Noah and Ayden pop out intermittently from behind archways, firing at the men past John’s location on the right, but he can’t find any sign of Kylie. Is she already hit? The thought draws acid up into his throat. He fights the urge to charge in, and forces himself back behind cover.
Think it through, John.
Once he pushes worry into a box, it makes sense to his tactical mind. Ayden and Noah aren’t retreating. They are intentionally drawing fire to divert their opponents from something or someone. That someone is probably Kylie. In the process, they might have gotten themselves pinned down or need to buy a little more time.
John considers rushing away from the fight and trusting Hope to guide him to wherever Kylie is, but his heart hasn’t gone that cold. Ayden and Noah have been like brothers to him for years. He can’t abandon them, even with the high likelihood they’ll want to kill him.
I’ll even things up a little first.
He ejects the magazine from his pistol, pockets it, then snaps a full one home. After a long, slow breath, he leans out into the hall, firing rapidly at the group of three men on the right side of the hall. After emptying his magazine in two seconds, he ducks back for cover. Not everything Simms has done to him has been bad. Enhanced reflexes will never not come in handy.
Stone fragments flake away from the wall beside his head. Shots come from Noah and Ayden’s position in a regular pop-pop-pop. From the pacing of the shots, John figures they probably aren’t even aiming, merely firing to force their opponents to duck so they can move.
He hadn’t looked long enough to be sure, but his gut says at least four of the ten rounds he fired hit home. His older Walther .40 holds twelve rounds. Waste not, want not. He ducks out around the corner, fires twice, aiming at the memory of where the men are, and ducks back in an instant. Another barrage of incoming fire splinters stone chips at his face. Rapid footsteps come from out in the hall, growing distant.
Heh. I think they’re upset with me.
John reloads. The click of the magazine snapping into place echoes down the silent corridor. He risks a glance around the corner, his gun leading the way. The alcoves are empty, only a few bloody splats mark the otherwise pale stone. Perhaps they’re falling back in an attempt to draw him out. In any case, he’s taken the pressure off Ayden and Noah.
Amid the silence, Hope’s presence returns. Eyes closed, John meditates upon his new objective. I need to find Kylie.
A child’s voice whispers inside his mind.
She’s safe, and I know where she is.
Chapter Eighteen
The safe house…
I’ve gotten her out of the Vatican, out of the sewer system, and to the safe house in Rome, where I wait for the rest of the team to arrive. I’m still trying to figure out exactly why I kidnapped the daughter of the President of the United States. That Julia is a part of this is undeniable. We only want to talk to her, maybe keep an eye on her. Kidnap her? No, that hadn’t been part of the plan. Well, I suppose technically we aren’t kidnapping her since she’s going with us willingly. But I don’t expect anyone, least of all her father, will ever believe that.
Indeed, we need to understand who she is, what she knows, and what role she could potentially play in a theoretical apocalypse of biblical proportions. The problem is, my guys haven’t shown up yet and I can’t bear leaving them behind. When I grumble about going back to check on them, Julia laughs.
“Go ahead. You’ll just be back with another dude in a few minutes, argue with him and then take off. You’ll be gone less than ten minutes before you come back through the door with that tall, dark hottie and the other guy.”
I’m not sure what to think about her reference to “the tall, dark hottie,” Ayden. Given the way the two eyed each other earlier, I am pretty sure I won’t have to deal with Ayden’s advances any longer if the newly-minted, twenty-one-year-old Julia stays around for any length of time. As I’m thinking that, my mind skips to the other reference, to the guy that Julia says I am going to argue with.
“Which guy am I going to argue with?”
“As if you didn’t know.” Julia winks.
“No, seriously, I don’t.”
“Your fiancé.”
Even as the urge to call BS rises inside me, a sense that John’s already near hits me. I can feel him. All the more reason to get the hell out of here. I don’t have the time or the energy to deal with him—not yet, not until we’re finished with whatever we have gotten ourselves into.
All the possible scenarios for what might happen if I leave Julia alone play out in my head. Honestly, it’s debatable if going back out in search of the guys is even worthwhile. I still haven’t made up my mind when Julia stands up from the sofa and moves toward the door.
“You might as well come talk to him,” she says in a flat tone. “He’s here.”
“Wait who’s here? You can’t just—”
Before I can react, Julia pulls the door open to reveal a ghost.
It’s John. My handsome, thoughtful, brilliant, and traitorous fiancé… back from the grave. And breathing.
***
He stands at the safe house’s doorstep, fist raised ready to knock. He looks as shocked as I feel.
I want to flee—or reach for my gun—but I do something totally unexpected. I freeze, maybe for the first time in my life. Indeed, all my training goes out the window, along with my breath, my thoughts, and maybe even my sanity.
“Hi, Ky,” he says barely above a whisper.
Angry tears stream down my cheeks—at least, I think they’re angry—it’s all so confusing, I’m not sure what type of tears come out. To my surprise, my Walther is in my hand and pointing at his chest. I don’t even remember drawing it. My training runs deep.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper. “Simms told us you were dead.”
“Simms is the last person you should believe, ever.”
“We saw the tape where you betrayed us.”
“A fake, Ky. Fakes and lies, all of it. Hey, is that the President’s daughter with you?”
“Never mind that. You have one minute to explain before I put a bullet between your eyes.”
“Simms set me up. He showed you guys a doctored video, and apparently, it fooled you all. I’m not sure what else he did to make you think that I turned against the team, but none of it is true. He lured me in with an offer of a promotion, but I woke up strapped down to a bed in some insane fake hospital. I was a prisoner. They experimented on me, Kylie. Simms changed my healing gift to a touch of death. He turned me into a monster.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
He explains further how they held him captive, mostly sedated, but over time, how they administered an experimental serum, one that caused some kind of mutation so that anything he touched, died. In effect, they reversed his natural talents. They forced him to touch lab animals, rats, cats, dogs and such. When he escaped, his arm brushed a doctor’s cheek and he died in front of him, too.
“It was horrible,” he says. “I wanted so badly to hold you again, Ky. But I couldn’t. I hid, ashamed of what I’d become, careful to avoid anyone and everything for fear that my touch would take a life. It killed me to think that I might never be able to touch you again. But I needed to warn you about Simms. You needed to know the truth about him… and me. I also needed to find a cure.”
Of all people, Sister Marie-Luce convinced him that he’d receive help from an unlikely source. In truth, he’d been close to his wits’ end—suicidal, in fact—and would have accepted help from anyone. Little did he know how remarkable the source would be.
“I did what she ordered me to do. I went to the monastery’s garden and tried to meditate. Mostly, I prayed. Ky… I was visited.”
I wait, but he seems hesitant to continue the story. “Visited by whom?”
He swallows, looks again at Julia, who’s standing somewhere behind me. My gun is still trained between his eyes. This isn’t the man I fell in love wi
th. It is obvious he’s been through hell. Whether or not it is a hell of his own making remains to be seen.
He finally says, “Ky, I am sure it was the Archangel Raphael.”
Julia laughs behind me.
I blink. “You did say Archangel Raphael?”
“I did.”
Truth is, if he wants to BS me, he would not have come up with such an outlandish story. And hey, we are technically trying to stop the biblical end of the world here. An angel—even an archangel—that does seem kinda tame by comparison. “How did she know? Why did he come? And am I dreaming?”
“I have no idea how it worked or why he chose to intercede and no, you are not dreaming, Ky. Sister Marie-Luce says Raphael’s the patron of healers, and, with his help, great feelings of love reversed the effects of those vile injections.”
“That was it? Boom, you were instantly cured by an archangel?” I ask. “Not that I totally believe any of this.”
“Ky, the love that healed me was my love for you. And it must’ve worked. I can touch again…” He holds out his hands in an open invitation.
I take in a deep breath, not knowing what to say or think in that moment. I find myself staring at him and as ludicrous as his story sounds, I know he’s being truthful. It seems to fit right into place with everything else that’s been going on.
As the gun in my hand wavers and begins to lower, John pounces. He brushes my hand aside and slips both his arms around my back. One of his hands finds the back of my head and pulls me toward his hungry lips. I could still knee him in the balls or pistol-whip him with the gun. But I don’t. I didn’t dare dream of this moment ever happening again, and now that it’s here, I don’t ever want it to stop.
“Geez, you guys,” says Julia from somewhere behind us. “Get a room.”
And had this been anything other than the end of the world, we just might have.
Chapter Nineteen
Since being left in the care of the nuns, Hope finds the garden a place of comfort.
After breakfast, she goes straight out to her favorite bench, bringing a book she’s taken at random from a shelf in the hall. Though she finds it annoying to basically be trapped inside walls again, she rationalizes that hiding is different from being held a prisoner. Especially now that she’s learned how to send herself anywhere she wants, nowhere could truly hold her prisoner again. At least, not without the sort of shielding Simms put up around her old room.
The book turns out to be on the boring side, a history of saints, so she spends a while leafing through it admiring the paintings more than diving into the text. A yawn sneaks out, reminding her that she hasn’t slept well again. Three or four times last night, she woke and felt compelled to test her bedroom door to make sure it hadn’t been locked. It hadn’t. Hope didn’t say anything to Sister Marie-Luce about it, being somewhat embarrassed at her fear.
Of course, the kindly nun understands why a twelve-year-old has such an anxiety. The way Simms treated Hope makes the nun angry, and Hope doesn’t want to upset her either. What happened to her happened, and getting the sweet nun worked up will not change that. Once Ky comes back and all this is over, then maybe she can work on forgetting that whole nightmare.
Hope traces a finger over her wrist. Though no mark remains, she can almost still feel the handcuffs Orlenda used on her in the hotel. She spent hours trying to wriggle out of them when no one watched her, but that horrible woman put them on her so tight. All her life, she’d been a captive. And even here, she remains a prisoner of fear. The monastery, especially this garden, soothes her. She closes her eyes and enjoys the breeze, listening to the chirp of birds and the two squirrels scampering about.
John says he’s seen an angel here, so maybe the strong energy around her has a true connection to something deeper. Please protect Ky.
Soft, scuffing footsteps approach, but she doesn’t open her eyes.
“I know where you went yesterday, Hope,” says Sister Marie-Luce. “That sort of thing can create problems for those who you go to visit.”
“Yes.” Hope sighs. “I’m sorry. I know it makes it easier for others to locate me and for them to locate whoever I visit.”
“It does do that, but you didn’t just go to listen, did you?” Sister Marie-Luce sits beside her on the bench.
Hope opens her eyes and smiles at the nun. Telling Sister Marie-Luce what she really did might get her in trouble, and she doesn’t want to suffer a scolding. On the other hand, lying to Sister Marie-Luce made her feel much guiltier. She bowed her head. “I transferred and visited John on an airplane. I really needed to do it. I try to stay away from Kylie, because I want her to be safe, but John wants her to be safe too, so I went to him.”
“It’s okay, Hope.” Sister Marie-Luce pats her shoulder. “You’re not in trouble. I know you’re eager to help Kylie and her friends. I also know you cannot avoid it. It is part of who you are and part of the reason your gifts were given to you.”
“You’re not mad?” Hope snaps her head up, wide-eyed.
“I’m not angry.” Sister Marie-Luce smiles. “But you need to make sure that you know what you’re getting into whenever you do those sorts of things and you need to make certain that you’re not followed.”
Hope feels as though the nun just slapped her. Of course… she could’ve transferred out of the compound whenever she wanted, if only she hadn’t doubted her ability to do so. Had Simms put up shields or had she simply been too afraid to commit to using her powers? Ooh! She clenches her hands in fists, feeling stupid for literally running away, right into those soldiers who kidnapped her.
Sister Marie-Luce continues rubbing her back. “It’s all right, Hope. You are safe here.”
She takes a few breaths and nods. “How can I tell if someone follows me?”
“Do you still have the watch I gave you?”
Hope reaches inside the neck of her dress and fishes out the watch, which she wears like a pendant. She holds it up and offers it to the nun. “Here.”
“No, no… you keep it, dear. That watch has some unique properties you might not be aware of.”
“Um.” Hope tilts the watch back and forth, making the sunlight gleam across the surface. “What does it do?”
Sister Marie-Luce glances up at one of the squirrels racing overhead through the tree. “It covers up your past and the history of where you’ve been, especially whenever you transfer through time and space. Do you understand?”
“It’s a magic watch, then?” Hope grins, almost giggles, at calling something magic. It feels silly, but can’t think of another word for it. “Does that make me Harriet Potter?”
Sister Marie-Luce laughs, and tickles her until she squeals. “It’s a special, blessed watch, but for all practical purposes, you may call it magic if you want to.”
“Good, because I don’t know what else to call it.” Hope rubs her thumb over the watch, realizing it masked her from Gary. She makes a sour face at remembering him demand that she call him Geryon. He’d been Gary, her teacher, for so long it feels too strange to think of him as anything else. Especially something so weird and silly. Ever since she’s escaped, she’s dreaded he’ll follow her through time and find her again. And Echidna—how is she alive? Hadn’t Noah killed her in Morocco?
“What else is bothering you, Hope?” Sister Marie-Luce asks. “Your thoughts are troubled.”
“I’m confused about Noah and Echidna,” she says, still staring at the watch.
“How so?”
“Well. I know that I can trust Noah now, but he said he’s the one who helped me get away from the compound, but he also helped the men who kidnapped me. I thought I was escaping, but it was a trap. Noah sent those men to get me. They gave me a needle that made me sleep, and when I woke up, Orlenda and Echidna had me. I found out that her real name is Jacqueline, and she’s married to Noah. And Noah said he killed her at the hotel in Morocco when Ky saved me, but she was alive again and with Gary. I know Echidna is powerful, but how could
she come back to life if she was dead? I don’t understand.”
“Yes, your confusion does make sense. That’s one heck of a tangled mess.”
Hope grins. “Yeah. Worse than my hair was.”
Sister Marie-Luce chuckles. “As far as Noah is concerned, you can trust him as much as you trust Kylie, Ayden and John. He will protect you with his life before he allows any harm to come to you. When Noah sent those men to get you and take you to Orlenda, it wasn’t actually Noah who did that. That sounds strange, so I’ll try to explain.”
“What? It was him, but it wasn’t?” Hope scrunches up her nose.
Sister Marie-Luce pauses, lost in thought for a few seconds. “Echidna has a power that allows her to control people’s minds. She made Noah marry her, she also used it to force Grant Simms to allow her to work with PSI, and she compelled Noah to arrange for your abduction to Orlenda.”
“Did she control Gary, too? I think she tried to use it on me, but I didn’t want to listen to her.”
“I can’t answer that about Gary, but it is possible. And you have an unusually strong mind.”
“Well, they said Orlenda was dead. That John sent them a picture. Is she really dead or will she come back to life, too?”
“Orlenda is really dead. She won’t come back to life.”
Hope stares up at her. “But Echidna came back to life.”
“No, sweetheart, she never died. She only made Noah believe he killed her. It was a mind trick.”
“Oh.” She cringes. “Noah really thought he killed her. I mean, I saw his face. He felt really bad about it. Do you think he really loved her?”
“He believed he loved her, but I don’t know if he actually did or if she made him feel that way using her power.”
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