Fort Morgan (22 page)

“
I think. . .”
the woman started.

A hand reached into Sissy’s curtained space
and pressed the curtain back. The night nurse touched Bruno on the
arm. Bruno jumped to his feet with a growl. Ivan opened his eyes.
Sissy smiled at Ivan, but he didn’t seem to see her. He stood up
and picked up Sissy’s hand from the bed.

“
We let these
men. . .” the nurse started.

“
Ivan!” Sandy
said.

Sandy threw her arms around Ivan. He buried
his face in her shoulder. Delphie stepped into the small area after
Sandy. She looked at Sissy and then looked at the lady in
white.

“
The lady is here,”
Delphie said in a low tone.

“
Sir,” the nurse said to
Bruno.

“
How ‘bout this?” Bruno
asked. “I’ll wait out there.”

“
I can allow only two
people at a time,” the nurse said.

“
I can. . .”
Ivan said.

“
No,” Delphie said. “You
need to stay here.”

The intensity of her voice caught Sandy’s
attention. She turned to look at Delphie.

“
Is there any way?”
Delphie asked the air.

“
You know, Oracle, there
is always a way,” the lady in white said.

“
I am Delphie,” she said.
“We’ve met before.”

“
There is only one of you
in this time. All Oracles are Delphie,” the lady in white
said.

“
I guess that’s so,”
Delphie said.

“
Who is it, Delphie?”
Sandy asked in a low tone.

“
It’s the lady in white,”
Delphie said to Sandy. “She guides spirits from this world to the
next.”

“
Your young friend is
waiting for her father,” the lady in white said. “He is blocked by
it being her time, but you may call him. I won’t stop
him.”

“
Mitch,” Delphie
said.

With her word, the spirit of Mitch Delgado
appeared.

“
Dad!” Sissy squealed with
delight.

Her father scooped her up in Sissy arms.

Mitch’s presence was so intense that Sandy
instinctively looked in his direction. Shaking her head, Sandy went
to hug Sissy’s body in the bed.

“
I am in no hurry,
Delphie,” the lady in white said. “I come only as a service, to
guide those who are blessed.”

“
Yes, lady,” Delphie said
to what looked to Sandy like the air. “Thank you.”

“
There are others here
that need my help,” the white lady said.

“
We are grateful for your
assistance with Sissy’s journey,” Delphie said.

Sandy gasped at Delphie’s words. Her hand
went to her mouth to keep from crying. Ivan saw Sandy’s face and
scowled. He went to Sissy’s body in the bed. He leaned over and
kissed her cheek.

“
YA lyublyu
tebya
,” Ivan whispered in her
ear.

Sissy didn’t know what it meant but she
liked the close, intimate way he spoke to her.

“
Is there anything we can
do?” Delphie asked the lady in white.

“
You can love her,” the
lady in white said, as if the answer were obvious.

“
We do,” Delphie
said.

“
What did she say?” Sandy
asked.

“
She said we could love
Sissy,” Delphie said.

Ivan placed his unshaven cheek next to
Sissy’s.

Sissy’s spirit felt the scratch of his
beard. She put her hand on her cheek. Mitch gave her a knowing
grin.

“
I’ll attend to others and
check back,” the lady in white smiled at Delphie. “Don’t worry,
Delphie. I won’t let her go on her own.”

“
Thank you,” Delphie
said.

The lady in white gave Delphie a slight bow
and disappeared.

“
What. . . um,”
Sandy said.

Delphie hugged her.

“
She’s a spirit of sorts,”
Delphie said. “A conductor of souls.”

“
For everyone?” Sandy
asked.

“
Not everyone,” Delphie
said. “I don’t know how spirits are chosen or who gets her help.
She and I are kin. When I die, I will likely become a white
lady.”

“
You will?” Sandy
asked.

With a smile to Sandy, Delphie stepped to
the bed to see Sissy’s body. She touched Sissy’s forehead and then
looked at Sissy’s spirit.

“
You need to return,”
Delphie said. “Your life is not over.”

“
But Dad just got here,”
Sissy said.

Sandy flipped around to face the edge of the
bed that Delphie was talking to.

“
Sissy Delgado, you get
yourself back in that body this moment,” Sandy said in her bossiest
voice. As if out of breath, she gulped air. “You cannot, and, in
fact,
will
not
die now.”

“
But. . .”
Sissy’s spirit said.

“
Now!” Sandy said to the
air on the side of the bed.

Sissy’s spirit scowled at Sandy.

“
Your sister is right,”
Mitch said.

“
But, Dad!” Sissy said.
“You just got here!”

“
I’m always with you,
Sis,” Mitch said. “Always. It’s your brother who rarely sees me.
But I am always with my favorite girl. You know that.”

“
I guess so.” Sissy slunk
toward her body. “You’ll stay with me.”

“
Every day, every night,”
Mitch said. “You know that.”

“
Did she go?” Sandy asked
in a low voice to Delphie.

Delphie shook her head.

“
Sissy! Stop fooling
around!” Sandy pointed toward the body again. “Get in there.
Now!”

“
You have so much life
left to live,” Mitch said. “We Delgados love life. Don’t give up on
yours so soon.”

Mitch took Sissy’s hand and helped her back
into her body. He kissed her cheek. Sissy lay down into her body.
Mitch winked at her and placed his hand over the machine monitoring
her vitals.

The machine monitoring Sissy’s heart began
to scream. Another machine started to squeal. The nurse rushed to
Sissy’s bed. She looked at the machine and left. A moment later,
the doctor came in. He took one look at Sissy’s vitals and rushed
out again. The nurse returned and set up a whole-blood IV. An
orderly started to move Sissy’s bed and the nurse escorted them out
to the waiting room.

“
What’s going on?” Sandy
asked the nurse.

“
You have to talk to the
doctor,” the nurse said. “I’m sorry.”

She jogged back into the ICU. They stood
staring at the ICU entrance until the doctor appeared.

“
She’s lost a lot of
blood,” the doctor said. “She must have had a slow leak. We
wouldn’t have noticed until. . . Another minute and she
would have. . . Lucky for you, something set the machines
off. We are moving her into emergency surgery.”

“
Yay!” Mitch let out a
rousing cheer.

Smiling, Delphie shook her head at
Mitch.

“
What?” Sandy asked the
doctor.

“
Say a prayer,” the doctor
said. “You’ll need your luck to hold.”

The doctor nodded and went back into the
ICU. Sandy looked at Delphie, and they hugged.

“
I get coffee for us,”
Bruno said before he walked off.

Ivan watched him go. He glanced at Sandy and
then realized how weird it must seem to have him there.

“
Sandra, I. . .”
Ivan started.

“
Delphie told me
everything on the trip here,” Sandy said.

She held her arms out, and they hugged. When
they stepped back, Ivan nodded. He waved his hand to some seats in
a quiet corner. Sandy walked to the seats, and Delphie followed.
Ivan sat down last. Sandy started settling in. She took out a
couple of blankets from a travel bag and gave one to Ivan and
another to Delphie.

“
I want to say,” Ivan
swallowed hard, “this is my fault.”

“
No,” Delphie said with a
smile. “It’s not.”

“
But. . .” Ivan
started.

“
Don’t worry, Ivan,”
Delphie said. “These events are happening in their right order. We
got here in time. They noticed Sissy was leaking blood in time.
Everything is happening in the right time. Now, we have to live out
the next few hours with hope in our hearts.”

Ivan nodded. When Bruno returned with cups
of vending machine coffee, they settled in to wait.

~~~~~~~~

Olympia

“
We were hoping great Zeus
would hear our entreaties,” Fin said.

“
Am I not Zeus?” the man
on the throne said.

The crowd cheered for their leader. Perses
watched the crowd to gauge what they would do. There were a dozen
powerful Olympian Goddesses and Gods sitting in the crowd. Any one
of them would happily send Tanesha to an abyss for their own
amusement. So far, the crowd seemed to be amused by the
fairies.

“
I recognize you as Zeus.”
Tanesha was so anxious that she felt like her heart was going to
burst out of her chest. “I watched while the great Zeus was pulled
from the Sea of Amber by myself, Jillian the Titan, and Sandy the
Human — all under the instruction and power of Hedone.”

The people in the seats gasped with
amazement at her both impertinence and her words. When Perses
shifted on guard, Fin moved to protect Tanesha.

“
If not for the great
Hedone, you — powerful Zeus — would be living out your days trapped
in the Sea of Amber,” Tanesha said.

Fin put a hand on her arm in warning. Perses
kept his attention on the crowd.

“
Who are you to imply that
I was in the Sea of Amber?” Zeus asked.

Tanesha swallowed hard. Fin shifted his body
so that he stood in front of her.

“
The great Zeus cannot be
captured by something as insignificant at a serpent or the Sea of
Amber!” Zeus said.

“
That may be the case,”
Tanesha stepped from behind Fin. “But stuck you were! And without
Hedone’s help, you would have spent all of your days until the end
of this world trapped in the Sea of Amber.”

“
I was trapped there with
you.” Perses shifted to face Zeus.

“
Silence!” Zeus
screamed.

The whispering court members fell silent.
All of the court turned their attention to Tanesha. Fin put his
hand on her elbow in case he needed to whisk them away.

“
I know this child,”
Perses said. “She is no liar. She is here out of love for
Hedone.”

“
What is it this
fairy-ling is talking about?” Zeus turned to Hera.

Hera smiled at him. For a moment, the
tension in the court seemed bound up in the body language of these
Olympian rulers. Tanesha silently implored her best friend to wake
up and fight for her life. But Heather’s face was blank and devoid
of emotion. Zeus blinked once and then again.

“
You took the memory from
me,” Zeus said in a tone audible only to those standing
nearby.

“
I did,” Hera
said.

Zeus reached his long arms out, and they
hugged. Sparks from their union lit up the golden hall. The
Olympian crowd rose to their feet and cheered. After what seemed
like a long time, Zeus stepped back. He looked at Hera and then
kissed her cheek.

“
We beseech you,” Fin
said. “In light of the assistance you have received, we entreat you
to give Hedone the chance to see her children grow to adults. Allow
Hedone to return to her husband and all of her friends who love
her.”

Zeus turned to look at Fin. He noted the
hold Fin had on Tanesha’s arm. His eyebrows rose, and his lips
turned up in a smile. His head moved in a small nod to acknowledge
Perses.

“
No,” Zeus
said.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday early morning — 1:21 a.m.

Phoenix, Arizona

“
Sir,” his driver said in
Russian. She turned around from the driver’s seat to look at him.
“I would gladly die for you.”

Otis reached over the barrier to touch the
young woman’s face. He gave her a soft smile. They were parked in
the hotel parking lot.

“
There are some things a
man must do himself,” Otis replied in Russian.

“
Let me do it,” his driver
asked. “I will take care of this pestilence for you.”

“
You are very sweet,” Otis
said. “A kind young woman such as yourself should not be involved
in this horrible business.”

A red flush appeared on the peaks of her
cheek bones.

“
But, sir. . .”
Her words spoke her passion.

“
What would you do if they
capture you?” Otis cut her off. “You know what they do to beautiful
girls.”

“
My sister. . .”
His driver’s large dark eyes filled with tears.

“
Yes,” Otis said. “How is
your sister?”

“
She lives with my mother
now,” his driver said. “She is safe, off drugs, and. . .
You did that.”