At the tone, leave a message.
*****
And the next time the phone rang, House was waiting. He snatched the handset out of its cradle before the second ring had faded.
“I’m here. What’s the name?”
Feeble cries, far off, rising and falling, begging for help that would never come. House ignored the thin wails. “I need a name. What’s the name?”
Someone was moaning, sobbing in pain. House shut his eyes, blocking it out. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pain. Suffering. Eternal damnation. Dante’s nine circles of Hell. Whatever. I get it! Just give me the damn name! Who is it this time?”
Choked exhalations, bubbling and sighing, as though all the last breaths of the dying had been recorded over a millennia and set aside just for his listening pleasure.
“Viiiiiinnnnnn…” Finally, a parched voice rasping, forming a name out of the ether. “Viiiiinnnnnsssssssssseeeeennnnnnttttt…”
“Vincent.” It seemed the air in the room was growing stale. “Vincent, who?”
“Yessssssss ahhhaaa,” a gurgle. “Yesssssss. Vincent.”
“Last name. Give me… the last name!” House coughed. Tried to catch his breath. Failed.
More breathing over the phone, labored, struggling. “Ccccohhhh….ohhhhh…”
House’s brow was furrowed in deep concentration as he willed the sounds to make sense, to understand the failing whispers. “I can’t…” He gulped at the air, tried to fill his lungs. “You have to speak louder. Vincent… who?”
“Ccccosssssstttttttahhhhhhhhhh. Vincent Cosssstaaaaahhhhhh..."
House was panting; his air passages were closing, cutting off his oxygen supply. “Vin… cent. Costa…” He gasped, his head spinning. Blackness crept across his vision like spilled ink. The headset slipped from nerveless fingers, and he tipped forward. His forehead impacted with the wall, giving him a hard whack and jolting him back into awareness. He jerked upright, staring at the phone. The receiver was back on the cradle. The phone was silent. He sucked in a cautious breath. His lungs filled easily. Apparently there were no lingering effects of hypoxia. Launching himself out of his chair, he limped to the door. He had to find Vincent Costa, and fast.
*****
House might have a bum leg, but he could move quickly when he wanted. Furthermore, he was more likely to simply mow people down than negotiate his way around them, and hospital personnel had learned to steer clear when he came lurching past on a mission.
They dodged him now, as he headed towards the Admit Desk, shouting for Vincent Costa as he went. Admissions claimed they had no Vincent Costa in the system, and even his best sarcastic tirade did nothing to change the fact, though it did leave the volunteer behind the admit desk near tears.
Next he canvassed the ER. House deduced that since Vincent Costa was likely close to expiration, the ER was the most promising location to find him. However, that too proved fruitless. Growing increasing frustrated over his loss of precious minutes, he limped double-time towards the clinic. How he missed the days when he could use roller-blades to quickly traverse the hospital corridors.
He stood in the doors to the clinic and shouted, while traffic swirled around him as though he were a rock in a swift moving stream. “Vincent Costa? I’m looking for Vincent Costa. Is he in here?”
A dozen puzzled faces turned in his direction, but no one owned up to the name. He was considering his next move, when Cuddy came barreling out of her office. Her face had a white, pinched look that didn’t bode well. House considered making a limp for it, but she was on him before he could translate thought into action. She didn’t slow, merely grabbed his upper arm in passing. “House. I need you.”
At any other time, this would have been the perfect invitation for some snappy comeback about a quickie in her office, but not now.
“I’m busy!” he wanted to protest. “I have to save a life! However, truth was the search was taking too long. Vincent Costa had probably already passed his expiration date and was presently souring like old milk forgotten at the back of the fridge. Besides, Cuddy apparently wasn’t taking no for an answer. It was either accompany her, or be pulled off balance and end up ass over cane on the floor.
He magnanimously allowed her to drag him towards the hospital entrance. “What’s going on?”
“One of the workers fell off the scaffolding!” She pushed through the doors and hurried ahead as quickly as a pencil skirt and four inch heels would allow, bound for the section of the building undergoing the heaviest renovations. There she joined a clump of construction workers, hospital personnel and gawking bystanders huddled around something on the ground.
House made his way over to join them. He had an unpleasant inkling he knew the name of the unfortunate klutz lying of the ground. Two doctors were attempting CPR and House wondered why they bothered. Couldn’t they see the guys brains were leaking out his ears? He was toast.
House reached out with his cane and hooked one of the construction workers who were standing around looking dazed and slightly ill. “Hey, you know that guy?”
“Vinnie? Yeah. I was working with him when he fell... he just tripped or something. I don’t think he had his line attached. I mean he just…”
Is his name Vincent?” House interrupted. The particulars didn’t interest him. Let OSHA deal with that.
“Yeah. Vincent Costa. But everyone calls him Vinnie.” Glancing to where the medical personnel were desperately trying to save his co-workers life, he asked, “He gonna be okay, doc? He’s got two kids, you know?”
House rolled his eyes. Like somehow having children made you immune to dying. He studied the broken worker on the ground, the twisted limbs, the puddle of blood pooling under his head, the glimpse of grey brain tissue visible through fissures in his skull, the doctors frantically scurrying around trying to delay the inevitable. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. A little superglue works wonders.”
He turned and limped over to Cuddy, who was issuing orders and trying to look officious, despite the unhealthy pallor of her face.
“I can’t fix this!” House snarled, waving an arm at Vincent Costa. “I could never fix this!”
Cuddy turned to him. Her lower lip trembled. She tucked a stand of loose, dark hair behind her ear, as though doing so give her more control over the situation. “I didn’t know it would be this bad. I thought…”
But House cut her off. That wasn’t what he’d meant. “The game is rigged. I can’t win. Nothing I do will matter, because the rules keep changing!”
Cuddy just stared at him. “What game, House? A man is dying here.”
House dismissed this with an airy wave of his arm. “He’s already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
The gurney had arrived, and Cuddy had no more time for House or his strange behavior. She shook her head at him and waved him away as began supervising moving the patient.
House watched them cart off what was left of Vincent Costa then headed towards his office. Maybe the fix was in, but House wasn’t going down without doing some damage.
*****
House stamped into his office, letting the door bang hard against the wall. He paused for an instant with his hand hovering above the receiver, then snatched the black handset off the hook. “Look,” he shouted into the mouthpiece, venting his frustration. “I don’t know who or what the hell you are, but we are done here! You can take your necromancy and shove it up your astral plane. I’m not going to be your puppet, so you can just stop calling! I’m not going to answer the phone. I am not going to listen to your bitching and moaning.”
Heavy breathing panted in his ears, but at first he wasn’t sure if it was his own, or something transmitting across the phone line. Then one long exhale rasped into a low, menacing growl which raised the fine hairs of House’s neck and arms. Choosing to ignore the threatening sound, he continued. “In fact, when I am finished, I am going to yank this phone out of the wall and toss it in the nearest trash compactor! You got that?”
The snarl rose in volume, accompanied by a background caterwaul of shrieks and screeches that forced House to hold the handset away from his ears.
“Not listening!” House shouted above the yowling.
Guttural words were rumbling across the phone line. He tried to tune them out. “Sorry, the number you have reached has been disconnected. Please dial again!” He reached to replace the handset in its cradle.
“Jjjjaaaaaammmmmmmeesssss…”
No. He had not heard that. House froze, the handset poised above the cradle. His cheek twitched. Hang up, he told himself. Hang up now.
“Jjjjjaaaaaaaammmmmmeessssss…”
Don’t listen!
“Jjjaaaammmessssss Wwwiillllllsssssssonnnn…”
House heart was thudding in his chest, his blood suddenly a tidewater in his ears. He lifted the receiver once again, hands shaking. “Don’t you dare,” he hissed.
The voice sniggered.“Jjjaaaammmessssss Wwwiillllllsssssssonnnn…” it purred, sounded bloated and self-satisfied.
House closed his eyes tightly and fought to keep the panic out of his voice. “You leave Wilson out of this!”
“Jjjaaaammmessssss Wwwiillllllsssssssonnnn…” And the voice was laughing, a horrible grating cackle.
“You son of a bitch!” House railed, throttling the receiver in his fist. “Stay away from Wilson!”
The line went dead.
House slammed the handset down and stumbled to his desk. His fingers trembled as he snatched up his cell phone and headed out the door. He selected #1 on his speed dial, trying to reach his friend on the phone even as he was hurrying down the hall towards the bathroom turned Wilson’s temporary office. A quick check proved the room was minus one oncologist. And Wilson’s phone switched over to voice mail when no one answered. A call to the front desk in Pediatrics informed him that Wilson’s assistant was apparently out to lunch. Of course. Wilson was no doubt about to suffer a violent, horrible death and his aide-de-camp was busy stuffing her face with a MacBurger.
“Damnit, Wilson. Where are you?”
Time to call in the troops. House hop-stepped his way down the hall and charged into the records room, startling this flock of underlings.
“Where’s Wilson?” he demanded, glancing around the room suspiciously, as though Wilson might be hiding behind the coffee maker. “We need to find him, now!”
“Did you try his office?” Chase asked, picking up the scattered papers from a file he’d dropped when House had burst through the door.
“No.” House shot back, sarcasm a front for the dread that was rising in him like a tide. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
Foreman was sopping sloshed coffee off his tie, his face wearing a familiar expression of irritation. “Did you page him?”
“Good idea,” House snapped, pacing from one end of the room to the other, his movements almost frenetic. “You do that. Then check the Oncology Department.” He spun on Cameron, whose initial surprise was quickly being replaced with curiosity. She opened her mouth, but House rode roughshod over any questions she might try to ask. “You get the clinic. Chase, you cover the bald headed cancer kids in Pediatrics.” He glanced quickly between all three of them. “We have to find him, and we have to find him fast! So if he isn’t where you look, then you keep looking! And you contact me as soon as you know where he is!”
Foreman was looking at him as though he’d finally lost his mind. “You can’t be jonesing for the Vicodin that bad.”
But House let the comment pass, instead he glared fiercely at all of them, trying to impress upon them the importance of what he was about to say. “And when you find him, you stay with him.” He struck his cane against the floor, punctuating his orders. “You. Do. Not. Leave. Him. You stick, like crabs on a whore, and be prepared for anything.”
It was Chase who spoke, “What?” He half laughed, and glanced at the others. “What are you talking about? You sound…”
“Insane,” was Foreman’s assessment.
House ground his cane into the linoleum, and rubbed his other hand up and down his thigh, which was beginning to ache. “I have reason to believe that Doctor Wilson’s life may be in immediate danger. So if there are no more questions… Good.” He spun towards the door without giving any of them time to say a word. “Then let’s get moving. The clock is ticking.”
They caught up with him before he’d reached the elevator, but he refused to answer any of their questions, bracing himself against the back wall of the elevator and tucking his chin into his chest. His hand clenched and unclenched on his cane, and his foot tapped in agitation.
He finally snapped, when Foreman speculated that one of Wilson’s ex-wives had gone postal. “Don’t worry about why I know what I know!” he erupted, slamming his cane against the paneled walls of the elevator in emphasis. “Just find him!” Thankfully, the fellows took the hint and subsided into silence.
They scattered, and House headed to check the various nooks and crannies he had Wilson had been known to use as bolt holes when necessary.
He’d hit the bench beneath the stairwell, the lounge in Obstetrics and coma-guy’s room. No Wilson. He was contemplating whether to try the roof when his cell rang.
“House. Talk to me!”
It was Foreman’s modulated tones on the other end. “I found him. He’s in surgery…”
“What?” House faltered, cane and legs falling out of sync. His cell phone slipped from suddenly insensate fingers, hit the floor and skidded down the hall. Pitching sideways, House butted against a corridor wall and clung there, seeking balance. A passing nurse picked up the cell and sidled closer, sympathetic yet cautious. Keeping well out of cane swinging distance, she held it out to him, her movements hesitant, as though he were some wild, unpredictable animal. House figured he couldn’t complain. He’d earned that reputation honestly. A miniaturized version of Foreman’s voice buzzed inquisitively though the speaker as House took the phone back with a gruff thank you. The nurse looked surprised, then pleased, and offered him a tentative smile. He turned away, shutting her out. Typical. Give them an inch, they wanted a mile.
“Why is Wilson in surgery?” he snapped rejoining the conversation. “What happened to him?”
“No… I didn’t mean… He’s doing surgery, House. He’s operating on a patient. Surgical suite number three. I paged Chase and Cameron.”
House struggled to get his apprehension under control, forcing himself to breathe in and out through his nose. “Okay. I’m on my way. Do not leave him alone. You understand?”
“I hear you,” came Foreman’s wry reply, then silence as he disconnected. House stumbled towards the nearest elevator.
*****
Link to THE_ORACLE:PART_VII