5

REVELATION 6:8

And I looked, and beheld a pale horse:

and his name that sat on him was Death. . . .

~ * ~

C.J. and the girl were a dripping mess, so laden with melting snow that it was leaving tiny, tear-like trails down both of their faces. Calie's first thought was for C.J.'s safety, yet there was another, more important question. Even she was too slow.

"How deep are the tracks you two left?" McDole's voice was harsh with fury. "Can they be brushed away?"

"Didn't leave any," C.J. responded immediately. The girl, a pale, pretty teenager about C.J.'s age, said nothing; she looked like a terrified rabbit, frozen by the glare of an onrushing truck. Her dark blue eyes flitted nervously from C.J. to Calie to McDole and back again.

McDole's expression relaxed slightly, though fear was still apparent in the crevices across his forehead. "Are you sure?" He glanced at the girl. "Absolutely positive?" She nodded timidly, and Calie guessed the girl was struggling more with shyness than fright.

"Hi," Calie said warmly, and stuck out her hand. "My name is Calie." The girl smiled in relief and Calie saw C.J.'s eyes widen as the expression transformed her whole face. Calie decided that later she'd ask if the girl wanted a trim on that dreadful haircut.

"I'm Louise," the teenager said as she offered her own hand. "I'm really glad to be here."

Calie clasped Louise's hand and the world stopped.

They might have touched for a second or a minute, but in the faded light behind Calie's eyes it was timeless, eternal, and she was filled with a sudden, terrible sense of terror that exploded briefly in her mind then abruptly fell away to nothingness.

"Calie?"

C.J. was staring at her and she made the mistake of turning her glazed sight on him before breaking the touch with Louise. Despair twisted her gut when she realized that this premonition extended to C.J. as well. She pulled her hand away. "We're glad to have you," she rasped. She could feel Bill's questioning eyes on her from the door of the stairwell, where he'd lingered when she and McDole went to greet C.J. and his new girlfriend.

McDole crossed to the front windows and peered at the maelstrom beyond. Outside the wind howled like an enraged beast, hurling wet snow and ice pellets against the thick plate glass. "I don't understand how you didn't leave tracks in this slop," he muttered.

C.J. set his jaw and looked embarrassed, until Louise finally spoke. "It was Jo," she said. "She . . . took the tracks away."

"Jo?"

"You mean there's someone else?" Perlman came into the room. "And you left her out in the storm?"

"She wouldn't come in," C.J. said. “And then she was gone, just disappeared."

"With no tracks," McDole commented doubtfully.

"Jo is . . . special," Louise said reluctantly. "She does things."

"What things?" Calie knew her question wouldn't help the girl feel more at ease, but it had to be asked. This mystery person might be a valuable asset to the underground. Calie was not impressed with her own abilities—parlor tricks, like knowing where to find the entrance to a building or second-guessing someone's trustworthiness with more accuracy than the average guy. Someone who could make footprints in the snow vanish was another thing entirely.

"What things?" McDole prompted.

"She can unlock doors," C.J. offered. "How do you think we got in?"

McDole scowled and checked the metal lock-bar across the bottom of the seldom-used front door. It was firmly in place, surrounded by small puddles of melted snow that trailed from the door to the youngsters' feet. In the gray light of the storm, he could see the unmarked snow on the sidewalk outside. "Anything else?"

"She heals."

Louise's statement stunned all of them, but affected Perlman most of all. His attention level tripled. "What did you say?" he demanded. "Heals?"

Louise wasn't at all surprised at their reaction, though McDole jumped as she proudly held up her hands, then unzipped the front of her jacket and brought out a tiny grizzled dog. She stroked the dog lovingly before she spoke. "Twenty-four hours ago both my hands were cut and horribly infected. She healed them. It's that simple."

The look on C.J.'s face said this was news to him, but doubt never crossed his features. "I believe her," he said. "I think she could do it." C.J's mouth turned up in the self-conscious smile of someone trying to explain the fantastic.

"I wouldn't call that 'simple,'" McDole said.

"Can I see?" C.J. asked. Louise blushed and held out her hands. They gleamed a soft pink, as though the girl had been living in luxury for the last year and a half with two or three servants and a manicurist.

Hardly.

"There used to be a scar here." Louise pointed to the heel of her right hand with a perfectly shaped fingernail. "Not big, but noticeable. Freaky, huh?" C.J., absorbed in his inspection, had yet to relinquish his hold.

Perlman stepped forward. "May I?"

Louise looked to Calie hesitantly and Calie gave herself a mental shake. "I'm sorry, Louise. All these people must be a shock, and here we haven't even introduced everyone. This is Dr. Bill Perlman, that's Buddy McDole." McDole nodded; still at the front door, he looked numb. Perlman smiled reassuringly and C.J. reluctantly moved aside.

"Where have you been living?" the doctor asked in a conversational voice "In one place?"

"No," Louise responded. She glanced at the little dog snuffling uncertainly at her feet. The dog's eyes were a milky, blinded white—no wonder he hadn't tried to explore his new surroundings. Calie picked him up; he was soft and warm, wagging his stump of a tail as he licked her face. "Beau and I moved around," Louise continued. "That way we didn't build up any patterns. I started thinking there might be people downtown." She looked tired. "Plus I wanted to stay somewhere for more than a couple of nights at a time. I thought it'd be nice to have a home again."

Perlman stopped his examination of her hands and grinned at her. "Say ahhhh. Don't worry, I'm not going to try and dissect you." Louise laughed nervously and opened her mouth, standing patiently as the physician checked her eyes and ran his fingers beneath her jaw and behind her ears. "Did you know you have a slight fever?"

"Jo said you shouldn't be out in the snow because you'd been sick." C.J. folded his arms. "Was she talking about your hands?"

Louise nodded. "Probably. I felt awful."

"Why don't we get Louise some dry clothes and food instead of making her stand here and shiver?" Calie suggested. "Then she and C.J. can tell us about this Jo person."

Louise looked relieved. "I could use something hot," she said hopefully.

"How about some coffee?" McDole chimed in.

"That sounds great."

"She needs some aspirin," Perlman added. C.J. nodded and immediately hurried up the escalator.

"Meet us in the breakfast room in half an hour," McDole called after him. C.J.'s shout of agreement floated back.

Calie smiled at the girl and tried to ignore the darkness that bubbled up when she looked at those pretty blue eyes. "Come on," she said. "I happen to know a shop in this building that keeps snowstorm hours and has just your size."

She led Louise away, being very, very careful not to touch her.

~ * ~

It was nostalgic, Calie thought later, how old habits still clung, despite the circumstances that had changed permanently. Louise was certainly likable—funny, too. Alone in the breakfast room, Calie was still grinning at the memory of Louise checking the price tag on a sweater that had caught her eye in Lord & Taylor, then almost putting it back. She'd looked decidedly sheepish when Calie had laughed at her. They had all settled early for the night because of the excitement and the dragged-out feeling that a hard winter storm always seemed to bring. C.J. and Louise had answered questions about Jo as best they could, although Louise had apparently met the mysterious preteen only two days ago. Both were determined, snow permitting, to be in Daley Plaza tomorrow as Jo had instructed.

What time was it now? Surely after six. Calie blindly touched her cheeks, feeling her rough fingers move over the pores of her face. The gift of healing, for God's sake—what else could that strange girl do? Could she "see" that something terrible awaited C.J. and Louise? And if so, could this Jo do anything about it? It was a maddening question.

Darkness surrounded her now, the dusky light left from sunset effectively strangled by the low-lying storm clouds. Calie rose and made her way to the stairwell by memory, her hands gliding soundlessly along the cold railing. C.J. and Louise were together, bent on obliterating the loneliness that had permeated both their young lives. Good for them—tomorrow might bring horrors undreamed of; so much the better that they found comfort in each other's arms tonight. Farther down, Calie hesitated at the door before hers. Go on to bed, she told herself. He doesn't want to listen to you. She started to step away.

"Calie." Perlman's voice was barely a whisper.

I should keep going, she thought. But she honestly couldn't find a reason not to answer. "Yes?"

"Come in for a while?" he asked. "Unless you're too tired."

"Not at all," she answered softly. "Where are you?" She stretched a hand into the darkness.

"Here." His warm fingers brushed hers, then closed over her hand and guided her to the corner. She sat, her slight weight sinking into the thick folds of the down bag.

"So what do you think of our newest addition?" Bill asked without releasing her hand.

"She . . ." Calie closed her eyes, glad the lightless room hid the sudden moisture on her lashes. "I don't know," she finally finished.

Perlman said nothing for a moment. Then, "You're not happy she's here."

"It's not that so much," Calie said. Talking in total darkness made her disoriented. "I have a feeling that something . . . bad is going to happen to them."

"Them?"

"C.J. and Louise."

"Maybe you're wrong," he suggested. "You've been wrong on occasion, haven't you?"

She found herself clutching his hand. "Never."

Thank God he didn't try to humor her. "I'm sorry," he said simply. He slipped an arm across her shoulders.

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut now, Calie didn't respond. She'd be damned if she'd cry over something about which she could do nothing, although she supposed this was when a person should weep. Why shed tears over things you could change? I am not the crying type, she told herself sternly. I won't—

"We all have our times to cry, Calie." The night was like a heavy shroud, and he couldn't see her face as she gaped at him. For years she had anticipated the words of others; finally she knew how strange all those folks had felt. Bill pressed something soft into her hand. "There's nothing wrong with it."

"What's this?"

“A Kleenex." He brought his other arm around, linked hands, and held her. "It's okay. Really."

Her mind reached out automatically and touched briefly on C.J. and Louise; two doors down, the new lovers murmured gently to each other. A terrible, black loss filled her, blotting out everything for a second. At last, Calie's shoulders began to shake.

In the chill and smothering night, Bill Perlman held her, and cried too.