voice. “Can’t. In ECT therapy—shock treatments, to use the layman’s term—doctors employ up to a hundred and fifty volts, thus provoking a grand mal seizure. But these . . .” He tapped the rods together. “Even at full power, they would barely budge the needle of an electrician’s ammeter. The energy I intend to tap—energy present in this room, all around us at this very moment—can’t be measured by ordinary instruments. It is essentially unknowable.”
Unknowable was not a word I wanted to hear.
“Please just do it,” Astrid said. “I’m very tired, and there’s a rat in my chest. One that’s on fire.”
Jacobs looked at Jenny. She hesitated. “It wasn’t like this at the revival. Not at all.”
“Perhaps not,” Jacobs said, “but this is revival. You’ll see. Put your hands on her shoulders, Jenny. Be prepared to press down hard. You won’t hurt her.”
She did as she was told.
Jacobs turned his attention to me. “When I place the tips of the rods on Astrid’s temples, slide the switch. Count the clicks as it advances. When you feel the fourth one, stop and wait for any further instructions. Ready? Here we go.”
He put the tips of the rods in the hollows at the sides of her head, where delicate blue veins pulsed. In a prim little voice, Astrid said, “So nice to see you again, Jamie.” Then she closed her eyes.
“She may be frisky, so be ready to bear down,” Jacobs told Jenny. Then: “All right, Jamie.”
I pushed the slide switch. Click . . . and click . . . and click . . . and click.
• • •
Nothing happened.
All an old man’s delusion, I thought. Whatever he might have done in the past, he can’t do it any long—
“Advance two more clicks, if you please.” His voice was dry and confident.
I did so. Still nothing. With Jenny’s hands on her shoulders, Astrid was more hunched over than ever. Her whistling respiration was painful to listen to.
“One more,” Jacobs said.
“Charlie, I’m almost at the end of the—”
“Did you not hear me? One more!”
I pushed the slide. There was another click, and this time the hum on the other side of the room was much louder, not mmmm but MMMOWWW. There was no flash of light that I saw (or that I remember, at least), but for a moment I was dazzled, anyway. It was as if a depth charge had gone off far down in my brain. I think Jenny Knowlton cried out. I dimly saw Astrid jerk in the wheelchair, a spasm so powerful that it flung Jenny—no lightweight—backward and almost off her feet. Astrid’s wasted legs shot out, relaxed, then shot out again. A security alarm began to bray.
Rudy came running into the room, closely followed by Norma.
“I told you to turn that blasted thing off before we started!” Jacobs shouted at Rudy.
Astrid pistoned her arms up, one right in front of Jenny’s face as she came back to put her hands on Astrid’s shoulders again.
“Sorry, Mr. Jacobs—”
“Shut it OFF, you idiot!”
Charlie snatched the control box out of my hands and slid the switch back to the off position. Now Astrid was making a series of gagging sounds.
“Pastor Danny, she’s choking!” Jenny cried.
“Don’t be stupid!” Jacobs snapped. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright. He looked twenty years younger. “Norma! Call the gate! Tell them the alarm was an accident!”
“Should I—”
“Go! Go! Goddammit, GO!”
She went.
Astrid’s eyes opened, only there were no eyes, just bulging whites. She gave another of those myoclonic jerks, then slid forward, legs kicking and jerking. Her arms flailed like those of a drowning swimmer. The alarm brayed and brayed. I grabbed her by the hips and shoved her back in her chair before she could land on the floor. The crotch of her slacks was dark, and I could smell strong urine. When I looked up, I saw foam drizzling from one side of her mouth. It fell from her chin to the collar of her blouse, darkening that, too.
The alarm quit.
“Thank God for small favors,” Jacobs said. He was bent forward, hands on his thighs, observing Astrid’s convulsions with interest but no concern.
“We need a doctor!” Jenny cried. “I can’t hold her!”
“Bosh,” Jacobs said. There was a half-smile—the only kind he could manage—on his face. “Did you expect it to be easy? It’s cancer, for God’s sake. Give her a minute and she’ll be—”
“There’s a door in the wall,” Astrid said.
The hoarseness had left her voice. Her eyes rolled back down in their sockets .