Dancing on the Wind (41 page)

Finally on the seventh day, he was taken out of containment and placed in a secure

room within the isolation ward reserved for contagious patients. Only then could a full

spectrum of tests be run to ascertain all the injuries suffered at the hands of the creature.

* * * * *

“You want the good news first or the bad?” the head surgeon at the Exchange asked

the Supervisor.

“Let’s have the bad news. What are his injuries?”

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“It would be quicker to tell you what isn’t wrong with him,” the surgeon stated,

“but we’ll start at the top and work our way down.”

Keenan was sitting quietly with her hands in her lap. She had insisted on coming to

the Supervisor’s office when they refused to allow her to see Fallon. Even though when

she woke to find her mother hovering over her, she had refused to speak to the woman

and had said very little at all since arriving back at the Exchange.

“He has an acute subdural hemotoma…”

“In English,” the Supervisor snapped.

The surgeon coughed. “Ah, yes. Sorry. He has had a traumatic injury to the brain

and the brain is bleeding from tears in the arteries. Pressure is building up inside his

skull and we will need to go in to relieve that pressure. That will be done within the

hour. In a human, an injury of this magnitude has a high mortality rate, but since we

transferred the parasite, hopefully it will begin to secrete the necessary antigens to fight

the ghoret poison.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Keenan asked softly.

“It will,” the Supervisor said. “Go on, doctor.”

“Yes, of course. Well, both eardrums were ruptured, but that is really a minor thing

at this point. They should heal relatively fast when the Revenant begins to give off

hatchlings.”

Both the Supervisor and Keenan winced at the image those words evoked.

“Both retinas suffered tears during the beating. Luckily neither detached and if

necessary we can repair these surgically with a laser or with cryotherapy. Again, these

are minor injuries in the overall scheme of things.”

“That is the reason his eyes are bandaged,” the Supervisor said. “I was afraid he

had lost an eye.”

Keenan winced and hung her head, her hands tightening in her lap.

“No, no. There are petechial hemorrhages—red spots in the eyes—that suggest he

was being strangled at some point, but there was no laceration or puncture to the eye.”

The Supervisor put his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “Continue.”

“Ah, there is a broken jaw, which we have wired shut, a dislocated shoulder. His

left arm is broken in three places and has been set. He has seven broken ribs with the

cartilage separated from two of the floating ribs, a punctured lung and he has

developed pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining of the heart, caused by the ghoret

venom attacking that organ.

“Both kidneys were severely contused. His spleen was ruptured and we have

removed it. The liver was lacerated but we were able to repair it. He has a fractured

pelvis, a shattered right leg in which the knee cap was literally pulverized and the ankle

on that foot was also broken. The bones in that leg are literally splintered. If we were

dealing with a human, we would simply amputate the leg at the hip. Of course if we

did that, the hellion would make it grow back.”

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“My God,” the Supervisor said, squeezing his eyes closed. “It’s a wonder he’s

survived this long.”

“Exactly,” the surgeon agreed. “But his chances are improving every hour. If he

makes it through the night, he has a fair chance of beating back the undertaker.”

“Is he in any pain?” Keenan asked.

“Well, we can’t give him any tenerse at this point,” the surgeon replied. “We are

administering massive amounts of antibiotics in dual IVs in an attempt to take some of

the burden from the fledgling hellion. We have catheterized him and there is a gastric

feeding tube directly into the stomach supplying him with Sustenance. Right now that’s

all we can…”

“Is he in pain?” Keenan repeated, lifting her head to look at the surgeon.

“Ah yes,” he answered softly. “I am sure he is.”

“When can I see him?”

The surgeon glanced at the Supervisor, who nodded slightly.

“You can see him now if you’d like.”

“I would,” Keenan said. She got to her feet.

“Thank you, Doctor,” the Supervisor said. “Please keep us apprised of his

condition.”

“Certainly,” the surgeon said, and stood. He turned to look down at Keenan. “I

understand the two of you are bonded.”

“Yes,” she said, tears filling her eyes.

“Then you must stay strong for him,” the surgeon said. “You can’t afford to get

sick. He will need you during what is sure to be a long convalescence.”

“I’ll be there for him,” she told him.

“Good girl.”

Keenan glanced at the Supervisor and he indicated he no longer needed her

presence so she left with the surgeon, closing the door behind her.

Alone in his office, the Supervisor rocked back in his chair and heaved a long, tired

sigh. Though he had immense powers of his own, they had proved useless against

whatever had almost killed Mikhail Fallon. He had been unable to do anything to

protect the Reaper. In his own mind, he had failed his agent miserably and that was a

bitter pill to swallow.

He had a feeling Keenan’s mother knew much more about what had happened to

his agents and the evangelist than she was letting on.

“Groves didn’t tell me where he was going after we got Keenan into the chopper

and I never saw Zack after Groves sent him and the woman to stop that dark man from

hurting Fallon. What else can I tell you?” Lily McCullough had demanded when she’d

been debriefed.

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A lot more, the Supervisor thought, but he knew that information would not be

forthcoming. It had been a shock to learn Keenan’s mother possessed psi abilities of her

own. There had never been any indication that was the case.

The Supervisor swiveled his chair around so he could look out the large picture

window behind him. “You fooled us, didn’t you, Mrs. McCullough?” he asked aloud.

For a long time, he watched the lightning stair-stepping across the heavens as a

storm moved toward the Exchange. The blackness of the night matched the bleakness in

his soul, and for the first time in a long, long time, he closed his eyes and prayed to a

god he wasn’t sure even listened to him now.

* * * * *

Keenan sat by Fallon’s bedside all night and when the first gray fingers of daylight

scratched through the sodden clouds, she finally released his right hand and stood,

stretching the kinks out of her back as she turned to watch the rain hitting the window.

She was hungry and her head ached miserably because of that hunger, but she didn’t

want to leave him, afraid if she did, he would succumb to the myriad injuries that

assailed him.

“Did you get any sleep last evening?”

She didn’t turn around. “No sir. I wasn’t sleepy.”

The Supervisor came to stand beside Fallon’s bed. “He seems to be getting a bit of

color back in his cheeks,” he commented.

Keenan knew that was wishful thinking on the Supervisor’s part. To her, Fallon was

deathly pale and his stillness ate at her very soul. The bandages over his eyes, the casts

on his left arm and right leg, the wrapping around his broken ribs, the dark purple

bruises over every inch of flesh she could see, the scratches that gouged deep into

muscle made her want to cry and keep crying until there were no tears left.

“Why don’t you go get some breakfast? I’ll stay with him until you get back.”

Keenan shook her head. “I don’t want to leave him.”

She sensed the Supervisor wanted to argue with her, but instead, he reached for the

call button and when a nurse came bustling into the room, ordered a tray be brought for

Keenan.

“Yes sir. Right away.”

“I failed him,” Keenan said, laying her head against the cool glass of the window.

“How do you figure that?”

“I should have been watching his back. If I had, that thing wouldn’t have gotten to

him.”

“We don’t even know what that
thing
is or how it gets to this plane of existence.

Until we find Roland, we won’t know,” the Supervisor told her. “How could you guard

him against something you could neither see nor sense, Keenan?”

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“I should have been watching his back,” she repeated as though she hadn’t heard

him. “I’m his Extension. It was my mission to help him. I let him down.” Her voice

broke.

“You did no such thing,” the Supervisor said firmly.

“I could feel his pain,” she said. “He was in agony.”

The Supervisor came over to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Do you feel it

now?”

She shook her head. “All I feel is cold,” she said, arms wrapped around her. “Cold

and lost and alone.”

“He is going to survive this,” she was told. “He made it through the night and that

is an encouraging sign.” He squeezed her shoulder. “He’s a tough son of a bitch and

he’s a fighter.”

Keenan’s head came up and she turned her face to the older man. “Did you call his

mother? Has she been told?”

“She was on holiday with that bastard of a husband of hers and we had a helluva

time finding her, but she’s on her way here now. I sent a jet for her.”

Keenan released a wavering breath. “If Coim had been here, he might have been

able to help. He left this realm just before all this happened.”

“Coim?” The Supervisor’s brows drew together then shifted upward as memory

surfaced. “Oh, you mean
An Fear Liath Mor
? I’m not sure it could have reached Fallon,

but I imagine it would have tried.”

“That thing has to be found and destroyed,” Keenan said, eyes hard. “If it’s the last

thing I do this side of hell, I swear I will hunt it down.”

“You and Fallon together,” the Supervisor said then took his hand from shoulder.

“Here’s your food. I want you to sit down and eat.”

She would have argued with him, but he gave her a stern, fatherly look and she half

smiled, taking a seat in the chair as an orderly placed a tray on the over-bed table. “Yes

sir.”

But after the Supervisor and orderly had gone, she pushed the rolling table aside

and went to stand by Fallon’s bed.

“I’m sorry, lineman,” she said, stroking the limp hair back from his forehead. “I

should have been there for you.”

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“Madame, may I speak with you privately?”

Svetlana Gregorovich, Fallon’s mother, nodded. “Of course, Supervisor.” She

released her son’s hand and gently laid it on the mattress. Getting to her feet, she leaned

over and kissed his brow just above the bandages then followed the Supervisor from

the room.

“I know you must be tired,” the Supervisor said as he ushered her down the

hallway. “You should rest.”

“There will be time to rest when I’m dead,” she said in her fatalistic Russian

fashion.

The Supervisor smiled. “Do you think he’ll be all right now?”

“The hellion is growing stronger with every passing moment and she knows the

necessity of birthing as many hatchlings as possible to aid her in healing the destruction

inside my son’s body.” She pulled her fringed shawl closer around her. “I would

suggest having one of your surgeons remove at least two of the new hatchlings

though.”

“Dr. Fitzroy wants to wait until Fallon is stronger.”

“Do it now,” Madame Gregorovich insisted. “You may need it for someone else.”

She shrugged when he shot her a surprised look. “You never know.”

Unclipping his cell phone, the Supervisor contacted his personal assistant and gave

the instructions as they walked. He looked down at Fallon’s mother. “How does a cup

of tea sound to you?”

“Heavenly,” she replied as they reached the elevator bank.

After ordering his assistant to have a cup of tea ready for them when they arrived at

the office, the Supervisor returned the cell phone to his belt and reached out to push the

elevator button.

“I would get lost in this place were you not with me,” Madame Gregorovich

commented. “I thought the Pentagon large, but this facility is much larger.”

The Supervisor gave her another surprised look. Most of the Exchange was deep

underground, but very few people knew that. Not even Fallon, and he was the Alpha

operative.

“How did you…?”

“Like you, I am more than I appear,” she said enigmatically. “I was not born in

Russia.” She locked gazes with him. “Like you, I come from a place far, far away.”

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The elevator doors peeled back and the Supervisor held his hand out for her to

precede him. Neither spoke until the cage was in motion.

“I take it Fallon doesn’t know.”

Madame Gregorovich shook her head. “No, he does not nor will he ever know.”

“Understood,” the Supervisor agreed.

They were silent again until they were seated in the Supervisor’s office with the

door closed, tea cups in hand. Outside, rain lashed at the windows and lightning