Suddenly Griffin knew why she hadn’t spoken of this before. It wasn’t just about Lev and Elizabeth. It was about what could happen to them, too, as a couple--how the tide might shift and destroy them, and she was trying desperately to warn him in the only way she could.
“So why did I not see anything?” he asked, the memories of the past few hours slowly coming back.
“Because you don’t know what you are looking for. Why should you be able to see human souls in their purest form? There is no reason for that.” She stood and headed to the front window to look out into the night. Moonlight cascaded down, yet she hardly seemed calmed by it. Really, it only seemed to add to her agitation.
“All right. I guess I can see that. But if they are human souls, why did they attack us? That makes no sense.”
“It does if you want a body to control once again.” She hung her head and stayed there, lost in thought.
“What?”
“Many of the dybbuks only want one thing—to find a body and return in the only way they can, back to the land of the living and to interact with those left behind. Sometimes all they want is a chance to say goodbye. Sometimes, it’s far more than that.”
Griffin rubbed the back of his neck. “And what would have happened if one of them had managed to get inside me?”
“You would have been like a tourist going on a vacation you never meant to take.” She slowly shifted so their eyes met. “You’d be seeing lots of things, doing lots of things, but nothing would be in your control.”
“That really doesn’t sound so great.” He slowly stood and folded his arms across his chest. “So why do I feel like this, as though my body is all bruised inside?” He stretched slightly, trying not to let the pain he felt show on his face. “It’s like I’ve been in a wreck or something.”
She made her way to him. “In a manner of speaking, you were. At least two different spirits fought over you, which means you were really lucky there’s not enough room in humans for multiple souls, and three is usually enough to destroy the body.”
Stepping up to him, she settled her hand on his chest. At first, he flinched, but she offered a smile. “Easy—I’m just trying to help, and your soul is safe with me.”
“Yeah, I knew that,” he said, trying not to tense up. “It’s just after the attack, I’m a little unsettled.”
She nodded, the only way to let him know she understood what he felt. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
Her face was inches from his, and he couldn’t break away from the blue of her eyes.
“Because when I help you get that pain under control, there’s going to be another flash of bright light. Because the pain is caused by something supernatural, the healing is going to cause that light to be blinding, and I think you really want to keep your sight.”
Griffin reluctantly closed his eyes. “Knock yourself out.”
“This might be a little warm.”
A smile touched his lips. “Then you’d best get to it.”
Even with his eyes closed, he saw the brilliance behind his lids, and Celia had been right: had his eyes been open, he probably would have been blinded. Then he felt the warmth, mild at first but quickly surging to a searing, nearly unbearable heat. He winced and pulled away, but Celia gripped his arm, holding him in place.
“Almost done. Have patience.”
Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he quickly found himself gasping for air. “It’s hot,” he gasped.
Suddenly the brilliance flared to a harsher level before fading, leaving him in darkness. He felt himself falling, but Celia held onto him, maintaining his balance.
“Focus on your breathing. You’ll be fine.”
He reached out, grasping for her free hand, and felt relieved when she took hold of him, keeping him close.
“Can I open my eyes?”
“Of course.”
He took a deep breath. The first thing he saw was Celia standing before him. Their gazes locked, and he inhaled deeply, waiting for the pain to grab him, but it never came. All he could feel was his heart beat quicken as he stared at her beautiful face--timeless, haunting, and glorious.
“Celia,” he stared. “I know you don’t want to talk—”
Immediately she put a finger to his lips, silencing him. “We can’t. You know we can’t. We’ve both seen how things like this end up.”
He gently moved her hand. “It doesn’t mean we will turn out like that.”
“It doesn’t mean we won’t.” She quickly leaned toward him and pecked his cheek before withdrawing. “Besides, we’ve got more trouble than we bargained for if the dybbuks are traveling in packs.”
“I don’t understand.” He shoved his hands into his pocket.
“Dybbuks are solitary creatures, Griffin, and the fact that they’re giving up that solitude for something…other…means one very dangerous thing.” She pushed the hair from her eyes and looked up at the ceiling, praying. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t tell what she said, which while in some ways he found troubling in others he wondered whether he might be better off not knowing. Still, he couldn’t refrain from asking.
“Which is?”
“That someone or something is summoning and controlling them.”
Chapter Four
“I’ve run every test I can think of, and truthfully, nothing looks abnormal in any of the results—no flags to guide me as to what might have caused the seizure.”
Dr. Ronson stood before them, holding Lizzie’s chart as she spoke. Although her voice sounded confident, her words lacked conviction. She was still looking at the information, trying to find that one missing piece that would make everything else seem logical.
Lev and Jimmie had just returned, and Lev clenched his jaw at her words. Part of him wanted to shout out for her to get a clue. What she needed to know wasn’t buried in that paperwork, waiting for her to stumble across it. There was no medical book which covered dybbuks—or angels, for that matter—so she was way more out of her league than she thought. She just didn’t know it.
Although Lizzie seemed, at least to Dr. Ronson, to be sitting up in bed, looking every bit the healthy patient who had no business in a hospital, it was one of Evan’s magical tricks. She had even managed to ‘converse’ with Ronson and the nurses to complete the illusion.
Just before Ronson had come in, Evan had told both him and Jimmie that whatever the dybbuks had done to Lizzie had left her lingering in some state of unconsciousness where she either couldn’t or didn’t respond to Evan when he tried to enter her dreams. No, the real Lizzie was still lying just as pale as she’d been when they’d come in, and Evan had had to fend off at least three dybbuks from her bedside. He hadn’t been able to sojourn the spirits properly, so he just had to stun and ward them, hoping they would forget about Lizzie.
Evan was hoping that by getting her home, he could leave her in Celia’s care and find angels who might know more than he did, which, to Lev, was saying something, as old was Evan was. If he sought the cavalry, this was serious…way serious.
“So, when can Lizzie go home?” Jimmie asked, smiling optimistically. He looked toward the bed. Lev knew that he, too, wasn’t fooled by the illusion, but he did have to keep up appearances to get all of them out of here. He pointed at Lizzie. “I mean, she looks great, so different than when she first came in here.”
Dr. Ronson took a moment away from trying to glean information from Lizzie’s chart to study the patient herself, and Lev had to give the good doctor credit. She still believed something was off, even in the face of all the misinformation Evan had been so busily providing for her chart. Something didn’t add up, and Ronson knew it.
“I just wish I knew which direction to go to pursue this,” the doctor mumbled, shaking her head at the paperwork in front of her. “Perhaps we should arrange a consult.”
“I’d rather she just come home,” Jimmie argued, his voice sounding a bit more forceful than he intended.
“That�
�s not really what I’d recommend.” She took a deep breath. “But she does look fine, and since I can’t think of any logical reason for the seizure, however remote, and she hasn’t had another one since she’s been here, I will get the nurse to draw up her paperwork so she can leave.”
“Thank you.” Jimmie offered a kindly smile, grateful to be going home.
“I would prefer you keep in mind that just because Lizzie doesn’t seem to be suffering from any symptomology anymore does not mean she isn’t. Watch her. If you have any concerns, and I do mean any, please bring her back so we can check her out. She also needs to check in with her doctor even if she seems fine.”
Jimmie nodded. “You got it. I’ll be watching over her like a hawk, as usual.”
“All right. A nurse should be in shortly with the discharge forms.” Dr. Ronson gave Lizzie a parting look, and Jimmie was pretty convinced Evan made sure that she saw Lizzie looking right back at her—had her smiling, even. Sometimes it really was the little things that made all the difference.
Once Dr. Ronson had slipped out, Jimmie exhaled a sigh of relief, glad not to feel like he was standing under the lens of a microscope while the doctor watched everything which transpired. It was one thing with normal medical mysteries. It was another with the supernatural kind.
Evan appeared and Lizzie’s bedside, and even though Jimmie was used to him popping in and out as he’d been doing the whole time he had been with Lizzie in the hospital, he still almost bumped into the angel when he did materialize.
Jimmie stared at Lizzie, a worried frown tugging at his lips. “How long is she going to stay like this? I’d feel better if she woke up.”
“No, you really wouldn’t,” Evan argued, his gaze shifting to the monitors. Although everything was calm and her vitals appeared normal, appearances didn’t count for much because of all the things humans couldn’t see or know.
“And why is that?” Jimmie asked, folding his arms across his chest. “Why is her lying there like she’s dead so much better than her being awake?”
“How do you think she’s dealing with having souls trying to take over her body while she’s still in it? It’s like she’s a passenger for a car she can’t control,” Evan said coolly. “Besides, in addition to keeping a lookout for dybbuks, I’m also monitoring Lizzie’s mental state, and right now, there are volatile emotions swirling inside, even though she appears calm. While the souls didn’t manage to get inside deeply enough to claim control of her body, they did manage to wreak havoc by letting her feel how damaged they really are.”
Lev inhaled sharply. “Can’t you just shield her?”
“No, not if I want to keep enough strength so that I can fend off the dybbuks. The best I can do is just keep her in submerged in this state so that no one notices the panic she’s feeling. She’d definitely have the floor’s attention otherwise.”
“Damn it,” Jimmie seethed, pacing around the room. “So she’s stuck in this nightmare she can’t wake from and you refuse to do anything to help her? What kind of angel are you?”
“Not an all-powerful one,” Evan said, his voice gaining an edge. “Even if Lizzie were to regain consciousness, it wouldn’t mean she would be free of the darkness which has laid claim to her. Lizzie’s path has always skirted the edge of the supernatural. The reincarnation, her relationship with Lev, the dagger, and now this. Her fate is so much more complicated than that of an average mortal, yet you want me to be able to fix everything.” He glared at Jimmie. “Yes, I am a supernatural creature, but even so, some things are still beyond me.”
At that, all of them fell into silence, and the only sound which even remotely seemed to break it was the sound of the clock on the wall ticking its way toward oblivion.
Approximately thirty minutes after Dr. Ronson had gone, a nurse finally arrived with the discharge paperwork for Jimmie to sign. As Lev waited by the window, the nurse went over the instructions with Jimmie. She, too, probably thought she was going over them with Lizzie, but the real Lizzie was still beyond hearing a word she said.
Lev, too, wondered if she really were better off in that state. He tried to remember being an angel and feeling that sure about anything, but he couldn’t. How had anything ever seemed so secure? Since he’d been human, it had been anything but. Most of his former life had dwindled to flashes of memory that came and went as they pleased. The only thing he could do was trust that if Evan thought this was a good thing, he had no choice but to trust him because now he was human and vulnerable.
Just as the first nurse finished going over the paperwork, a second one appeared with a wheelchair, determined to drive the patient down to the parking lot.
Although Lev really didn’t want to leave, he held out his hand for keys and said, “I’ll get the truck.”
“Thanks.” Jimmie handed them over, his gaze still focused on his beloved, so attentive he didn’t see Lev leave. No, all he saw was Elizabeth being helped into the wheelchair. No doubt Evan was still behind the scenes, doing his own helping.
“You look so much better, Lizzie,” the nurse commented cheerfully, which forced Lizzie to nod, or at least appear to nod. While it was harmless enough, all the small talk was setting Jimmie’s teeth on edge because he knew Lizzie really couldn’t respond to any of it, and he’d never been great at doing anything for show. No, he’d take things the way they really were any day. There was something to be said for understanding just how things were supposed to be rather than how they appeared to be. Still, the whole way to the parking lot, Jimmie managed to keep from saying exactly what he felt when he felt it because he knew it wasn’t going to do any good.
The nurse wheeled Lizzie out to the curb, where Lev already stood, waiting beside the truck. As he caught sight of Lizzie, he opened the passenger door, obviously anxious to get her away from this place.
“You ready to go home, Lizzie?” the nurse asked, again in that sickeningly cheerful voice.
Again, Lizzie nodded, just as the wheelchair stopped in front of the truck. The nurse applied the brakes and hovered close as Lizzie stepped toward the truck and slid onto the bench seat, scooting toward the middle to make sure both Jimmie and Lev would fit.
Once the nurse was satisfied Lizzie had belted in properly and that her job was done, she gave a final wave and headed back inside.
“Thank God,” Jimmie said, his shoulders sagging under the weight of relief as he ambled to the driver’s side and got in to find the key still in the ignition, waiting. “I thought we weren’t going to get out of there.”
“That makes two of us,” Lev grumbled, easing in on his own side.
Both of them shifted at the same time to see Lizzie as she really appeared, slumped as she was against the seat, her head lolling backward. Somehow, Evan sat on the small bench seat in back, his hands lingering on Lizzie’s shoulders, presumably to keep her upright. As Evan wasn’t small, it amazed Lev he even fit.
“Nice tricks back there,” Lev quipped dryly. “I was wondering what you do if Nurse Nice asked you a question that required a verbal answer.”
“I would have managed,” Evan said in Lizzie’s voice. Her lips moved as well to complete the effect.
Jimmie held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, stop that. It’s downright frightening to hear my own daughter’s voice come out of you. I don’t care if you are an angel.”
“I don’t like it any better than you do,” Evan mused, this time in his own voice as Jimmie started the truck and eased away from the curb.
Once they’d left the parking lot, Lizzie gave out a soft moan, the first sound she’d made since Evan had pushed her into a deep sleep. Immediately, Lev reached over and stroked her forehead, distressed that she might be in pain.
“It’s okay, baby. I’m here.” He leaned close.
“Is she waking up?” Jimmie asked, glancing back and forth between the road and her. He couldn’t stare directly at his daughter because just up ahead, there was a semi with a load of long metal poles.
&n
bsp; “Probably not,” Evan replied. “I’ve just eased up my hold on her slightly so that if there are any dybbuks near, I will have a better chance to sense them. It’s taking a lot out of me to keep her under so deeply for so long.” Still, he leaned forward, hands resting on her shoulders as though he prepared to put her back under more deeply should the need arise.
Evan cocked his head to the side, and his expression turned strange, almost as though lost in another time and place. Lev shook his head.
“What is it?”
“There’s something off.” He blinked a couple of times. “I just can’t put my finger on it. It’s not exactly a dybbuk…much darker and less…human.”
Suddenly, something shoved at the truck, propelling it forward. In a panic, Jimmie tried to brake, but his foot fumbled, treadling the gas instead.
Evan saw the crash coming. With one hand, he gripped Lizzie, and with the other held Lev, securing them as the truck slammed into the back of the semi. Poles shot through the glass, two of which only nearly missed Lizzie and Lev. A third slammed into Jimmie and impaled him, pinning him back against the seat.
“Do something!” Lev shouted as both the semi and truck stopped at the same time.
Jimmie’s mouth gaped, and his gaze slowly fell to the pole.
“Get Lizzie out, away from here,” Evan ordered. “She’s not safe!” Then he was gone.
Jimmie slowly turned his head toward Lev. Blood was seeping into his shirt, and his eyes opened wide in terror. As Lev started to move, Jimmie grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“Jimmie. Evan’s going to help you. You just have to hang on.” Lev felt panic surging up inside him, threatening to consume him entirely. His head swam.
Conduit Page 4
