Midnight Ruling Read online

  The institution was a series of five large, squared buildings. It was the largest psychiatric ward in the west. Each bricked building looked as if it’d been constructed in the 1940’s and painted a hundred times over. I doubted a hurricane could tear the sturdy buildings down. A well-manicured lawn and shrubbery tried to cast away the foreboding nature, but it didn’t do it well. At least not well enough for me. Neither white-clad patients nor staff could be seen. It was an eerie lack of activity for the sunny day.

  Pulling into the nearly vacant Visitor’s Parking, Aidan turned the bulky station wagon into an open space.

  The main building loomed before us.

  Aidan and I peered out the windshield at the white sealed doors separating us from insanity. Overhead, I half expected to see dark clouds rolling in, probably because my mood demanded it. However, the weather wasn’t cooperating.

  Aidan reached over and took my clammy hand, giving it a gentle squeeze in his warm, dry palm. He didn’t pull away when that little jolt zapped between us on contact.

  I squeezed his hand back, feeling the space between our hands grow hotter. I attempted a weak smile. “I hate this.”

  He smiled back, not showing teeth, and nodded. “We can do this.” It was the we that helped.

  Opening the passenger door, I slip my fingers from Aidan’s. Slamming the door shut, I stood at attention, hand shielding my face from the sun.

  Aidan shut his squeaking door and moved first. He nodded at me, and I followed like an obedient dog.

  I lengthened my strides to catch up to him, my hand snatching his. “Thank you,” I whispered, not looking at him and ignoring the zap.

  The white double doors were getting closer as my heart began to beat louder.

  My hand gripped Aidan’s so hard that he shook his wrist to get my attention. “Be brave, Nora. This is for our friends.”

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to relax my grip on his hand. My other hand twisted the bottom of my shirt, wrinkling the new fabric with the sweat of my palm.

  We stepped onto the sidewalk. My rubber knees threatened to knock me askew, but thankfully, I made it to the front doors.

  Aidan opened the first one for me, and my foot paused. I knew that if I hesitated too long, I might not move at all.

  For your friends, I thought, hearing the anger in it and letting the guilt pull me forward.

  Stepping through the threshold, I was reminded of the Challenge. There, each door represented a step closer to freedom or something very, very bad.

  We shuffled through automatic doors and approached the horseshoe-shaped desk that dominated the waiting room.

  Three women looked up, all still busily tapping at their computers.

  The one nearest us offered a polite smile. “How may I help you?”

  I opened my mouth, but to my horror, nothing came out.

  Blushing, I stepped closer to the desk and cleared my throat. “Sorry,” I said, embarrassed, my voice still squeaking as I fumbled for my ID. “I would like to visit my aunt.”

  “Name?” The nurse, probably in her mid-forties, kept that polite smile plastered, making me fidget.

  “Eleanor Fuller,” I said.

  “Eleanor Fuller?” the second young woman draped in a nurse’s uniform parroted. “Are you family?”

  Aidan and I nodded together, and I felt the heat of controversy summoning itself. Here’s where they’d tell me ‘no’ and send me on my way with a pat on the butt.

  “She’s in the high-security building,” the young nurse said to the one attending us.

  “Oh,” the older one said as if this were significant.

  I glanced at Aidan, eyebrows raised.

  “Please fill these out,” the young nurse said, passing us two clipboards. Before we could ask, she explained. “Because you’ve never been here before, we require some basic information. The second page is a waiver stating that you will not sue Windmane Asylum if…well, if you should slip or hurt yourself.”

  Or get attacked by a patient, I thought, taking the clipboards from her.

  I wiped my sweaty palm on my skirt to try and hide the anxiety. There was no use lying about who I was, so I wrote down everything.

  After a brief once over and giving us back our ID’s, she forced the plastic grin. “You’re family too?” she asked Aidan.

  “Please,” I said before he could speak, “he’s with me. I need some…support.”

  She eyed me for a long time before the older woman nudged her. The younger woman passed us two laminated badges.

  When we clipped them on, we were officially Visitors.

  “Alright,” she said, charging up the brightness with another smile. “I’ll call ahead, and there will be someone waiting for you.” She gave us brief directions and a map.

  Stepping back outside, Aidan and I headed down the sidewalk to the far end of the campus-sized lot in silence. He held my slick hand without complaint.

  “Told you I’d get in,” he said smugly.

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  The building dominated my vision, and my rubbery knees started acting up again.

  “Nora,” Aidan said softly, catching my attention.

  My eyes unhinged from the sliding doors that were only twenty paces away.

  “Nora, listen.” Aidan let go of my hand and grabbed my shoulders to make me face him. “I’ll go in alone. I can ask the questions and record them. You can stay out here. You don’t have to do this.”

  Puffing up with a deep breath, I almost caved. I was glad I held my breath before I could blurt it out.

  “No,” I said, exhaling. “I have to go in there, Aidan. She won’t talk to you. But she might remember me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t,” I admitted, feeling the doubt threatening to breach. “But I know the consequences if we fail.”

  Our gazes leveled in several prying seconds’ understanding. His pale eyes were so stern and full of concern, I had the unexpected urge to lean in and kiss him. His constant concern for me over the previous weeks had been flattering, but I had to stand on my own here. I had to stop being afraid of being alone.

  They were brave words. If only I felt them too.

  I felt myself leaning closer. In that instant, he appeared startled but didn’t back away, his face drawing closer to my own. I felt my eyes close when the sound of repetitive pounding caused us both to pause in mid-motion.

  My face an inch from his, I opened my eyes. The moment we made eye contact, it was like we’d been caught masturbating.

  Jerking away from each other, we both looked up at one of the large windows of the High Security Facility. A figure, maybe a man, pounded on the window. It wasn’t long before another figure showed up and led him away. By then the damage was done; the moment was over.

  Sighing, I began to walk toward the front door, Aidan at my side. We weren’t holding hands anymore, so I curled mine into fists and crossed my arms.

  Aidan kept clearing his throat until we were close enough to alert the sliding doors.

  A woman in her early thirties at a similar front desk as the previous building hung up her phone and smiled, all teeth and sunshine. “My name is Susan.” Stepping out from behind the crescent desk, she said, “So you’re here to see Eleanor Fuller, correct?”

  We nodded together.

  “I’ll be escorting you to her room,” she said, motioning to the double doors behind her. It was equipped with heavy deadbolts and a security pad beside the wall.

  When neither of us said anything, she gave a little nod and turned. The white slacks and top were too tight for her, though she wasn’t a big girl. Probably picked them out that way. Her light brown hair was in a tight bun. She had a sharp nose that pointed downward to the pert, ruby lips. She wasn’t wearing any make-up, making her lips a surprising color.

  Susan lead the way to the first door, never keeping her full back to us—like a woman who’d dealt with plenty of psychos in her day. As she punch
ed in a password, she was careful to block the pad with her body. The door shrieked a buzzing sound until she pulled it open and we stepped in after her.

  “Eleanor hasn’t has visitors in a very long time,” Susan said, looking at us and ahead in her half twisted walk.

  “Not surprising,” I muttered.

  Susan must have excellent hearing, because I heard her chuckle. Susan was pretty; the lack of make-up didn’t disguise that. Also, she had a distinct sway to her hips. I realized I almost looked to Aidan to see where his eyes were. Which was ridiculous. He’s not your boyfriend, I reminded myself. I immediately thought of the near-kiss and felt my face warm, which was worse. It wasn’t like I was still a virgin blushing over boys. No, but it’s been a few years though, said the nasty voice in my head, which I thanked.

  “You know,” Susan said, interrupting my thoughts, “she’s been here since I started. That would be almost ten years ago.” She blocked the next pin pad with her body. “Well, except for those two days she was missing.”

  The shrill door-buzz mimicked my surprise.

  “Missing? She went missing?”

  “Yes,” Susan said gravely and opened the door. “About five years ago, our Miss Fuller escaped. She was only gone for thirty-eight hours. Nothing became of it. A police officer found her in a suburban neighborhood near Leland.”

  Aidan squeezed my arm, perhaps in an attempt to calm me. No one told me this!

  Susan proceeded before us again, allowing the door to shut securely before leading us down the next hallway. This one had people in it; mostly, they were white-cloaked nurses and doctors.

  I tried to wipe the idea from my mind. My parents never told me. Why wouldn’t they have told me?! Nell was found near Leland. Did that mean she was coming to find me?

  “I was just curious what brought you here?” Susan asked with a half smile, oblivious to the impact.

  Aidan cleared his throat and said, “School project.”

  “Oh?” Susan said, not hiding her disappointment. “They said you had the last name as Miss Fuller,” she said to me. “I thought…you need a family member to…”

  “It’s okay,” I said before Aidan could talk again. “I’m her niece. But it’s also a school project for us. We’re researching patterns in ritualistic sociopaths.” Oh, it sounded good.

  Susan’s pace quickened again, and we veered down a new hallway where we had yet another coded door. “I should warn you though.” She glanced over her shoulder at me. “She probably won’t talk.”

  After taking an elevator and two additional coded doors, we finally came to the hallway where they kept Nell. The downside was that patients roamed the hallways here as well.

  One pajama-dressed man began walking alongside us as if he knew who we were. He didn’t speak or even look at us; rather, he kept pace until Susan shooed him into another room. Most didn’t acknowledge our existence as we made our way to Room 427.

  Pausing outside the door, Susan turned toward us fully and offered the false smile. “This is where I leave you. There is a time limit, as Miss Fuller is due to take her meds, and she gets rather sleepy after that. So in about twenty minutes, we’ll be coming in. If you’re done before that, just knock on the door.” At her hip, she pulled a key, which had been attached to her belt.

  “We’ll be locked in there with her?” I asked, feeling the nerves.

  “Mmhm.” Susan pushed the key into the peculiar lock and twisted. “But don’t worry, her legs are tied down. Don’t stand too close to her, though I don’t think you’ll have to worry about this one.”

  I felt my heartbeat begin to pick up its pace. Taking out the key, she entered one last code into a keypad out of our sight and turned the knob. At this point, it all felt very real. Walking with Susan had been the easy part.

  I had to face off with the woman who’d abducted me and my sister when we were little. She was responsible for Neive’s death. It wasn’t just her death that infuriated me; it was everything afterward. We’d moved to Leland, taking with us the gravestone to put in the local cemetery outside of town. My parents only allowed one picture of her in the house, and it was in the darkest hallway where no guest would see. Because of Nell, my mom cried a lot, my dad was rarely around, and I was in a psychiatric facility for a year as a kid. The threat of divorce was a fog until my sister Mona was born seven years ago, then again before Caitlin was conceived.

  Feeling my cheeks flush with fury, Miss Susan mistook it for girlish excitement. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine. She’s normally quite calm.”

  “Then why tie down her feet?” Aidan asked.

  “As a precaution. As I said, she hasn’t had any visitors in…well, a long time,” Susan said pleasantly and opened the door for us.

  Before Aidan could make a move, before he could lead the way and play the protector, I stepped inside the room, bumping his shoulder with mine to stop him.

  Just within the threshold, I saw her. For an instant, I forgot to breathe.

  There was an image of this woman that had always been in my head. We didn’t keep any pictures of Nell anymore. Dad kept most of her things in boxes in the basement. He’d said once that he hoped it flooded down there but never threw his sister’s things away.

  Even without seeing her for so long, this wasn’t the woman I remembered.

  The years had removed her youth. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that. Her dark brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, streaked with silver at her temple, just like my dad’s. Her round face had wrinkles near her mouth, and her dark blue eyes were dulled. She wore a hospital gown, and the sheets were rumpled on top of her, barely covering the restraints on her ankles.

  I saw the Velcro restraints around her ankles, just as the nurse said. It would be easy for Nell to remove them, though she didn’t seem the least bit interested in doing so.

  Lying in bed, Nell rolled that clouded gaze to the doorway, seeing me but not quite seeing me.

  “Eleanor,” Susan said in a gentle tone, “you have visitors today.”

  Nell’s eyes passed me over, and she sighed, turning her head to peer out the single window with bars on it.

  Aidan slipped in after me, and the door closed with a heavy click.

  No chairs were set up in the room, but like Susan said, Eleanor never had visitors.

  Apprehensive, Aidan and I stood side by side, just a few feet from the woman, and no one uttered a word.

  Swallowing hard, I decided not beat around the bush. I didn’t want to waste time, and the sooner we were out, the sooner I could get our friends back. “Nell?” Her name even sounded foreign to me.

  Trying not to grit my teeth, I said, “Aunt Nell, it’s me, Nora.” Interest swiveled the gaze back to us so fast that I swallowed a gasp with great pains. Instead, I said quickly, too quickly, “I need to know how you contacted the Demon’s Grave.”

  The haze vanished, leaving a bright intelligence that hadn’t been there earlier. “Demon’s Grave?” The corners of her mouth curled in a crude smile. “To meet the Erebus? To be a Neophyte?”

  “Erebus? You mean Damien?” I tested, wondering if she had in fact met the demon himself or if maybe there’d been other demons.

  “The Erebus,” she repeated merrily. “One needs to be prepared.”

  Pausing, I struggled to remember my questions and pulled the pocketbook from my jeans. I noticed Aidan had the tape recorder out. “Nell, we need to know how to get in.”

  “The Erebus needs a Neophyte. You tell him I’m ready.” She swung open her arms, flinging back the sheets from her torso in the grand gesture. Head tilted up to the ceiling, she smiled wide, revealing a missing tooth. She arched her body as if in a crude form of ecstasy.

  “Yes.” I felt impatience rising. This wasn’t the dangerous woman I’d remembered. My nerves began to shift into something cruel. I could hurt her much easier now, I realized. Kick her while she’s down and as much as that’s not a nice thing to do, I wanted to, very much.

&
nbsp; “Do you know how to get in?”

  “The marble door, of course,” she chided with a wave of her hand, as if it were a foolish question. “Watch for the Keeper. They are tricky things, yes, yes.”

  “You never used the marble door,” Aidan said from behind me. “You made your own portal.”

  Nell’s eyes shifted from the ceiling to Aidan. Her eyes grew round as she braced herself against the back of her bed.

  That’s when she began to scream.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Nell Fuller’s scream cracked and strained, and despite the tearing that I could hear in her voice, she continued. Her legs bucked for release, as if she might climb up the wall to escape.

  Aidan and I froze, unsure what to make of the horrible wailing.

  Susan burst through the door to find Aidan and me pressing our backs against the wall. She grabbed Aidan’s arm and pulled him from the room with a strength that I hadn’t expected. Apparently, Aidan didn’t either. He staggered, eyes wide, his free arm that still clutched the tape recorder flailing, before he was flung out the open metal door.

  In that instant, Nell quieted and dropped back into the bed, breathing hard. The abrupt silence rang in my ears and gave Susan pause before snatching me from the room as well.

  “I have to stay!” I burst before Susan could change her mind.

  “That was a Birket,” Nell rasped, spitting the name.

  Startled, my eyes snapped toward my aging aunt, and I sidled along the wall, away from Susan. “How’d you know?”

  “The Keeper had the same eyes.”

  This snagged mine and Aidan’s attention, and at the same time we spoke over each other.

  “Keeper?”

  “My grandpa?”

  I felt Susan touch my arm. “That’s enough,” she said in a hushed tone. “She’s obviously…”

  “No!” Nell and I exploded at the same time.

  I didn’t have time to argue with the nurse, but this was my only chance.

  Susan retracted her arm and eyed us both for several heartbeats, gauging us with suspicion. She finally straightened her spine and said with renewed sternness, “Fine, but he stays in the hallway with me.”