Page 116 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
And this was confusing, because the afterlife looked a lot like…a hospital room. White walls, fabric curtain hanging from the ceiling, the sharp sting of antiseptic in the air.
How disappointing. Why would anyone decorate the afterlife like a hospital room? Honestly, some people had no imagination. Or maybe it was God’s sick sense of humor?
Or maybe this was hell?
In any case, whoever this crier was, he was doing it all over her left arm.
A head of glossy black hair, a pair of shaking broad shoulders, two large hands gripping her arm hard enough to turn his knuckles white. A big body bent over in a chair beside her bed. And tears, hot and wet, sliding over her skin.
In a voice that sounded like it emanated from the bottom of a well, Ember whispered, “Hey. I’m trying to be dead here. Could you please cut that out?”
Then the crier lifted his head and stared at her in shock and red-eyed joy. Ember felt electrocuted as memory came flooding back.
Christian. The crier was Christian. And he looked very much alive.
Which meant she wasn’t dead after all.
He jolted out of the chair and began to plant frantic kisses her all over her face, chanting her name in a reverent whisper as if reciting the rosary.
“Ember, Ember, oh God Ember—”
The murmuring in the room abruptly ceased, and then she was surrounded by people and everyone was talking at once.
“She’s awake!”
“Jesus, you gave us a scare!”
“Don’t crowd her, let her breathe!”
“Dios mio, call the doctor! Call the doctor!”
“I told you He would look out for you.”
This last one was pronounced with quiet satisfaction from Clare, who stood on the right side of Ember’s bed next to a smiling Dante with a bandage on one side of his head. Clare wore pink pajamas, clutched Peter Parker and had the plastic oxygen tube, attached to a portable tank, wrapped beneath her nose. Pale and thin with bluish bruises under her eyes, she was nonetheless gazing at Ember with the serenity of a medieval Madonna.
“God,” explained Clare, seeing Ember’s confused look. “Remember? I told you I asked him to look out for you, and He said he would. So He did.”
She shrugged, as if it were preposterous any of them had doubted her, and Ember’s eyes welled with tears.
Whoever it was, someone had definitely been looking out for her; she should be dead. Maybe it was time she repaid the favor and started being grateful for life, instead of wishing for the alternative.
She turned her head—the room spun briefly before settling back into lucidity—and there on the other side of her bed, holding hands, were Asher, biting his lower lip and blinking back tears, and a very scared-looking Rafael. Next to him was Christian, still hovering over her, looking as if he was about to have a nervous breakdown.
At the foot of the bed stood Allegra and Analia, pale as powder, dressed identically in black.
“Marguerite,” Ember whispered, feeling an immense surge of guilt as those memories came back, too, sharp as knives.
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Allegra, her round face pinched. “We know…” she swallowed and moistened her lips. “We know what a monster he was. That man. We know he was the one who…the pope…”
She was having trouble getting the words out, and Analia placed a gentle hand on her sister’s back. She seemed to take comfort from that, and straightened. “But you killed him. He’s dead; that’s all that matters now. He can’t hurt anyone else.”
You killed him. Ember stared up at Christian in shock, searching his face. He nodded, looking haggard with his unshaven face and dark circles under his eyes. She’d never seen him look so…human. So vulnerable. Big and beautiful and capable of carnage, at this moment he looked more like a lost little boy.
It was painful to speak, but she managed, “But how did I…if he—”
“I think he shielded you from the brunt of the blast. He was standing right in front of you, blocking you. He must have taken the lion’s share of the impact because there was just…nothing left of him. They’ve combed the debris, dragged the ocean bed, searched the shoreline where anything might have washed up in the currents. There was plenty of wreckage from the yacht, but…”
He trailed off into silence, staring at her with haunted eyes, then he said in a choked whisper, “I thought I watched you die.”
