The Beast

“Absolutely agreed on that.” Jane flipped another page. “And, Mom, how you doing—oh, good. Very strong vitals. Urine output is perfect. Blood counts great. I’d like to get her to start feeding as soon as she can.”

“I know the Brothers are dying to help. I had to kick them out. I swear, I thought they were going to stay down here for however long it took to get those kids off to school.”

Jane laughed and closed the folder. “I’ll do a quick check on everyone while you start Luchas’s PT.”

“Roger that.”

“You’re the best—”

“Hey, partner.”

Jane glanced up. Manny was striding down the corridor, his hair wet, his scrubs clean, his eyes alert. “I thought you were taking off the next six hours?”

“Can’t stay away. Might miss something. You going in there?”

“You want to join me on the visit?”

“Always.”

Jane was shaking her head at herself as she put her hand on Layla’s door and pushed. Medical people were always the same. Just couldn’t leave well enough alone—

She stopped in the jambs.

Across the room, the new mom was standing at the incubators, Blay on one side of her, Qhuinn on the other, the three of them staring at the babies and talking softly.

The love was palpable.

And, for the moment, all the medicine that was needed.

“Something wrong?” Manny asked as Jane backed up and re-shut things.

Jane smiled. “It’s family time right now. Let’s give them a minute, ’kay?”

Manny smiled back. “High five, Doc. You were a helluva surgeon in there.”

As she clapped his palm, she nodded. “And you saved her uterus.”

“Don’t you love good teamwork?”

“Every night and every day,” she said as they wandered back down the hall, taking their time for once. “Hey, you want something to eat? I can’t remember the last time I ate anything.”

“I think I had a Snickers bar last Wednesday,” her buddy murmured. “Or was that Monday?”

Jane laughed and bumped him with her ass. “Liar. You had a milk shake. Two nights ago.”

“Riiiiiiiiiight. Hey, where’s your man? He should sit with us.”

Jane frowned and looked back and forth down the empty hall. “You know . . . I have no idea. I thought he wandered off for a smoke—but he was supposed to be coming right back?”

Where had Vishous gone?

SIXTY-FOUR

Up in the Sanctuary, Vishous followed the call of the birds past the bathing area and the Reflecting Pool, all the way to the edge of the forest. For a moment, he wondered if the intention wasn’t to draw him into the boundary itself, even though it was his understanding that if you tried to go through that stretch of thick trees, the shit just spit you back out where you started.

But then he slowed.

And stopped.

The birds that had been lending their voices to the air fell silent as he looked over at the one place he hadn’t even considered ending up.

The cemetery where the Chosen who had passed had been set to rest was ringed on all four sides by a boxwood hedge that was tall enough so he couldn’t see over it. An archway broke up the dense, small leaves, and it was on the trellis that the birds sat, staring at him mutely, their job now done.

Walking over, he ducked down as he entered even though there was no need to as the arch was plenty high to accommodate his head. And as he stepped inside, the birds flushed into the air, taking flight and disappearing.

It was impossible not to think of Selena as he stared at the statues of the females, which were not in fact statues at all. They were Chosen who had likewise suffered from the Arrest, perishing, as Trez’s mate had, from a disease that was as relentless as it was deadly.

A flapping noise turned his head.

There, on one of the boxwood hedges, waving as if it were a flag, was a block of glowing symbols in the Old Language. The missive was not actually mounted on anything; the text was free-floating, coalesced into an order that presumably would make sense to whomever read it, and yet it moved in folds upon a non-existent wind, like the words had been stitched into cloth and sent up a pole.

With a sense of dread, he approached what he knew his mother had left behind for him.

Reaching up, he grasped the top edge and pulled the message flat, feeling weight, though none existed, and a terminus, though there was none.

The golden symbols fell into a series of straight lines, and he read them through once. And then again. And then a final time.

There are seasons to all things, and my time has come to its end. I am saddened by much that has transpired between us, and between your sister and myself. Destiny proved to be more powerful than what was in my heart, but such as it shall be.

I shall appoint a successor. The Creator is allowing me that discretion and I shall exercise it when the time comes, which is nigh. This successor shall not be you nor your sister. You must know this is not out of animus, but in recognition for what you both have chosen for your lives.

When I exercised my due to bring the race into existence, this was not the ending I foresaw. It can be difficult, however, even for deities, to differentiate between what they will and what will be.

In another dimension, mayhap we shall meet again.

Tell your sister I send my love unto her.

Know that I bestow it upon you as well.

Good-bye

When he let the text fall back into place, the symbols scattered into the air much as the finches had, rising up and vacating into the milky-white sky.