“There are cameras, but I have us hidden.”
“How?”
“Electrical interference. It won’t be able to record us.”
That was too techie for her to unravel just then, so she parked it for review when they weren’t in imminent danger of being discovered stealing a sacred item from the church. She stayed close to Merc. The hallways were dark, but he navigated them easily.
They reached a locked door securing the room where the robe was stored. Merc raised his hand, and the door just popped open without his even touching it.
The robe was laid out on a piece of red velvet, arranged flat so visitors could see it better. As Ash watched, the locks at either end of the long glass case released, and it opened on the long side. Merc reached in and took the robe. The case settled back on its foundation. The locks reattached. Merc started to leave, but Ash stopped him.
“Merc. We can’t do this. It’s wrong.”
“This belongs to me, Ash. It’s my blood.”
The memory of what she’d felt before, when she was in that pit, tore through her mind. There had been so much blood. So much sadness.
“Touch the robe.” Merc held it out to her.
She shook her head. If it really was his blood, she was afraid she would react as she had in the pit.
“Touch it. Then you’ll know.” His tawny eyes bored into hers.
She couldn’t resist cautiously lifting a finger toward the robe. Only an inch separated her from the dried blood. She really, really did not want to experience what she feared she would. Merc pressed the fabric to her finger. It was just as it had been in the pit. She saw him, slicing his skin, bleeding like a human fountain. His wounds kept closing, which was why he had to keep cutting himself. And then there was the golden light that appeared in the area where he was slashing at himself.
As soon as she wondered how the robe had come to be soaked with his blood, her perspective jumped to that of Father Eduardo. He stripped his alb off and went into the pit, using it to put pressure on Merc’s wrists. A force pinned his arms out on either side of him, keeping him from harming himself further. The priest could only focus on one wrist, but the light surrounded the wounds on both arms. Merc was roaring in agony—not of physical pain, but emotional anguish.
The scene continued playing out. She saw his friends from the fort arrive and surround him. Lautaro was there too. Guerre worked with the golden light, then they carried Merc off to a waiting helicopter.
The priest used his alb to mop up Merc’s blood in the pit. The story he’d told her was true. Merc had bled so profusely that the robe was soon saturated with mud and blood.
She saw the priest heading back into town, carrying the robe like a dead friend, draped in front of him. Before he stepped back into the jungle, Father Eduardo sent a last look toward the pits. Lautaro was there. He walked into the wide trench and, raising his arms, caused Merc’s blood to lift out of the pit, swirling in a little vortex, faster and faster, until it somehow ignited in the air, then sifted down as ash to slip away in the breeze.
Through all of this, Father Eduardo did not move, did not even breathe. It wasn’t until Lautaro disappeared that the priest finished taking the robe out of the jungle.
Wait. Lautaro disappeared. How had he done that?
Merc pulled the robe away, severing her connection with the fabric, breaking the spell she was under. She had so many questions. She’d seen blood rise in a swirl like that before—in her room the night Merc came back wounded.
“Now you see why I had to get the robe. And you also see why it is so important that I never let Flynn get it.”
Ash was wrecked. The anguish he’d suffered was all she could feel now. How did you survive? She wasn’t even aware she’d sent him the question on their mental connection.
I suck at death.
“Why, Merc?” She touched his chest. “Why didn’t you reach out for help?”
He looked at her hand a long moment before meeting her gaze. “That’s an easy question, one that barely reflects the complexity of the answer you’re after. I did it because I was done.”
“Done with what?”
“With what I am. What I’m not. What I’ll never be again.”
“Do you feel better now?”
“No.”
Ash blinked away the tears in her eyes. “What are you going to do with the robe?”
“Burn it.”
“That’s criminal. It means everything to the village.”
“You have no idea what it would mean to the Omnis if they were able to deconstruct my DNA. And they could do it, too. They have the labs.”
“Can you burn it here? I mean, right here, where it is.”
Merc looked around the room. It was part of the original church construction. Old lumber and fire rarely mixed well. She knew it was risky, but if he could open locked doors, he might be able to contain the fire in some way.
“Why does it matter?” he asked.
“This robe is part of this town’s claim to fame. The church is sending out a delegation to investigate the rumors of your sacred acts—not something they do lightly.”
“All the more reason to get rid of it. They’re bound to test the blood.”
“Are you in a system somewhere?”
“Not that they should be able to find, but like the Omnis, the Vatican has the resources to decode my genetic modifications. I don’t trust anyone outside of the Legion.”
The Legion. His group of fighters, Ash remembered.
“Yes, but if it’s burned in place, without damaging anything but the robe, all while none of the locks have been damaged, then, even destroyed, it still contributes to the story of what happened here. You get what you want, and the town will still have its miracle.”
He nodded. “Let’s do it your way.”
The glass case opened again. Merc laid the robe out as it had been.
“Are you sure you can do this safely?” Ash asked, worried.
Merc stared at her. “Wait here. I need to make sure I know how the smoke is going to exit the church.”
He stepped out of the small closet. Ash used her phone light to have a last look at the robe. She had so many questions, too many to get into just then. The robe had amazing energy—protective, healing, and calming. It had the same vibe she’d gotten from her make-believe visits with Merc before they’d known who each other was.
She desperately wanted to keep a tiny piece of the robe, just for herself so she’d always have the feel of Merc near her, long after they’d returned to Colorado and their old lives.
She waved her phone over the long robe, looking for a place that would be easy to tear. The hem was threadbare and torn in places. She set her phone down and, picking an area that was torn and stained, ripped a thin strip off the hem, tucking it away just before Merc returned.
“We’re good. I got this.” He took a cheap plastic lighter from his pocket. “I need you to stand back and let me do this without interruption. Controlling the fire will take extreme concentration.”
She took a few steps back, watching as he touched the flame to the fabric in several places. It burned bright, the smoke threading together above the case, ascending in a braid of twisting heat and smoke, rising into the dark at the top of the room. In no time, the entire robe was engulfed. The fire burned furiously, then died down to embers that cooled to black ash, all while maintaining the shape of the robe in brittle ash.