Page 101 of Never Leave Me
She handed him the last bottle to return to his collection. “Do you think the holy water stops working eventually?”
“I’ve been pondering the matter and trying to make sense ofit all. I can only conclude that at some point a body that has experienced the intense energy vibrations of the holy water begins to adapt to those vibrations. Like with any drug, use of the holy water results in a person’s body building up a tolerance, requiring higher dosages to have the same effect.”
“Then we won’t cross time anymore, even a little?”
“It’s probable. Particularly with the smaller ingestions. Or it’s possible that once a body dies in either era, the overlaps no longer become possible.”
Harrison’s phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket, glanced at the screen, then answered the call. “Sybil. Did you catch Dr. Lionel?”
“Still only Jasper Boyle, and he’s not talking.”
“Then please tell me you’ve found another bottle somewhere in the lab.”
“No. Sorry, Harrison.”
Harrison’s shoulders sagged, and he expelled a frustrated breath.
The investigator’s voice was clear enough. And so was the message. They were doomed.
Harrison paced the length of the bedroom. He was getting weaker. He could feel it with each passing hour. The life in his comatose body in 1382 was ebbing away. And once it was gone, his body in the present would die too.
But he couldn’t go until he made sure Ellen would live.
He glanced to the bed, to her sleeping form. Though she’d lost weight from her ordeal over the past week down in Lionel’s lab, thankfully the color was returning to her face.
But for how long?
The latest message from Mr. Smythe in Walsingham had beenthe same as all the others: he hadn’t located any other flower-patterned ampullae from the deeper wellspring. He’d scoured every original structure in Walsingham to no avail. Harrison had also checked with his other antiquarians without any luck.
Sybil was periodically looking in the cathedral. Drake continued to search inside the vault on a regular basis, but maybe they had to face the possibility that since Reider’s dungeons caved in, then Chesterfield Park’s vault might have filled with debris from the earthquake as well.
Harrison hoped eventually Marian and Will would consider that Ellen may have been injured, perhaps mortally so, in the aftershock, and deliver more holy water. But so far, it appeared they hadn’t learned of her fate.
Harrison paced back to the bed and stopped beside Ellen as he’d done a dozen times over the past hours as she slept. Her long lashes fanned against her elegant cheekbones. Her hair was loose and tangled from her ordeal but was still a silky frame around her face. She was as exquisitely beautiful as always. And he loved her more now than he ever had.
He still couldn’t believe he’d gathered the courage to tell her how he really felt. A part of him still questioned whether he’d done the right thing in making the declaration. Her eyes had filled with wariness, even fear. Maybe she would have bolted if she hadn’t been so tired. Maybe she still would leave...
He rubbed at the growing ache in his temples and kneaded the back of his neck. Weariness nearly blinded him. Yet, he didn’t want to rest and chance missing out on any phone calls—although he knew Drake would wake him with any important news.
His legs wavered, and he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. Would it hurt to lie down for a short while? Maybe the rest would even prolong his life a little longer.
At a curt rap against the door, he tried to stand but couldn’tfind the energy. When the door opened a crack to reveal Sybil’s face, he motioned her into the room.
“Any more news?” he whispered, praying her team had found a lead on where Dr. Lionel had gone off to.
“Not much.” She crossed the room, her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. “We’ve learned he made his way out of the castle through a secret passageway to a car parked on the south of the property. But beyond that we have no trail.”
Harrison sighed. If Dr. Lionel remained a fugitive, then it was only a matter of time before he would attempt something else, especially after witnessing the healing power in Ellen and deducing that’s why Harrison had been healed too. With the mad race through Reider Castle to get to Ellen in time, he hadn’t used caution, and now the word about his being able to walk—and run—was public. Although Sybil had cautioned all those who’d been present not to speak of what they’d seen, word had leaked to the media anyway.
Whatever the case, Dr. Lionel’s threat wouldn’t mean anything if they couldn’t find more holy water to sustain his and Ellen’s lives.
Sybil paused next to him, withdrew her hands, and held out a green glass bottle, just like the ones Ellen had placed in the vault for him, just like the empty two in the box on the bedside table.
Harrison stared at Sybil’s discovery, a tremble starting deep inside and radiating into his limbs.
She held it out to him. “In conducting a search over every inch of the castle, I found it in an ancient cabinet located in the great hall.”
Lord in heaven above. With shaking fingers, he took it cautiously and shook it. A scant amount of liquid swished within. Was it holy water? If so, it was worth more than gold, silver, or anything else in life.
