Chaos Dragon ([email protected])

Distribution: Carpe Noctem and Edward’s Lair ONLY

Rating:PG-13 (language)

 

Case Number 4227

 

The blond man was strapped down to his bed, wrists and ankles bound with Velcro restraints. Complete with very small padlocks. He’d managed to get out of the restraints once already and had seriously injured an orderly. The only reason he was still under the care of the hospital was the fact that he was insane.

 

So far he’d exhibited symptoms of severe MPD-Multiple Personality Disorder. There were two distinct personalities recorded in the week since he’d been admitted, and signs of a possible third.

 

Dr. Pate glanced down at his clipboard once again, something he’d been doing many times since he was handed this case early this morning. The previous psychologist refused to continue treatment after the attack on the orderly. Pate didn’t blame him. He was hesitant himself.

 

The man, Ted Forrester, seemed very unstable. Aguilar, the man who’d treated him in the past week hadn’t been able to find what had triggered a breakdown in an otherwise healthy man. Now it was up to Pate.

 

He was watching the patient through a close-circuit camera system. He was singing to himself.

 

“Who put the man in the moon… who put the man in the sky. Don’t know… don’t know why.”

 

He stopped singing and stared straight into the hidden camera for a long second.

 

“They watch, watch, watch me. I am the man in the moon and I’ll kill them all! Kill them the way they killed-“ And he stopped and began humming, his eyes now closed. His face was twisted as if he was in pain.

 

Pate had a thought. He now had a hypothesis for the man’s dementia. Obviously he had lost someone. But how in the world would it ever push a person to breaking?

 

He sighed and straightened his shoulders. With a quick muttered prayer to the Holy Virgin he opened the door to the patients room and entered. He took the one seat in the room, a rather uncomfortable metal chair, and dragged it next to the bed. Close enough to talk quietly but far enough that he should be able to protect himself.

 

He was armed, completely against hospital procedure. A hypodermic syringe filled with a strong sedative. If he could inject it before the patient loosed himself completely it would knock him out in a matter of seconds. And if God was with him it wouldn’t kill him.

 

At least he had the permission of the Director. Pate had refused the case until he was allowed to protect himself in some way.

 

The patient was humming still, sometimes muttering words to faint and vague to be understood.

 

“Mr. Forrester, my name is Dr. Pate. I’m replacing Dr. Aguilar as your physician,” he said, his voice steady despite his nerves.

 

The man looked at him and a chill ran up his spine. Those eyes were so cold and empty. Insanity did not agree with this man.

 

“Do you have Anita? I lost her. Van Cleef took her from me.” His voice broke on the last few words and he turned away from Pate.

 

“Do you mind if I address you as Ted, Mr. Forrester?” Pate found that using a first name basis with his patients sometimes decreased the nervousness they felt when dealing with him. “You may call me Albert.”

 

The man shrugged. “Don’t care. I’m not Ted, but I don’t care.”

 

Pate raised an eyebrow and made a note on his clipboard. “Who is Anita, Ted? And Van Cleef?”

 

Ted peered at him. “Did he send you? I won’t talk to you. He sent you and he already has my soul.”

 

And then, in a completely different voice, “Shut up, Edward. The man’s just trying to help your pathetic ass.”

 

This voice was full of southern country-honey and molasses. The other had been empty of any accent. Another note was made.

 

“Pathetic? Hah! You’re just jealous that I had to make you up.” The first voice again. “You can kiss my pathetic ass. Go back to your stupid Ford’s and your wussy bounty hunting. At least I have a real job.”

 

“Stupid Ford?” The southern accent now, furious. “My Ford is better than your Hummer any damned day. And my job is legal you bastard.”

 

Pate was relieved that the incident was being recorded. They’d never had a case of MPD like this before. It was… phenomenal. And frightening.

 

“You are me, you stupid shit. You’re a made up, phony, nonexistent hallucination. And if my Hummer is such a bad drive why do you prefer it over your Ford? That thing has been sitting in the garage waiting for you to drive it and you let DONNA!”

 

Silence echoed. Pate nearly asked another question when the other personality responded. It was sober and quiet.

 

“I didn’t know the brake lines had been cut.” A pause and then it came again, furious. So furious. “You cut them, you son of a bitch! You killed her!”

 

His body arched in the restraints as though someone were trying to tear him out. “GO JUMP OFF A CLIFF! I’LL PUSH YOU YOU BASTARD! I KNOW WHERE!”

 

Pate almost jumped out of his seat as the honeyed voice started screaming. But he knew who this Donna was from the case file. She was Ted Forrester's deceased fiancй. She’d been dead for two weeks.

 

“I’LL TAKE YOUR CRAZY ASS TO THAT VILLAGE! THE INDIAN VILLAGE WHERE VAN CLEEF TORTURED YOU!”

 

Softer now, “You know the one I’m talking about, Edward. The one in Colorado, outside of Pueblo. The one where he chained you for hiding Anita. You’re the reason she’s dead. Her and Donna both.”

 

Silence again. Pate made another note about the Anita reference. Van Cleef, too.

 

And the first voice again. “Shut up. Just shut up about her. You never cared about Anita before.”

 

The second now, dripping with contempt. “Of course not. She was a witch. She was a whore for the monsters. I kill the monsters. You used to. You’re weak. Pathetic and weak.”

 

And now the silence lasted. Pate waited a long minute before he finally spoke.

 

“Ted, who’s Van Cleef? And Anita?” His pen was poised to write the response. No matter if it was recorded, he didn’t want to have to listen to the screaming again so soon. And he planned to review what was said the second he left this room.

 

“I’m not Ted. I’m Edward,” the empty voice said. “Anita is-was-my soul mate. And Van Cleef is the one who killed her.” He sounded weary, broken.

 

And then he started crying softly. “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have tried to hide her. He killed her when he found her, he killed her and sent me her head.”

 

Pate’s jaw dropped. It was beginning to make a little sense. Not much, but some.

 

He lay his pen down and leaned forward a little. “What would have happened if you hadn’t hidden her?”

 

A snort. “Trained her to be like me, I suppose.”

 

And then the southern voice again. “She was already trained, you’ve been doing that for years. Ever since you found her in St. Louis.”

 

Pate leaned back and flipped the top page of his file over. A few lines under the reference to Donna Parnell was a short note saying that Ted Forrester often worked with Anita Blake, the vampire executioner up in St. Louis. More pieces fell into place.

 

“This Van Cleef trained bounty hunters?”

 

And the cold blue eyes pierced through him. “No, you fool. He trained assassins.”

 

Pate tried to swallow down the instinctual fear that coursed through him. “I see,” he said, and flipped his papers back down. He stood slowly from the chair, trying to hide the overwhelming terror he was feeling. And he walked slowly towards the door.

 

“You’re smart to be afraid of him, Doctor,” said the southern voice. “He’s insane.”

 

Pate glanced back to see a friendly smile on the patient’s face. And then it slid away leaving nothing but blankness and dead eyes. The terror grew more.

 

“Do you know how he killed her? Would you like to know?” The empty voice now had a new sound to him. After seeing those eyes… he’d almost say the man wanted to die. But that didn’t ring true to him, not after nearly twenty years as a psychologist.

 

“He took a syringe, much like the one in your pocket,” and Pate startled, wondering how the man could have known. “He took it and instead of filling it with poison or some drug, he filled it with air.”

 

A pause, a cold glance.

 

“Then he shoved it in her neck, right into the vein. What do air bubbles in the bloodstream do, Doctor?”

 

Pate stared. “It generally causes massive aneurysm.”

 

And the dead eyes stared back.

 

Suddenly Pate knew what the man wanted. Somehow he knew that the man lying in the bed had wanted to do it to the woman himself. And that frightened Pate even more than the screaming had.

 

He turned away and found that he couldn’t get through the door fast enough. The Director was in the observation room, waiting for him. And the man’s voice was coming through the speaker’s once again, singing.

 

“Bubbles in my blood, makes my head explode. Bubbles in my heart…”

 

The Director turned the volume off. “Well?”

 

“I don’t think rehabilitation it an option.”

 

“And if he gets loose again, what do you recommend?”

 

“I think that bridge is best crossed when we come to it. If,” he amended, “we come to it.”

 

The Director nodded and left Pate there watching the blond man lay in his bed.

 

“But if it were up to me,” he said softly, “I’d put a bullet in his brain now.”

 

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