Chapter Twenty-one

It had been a long night.

When I got home, I discovered that everyone was sleeping in my bed, including little Anthony. I stood in the doorway of my bedroom, taking the scene in: Tammy on her back and snoring lightly. My sister in the middle and lying on her side with her palm resting lightly on Anthony's back.

A beautiful blue glow surrounded my daughter. The blue glow was interlaced with swatches of gold. The aura around my sister was a powerful orange, a contented color, a peaceful color.

There was no color around my son. There was only a deep blackness. It was as if he didn't exist at all. The light energy around him seemed to enter that black field and disappear. Like a black hole.

I rubbed my eyes and fought my tears. I slipped into some sweats and a tank top and slid into bed next to Anthony. I, too, rested my palm on his back.

His burning back.

* * *

I lay like that for a long time, waiting for the sun to rise, and when it did, I was out to the world.

Some hours later, I was awakened by my ringing cell phone. Generally, my ringing cell phone doesn't awaken me. But in the darkness of my deep sleep, a sleep where I seriously suspected I lay in a state of suspended animation somewhere between life and death - I had heard a shouting. Someone, somewhere had shouted my name.

It had been shocking enough to awaken me from my coma-like sleep.

Half-dead, I snatched the ringing phone off the nightstand and flipped it open, barely aware that it had said "Caller Unknown" on the faceplate. My son, I saw, was lying next to me...in a pool of sweat.

"Hello?" I said, instinctively reaching for my son and feeling his forehead. Burning up. My heart skipped-hopped in my chest. Panic raced through me.

"Hi," said a tiny and familiar voice.

But I was too distracted with my son for the voice to fully register. Two seconds later, the voice sank in, and I snapped my head around as if someone had spoken next to me, rather than through my phone line.

"Maddie!" I gasped, practically squealing.

"Hi," she said again. Her voice, if anything, sounded even smaller and fainter. I had an image of her covering her mouth as she spoke. This image came to me with crystal clarity and I suspected it was a psychic hit. Takes awhile to believe such hits are accurate...until you see enough evidence. I've seen the evidence now.

At that moment, a text message appeared on my phone. The call tracing had worked. A phone number was waiting for me. Maddie's number.

"Maddie," I gasped, trying to control myself. "Please, honey, can you tell me the name of the person you're with?"

"He's the bad man."

"Do you know his name, angel?"

I saw her shaking her head in my mind's eye. She didn't answer me, but I knew her answer: No, she didn't know.

"Honey, what does he look like?"

"He shot my mommy. He kilt her dead."

"I know, baby. Please can you tell me what he looks like?"

"Old."

Old to a five year old could be anything from nineteen to ninety. "Does he have gray hair?"

"None."

"No hair?"

"No hair," she said. "He eats too much."

"Good, honey. Good. Is he fat? Does he have a big belly?"

I sensed her nodding but she didn't answer. I also sensed that she didn't completely understand that I couldn't see her nod, that she thought she had answered my question. I had a fabulous connection with this little girl. Almost an immediate one, perhaps born of desperation. I had an idea.

"Honey," I said, "close your eyes."

"But why?"

"Please, just close your eyes."

There was a sound from somewhere and in my mind's eye I saw the little girl's head jerk up. Someone was coming.

"Please, honey, just close your eyes."

"The bad man is coming."

"Close them for one second."

"He's going to hurted me again."

"Please honey. Please. Do it for me. One time."

And she did. I knew she did, because I was instantly given a deeper access to her mind and memories and I saw an image of a room. A nice room. No, a beautiful room. A house? Condo? Apartment? I was having a hard time placing the interior. Whatever it was, it was epic. Where the hell was she? I didn't know. Through her window I saw something glittering brightly on the hillside. A desert hillside.

I saw something else. A black man. A bald black with an enormous stomach. He was standing over her and doing things that would be the death of him.

"He's coming!" she whispered over the phone, snapping me out of her my reverie and out of her own memories.

"Okay, angel. Okay. Thank you, baby." I was crying now, but she would never know it. "Be strong, Maddie, for me, okay?"

"I scared."

"Be strong, angel. I'm coming for you soon. I swear."

"Okay," she said, "I strong."

I sensed a great presence near her, coming from somewhere behind her, and now her fear knew no end. As if my own, I felt her heart race faster than I had ever felt a heart race before.

"Go!" I said. "Go!"

Next I heard a scraping sound, perhaps her hand moving over the mouthpiece, and what she said next broke me into a million little pieces. She whispered: "I love you."

And then she hung up.

Chapter Twenty-two

I was at the Urgent Care again.

It was late afternoon and I was determined to get my son some help. No, I'd be damned if I wasn't going to get him some help. The gut-wrenching call from Maddie had sent me into a panicked frenzy with my own son.

As soon as I had hung up with her, as soon as I stopped hearing her precocious little voice telling me she loved me, I traced the call. Nothing was coming up. I called my ex-partner, Chad, and he ran the number through the Agency's database. The news was grim: The phone number belonged to an unregistered, throw-away cell phone.

Shit.

Next, I threw on my clothes and sunscreen, picked up my boy, and hit the road. He barely stirred in my arms or in the van.

It was still hours before I had to pick up Tammy. In the waiting room, with Anthony in my arms, I texted Danny and caught him up to date on the situation, asking him to pick Tammy up for me. His reply was immediate and curt: "Meetings all day; update me on Anthony ASAP."

Yes, he actually used a semi-colon. The piece of shit had enough time to find the semi-colon button but not enough time to help me.

My reply was equally curt: "Thanks for the help, asshole;;;;;"

Yes, complete with five semi-colons in a row.

Childish, certainly, but I didn't care. I needed help. I didn't need semi-colons.

The asshole.

I replayed Maddie's words again and again. As I did so, I rocked my son in my arms. It was mid-day and I felt weak and agitated and vulnerable. But even at my weakest, I was still stronger than I had any right to be.

The black man was bald. He was in his fifties. I saw him from Maddie's perspective, from her eyes. He was a big man. Often sweating. Odor wafted from his body.

I blocked some of the other images I had seen. I didn't need to dwell on those. Those images would tear my heart out.

I locked them away as best as I could.

But not his face. No. I would never forget his face.

I'm coming for you, asshole, I thought.

I had a strong connection to Maddie. Perhaps it was a connection out of necessity. Amazingly, her phone call had roused me from the deepest of sleeps. Trust me, no easy feat. That connection, I was certain, would lead me to her. Eventually.

Sooner rather than later.

My son stirred in my arms, moaning slightly, and then nuzzled deeper into the crook of my neck.

Where was that fucking doctor?

I haven't been sick in six years, except if you count the overwhelming fatigue I feel before the sun goes down. Vampire Fatigue Syndrome. Whatever. Anyway, I suspected I would never get sick again. I couldn't say the same for my kids.

Anthony wriggled in my arms and leaned back. He turned his sweating face toward me, opened his eyes. "Mommy?" he croaked.

The instant he said the word I heard another little voice in my head say something similar: "He kilt my mommy dead."

"Hey, baby," I said. I did my best to ignore the black halo around his angelic face.

"Where are we?"

"At the doctors, honey."

He nodded. "I don't feel very good."

"I know, baby doll."

He continued staring at me even while I looked ahead and tried to be strong. He was so hot. I started rocking him slightly. I could feel the tears on my cheeks.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"I'm gonna die."

I stopped rocking and snapped my head down. "Why would you say that?"

"I dream that I go to heaven. I always dream it now. And he's waiting for me."

I think my heart stopped. "Who's waiting for you?"

Anthony actually smiled and reached up and touched my face. "You know, Mommy."

I was crying now. Openly crying and I couldn't stop myself. No, I didn't know who. God? Jesus? Krishna? Who was waiting for my son? What was happening?

"Don't cry, Mommy," he said. "He told me to be brave. He told me to be brave for you." He touched my cheek gently and I realized he was wiping away my tears. "I'm being brave for you, Mommy."

I pulled him into me and rocked faster and faster, and as I rocked, words tumbled out of me uncontrollably: "You're not dying. You're not dying. You're not dying...."

Chapter Twenty-three

The visit to the Urgent Care turned into something more than a visit. My son's fever was climbing. The doctor there examined my son's stomach and thyroid glands. He didn't like what he was seeing. I didn't either. My son had a rash on his belly that I had missed and his thyroid was swollen many millimeters. Blood samples were taken. My son never blinked when he was pricked with the many needles.

I impassively watched his blood being drawn.

The doctor left and I sat holding my son, who seemed to dose off and on. I rocked him gently and discovered I was humming a song to myself. I fought to remain calm but I couldn't. My lower jaw was shaking nearly uncontrollably. I had never felt so damned cold in my life, even while I held my burning son.

I rocked and hummed and prayed. The tears came without saying.

An hour later, my son woke up laughing. Startled, I asked him what he was laughing about, and he told me that Jesus had told him a funny joke. He giggled again and went back to sleep.

I continued rocking.

The doctor came back. He had arranged for a bed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Orange, which is where I now found myself an hour later.

The doctor who met me at the hospital smiled warmly and held my cold hands with a look of utter fascination. What he made of my cold hands, I didn't know or care. He did not ask me about them, which was a relief.

He was the pediatric infectious disease specialist and just hearing those words alone nearly sent me into hysterics. He did his best to calm me down, emphasizing that many more tests still needed to be done, but as of right now it was too soon to tell what was going on with my son.

For now, they were waiting for the blood test results, which they would have in a few hours. Once the blood tests were in, he would know which tests were needed next.

One step at a time. Detective work, really. Looking for clues, following up on hunches. Following the evidence.

Now I was alone with my son while he slept fitfully, looking so damn tiny in his bed. Just a small mound of dark hair and chubby red cheeks.

Hard as it was to do, I briefly left his side to go outside and make all the phone calls and text messages I needed to make. My sister assured me she would pick up my daughter. My ex-husband never called back. Neither did Kingsley.

Back in my son's room, I sat on the edge of his bed and held his left hand. The curtains were drawn and the lights were low. We had a room to ourselves, which was just as well, because I couldn't stop crying. The black halo that surrounded his body seemed to have grown a few millimeters as well. I didn't know much about the spirit world, but I was certain that I knew what I was seeing.

His soul was leaving.

Or perhaps it was already gone.

No, I thought. I refused to believe that.

He was just sick. Very sick. I am looking at the aura of a sick boy, that is all. A very sick boy. My sick boy.

Shit.

The light particles that flitted through the room, swirling and flashing and illuminating the air, disappeared completely into his aura. My hand, which glowed silverish to my own eyes, seemed to disappear into the blackness, as well. It was as if I had plunged my hand into freshly turned soil.

Graveyard soil.

I sat like that until the blood tests came back, miserable and borderline hysterical. The doctor returned and talked about normocytic anemia and thrombocytosis and blood count. He discussed something called an erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein levels being elevated. None of it sounded good to me. As he spoke, the doctor bit his lip a lot and looked grave and I sensed from him extreme concern and even alarm.

He next ordered liver function tests, an electrocardiogram, an echocardiogram, an ultrasound and a urinalysis.

And while they poked and prodded my son, my ex-husband Danny appeared in the doorway of the hospital room.