Silent is the Grave

by Candle Sutton

  It took him only a second to take in the collateral damage.

  Contain the shooter.

  His training kicked in and he aimed his gun at Celestine, who was just turning toward him.

  “SFPD! Drop the weapon!” His voice sounded foreign.

  In his peripheral, he saw Morgan a short distance to his left, far enough away to provide too many targets for Celestine to cover at the same time.

  Celestine studied him, her face hard and blank.

  “Do it! I will shoot you.”

  Something she saw must’ve convinced her. She slowly lowered the weapon.

  ₪ ₪ ₪

  Elly dropped to her knees beside Monica.

  Oh Lord God! Not her!

  Another gunshot sounded behind her. Yelling voices, one she dimly recognized.

  Yet nothing mattered but the life that faded too quickly in front of her.

  “No! Monica!” She brushed hair back from Monica’s pale face. Monica’s lips moved but no sound came out. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

  Lord, you can fix this!

  Elly turned her eyes toward the ceiling. Please God, bring Your healing through me!

  Elly.

  The Father’s voice sounded in her head, compassionate and loving.

  Lord, she’s dying! You have to work now!

  No, Elly.

  The words resounded in her head. No? He couldn’t possibly mean…?

  Heal him.

  Him. Not Monica?

  Yes, him.

  She looked down at Monica. Pale lips no longer moved. Dark eyes stared straight ahead.

  Still, it wasn’t too late. God could do the impossible. Monica was barely gone.

  Elly. Let her go.

  No, Lord! Elly’s hands moved to the wound in Monica’s chest. Her hands slipped in the blood, but she didn’t pull back. Instead, she drew Monica’s limp body to her own, holding the girl close, willing her own life to merge with Monica’s fading one.

  Lord, I can heal her!

  A curtain dropped in her mind.

  Elly.

  The voice sounded distant, muffled. Almost as if God were retreating.

  Lord?

  No answer.

  Weight crushed her so heavily she couldn’t breathe.

  Father?

  Nothing. She couldn’t hear Him, sense Him. Was He gone?

  He must be. She could feel the absence.

  Silence had never been so complete.

  “No!” The word ripped from her throat. She looked to the ceiling, hoping to see it break open and reveal the Father. A sob bubbled up. “No! Don’t leave me!”

  Tears flowed as the silence grew.

  She was a sinner. A failure. Undeserving of God’s love. Unable to hear His voice.

  Monica was gone. She could feel it. God wasn’t going to bring her back.

  But worse than that, the Father had withdrawn.

  Life as she knew it would never be the same.

  ₪ ₪ ₪

  “Don’t leave me!”

  Elly’s wailed words sent ice through Zander’s blood. The despair, the grief… the sound was almost savage in intensity.

  Keeping pressure on the wound on Rafe’s side, Zander looked up. Elly cradled Monica, rocking, sobbing.

  Yet Elly’s gaze was locked on the ceiling.

  The lolling of Monica’s head and the death mask told Zander all he needed to know. Monica was gone.

  And Elly hadn’t been able to heal her.

  A glance at Morgan found him on the phone. Probably calling for an ambulance.

  Celestine sat on the floor, her back against the wall, her gaze locked on him. No remorse. In fact, no sign of anything.

  Rafe moaned.

  Zander turned his attention back to the man he hardly recognized. “Come on, man. Stay with me.”

  Elly. She could help him.

  But was it worth the cost to her?

  Morgan knelt beside him. “I’ll look for something to stop the bleeding.”

  Zander barely noticed Morgan leave. Turning back to Rafe, he assessed the injuries. The bullet had entered mid-torso, slightly off center.

  What organs were over there? Liver? Spleen? Was it high enough to hit his lungs?

  He couldn’t think straight.

  All he knew was that the blood was still flowing and the one woman who could save Rafe was sitting only feet away.

  “Elly!” He turned to look at her. “Please help him!”

  If she heard him, she showed no indication.

  “Elly, please! He’s dying!”

  ₪ ₪ ₪

  “He’s dying.”

  Zander’s words penetrated the fog in Elly’s mind. Grief lined them. Not the soul-wrenching grief she now faced, but the grief of losing a loved one too soon.

  It’s not too late to obey.

  Father? Hope penetrated the dark cloud smothering her soul. The voice was different, filtered somehow, but she’d know that voice anywhere.

  I am always with you.

  Yes, she knew that. In spite of her sin, she knew God would never leave her. She’d changed the nature of their relationship, but God was constant and true.

  She looked down at Monica’s face.

  I have her. But I am not done with him yet.

  Father? You would still use me to heal?

  It is your gift.

  Her gift. And God wanted her to use it to heal Rafe.

  She released Monica’s body and slowly lowered it to the floor before joining Zander beside a man who looked one step away from the grave.

  “Are you okay?” Zander’s eyes landed on her blood-stained shirt.

  No, she was most definitely not okay. In her selfishness, she’d sacrificed the most important relationship she had.

  Yet she knew that wasn’t what Zander was asking.

  She nodded. “It’s Monica’s.”

  Placing her hands on Rafe, Elly closed her eyes and prayed.

  Light flooded her senses, the warmth familiar and comforting. While not as vivid as it had once been, it proved that God had not abandoned her. The light moved through her, flowed through her fingers and into the dying man in front of her. As the light receded, pain moved in.

  She gasped. Sharp, shooting pains in her torso! Pounding in her head!

  It intensified.

  Father, give me Your strength.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d prayed that, but it was the first time she’d needed it this badly. Her new status as one of the fallen ones had weakened her gift.

  Yet she still had the gift and she would use it. She would obey.

  Tears bullied past her eyelids, leaving rebellious trails down her cheeks.

  Then it was done. She could sense it, just as she always had. Rafe was healed. He would live.

  Her hands dropped. Heaviness weighted her head and her eyes felt glued closed. She swayed.

  Hands on her shoulders, turning her, pulling her back. A warm, solid surface behind her.

  Voices sounded as if down a tunnel.

  “Wha – what happened?” Rafe asked.

  “Elly heals.” Zander’s voice rumbled behind her.

  No. God heals.

  The words wouldn’t leave her head. Her uncooperative lips refused to move.

  The darkness crept in closer. She struggled to retain consciousness, even as she knew it was a battle she would lose.

  “Backup’s arrived. Medics are on the way… what happened here?”

  Morgan’s voice, somewhere close by. Maybe. It was hard to be certain of anything right now.

  Medics. She had to keep them from looking at her. They’d see the gill-like marks on her head. See the lack of physical injury. It’d invite far too many questions.

  She couldn’t make her eyes open or her lips protest.

  Well done, my child. Now rest.

  The Father’s voice ushered in the encroaching void. Voices faded, the pain eased, and her thoughts slipped into the Father’s presence
.

  Twenty Four

  The EMTs rushed in and maneuvered Elly away from Zander.

  One of them turned and eyeballed him. “Detective, are you injured?”

  Zander looked down at the blood drying on his arms and clothes. “No. This is all from Rafe.”

  Following his gesture, the EMT looked at Rafe who, in spite of his own blood-stained clothing, looked absolutely uninjured.

  Perhaps because he was. They were gonna have a hard time explaining this one.

  Zander watched the other EMT doing a cursory exam of Elly. “That blood’s not hers.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Nodding toward Monica’s corpse, which was currently being photographed, he added, “Elly tried to help her.”

  He still wasn’t sure why Elly hadn’t been able to heal Monica. Maybe she’d been too far gone? Too much damage or something? He’d have to ask Elly when she came to.

  The EMT returned to his examination.

  In his head, he could hear Elly saying no doctors or hospitals, but there was nothing he could do this time. This was too big, too public, to stop.

  Honestly, he wasn’t sure he would even if he could.

  Maybe she needed to be checked out. Her cries, both while holding Monica and while healing Rafe, lingered in his mind. He’d never heard a sound like that before. What if Rafe’s wound was somehow different than any of the others?

  “Yo, Salinas.”

  Zander jerked as Detective Ramos from the gang unit waved him over. With a final glance at Elly, he forced himself to cross the room.

  “What’re you guys doin’ musclin’ in on our case?” Ramos glared at him.

  “Saving lives.”

  Ramos directed a pointed stare at Monica. “That a fact? I see two people here who’d say otherwise.”

  Actually, there were three dead, counting Monica’s baby, but he didn’t point that out. “There’d be more casualties if we hadn’t entered when we did.”

  Although he was still on the fence as to whether or not Elly could even die.

  “All right, guys, that’s enough.” Morgan came over and clapped them both on the back. “We’ve put a big dent in the Alma Negra. Arrested a bunch of guys. Freed dozens from slavery. And if our intel is correct, we’ll find a bunch of drugs in the basement. This is a win for all of us.”

  “You also got Jave’s killer.”

  “Who?” Zander whipped around to look at Rafe, who now sat on a gurney as an EMT checked his head.

  Rafe nodded at the dead guy on the floor, the one whose face was barely recognizable as Ray Cutler. “Guy admitted to it himself. That’s why Montoya shot him.”

  Staring at the dead man, Zander let the truth sink in.

  Jave’s killer. After all this time. “Did he say why he killed Jave?”

  “Thought Jave was selling out.” Rafe hesitated. “Saw him talking to you and thought he was snitching. Honestly, I think he had a thing for Montoya and wanted to get rid of the competition.”

  The EMT checking Rafe’s head scrunched his eyebrows together.

  Probably wondering how there could be so much blood but no wound.

  That was one mystery that would remain unsolved. At least if he had anything to say about it.

  “You know what else I think?” Rafe’s shifted his focus to Montoya, who still sat handcuffed by the wall. “I think she’s the head of the Almas.”

  Celestine returned Zander’s stare evenly, her face giving nothing away.

  Celestine Montoya, the Alma leader? “Why?”

  “She was callin’ all the shots today, man. That dude there,” Rafe nodded at Ray Cutler’s body, “Was answerin’ to her.”

  And if Cutler was the Alma’s enforcer, as Zander suspected, he would answer to the top dog.

  Celestine Montoya.

  Ramos snorted. “Well, I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

  A gurney rattled across the carpet.

  Zander turned in time to see Elly being wheeled out of the room.

  There was no way he was going to let her wake up at the hospital alone.

  He turned to tell Morgan, but found Morgan already shaking his head. “Go, kid. We’ll wrap things up here.”

  Zander jogged from the room, catching the EMTs just as the elevator doors slid open. “How is she?”

  The EMTs pushed the gurney into the elevator. “You know we can’t tell you anything, detective.”

  Dang privacy laws.

  It didn’t matter. She’d be fine.

  Physically. He just hoped that today hadn’t exacted a permanent mental or emotional toll from which she might never recover.

  ₪ ₪ ₪

  “Zander.”

  Zander jerked awake, fingers tightening on the Glock in his lap. His gaze darted around the room before resting on Elly, who looked both pale and frail in the hospital bed.

  A stiff back and sore tailbone evidenced a long night on the room’s sole padded chair. Rising, he stretched and approached the bed.

  “Hey.” Residual sleep gave his voice a rough edge. He cleared his throat. “How’re you doing?”

  “Better.” Elly looked around, her forehead wrinkled. “Where… where are we?”

  “The hospital.”

  Alarm lit her eyes, which were the slate blue color of the bay during a storm.

  He placed a hand over hers. “It couldn’t be helped. I’m sorry.”

  A slow breath leaked out. “It’s okay. They won’t…”

  Tears flooded her eyes, making them look as turbulent as the ocean of which they reminded him.

  “They won’t find anything strange.” She looked toward the window as wet rivers wound down her cheeks.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” If only he could do something to stop the tears. “Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out. Besides, with medical privacy laws, it’s not like they can tell anyone anything anyway.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” With her free hand, she rubbed behind her ears. “They’re gone.”

  The gills. Of course that’s what she would be worried about.

  But… how could they be gone? “What do you mean?”

  She turned sorrow-filled eyes on him. “I mean that they’re gone. For good. I can never go home.”

  “Why?” Not that he was complaining. The idea of her staying was anything but bad.

  “I sinned.”

  The words hung in the silence.

  Sinned? Her? But that meant… she was no longer perfect. She was just like him and everyone else?

  Impossible.

  “What do you mean?”

  “God told me to let Monica go and heal Rafe. I said no.”

  That was it? “So?”

  “So it’s disobedience. Sin.”

  It was nothing. Heck, he swore and drank and lusted and got angry – all things he knew from his church going days to be sins – every single day. And she was worried about one time that she told God no?

  “But you did it. Rafe’s fine.”

  “Eventually. But first I told God no. That’s a sin.”

  Okay, so this was obviously eating her up. “It’s no big deal.”

  “To us, maybe not. But to God, it’s sin. It doesn’t matter how ‘big’ it is by human standards. God doesn’t have a ranking system.”

  And stealing a loaf of bread still made someone a criminal.

  Well, she was the one with the direct line to God, so she must know what she was talking about. “Okay, so what does that mean for you?”

  “It means I no longer hear God like I did. He still loves me and speaks to me, but it’s different. It also means that I need saving. I need a Savior. I need Jesus in a way I never have before.”

  If she needed Jesus to save her, how much more did he?

  The thought settled. He had committed so many more sins than she had. Told God no so many more times. Done things that he knew was wrong by God’s standard, even if the world said it was okay.

  He needed a Savior. He needed Jesus.

/>   For the first time ever, the truth was so clear.

  He was powerless to save. When Rafe was bleeding out, he couldn’t save him. God had done it. Through Elly, but it had still been God’s doing.

  In the same way, he couldn’t save himself. No matter what he did, how many wrongs he righted, how many bad guys he brought to justice, how many hours he spent mentoring the kids at the youth center, nothing was ever good enough. Everything Elly had been saying this whole time, the things Betty had said over the last few years, even some of the things he’d learned at church as a kid, they were all pointing him to this truth.

  Only God could save. In this life and the next.

  Okay, so he’d finally figured that part out. Now what?

  Well, there was one person sitting right in front of him who knew the answer. “You’re right.”

  Elly arched an eyebrow, holding his gaze with her own, but said nothing.

  No, she was waiting for him to finish the thought. “I need God to save me, too.”

  How could saying that feel both weird and right at the same time?

  “What do I do?”

  “‘If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.’ Romans 10:9.” Elly squeezed his hand. “It’s that simple. You confess that you are a sinner who needs Jesus, that you believe He died for your sins and rose to give you victory over sin and death, and you commit to live for Him. Just make sure you really believe it before you go any further or this is all pointless.”

  Did he believe?

  Yes. Somehow, it resonated.

  Elly, who had been perfect and now was not, believed and had peace. He could see it, even amidst the grief.

  There was peace because it was real.

  “I believe.”

  Elly smiled. “Then tell God.”

  Tell God. Pray. He didn’t even know where to begin, but he found himself talking. Nothing flowery, more or less a regurgitation of what Elly had so eloquently said, but the words came from his heart.

  When he’d finished, silence reigned for several moments.

  “Congratulations.” Elly’s voice was soft. “You’ve crossed from being fallen to redeemed.”

  He didn’t really understand what all that meant, but he had time to learn. And with any luck, he’d have a beautiful, God-fearing redhead by his side to teach him.