In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance

by Nathan, Sandy

  Hannah and her team did what she did best: data extraction. They left the apartment sparkling and clean with no evidence of anything untoward happening, Hannah and her team knew everything about everyone in the cathouse. Every name, every number, every contact. Hannah had all their accounting information, where they put their money. All the girls’ names and where they came from.

  And the name and address of the guy from Spain who kept track of Cass for Enzo Donatore. Hannah would kill him, and then go up the line to Enzo. No one would ever harm Cass again. She was sure that Enzo Donatore saw at least some of her revenge from his see-stone. “Hannah Hehrman declares war on you …” she said into the emptiness.

  In her room much later, Hannah held on to the bathroom sink and sobbed. She slumped to the floor, her legs unable to hold her up. Her body convulsed as grief overwhelmed her.

  “Oh, my sweet baby. What he did to you.”

  5

  Passing in the Night

  “Let’s go, Leroy.” Doug grabbed his arm and pulled him to the medic’s vehicle, which was pulled up to the underground elevator in the condo’s lot.

  The medic approached, trying to put Cass on the gurney in the middle of the rear cabin. “No!” Leroy waved him off.

  The van/ambulance started moving the instant Leroy slammed the door. The parking attendant barely looked up as they hurtled into the dark street.

  Leroy held Cass across his lap like a baby, his breathing becoming ragged as her condition revealed itself. Her skin seemed glued to her bones; her face was a parchment-covered death’s head. Black circles ringed her eyes. Her arms were bones full of needle marks. She seemed too light to be a grown woman. Her nightgown was filthy.

  “They had her in a closet, Doug. With no heat or water. It stank.” She stank. A cry escaped from him. “Oh, Cass. What did they do to you?” Her eyes were pasted shut with amber guck and she was so unconscious that his healing couldn’t touch her.

  “Oh, Cass. Wake up! I’m here. I’ve got you.” Tears burst from Leroy’s eyes. “She can’t feel me, Doug, she’s almost gone.”

  The van pulled into an alley and then into the opening of an underground parking lot. They stopped, the back opened and Doug led Leroy to an elevator. “This is a small clinic, Leroy. We can’t take her to a public hospital. Enzo Donatore’s spies will know instantly. This is a good place. They can stabilize her until we can take her somewhere where they can rebuild her physically.”

  They walked down a hall. Cass wasn’t heavy enough to be a burden. Her bones poked into Leroy’s arms. Her legs hung without control or sensation. She was dying, and he couldn’t help her.

  His ribs pumped. He couldn’t stop crying.

  Leroy had cured everyone who came to him, except for one person. He couldn’t touch his mother’s cancer and neither could his grandpa. The two of them sat by helplessly, unable to keep the woman they loved most on this earth from dying. He’d failed his mother.

  And now he was failing Cass.

  “In here, Leroy. Put her on the table.”

  It was a tidy intensive care unit. Machines ringed the table. A doctor was there, wearing green scrubs with a green cloth hat tied around his head. He nodded at Doug and went to work. He set up an IV in Cass’s arm. Machines began to beep.

  Finally, the doctor stopped and addressed them. “A few more hours and she’d have been dead. It’s going to be touch and go as it is. I’m putting fluids in her. She needs a full-fledged hospital. She’s yellow from kidney failure. She may have hepatitis, HIV, liver and kidney damage. I can’t treat those. Her anorexia could cause her heart to quit at any time. I’ll have her ready to travel in a few hours. Mr. Duane has ordered transportation.”

  The doctor turned to Leroy. “Are you her husband?” Leroy shook his head. “But you have a relationship?” Leroy nodded. “Well, she’s in for a rough ride. What Mr. Duane proposes is the correct thing. She needs to be in a guarded medical facility until she gains weight and gets back on her feet. If that’s possible.”

  Leroy sat next to her in the hospital, holding her hand. “Baby, it’s me. Leroy. Can you feel me? Oh, baby, I’m here for you. I can heal, Cass. Did you know that? If you let me, I’ll heal you. Sweetie, can you feel me?” He raised his head, despairing. “Baby, I been healin’ since I was four. Almost nothing I can’t heal.”

  But there was. He couldn’t heal his own mother. He watched her die of cancer and wondered about how the Great One loved them and gave them abilities, but took them away when it mattered most? He’d failed before.

  “Cass, honey, they’re gonna take you to a hospital. It’s a good place. They’ll fix you up. Or, if you can, let me heal you. I can do it, baby. I can.” He was lying to her. Not to himself though. All the time he sat next to her, praying and talking to her, he was there, six years old, talking to his mother as she faded away. Sitting next to his grandfather, the most powerful healer in the world, who couldn’t heal his own daughter, either.

  He’d done so much to save her, but he couldn’t do this final thing that would make her well. He couldn’t find a bit of consciousness in her. None existed; she was that close to death.

  “Leroy, the ambulance is almost ready. We need to move her.” Doug nudged him. “Donatore may find her. The hospital is a safer place. “

  Leroy got up and bent over Cass. She was plumped up a little from the fluids, but still looked awful. He kissed her forehead over and over. “Cass, I love you. I want to marry you. Try and remember that while you’re getting better.”

  When he raised himself, Cass’s eyes were open. Their eyes locked for what seemed like hours. He felt her in his soul, his body. He thought she was going to speak, but then her eyes glazed and the pupils rolled back. She began convulsing in long, slow rolls. Her mouth was flecked with foam.

  “Get back,” the doctor said. It took a while, but he stabilized her enough for the paramedics to take her.

  Leroy’s knees buckled. She had recognized him and gone into seizures. He had never felt so devastated.

  The feeling lasted all the time they were in the ambulance, driving through the night through places he didn’t know to a hospital he didn’t know either. It was in the country; they drove through miles of forest. Different forest than the majestic mariposa trees he knew, the kings of the leafy world. These were skinny trees, jammed too close together. The headlights cut a tunnel through the darkness. Too green, even in the darkness. Too jammed together. Mist rose from the forest floor.

  Cass was strapped in a gurney. He sat next to her, holding her hand, talking to her. Giving her all the energy he could.

  “You’re gonna make it through just fine. You’re gonna get some weight on, get your heart going good. You’re gonna be fine, Cass. When you see me next, you’re going to crack open a big smile. You know who I am, don’t you, baby? I’m Leroy. Your soul mate. When you see me next, we’re gonna have a big wedding at your dad’s house, or at my ranch. Your dad is going to buy you the most beautiful wedding dress …”

  He kept it up like that for three hours. Patter about them and how things were going to turn out. Their wedding. “I built a cabin on our ranch, Cass. I didn’t know what I was doing, but it was for us. It’s real big. Got high ceilings, all logs. It’s got a bedroom, but I built it so I can add more easy. For our kids, we’re going to have kids.”

  All the time he talked, he could feel the energy between them. Other spirit warriors had told him about the energy that flowed between soul mates. Nothing could have prepared him to experience it. Bliss. Golden bliss billowing through them.

  She had to feel it. Feel it, Cass, he thought. You’ll know. We’re meant for each other. You have to live.

  Cass lay on the bed in the ambulance, strapped down. Immobile. Eyes closed. They’d washed the sticky stuff that held her eyelids closed off, but the lids didn’t flicker. Still, still as death. Only faint breathing that even he could barely hear said she was alive.

  Oh, Grandpa, come and help me. Bring Mama and all
the Ancestors. Bring the Great One and the eagles and Kachinas. Bring them, please. Save her, he prayed.

  Nothing. No sustenance. No aid.

  The driver spoke into a mic, asking for a gate they couldn’t see to be opened. They pulled into an almost invisible lane and drove down it, leafy branches brushing the sides of the vehicle.

  “It’s an old estate,” Doug said. Leroy was so glad Doug was there. He was a spirit warrior too, married to his soul mate. He knew what Leroy was feeling.

  “Buddy,” Doug said and laid a hand on Leroy’s arm. “You can’t save her. I don’t even think your grandfather could. She’s got a curse on her, Leroy. She’s got to work her way through it herself. This is where she belongs. We have to leave her and leave her fast before Donatore knows what’s going on. She’s been here before. I brought her here. They got her better. We’ve got to get out of the way and let them do it.”

  They were at the emergency door of the hospital: an old mansion, shingled brown and three stories high. He could feel the place; it was a good place, old and well cared for.

  They were in a white room. They had had to go through white corridors to get to it, fresh painted white and clean. Cass lay on the gurney, waxen.

  “Please, baby, do something. Let me know you’re alive. Let me know you know I’m here.” Tears streamed down Leroy’s cheeks. He didn’t wipe them. Oh, if she didn’t say something, do something … His tears pelted down and he wanted to bend over and sob. He hovered at the edge.

  “We’ve got to go. She can’t hear you.” Doug took his arm to lead him out, but he shrugged it away and ran to her.

  Leaning over the bed, Leroy grabbed her arms and shoved his face close to hers. “Baby, it’s me. Don’t you know me?”

  “Mr. Watches, I’m afraid I have to insist …” A doctor with a stethoscope around his neck and a clipboard entered the room. Two nurses followed. A big guy in a white suit was behind him.

  Doug pulled on his shoulder. Leroy was ready to turn, ready to belt him, ready to go with him, when a movement stopped him. Cass was looking at him, eyes shiny in their sunken sockets. She just looked at him. Didn’t say anything. Her soul pulled him into her; he inhabited her, just for a moment. Her eyes closed.

  “I love you, Cass. Get well for me.”

  She couldn’t die, could she? Not after their souls had touched.

  6

  Take a Powder, Kid

  “She’s going to be at the clinic about four months,” Will Duane took Leroy into his study a few days after he had gotten back from rescuing Cass. Leroy was staying at Will’s estate in Woodside, with the pack of warriors he had invited to his home after the Meeting.

  Leroy glanced at him, and then looked away quickly.

  “I’m sorry, son.” Will knew how lousy he looked. “I’m stressed out. I’ve got a lot on my plate. What you did, finding Cass and getting her to safety, was heroic. I’m very grateful. Have a seat by my desk.” Will moved to the gigantic desk in his personal quarters. “The most important problem in my life is solved. You’d think I’d be relieved. Maybe even happy.” He chuckled.

  “Turns out Cass was the most important problem last week. Now, the rest are screaming.” He ran his hand through his hair, as he did when upset. Will was wired and angry and felt like snapping. At least Leroy didn’t ask him why.

  “Let’s go over the game plan for Cass. When she’s discharged from the hospital, I’ll move her to the Havertin Institute for treatment of her addictions and mental illness.” Leroy started to object, but Will shut him down.

  “Havertin has an impeccable reputation. And they won’t kick her out. They can’t. It’s a locked institution. I’m committing her involuntarily. She won’t be able to get herself kicked out and go back to what she was. None of us want to go through that again.”

  “She’s locked in an’ can’t get out?” Leroy said. “What if she needs to get out? What if that place isn’t so good as you think? Can you visit her and see? Can I?”

  “No. No visitors. I can talk to her shrink, but not her. By cutting the patients off from the outside world, the hospital becomes their universe and they learn how to live in it, something they didn’t do in this world. Havertin is a good place.”

  “You don’t know it’s a good place. How many good places did you put her in before that didn’t work?”

  Leroy had challenged him. No one did that.

  Will reared back in his chair, ready to blast the kid. But he smiled. “You care about her, I like that.” He fiddled with a paperclip on his desk, thinking.

  If Cass lives, this young man will most likely become my son-in-law. He won’t make it at the level of the pond where I swim, but he’s a damn sight better than all of the sleazy shit-heads Cass has brought home. He can do things that no one can. And he’ll be good to her. Maybe I can clean him up a bit.

  “Leroy, there’s no sense you hanging around here for months. How would you like to take a vacation?”

  “I’d rather see Cass.”

  “That’s not going to happen until she completes treatment.” Will shot a look at him. He’d been told people found his dark blue eyes intimidating. He didn’t care. “Where have you been, Leroy? Have you been to Europe?”

  “No.”

  “How’d you like to see Rome? And Venice? How about London?”

  “No, I’m not interested.”

  “Everyone wants to see those places.”

  “That time I flew back to New York to get Cass with Doug was the only time I’ve been on a plane. I thought I’d die. I’d never have done it except for Cass. I never want to do it again.”

  Will smiled. “If we could handle your fear of flying, would you like to see London? Stay in a castle and go foxhunting in England? Eat pasta in Rome?”

  “There is nothing that could make me not afraid of flying.”

  The phone rang. Will picked it up.

  “Duane here,” Will was silent maybe a minute. “What the fuck are you talking about?” He was out of his seat screaming into his receiver. “No, Ric, it is not OK if you make ‘a few adjustments’ in the new NumoPhone. Yes, I know it will increase our margins and market share—until our buyers discover that we’ve sold them crap.

  “Numenon does not make crap, Ric, even if you and your friends want to. Numenon is what it is because it creates excellent products that you have to beat to death to break. We care about our customers.” He listened a bit longer.

  “Oh, yeah, Ric. You’re right, we could toughen our exchange policies so if our stuff falls apart, our customers are stuck with it. But we’re not going to, because we’re honest and fair.

  “You know the most important thing about Numenon as a corporation? We’ve never been whores for profit.

  “No cheap crap. No lying. No screwing buyers. We pay our people living wages. That’s how I’ve run this company for forty years.” He slammed the phone down on the receiver, and stood over his desk, wanting to upend it. Will looked around, eyes settling on Leroy.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.” He pushed a button and some draperies opened, revealing a wall of glass with a pair of wide sliding doors going out to a huge deck. Fashionable teak furniture arranged in seating groups was spotted around the deck.

  Will dashed out of the house like he was on fire. He walked to the far end of the patio, leaned on the railing, and raked his eyes across the view: rolling golden hills dotted with huge oaks. A freeway cut across the left corner of the scene. You couldn’t hear the traffic from inside, but you could outside. Will looked at the rushing cars, laughing bitterly.

  “I couldn’t get CalTrans to build that son of a bitch one hill over thirty years ago when they did it. Look what they did. Ruined my view, but mostly raped the most beautiful valley on the planet. Assholes.

  “I guess I shouldn’t mind losing. I’ve lost before.” He laughed again, a little hysterical. Will turned and took a step away from the railing. He stumbled and ended up sitting on one of the big lounge chairs. He swore
again and slowly bent his body over his knees.

  Leroy realized what was happening and ran over to him. “What’s the matter, Mr. Duane?”

  Will looked up, tears in his eyes. He took a moment to speak. “They’re going to take Numenon from me. I thought it would happen when I got back from the Meeting, but I’ve held on.” He flashed a glance at Leroy.

  “They can take it from you?” Leroy looked mystified.

  “Oh, yeah. All it takes is a vote of my Board of Directors and I’ll be out. No matter that I founded Numenon and made it what it is for over forty years. Jackasses who couldn’t keep a hamburger joint solvent are going to fire me.” Will paused, hiding his face with his hands.

  “I’ve known it was coming, I just didn’t know how much it would hurt …” Leroy handed him a handkerchief.

  “I wrecked my marriage by running around with women, but I wasn’t chasing my dick all the time. I gave every waking hour to Numenon. I gave it my soul, my heart.” He made a pfft! and waved his hands. “And now, I’m going to lose it.

  “What’s happening?” Leroy said.

  “The bad guys are going to win. You know about Sandy Sydney, don’t you?” Leroy did. Doug had told him about the rogue super-secretary who was not only the most beautiful blonde in existence; she was a fiend and recruiter for the devil. “She fucked every one of my executives. If they weren’t bastards before, they’re demons now. That’s what’s taking over the company I founded. The spawn of the devil.

  “Sandy Sydney would have gotten me, too, except I had a feeling about her. One thing screwing as many hookers as I have did for me—I can smell one coming.” He chuckled. His face felt like a plaster casting.

  “The Meeting was …” he exhaled. “How can you describe the Meeting? Hell and heaven, back to back. I faced myself and saw what an asshole I had been. But I saw something else, too.” Will raised his head, a little hope coming back. “I experienced the glory of the universe. I discovered that I was a man of God, and I had been all my life. I’ve had visions that guided me all my life. They are what made Numenon what it is.”