The Great Thirst Boxed Set

by Mary C. Findley

  Talia saw Keith’s baffled look but she didn’t want to waste any more time explaining. She just answered in Spanish.

  “I’m so sorry. My husband … he tried so hard to be careful. We didn’t realize the traffic from Tres Zapotes would be quite so bad.”

  “This is Mexico,” the woman said. “But it’s all right. Just go on in to Examination Room Three and the nurse will help you get ready. The doctor had a cancelation so you’re actually right on time.”

  Keith put a hand on Talia’s back and helped her down the hallway. “I told you it would be okay. They would understand. Even the Tesla couldn’t have got us here on time.”

  “It could have if I was driving us,” Talia retorted.

  “You can’t even get under the steering wheel,” Keith said. He held his hand over his mouth but couldn’t stop the spluttering laugh. Talia glared at him.

  “They didn’t understand. They just had a cancelation.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Señora Bradley?” a nurse entered the room. “Oh, Señor, how you startled me. This is most unusual. In Mexico, the husband remains in the waiting area. I can show you –”

  Keith looked blank again.

  Talia rolled her eyes. “I wish you really had that language gift … beyond that one Spanish word you picked up from Angel.”

  “Sorry, I don’t even remember that one. What did the nurse say?”

  “She wants you to wait outside. In Mexico husbands don’t come into the examination room, she says.”

  “Not happening,” Keith said. “I’ve been to every visit with you and I’m not about to start waiting outside. Tell her.”

  “Maybe just this once, since they’re fitting me in.” Talia chewed her lip.

  “Naw, I know that means you’re upset, when you do that, but I’m not going anywhere. Tell her.”

  “My husband prefers to stay,” Talia said in Spanish. She took as deep a breath as Baby Cherub would allow.

  The nurse’s eyebrows went very high. “It is not permitted,” she said. “The Señor Doctor is very strict. It is unhygienic. It is distracting. The room is too small. No one has ever even asked to do this before.”

  “If no one had ever asked, you wouldn’t have a list of reasons why it’s not allowed,” Talia said with a smile.

  “All this he will tell you himself – or refuse to see you at all.” The nurse turned and marched out.

  “I’m making more trouble, right?” Keith rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe I should –”

  “No. I want you here. Keith … touch my belly.”

  Keith obliged. “It’s hard. Really hard, like Jayna said this morning. Is that normal?”

  “I’m not sure. I keep feeling these .. I don’t know … waves … and the baby really hasn’t moved all day. Not at all.”

  “You mean waves like that?” Keith felt something like a ripple. “That’s not the baby, right?”

  “No. And my back hurts so much. Just … more waves … oooh …” Talia dropped down on the doctor’s stool.

  “Good afternoon. I am Doctor Alfaria. My nurse said there was a prob –”

  A slim brown man, very young in Keith’s eyes, entered the room with his hand held out, speaking English, to Keith’s great delight. He stopped dead and took a good look, pulling his glasses down. “Is something wrong?”

  “She gets really hard … I mean, her belly does, and she has this pain in her back,” Keith said.

  “How far apart?” the doctor demanded.

  “What do you mean, far apart? It’s done it about three times, just since I felt it,” Keith said.

  “What? Just since the nurse was in here?” the doctor waved a hand at his examination table. “Help me get her up, and call my nurse immediately. No. First, get me some gloves from that box over there – No! First I need her on the table. Andale! Then the gloves, then the nurse.”

  “I’m in labor?” Talia asked a few minutes later, staring up at the doctor, Keith, and a different nurse, all in gowns and gloves.

  “My dear, it’s likely you’ve been in labor for hours,” the doctor said. “Perhaps all day. This is your first time, of course. Many women don’t know what to expect.”

  “False labor?” Talia asked.

  “No. Not at all,” the doctor replied. “This is very real.”

  “But it’s too early,” Talia protested.

  “The best doctors in the world cannot tell el Dio when a baby should be born,” the doctor replied. “When He says now …”

  “Hospital?” Keith asked as Talia tensed up again.

  “I do not think there will be time. Usually a first child will take a long time, but this one – this one looks ready. Hold your wife’s hand, and don’t mind if she digs in a little.”

  Keith kissed the top of Talia’s head. “I’m used to it,” he grinned.

  “Hello, Cherub,” Talia whispered as Keith put the blanket-bundled object into her arms. The baby squeaked and nuzzled against her.

  “Umm … it is a boy,” Keith said softly. “We gonna keep on calling him Cherub anyway?”

  “I’m so used to it,” Talia said. “We talked about naming him after your father, though, didn’t we?”

  “And your uncle,” Keith replied.

  “And David, and Jiggly, and … oh. We’ll call him Daniel.” Talia cuddled the baby. “But … right now … he can still be Cherub, can’t he?”

  “Yeah.” Keith kissed the top of her head again, and also kissed the baby’s. “Hello, Cherub Daniel. Welcome to Mexico.”

  “The doctor?”

  “They all went to arrange for the ambulance to get you to the hospital,” Keith said, laughing. “They said you’d be okay with me for a few minutes, and they said it was the easiest birth they have attended in years. I told them you work out.”

  “What time is it?” Talia asked.

  “About eleven pm, I think,” Keith said.

  “That was an easy birth? Oooh. I hope they don’t get any harder.”

  “The Bible says you’re supposed to forget your pain for the joy that a man has come into the world,” Keith said.

  “I will … soon,” Talia said. “Listen to those little noises. He didn’t cry much, did he?”

  “Naw. I called Naddy and Sophie and the others while they were getting things cleaned up. They’ll meet us at the hospital. Oh … Drew … I forgot all about Drew.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the waiting room, I guess. Did you forget he followed us up here too? He said sitting in the back seat of the Tesla that long was not something he intended to put his knees through.”

  “Oh, yes. Maybe we should name the baby Daniel Nadir Joshua Drew David Jiggly … Oh. I’m so tired.”

  “Remember what you used to tell me? Relax. Rest. Just rest.” Keith rubbed her between the eyebrows. “Felt so good when you did that to me.”

  “Feels good to me too. If I go to sleep, don’t let the baby fall.”

  “Not a chance,” Keith whispered.

  “He is so beautiful,” Sophie said as she, Naddy, Joshua, Grandma Bradley, and Keith all gathered around Talia’s bed at the hospital the next morning.

  Talia stared out at the crowd of students and parents in the hallway outside, at her windows. “They all came?”

  “We brought the bus,” Jiggly said from the doorway. “We can’t keep it in the parking lot too long, but they all wanted to see Cherub Unleashed.”

  Keith lifted the baby from Sophie’s arms and carried it over to the window. Talia couldn’t believe they all kept silent. Even Jayna clapped both hands over her mouth, but her eyes grew so big it worried her just a little. They did smear up the window with fingerprints and lip-glossy kisses.

  “Dan?” she gasped. Keith’s brother separated himself from the crowd in the hallway and approached.

  “Yeah, I been here a couple of hours, but you were sleeping,” Dan said. “Is it true? You’re really naming the kid Daniel? After me?”

  “Yes,�
�� Talia said. “Still trying to figure out a middle name, but … I can’t believe you’re here!” She reached up her arms.

  “What?” Dan looked around.

  “She kisses people,” Keith said, and shrugged. “It’s just on the cheek. Remember? She did it to you and David when you came after us in the helicopter. You’ll live.”

  Dan still hesitated. The baby started to fuss.

  “The window of opportunity is closing,” Keith said. “She’s serious, though. Your name just popped right out of her mouth. We never talked about it.”

  Dan leaned down and Talia kissed him. “Thanks,” he said. “It means a lot.”

  Chapter One Hundred and Nine – Death or Life

  “But I need to go with you. I need to be there,” Talia insisted. She straightened Keith’s tie as he bent over her hospital bed where she sat on the edge, fully dressed, the baby in her arms.

  “You need to be here with Cherub,” Keith said. “I mean Daniel.”

  “They said he will be fine. They’re just a little concerned about the jaundice, and wanted to keep him for observation. But we could get discharged right now.”

  “The banquet is in an hour,” Keith said. “No kids allowed. You stay right here, and snuggle with our little man, and when it’s over, I’ll be right back here with you.”

  “What does Drew say the threat level is?” Talia asked. She glanced at Anne pacing the hallway.

  “Red lights all the way,” Keith said. “This is how he described it to me: ‘The Weird Sisters Three will all be there. Joshua Bradley will have to sit up front with all the administrators like sheep in a pen. Jenny Kaine will be roaming the hall with a cameraman and murder in her eyes. Dr. Williams’s supposed mea culpa speech is creating a huge buzz but no one has any idea what she’s really going to say or do.’ And our three moms with Mrs. Sheldon in the lead –” he sighed. “You don’t want to know what they’ve been up to.”

  “What?” The baby squeaked and Talia held him closer.

  Keith cupped his head in his hand. “Grilling Naddy and Sophie. Trying to get them to say more than they said to Jenny Kaine about the Golden Testaments. They seem to know we’ve got something concrete and they want specifics so they can go blow it up.”

  “Amu and Zanamu will die before they help those people,” Talia said. “And we don’t even know where any of the tablets are to tell them.” She moved restlessly from the bed to the chair beside it. “How are Tim Holden and all the kids holding up? And the other fathers?”

  “Mr. Sheldon spends most of his time in the hotel bar. He never even talks anymore. Mr. Gregory keeps hanging around Adam, but Adam’s so afraid he’ll figure out Angel’s not Tom he keeps blowing him off. Even Angel’s been telling him he ought to just talk to his dad. Tim Holden … he looks like he hasn’t slept since he got here … he’s trying to be a wall around his kids, but Mrs. Holden is tossing fireballs and rocks at that castle – like a trebuchet – just smashing away at him. I think she’s still hitting him when nobody’s around.”

  “Keith, I can’t stay here like this. Something is going to happen tonight. I know it is. I want to be there. I want to help.”

  “I’m just the opposite. If I didn’t have to go and be there with my grandma, and support my dad, I’d stay right here with you and our baby. Naddy and Sophie feel the same way, but we kinda got command performance invitations to be at the dinner. Drew and his people are good at what they do, Talia. You be good at watching over this baby for me, ‘til I get back here.”

  “Trust and Obey,” she murmured.

  “Exactly. Yesterday, God said, ‘It’s baby time.’ That kinda changed the whole Warrior Angel paradigm. This is the guy you got to protect, now. And me, as soon as I get back.”

  Talia smiled. “Okay.”

  Talia rocked the baby to sleep and put him in the bassinet. She stood in the doorway and watched Anne pace some more.

  “Did you and Drew ever talk?” Talia asked.

  “About what?”

  “About why you came back to him when you won’t talk to him.”

  “I told him, when you people are safe and out of this –”

  “When do you think that will be? Do you think people will stop hating the Word of God and the people who love it anytime soon? Stop trying to destroy it and them? Life has gone on for us. We don’t wait for the danger to be over because it never will be.”

  “I thought it would be easy, though,” Anne said. “I thought it would be up to me to forgive him but – I need him to forgive me, and he says there’s nothing to forgive, but there is. There is!”

  Anne paced some more. “I justified anything and everything because of his gambling. Talia, I was unfaithful to him. I told him, but he says it doesn’t matter. He won’t even listen to me when I try to confess –”

  “I understand,” Talia said. “But forgiveness is such a hard thing to get and to give. God does it. He shows us how. He tells us to do it. But we have our pride. Forgiveness, either way, is too humbling. It’s too hard … to be humble. Easier to pretend you don’t want to hear it.”

  A woman in scrubs came down the hall. “Hello, Señora Bradley!” she called out. “It’s time for your pain pill.”

  “I’m not taking any pain pills,” Talia said. “I’m nursing.”

  “It’s just a little something to help you sleep,” the woman said, coming closer. “It’s nothing that will hurt your baby. You’ll want something. Trust me.”

  “Talia, what’s wrong?” Anne asked.

  “She’s not dressed right,” Talia said. She ducked back into her room and scrambled for her bag. “Those are surgical scrubs. She’s not a floor nurse. Make her stay back.”

  Anne reached into her shoulder holster. “Don’t come any closer,” she said.

  “She’s mistaken. I need to give her this medicine,” the woman insisted. “The doctor will be angry.”

  “Call him then,” Anne said. “There’s an intercom right on that wall. Indulge the nervous new mother.”

  The woman hesitated and started toward the intercom. At that moment a man came around the corner with an automatic rifle. The woman went down on her knees and scuttled away. Anne shot the man before he could aim the weapon. She dove into the room with Talia and slammed the door as more shots sounded outside.

  “Take the baby and get in the bathroom!” Anne shouted. She cracked the door and shot down the hall.

  “You come too!” Talia insisted as she found her gun and pushed the bassinet toward the bathroom. “Anne! Please come. You are not here to get yourself killed.”

  “Okay,” Anne said. They dove into the bathroom and shoved a cabinet in front of the door. “Drew,” she said into the phone. We’re taking fire at the hospital. We’re in Talia’s bathroom. I tried to signal the guys outside but no one is answering.”

  “Sending reinforcements. Anne … Praying for you.”

  Anne stared at her phone. Several minutes passed with pounding and shots. They heard the hallway windows shatter. Baby Dan slept on, cuddled against Talia’s breast. More shots sounded outside and someone rapped on the outer door.

  “Evangel? Anne! It’s David! I have the copter on the roof. Come on!”

  Anne bolted up, shoved the cabinet aside, and threw open the bathroom door. She helped Talia to her feet. They picked their way through the broken glass and crossed the room. Anne unlocked the door and David pulled them both away down the hall. His Uzi bumped back and forth on its shoulder strap as he put a hand under Talia’s elbow.

  “Up here.” He stopped in front of a stairway door. “Evangel, are you okay?”

  “Just … sore … wobbly,” she said. David scooped her up in his arms. “Anne, take the baby. Come on!”

  Anne obeyed with obvious reluctance, took the lead, and they clattered up the stairs. Footsteps rang out behind them and Talia turned to shoot over David’s shoulder at a head and a gun that poked around a corner below them.

  “Keep moving!” David ordered Anne, w
ho tried to fumble with the baby and get her gun into play. “Just one more flight.”

  They burst out onto the roof and ran for the copter. Two more men covered them and they all piled into the copter. David placed Talia in the front passenger seat and Anne handed off Baby Daniel, relief obvious in her face. The copter rose into the air as more gunmen burst onto the roof.

  “Why were they coming after her now?” Anne demanded.

  “Just now, for the distraction, and to divide our forces when we are already protecting the students and the administrators,” David replied. “And, of course, they thought she would be helpless and easy prey. Imagine the demoralizing effect on Keith, his father, Naddy, and Sophie if they had succeeded. Too many advantages to the enemy to count.”

  “The enemy?” Anne repeated. “You’re all talking like this is a war!”

  “It is death against life,” David said. “The most elemental warfare of all. These people have the Words of Life. What their enemy wants will lead to death. If we want to live – live eternally, and help others find life, we will keep fighting. There is no greater, more visible symbol of life than that child.”

  Talia turned around to get a closer look at the two security guards who had come with David. “What are you doing here?” she gasped.

  Chapter One Hundred and Ten – The Arena

  “The packages are airborn and enroute,” said the text Keith received as he sat with his grandmother, Naddy, and Sophie at a table in the Administrators’ Appreciation Gala dining room. He showed it to the others and gave his dad a guarded thumbs-up. The relief they all felt showed on his father’s face.

  “Can’t somebody just scoop us all up out of here?” Keith murmured. “Get that really big helicopter we had last time we had to run for cover.”

  “Caesar demands that the Christians face the lions,” his grandmother murmured back. She patted his face. “That young lawyer fellow, Brad Shannon, predicted this day would come, my sweet grandson. No one who lives a life proclaiming the truth can avoid the arena. It’s the ultimate stage upon which to perform for the King of Kings.”