“Anyway, Childress flew at Creeton,” Paulus continued. “Started to hit Creeton something fierce. He’s thin, that one, but when he’s angry he’s damned determined.”
I put a hand to my mouth. Oh, Archie. Creeton likes to have a go at me, but I can handle it, he’d told me. “What happened?”
“We pulled them apart,” Paulus said. “It took two of us to take care of Childress, he was struggling so hard. When we came back to the common room, Creeton was gone. We spent over an hour looking for him and had to give up. That’s when I came into the main hall and saw the ambulances had gone.”
“No trace of him,” Roger agreed.
“Wait.” West leaned forward in his chair. “What exactly do you mean, you took care of Childress?”
Again that flicker of uncertainty crossed Paulus’s features. “He’s a danger,” he said. “He’s proven it, hasn’t he? With this sickness, I don’t have the staff to watch him. I thought it would be just until the evacuation, and then we’d get him out of here.”
“What did you do?” I nearly whispered.
“We put him in isolation,” Roger replied, his chin up. “The old library. He’s there now.”
There was a beat of horrified silence.
“Are you saying,” I said, “that you took Archie to the isolation room in the west wing and you left him there?”
“We had to,” said Roger. “That’s what it’s there for, isn’t it?”
“How long?” Jack’s voice was almost a croak. “How long has he been locked up in that place?”
“I don’t know,” Paulus said. “Three hours, perhaps.”
I swallowed. I would not have put my worst enemy in that haunted place for three minutes. And Archie . . . fragile Archie, who already had nightmares so horribly bad . . .
And suddenly I knew. It was what Creeton had said that revealed it. No, Archie had not brought the ghosts here, but it was Archie who was making it worse. He was a sort of conduit, his mind the easiest one to reach, his emotions the rawest, his fear the most abject. This place fed on the men, but it fed on Archie first, and as it did, it gained strength. It was why Archie endured a special kind of torture while the men tried to kill themselves and the west wing rotted with eerie speed. It was all tied together. The worse Archie grew, the worse Portis House became.
And now he was locked in the isolation room, the center of the nightmares. Three hours.
“We have to get him out,” I said.
“And do what with him?” said Paulus. “Let him strangle someone else?”
I felt him glance at the faded bruises on my neck, and I was angry. “Mr. Childress does not belong in isolation.” I tried to sound authoritative, as if terror weren’t fighting to take hold of me. “Go get him out.”
“I won’t.”
“You have to,” Jack said. His gaze flicked to me, took in the sickened look on my face, and moved back to Paulus. “With Matron sick, her command falls to Nurse Weekes. She has the authority to order it. In fact, without her say-so, you didn’t have permission to put him there in the first place.”
“You shut it,” Paulus said. “Orderlies are given the authority to act when they feel there’s danger. It’s in the rules. That’s why we’re given the keys and the nurses aren’t.”
“You have to get him out,” I said. “You have to.”
“Kitty,” Jack said.
I turned to him. “He can’t stay there.” I looked at Mabry and West, trying to tamp down the panic in my voice. “He’s the catalyst,” I said to them. “Think about it. He’s the center of all of it, the one whose energy they take. And he’s getting worse.”
West took my meaning right away and turned green. “Jesus,” he said. Jack’s gaze searched my face as he put the pieces together himself. Mabry had paled but he stayed silent, as if something terrifying were occurring to him.
“For God’s sake,” came Paulus’s incredulous voice. “You’re not making any sense. Are you as mad as the rest of them?”
I turned back to him. “It’s wrong, and you know it,” I said. “Deep down, you know it. Get him out.”
He didn’t give in. But he looked back at me, the knowledge flickering behind his eyes. I didn’t know what he thought, what he believed, what he might have pieced together, and I didn’t care. I didn’t let him go. And so he was still looking at me, and he was caught by surprise when Jack grabbed one arm and Mabry grabbed the other.
They twisted his arms up behind his back, bent at the elbows in a painful posture, as Paulus kicked out with his big legs. In the same moment West twisted in his chair and got his arm around Roger’s neck, squeezing with one huge biceps. Roger’s reaction lifted West almost completely off his chair, the halves of his legs swinging, but he held on. Roger was strong, but smaller, and he grabbed for purchase at West’s muscled arm, held in place.
“Kitty!” said Jack. “Quick!”
There was no time to go around the table, so I stepped up onto my chair and launched myself straight across it, grabbing for Paulus’s waist. His ring of keys hung there, clipped to his belt; I grabbed for it and fumbled with the clasp, trying to pry it open. Paulus lifted his hips and torso straight off his chair, heaving, and I nearly lost my grip; I got it again and worked at the clasp as he struggled beneath me. As I lay flat on my stomach on the dining room table, my skirts thrown up and my legs kicking as my own chair went flying, I wondered in a flash what Matron would have thought.
Well, that’s just too bad.
I unhooked the key ring and snatched it off Paulus’s belt. Then I rolled off the table and ran.
I pounded down the corridor and into the common room. There was no direct way to get to the west wing indoors, as all the doorways were bolted shut; the only way would be to go up a flight of stairs, through the door Jack and I had used before, and back down another staircase. The quickest way to the library was outdoors, straight through the garden and cutting across the grounds to the other end of the building. I took the low steps in the common room two at a time and I flew to the French doors, unlatching them and running out onto the veranda.
The rain was pounding down in a solid sheet. I crossed the veranda and leapt down the steps into the garden, water in my eyes. My cap was gone. I heard shouts behind me, the crash of overturned furniture. My boots clapped on the cobblestone path of the garden as I turned left and then right, and then I was through the garden gate and out into the untended grounds.
I was soaked through already. It was summer rain, chilled but not freezing, driving hard from the sea winds. The ground squelched under my feet and mud flew. I heard the heavy pounding of male steps behind me and harsh male breath. I turned my head for a fraction of a second and saw Roger, head down, arms pumping, chasing me for all he was worth and gaining. But Jack had come out a side door and was heading straight for him, as lithe as an animal. “Run, Kitty!” he shouted, and I turned ahead again and pumped faster, my legs churning under my skirts. The main wing of Portis House flew by and I focused on the barred window and barred door of the godforsaken library, which came into view.
I wouldn’t have long. If Jack was tackling Roger, it meant Paulus was free. Paulus was big, he was fast, and he was quiet. His legs were longer than mine. He’d give me no warning, just grab me the way an owl swoops down and grabs a mouse. He was double my size and weight, built for wrestling unruly patients. I had to outrun him, but I wouldn’t have much time.
I kept the door to the library in focus and pushed my whole body, pain blooming in my chest, water and sweat soaking down my back. When I got to the door, I was running so hard I couldn’t slow and I more or less crashed into it, hitting it hard. I fumbled with Paulus’s key ring in my wet hand and put the right key in the lock just as two huge arms came around my waist from behind.