“No. No, those were human beings, with souls. What if they were in some kind of afterlife or—”
“I was given this ability for a reason, Lucy. I’m meant to use it.”
“How can you possibly be sure of that?”
He refused to answer, because she was asking the same questions he’d asked himself. And yet, he’d been overwhelmed by amazement that his healing ability was so much more powerful than he’d ever realized. More than he could even have imagined. He wasn’t just a healer. He had the power of restoring life to the dead. No one had that, no mortal, no vampire. Surely he had been given that power for a reason.
“I know my calling now,” he told her. “I was born with a power normally reserved for the gods them selves. It’s a power no one, mortal or vampire, has ever possessed. The power of life over death.” He shook his head as she stared at him with horror in her eyes. He could see her quite clearly. He doubted she could see him much at all, aside, perhaps, from the outline of his form in the darkness. “I don’t expect you to understand. You’re just a human.”
“Right. I’m not a god, like you, with this ever so useful ability to make rotting corpses do bodily harm. That wasn’t exactly a resurrection back there, James. You’re fooling yourself if you think it was.”
“They might have improved with time.”
“They were mindless, animated sides of beef.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I saw that. And so did you.”
He shook his head. The ground was sloping upward now, and he dearly wanted to change the subject. “Rhiannon has a car parked in a cave at the far end of this tunnel. Roland borrowed Brigit’s T-Bird, leaving the bigger Lincoln in case we needed it.”
“What if they’ve already found it? What if they’re waiting for us?” she asked.
She sounded terrified, and he felt a little sorry. “I’m scanning for their presence, and so are Rhiannon and Brigit. We would sense them out there.”
“What if you don’t? What if someone told them how to…how to block?”
It was, he thought, a very good question. What did he expect? The woman likely had a higher IQ than anyone he knew.
“If there’s anyone out there—and there won’t be—then we’ll back off and take another fork. This tunnel has several. One leads out to the Sound, where there’s always a boat or two nearby. Another leads deep into the forest, where we can go on foot.”
“This place is like a fortress.”
“My people are used to being hated, feared and hunted,” he explained. “Though this latest uprising is above and beyond anything in our history—at least as far as I know.”
“That’s why you’re wishing you had…some godlike ability to fix it, then. Isn’t it, James? But you don’t. You’re a man, not a god. Part vampire, yes. Able to heal, yes. But not a god. You can’t restore life to the dead—”
“I can. Or did you not see that for yourself back there?”
“I meant can’t in the sense of shouldn’t. Just because you’re capable of doing something doesn’t mean you should. Nothing good can come of working in complete opposition to nature itself, James.”
“I have no choice,” he said.
She blinked then, planting her feet quite suddenly, tugging him to a stop. “My God, is that why you want to find Utanapishtim’s resting place? Are you planning to try to reanimate a man who’s been dead for more than five thousand years?”
He faced her slowly. “You know where he is, don’t you?”
“Yes. I think I do. And you’re out of luck, thank God. According to your own tablet, back at the house, he was cremated, James. There’s nothing left of him but ash.”
Up ahead, Brigit called back in a harsh whisper, “It’s all clear. Hurry up, you two.”
Nodding, he pulled his captive into motion again. “I have to try.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Look, I’m supposed to do this. I wouldn’t have been chosen as the one to save my people if I couldn’t make it work. It’s not supposed to be easy. But I’ve got to try. It’s what I was born to do.”
“You are so full of yourself I can hardly believe you’re the same man who was sneaking in and out of hospital rooms trying to cure dying children.”
“Not trying to, doing it. And we’re done discussing this. I didn’t ask your opinion.”
“I didn’t ask to be kidnapped!”
“I get that. You would rather have run away and let everyone else fend