The Source - Michael Cordy [138]
But what about your vow, Sister Chantal?
Sister Chantal had taken him to the garden for the express purpose of saving his wife. The Source was meant to save Lauren so she could become its protector, the Keeper, but instead Sister Chantal had placed that burden on his shoulders. He had become the Keeper. He studied the crude, ugly crucifix she had passed on to him, which Father Orlando had given her four and a half centuries ago, and rage built within him.
He considered all the pain it symbolized. Not just Christ's suffering but all the evil done in the name of religion. He thought of what Torino had done in the name of his church: harming Lauren, destroying the garden, abusing the Source. He thought of how Torino had used Bazin, offering redemption, but merely making him kill for a different master. Ross didn't see the cross bringing salvation to anyone – only suffering and damnation.
In his anger and despair he ripped it from his neck and threw it, with all his strength, across the room. The instant it hit the wall, narrowly missing the clock, he felt foolish and contrite.
The instruments by the bed began to beep.
Shit.
But the cross hadn't hit anything important. Had it?
Within seconds a nurse was rushing into the room.
Panicked but unable to help, Ross went to where the crucifix had fallen. The impact had dented it badly. He picked it up and, as he turned it in his hand, he noticed two things that dried his mouth: the welted seam at the back of the crucifix had buckled, revealing a hollow interior; and the second hand on the wall clock had stopped. Ross recalled Hackett dropping his watch into the pewter goblet, and how the shielding properties of its lead and tin had helped restart the mechanism. Then he remembered the reverence with which the nymphs had treated the cross. Had they sensed something?
With trembling fingers, Ross pulled back the malleable metal seam to reveal a crystalline sliver in the hollow. No larger than a toothpick, it glowed and pulsed with a life of its own. His heart raced. Father Orlando must have concealed it there when he had discovered the Source. He must have learnt somehow that certain metals could contain its magnetic and radioactive properties. The sliver of crystal would also explain how Father Orlando had healed his burnt feet after his first session of torture all those centuries ago, only forgoing its benefits when he realized that the Inquisition didn't regard his cure as proof of the existence of the garden, but as proof of possession by the Devil.
When Father Orlando had given the cross to Sister Chantal and told her to seek salvation within it in times of crisis, she hadn't understood he'd meant it literally. She had remained ignorant of the cross's secret for four and a half centuries. She can't have known about it, Ross thought, or she would have used it on Lauren when she first visited her in hospital.
Unless . . .
The thought sliced through his excitement like an icy draught. Sister Chantal had told him that the crystals in the tunnel only worked if they were of a certain size. This sliver was undoubtedly from the Source, but it was very small. Was it large enough to cure Lauren?
Ross re-formed the crucifix, sealing the seam. The instruments immediately stopped beeping, and the clock resumed ticking.
'That's strange,' said the nurse behind him. He turned and she smiled apologetically. 'Sorry about that. I'm not sure what happened but everything's fine and your wife's in no danger. I'll alert the technical team.' When she'd left the room, he clutched the crucifix to his breast and shifted his focus to Lauren's feeding tube.
85
The next morning Ross awoke in panic. It was six eighteen and something had happened.
Something that wasn't good.
The alarms on Lauren's life support were bleeping more insistently than they had last night, and her