CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

Newborn Diamonds

“Normally, we wouldn’t go back to the townhouse, but I think I need to let you say goodbye to Trinity,” Christian said, pointing the car back to our place.

I groaned. “She won’t be home. She just gave birth last night. The hospital is going to want to keep her for longer.”

“Not at all,” Christian said, refusing to change the car’s route. “I got a text from Brighton saying that she’s in great shape. She was released from the hospital before ten this morning and you’re invited to an impromptu baby shower starting in exactly thirty minutes at her house. That’s just enough time to change.”

I groaned louder. “I don’t have a present.”

“You do,” he said, looking meaningfully at the bag of diamonds from the hotel room. “You may as well go to the baby shower while Brandon works on me.”

I shook my head rebelliously. “We don’t need them to do it. I unlocked the third level. I can do the surgery just fine with the help of Doctor Christian in the third chamber.”

Brandon whistled in the backseat. “No one has moved through the levels that fast in thousands of years, Beth.”

Christian took his eyes off the road and cupped the side of my face in his hand. “I don’t want you to do it. I don’t want you to see how far I have fallen.” He didn’t take his hand away from me and directed his gaze back to the road. He turned back to me to say one word, “Understand?”

“I already saw all your blood when I picked you up from the prison,” I reminded him. “It was all over the walls.”

“Yes, and I would have preferred it if you hadn’t, which was another reason for me to call for Brandon.”

The last time I was in my Red Forest, my blood had been disappearing. Christian’s heart was turning white, and the Red Forest was losing its blush. He knew his insides were not supposed to be red if he was a level four god.

“It will kill two birds with one stone if we do it this way,” Christian continued.

I didn’t answer. I glanced into the backseat where Brandon and Indra were sitting. What Brandon thought was as clear as day. He wanted to show Indra the surgery. She would love the way immortal bodies worked. She already knew quite a lot about it and the bait to learn more would lure her down to the village. Surprisingly, Brandon did not share Christian’s attitudes about hiding knowledge.

I nodded. “I’m just annoyed that I can’t have a hand in everything.”

“Gotta watch that god complex, darling,” Christian said with a smile, finally letting go of me and driving with two hands.

***

Back at the townhouse, I took Indra to my closet and told her she was welcome to any of my clothing.

“Whatever you choose won’t fit,” I said with a wave of my hand, showing her my clothes that would definitely be too large for her. “But if you come to me, wearing it, I’ll adjust it for you.”

“How will you do that?” she asked curiously.

“In exactly the same way I diffuse bombs with my mind. It’s pretty simple, once you know how to do it.”

She chose something at random. “Doesn’t matter too much,” she said. “Sounds like it’s going to get very bloody.”

I looked at her. I had not been certain when I left The Incinerator back at the hotel if leaving him there was the right thing to do. It seemed a very real possibility that he was working on the problem of the Argonauts from a different angle. Doing his own kind of recon, but still… he hadn’t seen the sword in my chest or if he did, he didn’t mention it. Indra seemed to see it, like it was a shadow she couldn’t understand being there. Max had disappeared and I didn’t know what Christian had told him before they parted ways. I guessed that the difference between Max and Indra was that Indra was already separated from her family because she was an immigrant from the Philippines, she explained as much in the car, so her desires were not rooted in staying where she lived. She was more than happy to leave with us for a whole other world.

She put on a shirt with very short sleeves, trousers that were too big for her in every direction, tied her hair back, and went to find Brandon.

“Do you want me to fix those?” I called after her.

“You can fix the next set of clothes I wear. These ones are about to get bloody,” she replied.

“Maybe not!” I called after her. “He’s good at hanging onto his blood.”

Christian came in just as she was leaving. “Do you like her?” he asked.

“She’s a nurse. She’s efficient, and talented, with nerves like copper wiring. She likes surgery and she’s overdosed a few long-term care patients,” I said slowly, not entirely sure where I got that last bit of information about her, until I realized I could hear her discarded clothes talking in a heap on the floor and I was merely repeating what they said.

“Is that so? Well, I won’t fault her for it,” Christian said as he shut the door behind him. “Gods make those sorts of decisions all the time.”

I shook my head. “Don’t say things like that right before she’s about to help operate on you.”

“It’s only because Brandon needs another set of hands and Brandon would never let anything happen to me. He may seem young and inexperienced next to the guides you have in your heart, but he’s more than enough to both finish the operation and kill her on the spot should she try something funny. Someone on level three can disable someone else’s red forest and kill them as surely as they can heal them.”

“Really? How do level-three gods duke it out?”

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“They don’t. She would never try anything like that. She’s a healer, not a killer. It’s just that sometimes, the only way to heal someone is to kill them.” He exhaled heavily. “Don’t worry. I’m safe. Even though this is a very important moment for us... I still want you to go to Trinity and give her your congratulations.” He handed me the bag of diamonds.

It was heavy.

I bit my lip. “I’m going to show her who I really am,” I said, expecting his wild disapproval.

He only smiled. “Of course, you are.”

“And then say goodbye?”

“My wife has to make all kinds of sacrifices.”

***

At Trinity’s, I was horrified by the onslaught of women who thronged me as soon as I arrived. I was thrown headfirst into the bedazzled, ballooned, festooned living room, where a dozen women rushed to congratulate Trinity.

Among the guests, there were two of my old classmates from boarding school, Rebecca and Liz. The word ‘classmates’ was applied to them very appropriately. They had certainly never been my friends, but neither had they been friends with bad-girl Trinity. To see them making nice at an early-afternoon luncheon was wholly surprising.

They were also completely impressed with me and my Holly face. To be seen and not be seen by such people was as jarring as an out-of-body experience.

There was one detail I had not expected. Trinity treated them all to a play-by-play of how I had delivered her baby in her living room… not three feet from where her chair sat. They’d thrown a throw rug over the blood, which I had not cleaned up before I left as I feared it would look unnatural.

“How did you know she needed help?” one woman asked.

“We have a shared wall. I heard some troubling sounds. She was clearly struggling, so I went to check on her,” I replied modestly.

“Do you have medical training?” a waspish woman to my left asked.

“In a way. I’m opening a wellness center.” I was beginning to lie as smoothly as I told the truth.

“It sounds like you didn’t call the ambulance until you had finished delivering Grace. Why didn’t you call them first?”

I glanced at Trinity as if to ask her for her permission to explain.

Trinity left out the fact that I had given her an episiotomy. She took over the conversation. “Paula, don’t ask. There was a lot of crazy stuff going on, and the paramedics were very happy that things went as well as they did. I gave birth to Grace very quickly. I don’t think there was time for Holly to do anything more than exactly what she did.”

They passed baby Grace around from lady to lady. When they had all had turns, they had a few baby games, then they opened presents, and had snacks. I sat still, tried not to talk to people, and refused to leave.

Uncomfortable noises were coming from our shared wall. I was cutting off the sound waves, which meant that the ladies didn’t hear the groaning, the rushed orders that were given, the clacking of tools, or the breaking of bones. The fact that an overly violent operation was taking place next door was of no concern to the ladies at the baby shower.

Finally, the guests started to say goodbye. Soon, half of them were gone, but there were a few stragglers who were determined not to leave before me, but I wouldn’t budge. The late afternoon sun was casting horizontal shadows over the room. Trinity was tired.

There were two women left, Rebecca and Liz. I turned to them like a mother duck. “Rebecca, Liz, I’m sorry, but can’t you see that Trinity is tired? She needs a rest, but she’s being too polite to tell you that she’s going to have to visit with you on a different day. Will you head out without a gushing, drawn-out farewell if she promises to call you next week?”

They were surprised by my outspokenness, but as neither of them had given birth, they supposed that I was kicking them out because I was her midwife, and had every right to do so. Trinity, on the other hand, knew differently and gave me a quizzical look. I followed them to the door, thanked them on Trinity’s behalf for their presents, and closed the door behind them.

I turned around. Trinity sat in her new rocking chair with her baby. Brighton came in and started clearing out the mess. He kissed Trinity on the side of her head and rubbed his brand new baby’s cheek.

“I won’t stay long,” I said, coming back into the room. “Brighton… could you give me a moment to talk to Trinity alone?”

“Sure.”

Trinity saw my expression and her face mirrored my discomfort. “What’s going on?”

“Uh… I’m moving today. Tramaine and I are–” an uncomfortable pause. “We’re moving today. All our things will still be there, but we won’t be… and I don’t think we’ll ever come back. I wanted to give you my present without anyone else around.”

Brighton probably heard that much of the conversation before he disappeared up the stairs. I watched until his socks were out of sight.

I sat down in a chair next to her. “Everything was okay when you went to the hospital?”

“Were you thinking it wouldn’t be?” she asked with a nervous giggle.

“I have never delivered a baby before,” I replied evenly.

She patted my knee because that was the only part of me she could reach while she held her baby, and the moment she touched me, my face became mine again.

“Beth,” she gasped when she saw me. “It’s you.”

I nodded.

“It’s been you this whole time? Why didn’t I recognize you?” she wondered in amazement.

“Because I didn’t want you to.” I licked my dry lips.

“I thought you ran off with Christian?”

“I did. Tramaine is Christian.”

“How is that possible? What did you do to your face that I couldn’t recognize you? And you’re married now?”

I wheezed a bit of a laugh. “As I said, there was a little hiccup with that. I have never been more in love, but loving him means that I have to go, and go, and go. And this moment between you and I has to be a secret. You can never tell anyone you saw me. You can’t say you saw Christian. You have to forever say that I disappeared in Edmonton and you heard I was fine, but you didn’t see me.”

“All this is Christian’s doing? Your face? Your hair? What did he do that you have to live like this?”

I smiled and felt the tears prick my eyes. “I would have died that day when I was fourteen if he hadn’t saved me.”

“You know what he did?”

“Yes.”

“What?” she questioned, eyes wide.

“I can’t tell you. Now that I know what happened, it’s completely understandable why he didn’t tell me. I was a child and I would have stepped into the world of liquid darkness, but he held me back. To do that, he paid a heavy price… a price no one else could have paid. He loved me enough to break all the rules and save me. I’m telling you this because I used a little of that love to save you last night.”

Trinity didn’t understand. I could see it in her eyes. She was chalking my feelings up to some strange peculiarity inside me. No matter what I said, she wasn’t going to understand. She was a human, who could only feel things so much before exhaustion overtook her.

I reached into my purse. “This is my gift. It’s a weird gift, but it’s something I happen to have. One life is extinguished and another one lights up.”

She took the bag sloppily in one hand.

“What is it?”

“It’s a bag of uncut diamonds.”

She dropped it.

I let it sit on the floor.

“I’m quite serious. They weren’t obtained illegally. No one is looking for them. Sell a few of them whenever you have money problems or want something specific, and think of me kindly whenever you do.”

She retrieved it, tugged open the drawstring, and looked inside. “Beth, I didn’t tell you Grace’s middle name.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Bethany.”

I shook my head. The version of my name I was obligated to love from now on. “Thank you for not giving it to her as a first name. I wouldn’t want people to be extra curious about our relationship because you gave your daughter my name.”

“Beth, I…”

I didn’t hear the rest of what she said because, at that moment, the sword was pulled through to the place behind my heart.