She turned and stared at him. “It’s not as if there’s a movie playing in my head. I see what comes to me. If I could choose, if I could see see how to fight evil at every turn, there wouldn’t be any evil. But you—you should go elsewhere.”
“I can’t.”
“Many here don’t trust you.”
“I intend to prove myself.”
She stared at him again. “You don’t know what you’re up against—on either side.”
“Then I’ll learn,” he said grimly.
Susan watched him carefully as he rose to leave the church. When he had been gone for several minutes, she rose herself and found the holy water vessel. She dampened her fingers and drew the sign of the cross not just on her forehead, but on her arms, across her chest above her heart, and in several places around her throat.
Belatedly, she noticed that there was a young priest at the back of the church, and he was staring at her in perplexed silence.
“Evening, Father,” she said.
He nodded to her. Tongue-tied, maybe.
As she left, she smiled.
She returned to her table and again put her fingertips on her cards and closed her eyes. She could still hear the sound of wings beneath the laughter, beneath the carriage wheels and the clip-clop of the mules’ hooves.
Should she keep her peace? Or try to contact the young woman? There was much she needed to know.
“I’d love a reading,” someone said.
She looked up.
And her blood turned cold.
It was him.
Heidi seemed annoyed to see Lauren and Mark when they got to the hospital.
Lauren was distressed to see that her friend was no longer wearing her engagement ring. But with Mark in the room, she didn’t want to have a showdown with Heidi. She couldn’t begin to imagine what had possessed her to forget how much she loved Barry. They’d been together since they had left college and moved to California. They’d been living together for two years. They wanted the same things, two children, another Norwegian Elkhound, one cat, and vacations spent hiking through the Redwoods.
“I’m fine here by myself, you know,” Heidi said.
Mark, not really paying attention, had walked over to Deanna’s side. He touched her brow and seemed relieved, then reached into the pocket of his jeans and produced another cross on a chain.
“What are you doing?” Heidi said sharply.
“Just saying a prayer,” Mark replied, carefully slipping the chain around Deanna’s neck and fumbling just a bit with the tiny clasp.
Deanna shifted restlessly in her deep sleep, then settled again.
“She doesn’t want that!” Heidi snapped.
“It’s okay, Heidi,” Lauren told her. “I—I bought it for her,” she lied.
“Well, that was stupid,” Heidi said crossly.
“It won’t hurt anything,” Lauren said, disturbed by the strange way Heidi was acting. “
You should take that thing off her,” Heidi said.
“Why on earth?” Lauren demanded.
Heidi didn’t have an answer at first. “I think her mom is part Jewish,” she said at last.
“Then we’ll get her a star of David, too,” Mark said.
Heidi opened her mouth, apparently puzzled, then closed it again when she couldn’t come up with anything to say.
“I think you need to get out of here for a while,” Lauren said firmly.
“I…I’m needed here,” Heidi said.
“Lauren is here now,” Mark told her.
“Right. I can stay here, and you two can go have a nice meal in the Quarter,” Lauren said.
Mark had never suggested such a thing, but surely he wouldn’t want Heidi roaming around on her own. Not if everything he’d said was true.
Not if winged creatures could suddenly turn into vampires and attack just a few feet away from Bourbon Street.
“Um…sure,” Mark said, offering Heidi his most engaging smile. “I’ll take you out for a bit.”
“I just feel that I should stay here,” Heidi said stubbornly.
Actually, Lauren wished she could go out with Heidi herself, maybe get an idea of what was going on with her.
