Together, she and the neighbor rolled her mother to her back and half-dragged, half-carried her down the stairs to the front walk. She was covered with soot and grime, and her long, raven-black hair was badly singed. Quickly, Natalie knelt beside her and checked for a carotid artery pulse. At the moment she felt one, the woman took a rasping, minimally effective breath.
Thank God!
Natalie pinched her mother's nose shut with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, slipped her other hand under her neck to tilt her head back, and gave her three rapid mouth-to-mouth breaths. After the third, Hermina inhaled again — this time more deeply.
'Ma, can you hear me? Is Jenny in there?'
Hermina's head lolled, but she made no response. Natalie scrambled to her feet, working for every breath. 'Keep an eye on her!' she yelled to everyone and no one in particular.
'Don't go back in there,' the man cried out as she raced back up the stairs and into the smoke.
From somewhere behind her, she thought she heard a siren, but there was no way she was going to turn back and wait unless she absolutely couldn't move ahead. Her niece had gotten an incredibly raw deal in life as it was. She couldn't be left to die this way.
The smoke, heat, and noise were magnitudes greater now, but close to the floor, there was still breathable air. With her eyes nearly closed and her nose and mouth covered, Natalie drove ahead toward the kitchen. The small, neat living room was ablaze now. Flames had opened a rent in the wall by the kitchen, and embers had set the couch and carpet ablaze. Holding her breath as much as possible, Natalie risked standing. The kitchen was a conflagration, the heat almost unbearable, the noise hideous.
She tried to gauge whether she was in more immediate danger from the ceiling collapsing or the floor giving way. Halfway across the kitchen, her legs buckled and she pitched forward onto the linoleum. She could no longer see and couldn't seem to inhale enough of the hyper-heated air. It was at that instant, prone on the floor, that she heard Jenny's voice.
'Help me! Oh, please help me! Grandma! Aunty Nat! Someone please help me.'
Driven by the girl's cries, Natalie pushed to her hands and knees and willed herself forward. She was on the last hundred meters of a fifteen-hundred-meter race, elbow to elbow with another fierce competitor. Her lung was on fire, and her legs were screaming that they could give no more than they were, but the finish line was closing, and she knew she wasn't going to lose. No matter how much the runner beside her had left, she was going to have more.
Blinded and smothering, she hurled herself through the doorway to Jenny's room, and struck heads with the girl, who was lying next to her toppled wheelchair, and whose unbridled hysteria kept her from even registering what was happening.
'Hi, baby…It's okay now…It's…Aunty…Nat.'
Jenny's only response was a whimper of Nat's name.
Compared to Hermina, the ten-year-old was a feather, but she was also virtually deadweight, and Natalie was spent. She pulled Jenny's tee up to cover her mouth and nose, hooked her hands under the girl's arms, and pushed back just as she had done with her mother — six agonizing inches at a time. But before she had crossed a third of the kitchen, her legs and her lung would respond no more.
With flaming embers raining down, she pulled her sobbing niece close to her and shielded the girl with her body. Then she closed her eyes tightly, and prayed that the inevitable wouldn't be too painful.
CHAPTER 16
If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot.
Socrates, welcome back to the council.'
'Thank you, Laertes. My next term actually doesn't begin for another two months, but I assure you I am looking forward to it. Is everyone on?'
'They are.'
The four members of the council, speaking at the same time from three continents, greeted one of the founders of their organization.
'So?' Socrates asked.
'So,' Laertes said, 'we are calling you about H, client number fourteen on your list. With little warning, his health has begun a fairly rapid deterioration. He needs his procedure done within ten days, his physicians estimate — sooner if at all possible. As you can no doubt extrapolate from his name, there is a great deal at stake politically and financially. We know you have been very busy on our behalf, but we need to know if you can take this case.'
'I will make it my business to be available. Donor?'
'We have three possibles. Forty-year-old male baker from Paris, eleven-point match.'
'Information on him?'
'Some. He's a pretty typical Producer. Doesn't own the bakery, never will. Two children. People in his neighborhood say he makes excellent bread.'
'Themistocles here. It seems to me that to remove even one good baker from the world would be a sin. I vote we look elsewhere.'
'The next two are from the United States. First is an actor from Los Angeles — thirty-seven years old. Eleven-point match.'
'What has he been in?'
'Grade B horror films, mostly. He's already been married at least four times, has a gambling problem, and is loaded with debt. Credit rating is poor, doesn't seem to have much respect in the industry.'
'No matter,' Glaucon said. 'However untalented, he is still an actor, and that makes him an Auxiliary. And furthermore, he's an eleven. I vote last resort only.'
'I agree,' Polemarchus chimed in. 'Producers before Auxiliaries. That is our policy. Besides, I'm sure Socrates would be first in line for a twelve if we can get him one.'
'That is true,' Socrates said, 'even though our work has shown that the difference in outcome between an eleven and a twelve is minimal. Still, all else being equal, I would certainly prefer a perfect match. An adult Producer, negative health history, the younger the better.'
'I am pleased that we have such a match,' Laertes said. 'Thirty-six year-old female. Lower-level Producer. Works waiting tables in some sort of restaurant. Divorced. One child. Doesn't do much of anything outside of her work. Our investigator reports that some of the married women in her town do not trust her.'
'And she's a twelve?'
She is.
'What state is she from?' Socrates asked.
'Let me see. I think it's…yes, Tennessee. She is from the state of Tennessee.'
'Probably listens to that ghastly country music all day,' Polemarchus muttered.
'We will do her the honor of selection. Objections''
'None.'
'None.'
'Good choice.'
'Okay, then, Socrates. As of now, you are on standby. Good day, gentlemen.'
