the last trace of Andrew’s
blood faded away. She turned as the opening door let in light from
the hall.

Go away
, she said the instant she recognized me, and I could feel
bitter anger.

I glanced at my list to be sure I had
the name right, then said, “Trevor Atwater?”

“
Yes?” The kid looked
scared. He was maybe nine years old. He looked a little pale and
sickly, but nowhere near death’s door.

“
Hi.
We’re going to be doing something in here in a moment, and it’s
probably going to be seriously frightening, but we
will
not
hurt you, I promise. Bear with us, please.”

“
What?”

“
This woman you’re talking
to,” I said, pointing at Jenny. “You know she’s not a real person,
right?”

“
I don’t know what you’re
talking about,” Trevor said, with an uncertain glance in Jenny’s
general direction. I suddenly realized he couldn’t see her
clearly.

Go away!
Jenny repeated, more strongly this
time.

I turned to my companions in the
hallway. “Detective,” I called, “we may need you to make a quick
snatch and grab to get the kid out. And Mel, she’s here; get your
mojo ready.”

“
It’s always ready, Greg,”
she said. “You know that.” The faint note of annoyance in her voice
made my stomach clench and my hands tremble, but I ignored it and
glared at Jenny as Mel stepped into the room.

“
What’s...” Trevor began
as he saw someone at the door. Then he got a look at Mel and burst
into tears.

Jenny looked at him, at
his uncontrollable sobbing, then turned to glare at Mel and
me.
Leave me alone!

“
Leave these kids alone,”
I retorted

“
Where is she?” Mel
asked.

I pointed. “Right there by the bed,” I
said.

There was a pause that I suppose was
Mel looking for Jenny; I didn’t turn, didn’t look at Mel, because I
knew that if I looked at her I might start blubbering as badly as
Trevor. Then Mel spoke.

“
Begone, unclean spirit!”
she said, and she put everything she had into it. I felt my knees
weaken, and Trevor screamed in terror. “Leave this place, and do
not return. You are not welcome here.”

Trevor, it’s all right.
I’m here. I’ll save you.
The anger was
gone, replaced by concern.

If she was even slightly troubled by
Mel’s presence, she hid it well. She was obviously far more
distressed by Trevor’s tears than by Mel’s little act.

“
Jenny Derdiarian, I cast
you out!”

Don’t pay them any
attention. I’m not going anywhere.
Her
voice, if you can call it that, was completely calm.

Trevor had stopped wailing, and was
instead whimpering, his eyes shut tight and tears squeezing out.
His hands were clenched into shaking fists.

“
It’s not working,” I
said. “She isn’t bothered.”

“
You’re sure?” Mel
asked.

“
Yes.”

“
Well,
isn’t
that
a bitch,” Mel said, and this time I didn’t think I was
imagining the anger. “I finally find someone who isn’t scared of
me, and I can’t see or hear her.”

I laughed nervously, as much to keep
from screaming or crying as because I thought she was being funny.
“Jenny,” I said, “get out of here.”

I love you, Trevor. Don’t
let them lie to you.

“
She
doesn’t love you,” I said. “She wants to
eat
you. She wants to rip out your
heart and eat it.”

“
Go ‘way!” Trevor managed
to say through his tears.

I started to tell Mel to back off, let
the kid recover, but she had anticipated me; I could feel the fear
fading, and light spilled in from the hallway
unobstructed.

“
She doesn’t love you,
Trevor. She’s a monster.”

“
Who
are
you
?”
he demanded. “What happened to your face?”

“
My name’s Greg Kraft,” I
told him. “I’m... I’m a psychic, here to protect you. And that
thing that calls itself Jenny clawed up my face.”

“
Who was... what...” He
glanced in the direction of the door.

“
That was Melisandra de
Cheverley,” I said. “We thought she might be able to chase away the
monster.”

Trevor whimpered and wiped
snot from his nose with the back of his hand. “What
is
she?”

I grimaced. “That’s hard to explain. I
know she’s scary, but honestly, she’d never hurt you.”

He looked at me in
disbelief. “How do you
know
?”

“
We went to school
together.”

You should go. Now.
The concern was starting to fade back to
anger.

I ignored Jenny, and spoke only to
Trevor. “Listen, I’m really sorry we frightened you, but we were
trying to help. You know how chemotherapy works, right?”

“
What?”

“
Chemo.
You have leukemia; someone must have explained this. Chemo is
poison, but if you’re lucky, it’s poison that kills the cancer
faster than it kills
you
, right?”

He looked worried – not from the
after-effects of Mel’s visit, but a new and different worry.
“That’s not... they didn’t explain it that way.”

“
Oh.” I hoped I hadn’t
just made everything worse. “Well, that’s more or less the idea. We
were trying to use Ms. De Cheverley like chemotherapy. We knew
she’d scare you, but we were hoping she would scare the monster
even more, and drive it away.”

You can’t scare
me
, Jenny said.
I
love Trevor, and I won’t leave him.

I glanced at her, then back to the
kid. “Can you hear her?” I asked. “Or see her?”

“
I... go away.”

I shook my head. “Not quite yet. Can
you see her?”

“
Sort of. It’s like...
like she’s a reflection, or something. Or standing in the dark,
like there was a spotlight on her that made her darker instead of
lighter.”

I thought that was a pretty
interesting description.

I’m right here, Trev. You
can see me if you try.

“
I don’t hear her, but I
know what she said anyway.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s like that for
me, too. I can see her just as if she were real, but her voice is
like that for me. Have you ever seen any other... things like
her?”

“
You mean ghosts?
No.”

“
Not ghosts. She’s not a
ghost.”

I am.

“
She isn’t?”

“
No. She says she is, but
she’s not. She’s more like a demon. She’s just pretending to be a
ghost to make you trust her. The real Jenny Derdiarian is alive and
well. It’s like identity theft – this thing stole her
name.”

What? I
am
Jenny
Derdiarian!
I could feel her
outrage.

I glared at her. “No, you aren’t.” I
turned back to Trevor. “Look, I’m really sorry about all this. This
thing is a monster that eats children, but it’s not strong enough
yet to eat anyone who resists, so it’s come here to this hospital
because it thinks that some of the kids here are so sick they’d
rather been eaten than die slowly from their cancer. But it can’t
tell how sick you really are; it doesn’t know any more than anyone
else, and less than your doctors. Don’t let it fool
you.”

Don’t listen to
him!

“
I don’t – ” He looked
uncertain. “How do you know?”

“
I’ve been following it
and doing research since mid-August,” I told him. A shadow caught
my eye, and I turned to see Ben Skees standing in the doorway
listening. I ignored him and stepped closer to the bed. “It spent a
long time trying to get a boy named Jack Wilson, and bit off one of
his fingers, but he wouldn’t let it kill him. When it gave up on
Jack, it went after a boy named Andrew McPhee, here in the
hospital, and it killed him.”

“
I heard about Andy,”
Trevor whispered.

“
It killed him. Tore him
apart.”

I loved him! I spared him
pain.

“
It tried to get Lisette
Babcock, but she chased it away. That was when it did this.” I
pointed to the bandages.

You had no
right!

“
Now
it’s after you. We were hoping Ms. de Cheverley could chase it away
for good, and that didn’t work, but
you
can chase it away, and keep it
from bothering you. Just tell it to leave you alone.”

I love you, Trevor.
Please.

“
Go
away,” he said. “
All
of you.”

Trevor, please.

“
Go away!”

I said, “I’m going – but see this guy
in the door? He’s a cop, Detective Skees. If you need help, if the
monster won’t leave, or if it comes back, you can get someone to
call him. He knows what’s going on, and he’ll believe you.
Detective Skees, okay?” I paused, hoping he would nod or say
something, but when he didn’t I said, “Goodbye, Trevor. You take
care. Don’t let it get to you.”

I’ll stay with
you
, Jenny said.
I love you.

“
Go away! You,
too!”

I love you. Don’t listen
to them.

“
Get out!” He started
crying again. I didn’t blame him; I felt like crying myself, and I
was a healthy adult, not a sick kid.

Please, I love
you...

He wasn’t listening.

I turned, and joined Ben Skees in the
corridor.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I didn’t see Mel. Skees noticed me
looking around, and said, “She went out to the garage, where she
wouldn’t upset as many people.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry it didn’t work,”
I said.

He grimaced. “Thanks for not adding ‘I
told you so.’”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t a bad
idea.”

“
She gave it a good try.
Thank her for me.”

I nodded.

“
Is it still in
there?”

I started to say yes, but then Jenny
was there in the hallway with us, glaring at me with her one bright
eye and her one dark one. Her anger was like sunburn on my
face.