It’s been a little bit since I was able to delve into the Epsilon series in any sort of meaningful way, but something’s been chewing on me for about a week. Chapter 3 is in part the result of it–more on the rest later. For now, enjoy chapter three!
Three
“Hellfire and damnation,” Alexander Sotheby muttered as he lowered the gun. “What happened to the three of you?”
As relieved as I was to see the priest was the one holding the gun, it did nothing to ease the dread that had coiled inside me, gnawing at my guts like a living thing. “I’ll explain later. Help me here.”
He leaned the rifle against the wall without another word, ducking under Wil’s arm. Wil flinched, leaning more heavily on the both of us. He was starting to shiver, now, and blood kept soaking through his shirt and into mine. I swallowed a curse.
I suppose it’d be too much to ask if Father Alex had a fully stocked ER socked away in here. I grimaced. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch for him to have a decent kit, though. Damn. I should have planned for something like this. I kicked myself for not carrying a more extensive field kit on me and for not stashing more supplies at the Cathedral, even knowing how deeply involved in the Resistance Father Alex had become and how much we’d come to rely on him for more than just spiritual advice.
There wasn’t time.
I was lying to myself, but I let it go. I couldn’t afford to dwell on it, not right now.
“The Imperium’s got squadrons all over the place,” Ren said as we hauled Wil into the bright warmth of Sotheby’s apartment. “It’s not looking good for us. The Resistance has gone to ground all over the city, but they’re going to be pinned down and we’re going to lose some people.” She cast a quick glance toward me, pain in her eyes mixing with fear. I shook my head slightly. There was nothing either of us could do—not yet, not until Wil was stable and we all had time to think.
Time wasn’t exactly something we had in abundance, though, and we wouldn’t until we’d somehow managed to turn the tide—if we could turn the tide. Then there was the question of hopefully getting some sort of further explanation out of Wil about what he’d done and why, when his orders had come, and if he knew that the Imperium was coming. I didn’t think he had, but there was always that tiny kernel of doubt.
Of course, I could figure out the why without thinking too hard. Caldin was falling, or at least would come damn close to it. There was too much information that the Imperium could have gotten out of that post if it had been left intact. Of course the Alliance would need it destroyed before it could fall into enemy hands. It made sense that he’d be the one to handle the task. It was the same cloak and dagger bullshit he’d always done.
Don’t get self-righteous. You’ve ha him doing a lot of cloak and dagger bullshit yourself and he’s never said no without a damn good reason backing the answer.
“Stand fast,” Sotheby said, glancing at Ren. The ghost of a smile curved his lips. “All will be as it’s meant to be.”
The certainty in his words made me shudder. Ren shot him a dubious look.
Stay on task. I shook my head. “Let’s get him horizontal.”
Together, Sotheby and I hauled Wil to the living room. The residence was attached to the Cathedral, tucked away at the back of the massive building. It was cozy without feeling close, warm without being stuffy. A fire crackled merrily in the fireplace and I was oddly grateful to see it even though it reminded me of how cold I was thanks to the combination of the wind outside, the rain, and Wil’s sodden clothing.
“The floor’s fine,” I said, knowing it would likely be bloody work that I was about to do, but I’d be able to do it just as well kneeling on the floor as anywhere—besides, Sotheby’s kitchen table was too tiny for the job.
“There’s spare sheets in the closet over there, Ren,” Sotheby said. “Get two. We’ll put him by the fireplace.” He paused for a second, then added, “Get the shears from the kitchen drawer, too.”
Ren moved fast and I was silently grateful for her haste. Wil was getting heavier by the second and it didn’t take an MD to see he was fading fast.
Shock’s set in. Not much time.
Sotheby’s front door opened, the one that connected the residence to the Cathedral proper. “The sisters are settled in the cathedral, Father,” Vasily Andresen said as he stepped inside. The groundskeeper hesitated a bare moment when he spotted Sotheby, Ren, and I carefully lowering Wil down onto the sheets that Ren had spread on the rug in front of the hearth.
His brows knit. “Is that Wil?”
“It is,” Sotheby said, his voice far more calm and measured than mine would have been. “Were the sisters so kind as to bring the supplies that were being hidden at the Cloisters?”
Vasily smiled briefly. “I’ll get the crate.”
It was the first flicker of relief I’d felt since finding Wil in the alley. I watched as Vasily ducked back out the door.
Wil swallowed hard and rasped, “Only the sisters?”
“Seems the monks decided to stand and fight,” Sotheby murmured. “Some of the sisters, too, but many of them decided to come here. Something about a duty to those who survive.” He gave Wil a paternal smile. “Now lie quiet and let Dr. Ross do what he does best.”
“Somehow, I don’t think leaving the Resistance is what I need him to do right now,” Wil said, then coughed. He was trying to be funny. I shook my head.
“Good to see your sense of humor didn’t get wasted with the rest of you.” I took the shears that Sotheby handed me and started cutting Wil’s sodden, shredded clothes away from his body. From the corner of my eye, I could see Ren standing nearby, watching, her hands flexing and unflexing, as if she was itching to do something but wasn’t sure what.
“Got to hang onto something,” he muttered. His gaze drifted, settling on Ren for a few seconds before looking at the ceiling for a few seconds. Then he closed his eyes. “There’s not much that I can.”
Ren dropped to her knees next to him, catching his hand in both of hers. “Hang onto me,” she whispered, then swallowed hard. “I—I have a feeling that what he’s going to have to do is going to hurt.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Wil said, sagging slightly. His head lolled toward her and he opened his eyes, focusing on Ren as I worked.
Just keep him distracted. That’s all I need right now. Keep him focused on something other than what I’m doing and we’ll be in good shape.
I hope.
Fuck-all, he was the bloody key. It had been staring me in the face the entire time and somehow, I’d missed it. How could I have missed something so damned obvious? Madeline had been her husband’s key. Why wouldn’t I have thought Ren’s would be Wil?
Daniel never mentioned his son. Daniel never told you how it worked beyond what you’d figured out on your own. She was a message he sent to both of you, but you never considered that he’d use his son as the key for someone else’s blocks. And why not? You never drew any connections. That’s dangerous—and has caused this to go on far, far too long.
Everything was connected. Everything.
Aaron Taylor is the bloody key and he’s been here the whole damn time.
His injuries were worse than I’d initially thought—an assessment that could be forgiven based on the circumstances of my initial attempts at diagnosis—and it was something I figured out fast once I’d gotten most of his clothing cut away. Sotheby brought some towels to try to dry what he could and a first aid box that would help get me started, but I found myself praying pretty damn hard that whatever supplies Vasily was bringing from the cache stashed at the Cloisters were of a far more substantial variety.
“Have faith, Dr. Ross,” Sotheby said as I worked. His gaze was on my face, on my eyes, even as he fell easily in the role of a scrub nurse as I got to work.
There were times I found it very hard to believe that he’d been a pilot in a past life.
“I’m trying,” I muttered, “but my faith is a work in progress.”
“He’ll be all right,” Ren said firmly, her gaze locked to Wil’s. “He’s got something to live for.”
“Ren,” Wil started, his voice a desperate whisper.
“Just shut up and don’t talk,” she said. “Just let him work, okay? Let him work and hang on. Hang onto me.”
I suppressed the urge to wince at the desperation that was in her voice, too. Whether she remembered loving him before she’d become who she was now or not, she sure as hell loved him now. Maybe that was all that mattered in the end.
I’m such an idiot. I should have known. Of course he would risk it—it was his only choice.
I should have known.
It felt like forever before Vasily returned, two of the sisters of the Ordo Excaelis helping him haul a crate of supplies into Sotheby’s living room. The younger of the pair cracked open the crate while the elder—a woman of perhaps sixty, knelt down next to Wil.
“Let me help,” she said softly, glancing first to Sotheby and then to me. “I was a nurse on Hyllard before it fell to the Imperium.”
“Thank you,” I said, only glancing up for a second.
Her head dipped in acknowledgement. Sotheby didn’t leave Wil’s side, continuing his assist as I kept on working. Ren hunched over a little, both of her hands still wrapped firmly around Wil’s holding his gaze. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I also couldn’t spare much attention to find out, either. Wil just stared at her, his eyes still open, though his lids drooped every so often. He was still shivering a little, though that was slowly easing the longer we worked, the longer he lay near the fire. I could feel its heat against my back but ignored it.
There was too much work to do, too much damage to address. I wished I had him on a gurney in the ER at St. Mikhail’s. But I probably would have only felt concerned about something else if I did—and it didn’t matter, anyway. I had him on the floor in a place he was probably safer than he would’ve been at the hospital and I was going to do my damnest to make sure he pulled through this, just like he’d managed to pull through every other shit situation he’d ever found himself in.
“What’s your name?” I asked the nun who’d stepped in to assist. I glanced up for a few seconds to look at her—round face, gray eyes, hair more gray than brown—before I turned my attention back to my work.
“You can call me Sister or Constance,” she said. “That’s Miriam over there at the crate. Her father was a surgeon and she and her mother used to help at his clinic.”
I nodded. “I’m Luc.”
“Dr. Ross,” she said, then smiled faintly as she handed me some gauze. “Redeemer.”
For a second, I felt like I’d just been kicked in the stomach. I shouldn’t have been surprised that they knew who I was, but there was a part of me that felt guilty that they did. The Resistance had been leaning on the church—both the usual priests and the brothers and sisters of the Ordo Excaelis—for a long time, now. It hadn’t started with me. I had to keep reminding myself of it.
Hell, if it hadn’t been for Wil, I might never have learned to trust them myself.
“What happened to him?” Constance asked, jarring me. I swallowed quickly, getting myself back to work. Miriam was suddenly by my side, delivering a bottle of sterile solution so I could start washing out the wound in Wil’s thigh.
“We need to run fluids,” I muttered. “Can you do that?”
Constance nodded, then glanced at Sotheby, then Miriam. The younger nun headed back to the crate. Sotheby cleared his throat.
“Lucas,” he said gently. “You don’t have to answer, but—he destroyed the Alliance post, didn’t he?”
From the corner of my eye I could see Ren get tense for a second, then relax. A lump rose in my throat, threatening to choke me. I nodded, voice hoarse when I answered. “How did you know?”
“It sounds like Longshot,” Sotheby murmured. “I’ll put some water on, get some buckets. We’ll need to clean him up once you’re done.”
“I’m still here, y’know,” Wil murmured, his eyes half lidded, voice faint. “I’m still awake.”
“Wil,” Ren whispered. “Please.”
I saw his hand flex in hers and exhaled, reaching to tighten the fresh tourniquet around his thigh before I could get to work on debriding the wound there. “There’ll be more than enough time to talk about what the hell happened out there after we deal with everything that’s already on our plates. Just hang in there, okay, Wil?”
“Right,” he said, eyelids fluttering. There was a grim resignation to his voice an expression, though one tinged with pain. I knew he’d been through something like this before—except it had just been him and Ren.
It had been when he’d lost her, before he and I met.
That’s where his head was—suddenly back on Carmiline, clinging to his partner because she really was the only thing keeping him alive.
You’re not going to lose her and she’s not going to lose you. Not if I have anything to do this it. This isn’t going to be Carmiline all over again. It won’t be—I won’t let that happen.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. I meant it, I just wasn’t sure how I was going to make sure it was.
“Right,” he whispered again. Ren looked at me, fear in her eyes.
“This feels way too familiar,” she said, her voice quiet and choked. “Why does it feel so familiar, Luc?”
Wil answered for me. “Don’t worry about it,” he whispered faintly. “Just—just stay with me, Ren. Please?”
“Forever, if you asked me,” she whispered back, then leaned down to kiss him gently.
I swallowed hard, tried to ignore what was going on between the two of them. He was my best friend and needed my help more than anyone else right then, but she would be next.
He’s been the key the entire time.
I knew that if he’d been stronger, he would have argued with me. He would have told me to help her first, then the Resistance, that he would keep. It would have been a lie and I never would have forgiven myself if I’d dared to believe him. She wouldn’t have forgiven me, either, nor would Sam Cooper or Mackenzie Desantis. None of them would have forgiven me if I’d let him convince me that he’d keep.
He wouldn’t. That was abundantly clear the longer I worked on him. I didn’t know how close he’d been exactly when the explosives he’d rigged went off, but it had been too close. At least he was safe here—as safe as anywhere on Caldin would be.
Constance was good at what she did—she must have been a trauma nurse back on Hyllard. It was easy to find a rhythm, and she anticipated my needs almost as soon as I concluded what they were. We said little, simply worked, treating Wil as best we could with the resources we had available. The crate the sisters had rescued from the Cloisters was well-stocked, and there was a part of me that hoped there was another one, because something in my gut said we’d need it before the night was out. I didn’t have to wonder where the supplies came from, though. I already knew.
They’d come from the same place the man I was working on had come from—from the Epsilon Alliance, smuggled here quietly and secreted away for the moment when they’d be needed. Somehow, I didn’t think that the Alliance would have expected them to be used quite this way, to treat one of their own.
By the time we were done, the sheets beneath Wil were half-soaked with blood. So were my hands and the knees of my pants. Wil was barely conscious as I snipped the last suture threads, Constance coming in behind to clean it up with a sterile pad and a bit of boiled water.
Sotheby brought some more hot water over with a bucket. Vasily followed with an armload of towels, the groundskeeper’s complexion gray and washed out. I doubted he’d ever seen this much blood before.
“I’ll get some spare clothes,” Sotheby said quietly to me as he set the bucket down on the blood-soaked sheets. “Then we’ll get him on the couch with some blankets after he’s cleaned up and dressed.”
I nodded mutely, watching Constance work. Miriam came to me, putting a hand gently on my shoulder. Through it all, she had been bringing supplies from the crate as Constance and I asked for them, quietly and without complaint. I blinked at her blearily, my eyes having trouble focusing for a few seconds.
“Are you all right?” she asked softly.
I nodded almost convulsively, not really sure if I was or not but willing to pretend. There was still work to do.
There was always still work to do.
“Luc,” Ren said softly. I looked at her, rubbing my face with the crook of my elbow, trying to clear the sudden sting and grit from my eyes. “Is he going to be okay?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“I hope so,” I said, standing up slowly. My legs ached from kneeling, half asleep with pins and needles dancing along my limbs. I limped to the kitchen to wash my hands before I came back to Wil. Constance had already started cleaning him up and I joined her. Vasily tugged Miriam away to help him with something—though I suspected it was more to just get the young nun away from the situation. She’d been a great help, but she’d certainly seen enough for one night.
I knew I had, but it wasn’t over yet.
We bandaged after we cleaned. Sotheby was back by then, with a change of clothes for me, a pair of shorts for Wil, and several blankets. He started getting the couch ready as Constance and I finished.
“You need a shower before you think about doing anything else tonight,” Ren told me, her brow furrowing.
“I have to get out there,” I said, shaking my head. “They’re fighting in the streets.”
“They’ll still be fighting in the streets in ten minutes,” she said. “At least wash the blood off before you go, okay?”
I was about to tell her that I was just going to get bloody again, but something stopped me. Maybe in the back of my head I realized that any of them seeing me with my clothes full of blood, like I’d been kneeling in it—because I had been—would probably have bene a morale-killer. Wil’s absence would have been notable to most of the Resistance on-planet and seeing me like that probably would have caused them to assume the worst.
I nodded mutely.
She hugged me hard, blood and all, and I hugged her back, chin resting against her shoulder. My heart felt like lead in my chest.
“I know how to fix it now,” I whispered. “I know how to give you your memory back.”
She pulled away, staring at me, one hand gripping my arm tightly. “You do?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. I—the key’s been in front of us the entire time and I never knew it.” I barely stopped myself from looking at Wil. I was sure she’d understand after I broke the blocks.
“I can’t ask you—”
“You’re not,” I said. “I made you a promise, Ren. I’m going to keep it. Are you ready?”
“Ready?” She blinked. “You mean—no. No, Luc, not right now. You’ve got work to do. The Resistance—”
I put my free hand on her arm, squeezing gently. “I have to do it before I go out there. Just in case.”
Her lips thinned but her jaw trembled. She nodded once, hard. “Okay. Okay. Uhm. Let us handle getting him settled. Go take a shower. Once you’re done—once you’re done, then we can do it.”
“All right,” I murmured. I squeezed her arm. She leaned in and kissed my cheek.
“Thank you,” she whispered, eyes brimming with tears. “I mean it.”
I reached up and brushed away a tear from her cheek with my thumb. “I know.” I sucked in a breath, glancing toward Constance. “Give him a sedative, okay? Nothing too strong.”
Constance nodded slightly. “And a painkiller?”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Of course. Now go do what the girl told you, hm?”
I choked on a laugh, gathering up the clothes Sotheby brought me, and headed for the bathroom and the shower that I so desperately needed.
