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rapidly through his Ben Franklin glasses. He peered up at the gaunt faces that
nervously looked from one to another before speaking, growing peevish. Each
man before him had the best of credentials and the Ivy League background to go
with them, but he silently wondered if they had any real chutzpah.
"Listen," the Rabbi said, beginning to pace. "We have endured a tornado,
meteor showers so much that our other members from the Covenant have not been
able to even get here in one piece. Delays, delays, delays, and our dear
colleague is running out of time! I must know the extent of the horrors we're
still facing, and the New Yorkers are going to have to fill in until we can
get more assistance. I refuse to have this man die on my watch!"
"The only way I can describe what is happening to him medically, as well as
spiritually," one cleric said, "is to liken it to the theory of black holes."
He rubbed the nape of his neck, ruffling the soft blond down there, and stared
at Rabbi Zeitloff with crystal blue eyes. He was only a few inches taller than
the Rabbi, but stood with the bearing of a much larger man.
"Come again?" Zeitloff stared at the threesome for a moment. He appraised the
other two clerics, both young brunetts that looked like they belonged at a
country club rather than at a healing as serious as this. If only the older,
more seasoned clerical veterans were able to get through the weather delays.
The frustration was making his nerves brittle. Finally, when no one spoke, he
took a potshot at their expertise. He wanted answers, straight answers, not to
be mollified!
"You sound like my late brother, with this scientific crazy-making."
"Black holes, the example my colleague, Dr. Linder, was trying to express to
you," another cleric pressed on, undaunted, "occur when a star implodes.
Everything folds in on itself into a very small, very dense black hole where
the gravitational pull into the darkness is so profound that not even the
light can escape."
Rabbi Zeitloff took off his glasses for a moment to wipe the perspiration from
his face. His glasses had begun to slide down his nose and his face felt oily
and uncomfortable. They'd been up all night, had his dear colleague and friend
hooked up to the most state-of-the-art equipment, but at the end of the day it
still all came down to prayer. At past eighty years old, he understood this.
Men in their prime would not.
"Sir, his mind is slowly pulling into that tiny black spot of implosion from
the black-charge blast he took. That is what began the implosion. The outer
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edges that slip over what we call the event horizon the edge where the
darkness begins to suck the gray matter into itself is what we're trying to
save now. If the draw inward continues, it will first pull the mind in to
collapse into itself . . . then as that density continues to draw inward, it
will siphon the spirit in . . . and ultimately the body will be an empty shell
that will go right into pure darkness. He will simply disappear."
"No," the Rabbi said, shaking his head. "That is not going to happen, because
we have something that is going into that black hole as we speak prayers. Let
them suck down as many as they want! Are you measuring his brain mass? Has it
changed in the hours since he was brought here and we began our vigil? You
must employ faith as you work on the medical and preternatural answers so that
it is a blend. His case is not run-of-the-mill, and a general exorcism for
this did not work."
"You attempted an exorcism, even knowing what caused his condition?" the lead
physician gasped. "Sir, you could have been seriously injured."
"Hey, this is New York," Rabbi Zeitloff said proudly, adjusting his squat
frame while lifting his chin and crossing his arms over his chest. "And half
of the staff here grew up in Hell's Kitchen. So we're not taking any crap."
How was it that almost getting his liver and vital organs stashed in Kemetic
canopic jars for all of eternity had made him unable to keep his hands off his
wife?
Carlos slowly took in his environs as Damali slept quietly beside him. The
silvery mist had evaporated, causing the rained-down bathwater to disappear.
Everything was drying. A glittering residue of King's Ransom painted the
sheers, giving their butterfly-wing hues an entirely new spectral prism. The
ever-present light had burned away all of the dampness, and he'd watched the
pool refill on its own, as though this magical, wonderful place just followed
the ebbs and flows of cosmic energy . . . using it, replacing it, expending
and replenishing. It was a rhythm, a pulse, just like the one he could subtly
feel making the bed hum.
If this was the afterlife, then, hey . . .
But he was so not ready to die. Being here, seeing how close he'd come to that
was more than enough. He had things to live for before, but now . . . damn,
he'd be a crazy man keeping the Darkness from his doorstep and most assuredly
away from his family. He brushed Damali's cheek with a gentle kiss so as not
to wake her, loving how she'd wrapped them both in her wings as she slept the
sleep of the innocent.
His prayer was a quiet one, issued not just from his mind, but from his heart,
Por Dios, please don't allow them to injure my wife like they did before. As
he stared at Damali, her face became blurry and he blinked back tears. This
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