Beth punched him, not caring if it brought another shunning. “Don’t call me that!” Kahtar stopped her when she swung for him a second time, grabbing her hand like a catcher’s mitt and refusing to let go. “You didn’t help him! You wouldn’t help him because he’s a seeker!” Beth drew out the last word like a child and sucked in a noisy breath through her mouth. “You didn’t love him enough to help him just because he’s a seeker! I’m a seeker too, then! Daddy!” Beth tried to fold down to Ted’s body again, but this time Kahtar picked her up and held her against his body tightly so she couldn’t hit him.
“Listen to me!” he growled into her ear. “I would have for you! You asked and I would have healed him for you no matter the consequences, but it was too late, Beth! Your father’s heart was frail as silk web and moth wings! There was nothing I or any Covenant Keeper could have done!”
His words were true, and Beth sobbed against his chest. “I’ll die without him!”
Kahtar held her tightly wrapped in both his arms and Beth realized he was sobbing too, feeling all the loss and anguish from her heart. Somehow they were in the kitchen, leaning against the refrigerator. Welcome Palmer was there. Placing both hands on either side of Beth’s head he kissed her forehead, his heart saying more than words could.
“I’m going to give her something to make her sleep,” she heard him whisper to Kahtar. “Move, let me get her a drink of water.”
Kahtar half sat Beth on the granite island in the kitchen.
“I don’t want to sleep! I want my dad!” Beth sobbed, knowing she should shove the feelings down, let them out in private, grieve like a grown woman and not a child, but she couldn’t do it. She would never hear her dad’s voice again. He’d never hug her or sit by her and tell awful jokes. Her gaze slid across all the piles of baby stuff he’d bought for Dianta, most still in their boxes, to the box of huge candy bars he’d bought to give out to their one trick or treater on Halloween. Welcome Palmer, glass in hand, opened the freezer for ice cubes and Beth saw little glass cups of brightly garnished purple halo-halo ice-cream.
The place in her heart where her dad belonged seemed to ice over. The pain traveled, sharp and cold from her chest downward. Unable to breathe she opened her mouth wide. Kahtar put a big hand on either side of her face and bent his close, saying something she couldn’t hear. Welcome spun around, dropping the glass as he lunged toward her to the sound of breaking glass. Beth wondered how the glass was cutting through her insides when it was on the floor. The world went black.
“YOU GOOD, KAHTAR?” asked Welcome Palmer.
Kahtar forced his gaze off Beth lying on the table in her bloodstained dress and tried to turn his mind away from all the times in the past year she’d been hurt or hurting or at Cobbson Clinic. Using a large cotton towel, Welcome wiped blood off Kahtar’s hands as though he weren’t capable of doing it himself. Kahtar let him. Maybe he wasn’t. He’d never been so tired in his life.
“We’ve got the bleeding nearly stopped.” Welcome tried to put a positive spin on it, but Kahtar’s personal eternity never allowed for self-delusion. Placental abruption meant the baby needed to come, sooner rather than later, and even for one of his children this was far too soon.
Kahtar glanced over at Carole perched on the edge of her seat. He’d almost forgotten the Old Guard had brought her with them. She sat with her head in her hands and her heart broken. Tears welled in Kahtar’s eyes and he nabbed the towel from Welcome and walked to her on wooden legs, settling onto the glass footed sofa next to her.
“I’m sorry, Carole,” he said. “Your Ted was a good man.”
She shifted her position, turning away from him a bit, and the ocean of sorrow emanating from her heart affected his. Placing his hand over his heart he took a deep breath. Carole didn’t believe him. Obviously she knew enough about Covenant Keepers to question a compliment they gave a seeker. “I’ve been around long enough to recognize a good man. It took great strength and love for him to hold onto that intruder like he did. Your husband trusted his heart. I respect that in a man.”
Carole didn’t say anything.
“If you have any questions, anything, I will answer them honestly.”
Raising her head, she looked into his eyes. Kahtar’s heart sank at the haunted expression in hers, recognizing regret. He put a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it away.
“Anything,” he said.
“Is Beth going to be okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” Welcome answered.
“What about the baby?”
Welcome turned his attention back to Beth without answering.
“You said you’d answer me honestly,” said Carole, looking at Kahtar.
Putting his elbows on his knees, he dropped the bloody rag to the floor. “I don’t see how, Carole.” He kept his voice low, just in case Beth was conscious enough to hear him. “Beth’s been through a lot of trauma during this pregnancy. That baby needs to be born by tonight and it’s far too early.”
“The baby needs to be born within the hour,” said Welcome in a tight voice.
“That means Cesarean, and the baby’s too small to breathe on her own,” said Kahtar.
Carole sat up straight. “So? People have Cesareans every day. The baby can breathe on a ventilator.”
Welcome and Kahtar glanced at each other. “You know how I healed you?” Kahtar asked. “You realize when that intruder threw you he broke your back, right?”
“Can you fix the baby’s lungs like you did my back?”
“I can fix things that are broken, but my healing skills won’t age or mature a baby so it can breathe on its own. It’s a great tragedy of my kind.”
Carole glanced between the two men, and Kahtar knew she had caught on to what they weren’t saying. “Are you telling me Covenant Keepers let premature babies die rather than use ventilators? That’s insane!”
Welcome swung a hand toward her, palm up. “Thank you for seeing that for what it is! You’ve got the situation exactly, Mrs. White! We are actually forbidden from using seeker technology! I do it anyway sometimes because it is a travesty!”
“Why isn’t there a ventilator here, then?”
“They’re expressly forbidden,” said Kahtar. “The punishment would be…” he shook his head. “The Old Guard—those are the men who brought you here, you should understand they’re our guardians for want of a better term—The Old Guard are also our enforcers, and they watch Welcome to make sure he doesn’t bring in a ventilator.”
“Only because the clan told them to,” said Welcome. “The Old Guard don’t care about ventilators!”
“The clan makes these types of rules in response to their interpretation of our laws,” said Kahtar. “I don’t know how much you know about Covenant Keepers. Obviously some things?”
“Enough to know your kind are best avoided,” said Carole. “I’ll get a ventilator. I’m not allowing my granddaughter to die.”
Kahtar and Welcome looked at each other.
“That would work,” they said together.
“See we’re forbidden because we’re clan, but you—” began Welcome, but Carole interrupted.
“Would one of those Old Guards take me to a hospital so I can steal one? Right now?”
“That would work!” said Kahtar and Welcome again.
“Don’t steal,” added Kahtar. “Welcome, do you have any money?”
“There’s a drawer full of it over there.” He nodded toward a cupboard in the corner. “Take it all because they’re expensive.”
“A hospital isn’t going to sell me a ventilator for a bag of cash.”
“Just leave it,” said Kahtar.
“Someone will steal it,” said Carole.
“Just do it anyway,” Kahtar said, and shouted for Old Guard.
WHEN CAROLE RETURNED she had on hospital scrubs and carried one of the clear plastic incubators Kahtar knew seekers used for preemies. Old Guard appeared a beat behind her, carrying boxes of equipment. Welcome immediately tore t
hrough them, searching for what he needed.
Kahtar emptied a bottle of antiseptic over his hands and Beth’s belly as he scanned into her. The baby needed to come now, no matter the consequences.
“There’s no electricity?” Carole searched along the walls for an outlet.
“We don’t use it much but when we do, Tesla is more our style,” said Welcome as he filled a small machine with water and it began to bubble. “No cords or outlets. I can have all this working in no time. Kahtar, if you’ll get the baby?”
No sooner had Kahtar lifted an obsidian scalpel than Carole was there.
“You’re not cutting into my daughter.”
“There’s no time to waste being squeamish. I’ve done this countless times, but I could use your help. Can you scan inwards?” Kahtar cut right down the middle of Beth’s belly.
Carole looked away from it and took a deep breath. “I’ll try.”
“I’ll explain as we go. Mostly I just need extra hands for this,” said Kahtar as he pulled Beth’s flesh open and sliced the scalpel through a thin layer of fatty tissue before plunging it deeper into reddish muscle.
“Is this something all police chiefs can do? You’d better know what you’re doing, Kent Costas!”
“It’s something all warriors learn, and my real name is Kahtar Constantine, Carole. After all you’ve been through today, I think you should know it.”
“Don’t hurt my daughter.”
“I won’t even scar your daughter.” Mentally whispering healing prayers to kill bacteria, Kahtar separated the thick layer of muscle and slid his knife over membrane.
Carole tentatively pulled the wound further open. “My real name is Cahrul.”
Kahtar lifted his brows in surprise but didn’t question her. Now wasn’t the time. While he had performed this surgery more times than he could recall, this was the first time he’d done it on his wife and while trying to save the life of his own child. Water spurted from the wound. Carole’s hands shook. “If this disturbs you to watch, you can assist Welcome.”
“It doesn’t bother—”
“Then grab your granddaughter,” said Kahtar.
Carole obeyed, plunging her hands inside Beth to wrap around the impossibly small baby. “She’s far too frail!”
“I know,” said Kahtar.
Over his shoulder Welcome commented, “Small but well developed. Cahrul, watch that umbilical cord, it’s half around her neck, and try to shield her eyes from the light if you can.”
Kahtar ran a finger around the baby, dislodging the cord. Carole held her cupped between both hands as though to protect her. Welcome shoved his head between Kahtar and Carole.
“Do you know how to suction the mouth and nose?” asked Kahtar.
“I’ll do it,” said Welcome, using a small plastic syringe that had certainly come in Carole’s looted equipment. “Cahrul, just set her down on Beth’s thighs and grab that plastic tubing on the tray. See those tiny prongs? Yep, stick them right inside her nostrils. Quickly. Do, don’t think. Do.”
The baby didn’t struggle or make a sound. As they worked her ruddy skin seemed to grow lighter and Kahtar mentally timed them as he removed afterbirth and began using his healing skills to repair the damage he’d done to Beth. He glanced toward her face on the other side of a heap of blankets and saw her watching him.
“Welcome!” he said.
The doctor didn’t look away from his tiny patient. “Hey, Beth. Wondered when you’d quit pretending to be asleep. Let me know if you feel any pain. The poking and prodding feelings are normal, but you should be numb from the chest down.”
Beth’s chin wobbled and she kept her eyes locked on Kahtar, probing for truth.
“As expected it’s a girl,” said Welcome, taping tubes on the limp infant. “Your mother borrowed some equipment from a hospital to give us a hand with this baby. Let me just get everything going here. This little one doesn’t look like Dianta at all, though I’m not sure who she does look like!”
Kahtar glanced over and his breathing hitched. It was the frailest baby he’d ever seen. She looked almost white. There was no way it could live.
“I can’t feel her heart,” whispered Beth. Neither could Kahtar.
“I can,” said Carole in a shaky voice.
“I can’t feel anything.”
“Just breathe,” said Kahtar.
“Do you have a name?” asked Carole, stroking the lifeless baby with her pinky as she taped tubes to her face.
Beth shook her head, staring at the ceiling.
“If you don’t have a name picked out, I have a suggestion,” said Carole, her voice a low whisper.
“It doesn’t even matter,” said Beth. “Does it?”
With tears in her voice Carole said, “You could name her Teddy, after your father. It’s my favorite name in the world.”
Beth began to cry at the exact same moment Teddy began breathing.
BLOODY UNEXPECTED—MONGOLIAN STEPPES
THIS LATE IN the year light faded inside the big old barn early. Kahtar shrugged out of his suit jacket and lit a lantern, rotating it so the light hit the ring of mirrors circling the middle of the barn.
In the flickering light, Carole shut the rolling door behind her and tossed her long coat onto a bale of hay. Clad in a pair of black trousers and a blouse she’d borrowed from Beth for Ted’s funeral, she moved into the open area of the barn. In the lantern light with her short blonde hair slicked back, she looked small and pixyish. Kahtar felt a twinge of remorse for accepting her challenge when she’d just buried her husband. At five feet nine inches and a hundred and fifty pounds, she didn’t stand a chance against him. The diameter of one of his biceps was nearly both her thighs.
“I choose the spear.” Carole nodded to the iron weapon hanging on a cross beam of the barn, higher than she could reach.
Ironic of course. It was the one weapon Kahtar hated. He’d used it to kill God centuries ago, back when he’d been known as Longinus. Not in the millennia since had he even touched one. He made the plebes clean it.
Rolling his sleeves up, Kahtar looked at the weapon. “What rules of engagement did you have in mind?”
Waves of fury emanated from Carole and she kicked her boots off in the corner, returning barefoot to the same dirt circle where Kahtar battled Old Guard nearly every day.
“No rules,” she said, her voice cold.
No rules? Well, if that gives her hope. “I will not fight you to first blood.”
“Yes, you will.”
“No, I won’t, and the winner gets to make a request of the loser. One they must submit to. Will you agree to that, Mother?”
“If you call me that again I will kill you.”
“Carole—Cahrul, why are you so angry with me?”
“I hate what you are. Your kind killed my father.” Her voice broke and she fought to control the emotion in her face, but Kahtar felt anguish escape the heart she always kept on lockdown from both him and Beth.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“They would have killed Ted too, or even Beth, and she was just a baby. I’ve spent decades watching over my shoulder to protect them, and then one day you waltzed right into my life—Beth’s life—and see what you brought? Death. I know what you thought of Ted. I know you yourself would have killed him if not for Beth.”
“Carole, once maybe, but not—”
“I don’t care what you have to say! I saw the way you looked at Ted the first day you met him! You thought about killing him! Deny it!” Carole screamed.
“I do deny it.”
“Liar! I saw your face!”
“You saw my shock. You saw ages of training wrestle with my heart. You saw my duty to my clan argue with my duty to Beth. I would have fallen on my own blade before I’d have hurt Beth’s father. My clan—Beth’s clan—is different than most.”
“They allow you to join with seekers?” It sounded like a challenge.
“Of course not, but we don’t travel th
e world seeking to do harm to those who do.”
“Liar!”
“Some clans do that, Carole, but we’re different. We try not to judge seekers. In fact we strive to help them. In addition to the laws of being we attempt to follow the teachings of the Christ. It’s quite a conundrum at times, but we do try. That’s why Cultuelle Khristos welcomed Beth into the fold. They wanted to give her a home. I expect they might make the same offer to you.”
“I want nothing from any of your kind.”
Trying to disguise a sigh, Kahtar reached up and grabbed the spear. It didn’t make him shudder like he expected as he handed it to Carole. He moved to a post where a katar dagger hung. “I will fight you only to first dirt. That means whoever knocks the other first—”
Kahtar never had a chance to finish, because that fast he was on the ground, a jarring impact ringing through his bones as puffs of dirt rose above him. Dim light shone through windows set in the high ceiling and a strange scintillating light filled the domed space high above him. If memory served, that dim light flickering like fireflies in unison was Old Guard laughter.
Carole bent over him. “I win by your rules. My request, the one you can’t deny, is to continue this fight to first blood.” She vanished from view, but Kahtar sensed her take position, holding the spear ready, one leg stretched out just beyond his reach. There was no way he could stand without taking another blow.
For the briefest moment he was tempted to transport himself into position, but there was no way he’d do anything to seem more other to this woman than he must already be.
Not this woman. My mother. My family.
Lying flat on his back with his head and the backs of his knees throbbing, Kahtar considered the distance to his dagger on the beam above. He would cut her just enough to draw blood on her cheek. It would infuriate Beth, but it would satisfy Carole’s blood lust and the scar would be minimal.
And also memorable. She can wear it and know it could have been her throat.
He blinked, forcing Carole to wait, prepared should she decide to do further harm with that spear. One thing the woman needed to learn, far more important than fear of warriors of ilu, was respect.
FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel Page 27
