Pale fire, deep shadow
Two cups of coffee, one meeting, and a round of phone calls all chasing each other's tails.
The sleeping pills did not help. If anything, they made it worse. Thank you so much, Dr. Wittenberg.
Is it possible to keep functioning on the ragged edge of paranoia? Functioning at all well?
I lived most of my life that way, off and on, and I had thought I'd gotten away from it, finally, in recent months. Then . . .
The management company is balking. They claim to have tenants lined up already for the rest of the floor. Linden has his suspicions, and I agree. We want to expand that office, but management has other ideas. What? My business is no longer good enough? (My public profile - but I've been out of the media spotlight for a while.) A blocking move by a rival? (Who? Henderson? Oh, sly old man . . .) Linden's digging into it. He was my Knight long before I brought him into the Circle. I'm glad for his support, at least.
His . . . When did I get all these women around me? Don't they have anything better to do with their lives?
Don't I?
It was the girl in Hong Kong last night. Screaming and screaming. I don't remember her being that noisy when it actually happened, nor all that blood. Nightmare exaggeration. The pills did not help. The prescription was useless. I've already thrown it away and flushed the rest of the bottle.
I'm having trouble sleeping, I told him in his office yesterday. (No physical examination and only a short history taken. Smooth, quiet, genteel; a lot of "ah"s and "I see"s and "of course"s. Upper East Side practice. He knows what side his bread is buttered on and where the knife is pointed.)
Have you had any stress or anxiety recently? he asked me, peering over the tops of his half-glasses.
Oh, you could say that.
The night before last, it was my father, and I was the one screaming and bleeding. "Trouble sleeping." You could say that, too.
Jamie keeps giving me the eye whenever he brings by papers to sign or another coffee from the shop down the street. I don't need to be getting the eye from my assistant. I know I'm snappish, short-tempered - isn't he used to that by now?
I'm not. This is different.
And the night before that - fire. I was on fire. She was setting me on fire. She was setting me on fire and laughing. I fought, I cursed, I ran. She reduced me to ashes and then brought me back to life to start all over again, and her eyes, her bitch-goddess eyes on fire . . .
No pills, then. He accepted the gout diagnosis and put me on a restricted diet. I will be eating blueberries until I look cyanotic. I might even dream about blueberries. That would be a refreshing change. I would welcome it whole-heartedly, with wide open arms. Blueberries don't have arms to hit or legs to kick or those eyes.
Those eyes.
I keep turning over our phone conversation in my mind, dissecting and analyzing (forcing myself past the shakes, through the cold sweats, she's gone now, she's gone, dammit, and she isn't coming back to do it again). Was she too confident in talking to me? Too smooth? She's insane. She might very well be insane. Unhinged by her powers? Quite possibly that, too. Insane, out of control - she said once that she could fly around if she wanted to look like a huge firebird when she did it, because of her telekinesis.
Phoenix. Fire. Flames. (Oh, God, the flames.)
I don't know if there have been any firebird sightings in the city. I haven't paid much attention to anything beyond my immediate sphere since it happened. That ends, now. Get back in touch. Tune in again. Don't rely on underlings; do it your own damn self, Sebastian.
The only way to be sure.
I can get the chip schematics out to Arizona by next week, and that will be the end of this incarnation of Project Wide Awake. I should-
While Emma is lacking her powers (maybe forever!), I should take over the project. I should . . .
I have the Inner Circle, yes, Harper, but I could have more. (I can always have more.) What could I get from Emma while she can't do anything to my mind? (Too much already done.) The economy is sputtering along, sales are still down, I want new partnerships and investments - what could I get from Frost Enterprises right now?
I wonder how good old Winston's doing these days. I haven't spoken with him in some time, have I?
Harper. Damn her. Damn all of them. She should know me better by now. The coddling, the cosseting, the stiff-necked pride, as if she had anything of her own that I hadn't given her. I could buy and sell you twenty times over, Sally Jo, in just one day, and hardly notice it in the balance sheet. And I can find another Rook. I can always find another Rook. Watch your place, girl. Obey me, dammit. Obey!
I can't even use the meditation techniques she taught me in our psychic-defense lessons, not without the flames eating me from the inside out. I'm getting through the day, instead, by focusing on work: one task at a time, one meeting, one phone call, one email. Stepping-stones across the chasm. (No flames down there, but darkness, waiting and hungry darkness, and it never, ever ends, falling forever . . .)
I've dropped eight pounds in the past week and a half. I have no idea what my metabolism is doing from day to day. I'm hungry, and I eat as if I would starve at any moment, and another pound melts away . . . somewhere. I'm jittery with energy all day, but I haven't charged up since it happened, except from accidental bumps and bangs into furniture and walls. Too many of those lately - did she do that, too? I feel clumsy. Can't judge distances. Trust what my eyes and senses tell me. (Not while they're on fire, still, still! Somewhere deep inside me, still on fire!) I try to bleed off the energy in the gym every night after work, and it mostly works.
Then I go to bed.
Then I dream.
I wonder what it'll be this night. I can't even bring myself to care much anymore. I used to hate not being able to recall my dreams like everyone else, was half-convinced I didn't dream, all the accepted research be damned. Now I can't get away from them. Pills don't work, meditation doesn't work, exercise doesn't work.
Nothing works!
Dammit.
One task at a time. One day at a time. It has to get better, while my life threatens to topple around me.
No.
I still have the Circle, the club, my company, what I've built for myself over the past two decades with my own two hands and the brains and the willpower that the good Lord gave me in all His wisdom. She can't take that away from me. No one can, and no one will, the Devil take the hindmost.
Right after he takes her, please.
The sleeping pills did not help. If anything, they made it worse. Thank you so much, Dr. Wittenberg.
Is it possible to keep functioning on the ragged edge of paranoia? Functioning at all well?
I lived most of my life that way, off and on, and I had thought I'd gotten away from it, finally, in recent months. Then . . .
The management company is balking. They claim to have tenants lined up already for the rest of the floor. Linden has his suspicions, and I agree. We want to expand that office, but management has other ideas. What? My business is no longer good enough? (My public profile - but I've been out of the media spotlight for a while.) A blocking move by a rival? (Who? Henderson? Oh, sly old man . . .) Linden's digging into it. He was my Knight long before I brought him into the Circle. I'm glad for his support, at least.
His . . . When did I get all these women around me? Don't they have anything better to do with their lives?
Don't I?
It was the girl in Hong Kong last night. Screaming and screaming. I don't remember her being that noisy when it actually happened, nor all that blood. Nightmare exaggeration. The pills did not help. The prescription was useless. I've already thrown it away and flushed the rest of the bottle.
I'm having trouble sleeping, I told him in his office yesterday. (No physical examination and only a short history taken. Smooth, quiet, genteel; a lot of "ah"s and "I see"s and "of course"s. Upper East Side practice. He knows what side his bread is buttered on and where the knife is pointed.)
Have you had any stress or anxiety recently? he asked me, peering over the tops of his half-glasses.
Oh, you could say that.
The night before last, it was my father, and I was the one screaming and bleeding. "Trouble sleeping." You could say that, too.
Jamie keeps giving me the eye whenever he brings by papers to sign or another coffee from the shop down the street. I don't need to be getting the eye from my assistant. I know I'm snappish, short-tempered - isn't he used to that by now?
I'm not. This is different.
And the night before that - fire. I was on fire. She was setting me on fire. She was setting me on fire and laughing. I fought, I cursed, I ran. She reduced me to ashes and then brought me back to life to start all over again, and her eyes, her bitch-goddess eyes on fire . . .
No pills, then. He accepted the gout diagnosis and put me on a restricted diet. I will be eating blueberries until I look cyanotic. I might even dream about blueberries. That would be a refreshing change. I would welcome it whole-heartedly, with wide open arms. Blueberries don't have arms to hit or legs to kick or those eyes.
Those eyes.
I keep turning over our phone conversation in my mind, dissecting and analyzing (forcing myself past the shakes, through the cold sweats, she's gone now, she's gone, dammit, and she isn't coming back to do it again). Was she too confident in talking to me? Too smooth? She's insane. She might very well be insane. Unhinged by her powers? Quite possibly that, too. Insane, out of control - she said once that she could fly around if she wanted to look like a huge firebird when she did it, because of her telekinesis.
Phoenix. Fire. Flames. (Oh, God, the flames.)
I don't know if there have been any firebird sightings in the city. I haven't paid much attention to anything beyond my immediate sphere since it happened. That ends, now. Get back in touch. Tune in again. Don't rely on underlings; do it your own damn self, Sebastian.
The only way to be sure.
I can get the chip schematics out to Arizona by next week, and that will be the end of this incarnation of Project Wide Awake. I should-
While Emma is lacking her powers (maybe forever!), I should take over the project. I should . . .
I have the Inner Circle, yes, Harper, but I could have more. (I can always have more.) What could I get from Emma while she can't do anything to my mind? (Too much already done.) The economy is sputtering along, sales are still down, I want new partnerships and investments - what could I get from Frost Enterprises right now?
I wonder how good old Winston's doing these days. I haven't spoken with him in some time, have I?
Harper. Damn her. Damn all of them. She should know me better by now. The coddling, the cosseting, the stiff-necked pride, as if she had anything of her own that I hadn't given her. I could buy and sell you twenty times over, Sally Jo, in just one day, and hardly notice it in the balance sheet. And I can find another Rook. I can always find another Rook. Watch your place, girl. Obey me, dammit. Obey!
I can't even use the meditation techniques she taught me in our psychic-defense lessons, not without the flames eating me from the inside out. I'm getting through the day, instead, by focusing on work: one task at a time, one meeting, one phone call, one email. Stepping-stones across the chasm. (No flames down there, but darkness, waiting and hungry darkness, and it never, ever ends, falling forever . . .)
I've dropped eight pounds in the past week and a half. I have no idea what my metabolism is doing from day to day. I'm hungry, and I eat as if I would starve at any moment, and another pound melts away . . . somewhere. I'm jittery with energy all day, but I haven't charged up since it happened, except from accidental bumps and bangs into furniture and walls. Too many of those lately - did she do that, too? I feel clumsy. Can't judge distances. Trust what my eyes and senses tell me. (Not while they're on fire, still, still! Somewhere deep inside me, still on fire!) I try to bleed off the energy in the gym every night after work, and it mostly works.
Then I go to bed.
Then I dream.
I wonder what it'll be this night. I can't even bring myself to care much anymore. I used to hate not being able to recall my dreams like everyone else, was half-convinced I didn't dream, all the accepted research be damned. Now I can't get away from them. Pills don't work, meditation doesn't work, exercise doesn't work.
Nothing works!
Dammit.
One task at a time. One day at a time. It has to get better, while my life threatens to topple around me.
No.
I still have the Circle, the club, my company, what I've built for myself over the past two decades with my own two hands and the brains and the willpower that the good Lord gave me in all His wisdom. She can't take that away from me. No one can, and no one will, the Devil take the hindmost.
Right after he takes her, please.