Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,43

said, “but why don’t you tell us.”

The other three sat forward in their chairs, expressions hardened for readiness. No one looked anxious to dismiss the mayor and go charging into the fray, now.

“It started slowly,” Bixby said. “We found him a cottage, and he started working with one of the roofing crews – you can’t keep a roof on a house in all this damn rain. I spoke with his foreman; he was kind, and obliging, and he got along well with everyone.

“Then the first miracle happened.”

“Miracle?” Rose asked, thinking of Gallo’s arm. A darted glance proved that Gallo himself was thinking of it, his gaze on his gloved left hand – Tris was looking, too, mouth set in a flat, unreadable line.

“A little boy – one of our metalworker’s sons – took a fall. Climbed up on one of the water towers and then fell. His leg was broken, and he was unconscious. A crowd gathered – by the time I got there, it was nothing but a sea of umbrellas and crying – and John – the conduit – was there at the center. He had the boy in his arms. He touched his forehead, and then his leg. There was this – it was a flash. And I thought I was being pushed down, for a second there. But when I could see again, the boy was awake, and his leg was healed.”

Rose traded glances with Lance, saw the grim set of his eyebrows.

“Maybe he wasn’t hurt as badly as you thought,” Tris suggested.

“No. The angle.” Bixby swallowed and shook his head. “You could see that it was, but that then it wasn’t. Not anymore. He stood up, and hugged John. The boy’s mother shoved through the crowd, and then she hugged John. She thanked him for saving her son’s life.”

“I imagine he was pretty popular after that,” Lance said.

“He all but put the local clinic out of business. People went to him for everything from papercuts to dysentery. If he put his hands on you, and you started to glow, you were better. They really were miracles. That was when I realized.” Bixby sighed heavily. “Miracles weren’t impossible anymore, not like they were when I was a little boy. Conduits could do things that mortals couldn’t. I knew it, the whole town council knew it. We called him in to ask him some questions.”

“Was he honest?”

“Yes, actually. He wouldn’t give us his true name, but he said he didn’t agree with his fellow – higher beings.” He stumbled, and didn’t say angels, Rose noted. “He said he only wanted to live as one of us. To be helpful and to be accepted. The miracles continued.” He sounded bereft, and not like a man who’d benefitted from said miracles.

“But something changed,” Lance said. “I’m sorry, but: at least from the air, it doesn’t look like a prosperous town.”

The house shifted around them, a faint, damp creak, driving home the point.

Bixby took a deep breath, and reached for his glass – red wine, by the look and smell of it. Rose wondered how much he had left in storage at this point. “John hadn’t done anything wrong, but…conduits weren’t supposed to be around anymore. When the Rift closed, they all went away – went back. Whichever. There had been sightings, but the media wrote them off as hoaxes. I wanted to believe they were, but here was our very own conduit, and if he was fooling us all, I hadn’t figured out how.” He glanced down at his hand, and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “He closed a cut on my hand. A deep one. I watched my skin knit back together.”

“Mr. Mayor,” Rose prompted.

“I tried to report him. I contacted the military. I reached out to Washington. I talked to the governor, and, eventually, a few senators. I kept saying there was a conduit here in town, that he was using his power, that he wasn’t cut off and he definitely wasn’t human. No one believed me. They thought I wanted attention.

“And then, three years ago, the mine shaft collapsed.”

It had been wholly unexpected, he said. All the safety protocols were being followed. There hadn’t been unsanctioned blasting. But, suddenly, the ceiling was coming down on the miners’ heads. Seven had been trapped, and estimates on the time it would take to dig them out were bleak; they’d been running out of air.

And then John, the conduit with a man’s name, had walked into the shaft,