When Your Light Goes Dark

Chapter Four : Hang Your Head

"A Hopeless?" Father Donnelly's crackling shock sounded genuine enough. "That was supposed to be a cataloged poltergeist, like all the other sessions!"

"What was the number?" Micah asked. He kept walking, holding Wyatt's limp frame steady. He shoved his way through the double doors at the back of the warehouse. The sun still beat down with oppressive brightness, and the heat didn't help his mood at all. It never did. No matter how many times he crossed this courtyard, it was always with his vision narrowed to slits. He barely noticed any of the expansive grounds that belied the size of their hidey-hole deep in the Vatican. To Micah, the intricately trimmed topiaries and tasteful seasonal flowerbeds were all just shrubs and weeds, wilting in the sun.

"Ah, let me check the ledger." A pause. "M-0600-72FA."

That letter A at the end... "An acolyte?" Micah blinked. "What? Why?"

"Somethings are best left to the annals of history, my son," the Father said gravely. "Tell me: what was this Hopeless like?"

"It was dark, somewhere around a neg-three," Micah recounted. He turned right under the portico, and confirmed with the sign on the wall that he was heading the right direction for the infirmary. Wyatt was a stone weight on his shoulders. Each step was beginning to feel like slogging through the pavement, instead of atop it.

He turned sideways to open the door to that corridor with his hip. "It responded well to a Form Six," he said into the phone. "I got it back up to zilcho, and it was ready to take the deal. Whoever put it in there must have known it wouldn't put up much of a fight."

"Hmm," Father Donnelly rumbled. "We'll have to check with the placement team, and make sure to speak with the boy when he wakes up."

Micah clomped down the hallway to the infirmary doorway, which was dark. He tried the knob. Locked.

He rattled it for good measure.

"Damn place is closed!" he exclaimed.

"Language, my son," Father Donnelly chided.

"Sorry, Father," Micah said, taking a step back and looking over the entrance. By the hours, they should be open right now. His stomach plummeted. Was it all an elaborate plot?

"Do you have any idea why the infirmary isn't open?" he asked the Father.

"Sorry, sorry!" trilled an older-sounding female voice from his left.

Micah turned to see a matron bustling down the hall toward him. "I have to go," he said into the phone. "Look into it, will you?"

He hung up on Father Donnelly's reply.

The nun grinned at him, jangling her keys. "I leave for fifteen minutes to eat my lunch and somebody's hurt themselves. Story of my life!" Unlocking the door, she flung it open, and snapped on the lights. "Put him in Room One, please. I'll be right with you."

Micah laid Wyatt's straining frame down on the cot as gently as he could. The young priest was still suffering through the aftermath of the attack,twitching and mumbling to himself. Micah kept a hand on him just in case he twitched himself right toward the floor. His mind was racing.Who would want to do such a thing? Why? Was it an attack against their Order, or against him personally? Or against Wyatt?

If the person knew who was going to be in the training course, it would make perfect sense that they'd also know of Micah's abilities. After all, the ghast was perfectly leveled to achieve this exact result. Micah had been tried, but he had come out on top, and with proper treatment Wyatt should be fine. Micah didn't know him very well, but he'd already seen the man's inner strength. How stubborn he could be. With proper training and a few more close calls, he could be a candidate for the tattoos.