Beauty and the Beast (30 page)

Meanwhile, Elliott Burch had been incensed when Catherine made an enraged appearance in his office accusing him of manipulating the reporter, Bernie Spirko. Since Elliott was innocent, he launched his own investigation into who had impersonated him. When Bernie Spirko’s corpse was found with Paracelsus’ signature wound on his body, Catherine went back to Elliott and apologized for accusing him. Elliott then took Catherine to the penthouse Paracelsus had rented. There they discovered Father imprisoned behind a secret wall panel.

Catherine and Jamie had Father supported between them when they entered the Council chamber as Paracelsus was dying. Vincent was nearly catatonic at that point, and mental illness combined with a burning fever swiftly ravaged his mind and body.

Father told Catherine that Vincent had suffered a similar illness as an adolescent after the incident with Lisa, and that no human medicine he had tried had worked on Vincent’s physiology. They finally had to restrain Vincent during that illness. During those long months of that teenage illness, Father had read books to Vincent. Father told Catherine that they had thought Vincent would die, and that his vital signs had actually ceased. Then he suddenly recovered and became well again. He came out of that illness a scholar from all of the reading Father had done with him.

This illness was far more devastating, though. As Vincent slipped further and further into delirium, he became obsessed with a poem by Dylan Thomas, “And Death Shall Have No Dominion.” He repeated over and over again these lines:

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

He wanted Catherine to hear those lines of the poem, so he went up to her apartment looking for her. She was still below discussing Vincent’s deteriorating condition with Father, and they were not aware that Vincent had left the tunnels to go find her. Vincent became confused by Catherine’s absence, and he ripped through her apartment looking for her before he finally collapsed. Catherine called in sick to the District Attorney’s office, and with Peter’s help, she nursed Vincent for a week in her apartment. However, they were unable to determine the exact nature of his illness, or come up with a way to successfully treat him.

Vincent finally awakened in Catherine’s bed to her recitation of these lines from Dylan Thomas’ poem as she

was holding him:

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

Vincent opened his eyes and asked her, “You know those lines?”

Catherine told him, “You’ve been repeating them for three days. Who wrote them? Was it Dylan Thomas?” Vincent slipped back into unconsciousness before he could answer her.

When he awakened again, Vincent realized that he was still sick, and that he was a danger to Catherine, so he went back to the tunnels. Once there, he fled from everyone deep into the caverns beyond the burial catacombs, and he took refuge in one of the small caves there. His anguished roars, reverberating throughout the tunnel network, communicated a combination of rage, confusion, and terror. Vincent’s illness had driven him mad, and the madness of the Beast within him was destroying him. While community members kept watch outside of the cave nearby, Father went to get Catherine.

When Father and Catherine finally arrived near the cave Vincent was in, Father tried to stop Catherine from going into the cave with Vincent. He told her that Vincent was not himself, and that he might end up killing her.

Catherine’s poignant response was, “He is my life! Without him, there is nothing!” Then she left Father and the others and went into the cave after Vincent.

The Beast was in full possession of Vincent as Catherine entered the cave, but she was determined to save the man she loved. When Vincent’s distorted vision made out the small figure coming toward him, he charged forward with another terrifying roar of fury. His hand was raised and ready to strike.

Somewhere deep inside of Catherine, Vincent’s psyche connected with hers. Catherine held her ground and let out an ear-splitting, blood-curdling primal scream of her own, one word, “VINCENTF The Beast was at once quelled and quieted. Vincent’s vision cleared, and he beheld the angelic countenance of his little wife standing fearlessly before him.

Vincent reached both arms toward her and whispered her name, “Catherine.” Then, like a giant oak which had just been struck by lightning, Vincent fell. In a desperate attempt to cushion the impact as he crashed, Catherine rushed forward, threw her arms around his barrel chest, and went down with him. As they were falling together, Vincent’s hand caught the crystal on Catherine’s necklace, and the clasp gave way.

By the time they landed on the floor together,

Vincent’s vital signs had ceased. Aware that he wasn’t breathing, Catherine was desperate. “Vincent! Vincent!”

She felt for the pulse on his neck, and there was nothing. His great heart had stopped beating. In despair Catherine cried out, “No! No! No!” She laid her head on his chest and listened carefully, but there was nothing.” She gently shook Vincent. “No! Vincent! You can’t! You can’t! Not without me! I won’t let you! I won’t let you! No!” Catherine bent over and kissed Vincent’s mouth urgently and passionately as grief and anguish began to sweep over her.

The moment their lips met, Catherine felt herself being propelled by some unseen force into Vincent’s mind, where her thoughts merged with his in a powerful telepathic link. As Catherine entered his mind, she found herself still in the cave with Vincent, but she was standing at the back of the cave, and Vincent was walking away from her toward the mouth of the cave from which brilliant light was emanating. Catherine could feel that she was just about to lose Vincent to the eternal realm and be separated from him in mortality.

Catherine called out to him in heartbreaking desperation. “Vincent!” He stopped and turned around to face her, but he looked confused. She pleaded with him in the anguish of her grief. “Vincent, you can’t leave me alone! I need you! I need you!”

Vincent smiled softly and opened his arms to receive her. Catherine ran to Vincent and leaped into his arms. Vincent caught her and clasped her against his body as he kissed her deeply with hungry passion and sank to the

floor with her. The vision ended and Catherine was back on the floor in the cave kissing her beloved husband. Vincent was unconscious, but he was breathing and his heart rate was restored and steady. Catherine closed her eyes in ecstatic relief and a prayer of thanksgiving as she gently lifted his head onto her lap. His fever had finally broken, and he slept.

A few hours later, when Father decided to venture into the cave to check on them, he found Catherine sitting on the floor with Vincent’s head on her lap. Vincent awakened and they took him back up to his chamber.

This illness had severely impaired his memory, and everything seemed unfamiliar to him. Vincent couldn’t remember his chamber, and he was struggling for words and names missing from his damaged mind.

Catherine was the only person he recognized. He knew that she was the woman that he loved, but he felt lost because he couldn’t remember her name. When she reminded him, and he whispered “Catherine” for the first time since his illness in the caressing tone that she loved so much, he smiled with happiness to have that most important word restored. The memory of their marriage, however, was completely gone. Then Vincent began the long, slow process of recovery as his brain struggled to create new pathways to his lost memories.

Vincent soon came to realize, though, that this illness had taken more than just his memories. It had also taken his connection with Catherine, and he felt an acute sense of loss because of that. Catherine had wanted to tell him something, something important. However, when she arrived in his chamber, he was distressed that it had taken a sentry to tell him that Catherine was coming. Before, he would have felt her approach. When Catherine realized that Vincent was also devastated over having to actually see her need to talk to him on her face, rather than feeling it, she had simply hugged him and told him not to worry instead of telling him what was troubling her. Later, Vincent had received a note from Catherine telling him to come to the tunnel access under her building, because she had something very important to tell him. Catherine never came. She was kidnapped by Gabriel’s henchmen before she could tell him.

Six months later, as Vincent lay in bed resting for a few hours before resuming his search of the city for his lost Catherine, he felt an heartbeat. Vincent followed that heartbeat, convinced that it was Catherine’s, to the old Battery Arms building. There, he broke down every barrier Gabriel had erected, slaying Gabriel’s armed guards in the process, until he finally arrived on the roof. Vincent watched in agony as Gabriel stared at him out of the window of the helicopter that had just left the helipad, taking someone precious away from him.

Vincent yelled out an heartbreaking, “CatherineF

Then behind him, Vincent heard a woman’s soft voice call out his name, “Vincent!”

Vincent whirled around. Catherine had climbed up the steps to the roof and was swaying before his eyes. He rushed forward and caught her in his arms as she collapsed, “Catherine!”

Tears started streaming down Vincent’s face as Catherine smiled softly at him. She struggled to speak as her strength was ebbing. “We loved. There is a child.” Vincent looked confused, “A child?”

Catherine spoke more softly. “He is beautiful!” Then as she began to fade she said, “Though lovers be lost...” Vincent finished the line. “Love shall not.” Catherine lost consciousness, and Vincent quoted the last line of Dylan Thomas’ poem as he pulled her body against him, “And death shall have no dominion.” Then Vincent realized that the heartbeat he had been following was his son’s, and that the man he later found out was Gabriel, had taken the baby away in his helicopter after murdering Catherine.

When the vision closed and Vincent found himself back in the present, the journal he had started to read had fallen to the floor. He bent over to pick it up, but then he felt something—an heartbeat. He sat bolt upright,

startled and confused. It wasn’t Little Jacob’s heartbeat he was feeling. This heartbeat was much slower, but the feel of it was beginning to fill his entire being.

Suddenly, Catherine’s face, eyes closed in death, appeared before him, but this time he didn’t feel the pain that image usually evoked. He heard her voice clearly. “Vincent, where are you? I love you, and I’m lost without you! Please find me!”

Then he remembered Narcissa’s words to him. “Follow your heart, Vincent, and find your woman! She needs you! Your connection to her is healing, and love is holding her in this world still.”

A woman’s voice spoke softly to his mind. This was the same voice that had told him that he was a Tandin when he had the vision of the attack on his family by Adrian’s men when he was a baby. “Vincent, it is time for you to find your Catherine. She needs you desperately. Look into your heart!”

She was gone from his mind as quickly as she had come. Vincent closed his eyes and let the heartbeat sweep over him. He thought, “How can this be?” He took a deep breath, relaxed, and concentrated on the heartbeat. The lines from Dylan Thomas’ poem went through his mind. “Though lovers be lost; Love shall not.” In an exhilarating rush, his connection to Catherine was completely restored. He saw her clearly in an huge hospital bed, propped partly up, her eyes closed in—sleep, not death! Light was streaming down on her from a large overhead

skylight, and it looked like an halo shining off her light brown hair.

Vincent’s eyes flew open, and he said out loud the last line of the poem, “And death shall have no dominion!”

Vincent knew exactly where Catherine was! He left everything as he stood up, ran to the threshold of the cave, and leaped up the eight-foot ledge to the tunnel floor. With his powerful feline-like vision, he didn’t even need the lantern. Vincent began to run, and he picked up speed as he went. He thought his heart might actually burst with the joy he was feeling as all of the inconsolable grief and the pain of separation he had suffered over the loss of his beloved Catherine vanished.

Chapter VIII The Day of Vines and Roses

When Tony walked into Father’s Council chamber, he found Joe, Diana, and Father all seated at the Council table hovered over Gabriel’s two small crime notebooks. Tony knew that what they were working on was extremely important to the safety of Father’s world as well as the world above, so he didn’t interrupt them as he sat down across the table from them.

Joe was holding a legal pad full of Diana’s notes, and he was shaking his head. “So, this is everything?”

Diana nodded, “Every illegal business enterprise, every location, every business associate, every dirty cop, lawyer, and government official, and every bank account! This information will shut Adrian down completely.”

Joe was visibly relieved by Father’s and Diana’s

triumphant success deciphering Gabriel’s notebook.

“Since a few more of Adrian’s corrupt plants may have infiltrated our legal system since Gabriel’s death, 111 call in the FBI to help us clean this up. Maybe that way we can avoid alerting Adrian, and we can put all of his enterprises out of business simultaneously. Greg Hughes managed to figure out which Manhattan mansion is Adrian’s, so we are all set to move against him now.”

Then, all three of them turned their attention to Tony, and Father asked him, “Tony, did you need to tell us something?”

Tony nodded his head and smiled at them. “I needed to deliver a message from Vincent. He wanted me to tell you that he has gone to do what he should have done a long time ago to figure out what his dreams and visions about Catherine mean.”