Pure instinct had been driving Annie onward for nearly three days now. Her decision to resume her artistic endeavors had come from someplace inside her that she did not understand. The muse was an essential element of her existence that lived almost as a separate force from her normal self. And even though she realized on that same elemental level that she could not stay here at her father’s home, that she would soon have to run, she could not curb the impulse to fill her remaining days here putting paint to canvas.

First she’d gone about the business of preparing the room, much to Greta’s dismay, and then she had begun her quest.

The picture she painted had come unwittingly from a place inside her that seemed separate from her conscious self, which was no surprise. Annie’s paintings had always been instinctual. Nothing about her art had ever been contrived. She could no more visualize her next creative work than could she visualize what the end of the world would look like. She’d simply begin to paint, and when instinct told her to stop, that was that, the work was complete, resulting in art that defied categorization, complex yet elemental, abstract yet detailed, all without a trace of self-consciousness.

So it came as a complete surprise when she realized that, dead center of her chaotic creation, she’d painted an ordinary object. She stood back staring at her handiwork, cocking her head from side to side, frowning and fretting. After a few moments of careful consideration she came to the conclusion that there had been something at play here besides instinct, simply because she had no memory of painting the object. Geometric shapes were not a part of her mind spectrum. They never had been, and there was no reason to believe they ever would be. No, something external had acted upon her during the creative process that caused her to paint an object that looked curiously like the point of an arrow, or perhaps a spear. She couldn’t be sure. It was realistic in every detail, so realistic in fact, that it seemed three dimensional; as though it had been photo flashed onto the canvas.

Written in black letters beneath the object, were the words: Eye of Hell.

“What in the name of God?” Annie breathed, as the spearhead morphed into a small crimson pinpoint and began to grow, chilling her bones to the marrow. Startled, Annie backed away, for now the object looked like an eye, and out of the eye, a dark object arose and took wing, growing, flailing as it went, like a black bed sheet gone awry from a clothesline in a windstorm. Instinctively she ducked, to avoid the object flying straight at her. She screamed and hit the deck as it missed her by a hair’s breadth. The object circumnavigated the large room several times before dissipating into what looked like fragments of black confetti floating slowly downward onto the canvas-covered floor. The fragments settled all around Annie and became static. When she reached out and tentatively touched one of them with the tip of her finger, it crumbled to ash.

Annie remained on the floor for a long moment, breathing laboriously, her heart pounding. She waited, wondering what the hell had just happened here. She pinched herself, thinking she might have fallen asleep and was in the midst of a dream. “Ouch!” she said, realizing that this was absolutely real.

It only took Annie a few more moments to suspect the truth of what was happening here. The madness of her youth was beginning all over again. A magical thing that seemed to change shapes at will had visited her time and again when she was growing up. It took on many forms, sometimes a man, sometimes a bird or a bat, sometimes fragments of dark matter that flailed like little winged monsters, their purpose never clear. She remembered the secret whisperings, and fragments of dreams, long twilight sleeps between fever and exhaustion. Her years with Doug had brought a measure of sanity to her life because it was so normal, because he was so normal. But she’d always known she wasn’t normal, and so had Doug.

That’s why Annie needs constant love and reassurance, Doug had told her father on that day that now seemed so very long ago. You’ve allowed that thing to steal her soul. Doug’s accusations had enraged Annie to the point of violence, even as she’d suspected their truths. And in place of whatever had been stolen, her soul, something had been substituted, a weight, a burden, a living tumor that grew inside her like a cancer.

“Who are you?” she asked in a trembling voice, unaware until now that she was sobbing. “What do you want? Why can’t you just leave me the hell alone?”

You know me, child, a voice answered back, inside her head. Probably better than you know yourself. You’ve always known me.

“No!” Annie said, heaving herself up off the floor and circling the room, trying to pinpoint the exact location of her antagonist. A rage was building in her even as her distended belly began clenching with cramps. “Why don’t you show yourself, you lousy coward! Let me see what sort of monster terrorizes little girls!”

My identity is no secret, love, but you refuse to see me for what I am.

“You’re nothing! You’re a ghost, you’re confetti! Worse, you’re shit!”

I am Lost, Forsaken, Forgotten.  I am your mother and your father, your breath and your life, your birth and your death.

“Get out of here,” Annie cried. “I want you to leave me the hell alone.”

Your father is trying to betray me, but I cannot allow him to do it.

“Betray you?” Annie said. “How? Why? How does he even know you?” Her belly was really clenching now, she was bent over clutching it, spasms wracking her.

See the power I have over you, love?

“You have nothing to do with me!”

Oh, child, you are so wrong. It has been such a long road from where Edmund De Roche and I first crossed paths. You see, long ago your father and I struck a bargain.

“A bargain?”

His immortality for my mortality. His soul for my heart. If you will allow me I will show you.”

“Show me? How?”

Inside your head.

“You stay out of my head.”

This won’t hurt, I promise.

“But I don’t know . . . if I . . . can,” Annie said, her resolve weakening even as her contractions began to subside. She remembered things in her head from years ago, things she never wanted to relive, and she was suddenly wary, certain somehow that this would be just another of those terrible, terrible nightmares.

Of course you do, love. It’s easy. Just open your mind and let it flow.

“No!” she said, but the entity was a stealthy bugger and he was inside her before she could utter another protest.

Laid out before her was the image of a muddy battlefield with two huge armies clashing. These men fought like titans, their weapons spears, arrows and swords, and they wore uniforms of some long ago campaign. The image zoomed to an area near the battle’s left flank on the bank of a silt-filled river. Here a wounded soldier struggled to lift himself to his feet. Blood covered his face, and his armor was pieced in several places. From these wounds more blood oozed. There was something familiar about the soldier that made Annie uneasy. She tried to make out his features but there was too much blood to see him clearly. In his struggle to lift his body from the muck the soldier’s hand sank beneath the silted surface. When he pulled it back it contained an object. Seeming confused as to what it was, the soldier washed the object in the river’s flowing waters and brought it up close to his face. Recognizing it for what it was, the soldier drew his arm back as if to fling it far out into the currents.

Just then, a figure approached from behind, not walking exactly, but gliding just above the blood-soaked battlefield. The figure was cloaked in a hooded robe and, from Annie’s vantage, could have been a simple monk from some ancient religious order. Annie could not see the face but something told her that she was looking at the entity that now held sway over her thoughts.

Sensing the close presence of another individual, perhaps an enemy who wanted to finish him, the soldier lowered the hand that held the object and twisted around for his sword.

In that instant Annie recognized the soldier.

“Daddy?” she said, unaware until the word was out of her mouth that she’d spoken it aloud.

Yes, child, said the collector of souls. Only he cannot hear you. I am allowing you to witness an event from a very long time ago. You are seeing across space and time to another reality.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Annie said.

You see, child, I had been searching for the object since the day I was exiled to this earth, with little success, and here, a soldier of no importance on a battlefield forgotten by time, plucked it from the silt of a river. He did not want it, so, feeling charitable, I struck a bargain with him. In exchange for the object the soldier would survive the war and go on to found a great family dynasty. He would enjoy wealth and luxury and a very long life. But there was one condition.

“What condition?” Annie asked.

When the time was right he would produce an heir who would produce an heir. The time is right now, love . . . The collector stopped talking, allowing his words to sink in.

Annie’s eyes flew wide open in surprise. “No fucking way!” she said curling her body forward, hugging the roundness of her belly, protectively shielding it from the creature’s scrutinizing eye. “You’re not touching my baby.”

We shall see, child. We shall see.

“Tell me why the time is right now?” Annie demanded. “Why not five-hundred years ago? Why not two-hundred years ago? Why does it have to be now? Why does it have to be me?”

Simple, love, said the creature. The father of the child had to be just the right one, and Douglas McArthur was not born until thirty-five years ago.

“So this is what mine and Doug’s lives have been about?” Annie moaned. “We were born to serve your twisted purpose?”

Purpose, yes, twisted; well, that is a matter of opinion.

“You tricked me into coming back here,” Annie said. “You destroyed my house, you killed my husband and now you want my child? Dream on asshole, you’ll get nothing more from me.”

Ah, such a hot-headed child. You always have been, little Annie. But I’m afraid petulance will serve you no purpose this time. You no longer have the will to resist my persuasions.

“Oh yes I do.”

And how will you prevent me from taking what is rightfully mine?

“I’ll kill myself. That’s how! And I’ll take my child with me!” The words spat from Annie’s mouth before she could stop their expulsion.

You would kill your own child?

“Before I let a monster like you have it, yes! Doug’s gone and without him I have nothing left to live for.”

On the contrary, love. You have everything to live for. The child needs a mother. Someone to raise it and love it, someone to teach it manners, grace and respect, see that it is properly educated so that it can become what it is meant to become. You are the only one who can do it. Tell me that you will, Annie?”

Annie felt her resolve weakening. She knew the monster was right. She could not kill the child she’d dreamed of having her entire life. When the time came she would birth it, raise it and do well by it. This was an incontestable fact. There would be time to steer it away from the collector’s persuasions. She was sure of it.

With renewed assurances of Annie’s acquiescence the collector ceased to be in her presence. Annie felt its departing like a void in her consciousness.

She lay on the canvas-covered floor for a long time thinking about her child and grieving for the lost love of her life, cursing fate for dealing her such a twisted hand. In time a litany of thoughts began to form and find their way to the private place inside her mind, the three-lock-box of secrecy where no one was allowed to go. Not even the collector. She knew now what she had to do and she needed to get on with it.

So she heaved herself up off the canvas-covered floor and headed for the shower, all the while formulating her plan.

The sound of a ringtone nearly jumped Doug out of his seat. He had been totally unaware that there was a cell phone in the car until that very moment. He searched around and found it beneath the seat, tried to see who was calling but the numbers were blurred. Doug realized that he was weaving on the road. He was in no condition to drive and figured it would be only a matter of time before a cop spotted him. Behind him headlights approached, a horn blared and the car pulled around him, the driver shaking his fist in the air.

Doug’s numb fingers groped the telephone, searching for the talk button. He pressed it and put the phone to his ear.

“Vogel!” barked an angry female voice. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Lucy?” Doug said.

“Who is this?”

“It’s me.”

“Oh my God, Doug. What happened? Are you all right?”

“They came after me. I had to run.”

“Those bastards!” Lucy exclaimed. “Doug, I have to find you before they do.”

“I’m on some highway near—”

“Don’t say it!” Lucy cautioned. “They’re probably listening.”

“Are you safe?”

“I don’t know. They know we’re both alive. That can’t be good. I’m on the move. I need to find a way to reach you without giving away either of our locations, but we’ve got to figure out something soon. They’ve got global positioning devices and god-knows-what-else. I’m sure they’re trying to track us as we speak.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“Jesus, I don’t know. Listen, how bad are you. Can you continue much longer?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I injected myself with morphine and it’s making my head fuzzy.” Doug looked down and saw blood leaking through the front of his shirt. “One of the wounds is open. My vision is blurred.”

“Shit,” Lucy said, “let me see, let me see.”

“How familiar are you with this area?” Doug said, desperately grasping at straws.

“Very, but I told you, they’re listening.”

“I don’t care. I am going to die if I don’t get help. You’re my only hope.” He was now coming onto a section of highway with a reduced speed limit. Either side was littered with strip malls and convenience stores, most of them closed. Doug was looking from side to side as he drove trying to locate some kind of landmark that Lucy might know but might take the others longer to figure out.  There was the usual array of fast food restaurants, MacDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, but nothing that stood out as unique. Then suddenly he saw it. He slammed on his brakes and turned the wheel hard right, pulling into a nightclub parking lot that was closed and deserted.

“You remember on that first day in the hospital when you came to see me, you told me about your organization and how they lived and worked?”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“Think, Lucy!”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Lucy?”

“Okay,” Lucy said suddenly. “Yes, I do remember.”

“Don’t say it,” Doug cautioned, hoping against hope that Lucy was familiar with the place he had found. “I’m there right now.”

“Oh, God, yes, I know,” Lucy said suddenly. “I’m less than ten minutes from where you are. How will I find you?”

“Just come. I’ll find you.”

Doug looked up at the black-painted marquis above the nightclub’s front entrance. In big, bold gold letters it said, SHADOWS. He pulled the car around to the back parking lot, which bordered onto some woods, got out of the car and waited.

In an office somewhere deep in an underground bunker, technicians were busy running programs on several sophisticated high-speed computers. The computers had taken the phrase, “live and work,” the words that had been overheard in Doug’s and Lucy’s conversation, and were running series after series of possibilities. So far nothing concrete had come up. The small, but powerful-looking man with the close-cropped blond hair, pacing, watching the monitors carefully, was offering other possible pieces of the puzzle.

“We live and work,” he said, and as soon as it was out of his mouth a technician would punch in the extra word. “I live and work. We live and work at. He said, how, didn’t he?”

“Yes, sir,” one of the techs replied.

The man the technician had referred to as sir was Jack Spencer, AKA Spence, AKA Boss Man, one of the Project’s main workhorses in the field of paranormal investigations. Spencer wasn’t a scientist, however; far from it. He was a tough and ruthless ex-CIA man who knew how to get results when it came to finding people who sometimes didn’t want to be found. The Project was a secret government organization that had been around since World War II. His cover was FBI, most people believed that’s what he was, and that’s what he wanted people to believe. The Project was a non-entity. It didn’t exist any more than Area 51 existed. Their mission, like The Brotherhood of the Order’s, was the investigation of anything to do with paranormal activity; aliens, ghosts, demons, strange machines and craft, angels, devils, magical artifacts, mass murders, religious cults, to name just a few. But unlike the Brotherhood of the Order, the Project was a pragmatic organization with a pragmatic mission: find a constructive way to use these paranormal phenomena—real or fantasy—for the greater good. In recent years the Project had zeroed in on a particular artifact that was in some way connected to the present mark in his sights.

Even though Jack Spencer had seen some extremely peculiar things while working for the Project, he didn’t have any use for paranormal phenomena. Hell, he didn’t even believe most of it. Bunch of loonies and quacks, as far as he was concerned. Nevertheless, he worked for people who did believe, and one thing Spencer was, was loyal. He took his job very seriously, and he was dedicated to the point of fanaticism. When he had a mark in his sites, such as he did now, rarely did he let go until the mark was in custody. Beneath him was a team of crack experts in a variety of investigative fields and technologies; computer geniuses, field agents, private contractors, all intensely loyal and sworn to the utmost in secrecy.

The two guys who’d fucked up royally earlier tonight were both out. Just like that. Soon they’d be history if they weren’t already; two more casualties in a war that had no conscience, a battle between the forces of good and evil. They’d failed on three counts: first they’d unnecessarily killed an innocent; second, McArthur had escaped; and third, they’d failed to find the object that Spencer’s superiors had so desperately wanted to possess. Jack Spencer could give a shit about the object. He knew what it was, or what it was supposed to be. He didn’t buy the bullshit about it, though. No matter. He was a good soldier and he would do his job.

He leaned in toward the monitor, and in a very deliberate and cadenced diction, he repeated Doug’s code words, “‘You told me about your organization, how they lived and worked.’ How would an organization such as The Brotherhood of the Order live and work,” he asked rhetorically.

“Not very well any more,” one of the techs said with a humorless smirk. “Most of their leaders are dead.”

“That’s beside the point,” Spencer snapped. “And don’t kid yourself; the organization is alive and well. They’ve been around for centuries. Just because a bunch of flatulent old priests got themselves slaughtered doesn’t mean they’re done with. They’ve got professionals all over the world. Now focus!”

“Yes, sir.”

“They work in secret,” offered another of the techs.

“Yes, that’s probably what they have believed all these years, but we know better, don’t we?” A small, derisive smile touched Spencer’s thin-lipped mouth. “No matter, they’re scholars who take themselves very seriously and would probably use something that fit their own romantic image of themselves.”

“We live and work in secret,” he said. “Put a ‘the’ at the end of ‘we live and work in,” he instructed.

A tech immediately did as he’d been told and the computer began spitting out possibilities, thousands of them, starting alphabetically and finding every known word in the English language. There were millions, of course. No matter, the computers were running through the list in nanoseconds and each time it would hit upon a logical possibility it would catalogue it and list it on a separate screen. The ones that were not logical were passed over. In less than a minute it had reached the S’s and a second later the word shadow appeared on the screen.

“Hold it,” Spencer said. “What about shadows. We live and work in the shadows. That makes sense. Do a run on local businesses, see if you can come up with something that has that name.”

“Shadows?” one of the techs replied. “Not necessary. I know the place. It’s a nightclub over on Dunhill Boulevard.”

Spencer picked the phone up and made the call.

Behind Shadows there was a small stand of woods, perhaps one hundred yards deep where beyond Doug could see the lights of another boulevard. A litter-strewn path—probably made by children or bums or both—snaked its way through the woods between the boulevards. Doug walked that convoluted path now, deciding it would be better to wait for Lucy under cover. He tucked Vogel’s gun into his belt, turned and waited, watching for car lights. He didn’t have long to wait. A vehicle pulled into the front lot and then swung around to the back of the nightclub. In the illumination of street lamps he could see that it was a dark-colored late-model Ford sedan. “Shit,” he said, chiding himself for not asking Lucy what she drove. Probably wouldn’t have told me anyway, and wouldn’t have blamed her. He crouched in the shadows waiting for the door to open and the dome light to come on so that he could identify the driver. Beyond the club he could see down the boulevard as another car, nearly identical to the first one, pulled up to the curb.

He knew then that they’d been had. What was he to do? If Lucy showed up and did not spot the deception, then she’d be in as deep as he was. Several cars passed by out on the street but the distance was too great for Doug to identify the drivers.

Two men exited the car in the lot and carefully approached Vogel’s car, guns drawn. Doug backed further up the path into the woods and crouched like a wounded animal. The gunmen, one on each side of the car, yanked open the driver and passenger side doors, guns pointed.

The pain inside of Doug flamed suddenly, taking him to his knees. The entire chest-wound bandage was wet with new blood, and droplets of it were leaking from the soaked shirt and splashing to the ground. Given the amount of pain, the blood loss and his weakness, Doug was quite certain that he wouldn’t be able to last much longer. And now he was seeing double, and triple. He remained on his knees beside the path for a long moment, head bowed, breathing in shallow bursts, trying to quell his rapidly-beating heart.

Out on the boulevard several other cars were slowing down. He put his head up, hoping against hope that Lucy wasn’t foolish enough to just pull into the lot. He had lost sight of the two gunmen and wondered where they had gone. Doug could not think straight. He figured that it would be only a matter of minutes before they came along the path and found him. What would he do then? He decided he would kill if he had to. He’d do almost anything to get out of this insane nightmare. He needed to heal so that he could go and find the wife and unborn child that he loved so desperately. He’d made a terrible error in leaving them behind in that other world that seemed oddly like a dream now. These thoughts were burning images in his mind, forcing him to focus, and spurring him into action. He heaved himself shakily to his feet and forced himself to move. Looking down the path from where he’d come he saw no one, so he turned in the opposite direction and began walking, taking one agonizing step at a time. He had taken just three steps, however, when a shadow loomed up in front of him. He raised the gun when a voice urgently whispered, “Doug, it’s me!”

Lucy had spotted the Fed vehicles and came in from the other side. Saying no more she took him by the hand and began gingerly leading him out of the woods.

From somewhere not too far behind them an authoritative voice commanded, “Stop right there!” A spotlight came on, casting their shadows forward in monstrous over-exaggeration.

Lucy began to run, pulling Doug along; Doug staggered behind her, feeling like a dream-runner but feeling little else. Gunfire erupted and bullets whizzed past their heads. Doug heard the squealing of tires on pavement and the roar of several engines revving in the distance. It was all like a dream now. He was not sure how far he could run; stumble was more like it, for with each step he took he was surprised to still be standing. Was he standing? The feeling was nearly gone from his body and the consciousness from his mind.

“Come on,” Lucy prodded. “Just a few more steps and we’re there.”

Doug did not know how he’d done it, but suddenly they were out of the woods. Lucy was throwing the door of a gold-colored sedan open and shoving him onto the back seat. He fell in prone, lying down on soft leather; he was quickly slipping beyond the realm of conscious thought. Lucy was now getting into the driver’s side. Doug heard more shooting but in his mind they were just cap guns being fired from some distant and dreamlike carnival gallery. He was dimly aware of bullets pinging on metal. Then the car was in frantic motion. Lucy maneuvered out of the lot and onto the street, bumping the curb and skidding sideways. Doug did not know whether or not they were being pursued, and he had passed the point of caring.

“Doug! Can you hear me?” Lucy screamed.

He could not answer her. The world was going away in slow radiating waves. Down a long dark tunnel it went in a spiral, and Doug supposed it was an okay place to go. There didn’t seem to be anyone shooting at him down there, and that was just fine by him. There wasn’t much he could do in this world anyway.

No damned use to anyone.

Better where I’m going.

And less painful.

“Doug, don’t do this to me!” Lucy screamed, her voice desperate with fear. “Don’t you fucking dare die on me!”

Doug heard the words but just barely, and he was a little amused at their implications. Die? What a laugh. He’d already died once, hadn’t he? Some keen sense told him it was so, the knowledge coming at him like a fast-moving train from the depths of the tunnel. Ah, well, what difference did it make if he died again? Everyone thought he was dead anyway, including Annie, and she was the only one that really mattered.

“Doug, please talk to me!”  Lucy’s voice was as distant as the far end of that dark tunnel.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1243481/The%20Fear%201.mp3

Merry Christmas. I hope you all have a great holiday season.

Chapter 35

Doug was dreaming of his mother. Since her death he had dreamed of her often, so he was not surprised that he was dreaming of her now. What did surprise him was the nature of the dream. She was standing on the front porch of their new house—a house he had never seen let alone lived in, but in the years following his parent’s death had conjured its splendid image so many times that it had become real in his heart—and she was calling to him as he rode away on his bicycle.

“Doug,” she called, “You didn’t forget to put the object around your neck, did you? Remember, it will help to protect you, keep you safe.”

Her words nearly jolted Doug from his sleep, for it was in that instant, after three weeks in a coma and nearly another two weeks of recovery which had included hours of conversation with Lucy Ferguson and other staff members, that he finally remembered the object. Why had he not remembered it sooner? Better still, why hadn’t Lucy or another staff member mentioned it? Perhaps because it was gone before Lucy had found him shot on the restroom floor. No, impossible. It was in his jacket pocket wrapped in a soft piece of flannel cloth. Maybe they had found it and assumed it was nothing and simply discarded it. Or perhaps it was in a drawer or cupboard with his wallet, or maybe it was still in his jacket pocket and the jacket was hanging in a closet somewhere. But the jacket would have been bloody from his gunshot wounds and they might have thrown it away. The thought caused panic to rise in Doug’s sleeping heart.

But Doug wasn’t just remembering the object. Suddenly he was remembering everything; the dying man who’d given it to him and the incident surrounding it. The Brotherhood of the Order. That’s the organization he’d said he belonged to. It was the same organization that Lucy claimed to work for. Nearly two weeks of conversation with her and she hadn’t let him in on the joke. There was something terribly wrong here.

“Doug, wake up. You must hurry.” It was his mother again and she sounded frightened, her voice filled with urgency.

He suddenly realized he was awake. But now he could hear other sounds, a chorus of strident voices. He opened his eyes and stared. It was nighttime. There was no question about that. There were no lights on in his room, only the open door where from beyond dim illumination spilled in. He heard a muffled scream—a woman’s scream—and what sounded like a tray of instruments falling over. He looked around him at all the tubes and monitors, wondering if he could survive without them. His question was answered as moot at the sound of a determined male voice demanding, “What room?” There was no doubt that its intent was menacing. Doug rolled over, the movement ripping the IV needle from his left arm. The explosion of pain in his chest was excruciating. He nearly screamed. He pulled tape and needle from his right arm and sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. They felt like two chunks of dead cordwood. The room began to spin wildly. He tried to ignore the sensation, grasping the edge of the mattress firmly with both hands, easing himself to his feet, forcing himself to breathe evenly. His weak legs trembled beneath him and he wondered if he was able to take even a single step. Another strident voice followed by a scream of agony spurred him into nearly impossible action. He took one, then two steps. In the dim light spilling in from the corridor he spied a wheelchair against the wall behind the door. He took three more shaky steps, turned and fell into it. Footsteps pounded in the corridor, and he heard two male voices. Using the strength in his arms, he wheeled back to the bed, hastily pulled the covers down, inserted the pillows and re-covered the bed, making it look vaguely like a person might be lying beneath the covers. He ripped a needle from one of the tubes and quickly wheeled back behind the open door, fisting the needle as one would a knife.

A shadow fell across the threshold, then a second. He raised the hand that held the needle, keenly aware of his chances of survival if these intruders meant him harm. The shadows were unmoving for a long moment. Doug froze, barely breathing. His heart pounded madly in his chest. He wondered if the intruders would hear it. His upper body was wrapped tightly in bandages and he could feel the vague mutterings of pain as the drugs from the feed bags began to wear off.

One of the intruders stepped silently into the room. From Doug’s vantage behind the door he could see the man’s back. He wore a trench coat and a pair of black shoes. His hair was short and gray, neatly trimmed around the ears. Doug knew the look. He’d seen guys like these before. These were some sort of government guys, federal agents; no doubt about that. The phrase ‘Men in black’ rose in his consciousness. Making the connection jolted him like an electric shock. Jesus, he thought. Is it true? Could the government somehow be involved in all this? What the fuck is going on? He held the needle high, ready to plunge it into the man’s back if necessary. A fine film of sweat covered him. He tried not to breathe, but the pain was worsening and he was weakening. His heart hammered in his ears.

The man raised his right arm. In it he held a gun with an attached silencer sleeve. It was aimed at Doug’s bed.

“What are you doing?” The second man—the one who’d remained in the corridor—the one Doug hadn’t yet seen—said in an urgent whisper.

“You’ll see.”

“The boss man said to kill him only if necessary. He wants him alive.”

“I know what he said.” The man promptly pulled the gun’s trigger three times in quick succession. The gunshots, although silenced, seemed loud in the closed space of the room. Three small black holes appeared in the bed sheet. Doug stopped breathing.

“Are you crazy, Rusty? They’ll have us crucified for this.”

The man named Rusty took three quick steps toward the bed, reached down and ripped the sheet off. Doug held the needle high, his legs tensed; he was ready to spring from the chair.

Close by came the cacophonous wailing of approaching sirens.

Rusty gave a sinister laugh. “See,” he said, pointing at the bed. “He’s been moved. They knew we were coming. God knows where the artifact is.”

“Our orders were to find that artifact and to take McArthur alive,” the man in the hall said.

Rusty rifled quickly through the drawers of the stand next to the bed. “It’s not here,” he said, “and neither is McArthur. The woman must have it.”

“That’s what the boss man was afraid of,” the second man said. “Somebody tipped her off and she got McArthur out of here.”

The building’s fire alarm went off with ear-piercing dissonance only adding to the cacophonic din of the approaching emergency vehicles.

“We’re too late, the second man said. “They can’t find us here. Come on, let’s move.”

Rusty turned and stopped abruptly, looking directly at Doug. Some instinct that Doug was totally unaware of until that moment caused something in his mind to bear down with painful pressure. He stared the man directly in the eyes, unblinking until something gave way in his brain and a constellation of exploding stars exploded across his vision. The pain was blinding. Rusty’s face went suddenly slack.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” the second man said. “Let’s go!”

Rusty did not answer. He walked briskly past Doug, through the door and out of the room. Doug fell back into the chair, his head nearly splitting with intense agony, his body trembling. Finally he began to breathe again. He heard running footsteps retreating into the distance. When he thought it was safe he wheeled himself around the door and out into the corridor. He felt wetness on his mouth and realized that his nose was bleeding. He wiped the blood off with the sleeve of his night shirt, looking up and then down the corridor. The coast seemed to be clear. There was a nurse’s station not far to his left so he wheeled toward it. Behind the counter he found Donna Sanchez lying on the floor in amongst a spilled tray of instruments. There was a small hole in one side of her head and a large exit wound in the other. The wall behind where she’d been standing was painted with sprays of blood.

“Bastards!” Doug said, nearly exploding with rage. He wheeled toward a medicine cabinet on the far wall, ripped it open and rifled through it until he found what he was looking for; several hermetically-sealed syringes and a bottle of morphine. He put the stuff in his lap and wheeled back around the counter toward the elevator. The fire alarm stopped abruptly, leaving a vacuum inside the hospital corridor that was at once claustrophobic and eerie. The approaching sirens were warbling louder now, approaching with swiftness and Doug realized that he had to get away before they found him. He wasn’t safe anywhere, even in the hands of the supposed good guys.

He stopped in front of the elevator door, seeing that he was on the fourth floor. The elevator was moving up toward him. Doug knew now that he could not trust anyone. The men who had been sent to capture him were almost certainly agents of the United States government, and they would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. They’d killed that woman in cold blood. He knew that if local authorities found him they would turn him over to them. He was, after all, supposed to be dead, the victim of a horrendous plane crash, a suspect in the disaster. If he were found alive he would be detained, questioned, imprisoned. All of the above and probably more. It would be only a matter of time before someone else made an attempt on his life, and how many lives did he have? There was some sort of conspiracy afoot that he had no understanding of. He must find out what it was, and the only way of doing so was to be free. He wheeled frantically toward the stairwell and blasted through the exit door. He listened for footsteps, but above the wailing of the sirens he could hear nothing. Tucking the syringes and the morphine in the pocket of his night shirt he eased himself out of the chair. His legs felt stronger now but he suspected he was running on adrenaline, and his strength would probably be short-lived. He tried not to think about what awesome power had caused that man to look directly at him and not know he was there. He remembered clearly what the man in the corridor had said just before he’d looked at the man in his room: Our orders were to find that artifact at all costs. Doug reached his hand up to his neck feeling for an object that wasn’t there. Of course it’s not there. You were shot. You’ve been in a coma for six weeks. It was in your jacket pocket instead of around your neck where it should have been? He remembered the dream of his mother and realized that it had most probably saved his life, and how the memories had come rushing back on him like a tidal wave leaving him breathless and giddy in their wake. He remembered everything now: the dying man that had passed him the object and the words he had spoken. Now the artifact was gone. Dear God, it was lost, maybe forever. It had been entrusted to him and he’d screwed up and lost it. He looked back toward the room, knowing he could not risk going back up that corridor. He felt terrible. But how the government knew about it, and what they wanted with it, he could not even venture a guess? Had those men actually been agents of the U.S. Government, or something else entirely? Who was the person they had referred to as the ‘Boss Man’? He suddenly realized that there were way too many questions and not nearly enough answers, and asking them now was only succeeding in hurting his brain, and probably putting his life in further jeopardy. As his predicament came into sharp focus, panic began to seize him. He stifled it, knowing that survival depended on him keeping a rational face on his situation. He knew that there was no time to ponder any of this now. He had to get out of the hospital if he expected to survive.

Holding onto the metal banister he eased himself down the lighted stairwell on shaky legs. The outside walls appeared to be made of tinted glass and beyond there was nothing but darkness. He wondered if they were out there watching his careful descent, ready to grab him as soon as he stepped through the door. But he couldn’t think about that. He had to move. After he had descended three floors he began to wonder why he had not encountered another living soul. At the bottom he had two choices. He could turn left and go into the hospital’s ground floor, or he could turn right and leave by the exit door. If he left the hospital where would he go? He had no idea where Whitehall Virginia was. He had no money, no clothes and he was still badly injured. Nevertheless, the choice was a simple one: freedom. He pushed out through the exit door and found himself on a walkway bordered closely by blossoming Rhododendrons. He was obviously at a back entrance because there was no activity out here and the distant parking lot appeared empty. The night was dark. There was no moon, and the stars were brilliantly-cut diamonds set against the black curtain of a sky. He estimated the temperature to be somewhere around 40 degrees. It was still spring and even in Virginia the night air felt chilled. He was wet from sweat, shivering madly and his ass was hanging out of the night shirt. He realized that he had to find clothing and shelter soon or he would die of hypothermia.

It appeared that Donna Sanchez, the now dead nurse, had been telling the truth when she’d told him he was at a university hospital for he could see campus-like buildings in the distance. The hour was probably late for there were few lights in the windows. Some of these buildings he knew would be dormitories, sorority and frat houses. Perhaps he could find clothing or shelter among them. He reached the end of the walkway and set off across a deserted parking area on shaky legs. But he soon had to stop. The pain inside him was now excruciating. He took one of the syringes from his pocket and removed the sterile package that encased it. From his other pocket he extracted the vial of morphine, inserted the needle into the nipple and pulled back several CCs of the pain-killing drug. Too late he saw headlights approaching at speed. He knew that he had been spotted and there was no time to escape. He simply wasn’t strong enough. Tucking the partially-filled syringe and the vial back into his pocket he hobbled toward a line of trees that bordered the lot. The car came straight at him. He put his arm up to shield his eyes from the bright headlights, knowing that if the vehicle’s driver meant him harm, he did not have the strength to jump out of the way.

The car swerved suddenly and came to a skidding halt beside him. The passenger-side door flew open and in the dome light’s glow he saw Dr. Vogel sitting behind the wheel.

“Get in,” Vogel said. “Hurry! We don’t have much time.”

Doug fell into the seat beside the doctor and the car sped away.

“What the hell’s going on?” Doug said, breathing arduously.

“They know you’re alive.”

“No shit!”

Vogel said nothing.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Someplace safe?”

“Where?” Doug insisted, suddenly not trusting Vogel. Hell, he was through trusting anybody. Vogel sat staring straight ahead, sweat beading his brow. They turned onto a nearly deserted four lane and sped off. When the car passed the sign that said Langley, Doug said, “Let me out!”

“Afraid I can’t do that.”

“I said let me out!”

“I have my orders.”

“Orders? You son of a bitch!”

“If you think you can get away, you’re crazy. If you think you can beat them you’re even crazier. They’ve threatened my family. I have to do this, you know. They always win. That’s just the way things are.”

“Who are they?”

Vogel frowned. “Your guess is as good as mine. Jesus. I just do what I’m told.”

“What do they want?”

Vogel emitted a short laugh that sounded more like a wretch of agony. “Christ, I don’t know. Maybe you have something they want.”

“What?”

“Something powerful. A new kind of weapon. They want to control it. If they can’t do that, you’re dead. It’s either one way or the other with them. No room for negotiation.”

“Are you talking about the artifact?”

Vogel frowned. “Artifact? I know nothing about an artifact.”

“What weapon then?”

Vogel gave Doug a sidelong glance. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I swear, I don’t know about any weapon.”

“What about all that stuff you’re capable of seeing, of doing?”

Doug nearly laughed. “Oh, Christ, that? Why now? They’ve known about me for years and I’ve never been bothered. “What’s changed?”

“This is just a guess, but it’s probably because they never had a plausible reason to touch you before. Hard working upstanding citizen. Now you’re a terrorist. You brought down an airliner. They can do anything they want with you and with the homeland security laws the way they are, well, they don’t even have to let you talk to a lawyer.”

“But I’m not a terrorist,” Doug said. “I didn’t bring down that plane.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t care.”

“Jesus Christ.” Doug put his head back against the seat-rest breathing laboriously. He was finally beginning to understand some things. Vogel was probably dead on. He had the power to see things. With his sight he had the power to perhaps alter some aspects of the future. If a person knew something bad was going to happen then that person could perhaps prevent it, or at least be prepared for it. That was real power, a power he’d never considered using. But they had, oh yes indeed they most certainly had. They wanted to use him. They’d been looking for an excuse to get their hands on him since he was a child. They wanted to stick needles in him, put electrodes on his head, try and enhance his ability for their own ends. But worse they wanted to prevent him from threatening the status quo by using it himself or sharing it with other factions. Now they had a tangible reason to hold him for as long as they wished. Had it been De Roché who’d brought down that plane or had it been someone else? Doug shivered at the thought. He was now starting to have serious doubts about everything.

Another terrible thought struck Doug. They knew about his unborn child. There was no doubt about that. Everybody knew about it. Perhaps that’s what they really wanted. What if he had passed his ability on to his child through genetics? Ability, hell, your affliction isn’t an ability, it’s more like a curse, this little voice spoke up inside his head. But in the final analysis what did it matter? The reality of it was, the power inside the child, given the circumstances of its heritage, could be ten times what Doug’s was. If they took it from birth then they could train it to be loyal, do things their way. Breed more of them. But he knew they’d have to get to De Roché first and Doug began to seriously wonder if De Roché had the resources to adequately protect Annie and the child. Then a terrible thought struck him. He knew De Roché wanted the child. What if De Roché was in cahoots with them? What if he had been from the beginning? What if Annie was expendable? Was De Roché capable of wasting his own daughter? The answer to that question chilled Doug to the marrow.

“You will never be allowed to wield the power on your own,” Vogel said. “Trust me.”

“But I don’t want to wield anything! I wouldn’t even know how. I just want to be left alone, lead a normal life.”

“Never going to happen,” Vogel said. “They’ll bury you. They’ll always be afraid you might sell to the highest bidder. Wake up. They have no scruples and they don’t believe anybody else does either. You know how governments work.”

“But all I’m capable of seeing are tragedies.”

“You can see the future, my man. What government wouldn’t want to control that kind of power?”

“But I can’t even control it. It comes unbidden, at the most inopportune moments. And it has something to do with a creature I don’t even know is real.”

“They’ll figure it out. Don’t worry. They have ways. Drugs, hypnosis . . . torture.” He said the last word in a way that nearly froze Doug’s blood in his veins. “And besides,” Vogel continued, “you’re still barking up the wrong tree. It’s not my problem. All I have to do is deliver you and they’ll leave me and my family alone.”

“You’re a fool if you believe that, Vogel.”

A cloud of doubt crossed the doctor’s face. Doug saw it clearly before it vanished. Vogel was in too deep to turn back now. Doug could see it, plain as day. He was a dead man, and somewhere deep down he knew it. He was just going through the motions, hoping to buy a little more time before the axe fell. They were probably holding his family hostage right now. His world as a doctor, healer of men had always been a tidy and rational one. The world of corrupt governments and the power junkies who ran the machinery of those governments was as alien to Vogel as living underwater. His association with such men had come by chance. Now he was desperate. Now he was a man underwater.

“I can’t let you take me to them,” Doug said.

“I don’t think you have a choice. You’ve not fully recovered and you’re no match for this.”

Doug looked down. Vogel held a pistol and it was pointed in his direction.

“What about Lucy?” Doug asked.

“What about her?”

“Was it all a lie?”

Vogel frowned, shaking his head. “I imagine she’ll be dead by morning, probably already is, in fact.”

“But why? Jesus Christ!”

“She’s an idealist. She thinks that religious organization she works for—The Brotherhood of the Order, or whatever the hell she calls it—is going to save the world. She believes it’s such a carefully guarded secret.” Vogel laughed. “The government’s been onto them for years. Wire taps, GPS satellite feeds, the whole nine yards. You think they’re going to let a resource like that go unchecked?”

“But she told me she was confident of their security.”

“Get real, man,” Vogel said letting go of the pistol and dropping it clumsily into his lap. “This is a post-911 world. There are no secrets. There is no security.” Although he was sweating profusely Vogel seemed overly confident of Doug’s inability to act. He swung the wheel hard right and turned onto a paved lane that was bordered closely on both sides by woods. There were no signs marking the lane. Doug didn’t know the lay of the land here. He had no idea how far they actually were from CIA headquarters or even if that’s where Vogel was taking him. In any event, it was time to get off the pot. In his lap he carefully held the vial of morphine he’d begun filling just before Vogel had picked him up. He pulled back the syringe’s plunger with his left hand while holding the syringe firmly with his right, filling the reservoir with what he hoped would be an overdose of the powerful drug. The hand holding the syringe came out of the pocket of the Johnny, and before Vogel could react, Doug had plunged the needle into the side of the man’s neck and depressed the plunger. Vogel screamed like a girl and let go of the wheel. The car skidded wildly and went off the right side of the lane careening toward a row of small trees. Doug snatched the pistol from Vogel’s lap. Vogel was busy scratching at his neck trying to pull the needle free, screaming wildly, his eyes bulging madly. With one hand, Doug grabbed the wheel and spun it back onto the lane. With the other he took the pistol and held it to Vogel’s head. “Pull over,” he said, but it was clearly too late; Vogel had slumped forward onto the wheel, unconscious or dead. Doug did not know which. It didn’t matter. The doctor was toast anyway. Doug reached over and turned off the ignition, holding the wheel straight as the car coasted to a stop.

The pain was screaming inside Doug now, but he had to ignore it. There wasn’t time for distractions like pain. He got out and went around to the driver’s side, pushed Vogel’s limp body to the passenger side and got behind the wheel. He was shaking wildly as he put the car in reverse and swung around. When he got back to the main highway he turned right and drove for several miles until he spotted a pullover. The place was deserted. Beyond the pullover there was a tote road leading into a stand of tall pine trees. There were picnic tables and hibachis set up along the way. Doug drove in about a hundred yards, shut the engine and the lights off. The world was silent. The clock on the dash showed the time as 3:00 AM. He sat behind the wheel trying to catch his breath. With shaky hands he drew three and a half CC’s of morphine into another syringe and gave himself a shot in an arm vein. The relief was nearly immediate. Once he had stopped shaking, he got out and limped around to the passenger side, opened the door and began undressing Vogel. The man was a little heavier than Doug and the clothes were loose-fitting, but he thought they’d do until he could find something better. Once dressed he put the night shirt on Vogel and eased him out of the car, leaning him against a tree. He’d gotten quite a dose of morphine but the man was still breathing and Doug thought he’d probably be all right once it wore off. That’s when the poor bastard would wish he was dead.

After that was done, by the light of the dash, Doug went through Vogel’s pockets. He found a wallet with about seventy dollars in cash and several credit cards. This would be enough to get him far away from here. He started the car and backed out of the parking area, quite aware of the fact that every cop in the land would be looking for the vehicle. As he sped south on Virginia interstate 70, Vogel’s gun on the seat beside him, he was already formulating a plan to ditch the car and find another means of transportation.

Chapter 34

During the nights that followed the woman religiously came to him. She would stand by his bed and watch him sleep, sometimes for long stretches of time. After a while she would turn his bed covers down, unfasten his night shirt and place the object over his heart, holding it there, sometimes for hours, feeling his heart beat beneath her hand, feeling the intense, almost unbearable heat of the object as it went about its business of healing.

In those moments, while the electric surges of his heartbeat coursed up through her arm and into her own body, it was hard for her to remain impartial, difficult for her to continue on with the façade and not admit that she was hopelessly in love with this gifted and tortured man. It was even more difficult not to admit that she’d always been in love with him, that everything she’d done in her life had been done for him.

She would carefully watch his reaction to her touches and caresses, trying to judge, through his body language, the emotions he might be experiencing. After a time her eyes and her hand would drift down his body to his most private places, and knowing that he was a vital man in his prime, and that he had needs, she was not surprised when her ministrations began to bear fruit. When the urge to kiss him there, to caress him with her hands and mouth, to surrender herself wholly to him, got so strong, she would stop and pull away, knowing in her heart that it was wrong, that he was not reacting to her touches on a personal level, but on some deep subconscious level that had nothing to do with her. She would retrieve the object then and leave his bedside, guilt ridden and filled with frustration.

As time passed and the healing process progressed and there was no longer any need for the object, her night visits became less and less frequent until she had almost entirely weaned herself—not of her feelings for the man, no, that was not possible—but for her nearly uncontrollable urges to take advantage of him at his most vulnerable. Her duty was clear, she was to remain impartial, unemotionally involved; she knew these things, of course, understood them implicitly, had taken vows to uphold these principles at all costs. Just the same, she was weak, a flesh and blood being with strong emotions, and a small flame of an idea began to make its way into her thoughts, a way that she might be able to save face and still have what she most yearned for.

Chapter 33

In the days that followed, as Doug became stronger, he and Lucy talked at length about the Collector. There were things in Doug’s immediate past that he could not recall and his frustration was growing because of it. His last clear memory was of being shot. He remembered Annie and him being driven from their home; he remembered the terrible confrontation with De Roché and his fight with Annie on the beach and their subsequent reconciliation. He remembered the dinner party, getting drunk and wandering into the forest behind De Roché manor and the things he’d seen there. He vaguely remembered the next day at Rachael’s funeral and some incident that had occurred there, but he could not put it all together. He thought that De Roché had been shot but for the life of him, he could not remember any of the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Like a nagging tic at the center of his psyche it remained, however, insisting that time was short and that he must recall those events soon. But it was no use, try as he might his spent mind would not focus. So he lived those days in recovery, talking to Lucy about his childhood and the terrible things he’d been witness to.

“You can’t imagine how it made me feel to see those people die,” Doug told Lucy. “Strangers, friends, my parents. Murdered, all of them. And for what? But worse, to know those children were still . . . alive somewhere and calling out to me.”

It was the third day since Doug’s reemergence into the world of the living and during those days Lucy held vigil for hours at a time at his bedside. She was a comforting presence, but deep in Doug’s heart he felt a growing unease with this woman that was both disturbing and a little tantalizing. His initial impression that she was somehow familiar would not go away.

“Do you honestly believe that those kids are still alive, Doug?”

It was a long time before Doug could reply to Lucy’s inquiry. He had mulled that question over in his mind a million times, but had never been able to come to a reasonable conclusion. “No,” he said finally. “Not in the way we think of life. But there might still be a chance for that little girl . . .” He hesitated, not sure if he was remembering things correctly. Not even sure if what he’d seen had been real. But when he remembered the little girl’s pleading voice he knew that it was.

“You’re talking about the incident in New Hampshire on the morning you and Annie had to run for your lives.”

Doug sighed. “So that was real, huh?”

“The FBI tried to keep it hush for as long as possible but we had people on the inside.”

“I don’t know why they call out to me,” Doug said. “I can’t help them. I’ve never been able to help any of them. Why does he take children? Why does he kill everyone else and take the little ones?

“It’s their innocence,” Lucy replied. “We believe he draws strength from them. Maybe he stores them away like batteries and uses them until they’re drained.”

“When the children talk to me they tell me that they’re in a dark place called the House of Bones. Do you know if that place is real?”

Lucy nodded earnestly. “We think it is. We’ve been trying to find it but it’s complicated. The Collector is a supernatural being. He exists on a separate plane of existence from the rest of us. He manages to cross over long enough to commit his atrocities but doesn’t stay here. We believe it’s possible that his House of Bones doesn’t reside on our plane.”

“So how do we stop him?”

“My organization has been trying to figure that out for centuries. Maybe you can help.”

“Me? How?”

“Well, the fact that these children call out to you and that you hear them makes me believe that you are somehow closer to his plane than the rest of us. And from what you’ve told me there seems to be some sort of special connection between you and this latest child, Trinity.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t even know her.”

“True, but I think that through her, your connection to the House of Bones is more tangible.”

Doug lay back against his pillows with a weary sigh. “I just don’t understand why I’m cursed with such terrible sight.”

“I think it’s about the future, Doug. I think you’re somehow tapped into the future through this creature.”

“But I’m not capable of seeing the future,” Doug said.

Lucy frowned. “I think you might be, Doug. What about the plane crash?”

Doug was silent for a long moment staring at Lucy. “But what about my parents and all the other things that happened? I’ve always believed that I was seeing those things as they were occurring.”

“Maybe not, Doug. Maybe you were seeing them just before they occurred. Tell me you’ve never considered that.”

“I honestly haven’t, but if it’s true . . .” Doug’s voice trailed off and Lucy saw the pain in his eyes.

“No, Doug, you were a child. You could not have prevented any of it from happening. Don’t go there.”

Doug stared at Lucy as something in the dim recesses of his memory again tried to surface, some long lost knowledge or familiarity, and although Doug sensed that it was gaining in strength he was still unable to grasp it, and just like that the fragment fluttered away like black confetti, leaving him with a dull headache and more questions than answers.

“What’s going to happen when the authorities finally get their hands on me?” Doug asked. “They think I’m a terrorist.”

“They’re not going to touch you,” Lucy said.

“You don’t know that.”

“They think you’re dead.”

“You know I’m alive. The nurse and doctor know I’m alive. How many others? Come on, tell me.” Doug had raised himself slightly up off his pillows. “How do I know I’m safe in this hospital?”

“You’re not strong enough for this, Doug.”

He sank wearily back down feeling angry and confused, his sunken and rheumy eyes gazing out at Lucy from a drawn and pallid face. Outside the light of day already seemed to be fading. How long had they been talking? Surely not more than a few hours. Everything seemed somehow distorted and Doug felt a strange sense of vertigo, like he was only partially back from some terrible place. “But I need to know why this is all happening.” He said.

“And you will. Please trust me; right now you need rest more than anything else.” Lucy rose to leave.

Doug put his hand out and gripped Lucy’s arm, holding her, looking her directly in the eye. Could he trust her? There was that veil of doubt again threatening to turn into a solid wall. Who was she really? Where had she come from? What did she really want? This woman who he hardly knew suddenly had all this control over him. No one had ever had this much control over him and the realization of it gave him claustrophobia. He wanted to bolt from his bed and run for his life, but he forced himself to stay calm. He knew that he must if he was going to heal and get out of this nightmare alive.

“Lucy put a comforting hand atop Doug’s. “I don’t know what I can say that will set your mind at ease.”

“I’ve gone through my life thinking I was somehow responsible for . . . everything that’s happened,” Doug said. “And there’s still some part of me that believes I caused it all. I’ve spent my life since then trying to rebuild my self esteem, running from those who would use me for their own ends. Hear me. I won’t be manipulated. I won’t be used.”

“I won’t use you, Doug. I promise I’ll never do that. You’re a good and kind man and you deserve to be happy.”

“That’s what Rick Jennings always said. If it hadn’t been for him I don’t know if I’d even gotten through it.”

“Rick Jennings is your friend, the police lieutenant from Portland, right?” Something in Lucy’s tone put Doug on guard.

“He’s my best friend,” Doug said. “He saved my life after Mom and Dad died. I owe him everything. I need to call him, let him know I’m okay.”

“No, Doug, you can’t. You’re dead, remember?”

A terrible sense of frustration rose in Doug. “It’s killing me that they think that, that my death is causing them pain.”

“I know, but it’s best right now. Please, you have to trust me.”

Trust me. Trust me. Fucking trust me! It was her mantra and his prison. But at the moment he felt too tired, too drained to do anything else.

Lucy pulled away. “You’re exhausted,” she said, an embarrassed, almost apologetic smile on her face. “You need rest. I’m sorry I upset you.”

Doug settled back into his pillows. “Tomorrow I’ll be stronger,” he said.

At that moment Dr. Vogel appeared above him, a round happy face with inquisitive eyes behind small oval glasses in wire frames. “Are you upsetting my patient?” he said to Lucy with a touch of rancor in his voice.

Dr. Vogel leaned down, examining Doug.

“I’m fine,” Doug said. “Just tired.”

“You won’t be running any marathons for a few weeks, I’m afraid,” Vogel said. Looking now at Lucy, he said, “I insist you let Mr. McArthur rest. He still has a lot of healing to do.”

“I was just leaving,” Lucy said. “I’ll come back in the morning,” she told Doug. “We’ll get you through this. I promise.” She touched Doug tenderly on the arm before turning and walking from the room.

“Sure,” Doug said to no one in particular, as he began a rapid descent into oblivion. The lights were suddenly and mysteriously extinguished and everything around him began fading to black. “I’ll get through this,” he whispered to himself. “I need my strength. I have to get out of this place and find Annie.”

When Doug slept there were no dreams. Or if there were he slept too securely to remember them. His absence was empty, in fact, of all thoughts and visions, all reason and purpose, as though whatever lived in his mind was secret even from him.

A black void, that for all he knew could very well have been death descended over him.

Merry Christmas!

Chapter 32

“I cannot allow you to do anything that might jeopardize the health of your child,” Greta said.

Annie snorted a petulant little laugh. “Is that so?”

Greta stared icily. “Yes, that’s so.”

“I’ll do what I want.”

“Your father has instructed me—”

“I don’t give a fuck what he told you.” Annie turned on the woman, her eyes bright with fury. “Tell him if he wishes to hand out instructions he can come in here and do it himself. Well go, tell him. I’ll not take instructions from his whore.”

Greta’s hard stare only deepened.

Annie was dressed in white shorts and a loose-fitting T-shirt and she’d been busy clearing the furniture from the center of the east wing floor of her father’s house when Greta had come into the room. She was now on her knees rolling up the carpet.

“Why on earth are you doing that?” Greta asked.

“I don’t want to get paint on it,” Annie replied.

“Paint?” Greta said clearly stymied.

“Not that it’s any of your business but I’ve decided to paint.”

“You want to . . . paint?” Greta said. “The contractors were here less than six months ago—”

Annie shook her head in irritation. “I’m an artist,” she said, even as the look of confusion deepened on Greta’s dark visage. “Oh, I forgot, my father doesn’t recognize that aspect of his only child’s life so he probably never mentioned it.”

“Artist?” Greta said, as though she’d never heard the word before.

“That’s right,” Annie said, getting to her feet and brushing her dusty hands together. “I paint pictures.”

“Pictures? Pictures of what?” For some reason Greta could not wrap her brain around what Annie was telling her.

“Anything I fucking please.”

“You don’t have to be crude.”

Over the course of the last three weeks or so Annie’s dislike for Greta had deepened into something close to hate. It wasn’t any one particular thing that caused the emotions in her; it was a combination of things, she decided. First, it was obvious to Annie by now that Greta was sleeping with her father, probably had been since long before her mother had been killed. But that wasn’t the whole thing. Who her father chose to sleep with was his business. She just wished he could have waited until her mother’s bones were cold in the grave before he became so obvious. But more than that, it was the greedy way Greta looked at her pregnant belly, which was now starting to show in all its glorious splendor, and the way in which she doted over her, trying to make her eat and exercise, like some demented coach from Hell.

“How long have you been doing this . . . this . . . painting thing?” Greta asked, as if she hoped it might be just a temporary distraction.

“Do you think I just sit around the house all day long like a spoiled little rich bitch while my husband works to support me?”

“This is something you’re serious about then?”

“This is something I’ve always been serious about,” Annie told the woman. “I have works at several New York galleries. Actually I have a show scheduled.”

“Oh, dear,” Greta said. “Not before the baby’s born I hope.”

“Yes,” Annie replied. “In September, actually.”

“You’re not still thinking about doing it, are you?”

“I most certainly am,” Annie said, becoming more and more irritated by the moment. “My husband’s dead and I’m not just going to wither up and fade away. I plan on living my life.”

“We’ll see about this,” Greta said, turned and marched out of the room.

When the woman was gone Annie continued on with the business of making the room paint proof, covering the furniture and spreading a sheet of thin canvas on the floor. When that was accomplished she went about the business of sorting through the paints and brushes she’d had delivered day before yesterday. She would not let Greta, or her father, for that matter, sway her in her resolve to continue on with her work. She knew she’d never stop grieving for Doug, but realized that grief was a debilitation emotion and would no longer allow it to control her life. She needed to think, she needed to plan her next move, which was her inevitable escape from the bounds of this wicked place. How she could have let herself once again come under her father’s spell she could not adequately say. She knew now that the future of her child, and probably her own future was in jeopardy, and what better way to think then to work. Yes, she would work, and think, and get strong, and plan her strategy. And when the time came she would run for her life and the life of her child.

Marry Christmas!

Chapter 31

Lucy came back the next morning. In the interim Doug had eaten a small portion of solid food and had managed to sit up in his bed propped up against pillows. He looked down at his body in disgust, seeing how thin his arms were. His lateral muscles were all but gone and his abdominals were deflated to the point of emaciation. His upper body was wrapped in bandages so he could not see how bad the damage there was. He sighed in defeat, understanding that it would take him months of rehabilitation to get back to where he was before the shooting. Damn, he needed to be strong now. Not months from now. He had to find Annie. He had to set things right.

Between the kind nurse, Donna Sanchez, and Dr. Vogel, Doug had learned that the first bullet had punctured his abdomen and gone through his stomach. Then it had contacted a rib exiting through the back and had shattered, sending lead and bone shrapnel into his lungs and spleen. The damage had been extensive. The subsequent surgeries to remove shrapnel had been tricky but were successfully accomplished. The second bullet had entered his left chest just above the heart, had missed arteries and had gone straight through his lung where it had exited just below the shoulder blade. The lung had collapsed leaving him on artificial breathing apparatus and in a coma for nearly three long weeks, and only yesterday—after his vitals had improved dramatically—had he been taken off the critical list and upgraded to stable. Doug had always had good instincts and in his conversations with the nurse and the doctor he’d felt there was something more to his condition and recovery that remained unspoken. He sensed it in body language and in the subtle way eyes were averted whenever his questions became too pointed.

Doug had a multitude of questions that did not relate to the state of his health, but neither Dr. Vogel nor Nurse Sanchez could or would answer them. He was told that Dr. Ferguson would be joining him presently and that she was the only one who could address his concerns.

Frustrated, Doug waited for Lucy’s return, watching news television as he did so. Although the crash had happened more than three weeks past, it was still a main topic in the headlines. It had been a terrible tragedy, claiming the lives of two-hundred and thirty-six people. The possibility that it had been a terrorist attack was now the main thrust of the investigation. FAA Investigators were still combing the rural Allegheny Mountain site trying to piece it all together. The destruction had been so complete that there was little identifiable at the crash site, therefore few obvious clues.

There was one tantalizing nugget that had surfaced elsewhere, however, and the news-hungry media had pounced on it like vultures on carrion. It seemed that a male passenger had been pulled off an earlier flight after some sort of incident, and had subsequently been cleared and given passage on the doomed flight. For national security reasons the individual’s identity was being withheld. The press was hungry for fresh details, of course, but the government was not talking.

When Lucy entered the room the report was just ending. She could tell by the look of shock on Doug’s face that he’d been watching the headlines.

“What’s going on?” he said. “Are they going to blame me for that?”

“I see you’re feeling better,” Lucy said smiling sheepishly. She pulled a chair over next to the bed, sat down, and crossed one smooth, tanned leg over the other.

“I want answers!” Doug demanded. “No more bull. I want to know what’s going on, now.”

“Okay,” Lucy said. “I guess you deserve that.”

“Let’s begin with you. Who the hell are you?”

“I told you the truth. The Brotherhood of the Order is an organization that studies and observes paranormal phenomena. But mostly we study human beings with extraordinary abilities.”

The memory fragment in Doug’s mind swelled again and he was close to remembering something important, but all too quickly it receded and he was left with just a dull ache, and more questions than answers. “Why haven’t I ever heard of you?”

“Because we work in secret. Ours is a very old society, founded in the fifteenth century by a renegade group of Jesuit scholars who had begun questioning what they were being taught. They knew that miracles happened; they just weren’t convinced that all miracles were the work of God. Some came from darker places and conveyed much darker intentions. The reason we are secret is because of the world in which we live. If our existence was made public, governments would interfere and try to regulate us. In the beginning the only law was the Vatican and heresy was punishable by death. Now we have to deal with governments—distasteful as it is—most of which are shaped by ideological tenets. The world is filled with spoilers who would try to prevent us from objectively doing our research. In order to be objective our studies need to be completely unbiased and unstained by special interest. That’s why we live and work in secrecy.”

Doug glanced down at Lucy’s bare legs then quickly averted his eyes. “So how do you fit into it?”

“I’m just an employee. I do a job, that’s all. The brotherhood employs many people in a variety of fields.”

Doug relaxed a little but he was still having trouble wrapping his sore brain around the mystery of this woman. “Listen, sorry I snapped at you. Guess I should be thanking you for saving my life, huh? He shaped a wan smile.

“Don’t even think about it,” Lucy said. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“So, your organization has been keeping an eye on me.”

Lucy nodded. “Since you were a child. We know what you’ve suffered, and we’ve always kept our distance, even when everyone else was scheming to get their hands on you.”

“So why am I lying in this bed recovering from gunshot wounds?”

“That wasn’t us, Doug. We only wanted to protect you. And we almost failed this time.”

Doug frowned. “How much do you actually know about me?”

“Considerable. What we don’t understand is why you’ve been . . . quiet for so long.”

“Quiet?”

“Your mind. Your sight.”

Doug’s eyes drew down on Lucy. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“We know that your sight reawakened on the morning your house was destroyed.”

“Who are you people?” Doug exploded. “How the hell do you know these things?”

“Please, Doug, you have to stay calm. It is in our interest to know these things.”

“Do you have a goddamn tap on my mind?”

“If you think we’re the only ones watching you, then think again.”

Doug shook his head, as if he was trying to remove cobwebs from his brain. He sank back into his pillows with a weary sigh. “I’m not all here yet,” he said. “There’s stuff missing.”

Lucy laid a delicate hand on Doug’s arm. Gooseflesh rose beneath her touch and he felt a quick moment of embarrassment. Lucy sensed it and drew her hand back.

“I know,” she said. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal. Be patient. The memories will return in time.”

Lucy’s optimism was infectious and it made Doug feel better. How could he not believe her? How could he not trust her? She seemed so familiar to him and he did not know why. The smile, the sincerity in her voice, all of it together helping to set his mind at ease, even as he lay here at her mercy, a prisoner of her will and whim. The thought was a little unsettling.

“How about this,” he said. “You tell me what you know about me, and if I can remember and you’re wrong I’ll correct you.”

“Fair enough,” Lucy said, “but I’m not sure you’re strong enough for this.”

“Please?”

“Be warned,” she said in a voice that tried to be stern but failed. “If I think it’s too much for you I’ll stop. I just got you back. I don’t intend to lose you again.”

Doug agreed.

Lucy said, “We know that occasionally throughout your life you’ve foreseen certain events before they’ve occurred, usually tragic events, such as the crash three weeks ago. You have some sort of second sight.”

“I’m cursed,” Doug said.

Lucy shook her head. “No,” she said adamantly. “Being cursed is too simple an explanation for what you have.”

“There’s this . . . thing, this entity that sometimes accompanies my spells,” Doug said. “Like it’s in my mind but somehow more real. I don’t know, I can’t explain it. It even talks to me sometimes. Or I think it does. I saw it for the first time on the day Tommy Ricker broke my nose. It did terrible things to their babysitter and her boyfriend. And I think it took Tommy and Savannah.” Doug hesitated. “Do know about that?”

Lucy nodded. “We’ve been trying to isolate it for years.”

Doug stared at Lucy in astonishment. “Isolate it?” he said.

“Our organization has been keeping tabs on this creature since the fifteenth century. It’s one of the reasons we exist.”

Doug was nearly bowled over with a strange species of relief. That he was not alone in his knowledge of the entity was like having a tremendous weight lifted from his heart. “It’s real then?”

“You know it’s real, Doug. You’ve seen it. You’ve communicated with it. You’re witness to its atrocities.”

Doug heaved a weary sigh. “I think some part of me has always believed that thing was a figment of my imagination and that I was somehow responsible for all the terrible things that happened.”

“No,” Lucy said. “You weren’t responsible. We believe your mind is open to areas other minds can’t even begin to grasp. We don’t know why that’s so. We may never know. It might have been there from birth and the bone shard triggered it, or it might have been triggered solely by that incident. Being able to see this . . . creature, to know of its existence is a rare gift. To know its intentions is even rarer and quite valuable in the right hands.”

“But what is it? Do you know?”

Lucy avoided Doug’s gaze and he knew that she was about to lie to him. “I want the truth,” he said, his voice hard.

“I’m not sure you’re ready for this.” Lucy ran a frustrated hand through her long silky hair. “Listen, Doug, I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

Lucy sighed with equal measures of resignation and frustration. “Okay,” she said. “We believe it’s a fallen angel.”

Doug stared speechless.

“I told you, Doug.”

“A fallen angel?”

Lucy nodded.

“You mean like God, Satan, devils . . .?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Don’t you have to religious before you can believe in all that shit?”

Lucy shook her head. “Disbelief in something doesn’t make it not so.”

“Why is it that I’m the only one who can see it?”

“You’re not.”

“Who else sees that thing?”

“There have been quite a few in history. Most are now dead. As far as we know there are only two other people alive who have seen the demon.”

“Who are they?”

“Edmond  De Roché and his daughter Annie.”

“No,” Doug said. “You’re lying.” His face had gone ashen and his breathing was laborious. “That can’t be true. Why? How?”

“He wants something of yours, Doug, something of yours and Annies. And De Roché has conspired for years to deliver it to him.”

In that moment Doug knew exactly what it was that the demon wanted. In that moment everything in Doug’s life became crystal clear. In that moment he knew why the demon had chosen him.

“Why does he want my child?” Doug asked.

“Because we believe he wants to become human. We believe he has plans for the human race and the only way he can carry out his plan is to become human. You were targeted. And so was Annie.”

“Oh, Christ,” Doug said, “That would mean that our meeting wasn’t an accident. It would mean that the whole thing was set up, that De Roché wanted me and Annie to get together.”

“No, he never wanted that, Doug,” Lucy said. “That part’s true. His hate for you is real. It was a question of need. You and Annie were the combination needed to deliver the right child. You see, a long time ago the Collector made a deal with De Roché, but now De Roché is trying to betray him. It seems he wants everything for himself.”

Chapter 30

When Doug woke he felt nothing. He lay on his back with his arms resting like lengths of cordwood beside him. He could not lift them. It took him a very long time to open his eyes. When he did finally manage to get them open he saw nothing but white. In a short, panic-filled moment he believed he’d somehow been blinded. Then his eyes began to focus and he could see the ceiling above him, the room around him and the bed sheets that covered him. Everything was white, brilliantly so and nearly blinding. As his weary and watering eyes further focused he saw tubes running liquids into his arms, a panel with red and green lights winking on and off.

A bespectacled young man in a white lab coat appeared above him, his face solemn but hopeful. There was a name tag pinned to his lapel and Doug could read it quite clearly: Dr. Vogel.

“So our patient is back from the dead.” Doctor Vogel smiled in approval.

Doug tried to reply but could not make his mouth work.

“No, don’t try,” the young doctor said. “There’ll be plenty of time for talking. We’ve been waiting for you to come around. Doctor Ferguson will be pleased.”

Doug tried again to talk but it was no use. Nothing worked. His throat felt like it had been burned closed. Doctor Vogel, sensing his distress, lowered a container with a straw sticking out of it at a right angle. Doug took a few small sips—not nearly enough—before the container was snatched away. “Not too much at first,” the doctor said. “It’s been quite some time since you’ve had anything in your stomach. We wouldn’t want it to betray you.”

Doug was starting to remember some things now; in fact they were coming back with relative ease. He remembered a woman named Ferguson, Lucy Ferguson in fact. He wondered if it was the same person. She’d seemed so familiar to him when he’d first seen her, and he felt so comfortable in her presence, so at home with her. She hadn’t mentioned being a doctor. He remembered having coffee with her in the airport cafe, the shapely curve of her thigh as she’d crossed her legs, his embarrassment at thinking the thoughts he was thinking so soon after leaving Annie, and then . . . things got a little fuzzy. He was in the men’s toilet and someone had come out of a stall holding a gun. He remembered the gun coughing and a feeling like he’d been kicked in the chest. Then he was back in his childhood reliving parts of his life he would rather have forgotten about. Then he was on an airplane and something had happened. There had been a bomb or something worse on board. People were screaming and being sucked out through an opening in the broken fuselage. He was having a hard time determining what was real and what wasn’t. He remembered thinking that he was dead or dreaming. Nothing made sense.

He realized that Dr. Vogel was no longer hovering above him. Instead the doctor’s attentive visage had been replaced by a middle-aged woman with wavy black hair wearing a white uniform. “I’m your nurse, Donna Sanchez,” the woman said giving Doug a compassionate smile. “Doctor Vogel has gone to notify Doctor Ferguson of your reemergence into the world of the living.”

“Where am I?” Doug asked. His voice was a nearly unrecognizable rasp. He was surprised that he’d had the capacity to speak at all, even more surprised that he’d been understood.

The nurse seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying. “You’re at University hospital in Whitehall Virginia. You’ve been through quite an ordeal. Now you mustn’t try to talk. You’re in no condition—”

“I want to see my wife,” Doug said around a tongue that felt like a beached whale in his mouth.

A perplexed expression crossed the nurse’s face. “I’m a private contractor, sir,” she said. “I’m not aware of our patient’s personal circumstances.”

Doug tried to move. The nurse placed a hand on each of his shoulders to hold him down. “Please, sir,” she said. “You’re in no condition—”

“But I need some answers.”

“And you will have them, just as soon as Doctor Ferguson arrives. She brought you here, you know. She saved your life. She cares very much about your recovery.”

Doug relaxed. “How long have I been here?”

“Nearly three weeks.”

“And you’ve never heard of Annie, my wife?”

The nurse shook her head. “I told you, Mr. McArthur, I know nothing about your personal circumstances.”

“Who’s Doctor Ferguson?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss staff members, sir. Doctor Ferguson will be here shortly and I’m sure she will be able to address all your concerns.”

Later—Doug was not sure how much later because he had dozed—he opened his eyes and realized he was staring directly into the eyes of Lucy Ferguson.

“How do you feel, Doug?”

“I don’t know. What happened?”

“You were shot.”

“So I wasn’t in a plane crash?”

Lucy gave a curious frown. “How did you know about that?”

“I had a dream. It’s true, isn’t it?”

Lucy nodded sadly. “Not only did you dream it, you predicted it.”

“Damn,” Doug said. “I warned them, but it wasn’t the first plane, was it?”

Lucy shook her head. “No. It was the second one. The one they rescheduled you on.”

“Jesus. Why?”

“Someone wanted you dead.”

“De Roché?”

Lucy did not reply.

“I’ll kill the bastard,” Doug said.

“Dead men don’t kill.”

“What?”

“Doug, there’s something you need to know.”

Doug searched Lucy’s eyes.

“You and I were both on that plane.”

Doug stared at Lucy in confusion. “You’re not making sense.”

“After you were shot two of my colleagues took our seats. They used our identities.”

“My God,” Doug said. “Why?”

“It was a diversion. We were there immediately after the attempt on your life.”

“I saw you,” Doug said. “I heard you. I knew you were there.”

“We took care of the assassin,” Lucy said. “We’re not sure who ordered the hit but we think it was De Roché. Nice and clean in an airport restroom. The killer would have taken your wallet and any other valuables you might have had. Made it look like a robbery. No one would have ever suspected De Roché. But there was no evidence of a crime. We cleaned everything up. When records showed that you’d boarded the second aircraft it was obvious that he’d failed in the assassination attempt. Well, it seems he resorted to desperate measures the second time around.”

“But how . . .”

“We have no idea how he brought down that airliner. We’re working on that. But it seems he wanted you out of the way big time. In a way it was partly our fault. We wanted them to believe you got on that airplane. We knew they’d keep hunting you and eventually we might have been able to implicate De Roché without you even being harmed. We didn’t know he was ruthless enough to take down a passenger plane full of people.”

“Oh, Christ,” Doug said. “All those lives. And it was because of me?”

“No,” Lucy said, her eyes turning hard. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“Everyone thinks I’m dead? Is that right?”

Lucy nodded. “The important thing is, De Roché thinks you’re dead.”

“And Annie?”

“Doug, there’s been a memorial service.”

“And you didn’t tell Annie?”

“We couldn’t.”

“Who the hell are you people?” Doug placed his hands down on the mattress as if he was about to spring from the bed. But they were weak and useless and he could not move. He felt his eyes swirling in his head. They were hot and wet. Rage boiled deep inside him.

“Whoa, Doug, you’ve got to stay calm.”

“Calm? How can I stay calm when Annie thinks I’m dead?”

“Listen, Doug, I work for an organization called the Brotherhood of the Order. We’ve been watching you for a long time.”

“Christ. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“It’s not like that.”

“How is it then?”

“We’ve been protecting you.”

“Protecting me?”

“You have a gift that needs protecting. If we hadn’t been there you’d be dead.”

Doug stared at Lucy for a long moment, speechless.

“The Brotherhood of the Order has a big stake in keeping you alive,” Lucy said.

“Who are you people?”

“We’re a religious organization.”

“Oh, shit, that’s just what I need—”

“Wait a minute, Doug. Let me explain. We’re not holy rollers. We’re not fanatics. We’re scholars. The Brotherhood was founded in the fifteenth century by a group of Jesuit priests. But they were more than Priests. They were scientists, scholars. Part of our mission is the study of paranormal phenomena.”

“You’re one of those nut job organizations I had to hide from when I was growing up.”

“No, Doug, we’ve never contacted you before. We’ve watched you, but always from a distance.”

The Brotherhood of the Order? Doug thought. A small memory fragment pierced a corner of his mind, but before he could grasp hold of it, it quickly receded back into a gray and foggy area. He tried to concentrate, but it was no use. Part of his mind did not seem to be working.

Lucy saw his confusion. “We are multi-faceted,” she said. “It would be useless to try and explain everything now. You’re just not ready to grasp the whole picture. You need to heal.”

Jesuit Priests? Doug thought. Paranormal phenomena? His mind kept trying to grasp some significance there, but it was no use, and he almost screamed in frustration. “I want to know about De Roché,” he said. “I want to know why he wants Annie’s firstborn and why he wanted me dead.”

“There will be time enough for that when you’re better,” the woman told him. “Right now you need to heal.”

“Wait,” Doug said, before Lucy could turn away. He was aching inside with the need for reassurance. His thoughts seemed frustratingly fragmented, however, and he didn’t even know which questions to ask of this woman. “Annie’s in danger,” he said suddenly, not understanding where the thought had come from. “I can feel it. I need to warn her.”

“Doug, listen very carefully. I can assure you that no harm will come to Annie until after the baby is born. You must not let them know you’re alive; not under any circumstances. Your survival depends upon it. If you are going to heal, if you truly intend to make a difference in Annie’s life and the life of your unborn child, then you must stay in the shadows. Trust me, it is the only way. My organization lives and works in the shadows. It is the only reason we continue to exist. In a sense you are lucky. The ones who wanted you dead are some of the most ruthless people on this planet. They believe you died on that airplane. My best advice is to keep it that way, at least for now. I guarantee that no harm will come to Annie until after the baby is born.”

“Am I a prisoner?”

Lucy shook her head. “No,” she said. “You’re free to go whenever you wish.” With that said, she turned and left the room.