The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [231]
“Just like that?” Travis said.
The woman gave him a tight smile. “Just like that.” She scribbled something on her clipboard, then hurried away.
“He can do miracles, you know.”
Travis looked at the woman next to him. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and shadows gathered in the hollows of her cheeks.
“What?” Travis said.
The woman smiled. Her neck was so thin he could see her larynx moving as she spoke. “Sage Carson. I've seen him do it on TV. He's cured all sorts of afflictions with just a touch. I'm sure he'll cure you, too.”
Travis didn't want to ask the question, but he found himself speaking all the same. “And what about you?”
“The doctors say I need chemotherapy, but I've seen what chemo does. They have to kill you just to try to save you. I'd rather put myself in God's hands.” She cast her eyes upward. “I know he'll take away the cancer. My daughters need me.”
Anger blossomed in Travis's chest. How many people had died because of lies like that? A tumor couldn't just be waved away with a wish and a prayer. However, radiation could shrink it, could stop it from growing back. The trick was finding a dose that would kill the cancer without killing the patient.
The woman's eyes were shut now; she was humming a hymn under her breath. Travis looked down at his hands. Could he find a way to remove Eldh's affliction without killing the whole world in the process? He didn't know, but he wasn't going to just sit here and pray that somehow everything would work out.
From the other side of the curtain, a roar of applause sounded, then a triumphant chorus of voices burst into song. Travis looked up. The choir had gone onstage; the show had begun. A guard stood at either end of the curtain, but neither of them was Jace. Panic gripped him. Had she set him up? Had she led him here so they could capture him?
“Hello, there, son. Tell me what ails you.”
Hope surged in Travis. The voice was smoother—a bell rather than a rasp—but it carried the same rich cadence, the same promise of power and redemption.
He turned in the chair, and hope became ash in his heart. The preacher standing above him was clad, not in dusty black, but in tailored white. His shoe black hair was shellacked into a perfect wave, and a thick layer of makeup lent his face an inhuman smoothness.
“Speak up, son.” Sage Carson's smile broadened, sending cracks through his makeup. “The show's begun, and there are other sufferers to whom I need to speak.”
The other people in the chairs gazed at Travis, some with less-than-friendly expressions.
Travis looked up into Carson's eyes. “I think you already know what my affliction is.”
Carson's smile vanished. Confusion clouded the preacher's gaze—followed by understanding. Before he could speak, Travis stood, clamped a hand on his arm, and steered him away from the row of chairs.
“Hey!” one of the sufferers called out after them. “They told us no autographs.”
Travis turned his back to them. He could feel Carson trembling under his grip. The preacher's eyes were fearful, alive. He was no ironheart.
“So you recognize me,” Travis said. “I figured you would. They seem to like to show my picture to everyone.”
Carson swallowed. “Is this the end, then? Are you here to kill me?”
His words stunned Travis. What had Duratek told the preacher about him? More lies, he supposed.
“I'm not going to kill you,” Travis said. “If you don't believe me, call out to your guards. Go ahead—I won't stop you. They'll take me away, and you can go on with the show.”
The preacher shook his head. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to listen to what I have to say.”
“Why?”
“Because something is happening here. Something terrible, and I don't think you know what it is.”
All at once Carson's trembling ceased, and he grinned. Shocked, Travis let go of his arm.
“I know more than you think, Mr. Wilder.” The preacher smoothed away the wrinkles Travis had left on the sleeve of his suit coat. “I know what the Angels of Light really are. I know what they do to the men and