by Ted Dekker
“Elyon’s strength,” Thomas whispered.
“As Elyon has commanded, so now you die,” Ciphus cried. “Now die!”
A hand shoved her in the back, and suddenly there was nothing beneath her feet.
None of them made a sound as they fell. Woref hit the water first. Chelise saw his splash from the corner of her eye just before the cold water swallowed her legs, then her chest. Thomas plunged in on her left.
Then she was under.
She fell straight down, pulled by the chains bound to her ankles. She instinctively struggled against the restraints around her wrists—as was the custom, they were only loose bindings hastily tied to prevent an episode at the last moment on the platform. Amazingly they came free, sending a streak of hope through her mind. She opened her eyes.
Black. So black.
She clenched her eyes shut and, in so doing, shut the door on the last of her hope.
Elyon! Take me. Take me as your bride as you have Thomas. Her thoughts were born of panic, not reason. At any moment her feet would land in a pile of bones.
Elyon! Justin, I beg you!
The water around her feet, then her legs, changed from cold to warm. She opened her eyes and looked down in surprise. She’d expected a murky lake bottom below her—black demons clamoring for her in their lust for death.
What she saw was a pool of red light, dim and hazy, but definitely light! She looked left, then right, but there was no sign of Thomas or Woref.
Then Chelise fell into the warm red water. She floated. Serene. Silent. Unearthly and eerie. She could hear the soft thump of her own pulse. Above her, Qurong and Ciphus were watching the water for signs of her death—bubbles—but here in this fluid she was momentarily safe.
And then the moment passed and the reality of her predicament filled her mind. It was warmer and much deeper than she’d expected, and it was red, but she was still going to drown.
Her eyes began to sting, and she blinked in the warm water but received no relief. Her chest felt tight, and for a moment she considered kicking for the surface to take one more gulp of air.
She opened her mouth, felt the warm water on her tongue. Closed it.
Is it Justin’s water?
But who would willingly suck in a lungful of water? She’d entered intending to die. She knew that Thomas was right—the disease had ruined her mind! But dying willingly had felt profane.
She hung limp, trying to ignore her lungs, which were starting to burn. But that was just it—she didn’t have the luxury of contemplating her decision much longer.
A wave of panic ran through her body, shaking her in its horrible fist with a despair she’d never felt before.
Chelise opened her mouth, then closed her eyes. She began to sob. A final scream filled her mind, forbidding her to take in this water. Thomas had drowned once, but that was Thomas.
Then her air was gone. Chelise stretched her jaw wide and sucked hard like a fish gulping for oxygen.
Pain hit her lungs like a battering ram.
She tried to breathe out. In, out. Her lungs had turned to stone. She was going to die. Her waterlogged body began to sink farther.
She didn’t fight the drowning. Thomas had wanted her to follow him in death, and this is what she was doing. There was no life above the surface anyway.
The lack of oxygen ravaged her body for long seconds, and she didn’t try to stop death.
Then she did try. With everything in her she tried to reverse this terrible course.
Elyon, I beg you. Take me. You made me; now take me.
Darkness encroached on her mind. Chelise began to scream.
Then it was black.
Nothing.
She was dead. She knew that. But there was something here, beyond life. From the blackness a moan began to fill her ears, replacing her own screams. The moan gained volume and grew to a wail and then a scream.
She knew the voice! She didn’t know how she knew it, but this was Elyon. Justin? It was Justin, and he was screaming in pain.
Chelise pressed her hands to her ears and began to scream too, thinking now that this was worse than death. Her body crawled with fire as though every last cell revolted at the sound. And so they should, a voice whispered in her skull. Their Maker was screaming in pain!
A soft, inviting voice suddenly replaced the cry. “Remember me, Chelise,” it said. Elyon said. Justin said.
Light lit the edges of her mind. A red light. Chelise opened her eyes, stunned by this sudden turn. The burning in her chest was gone. The water was warmer, and the light below seemed brighter.
She was alive?
She sucked at the red water and pushed it out. Breathing! She was alive!
Chelise cried out in astonishment. She glanced down at her legs and arms. The shackles were gone! She moved her legs. Free. Real. She was here, floating in the lake, not in some other disconnected reality.
And her skin . . . She rubbed it with her thumb. The disease was gone! Thomas had been right! She was an albino. Here in the bowels of this red lake she was now a stunning breed, and the thought of it filled her with a thrill she could hardly fathom.
She spun around, looking for Thomas, but he wasn’t here.
Chelise twisted once in the water and thrust her fist above (or was it below?) her head. She dove deep, then looped back and struck for the surface. What would they say?
She had to find Thomas! Justin had changed the water.
The moment her hand hit the cold water above the warm, her lungs began to burn. She tried to breathe but found she couldn’t. Then she was through, out of the water.
Three thoughts mushroomed in her while the water was still falling from her face. The first was that she was breaking through the surface at precisely the same time as Thomas on her left. Like two dolphins breaking the surface in coordinated leaps, heads arched back, water streaming off their hair, grinning as wide as the sky.
The second thought was that she could feel the bottom of the lake under her feet. She was standing near the shore.
The third was that she still couldn’t breathe.
She came out of the water to her waist, doubled over, and wretched a quart of water from her lungs. The pain left with the water. She gasped once, found she could breathe easily, and turned slowly.
Water and strings of saliva fell from Thomas’s grinning mouth. She wasn’t sure what had happened to him, but he was alive.
She lifted her arm and stared. Her skin had changed. A dark flesh tone. Deep tan. Smooth like a baby’s skin. And she knew without a doubt that her eyes were emerald, like Thomas’s.
She was as albino as any albino she’d ever seen.
Only then did it occur to her that Qurong was still seated on his horse less than thirty yards from where she stood. His face was stricken. To her left the guard stared in stunned silence. No sign of Woref. He was undoubtedly drowned.
“Seize them!” Ciphus cried from the platform.
“Leave them!” Qurong ordered.
Chelise walked out of the lake, plowing water noisily with her thighs. Thomas walked beside her—there was no need for words.
In some ways she felt as if she was looking at a whole new world. Not only was she a new person, drowned in magic, but the Scabs she faced were now foreign to her. The disease hung on them like dried dung. But when they understood what Elyon had done for them in this lake, they would flock en masse into the red waters. She would be run over, she thought wryly.
Then she remembered her own resistance to the drowning. She stared at her father, who still looked as though he was staring at something in his nightmares come to life.
“The law states that they must drown!” Ciphus said, walking to the edge of the platform, finger extended.
“They have drowned,” Qurong said.
“They are not dead!”
“Does my daughter look like a Scab to you?” Qurong shouted. “If this is not a dead Scab, I don’t know what is. She’s been drowned and paid her price
! You will not lay a hand on her.”
Chelise wanted to run up and throw her arms around him. “Father, it’s real. The water is red! This is now a red pool.”
His eyes jerked to the water behind her. She followed his gaze. The lake looked black, but there was a tinge of red to it.
Ciphus was staring and had now seen it too. “Seal off the lake!” he shouted, spinning to the guard. “No one enters.”
“No!” Chelise. “The people must be allowed to drown! Father, tell him.”
Qurong looked back out at the water. He scanned the surface. “And Woref?”
“Woref didn’t believe,” Thomas said.
Her father eyed him. “And how did this water become red?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that Mikil and Johan found the red pool you had covered.”
Qurong frowned. “Seal the lake,” he said.
“Form a perimeter at the top of the shore,” Ciphus said. “Not a soul steps on the beach until we have repaired this damage.”
Chelise took a step toward Qurong. “Father, you can’t allow this!”
He lifted a hand. “Stop there.”
“Drown!” she cried. “You have to drown, you and Mother! All of you!”
Her father drew his horse around so that he faced her. “They are free to go,” he said. “They and their friends will be given free passage from our forest. No albino is to be hurt before we know the truth of what has happened here.”
“Father . . . please, I beg you . . . you know the truth.”
“You’re my daughter, and because of that I will let you live in peace,” he said. “But I have my limits. Leave now, before I change my mind.”
He turned his horse and walked up the shore.
Chelise stared after him, torn between the urge to drag him into the lake and the realization that she was no different only a day ago. But there was hope, wasn’t there? He was going to consider the matter.
“I’m sorry,” Thomas said, putting his hand on her shoulder.
She faced him and her sorrow faded. His skin, just this morning an interesting enigma, was now deliciously brown and smooth. His green eyes shone like the stars. He was truly beautiful.
“Are my eyes . . .”
“Green,” he finished. He brushed her cheek with his thumb. “And your skin is dark, the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.”
“I am his bride now?” she asked.
“You are. And mine?”
“I am.”
She felt as if she might burst.
He winked and then took her hand. “We should take your father at his word and get out while we can. The Circle will be waiting.”
The Circle. She glanced back. Ciphus was glaring at them. Two dozen guards had formed a line by the platform, barring them from following Qurong, who was just now guiding his horse past a hastily formed perimeter guard.
The Circle was waiting. She grinned, suddenly eager to be gone from here and among her new family. To be with her husband.
Thomas of Hunter.
“Then we shouldn’t keep them,” she said and stepped toward the waiting forest.
44
MARSEILLES, FRANCE.
Carlos had waited three days now, and not a single vehicle had crawled out of the underground facility. But they were there; he would stake his life on it.
Birds chirped on the hillside, oblivious to how close they had come to moving up the food chain three days ago. Here in the country outside of the port, the morning was peaceful and cool. Down in the city there was a scramble to acquire one of the coveted syringes that were now flowing out of Paris. The news was of nothing but the virus. More accurately, the antivirus. The Thomas Strain, they were calling it. The man had reportedly given his life. Carlos wasn’t ready to believe that just yet.
There were enough vaccinations to go around, they said, but that didn’t stop the panic. The distribution plan was essentially the reverse of their blood-collection efforts. Syringes filled with the Thomas Strain had already flooded the gateway cities. Every refrigerated vehicle in France was now carrying the antivirus to distribution points across the country, where hundreds of thousands waited their turn in long lines.
Meanwhile, Carlos lay in wait with his weapon.
He glanced at his forearm. The red spots had disappeared. He still couldn’t make sense of it, but there was only one cause that made any sense. He’d been in contact with Hunter’s blood.
The man’s funeral was to be held in twenty-four hours. Carlos would use every power at his means to be present. He had to see for himself. And if Hunter was finally dead . . .
The thought knotted his gut and he let it trail off.
If Fortier didn’t emerge soon, he would go to the authorities—the French military would like nothing better than to drop a few bunker busters on this site and rid the world of the men who had sullied their reputation. The French president, who’d followed Fortier’s demands all too quickly, would probably do it himself to bolster his standing with the people. The world was too distracted by the virus at the moment, but one day Carlos might set them all straight.
The problem with going to the authorities now was that it meant leaving his post long enough for them to make an escape. Unlikely, but he wouldn’t put anything beyond Fortier.
So Carlos waited in his hole on the hill.
He’d decided halfway to Paris that the bunker there made no sense. Fortier and Svensson would hole up in Marseilles, where no matter what the outcome of the next few days, they would be safe. With this new plan of theirs to betray so many who’d surrendered their weapons, Paris was full of too many enemies.
Carlos had confirmed that two vehicles had recently driven over the soft ground that led to the hidden bunker below. It could be no one but Fortier and Svensson—no one else knew of its existence. The only reason he knew was because he always knew more than they meant for him to know.
It all made sense in the most apocalyptic way. They had unleashed their weapon and would hunker down until it had done its work before emerging to a new world.
But they hadn’t factored in Thomas. Or his dreams.
Carlos reached into his pocket and pulled out another pill. He’d slept once since setting up his post, but it had been early, before the news of the Thomas Strain had broken. He popped the pill in his mouth and swallowed.
He imagined that Fortier and Svensson were down in that hole arguing furiously at this very moment about what had gone wrong. They . . .
The earth on the hill below suddenly moved. Carlos froze. So soon?
Slowly, like a giant whale opening its mouth, the hill opened up. He snatched the antitank missile and sat upright. So they had decided to leave France while the world was still distracted by the crisis. There had been a few massive manhunts before, but none like the one that would surely follow this debacle.
Carlos armed the missile, hefted it onto his shoulder, and aimed it at the entrance. His hands were shaking from the combination of exhaustion and shattered nerves.
The garage door stopped. Open. Then nothing.
He willed the car to emerge. It would be the white Mercedes with armored plating. They would split up later, but they wouldn’t risk two cars at this point if only one was armored, which Carlos knew to be the case.
Come on, come on. Come out.
He could practically taste the cordite on his tongue from the anticipated explosion. The missile would tear the car to a thousand pieces.
The nose of the white Mercedes suddenly poked out of the garage.
Steady . . .
Then the body.
Carlos waited until the garage door began to close. One car. Windows tinted so he couldn’t tell if they were both inside.
He suddenly couldn’t wait another moment. He triggered the missile. A loud whoosh. Pressure on his shoulder. Then a streak of exhaust and a waft of hot air on his face.
He willed the missile all the way into the Mercedes. It struck the right front p
assenger window. For a split second, Carlos saw the legs in the passenger’s seat.
That made two occupants.
The detonation shattered the morning air. A ball of fire split the car at its seams. Blew the roof off. Smoke boiled out.
Then it was just roaring fire.
Carlos grabbed his binoculars, adjusted the focus, and studied the flames. He’d seen enough in his time to conclude now that he had just killed two men.
One of them was Armand Fortier. The other was Valborg Svensson.
He lowered the glasses. Unlike Thomas, these two would not be coming back to life.
Kara watched the casket sink below the green turf at Arlington National Cemetery. They were giving Thomas a full military burial with all the honors, and hundreds of people she’d never met were being moved to tears by the event, but to her the whole funeral felt oddly insignificant.
Her brother was alive.
Not here, nor in a way any of these people could possibly understand the way she did. But he was more alive than any of these who wept.
The president stood on her right. Monique on her left. Five days had passed since Thomas’s death. They’d wanted to march his casket down Constitution Boulevard while the world watched, but Kara had convinced the president that if Thomas had a say in the matter, he would protest. They’d settled on this more subdued but still nationally broadcast affair.
The seven guns had gone off and three fighters had roared overhead, and Kara had watched it all with mild interest. Her mind was still on Thomas’s blood. The blood that Monique still had in storage.
She couldn’t get it out of her mind.
Beyond the skin of this world waited another world, as real, perhaps more real. There Thomas was alive and by now surely married to Chelise. He’d died while in the lake, and somehow it had given him life. There was no doubt in her mind that Justin had orchestrated everything.
Justin had allowed Thomas to fall in love with Chelise so that the Circle would know how he felt about them. Kara was sure that if she could see Justin now, he would be racing circles around his bride on a white stallion, thrilled by the beauty of his creation. By the love, however mixed it was, that they had for him.
