I paused. Grace wasn’t listening. He was still smiling up at the ceiling.
“I want you to find peace,” I said simply. “I want help you find—”
“You know… what’s… here,” he said. “I know you do. I can smell it all over you, the thing I’ve smelled on myself every day for ten years now. You’re my midnight kin, my haunted brother, my tormented son. You’ve seen it, you’ve felt it, you know it’s here, been here all along, been close, hosting Black Mass in the corners of your mind, in the corner of every room, behind every closed door, under every bed—”
“Knock it off, man,” I said.
“—and you know it’s here—”
“Stop.”
“—right now. With us. Right. Now.”
The light above Grace flickered. I gaped up at it, unbelieving.
“I hate that sound,” the blind man said.
The light buzzed again.
I had a hand to my mouth now. I could feel the blood rushing from my face. I couldn’t help it. I felt slow and stupid, like a child. Frightened. I couldn’t stand, couldn’t think straight. Was it getting colder in here?
“There’s not a single bulb in my apartment, you know,” he said. “Nary a one. Keeps things quiet. Keeps things sane. When I’m alone and I’m thinking about it, it does this. Plays with the lights. It’s not far, never far, is it”
I looked over my shoulder, to the wall by the door. The light switch had not moved from its “on” position. The light above flashed more Morse code.
“The Dark Man, Mr. Taylor. Can you see it” Grace’s voice purred. “Your friend outside certainly can. He’s been seeing it for a day now; it’s been prowling the hall like a panther, driving him mad.”
Shadows splashed across the bare walls as the light went berserk. Could I see it? Christ, could I? Something black there, in the corner? An absence of… everything? Light? Something breathing, shoulders heaving?
Was it real?
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
“Emilio thinks it’s a vampire,” Grace whispered. He said this as if it were a wink-nudge secret between two friends. I shuddered. “But it’s so much worse than that. Don’t you agree”
He spread his arms, a priest at the pulpit. The light continued to flicker. “This is where the Inkstain lives. You’re wise to be afraid of the dark. It hunts best in the pitch.”
I’d made plans for today’s session. Wanted to rattle him, put a chink in his impenetrable suit of armor. This hadn’t been on the agenda—God no.
“It’s in every exhale, every other heartbeat, every third eye blink, and you want me to set it free? No, Mr. Taylor. That would be unwise. Just do what your father wants you to do. Forget about the blind man, the lost love. Keep him buried in The Brink like he wants, if only for another week, so Daddy can bury him someplace worse. Father knows best. Forever and ever, amen.”
And then the room went dark for a breathless, terrible moment.
Something skittered in the blackness. Millipede feet.
This isn’t happening, I told myself, this is the power of suggestion, bad wires, bad lights, bad, broken Zach, nothing more. There’s nothing else in this
Skitter, from behind. Tktk.
in this room goddamnit, just me and the blind man and
The bulb flashed bright again, steady. Grace lowered his head and looked at me.
I fought every urge to turn around, look for the thing that was never there. I took a deep breath, bit my tongue to focus.
“What… what do you know about my father” I finally asked.
The man chuckled. “Now who’s insulting whom, Mr. Taylor? If you’re curious, ask him, not me.”
He lowered his arms.
“Now are you going to tell me what’s in your bag of tricks before you leave… or will you be coy and make me guess? Because I assure you, Mr. Taylor, our session is over. You’ll stare at me and ask me question after question, and I’ll say nary a syllable. You may be stupid to think you can crack me… but you’re smart enough to know what I say is true.”
And I did. My shoulders slumped. No improvisation from me, no history from him. No. Not in this room.
But what about… outside this room?
My eyes turned to the Casio piano by the door. Learn to pitch, Malcolm had said. I’d soon see if my patient had stepped to the plate last night. And tomorrow, I’d see if he’d play today’s game, too.
I strode toward the room’s table. Grace smiled at the sound of the bag I’d brought today. It crinkled in my hands. I pulled out a long, flat, rectangular box, and a sketch pad. I flipped open the top of the box. “They’re pastels, Martin,” I said. “They’re more than a hundred here. And paper.”
Grace laughed, a full-belly guffaw.
“You’ve giving a blind man crayons? You’re the worst art therapist the world has—”
“You know, I knew you were going to say that,” I replied, and I had. The curve ball was in my hand, small, but finally there. I needed these unexpected maneuvers, if I wanted to evoke something from him, some expression beyond this game-playing. “You’re a one-trick pony, Martin Grace. Let’s see if you have the balls to evolve. Draw for me, blind man. I’ll come back tomorrow to see what you’ve created. We’re going to talk about it.”
He opened his mouth to retort. I didn’t listen. I grabbed the Casio piano from the table and left the room.
10
“He knows,” I said to myself, walking the hallways of Level 3. “Somehow he knows when the lights are going to flicker.”
I was still shaking from the beast I’d seen in Room 507. Either I was losing my mind, or Martin Grace was manipulating me. Neither prospect was good.
“Yeah, gotta be it,” I murmured. “Uses it to scare me, throw me off-balance, gain control of the session. He’s shutting me down when I start to get personal.”
My rational side—my personal Leonard Nimoy—spoke up.
Why would he do that?
“Because I’m close. Close to something. Something he doesn’t want me to know.”
And what does that mean? Mr. Spock asked.
“It means that’s my in. If I can’t get in the front door, I gotta squeak through a basement window. Personal. I’ve got to get personal.”
So how can you do that?
I turned the corner toward my office, hefted the Casio synthesizer in my hand.
“I’m working on that,” I said. “Let’s see if he met me halfway.”
I unlocked the office door and went to my desk. I placed the piano on its side.
“Memory card,” I said, and smiled. I pushed a release and a tiny plastic rectangle popped from the device. Before yesterday’s session, I’d configured the Casio to record everything played on its keyboard.
I launched the media player on my PC and slid the memory card into a small reader.
“Did you get curious, you coldhearted sonuvabitch?” I said. “Did you get creative?”
I held my breath as the contents of the card were accessed. An audio waveform appeared on the screen.
I tapped the spacebar. There was silence, and then a very brief and cheerful, if chaotic, series of notes.