"What was it?" Dennis asked, his face drawn.
"An asthma attack. Pretty bad. He said he was in shock too." They drove, neither one of them speaking, to the hospital. Dennis pulled the car up to the front entrance, and ran into the waiting area, where Curt and John were sitting.
"I want to see him. Now," Dennis said.
Steinberg collared a nurse, and in another ten minutes Dennis was in Evan's room. The boy was breathing quickly and shallowly, his eyes closed, but his brows were pressing down in an uneven tempo, as though he was trying to block something from his mind's eye. Dennis pulled up a black plastic and metal chair and sat next to him, taking his moist and clammy hand in his own.
"Evan," he said softly. "Evan."
But the boy neither opened his eyes nor spoke. He only panted like a dog on a hot day, his eyes jerking convulsively behind their lids.
"Evan," Dennis said again, and continued to say the name, a litany, a prayer to bring his son back to him. "Evan."
He sat there for an hour, ignoring the visits of the doctors and nurses, sat there until, just before four o'clock in the afternoon, the boy opened his eyes with a start, looked about him, and saw his father sitting by him, holding his hand. "Dad?" he said weakly.
"Evan. Hello." He knew it sounded foolish, but after chanting the boy's name for so long, he did not know what else to say. "Are you.. . all right?"
Evan took several deep, shuddering breaths, then closed his eyes again. Dennis was afraid the memory of what he had seen, for he was sure that the attack was the Emperor's doing, was driving his son back into the mercies of unconsciousness, but Evan opened his eyes again and stared at the ceiling.
"Did you see something?" Dennis asked. "Something in the theatre?"
Evan nodded slowly. His mouth was open, and he was breathing loudly through it.
"What was it? Was it… me? Some one that looked like me?"
He shook his head. “… people," he whispered. "Full of… people… all eyes… watching me…"
"The auditorium," Dennis ventured, "was filled with people?"
"Yes." Evan closed his eyes and began to cry, a terrible, silent crying that made Dennis fear he had lost his breath once more, but in another second the boy sucked in air and let it out again with a wet, bubbling sound that made Dennis picture boiling wells in hell.
"It's going to be all right," Dennis said. "You don't have to go back there. You don't ever have to go back. We'll go to New York. I'll take you to New York. You sleep now, just sleep."
Dennis placed his hand upon his son's forehead, and Evan closed his eyes. In time, his breathing grew less frenzied, and in a while he slept. When Dennis was sure the boy could no longer hear him, he said, "I love you, Evan," and left the room.
He did not rejoin his friends immediately. Instead he stepped into a dimly lit stairwell, sat on a step, and thought for a long time about what to do next. Then, when he had made up his mind, he walked to the waiting area.
Steinberg, Curt, and Ann were still there. "He'll be all right," Dennis told them. "He's sleeping now. John, Curt, are you both packed?" They nodded. "Good. I don't want anyone to go back to the theatre today, but tomorrow Abe Kipp can get our bags. You'll leave Kirkland first thing in the morning. Ann and I will follow you when Evan is fit enough to travel. But we'll come back. We'll come back to do a show."
Steinberg nodded. " Craddock."
"Yes, Craddock. But another show before that. I'm going to take your advice, John. We're going to do A Private Empire. One performance. The final performance."
Steinberg frowned. "I thought you didn't want to -"
"I changed my mind. I want to do it. In the Venetian Theatre. As quickly as we can put it together."
"It'll take time," Steinberg said. "Three months, maybe."
"No. That's too long. Half of that, if not sooner."
"My God, Dennis, you're talking about staging a major production.”
“You said before that it would be easy."
"With time, yes. But doing it so quickly – it would cost twice, three times as much as it would otherwise."
"I have the money. I'm not concerned."
"There's not much room for profit."
"I don't care about profit, I just want to do it." Dennis spat the words out, and Steinberg seemed to recoil before them. "Do I still run this business, John?”
“Of course you do."
"Then don't fight me. Just do what I ask." He turned to Ann. "I'll take you back to your car, Ann." He turned and walked down the hall. Ann followed.
"Why, Dennis?" she asked him on the way to the parking lot. "I know there must be a reason."
"There's a reason," he said. "It's killed the people I love, and it showed Evan something, something that terrified him, that nearly killed him. I have to destroy it, Ann. If not destroy it, then bring it back into me, at least those parts that it stole from me. I have to fight it. It's the only way to stop it, the only way to… to get back my soul."
"But doing the show – A Private Empire?…"
"I lost myself playing the Emperor. And I think that playing the Emperor again is the only way I can get myself back. If I can somehow
… revive those emotions, maybe I can weaken him instead of his weakening me."
"But you don't know," she said, standing by his car. "It could be just what he wants – for you to be the Emperor again. Maybe there's some sort of psychic link there. Maybe, if you become the Emperor again, he'll just become stronger as a result."
Dennis sighed, and pulled up the collar of his coat against a light rain that had just begun to fall. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm playing right into its hands. But it's the only thing I can think of. All I know is that it came out of me, and that it's part of me, and that this is what I think is the right thing to do. I think my strength can destroy it. And I think I can be strong again." They got into the car and sat there for a moment, the only sound the patter of raindrops on the roof.
"My outburst at John just now," Dennis finally said. "I'm not proud of it, but I haven't gotten angry at him for a long time, not him or anyone. And maybe that's a sign, an indication that I still have the emotions that fuel the Emperor. Or that I can get them back from time to time."
He thought for a moment. "I wonder," he said quietly, "if when I get angry, or when I feel deep emotion, he loses something." The tempo of the rain had gradually increased until Ann could barely hear him as he said, "I wonder, if I felt enough, if he would lose… everything."
When they arrived back at the theatre, the rain was driving down. Dennis drove next to Ann's car so that she was able to step directly from one to another. She had promised to go to New York with him, and he told her he would call her the next day to make arrangements.
He didn't want her to see him go back into the theatre, so he waited until she had driven away before he pulled his car up in front of the main entrance. As he did, Dan Munro and his men came out the door. Dennis joined them under the marquee. Rain spat down around them, and Munro nodded in greeting.
"How's your son?"
"He'll be all right," Dennis said. "A severe asthma attack. I'm glad you were there to help. Thank you."
"I'm glad we were there too." He gestured toward the theatre. "We've been through the whole place, top to bottom. All the suites, all the rooms upstairs, even the closets. We went into the ceiling, down in the cellars, everywhere, and the only thing alive in there was the cat. I think if you change those locks you'll be a lot safer."
"Thanks, Chief," Dennis said. "I appreciate the search, and I will have the locks changed. While we're away."
"You're leaving?"
"We're going back to New York for a while. We'll rehearse a show there, then come back in a month or two. I just want to get a few things, then I'll lock up.”
“All right, Mr. Hamilton. Be careful, huh?"