Coven of Mercy (4 page)

But Jason studied me, his gaze searching mine. I stared back at him steadily. I knew we would win and I let him see my conviction. His lips set and he nodded then, as committed to the course as I was.

And he was a trooper. Never complained. I went to his second marrow transplant as an observer, unable to stay away. The first hadn’t been easy and the second was likely to be worse. Jason had seized my finger in pre-op, insisting that I hold his hand.

The whole team was shocked when Icicle Taylor agreed.

I was more shocked when Jason ran to give me a hug on the day of his final discharge. No one had spontaneously hugged me since my mother’s death. I didn’t think to hug him back. I was surprised and touched, and although I had rationalized it since, I still relived that moment of triumph.

It was a battle we had won.

But a week after Mrs Curtis died, Jason came back.

Capricious, deceitful March.

I’d been working even more hours, cross-checking everything, determined not to let anyone down the way I’d almost let Mrs Curtis down. Dr Bradley was a genial nag about my apparent inability to give the lab some blood. I’d never logged so many hours and I was exhausted, but I felt on the cusp of a breakthrough.

Until I saw Jason’s parents in the ward. My heart stopped cold with the knowledge of why they were there. I have never wanted to be wrong as badly as I did then. Headaches, lassitude, infections that wouldn’t go away, night sweats. His parents knew the truth as well as we did.

Jason had always reminded me of somebody I couldn’t quite remember. I was so shocked at the sight of him this time that I realized who he resembled.

He looked like Micah. He had the intensity of focus and thoughtfulness that characterized Micah. That solemnity, that intensity, that watchfulness. Never mind the dark eyes and dark hair, the beautiful features.

It made no sense. I had met Jason
before
Micah.

No. That wasn’t true. I remembered suddenly that I
had
seen Micah before. He’d been at my mother’s funeral, a stranger on the perimeter of the gathering of mourners, watching.

Watching me.

My father had told me to pay attention and had been impatient with my insistence about the stranger. He had said that there was no one there.

I had never told anyone about the dreams I’d had later, dreams of that same man who didn’t exist. I had shoved the recollection of those dreams aside, like so much else that made no sense that year.

Once recalled, I couldn’t forget them. Micah had been watching me.

Why me?

I had a dreadful feeling about Jason’s prognosis. We ordered the tests and tried to make cheerful noises, but the oncologist on the case and I avoided each other’s gaze.

I was there the night the tests came back from the lab, a little ping from my computer indicating that the file I was watching had been updated. I didn’t get coffee, just sat and read.

The results were terrible.

Inescapable.

I shut the door of my office and wept. Optimism isn’t nearly a good enough weapon. I know the statistics and the survival rates as well as my own name. I looked again at Jason’s blood work, even though I knew.

I was caught. We couldn’t deny him treatment. I couldn’t be fatalistic. I couldn’t send Jason home to be happy for as many months – or weeks – as he had left. But I didn’t want to put that darling boy with his trusting eyes through a treatment ordeal that wouldn’t matter at the end.

I didn’t want him to suffer more than he would anyway.

I wanted mercy for him.

I knew that Jason’s parents would spare no expense and no trouble in their quest to see him cured. They had proven to be great allies in his past treatment regimen.

But this time they would fight, and they would lose.

And so I cried. I sat alone in my office and I wept for the futility of it all. I wept for Jason and his parents and the fact that he would never grow up to be the heartbreaker I wanted him to be. I wept for Mrs Curtis, believing at the end that she was dancing with a handsome man. I wept for my mother, and my father who had never been able to talk about his own pain, and my brother who had run as far away from the past as was physically possible. I wept for Micah and his lost wife and his beautiful daughter.

It was late when I had shed all my tears – two decades worth of them – and the night was still and dark. I wiped my face and blew my nose and decided I needed some sleep. I was straightening my desk when I grimaced at another email from Dr Bradley. The message from the day before was still unopened as I’d assumed it to be a nag about iron supplements. This one was marked urgent.

Some people don’t like to be ignored.

I had done the blood work, for goodness sake.

I rolled my eyes and flicked open the file, guessing that he’d been right in his diagnosis. Low iron is a common problem among women, and I knew I wasn’t that special in biological terms. I certainly didn’t practice good self-care.

But it was a referral to the head oncologist on our team.

I clicked through to my own blood tests and sat back, stunned. My haemoglobin was down, but my white blood counts high. Worst of all, Dr Bradley had requested a cancer antigen test, because of my family history, and its high result told me all I needed to know.

My old adversary had moved the field of battle into my own cells.

Cancer is sneaky. It takes advantage of your mistakes. I’ve learned that, but I had left one flank undefended. My mother, after all, had died of ovarian cancer. Her death was what got me into this line of work. I wanted the power to do something other than stand by and watch for the inevitable. I’ve made a lot of saves in my time, and spearheaded a lot of research. I’ve done good work.

Maybe that’s why it came after me. Maybe I was too worthy an opponent. Maybe that’s why it took advantage of my genetic weakness.

It had certainly taken advantage of my slip-up. How long had it been since I’d had a physical examination? A suite of blood work done? A Pap smear? I just never had the time. Or maybe, I’d thought I was invincible, since I was fighting for the good guys.

It didn’t really matter. I knew too much about treatment, about pain and suffering, and I knew the statistics. I knew that the oncologist would review my family history and immediately order an ultrasound of my lower abdomen, and I knew what he would find. I understood suddenly why I couldn’t shed that round belly I’d developed, and it wasn’t the food in the cafeteria.

I had a tumour and, with these counts, I would bet that it had already metastasized. It made too much sense. I knew that by the time there are symptoms of ovarian cancer, it’s all over.

Even more damning, I had known my mother would die, with unshakeable certainty, when she was diagnosed and I had the same conviction that this cancer would take me, too.

Maybe I had always known that. Maybe that was why I hated March so much. Maybe it was a kind of foresight.

I didn’t cry for myself. I’d cried all my tears for Jason and for Mrs Curtis. I was too angry that the fight would go on without me, that the battle would rage without my contribution. It wasn’t fair. I was surprised by how much I wanted a different answer than the one I routinely gave.

I looked out the window at the night, seething.

Micah was leaning against the fender of my car again, and he looked as if his gaze was fixed upon my window. I understood then why I was the only one who could see him. Just as Mrs Curtis had seen him.

He was waiting for me.

And I knew why.

“You knew,” I said when I was still twenty feet away from him.

Micah inclined his head in agreement, that same graceful gesture, but there was no amused curve to his lips this time. He was as watchful as ever, though.

Still.

I couldn’t simply stand, not with this chaotic need to do something swirling inside me. I was excited, agitated, uncertain. Could I battle my old enemy in a different way?

“I need to walk.” I headed for the scrap of wilderness around the parking lot.

Micah followed. I walked quickly, striding through the brush, ignoring the patches of snow underfoot and the brambles snatching at my clothes. It felt good to push my body, a denial of the disease that lurked inside my cells.

When I finally halted and spun, there was nothing but Micah, his glittering eyes and the stars overhead. I was aware of the warm strength of him, aware of the lump in my throat.

I saw no need for pretence. “Tell me about the coven.”

“We offer relief to those who suffer, especially those who suffer needlessly. It’s a choice on our part.”

“When treatment is futile.”

“When there is no chance of healing.”

“Like Elsebietta.”

He nodded once and looked away, still tormented by that loss. “It was hell.”

I knew exactly what he meant and so I did what I never do – I reached out and touched him. I offered solace.

He eyed my hand, then reached down and captured it in his. My heart skipped at the heat in his eyes and I sounded breathless. “So, you joined the coven.”

“I saw the chance to diminish suffering.” He grimaced and bent his head, staring at the glint of the creek. “I follow the edicts of the coven of mercy, but I’ve been looking for something different than the others. Something more.”

“Like what?”

He looked at me so quickly that I couldn’t look away, his eyes gleaming. “I don’t want to be alone,” he whispered.

I swallowed, guessing his implication. “You said the coven is short one member.”

He nodded once. “I asked for the right to fill that place. I have been waiting for a dance partner for a long time.”

“How long?” I knew the answer, but I had to hear it.

“Twenty years, this very month.”

“I thought I saw you at the funeral,” I guessed. “But no one else did.”

“No, you could only glimpse me then. It was too soon.” He smiled. “But you dreamed me. I managed that.”

He was right. “Why me?”

“Because I saw the same passion in you that burns in me.”

I caught my breath and looked away, dizzy at the implication. I heard the music begin, sounding as if it carried from a distant orchestra, and panicked. “But Mrs Curtis died.”

“Because I didn’t stop.”

I eyed him, seeing that he looked paler than he had, seeing a gauntness to his cheeks. “You’re hungry.”

He nodded, licked his lips and looked away. “I’ve been waiting for you, Rosemary.”

“For a long time?”

He smiled. “Always.”

“And I would be able to do what you do, to give mercy?”

“Yes.”

“But I would be your partner?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. We can only try when we have similar powers and objectives.” His smile was fleeting, barely curving his lips. “I’m inviting you on an adventure.”

It was an invitation that I was destined to accept. Another chance, an opportunity to make a difference . . . with Micah.

There was only one element in my past, only one detail that I wanted to resolve. “Will you show mercy to Jason?”

He shook his head and my heart sank. “I think he should be yours.”

In a way, my decision had been made when I saw my own test results. I offered my other hand to him, palm up. My words were thick, my voice not sounding like my own. “I’ve never learned to waltz.”

“I’ll teach you,” he pledged. He pulled me into his arms and that music became louder. It was evocative of another time and place, romantic and sweet and ethereal. As seductive as he was.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“It’s easy,” he whispered and I believed him. I felt his hand on my back, his chest against mine, then he pulled me close. His breath fanned against my ear, my neck, and I gasped at the tiny prick of his teeth.

Then my blood was leaving me, its heat flowing from the wound on my neck. I felt him drink, felt him take the life force into his body. With every beat of my heart, Micah felt stronger and larger, firmer and warmer. And with every beat, I felt less substantial, weaker.

I was becoming a ghost. The cares of the world fell away from me and I saw the course of my life with perfect clarity. I saw that every step had been on the same journey, bringing me to this place at this moment with this man. I relived that forgotten glimpse of Micah at my mother’s funeral, reviewed those dreams, and tasted the force of destiny in my life.

I saw the pattern in my dating, my dissatisfaction with all those dark-eyed, dark-haired men, none of whom could hold a candle to Micah. I saw my own impatience with any relationship that was not a perfect communion, and knew what I had been seeking.

This.

Him.

I saw how the past shapes the future, but gained a sense of how the future could shape the past. My life had brought me inexorably to this destination, to this junction, to this destiny.

Who could tell where the adventure would lead from here?

I wanted to know.

And just when it seemed that I would cease to exist for ever, just when it seemed that I was no more substantial than the wind, Micah lifted his head. He bit his own hand, then fitted my mouth to the wound. The blood was salty, not truly to my taste, but he coaxed me to drink of it.

Once I had started, I couldn’t stop. Micah’s blood flooded through me like a draught of starlight. It set me tingling with a physiological change that I knew I would have to analyse later. For the moment, though, there was only the sense that I was changing, becoming something closer to ice and moonlight than before.

I was trading the sun for the moon, in more ways than one. I felt stronger and more vital, purposeful and focused. When Micah made me stop drinking, I believed I truly was invincible.

Finally.

I smiled at him, seeing him fully for the first time. He was larger and darker than I’d imagined, the secrets in his eyes more profound. His skin was finer, his presence stronger, his hair more luxurious. My desire for him had multiplied tenfold.

My gaze was sharper, my ability to perceive detail almost dizzying. All of my senses were heightened and my body was stronger. I flexed my hand, awed by the change. There was so much to learn.