“What are you doing?” He asked.
Tilting her head slightly and encircling his ankle with her fingers, she said, “Healing you.”
“Are you an angel?”
“Maybe I was once.”
Maybe once… but no longer, no longer cold and unreachable. Instead he was lying in her bed while she tended to a lifetime of suffering.
“I guess there is a God,” he breathed.
“Of course,” she answered. “He’s not always here, but he’s always there.”
“Heaven?”
“I suppose so.”
“What do you mean, suppose so? And maybe you were an angel?” He sat again, still amazed at his strength, and stared at her until her soulful eyes met his.
“I’m here, you’re here,” she said, as if it were just that simple. “I know He’s there, but I don’t know where there is.”
He had already accepted that she was possessed of some sort of magic, but it didn’t seem that either of them knew its origin. As he sat silent and watched her work on his legs, then his arms, he thought that her ability almost seemed like the antithesis to the corruption of the plague. And so he had to ask.
“Do you know about the virus? Where it came from?”
“It wasn’t always a virus,” she said. “It’s simply an energy. It has many forms. In each, it sows only ruin because it is the very essence of chaos, and impurity — you see, it is not our God who visited this upon us — even His best-laid plans were always vulnerable to chance. A long time ago, before this universe existed, there were other gods, old ones who had never conceived of light and were only darkness. When Creation came into being, these gods fled to places unnamable — in doing so, they cast off dark energy that became ensnared in the developing existence. But even then it was not by design — it was mere chance that the energy settled here, in our world. And what is God to do?”
“What are you saying?” Briggs stammered. “That the plague is just something that happened? How can you say that?”
“We give ourselves purpose and significance, but we are as fleeting as any thought in all the cosmos,” she told him. “Existence is existence. A cloud, a pebble, a person. To think that you and I are more than that is arrogance. God’s love is only that — love, plain and simple. Where we end up all comes down to chance.”
Her eyes glistened. “This is why I became what I am — to love as He does. Thank you for letting me do that.”
She pointed out the window. “Your unit is a few miles in that direction. A storm is coming, and they’ve made camp. You can reach them tonight if you start now.”
“But wait,” he protested. “There’s still so much I don’t understand.”
“You’re not meant to,” the woman said. “And neither am I.”
She led him out onto the lawn, giving him his equipment and helping him pull on his jacket. “What you know now is enough for you to fulfill the purpose you’ve given yourself,” she said. “Now go.”
He turned to her, looked into her endless eyes. “I don’t know how to say this…”
“I love you,” she said, and kissed him softly on the mouth.
He turned back. There was a small town visible on the horizon. From it, down a long dirt road leading to the woman’s cottage, shambled a lone rotter. Briggs went for his knife.
“Don’t,” the woman in white said. She stepped past him and extended one hand, palm out, toward the creature.
A light bloomed in her hand. Briggs had to turn away, but for one split-second he felt the heat, hotter than all of Hell; and when he looked back the rotter was gone, only a glassy streak in the road to mark its passing.
He made it back to his unit.
He rose swiftly through the ranks, known far and wide for his strength and fearlessness. Few, though, were ever told about the woman in white, and those who heard the story from others dismissed it as a fanciful rumor. Except for those others whom she had loved.
Nineteen / Nerves
“There’s a panic spreading through the streets,” Casey said, hands folded on his desk. “People think there’s been an outbreak, that infected are everywhere. Senator Gillies tried to reassure them in his weekly broadcast, but I don’t think anyone was even listening.”
“What did he say?” Halstead asked. “Surely he didn’t tell them Manning was assassinated.”
“No. There hasn’t been an official explanation for her infection. What I’ve heard is that, about a month ago, Manning went outside the Wall on a fact-finding mission. She could have been bitten there and concealed it.”
“And you’re all right with that lie being passed off as the truth?” Voorhees asked.
Casey sighed. “Would you rather that the unrest in the streets becomes full-blown pandemonium? Do you want riots? Do you want to see what it’s like when crime really gets out of hand?”
“And what about the killer?”
“We’re increasing security for the city admins. You’ll be pulling double shifts over at the administration building. I might be forced to deputize some new men—”
“Whose men? Meyer’s?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Casey snapped. Voorhees didn’t buy it.
“We’ll be devoting nearly all of our resources to this investigation,” Casey went on. “When the results of that bone fragment test come back, and we’ve confirmed our weapon, we start there.”
“How do you figure?”
“There’s no way someone could have smuggled that into Gaylen. It had to have already been here.” Turning to the map behind his desk, Casey pointed to the hospital. “There’s a lab where they test infected tissue. It’s the only source I can think of.”
He turned back to Voorhees and Halstead. “You’re excused. Send Killian in.”
She was a wreck — red-eyed and sallow-faced from lack of sleep, her uniform rumpled. “Are you sure you’re fit to work right now?” Casey gave her a sympathetic frown. “Blake was your partner — you can take bereavement leave.”
“No,” Killian said. “I can work. This is the job.”
“Well,” said Casey, opening his file cabinet, “I have something for you. You can work this one alone if you like. It’s a priority case — it’d be our number one case if it weren’t for what happened yesterday.”
He spread a file open on his desk. “Missing girl. Here’s her description. She was downtown with her parents and they lost her — think maybe someone grabbed her. Name’s Lily Calvert.”
Voorhees stood at the edge of the market and watched as a stone-faced Becks worked behind her counter. If only she hadn’t been Blake’s, if only she weren’t grieving — he wanted to ask her about the layout of the amphitheater. Could there have been a passage that the killer used to slip in and out, past security? If there was, who else knew about it?
“Sorry to hear about our friend Blake.”
Meyer gnawed on a bit of rock candy, surveying the market. “Poor girl over there. I think they were going to be married.”
“I’m sure you’re real sorry,” Voorhees said in a low growl. “I’m sure you never planned on Blake getting killed. What do you call that? Collateral damage?”
“Are you accusing me of being involved with this tragedy?” Meyer appeared taken aback. “Officer Voorhees, there’s a very tenuous balance between my people and your people. Why would I risk upsetting that?”
“Because you think you’re untouchable. You think you run this town.” Voorhees leaned in close. “Like you said, you’re God here.”