"Constantine, Constantine, when's your next movie coming out?"
Another reporter yelled out, "How big are you?"
"Did they just ask what I think they asked?" I asked.
Jordan's knees went out from under him, and Galen picked him up in his arms and carried him toward the edge of the barricades. Rhys touched his hand to the man's forehead. "He's in a bad way."
"What is wrong with him?" Sholto asked.
"Wizard's bane," Rhys said.
"Oh," Sholto said.
"What?" I asked.
"It's an old term for wizards who overextend themselves. I figured it was a quicker explanation to Sholto."
"Which I've just made longer," I said with a smile.
Rhys shrugged.
I saw Uther shaking his great tusked head, and even without hearing him I knew he was denying that he was this Constantine. Apparently Uther wasn't the only Jack-in-Irons in L.A., and whoever the other one was, he'd made a movie. I loved Uther as my friend and coworker but he didn't exactly have a face made for the movies.
One of the EMTs who had managed to get here before the crowd converged came up to us. He was medium height with blond hair that had streaks of color that humans didn't have, but he gave off that wave of competence that the best healers seem to have. "Let me look at him." He touched Jordan's face as Rhys had, but also took his pulse, and checked his eyes. "Pulse is okay, but he's in shock." As if on cue, Jordan began to shiver enough that his teeth started to chatter.
We ended up having to take him to the back of the ambulance. They put him on the gurney. He started panicking when they surrounded him, and he reached out to us. "I need to talk to you guys before it fades." I knew what he meant; Jordan, like a lot of psychics, could only hold on to his visions for a short time, and then details would begin to fade.
The EMT named Marshal said, "There isn't room for all of you in here."
As the physically smallest I crawled in, took his hand, and tried to stay out of the way. Marshal and his partner wrapped Jordan in one of the insulated blankets, and started making up an IV.
Jordan started pushing at them. "No, not yet, not yet."
"You're in shock," the EMT said.
"I know that," Jordan said. He grabbed my hand and stared up at me with his eyes too wide, showing too much white like a horse about to bolt. "They were so afraid, Merry, so afraid."
I nodded. "What else, Jordan?"
He looked past me to Rhys. "Him, I need him."
"If you let us put the IV in," Marshal said, "we'll let in your other friend."
Jordan agreed, they hooked him up, and Rhys crawled in with us. Galen did his bit by distracting the EMTs so we could talk. Saraid, her hair flashing like metal in the sunlight, joined him, smiling and at ease to distract. Cathbodua stayed by the open doors of the ambulance on guard. Sholto joined her. We just might have enough guards today.
Jordan looked at Rhys, his face wild with fear. "What did the dead tell you?"
"Nothing," Rhys said.
"Nothing?" Jordan asked.
"Whatever killed the brownie made it impossible to speak with the dead."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"I mean they took everything. There's no spirit, ghost, if you will, to talk to."
"Not all the dead like to talk to you," Jordan said, but he was calmer now, either from the fluids or from getting his way.
"True," Rhys said, "but this wasn't a choice. They're just gone. Both of them as if they never existed."
"You mean whatever killed them ate their souls," Jordan said.
"I won't debate semantics, but yeah, that's what I mean."
I said, "That's impossible, because that would mean they've been taken out of the cycle of death and rebirth. Nothing but a true God could do that."
"Don't look at me for answers on this one. I'd have said it was impossible, too."
Jordan let go of my hand and grabbed Rhys's jacket, wadding it in one fist. "They were so afraid, both of them, and then there was nothing. They were just snuffed out like a candle. Poof."
Rhys nodded. "That would be how it might feel."
"But you didn't say how afraid they'd be. Oh, my dear God, so afraid!" He looked up into Rhys's face as if looking for comfort, or confirmation. "There were wings, something with wings. Angels wouldn't do this, can't do this."
"Angels aren't my gig," Rhys said, "but there are other things with wings. What else did you sense, Jordan?"
"Something flew because she was envious. She always wished she could fly. I got that very clearly, as if it had been a wish since childhood, and beauty. She thought whatever was flying was beautiful."
"And the man?" Rhys asked.
"He's just fear, all fear, but fear for his wife more than himself. He loved her." Jordan said it like "loved" should have been in all capital letters.
"Did the woman know what magic they used against her?"
Jordan frowned, and had that distant look that I'd seen on his face before, as if he were looking at things I'd never see. "She thought beautiful and wings, and wished she could fly, and then her husband came in and there was love and there was fear. Such fear, but she died too quickly to fear for her husband much. They killed her first. There was confusion about the man. Two killers, two, one female, one male. They're a couple. Sex, lust, killing made them feel both, and love. They love each other, too. They don't know that what they're feeling isn't right. It's love for them, and out of that love they do horrible things, terrible things." He gave frightened eyes to both of us, looking from one to the other. "This wasn't the first time. They'd had this feeling together before, the power rush of the kill together before ... they've killed ... before."