Maddy's Floor (29 page)

"Dr. Maddy?"

"What's wrong?"

The voices called out as she fled past the nurses' station. In the background, Maddy heard footsteps rushing in her wake.

She entered the new wing. John's bed was empty. Skidding to a stop, she spied his foot on the far side. Dropping to her knees beside him, she checked his vital signs while simultaneously shifting her vision to her inner eye. The black energy blob pulsed under the bed. It surrounded John's silver cord several feet away from his body, almost suffocating him. It was climbing ever so slowly up the length of the silvery lifeline. The energy of his arm closest to the silver cord had a gray tinge to it as the life force had weakened under the power of the draining blackness.

Two nurses dropped to their knees beside her.

Nancy asked. "What happened?"

"Don't know yet. Get him stabilized. Call for help, just don't move him yet."

Amelia raced off. Maddy glanced at Nancy. "I have to go under."

Nancy stared back, one eyebrow raised. "Can you do that here?"

She answered instinctively. "I have to. I don't have time to go to my office."

She lay down on the floor, took a deep breath and jumped free of her body.

Opening her astral eyes, Maddy studied the black threatening ooze surrounding John's cord. Releasing the tension in her chakras, she reached out to the region of John's cord the energy would envelope next. Mentally, she projected blue and lavender healing waves to that one spot. As if hit by a shock wave, the black energy rippled.

Like a war between titans, Maddy sized up the resistance immediately. There was a person attached to this mess. She sensed the intelligence, their surprise and their frustration. Force was no answer in working to change energy. It engaged the senses and fired up the mind and emotions. Energy, to work effectively, was all about stepping out of the way, sinking into the sensation while detaching from the ego. Maddy had learned to become one with the source of her being, the source of who she was inside, blanking out the issues of her life and awaking fresh from the experience – one with the world.

To work energy positively, she had to be full of grace and joy, content with herself – anything less and it would be too easy to leave a shadow, a tiny piece of herself, behind.

Maddy focused on the area of John's chest. She studied the shadowy energy carefully, needing to see how it reacted. Would it pull back in retreat? Or would it spread so thin as to disappear?

This energy tried to blend into John's energy.

Keeping her wall of healing energy in place, Maddy gently moved the blackness backwards. It thinned out, slinking tightly against John's aura. Her energy block held, maintained the pressure, forcing the apex of the slender layer of blackness to retreat. She sensed a building fury, the absolute blinding tension as the energy was thwarted. It vibrated in place for another moment, before receding down his arm.

Instantly, Maddy moved her energy forward, keeping a firm edge against the receding darkness. Keeping the block in place, she watched it detach from John's arm. The last final bit, infinitesimal in size, fell off, to sit on the floor quivering. She stretched out a finger, her hand full of warm lavender energy. And almost touched it. If the energy were a puppy, she'd be holding out her hand for it to sniff.

The blob wiggled.

Maddy frowned, pulling her hand back slightly. The blob followed. She stopped her retreat and waited to see what it would do. It came closer and closer. Her brows pulled together as realization struck. It was attracted to her energy, her healing energy. Only it wasn't strong enough to attach itself to her.

It wanted to be, though.

Stefan was right. It wasn't necessarily trying to kill anyone. It wanted the energy for itself.

It wanted energy it could use to heal. Healing, loving energy, like hers, would be at the top of the list. Old, sick energy had to be all this person had access to, meaning they were likely to be in the same physical health as those it victimized…feeding on those weaker than itself. A healthy person could repulse a weak attack without even being aware it was happening – unless the attacker had learned the art of killing instantly.

Who was doing this?

"Dr. Maddy?"

She blinked. Nancy was staring at her, or rather, at her body. Maddy gave the blob one last glance, settled two anchors in place for future use then realigned her energy to her physical body.

She closed her eyes for a long moment and when she reopened them, she was viewing the world with her physical eyes. Turning her head toward Nancy, her voice still slow and slurred, she said, "I'm here."

"Good." With a relieved voice, Nancy continued briskly, "John seems to be coming around. His color has improved and his vitals are picking up."

Moving slowly, Maddy sat up and studied John's face. His skin had taken on a more natural appearance, losing the dry, paper-thin look. Hearing footsteps approach, she stood slowly, using the bed for support. Nancy handed her the tablet.

She stepped out of the way as two brawny orderlies arrived and lifted John gently onto his bed. Nancy wrapped a warm blanket around his cool body and settled him in before checking his vitals. Maddy checked his file on her computer and perused his medications. She wrote a couple of quick notes and made a mental one to contact Dr. Cunningham.

John needed to have someone keep a close eye on him. The Kirlian cameras were a moot point. Maddy absolutely knew what was wrong on this floor now. She just didn't know how to stop it.

Most sick people wouldn't be able to save themselves. The attacks, as in John's case, would appear to be a natural decline in health. If energy were drained slowly but regularly, the process would also become familiar. Anything that becomes familiar then becomes harder to recognize or identify as wrong and therefore it would be almost impossible for someone to fight against its damaging effects. It would be viewed as chronic decline.

How would she combat something she couldn't see or recognize?

Walking back to her office, she massaged the back of her neck. Tension had collected there in a tightening pool of aches. She rotated her neck to loosen it.

"Is John okay?" Amelia raced to her side and walked beside her down the hall.

Maddy nodded. "Who attended him last?"

"I'll check. I haven't personally seen him since ten this morning. Candy should have seen him after lunch for his medications, and of course the staff served him lunch and picked up the dishes."

Maddy glanced at Nancy. "Find out names and when they were here, please."

Nancy nodded, but instead of leaving, she touched Maddy's arm. "Is something wrong? Some weird stuff's been going on lately."

"Yes. I don't have all the details. But I will." She refused to let anyone do this type of damage, to her patients or her project.

Maddy's floor was for healing. It was hers to guard and to protect.

***

Occupant of Bed 232 stretched out on her bed and pouted. She felt like a bedridden failure and therefore the nurses could damn well call her by her bed name today. Damn it, she hated to fail. She'd almost had it all. She'd wanted more, she'd needed more. She shouldn't have tried a second time today. Only this morning's session had been so brilliant, so wonderfully stimulating that like a crack addict, she had to try it again.

Damn that interfering upstart from the second session – whoever the hell they were. And she'd find out. Nudging up against her anger, fear threatened to settle in. She needed that energy. Without her daily healing injection, she wouldn't be able to function.

Her options were limited. John was the only one she had access to up there now, and his energy had sweetened. Had to be the influence of Dr. Maddy's floor. What the hell was that damn shield anyway? She'd sensed the power of it, she'd seen the loving energies inside of it, and she hadn't been able to enter – she'd tried, though.

She sighed. If she managed to figure out how to get to those people in that bubble, she wouldn't have to go after so many other people. And that child's energy, wow. Was she improving or what? Jealously twisted inside her. Just one smidgen of the child's energy and she would be free from pain for days, not to mention that would kick-start her healing and raise it to new levels.

It wasn't because she hadn't tried, because she had – many times. Somehow, Dr. Maddy had managed to create that bubble to block energy drainers like her. Wasn't that a sneaky thing to do? She stared at the ceiling tiles for a moment. She'd never been able to access Dr. Maddy's energy.

She'd have to consider that though. She needed to know more and do more. Damn doctors. Her skills would have blown this hospital apart if she'd been able to develop them as she should have.

Sinking deeper under the covers, she tugged fretfully at the bedding. She'd have to do without for now. But she had to find another source soon or the drought would send her physical condition spiraling downward. Best if her next donor were to carry Dr. Maddy's sweet, pure energy.

She'd have healed ten times over with that wonderful, positive energy. It was worth fifty of these dying old farts. Their life force was already dried out and decaying. Their energy helped sustain her, kept the worst of the pain away, but theirs would never heal her. She needed to access those patients under Dr. Maddy's care. Better yet, she needed to be under Dr. Maddy's care herself. Then she'd grab all the energy she needed.

Jansen. Now that had been a mistake. She'd gotten greedy. She'd been siphoning little bits off him for a long time, when all of a sudden she hadn't been able to access his energy. That damn bubble had kept her out and away from him, until his bed had been shifted. When she had access again, after so long, she'd lost control and gorged – had taken everything he had. She never experienced a healing quite like that before. It had felt so good she hadn't been able to stop. She might even have killed him. He'd certainly been dead the next day.

That had saddened her. They'd had good times years ago. Then he'd gotten back with his wife and had broken off the relationship. She hadn't meant to kill him.

But, oh Lord, it had felt good.

***

What a day. Gerard dropped his head into his hands. The Board had called with more bad news, and he was on the firing line himself. He'd managed to duck – today. There was no doubt that his ass was being watched and his fingers had been slapped.

Gerard didn't like who he'd become. How had it happened? How had he become a person who sold beds to the highest bidder? Someone who held Maddy's floor up as an enticement to desperate, dying people? Sure, Maddy was good, but as Jansen's death had proven, she wasn't perfect.

Although that blame might need to be placed at his feet, too. He'd forced her to take Adam on, snuck John in, and already had several fat checks in his hands for the next beds. Dr. Maddy had warned him that breaking away from protocols would change the project, and it had.

His pride had placed him in this position. When the budgets had gotten so bad, he'd wanted to show the others he could handle it. Prove that he could successfully run The Haven, despite the problems and the economy. God, what a fool he'd been then. His ego had won over his sense of right and wrong.

Dispirited, he crossed his arms on his desk and laid his head down.

***

Maddy closed her phone and placed it on her desk, confused and slightly disoriented. She stared down at it as if it might explain what had just happened. Gerard had actually apologized for the way he'd been bringing patients on board and disregarding the system specifically designed to maximize the healing abilities of The Haven. He'd agreed that there needed to be a solid rethink of their current policies and procedures, and was setting up a special meeting. Today he sounded more his old self, the strong-in-charge man who'd recruited her years earlier. His voice had surged with power, brimmed with resolution. What the hell had happened to him?

Her cell phone rang. This time it was Drew.

"How long has Nancy Colfax worked for you?"

Maddy started, her mind struggling to switch subjects so fast. "What? Nancy? Uhmmm, I don't know. Four, five years maybe? Why?"

"Did you know her mother had an affair with Uncle John? About six or seven years ago?"

Maddy glanced toward her closed office door. "No, although I can't say I'm surprised. I've heard John was quite a womanizer, and at his age, there might be any number of women connected in one way or other to my circle."

"So you didn't know?"

"No. I did not know." Maddy sighed, slumping back in her chair. "Then again, Nancy probably didn't, either."

"Oh?"

"She hasn't been close to her mother in a couple decades. They exchange the odd phone call. That's the extent of it. Why, are you checking up on her?"

"Not only her. I've extended the parameters to include everyone on the floor with a connection to John, no matter how tenuous. Another avenue to explore would be his caregivers."

Maddy rubbed the bridge of her nose. That would be a long list. "Talk to John. Let him know what's going on and see if he can narrow the list down. By the way, I went over the information Nancy compiled for me, but nothing pops."