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Below me is the hotel roof with Grim atop it. Grim and two bodies. One belongs to Lazarus. The other…oh. Shit. The other belongs to me.
I’m dead.
So, this is death.
It’s not so bad. I feel no pain.
In fact, I feel rather at peace.
Below me, Grim isn’t moving. He’s as still as a statue, hand ungloved, still touching the inanimate body of Lazarus. The true leader of the New Orleans settlement.
I remember everything.
He made Raptor his slave. He raised women from the dead and abused them. He killed me.
Somehow, I’m able to see all around me at once. I’m no longer limited to viewing only what’s in front of my eyes.
Some distance from the casino hotel, the chopper is frozen in mid-air. A streak of smoke draws a line from the chopper to the swarm of birds, also stationary, and at the center is one enormous creature, part bird, part man. Raptor. The streak lengthens in slow-motion.
A flash, like a miniature sun, lights up the back end of the swarm in pulses. I’m watching a missile explode, but it’s happening so slowly I can make out the details.
Bits of bird float outward in a sort of feathery shrapnel behind Raptor, and the creature himself hangs in the air, listing to one side as the explosion swells to encompass him.
The world has slowed down around me, and I’m witnessing the moment of Raptor’s death.
Good.
Raptor is dying, and Lazarus is dead.
Grim did good.
Cora will be safe.
Feeling satisfied, I look down at myself. I seem to have form. I am wispy and see-through, hovering in the air in my usual jeans and my favorite Eagles T-shirt.
I’ve lived a hard life. I’ve done a lot of wrong. But in the past two years, I’ve done my best to make up for it. I’ve known the blessing of a brotherhood. I’ve had the opportunity to love our Heart.
“I’m ready,” I say to the Working, and I spread my arms to Heaven. “All I ask is that you get Jud out of here. And protect Cora all her days.”
But instead of being taken up into the night sky, or into any kind of light, I’m dragged down.
Grim
“Doc, come back!It’s Grim! I need you at the casino! It’s an emergency!” I’m shouting into my radio, but Doc isn’t replying.
My bare hands hover over Rev. Panic has a chokehold on me. Rev can’t be dead! What do I do?
Back at Soldier Ranch, Sarge told me to work on my Gift. Even though I respect him as commander of the mission, I refused this particular order. Practicing with my Gift is too dangerous. I could not even bring myself to practice on the old hens X-Ray showed me. The thought of accidentally killing one while trying to control my Gift brought back the memory of my sweet Anechka. I could not bear to cause more death, not even animal death.
Isn’t it enough that I conceded to work with Doc on those birds back home? I touched those birds with my bare hands while Doc touched them, too. It was the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done, because my actions could have killed my brother.
But Doc had insisted. And when we worked together, we realized we could accomplish the same healing and raising of the birds with our minds.
Healing andraising.
Rev lies before me dead. Completely bled out from a bullet wound to his throat.
But he was alive when I landed on this roof. He has been gone only seconds.
