Jimmy kissed Grace’s forehead and crept from the room. He hated leaving her, hoped she wouldn’t awaken, that she might not even know that he was gone, but he needed answers.
He gathered some discarded clothing from a locker, fumbling with the scrubs and lab coat until fingers remembered the once familiar routine of tying and buttoning. A pair of green clogs, still wrapped in surgical booties speckled with old blood, provided protection for his feet. Now properly disguised and attired, he returned to the helipad.
“Bravo, bravo. Well done, Jimmy.” Brother Leo stood on the parapet that guarded the empty space between the Annex roof and the Skyway. He clapped his hands and with a whoosh of what sounded like wings, leapt down to land in front of Jimmy. No easy feat given that the door where Jimmy stood was a good fifteen feet from the parapet.
“I’m proud of you, me boy,” he continued in a fake brogue that made Jimmy gag. All the more so because he knew that this man, of all men, could assume the genuine thing any time he desired.
He meant to mock Jimmy, goad him. The Jesuit seemed incapable of standing still, pacing the roof in long strides. He appeared as an ordinary man, wore faded black jeans, a dark cotton shirt, black leather loafers. Ordinary until you gazed into his eyes, dark pools of night that seemed to have no bottom, that threatened to swallow you whole if you dared stare too long.
“Many before you have begun this journey,” Leo said. “But you’re one of the few who has actually made it this far.” He nodded his head at Jimmy’s very solid form. “Unfortunately their track record has been, shall we say, mixed at best. It’s overwhelming for most, the temptations of the flesh, the intoxifying scent of life. Sure you’re up to it? Hate to see you lose everything—and in doing so, condemn Grace as well.”
Jimmy straightened, tried to pin him to one spot with a glare. “I need to know everything. Why I’m here, what I’m to do, what Grace needs. I need answers. Now.”
The priest’s chuckle rang merrily through the night, echoing from the glass panes of the Skyway, battering at Jimmy from all sides. “My dear boy, you know me better than that. I’m not in the business of giving anyone answers, merely teaching you how to find the right questions to ask.”
“I’ve done what you asked. I kept her here. Now tell me why.”
“Your job is only half done. You need to stop her from going into the darkness.” Leo stopped his frenetic pacing and spun to stare at the Tower standing beyond the void crossed by the Skyway. “And help her make the right choice—even if it means giving her up.”
Jimmy didn’t like the sound of that. He’d come too damn far to give Grace up ever again. “I’m human now. At least for a day. Tell me what needs to be done. I’ll do it. Leave Grace out of it, she’s suffered enough.”
Brother Leo was silent for a moment, his attention consumed by the Tower. He shook himself then turned back to Jimmy. “No can do. There are rules, you know.”
“Rules? But can’t you talk to Him, them—”
“Who? God the Almighty, Shiva, Buddha, Creator of Heaven and Earth—take your pick, there are many names, an infinite number of faces, and they’re all wrong. Nothing is all powerful. There are merely powers. Some strive to maintain balance, some feed off chaos.”
“You mean angels and demons. And which are you?”
“For a self-proclaimed agnostic, you sure take these labels seriously. Me? Call me an independent contractor.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I have a goal, a destiny to fulfill. I’m not content to merely inspire and watch from the sidelines but I’ve not succumbed to the temptation to join the frenzy either. It means that I’m a lot like you, my boy. I also have someone to save.”
Jimmy’s teeth ground together as his fists clenched tight. It took all his will power not to strike out against the man—more than man—before him.
He was getting damned tired of this nonsense. All he knew was that he needed, he wanted, he had to protect Grace. Even if it meant sacrificing himself. Hell, he’d already died once and lived to tell the tale. “If you’re not a god or even an angel, then what’s to stop me from wringing your scrawny neck?”
More laughter. “Nothing, of course. That’s the beauty of it all. Free will. Everything hinges on it, darkness and light, order and chaos, the past and the future. If only I’d known that when I was a man. We wouldn’t have been having this conversation, none of this would have been necessary—” He trailed off, staring over the abyss separating the Annex from the Tower as if he’d surprised himself with his revelation. “If only…but what’s done is done. All I can do now is remove the temptation, eliminate the need to make the choice.”
“Temptation? You mean like God and the Devil playing with Adam and Eve and Job and such?”
Leo slowly nodded and turned back to Jimmy. Jimmy had the feeling Leo was finishing a conversation with himself and had only just remembered Jimmy was there. “I didn’t say that there is a God. A scholar such as yourself should know better than to jump to conclusions.”
“You’re really starting to piss me off. Maybe I’ll just take a stroll over there,” he nodded to the Skyway and the Tower beyond, “and see what they have to offer. Maybe they’ll give me answers, help me save Grace.”
“Others before you have made that choice. You know your Milton, don’t you?”
Jimmy frowned. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. Are you saying that’s the Devil over there, that you’re sending Grace up against Lucifer? Like Hell you are, not if I’ve a breath left in my body to stop you.”
Brother Leo swiveled his head, his mane of silver hair shimmering in the dim moonlight, and stared at Jimmy. “I do believe you’re serious.” He chuckled once more. “In all the millennia I’ve traveled to, that’s the one thing that never changes. Humans, so unpredictable—yet always so dreadfully serious, certain that you’re the center of the universe. Of course,” he continued, talking to himself, “in this instance you are. My, oh my.” He rubbed his hands together as if anticipating some enjoyment. “This time, it just might work.”
“I’ve had enough of your bullshit,” Jimmy said, turning on his heel and stalking back to the door.
“Wait, you’ve missed my point.”
Jimmy stopped, looked over his shoulder at the Jesuit. “Which is?”
“That Milton had it wrong. To reign in Hell implies that both there is such a place and that it is ruled by a sense of order. Neither is true. If you cross the Skyway, leave my sphere of influence to enter the darkness, that’s exactly what you’ll find. Darkness, nothingness, the ultimate void. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, that’s the closest thing to the truth of Hell. Chaos, disintegration, you’d be rendered into atoms, your atoms shredded into flotsam of even smaller particles, all cast randomly to all corners of the universe. That’s what we’re fighting against.”
“Nothing? We’re fighting nothing?”
“The ultimate force of destruction, the darkness that swallows all light, the force that someday will destroy the universe. Chaos, entropy, anarchy. Call it what you will, it’s a fight that began with the dawn of time and that we’re doomed to lose.”
Brother Leo’s face grew clouded, then suddenly brightened as he grinned, revealing gleaming white, perfect teeth. “But not today. And not tomorrow. We’re mere foot soldiers, my boy, fighting small skirmishes. Every battle is important in a war that encompasses eternity. And this battle has special significance to me. We need to stop a future and we don’t have much time.”
Jimmy felt his head begin to pound as he struggled to follow the Jesuit’s reasoning. “Stop the future?”
“Stop a future,” Leo corrected. “One man’s future. And your Grace is the key. She can save the world.”
Jimmy turned his gaze upon the Tower. Something about the modern edifice of steel and glass felt wrong, as if it were off-center, skewed just enough to make Jimmy’s head spin and his stomach roil with nausea. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath.
“Why do you believe I sent you back to her, Jimmy?” Brother Leo said.
Jimmy opened his eyes, focused on the Jesuit instead of the Tower swimming in his peripheral vision. “To help her. To keep her from killing herself, losing her soul by committing a mortal sin.”
Brother Leo tilted his head and arched an eyebrow. “This isn’t catechism. You don’t have to tell me what you think I want to hear. To help her is why I told you I sent you. Now tell me why you think I sent you.”
Jimmy blew his breath out in frustration. Nothing like a duel of wits with a representative of the Almighty Himself to make a man realize how small he was in the grand scheme of things.
“Because something’s coming, something big and bad. So awful that the life of one puny mortal woman doesn’t matter in comparison.” He didn’t bother to hide the bitter impotency he felt.
“And you’d be right—on both counts.”
“So you’re just using her—and me, is that it? That’s what all your fine preaching and proselytizing and philosophizing come down to: if you’re human and you’ve the misfortune to be in a time and place where God—or whatever the hell you call Him—can use you, then you’re screwed?” He practically spat the words out. “Screw you and the whole damn universe! You can just go bugger yourself!”
Brother Leo’s laughter cleaved the night, accompanied by a howl of wind and bolt of lightning. “Joan d’Arc said the same thing to me as I led her to the stake and lit the fire. It sounded a lot nicer in French.”
“Bloody hell. What’s the use?” Jimmy said, smacking one useless fist into his other palm. What the hell was the good of being human again if he was helpless to save Grace?
“I like you Jimmy, I really do. And Grace, too. Do you remember what I told you and Grace on the day I married you?”
The words sang through Jimmy’s mind with crystal clarity but he resisted. “If I’d known who you were then, I would have eloped, taken Grace, and skived off to Tahiti.”
“I’m sure you would have. Free will, remember?”
Jimmy paused, staring past Leo into the abyss that the glass Skyway crossed. If Leo would just shut up for a minute, maybe this buzz of confusion in his brain would stop.
“You sent Grace to Maeve’s tomb. You planned for us to meet, to fall in love.” He went rigid, took a step towards the priest. “Did you plan what happened next? Did you know what Lukas Redding was going to do to her?”
His hands were reaching for the older man’s throat before he could blink twice. Leo put up no resistance, merely arched an eyebrow as if disappointed in Jimmy. Sparks of blue-white energy crackled between the Jesuit’s flesh and Jimmy’s palms, igniting a blaze of pain that forced Jimmy back.
“I’m the one who tried to stop you from returning home,” Leo said, his voice infuriatingly calm. “Remember? Just as I tried for years to dissuade Grace from medicine or from practicing here. I tried so hard to prevent her path from crossing Lukas Redding’s.” He shrugged. “Free will.”
Jimmy lowered his hands, opening and closing his fists in frustration.
“Why do you think I led you to Maeve’s treasure?” Leo asked. “I gave the two of you a chance to save the world.”
Jimmy rubbed his finger along his forehead, trying to quiet the insistent hum setting his teeth on edge. It was as if he’d gotten too close to a high voltage wire. As if Leo were a being of pure energy—yet, he was also solid. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “But you still let us come back here. Even knowing—”
“Free will.” Jimmy was beginning to hate those two words. But finally Leo’s voice held a hint of regret. “I did everything in my power to prevent Grace and Lukas from meeting, then to keep the pair of you safe. Why do you think I traveled thousands of years through time? I knew this day was coming.”
“I don’t understand. Lukas already—” he faltered. “He’s already done what’s done. How are you going to change it now?”
“I can’t. But with your help, Grace can prevent a greater evil.” Leo nodded to the Tower looming over them, casting its shadow on them. “Finally, this time, I can stop it.”
Jimmy frowned, still confused. And irritated because he knew that Leo meant him to be. “Somehow this new evil, here in the present, has its roots back three thousand years ago with Maeve?”
“I saved the Kallisteans so that Maeve could use their treasure to save her people.”
“She did.”
“No. She saved a few. Saved one wretched island. If she’d listened to me, she could have raised an army, swept through a continent. Then there would have been no Roman Empire—all of Europe would have been under Celtic rule. And with no Romans, a thousand years later there would have been no crucifixion.”
“You’re mad. Insane. What could be so evil that you try to alter the entire history of civilization to stop it?”
“Just a man. One weak, simple man. He’s alive right now, on his way here.” Leo’s laugh was bitter. “But we can still stop him. You’ve said yourself that Christianity has led to the deaths of more people than any other force in human history. So who’s to call it civilization? If Maeve had heeded me instead of tending to her own tattered flock, who knows how the world would have changed.”
“Not you. Yet you were willing to take the gamble with all of history to pay if you were wrong.”
Leo’s grin was ghastly white in the darkness. “Yes, I was. Does that frighten you? It should.”
“How can you masquerade as a man of God?”
“It’s easy once you realize there is no God. What do you say, Jimmy? Want to join me in changing the future?”
Jimmy looked up at that. “Me? Can I do this for Grace? Save her the pain?”
“I wish I knew. I’m not even sure if you’ll have the chance to help her. The choice is solely up to her.”
“Back to that free will crap again? What the bloody hell good is all this power you speak of if it all boils down to one poor, sick, tired woman’s choice? How can you put that on her? It’s not fair, damn it!”
“Fair’s not a part of the bargain. But free will—without that, the entire enterprise would spin off into oblivion like a snake eating its own tail.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re not meant to. Does she love you, Jimmy?”
Jimmy looked up at that, effortlessly met Leo’s dark, penetrating gaze. “You know she does.”
“So she has courage. Has she the strength to hope?”
Jimmy hesitated, thinking of Grace’s words to him earlier. “That’s the only thing that’s kept her alive these past four years.”
“And do you love her enough to let her go? To allow her to live, to love again—with another man?”
Wicked fingers of fear reached in and chilled Jimmy’s gut. The stars overhead seemed to grow distance and dim and he thought for a moment he might fall back into the void he’d been released from. He thought of Grace, of her pain, of how it had almost devoured her.
He nodded to the priest, swallowed hard and found his voice. “Yes. If it means her life, yes, I could.”
Leo’s smile was as wide as a Cheshire’s cat’s. “Good. Then maybe there’s a chance. For both of you.”
The howl of a madman ripped through the night, mocking his words. Lights began to flash in the Tower, silhouetting Leo in a blaze of color.
Jimmy looked past Leo to the Tower and the chaos storming the halls of the ECU. A shudder raced through him and he crossed his arms, straining to get warm.
“So it’s begun,” Brother Leo said in a terrifyingly calm voice. “You’d best get to work, Jimmy. Time’s a’wasting.”
“All I have to do is keep Grace from crossing over to the Tower?” Jimmy considered that. Given the pleasant way his first few hours back on earth had passed, that shouldn’t be too difficult.
Then he spotted movement on the Skyway. He whirled as a woman’s figure ran past, a dark silhouette viewed through the glass that was so close yet a lifetime away.
Jimmy bolted to the parapet, shouting her name, waving his arms in a vain attempt to get her attention, to stop her.
“Grace! No!” He teetered on the edge of the low wall, precariously close to falling into the dark chasm separating the Skyway from the helipad. Brother Leo’s strong fingers dug into his arm, hauling him back to safety.
“Watch your step there, boyo.”
Jimmy spun around to face the priest. “What the hell are we meant to do now? We have to stop her, you have to get her back.”
“The fates have spoken,” Brother Leo said with a grim smile and a one-shouldered shrug that made Jimmy want to slap some sense into him.
“Like hell they have. I’m not losing her—not again.”
Leo clucked his tongue in reprimand. “Free will. She was never yours to begin with. Never lose sight of that, old man.”
Jimmy advanced on the monk, fists raised, ready to do some serious damage. Leo raised a hand and Jimmy found himself frozen in place, unable to even breathe. His heart, that wonderful machine whose thrumping had so entranced him since his return, he felt it stutter, then lurch to a stop.
He was dead, or hovering on the brink of death. Held back only by Leo’s power.
“If you hurry, you might still be able to save the boy. And through him, find a second chance to save Grace. You must keep her with the boy.”
For a brief moment Jimmy’s vision reddened with fury. Used, abused—he was a pawn in a game that he did not understand. Powerless.
His chest began to constrict as the need for oxygen became urgent. Leo waved his hand once more and Jimmy stumbled forward, gasping for air, his heart pounding.
“The best you can do for Grace is to save the boy,” Leo repeated.
The door to the Annex flew open as a gust of wind whipped around the Jesuit, blurring his form and blinding Jimmy’s vision. Jimmy blinked and he was alone on the rooftop.
He stared for a long moment at the now brightly lit Tower. Shadowy figures were silhouetted, racing along the ECU’s corridors in a frenzy. One of them was Grace, he was certain.
He squeezed his eyes shut, praying as he had never prayed before in this life or the one previous. Please God—if there is a God—protect and keep her safe. Please.
He turned and ran through the Annex door, pounding down the steps to the pediatric unit.
<><><>
Grace had no code beeper, but old habits died hard. She’d jolted awake immediately when the operator announced the Code. Grabbed her clothes and raced from the Annex when she heard the room number, not even taking time to wonder where Jimmy had vanished to or to close the door behind her.
Who cared if she was discovered? It was Kat in trouble.
Procedures and protocols as familiar as a catechism ran through her mind. It had been four years but there were some things you just never forgot.
Like how to save a life.
When she reached Kat’s room, nurses were milling around, one sliding a board under the girl’s seizing body, another holding oxygen near her blue tinged face. A third was pushing a crash cart in from the hallway, his face red with the effort.
“How long’s she been seizing?” Grace took control of the situation and no one questioned her presence or her authority. She moved to the head of the bed, replacing the oxygen mask with a bag, carefully forcing oxygen into Kat’s lungs.
“Seventeen minutes. Valium given per protocol but no response.”
“Give me eight hundred of fosphenytoin and draw up five hundred milligrams of Phenobarb.” More people began to fill the room and Grace handed over control of Kat’s airway to a respiratory therapist. She pushed the anticonvulsant medication into the IV line in Kat’s forearm. Nothing more to do now except wait for the drugs to take effect. She stroked Kat’s shoulder as the girl’s body continued to buck and strain.
Then after several minutes that seemed like an eternity, the seizure slowed. Grace yanked a stethoscope from a hovering resident and listened. Kat was breathing normally again. “Get me a set of vitals, start her on one hundred percent oxygen by mask.”
The crowd slowly dissipated, most of the residents and medical students disappointed by the anticlimactic resuscitation. No chance to perform any invasive procedures or even to practice an intubation. They grumbled over the missed sleep Kat had stolen from them and yawned their way back to their call rooms.
“Who the hell are you?” a woman asked from the doorway as Grace felt Kat’s pulse.
Grace looked up, giving Kat’s hand a reassuring squeeze. The woman marched into the room as if she owned it, tall and regal, her blonde hair so pale it seemed almost transparent in the harsh gleam of the fluorescent lights.
“Dr. D’Angelo,” Grace told her. She didn’t like this woman. Something about her brought forth the memory of the panic attack she’d experienced yesterday when she was trapped inside the revolving doors. Her mouth filled with the taste of copper salts and burnt flesh.
She wasn’t leaving Kat here, not alone with this woman. Eve Warden. The Witch.
Warden flicked a penlight over Kat’s pupils, quickly assessed her patient’s reflexes and respiratory status before looking up at Grace once more. Her eyes were the color of steel—flat, without depth. Hard as steel, too, Grace thought, but she met the woman’s gaze without flinching.
“I’m Dr. Eve Warden, head of the ECU, and this girl is my patient.” The woman dismissed Grace with an impervious wave of her hand. Then her eyes narrowed and cut back to Grace, focusing on her face.
Grace had the sudden feeling that this woman knew who she was. The urge to run was overwhelming. She tightened her grip on Kat’s hand, more for her own protection than the girl’s.
Warden’s gaze took in Grace’s scrubs. Where was the hospital ID, the paraphernalia of a doctor on duty, the questions burned through Warden’s expressionless gaze. Then Warden arched an eyebrow, focusing on the bright row of staples along Grace’s left temple. And she smiled.
Kat was all right now, Grace told herself as she released her grip on the now sleeping girl. She despised the wave of fear that knotted her stomach but she couldn’t stay here, not with this woman.
Before she could turn tail and flee, Warden reached out a hand, taking Grace’s. Grace gave a tiny whimper, shaming herself with her cowardice, and tried to pull away.
Panic now gripped her, the buzzing wasps joined by darts of fire that raced from Warden’s grip to consume Grace, paralyzing her.
“It’s Grace, isn’t it? Grace Moran?” Warden asked, her eyes of liquid steel plunging into Grace’s soul like daggers.
The blood fled from Grace’s face, replaced by icy fingers that burnt and choked, stopping her breath before air could reach her lungs, mingling with the terrific roar of wasps and the jolts of fiery pain that seared her limbs. Her chest was being crushed from inside and without as a red haze filled her vision.
No need to wait for the tumor to do its job. The mere touch of this woman, the sound of her voice, and Grace was about to die.