wrench in this. I felt for the stops and blew an opening chord, as low as I could. Since he?d been completely ignoring me up to then, I was hoping to get a certain momentum going before he realized I was there; but at the first sound of the whistle, he spun to face me. I hiccupped into unintended silence. Rafi?s pale, ascetically handsome face was strained, his thick black hair hanging in sweat-soaked ringlets, his eyes?pupils, whites, and all?were a black so intense they seemed to suck all the light out of the room. I?d seen the effect before, but somehow this was worse than all the other times. It was as though the blackness were brimming there, behind Rafi?s eyes, ready to spill out and drown me.
If he hadn?t tensed before he jumped, that might have been the last sound I ever heard. As it was, I just about had time to drop down and to the side, out of the reach of his clutching fingers. At the same time I blew a screaming, modulated discord that I?d used before on Rafi, to good and usually immediate effect.
This time I might as well have been playing ?God Save the Queen? with my armpit. He turned in the air like a cat and caught me a glancing blow on the side of the head with his closed fist. There was a split second where my visual field shifted into juddering black-and-white: the whistle flew out of my hand, clattered to the floor a long way away. Then Rafi had his feet back under him and he was advancing on me at a brisk walk, grinning a Cheshire cat grin. Pen pressed herself against the wall, out of sight and out of mind, but she was watching everything that happened, looking for a chance to get that nurse out of the line of fire. Great plan: better than mine, anyway. Without my whistle, I was going to have my work cut out even staying alive here.
I threw a punch, which Rafi swatted aside without breaking stride. His response was devastating?his open hands, fingers as rigid as knitting needles, striking out so fast I heard the whiff of displaced air before I felt the agonizing impact. I staggered backward, trying to keep up some kind of a guard, but it was like being in front of a horizontal avalanche. I went sprawling back out into the corridor with Rafi on top of me, his hands now locking around my throat.
I was staring directly into those liquid black eyes, and I saw no mercy there. I broke his grip by punching outward against his wrists, but that didn?t make as much difference as I was hoping for. Rafi strobed, his limbs seeming to be in too many places at once, and even though I?d knocked his hands away to left and right, his grip on my throat didn?t slacken. I fought to suck in a breath: if I could breathe I could whistle, even without mechanical aids, but there was nothing doing. He squeezed tighter, and darkness bubbled up inside my head to match the two dark wells I was staring into.
Over Rafi?s shoulder I saw Pen running toward me. She got a hold on Rafi?s right arm, trying to dislodge it, but it slid through her hands somehow, dopplered, seeming once again to be in a lot of places at the same time. Then he shrugged and stiffened, his head snapping backward and thumping hard into her chest so that she tumbled backward, and got on with the serious business of throttling me.
I was probably two seconds or so from passing out, after which all bets would have been canceled and, no doubt, so would I. But suddenly there was a bigger, stockier shape looming up behind Rafi, and a muscular black arm locked around his neck. It was Paul. He looked strained and pale, which was scarcely surprising, but his movements were methodical: he used his greater weight and leverage to bend Rafi backward until his grip started to slacken on my throat. Rafi hissed voicelessly and threw up his hands to tear Paul?s grip free.
Weak and dazed as I was, I forced myself to move, because it didn?t look as though I?d be getting a second chance. I rolled hard, shifting my weight to throw Rafi further off his center of gravity, and at the same time I punched him with as much force as I could on the point of the jaw. Caught off balance, he slid sideways out of Paul?s hands and we both scrambled clear.
I turned around with my arms up ready to defend myself against a renewed attack, but whatever was happening to Rafi now had made him forget all about me. He was still lying on the ground where he?d fallen, and another ululating howl of pain and desolation was pouring without pause out of his gaping mouth. It was as if my punch hadn?t registered with him at all: whatever was hurting him, I could see it had nothing to do with me.
Paul knelt down beside Rafi and felt his pulse. He rolled Rafi?s eyelids back and inspected his eyes, then extended the examination to gums and teeth, which was a risk I wouldn?t have taken myself. Rafi kept on howling, directly into Paul?s face: he seemed to have forgotten our existence.
Two more male nurses loomed over us, looking down at Rafi as if they were wondering where it might be safe to take ahold of him. Paul glanced up, saw them, and pointed into the cell. ?Karen,? he shouted over Rafi?s inhuman keening. ?She?s still inside. Get her out of there.? They snapped to attention like soldiers, turned around and went into the cell.
From where I was kneeling I had a good view through the doorway. I saw the two men kneel beside the fallen nurse, one of them touching a hand to her forehead. Then I saw her move, flinching away from the touch. She was hurt, maybe badly hurt, but she wasn?t dead. Caught between relief and delayed shock, I felt a sickly floating sensation rise inside me, filling me like sour gas: I doubled over and threw up copiously. It was a few moments before I could take notice of my surroundings again.
When I did, I realized that Rafi?s siren-sharp wail had died away into abrupt silence. Pen had him cradled in her arms, and Paul was kneeling beside her, his forefinger on Rafi?s bare wrist again and an abstracted frown on his face.
Dr. Webb approached us with a certain caution, eyeing the mess I?d just made on the carpet. Then his gaze traversed to Rafi, his head in Pen?s lap as she murmured reassurances to him and smoothed his sweat-slicked hair off his forehead. Rafi seemed to be asleep now?a profound, exhausted sleep, his chest rising and falling slowly with his long, deep breaths. Still, Webb?s eyes continually kept flicking back to him as he snapped out orders to his staff to start putting the place back together.
I stood up, my legs shaky, and pulled my crushed shirt collar back into some kind of shape, wincing at the pain in my equally crushed throat. ?What set this off?? I asked Webb, my voice sounding hoarse and flat.
He gave a bleak snort. ?Nothing,? he said. ?Nothing at all. Karen and Paul went in to give him his evening meds, and he took them. One moment he was fine, the next?well, you saw. He started screaming, and when Karen tried to calm him he lashed out at her. We?re lucky she wasn?t killed.?
I nodded dumbly at that. I couldn?t think of anything to say. Webb wasn?t expecting an answer, though. ?Castor,? he said, ?this brings forward a discussion we were going to have to have in any case. When we took Ditko on, we did so in the belief that we could help him. We clearly can?t. He needs dedicated facilities of a kind that we can?t offer.?
I looked down at Pen. She wasn?t hearing this, fortunately. ?There aren?t any dedicated facilities for what Rafi?s got,? I pointed out, but that was bullshit and he knew it. There just weren?t any that I wanted to deliver him to.
?There?s the MOU,? Webb said.
?Rafi?s not a lab rat.?
?He?s not mentally ill, either. He doesn?t belong here.?
?We?ve got a contract,? I pointed out, playing my ace.
Webb trumped it. ? ?Voidable where the welfare of staff or other inmates is at stake,? ? he quoted from memory. ?I don?t think there?s any argument about that.?
I shrugged. ?We?ll talk.?
Webb shook his head. ?No, we won?t. Make alternative arrangements, Castor. You have twenty-eight days.?
?You?re all heart, Webb,? I croaked. ?You?ll have to toughen up or people will start taking advantage of you.?
He gave me an austere, contemptuous look. ?Nobody can say you didn?t try,? he said coldly.
* * *
Out in the grounds the moon was up, full and huge, turning everything into a Mercurochrome photograph of itself. I took a turn through the rose garden, enjoying the peace and quiet. It was only relative: there were still some shouts and moans from inside the building, but after Rafi?s endless, agonizing foghorn howl it sounded a lot like silence. Rafi was sleeping now, but Pen wouldn?t let anyone else touch him for the time being. I thought I?d give them half an hour, then go back inside and see if I was needed.
I leaned against the sundial and looked down a trellised avenue canopied with sweet-smelling blooms. It didn?t frame much of a view, though: just a high fence with an inward-tilting fringe of razor wire at the top, and beyond that the six lanes of the North Circular, where even at this hour a steady river of headlights flowed on by.
Alternative arrangements. That was really easy for Webb to say, especially with the gods of the small print on his side. Not so easy to do, though: not unless I wanted to take the route that Webb had suggested, and give Rafi over to the tender mercies of the Metamorphic Ontology Unit at Queen Mary?s in Paddington. But that was a last-ditch, desperation kind of thing, and I didn?t think we were quite there yet. Much as I respected my old sparring partner Jenna-Jane Mulbridge on an intellectual level, I knew better than anyone that she had some shortcomings where bedside manner was concerned. And that her heart and human
