“I’m going to stitch up the arteries and close the wound. But he’s burning with fever. I don’t understand why. With this much hemorrhaging, his temperature should be plummeting. I’ll have to get it down.”
“No,” Erin and Rhun said at the same time.
“The fever is not caused by any disease,” Rhun explained.
“It’s something beyond physiology,” Erin added, trying to find the words to explain the inexplicable. “Something in his blood, something capable of helping him heal.”
At least, I hope so.
The doctor shrugged. “I don’t understand — and I’m not sure I want to — but I’ll treat him like a normal patient and see if he comes round. I can’t do anything else.”
As the doctor worked, Erin pulled the remaining chair next to the table and took Jordan’s hand. It burned in her palm. She ran her fingers through his short blond hair, his scalp soaked now with fever sweat.
Christian joined the doctor. “Let me help, Hugo. You know my skill.”
“I would welcome it,” the doctor said. “Fetch the instruments out of that pot of boiling water.”
Erin wanted to help, too, but she knew her place, holding tight to Jordan’s hand. Physically, the doctor was doing all he could, but she knew Jordan’s wounds went deeper than that. She traced her finger along the whorled line on the back of his hand, both hating that mark and praying for the power that ran through it to save the man she loved. She knew that same power could consume him completely, steal him from her as readily as death, but was that a bad thing for Jordan? He might be transcending his humanity and becoming wholly angelic. His transformation had never seemed to bother him like it bothered her. How could she weigh her selfish desires to keep him against his chance to become an angel?
The warning from Hugh de Payens echoed through her: Do not let him forget his own humanity.
But what did that mean?
Jordan drifted within an emerald fog, lost to himself, lost to everything but a faint whisper of melody. It sang softly to him, promising peace, drawing him ever deeper into its sweet embrace.
But the smallest sliver of him remained, a single note against that mighty chorus. It coalesced into a hard knot of resistance, around a single word.
No.
Around that word, memories aggregated, like a pearl forming around a grain of sand.
… arguing with his sister about who would get the front seat of the car…
… fighting hard to drag a wounded friend to safety as bullets flew…
… refusing to give up on a cold case, to find justice when all others gave up…
A new word formed out of those fleeting glimpses, defining his nature, a core from which to build more.
Stubborn.
He accepted that as himself and used it to struggle, to twist and kick, to search beyond the promise of the song, to want more than peace.
His thrashing stirred the fog — clearing it enough to catch a pinprick of reddish light in the distance. He moved toward it, sensing enough of himself now to add a new word.
Longing.
The fiery mote grew larger, occasionally wavering, sometimes disappearing entirely. But he focused on it, anchoring more of himself to it, knowing it mattered, even when the faint notes told him it didn’t.
Finally, that ruby particle grew close enough, steady enough, to discern a new noise: a drumbeat. It thrummed against the chorus, a counterpoint to those soft notes. That drum pounded and galloped, full of chaos and turmoil, everything that the music wasn’t.
A new word formed, defining its messy perfection.
Life.
He felt himself born again with that thought, a birth accompanied by lancing pain that shot through the fog and gave him limbs, and chest, and bones, and blood. He took those new hands and covered his ears as they formed, too, shutting out those sweet notes.
Still, that red drumbeat grew louder and louder.
He recognized it now.
A human heartbeat, fragile and small, simple and ordinary.
He opened his eyes to find a face staring down at him.
“Erin…”
“The hero awakes,” Elizabeth said, trying to sound disdainful, but even to her own ears, her words appeared thankful, even happy.
How could they not?
Joy suffused Erin’s face as she kissed Jordan. The woman’s relief shone from her skin; tenderness glowed from her eyes. Rhun had once looked upon Elizabeth in such a manner. Unbidden, her fingers rose to touch her lips, remembering. She forced her hand back down.
After almost two hours in the makeshift surgery, Jordan now rested on a small bed in a back room of the farmhouse, his body swaddled in bandages, his face a map of sutures. The doctor had done good work, but Elizabeth knew the true healing went beyond those many stitches.
Rhun stirred on a lumpy chair in the room’s corner, disturbing the young lion curled at his feet. He had let the cat join them inside as they set up this bedside vigil. Christian and Sophia had prayed over the man, until eventually they drifted outside, to stretch those pious knees of theirs and to make further plans.
Rhun rose now, touched Erin on the shoulder, then turned toward Elizabeth. “I will share the good news with Sophia and Christian.”
As he left, Elizabeth stepped over to Erin, standing behind her with her arms crossed. The archaeologist’s love for her man was revealed in her every touch, her every whisper. Erin said something that raised a smile on Jordan’s face, crinkling his sutures, causing him to wince, but not stop grinning.
Despite all the good cheer, Elizabeth studied the crimson lines wended across his body, over his face.
It is true that you still breathe, but you are not well.
But she kept such gloomy thoughts to herself.
The doctor returned, having apparently heard word about his patient, and set about examining Jordan: shining a light in his eyes, listening to his heartbeat, placing a palm on his forehead.
“Incroyable,” the man muttered as he straightened and shook his head.
A door slammed, and Rhun rushed in with his fellow Sanguinists. Earlier, they had all consumed wine, even Elizabeth. She felt restored now and saw the same vitality shining in the others, but beneath that, she read the anxiety in their faces, the impatience in their postures and movements.
They knew the truth.
The world was falling into darkness this night, with dreadful stories of bloodshed and monsters being told on the television, on the radio. Warnings and panic were growing by the hour.
They dared not tarry very much longer.
Christian spoke hurriedly as he entered with Rhun. “Our Citation jet is fueled and waiting. We can be at the tarmac in fifteen minutes and wheels up immediately after that. If I push the engines to the red line, we can reach Katmandu in under seven hours. We’ll be coasting in on fumes by then, but we should be able to make it.”
That plan depended on one crucial detail.
Christian asked it now, dropping to sit at the foot of the bed. “How are you doing?”
“Been better,” Jordan answered.
Rhun faced the doctor. “How soon will he be fit enough to travel?”
The man looked aghast at Rhun, swore sharply in French, then answered, “Days, if not weeks!”
“I’m ready now,” Jordan said, struggling to sit up — and actually succeeding. “I can sleep on the plane.”
Erin turned to Rhun, worry shining in her eyes, clearly begging him to discourage Jordan, to agree with the doctor.