His gaze never moved from the knife, waiting for signs that her arm was tiring, waiting for the blade to shift however briefly. She seemed tireless.
“What could you gain by hurting her?” he asked. But the mandala had not consented to speak. He waited for a faint touch on his own mind, some sign that it was attempting astral communication, but there was only the prickling static of his own jolted nerves. He was trembling with fatigue, hunger, and fear.
“Why won’t you speak to me? What do you want me to do?”
Lenore’s eyes cleared. He could see her emerging from some inner fog, looking out at him as if amazed at her surroundings. Still, she held herself rigid, and the knife stayed fixed at her throat.
“Michael… Michael, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know for sure, hon. I’m trying to figure it out.”
“There’s something on—no, in me.”
She was close to tears, the blade trembling. She cut herself again, accidentally this time, and twitched at the pain.
“Make it stop, Michael!”
“I don’t know how.”
“You have to. You started it! You made me go to that lecture.”
This reminder gouged his soul. He was responsible. He wanted to turn away, in shame, but he didn’t dare lose a chance to grab the knife.
“I wrote to Derek Crowe,” he admitted. “For advice. I was hoping he would know.”
“Yes,” she said, voice laden with desperation. “He must know. But I can’t wait. I’m frightened. Anything could happen. We have to get to him now. He knows what to do.”
Michael shook his head. “Lenore, we don’t have the money.”
“We could drive….”
“Drive? That’s like three thousand miles! It would take days. I can’t reach him by phone, and we can’t just wait around. We have to do something else now. Something practical. We’re on our own.”
It was a relief to be talking to her, even with the knife poised so threateningly; but he had to remind himself that this was not necessarily Lenore. The mandala had not let her speak all afternoon. Why would it relax its grip now?
Her eyes filled with tears. “Please, Michael… we have to get to him. He’s the only one….”
He could call Crowe’s publisher, he thought. But he knew they wouldn’t give him Crowe’s number.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said uncertainly.
“How can you say that? You don’t know what I’m feeling. I’m fighting, but I don’t know how long I can hold on.”
“Do whatever you have to. But we’re alone, all right? I—I’ll try to think of something.”
“No. We need help. We need Derek Crowe.”
He shared her conviction but didn’t want to admit it. There was no way to get help in anything like the time they needed it; and certainly no way of getting Crowe to fly out here, once they did get in touch with him. But Michael couldn’t admit defeat when the battle was only beginning.
Lenore crumpled abruptly, pressing at her stomach as if her guts were being ripped out. Instinctively he threw himself at her.
She was ready for him, though. It had been a trap. She thrust the knife at his face. It grazed his cheek, but he managed to knock it out of her hand and push her to the carpet, digging his knee into her back. He had a leather cord balled in his hand, the one with which Elias Mooney’s tapes had been wrapped. He got it around her wrists, wrapped and cinched and knotted it as tight as he could, then released her. There were more twists of leather in the bureau, among the candle stubs and incense packets and broken charcoal bits; he wondered if he should bind her feet. She looked broken now, defeated. Surely he couldn’t have beaten it so easily. But maybe he had won her a kind of freedom by binding her, by rendering her useless to the mandala.
She lay panting, not struggling for the moment. Outside, the storm broke. The wind howled louder, and a banging and lashing began, as if giants with whips had come to flail the sides of the house. It was tree branches, he hoped, mixed with the pelting of hail. He was glad that bookcases covered the windows. For a moment, he felt that they were at the center of the storm, in its calm eye, surrounded on all sides by elements more powerful than themselves—barricaded here, unable to send for help… if help even existed in this world.
He had to do something. He couldn’t sit and wait idly for the next psychic attack.
He should take her to the hospital. The mandalas wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything there. She’d be under observation, clinically confined, no use to them. They would vanish under the prodding of technology, the scrutiny of science, as such things always did. The mandalas would sublimate into mental ghosts, neurosis, psychosis; they would become symptomatic of Lenore’s own sickness.
But could he truly take her, knowing they might lock her away? Wouldn’t that be the deepest sort of betrayal?
Truthfully, he almost welcomed the possibility that she was sick and all they had experienced was shared delusion. Science would labor mightily to preserve his belief in a neutral universe. Thinking in this manner, he grew almost desperate to see the doctors and hear their lofty reassurances.
“I’m sorry, Lenore,” he whispered, apologizing in advance for what he was about to do. The scientists would take things out of his hands. They would take Lenore….
A decision—even the wrong decision—would give him a sense of empowerment.
It was freezing outside. The roads would be treacherous. He had to get her bundled up. The trickle of blood on his cheek reminded him to keep his guard.
He supposed she would be safest in the temple room while he got things ready. He hadn’t actually cast a circle, so he needn’t worry about breaking through it; apparently the mandalas didn’t respect such things anyway. He went into the living room and dug a pair of socks and cotton long Johns out of the heaped laundry. There was no way to get a shirt on her without loosening the cords, and he didn’t think that would be wise just yet. He took her heavy down jacket out of the closet.
Lenore was struggling with her bonds when he got back. She made a fierce effort to rise, her face red with rage and terror.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he said, hurrying over to her.
“Me? What are you doing?”
“Try to remember. You keep going in and out of trances.”
“Trances?” She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Goddamn it, untie me right this fucking minute!”
“Lenore, I’m sorry, I can’t. You took a knife to me.”
She set her jaw and caught her breath, her eyes red and burning, her voice pitched low as she said, “If you don’t untie me by the time I count to three…”
“I can’t.”
“One…”
He shook his head. “Lenore, I won’t do it.”
“Two…”
“Don’t ask me, ‘cause—”
She gained her feet and hurled herself at him, screaming “Three!” The altar shook as he struck it; candles toppled, salt and water spilled. He sank to the ground, Lenore standing over him. She stared down, naked under her robe with her hands tied behind her back, looking as if she’d like to crush his face under her heel. He was glad he hadn’t put shoes on her yet. He tensed for the attack.
But she didn’t move; her breathing slowed. She sank to her knees, weeping.
“Michael… Michael, where am I?” she said. “What’s happening?”