by P. M. Briede
Seeing that would have been shocking enough but the burning sensation that immediately consumed my flesh stole all thought from my mind. Opening my mouth to scream out in pain, my throat constricted and silenced the sound. Not even a croak escaped my lips. My eyes rolled back in my head and my fingers agonizingly flexed open. My balance tipped and I fell head first into the fountain. Other than the sound of the splashing water the only sound I perceived was Olivier’s panicked, “CHARLOTTE!” After that everything went black.
Chapter 18
“I’m taking her to St. Charles. Look I’ve got to let you go. We’re pulling in right now.” There was a sudden bright light that focused through the darkness and the voice was muffled, like I was underwater. I tried to focus on it. It sounded so familiar, but when I did a black void overcame me.
Ouch! What the heck was that? Something bit my hand. When I tried to look, I couldn’t see and I was being held down. I opened my mouth to ask what was going on but instead something else was shoved down my throat and then my face was covered. There was a faint beeping in the distance, rhythmic but slow. Had I known that the breath I took to steady my nerves was going to send me back into the empty purgatory that I’d been so desperately trying to escape, I never would have taken it. The strange beeping became a constant buzz.
This is a weird movie. I recognize these people and scenes. Why does it all look so familiar? “Charlotte? Honey, it’s time to wake up.” Mom? Oh, my God, it’s you! I haven’t seen you in so long. But she didn’t act like it’d been, wait, how long has it been? Mom? Hey! Where have you been? Mom? She bent over, kissed my head, and stroked my hair. “It’ll be alright, honey.” I didn’t ask that, I asked where you’ve been. Continuing to not answer my questions, she put something on my back, grabbed my hand, and we walked out the door and into darkness.
“Sir, you have to leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Sir, we shouldn’t have let you in here in the first place. We don’t have visiting hours. I promise we’ll let you know as soon as she wakes up.”
“You don’t understand I can’t leave her.”
“Sir, I do understand. Seeing a loved one like this breaks even the strongest of men. But the doctor said that your fiancée should recover. These are the critical hours and you being in here actually can do more harm than good.”
“Can I have one more minute? Please, let me say good-bye to her in private and then I’ll retire to the waiting room.”
“Alright, one more minute.”
“Charlotte, my dear, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me; I haven’t done this in a very long time. Shepard mihi Dominus, ne faciam. Me collocavit eum in pascuis herbarum leadeth me super aquas refectionis. Et restituit animum meam leadth me super semitas iustitiae propter nomen suum. Nam et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo malum quoniam tu mecum es: virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa consolabuntur me. Coram me mensam coram inimicis meis oleo unges caput meum calix meus inebrians sequitur me. Etenim benignitas et misericordia subsequertur me omnibus diebus vitae meae et ut inhabitem in domo Domini semper. Placere sana eam. Amen.” Sadness and grief dripped from the voice, the words sparking a memory. They were The Lord is My Shepherd Psalm. Whomever this sincere plea was meant for must be in really bad shape. Before I could offer my own sympathies and prayer to this distraught soul, I was shrouded in emptiness.
“Ughnmph.” Every inch of my body was cold which was odd since it felt like I was on something soft. The only sounds were ambient with occasional beeps that were accelerating steadily. I opened my eyes to look around. The edges of my vision were fuzzy and nothing was really clear. I could make out shapes and shadows in the darkness. The room was small with one window but I couldn’t tell what was on the other side since the blinds were closed.
“Shhh, my dear. You’re going to be alright.” Olivier’s deep, drawling voice cut through the fog in my mind but I still felt disconnected from my body. My mind told my head to turn towards the sound of his voice but a century passed before it responded. When it finally did I could make out his shadowy form sitting in the chair next to me. “Do you recognize me, Charlotte?”
I tried to answer yes but my throat was blocked. My hand floated to my face and there was something covering it. He gently took my arm and laid it back on the bed, keeping my hand in his. “Don’t try to answer. I see the recognition in your eyes. If you promise to stay calm I’ll give you answers to the questions I know you have. I’m not supposed to be in here but it’s too dangerous to leave you unprotected.”
I vaguely remembered that I’d overheard a woman threaten someone’s life. Had it been mine? I didn’t move or acknowledge him in any way. I was too tired. The monitor next to me maintained its steady, if slow, cadenced beeps.
“My dear Charlotte, you’ve been on to me from the beginning. You’ve asked me so many questions. Where to start?” He was rambling. His leg bounced nervously making his entire body shake. “I guess we should start with the one you’ve been asking the longest, where did we meet?”
“We’ve met many times over the last twenty-two years. I’ve appeared as many different people in your life. But our deepest connection, the one that I believe has haunted you and gave me away, was the love you shared with Henry Montplaisir. I am Henry. He is me.” I struggled to wrap my mind around that. They didn’t look anything like each other. Henry had been shorter and blond. Their builds and frames were completely different.
Suddenly Olivier’s face was lit by the light of his phone but it wasn’t his face. It was Henry’s! The tempo of the beeping from the monitor sped up. “Charlotte, it’s still me. Calm down or I’m going to have to leave.” His eyes lit up with fire and for the first time I found the sight of them soothing. I got lost in their graceful dance among his pupils and the monitor voiced the slowing of my heart. “That’s it, my dear. You have nothing to fear from me. You have never had anything to fear from me.”
“This is also how I was able to dance with you last week.” His face changed as he spoke and his eyes bore into me out of Russell’s face. “You still doing okay?” My head bobbed forwards and back slowly. “Alright, time to answer another of your more persistent questions.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a pocketknife. He held his phone and the knife in one hand then slit the wrist of his other arm; slit it the length of his arm. He grunted and I gasped as blood poured from the wound. I told my arm to reach for the call button that had to be on the bed to get a nurse in here but my body was slow to respond. It didn’t matter. In the blink of an eye the blood pooled at his elbow before slowly making its way back up his arm and inside his vein. Once the blood was inside, the vein sealed itself up followed by his skin. Our eyes had been on his arm the entire time. Now that it was healed they found each other and he was back to wearing the face of the man I knew as Olivier Cheval. “I could do it a thousand times and the same thing would happen. Trust me I’ve tried. I feel the pain but I cannot die. At least not from something like this.”
I took a deep, steadying breath and ordered my heart to beat normally. He watched the monitor and me intently for signs that I was panicking. Days later I actually wondered why I didn’t. I could only attribute my calm to two facts. One, I’d already begun to question his humanity. And two, I had a constant flow of sedatives streaming into my veins from the IV.
When he was finally satisfied with the sounds of my monitors he spoke in a whisper. “You once asked me what it is about you that freaks me out. My honest answer, I’m madly in love with you, Charlotte. I have been for eighteen years. And eighteen years ago, when I was living life as Henry Montplaisir, you were in love with me too.” I felt the pressure of his fingers as they ran along the back of my hand, outlining the injection spot of my IV. “I’ve been so lost without you, so lonely. It’s that love, my love, which has endangered your life. It’s the fear that you might lose it that terrifies me.”
“I’m assuming that you overheard at least some of my conversat
ion with my commanding officer in the courtyard. I’m assuming you heard her threaten you.” He gripped my hand and pain shot through me. I whimpered but he was so focused on his fear that he mustn’t have heard it because his grip didn’t lax. “The world is on the brink of war. Not one over oil, or democracy, or even religion in the way humanity believes in it now. No, this will be the ultimate battle between Heaven and Hell. A fight to the death; a winner takes all clash; a power play for the control of eternity. And you, my dear? You are centered in the eye of the storm. An unwitting pawn my superiors have been trying to use to control the one person they believe will usher in the chaos.” He paused for a breath, he’d been talking so fast. He couldn’t be talking about…“Breaux.”
I couldn’t control my reaction. As upset as I was with Wesley … Wait? Why was I upset with Wesley? I couldn’t readily remember but I knew that I was. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t believe that he was the catalyst for the “end of days.” Olivier was instantly by my side whispering in my ear. “Breathe, my dear. I need you to breathe. I’m on your side. I’m doing all that I can. Me fili diabolic and I will look out for you.”
My eyes widened at his admission and that’s when I saw a fog blanketing the room. As it swirled in green waves, the only color that I saw since waking into this hazy gray world, I fought the pull of exhaustion. The truth about what he was had never entered the realm of possibilities I’d considered. Witch? Possibly. Alien? Maybe. Vampire? Probably not. A child of the devil? Not in a million years.
Wild Fire
What does Olivier’s admission mean for Charlotte and her friend’s? Read on for a sneak peek at the continuing story in the Charlotte Grace series.
Chapter 1
There was a knock at the door before a female voice asked, “Are you awake, Mrs. Grace?” Light accompanied her into the room and hurt my eyes, so I raised my arm to shield them. I was surprised at the weight of it. My vision focused on my arm. I saw for the first time that it was covered in bandages but it looked smaller than I remembered.
“Yaghmph.” Well I tried to answer the woman, but my throat was blocked. Panicked, I felt my face and found it was covered by some sort of mask.
The woman must have noticed my distress. She approached me and gently pulled my hands away from my face and laid them back down on the bed. “Don’t try to talk, Mrs. Grace. You’re alright. You’re in the burn unit at St. Charles Hospital.” The burn unit! Why?! How?! “You’ve been here for a couple of days now. I’ve already called the doctor when the monitor notified me that your vitals were changing. He should be here any minute; he’ll let you know what happened. By the way, I’m Nurse Janison.” Her voice was tender and compassionate and I found it soothing.
I have no idea how much time passed but eventually the doctor entered the room. “Hello, Mrs. Grace. I am Dr. Silverton. If you’ll excuse me a moment, I need to check your vitals before explaining to you what happened.” He paused a moment, like he was giving me a moment to answer, which was confounding to me since the bottom half of my face was immobilized by the mask that was across it. He whispered with the nurse quietly enough that I couldn’t hear them over the ambient noises.
After surveying all the machines and scrutinizing the chart he finally gave me his undivided attention. “Mrs. Grace, you’ve been sedated since Tuesday evening, currently it is Friday night. You’ve been breathing on your own for the last twenty-four hours so if it’s alright with you, I’d like to remove the breathing tube.” Again he paused and looked into my eyes. I made no movements hoping he would take that as consent.
“Alright.” As he spoke he worked around my face. There was a pull on either side of my head, like when you rip off a band aid. “I’m going to count to three. On three, I’m going to pull on the tube and I need you to relax your throat as much as possible. It’s going to feel like you’re vomiting, don’t fight the sensation. One, two, three.” True to his word, he pulled and had there been anything in my stomach, it would have come out with the tube. Once my throat was free of the device, I started coughing uncontrollably.
“That’s normal, try to take a deep breath.” I followed his instructions and tried to get control over my breathing. “There you go. Now I know that you have a lot of questions but your throat needs some time to heal before you’ll have your voice back. It won’t be long, but the less you talk the better. I’ll try to answer as many of the questions I think you have as possible. But I do have a few questions for you when we’re done, so we’ll need to figure out some way to communicate, okay?” I inclined my head forward ever so slightly and was rewarded with an encouraging smile from my doctor.
“Good. Apparently you were involved in a fire. A gentleman named Olivier Cheval found you and brought you to the hospital. He said that you were one of the guests at the governor’s Mardi Gras Ball. Does any of this sound familiar to you?” It did now that he mentioned it. I was at the ball and I remember being upset about something. But as hard as I tried I couldn’t recall the reason. Dr. Silverton was patiently waiting for an answer from me so I inclined my head again.
“Do you remember the fire? Mr. Cheval said that he found you but he didn’t see the fire.” I sought out the memory. I could remember the feeling of burning in my own skin, but there was no recollection of being near or in a fire. As best as I could I shook my head. “That’s okay. Many times the mind will protect itself from major trauma memories; there’s no need to relive it. Plus, you’ve been on high doses of class two narcotics since you were brought to us. Some of them have hallucinogenic side effects. So you may remember some things that didn’t happen and may not believe some things that did.” Well that may explain the insane dream I had of Olivier being a demon. “But I must ask, since Mr. Cheval brought you in, is it possible he was involved with your injury?” Right away I knew that he wasn’t so I shook my head again.
He took a deep breath then and looked extremely relieved. “Good. Now about your injuries, you’ve suffered second and third degree burns on most of your skin. Given that it was all over your body, you went into shock and we had to resuscitate you in the ER. You gave us quite a scare actually. But you seem to be a fighter and once we got your heart started again, we inserted the breathing tube and medically sedated you to keep you from going into shock again. Does everything make sense so far?” The tears were building in my eyes. Burns all over my body? My heart stopped? Resuscitation? Overwhelmed, a tear escaped my eyes and was absorbed by the bandages around my face.
A shadow crossed his face, sympathy maybe, and then was gone. “Mrs. Grace, we can stop if it’s too much.” I shook my head and he cleared his throat before continuing with the story of the last three days of my life. “It is my belief that you are going to make a full recovery with perhaps minor scarring. That will just depend on how your body heals so only time will tell. If it is more than you want to live with we can address surgical options at a later date. You should either be experiencing a tingling or numb sensation, are you?” I nodded. “Good, that means that the likelihood of nerve damage is low. The sensation is a result of the amount of morphine we have you on to keep you calm and pain free. My plan is to keep you here for another week at least under observation. Have I answered most of your questions?” I nodded again.
Well the medication explained why I wasn’t hyperventilating and felt so uncharacteristically calm. When I was younger, my mother had forced me to have reconstructive surgery to repair a scar on my neck. I hadn’t wanted to do it but since I was a minor the decision wasn’t mine to make. She’d told me I was going to the hospital for a routine check-up as part of the required documentation for my school field trip to Italy. Instead, once I got there I was informed I was going into surgery and the ensuing panic attack that followed was so bad I ended up being sedated and the anesthesiologist needed an ice pack for their eye afterwards. So let’s just say I’ve never been one to handle surprises, or hospitals, well.
My thoughts were interrupted when I heard my name being repeat
ed. When I focused my eyes on the doctor again, I saw a quizzical look in his. “Mrs. Grace, did you hear me?” Chagrinned, I shook my head. “It’s okay. I was asking about your family and friends. We’ve had many people overloading our administration staff to get information about your condition and insisting on being allowed in to see you. You’re a well-loved lady. Can you let me know whose name you recognize and if they are family or friend?” Wanting to get some answers myself as to how I ended up in here in the first place, I nodded hoping someone could come visit me soon.
“Good. Are your parents John and Celeste Baxter?” My father is John, but Celeste isn’t the name of my mother. I closed my eyes to think, you would’ve thought knowing my parents would have been a no brainer. The name Celeste was familiar but she wasn’t my mother. He must have sensed my confusion because he spoke before I could answer him. “It’s alright; the medication slows your mind. Let me ask it this way, is John Baxter your father and Celeste Baxter your stepmother?” The light bulb clicked on. That was right, so I tilted my head forward.
“Very good, Mrs. Grace. Do we have your consent to release your medical condition and status updates to them? They are currently trying to get back to the States. I understand they were on an extended Australian vacation and had to be tracked down in the outback.” Of course, they could have information they were the only family I really had left. I inclined my head.
“Paige Lochs, do you recognize this name?” I nodded. “Family or friend? Look right for family or left for friend.” I honestly didn’t know where to look. Paige was the sister I never had and initially my first instinct was to look right. However, a thought stopped me. It wasn’t solid but my last memory regarding Paige was being upset with her. I looked left. “Friend, alright. I will let you know that we were required to release your clothing to her as evidence to help determine how and why you were burned. Other than that we haven’t confirmed anything to her about your condition. Do you want that not to continue and once you’re able to see visitors do you want to see her?” Mad or not, Paige would tell me the truth. It sounded like she’d been here for more than work reasons. If I had basically become a crime scene, she’d be the best person to give me answers. I nodded.