Part 33 (2/2)

”All right, I understand.”

He looked away, and his eyes moved as if he were watching an inner movie. ”We never should have gone out there, but she wouldn't listen to me.”

”Nola rarely listens to anyone, dear. Well, not to anyone real, that is.”

”So I've learned.” He tried to smile and failed. ”I was trying to keep her warm, but she went under. The doctors say it's hypothermia, because she was wet and cold. I'd already called in police backup, and they arrived just as she fainted. I suppose you'd call it a faint.”

”Was it some sort of psychic attack?”

He shrugged again. ”I'd a.s.sume so.”

I could tell that other things had happened, things I probably didn't need to know. If I did need to, I'd dream about them, so I didn't press the poor man.

”What have they been doing for her?” I said instead.

”When we got to the ER, they wrapped her in electric blankets to get her body temperature up.” His eyes began to move as if he were watching the scene all over again. ”They told me that the IVs they gave her were warm fluid, and they gave her warmed oxygen, too. She should have woken up then. She didn't.”

We heard voices out in the hall. Ari reached down and pulled part of his old Army trench coat over the gun to hide it. A woman wearing green scrubs came in with a dinner tray, glanced at Nola, and frowned.

”I don't know why they ordered her a dinner,” she said. ”Either of you want it?”

”No, thank you,” I said.

Ari shook his head no.

”You need to eat,” I said to him. ”If you could leave that for him?” I said to the nurse.

She smiled and put the tray down on the slide-over tabletop or whatever you call those things that they use in hospitals to feed people on. It was on Ari's side of the room, anyway, and once she left, he did eat some of the rather awful looking chicken and noodles dish and the white bread roll. I don't see how anyone gets well on that food they serve in hospitals, I really don't.

Ari had just finished when the nurse returned and took the tray away. He leaned back in the chair and looked at me.

”If you want to go get something to eat in the coffee bar,” Ari said. ”They have one downstairs.”

”I'm fine, dear,” I said. ”By the way, Father Keith will probably come down later.”

”Good.”

Ari turned slightly in his chair so he could look straight at Nola. I tried to rub some warmth into her hand, but after a few minutes I gave up and arranged her hand and arm across her chest in what looked like a comfortable position.

”Nola, I'm right here,” I said. ”So is Ari.”

I received not the slightest sign that I'd reached her, but at least she was breathing steadily on her own. There was hope, I decided, in that and in the steady if slow beating of her heart, which I could see on the monitor above the bed. By then my back was aching, so I got up and moved over to the second chair, on the opposite side of the bed from Ari's.

For some while we sat and never spoke, while outside the sunset faded into night. I turned on the light beside her bed, then sat down again. Ari made an odd noise. When I looked at him, I realized he was choking back tears.

”You really love her, don't you?” I said.

He nodded a yes and wiped his face on his s.h.i.+rt sleeve. ”It frightens me sometimes,” he said, ”just how much I do.”

”She's frightened, too, not of you, I mean, but of how much she cares for you. She's had an awfully hard time with boyfriends in the past. They all ran away eventually, some quicker than others.”

”You needn't worry about that now.” He paused and looked away. ”Their loss, my gain, and all that, but why?”

”Because of the rest of us.”

Ari spoke without looking at me. ”I like the rest of you.”

”Well, you're as odd in your own way as we are in ours, so you fit right in. Whether that's a blessing or a curse for you, I couldn't say.”

Ari smiled at that. I kept things light, because he was the kind of man who'd regret any emotional scenes later, and he had enough to worry about as it was.

”You really look exhausted. Do you think you could nap in that chair? I'll wake you if there's any change.”

”Not in this wretched chair, no.” Ari got up, stretched, then sat down on the floor and began to bunch his jacket into a pillow. ”I've slept in worse places than the floor.”

There was an extra blanket on a little shelf under the tray table. Ari took that, too, but he used it to wrap the gun. He laid it down right next to him. I'm afraid I was reminded of a little boy and a teddy bear, though I certainly never would have told him that. He used his damp trench coat for a blanket. Even with all the noise out in the hall-hospitals are always so noisy, I don't know why-he fell asleep right away.

I regretted not bringing some mending or a book, but I did have the rosary, so I took it out. I decided that the Five Sorrowful Mysteries were really the only ones appropriate, even though I would have preferred to meditate on the Joyous, and started off on the Apostle's Creed. For some reason, that night, I began speaking the Latin I'd learned as a child, rather than using the English versions as we're supposed to do now. It was comforting, somehow, to form those ancient words.

I had just finished the first set of three Ave Marias when I heard someone come into the room. I looked up, expecting to see Keith, but I could see no one. Yet I could hear someone or something breathing, just very quietly. I think it was breathing. It sounded like a fish blowing bubbles in a tank. I heard the scuff of a foot or perhaps a flipper on the linoleum as it moved a few steps closer to the bed. It brought a waft of cold air with it, and a smell like ozone after an electrical discharge. I stood up, clutching the rosary in my left hand. It hesitated and began to breathe more quickly.

”Get out of here!” I said. ”Ari, wake up!”

I heard Ari roll over with a grunt, but I kept looking in the direction of the thing at the door. I knew someone stood there, even though I saw nothing. The cold exhalation deepened.

All at once I was furious, not frightened. How dare this thing threaten my family! I held up the rosary and reminded myself that the cross had been carved from wood grown in the Holy Land. The fiend, if that's what it was, made a snarling sound. Because I couldn't think of anything else to do, I began to recite the Paternoster. I felt warmth beat back the cold.

”Et libera nos a malo, amen,” I finished up. ”You-you-” I thrust the cross in its direction. ”Go to your room!”

I heard a whimper, a very high soft bubbling noise. The fiend ran. I felt the stirring of the air. The ozone smell vanished with it. Ari had gotten to his feet. When I glanced his way, I saw he was holding the gun, but loosely, pointing it at the floor.

”What was that?” Ari whispered.

”I have no idea, but it was something evil. I'm an O'Brien. I can always tell.”

”I couldn't see anything.”

”Neither could I, but I know what I felt.”

”I'm not arguing with you, merely remarking. You chased it off, whatever it was.”

During all of this excitement, Nola had never moved or made the slightest sound. I put the rosary into my skirt pocket, where I could reach it quickly if need be, and sat down next to her on the bed. I picked up her hand again and rubbed some warmth into it.

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