by Bryan Davis
As she pulled up the bottom hem, Gabriel called out, “Wait!”
Dr. Saunders lowered Sapphira’s shirt. “Ah! You’re awake!”
Gabriel sat up, holding a hand against his forehead. “I might be seeing stars, but I don’t want to risk seeing any other heavenly bodies.”
“Ladies,” Bonnie said with a smile, “we have a true gentleman among us.”
Sapphira pointed at a plastic basin near a lower pool. “There’s a sponge in that basin. Someone can take that and help Gabriel back to the tunnel.”
Bonnie stepped down the stony staircase, filled the basin with cooler water from an estuary pool, and she and Tamara supported Gabriel as they walked to the outer passage. After helping him sit with his wings spread comfortably behind him, Bonnie mopped the back of his head with the sponge. “There’s some blood here.”
“Yeah, I felt it. I don’t think it’s too bad.” Opening his eyes fully, he looked at Bonnie. “So … what happened to Shiloh?”
As she wrung out the sponge, Bonnie tightened her jaw. “They took her,” was all she could manage.
Gabriel’s wings fell limp. “I see.”
Bonnie swallowed down a painful lump. For some reason, Shiloh’s sacrifice brought feelings of shame. Why didn’t the real Bonnie stand and say, “I’m Bonnie”? But what choice did she have? Enoch had told her to stay hidden, to keep her wings secret. And now this very event might have been the one Enoch had planned for, to use Shiloh as a decoy to keep the real Bonnie safe.
But that didn’t help much. Poor Shiloh now sat in the clutches of a stranger who promised to take her to some unnamed person who obviously didn’t have her best interests in mind. What would he do if he discovered she wasn’t the real Bonnie? How long could Shiloh keep up the charade?
Again dabbing his head wound, Bonnie told Gabriel what happened during the moments he lay unconscious. Although the events themselves seemed to transpire in slow motion, unfolding in the span of several minutes when they occurred, retelling them took far less time.
“So,” she said, wringing out the sponge again, “we’re waiting on word from Rebekah, and those guys might come back to find out what happened to Nolan.”
“I don’t think they’re worried about retrieving a hack like him, but if they figure out Shiloh’s not who she says she is …”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Then we need to set a trap,” Gabriel said, “something that’ll keep them from ever returning.”
“Like what?”
“We’ll ask Sapphira.” Gabriel leaned on one hand and reached for Bonnie with the other. “In the meantime, help me up. I want to go outside and see if I can help Rebekah.”
Bonnie shook her head. “No way. You might have a concussion. I’m sure Rebekah can handle it. She seems like a ball of fire.”
“Did someone mention my name?”
Bonnie turned toward the voice. As lantern light grew closer, the silhouettes of two females took shape, and their faces clarified. “Keep going, Bonnie,” Rebekah said, smiling. “I was enjoying your conversation.”
“It’s nothing I wouldn’t say to your face. You’re a real go-getter.” Bonnie raised her eyebrows. “So what did you find out?”
Rebekah gestured toward the escape tunnel. “I saw two helicopters taking off. One looked empty except for the pilot, and Vlad sat in the front passenger seat of the other one. I thought I saw Shiloh in the back, but I wasn’t sure. There were two dead guys on the ground, pretty much mangled, like a wild beast had torn into them. I guess Yereq did that before he left. I saw a lot of blood, but no sign of anyone else.”
“So Yereq must have taken the Foleys somewhere to get help,” Bonnie said. “And he tried to block the tunnel before he left.”
“And we finished the job.” Dallas pointed at herself with her thumb. “Dorian and Elise are still back there sweeping up bones.”
“So we’re trapped?” Bonnie asked.
Gabriel managed a pain-streaked smile. “If Rebekah is as smart as I think she is, she made sure we have a way out.”
Rebekah grinned at Dallas. “What did I tell you?”
Dallas rolled her eyes. “You were right, as usual.”
“So you did?” Bonnie said. “How?”
“Oh, you’ll see soon enough.” Rebekah stooped next to Bonnie. “So how’s the hero?”
Gabriel ran a hand through his hair. “Singed a few follicles and put a new dent in my head, but with all these brilliant ladies taking care of me, I’ll be as good as new in no time.”
“And Sapphira?” Dallas asked.
“I think the doctor wanted to do surgery, but I’m not sure how she can. We have a razor blade, and I’m sure Sapphira can sterilize it, but without anesthesia …”
A shrill cry sounded from the springs, followed by a muffled moan. A pain-filled lament filled the tunnel, its echo repeating several times before it faded away.
Tears flooded Bonnie’s eyes. With Shiloh in trouble, Gabriel hurt, Yereq missing, and Sapphira suffering through surgery, everything seemed to be going wrong all at once.
She looked around at her three companions, each face darkened by worry and the dimness of the tunnel. In many ways, this place felt like the candlestone, a dark prison that forced its captives to wait for outside help while trusting in friends in higher places.
She took Gabriel’s hand, barely able to speak. “Will you sing a prayer with me?”
“You bet.” Gabriel slid back against a wall and rested his head. “What song?”
“The one you taught me when I was six years old, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Gabriel let out a long sigh. “I’ve sung it a hundred times since then, especially while you were in the candlestone.”
“I was just thinking about that place. How did you know I was in there?”
Gabriel caressed her hand. “I saw you. I was with you.”
“You were? If you were light energy, why didn’t I see you? I could see everyone else in there.”
“You didn’t see me? I surrounded you when you first got there, when Devin tried to grab you.”
“You were the cage of light?”
He nodded. “Apparently, God allowed me to become visible when you needed me most.”
“Like in the bedroom when I was six.” Bonnie again imagined that day long ago when Gabriel first appeared to her. She had been devastated by her father’s cruel remarks about her wings, and Gabriel comforted her with a song.
“Right,” Gabriel said. “And when Palin was ready to cut you open on your thirteenth birthday. My energy field somehow lit up a poster of a guardian angel, and the glow let Palin see you. I think when he figured out that you were a girl, he couldn’t kill you. So he just left. I guess he never told Devin.”
“That’s amazing! I didn’t even know that happened!”
Gabriel smiled. “I wish I could tell you all the ways God protected you. Maybe now that we’ll be together for a while, I can. But I think when you were six, that was the most special time.”
“Me, too. The prayer has stayed in my mind ever since.” Now on her knees, Bonnie gave him a hug and kissed his cheek. “I don’t think I could’ve made it without you, but …”
“But what?”
“I feel so ashamed. When you never became visible again, I kind of forgot about you. I started wondering if you were just in my imagination, you know, the hopeful dream of a six-year-old. Then, when I turned thirteen, I saw Sapphira. She told me you were there, so that’s when I started hoping again, hoping I really had a guardian angel, but I never told anyone, not even Billy. I wasn’t sure anyone would believe me.”
A tear dripped down Gabriel’s cheek. He looked at her for a moment, his chin trembling. “I think—”
Another shriek sounded from the springs chamber, long and sharp, then a series of halting wails.
Bonnie covered her mouth and breathed her words through her fingers. “Poor Sapphira!”
Gabriel s
traightened. “We’d better start singing.” He looked up at Rebekah and Dallas. “Care to join us?”
Both ladies sat on the floor, cross-legged. “If we don’t know the words,” Rebekah said, “we’ll hum along.”
Bonnie settled beside Gabriel and clutched his hand tightly. Everything seemed so dark, so hopeless. When she was in the candlestone, her song always made her own body brighter and created a shield that protected her from Devin. Now it felt like she needed a shield more than ever, and a cascading waterfall of light to chase away the shadows.
Taking a deep breath, she began singing, and Gabriel joined in on the second word.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:
If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;
even the night shall be light about me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;
but the night shineth as the day:
The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
Exhaling heavily, Bonnie looked at each of her fellow singers in turn. All eyes glistened. In each face, sadness blended with hope. Despair had fled away.
Still holding Gabriel’s hand, Bonnie loosened her grip. They had done all they could do here. It was time to add action to their prayers.
She stood and helped Gabriel to his feet. “Let’s set that trap we talked about,” she said. “I’m ready to catch a few kidnappers.”
Chapter 4
The Healer
Billy slid down Hartanna’s flank and landed flat-footed on the grass. “Thanks for the ride!” he said as he adjusted his scabbard belt.
With Pegasus now high overhead, Hartanna’s features were clear in the bright moonlight. “Please bring back a report as soon as possible. Walter is very dear to all of us.”
“Don’t worry. I will.” Billy sprinted toward the village as fast as his mail, cloak, and scabbard would allow. Since they had landed in the field near the birthing garden instead of the dragon landing area, he would enter the village from the north, nearer Abraham’s former home. Since Elam didn’t want to assume too much, he had declined the villagers’ offer to have him live there, choosing a less prestigious hut instead. It lay vacant because of the deaths of the couple who once lived there, both victims of the rampage by Goliath and the Nephilim when they entered Second Eden a month ago.
The villagers later converted Abraham’s house into a triage station for wounded soldiers. With the firewall keeping their main enemies at bay, only a few troops had need of it, those who had suffered minor injuries from skirmishes with the Vacants who had ventured too close to the villages.
When Billy arrived at the triage hut, he paused next to one of two dragons painted on either side of the door. Now warm from his run, he shed his cloak, tucked it under his arm, and pushed the door open.
Inside, Walter lay on a raised cot near the back, well away from the cold draft breezing in from the street. Ashley and Steadfast stood on either side, Ashley with her back to the door and both leaning over Walter’s body. Neither one looked up to see who had come in.
After easing the door closed, Billy walked closer. “How is he?”
“If you have an extra hand,” Ashley shouted, “get it over here now!”
He dropped his cloak and ran across the floor, dodging a row of cots as he loosened his scabbard belt and let it fall. With a hop over the last cot, he joined Ashley. She and Steadfast had both hands inside a gash in Walter’s chest.
Ashley spat out her words. “Alcohol on the table! Douse your hands and come back!”
On a table near the wall, Billy found a glass bottle, poured a splash into his palm, and washed. “Okay!” he called, leaping back. “What now?”
Keeping her fingers in place, Ashley pulled aside Walter’s skin with the heel of her hand. Blood flowed freely and dripped down Walter’s ribcage. “See what I’m holding?”
Billy peered inside. “A vein?”
“An artery. Grab it.”
Praying for a strong stomach, Billy reached in and pinched the wet artery. “Like this?”
“Perfect.” Ashley let go and dashed to the table. Blood spewed from her other hand’s release point, spraying Billy’s shirt. Two seconds later, she jumped back with a needle attached to a long strand of thin black thread. “Okay, just keep holding it until I say so.”
Billy bit his lip hard. So much blood! And the wound looked awful. But it didn’t matter. Duty called.
Ashley poked the needle into Walter’s artery and began stitching around it. Apparently the Vacant’s spear had sliced through it, and now she had to splice the loose ends together. As she worked, the delicate artery seemed to line up and seal itself effortlessly, as if the combination of her stitching and her healing touch cauterized the vessel.
Ashley looked up at Steadfast. “Doing okay over there?”
“Yes.” A bead of sweat trickled from Steadfast’s forehead down to his clean-shaven cheek. “These veins are not leaking badly. I am able to hold them until you are finished there.”
“Good. I’ll just be another minute.” Ashley blew hair out of her eyes. “I hope it works. I helped stitch up Valiant, but it was nothing like this. And every stitch seems to wear me out.”
After another minute or so, she tied the thread and cut it with a small knife. “Okay, Billy. Take a breather and wash up.” She gestured toward the door. “You’ll find a pitcher pump out back.”
Billy pulled his hands from Walter’s warm body. Out in the fresh air and free from the viselike hold, his fingers, now dripping blood, felt cold and cramped. He paused, staring at Walter’s nearly motionless body. Nausea churned. A blanket of heaviness weighed down his shoulders. What would happen? After all the dangers they had faced, would a stupid monster from another world bring Walter’s life to an end?
“Billy!”
Ashley’s sharp voice shook him out of his daydream.
“What?”
“Get washed up,” she said, her tone now calm. “I’ll need your clean hands again in just a minute.”
Billy ran to the door, pushed the latch button with his wrist, and forced the door open with his foot. With the great moon still bright, and lanterns lining the street, finding the pump in the back proved to be no problem. After scrubbing his hands and then his face, he hurried back, finding Ashley tying off another stitching job.
He showed her his hands. “What now?”
Ashley nodded toward the table again. “See the little bottle, the brown one?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Put one drop of that stuff on your finger and smear it under Walter’s tongue.”
Billy stepped over to the table and pulled a cork from the tiny bottle, no bigger than an eye dropper bottle. “What is it?”
Steadfast, two fingers still in Walter’s wound, looked his way. “An elixir Angel created. It discourages blood loss.”
“Probably some kind of clotting enhancer,” Ashley said. “We have to do something more to stop the bleeding than this patch-work job I’m doing.”
Billy let a drop leak onto the tip of his index finger. Pressing Walter’s cheeks together with one hand, he pushed the medicated finger into the opening and rubbed the tip under Walter’s tongue.
Walter jerked his head and bit down lightly on Billy’s finger before settling down. Billy withdrew his finger and shook out the pain. “Done.”
“Thank you.” Ashley snipped a thread and reached for a bloodstained rag. “Steadfast will close the incision. I have to check his pressure.”
She picked up a makeshift blood pressure cuff from the supply table. As she wrapped Walter’s arm with the sleeve�
��a bladder, of sorts, constructed from rabbit gut—she looked at Billy. “When your father brought Walter here, we weren’t sure how badly he was hurt. He was conscious, but when his blood pressure kept dropping, we knew he must have had internal bleeding. Then he conked out, and we knew we had to go in.”
She pumped up the sleeve with a bulb, also made from some kind of animal gut. “He stayed kind of delirious. He kept trying to get up and charge back into battle, so Steadfast knocked him out with another one of Angel’s home brews.”
Releasing the air, Ashley watched a needle move across a bleached leaf painted with hand-numbered pressure readings. “I didn’t have time to look for my stethoscope, but with my sensory gifts, I can feel the pulse changes.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then unwrapped the sleeve. “Eighty-five over fifty. We might need some blood.”
Billy rolled up his sleeve. “I’m O positive.”
“Same here, but I don’t know what Walter is. Steadfast says Angel had a way of knowing who was compatible with whom, but it’s based on matching their companions somehow. Since that won’t work with Walter, we’ll stick with what we know. O is a universal donor, but if Walter’s a negative, our RH factor could be a big problem.”
Billy looked again at Steadfast, now stitching Walter’s skin closed. After Angel went up in flames with Abraham, the poor guy was called into service as a surgeon after being little more than a medical orderly. Still, he knew enough to help, and between him and his Eve, Pearl, they worked nonstop.
“So, we’ll chance the RH factor if we have to,” Billy said. “I mean, giving him our blood beats bleeding to death.”
“Right.” Her hands red, Ashley brushed her tangled hair back with her forearm. Dressed in blood-dappled white T-shirt and a pair of jeans that were obviously slept-in, she looked exhausted from head to toe. “Steadfast is really good at stitching. I think the process drains my healing power, so it’s best to let him take over on the less-critical ones.”
Billy looked past Ashley. Steadfast, a thirtysomething male, just like all the other patriarchs in the village, meticulously worked the needle and thread. A nearly transparent egg floated close to his ear, its barely visible eyes looking on and wobbling, as if nodding approval at Steadfast’s work. At the other end of the thread, Walter’s skin lifted, still bloodstained, as two flaps joined tightly together. His chest raised and lowered in time with his breaths, shallow and gurgling.
