Half-Past Dawn

CHAPTER 44

Jack walked with Mia at his side; Cristos was ten feet back, his gun trained on Mia. He led them across the long front yard, past the docks, heading north, the grade growing steeper for two hundred yards until they finally arrived at the base of the lighthouse, where the wind whipped the rain into a maelstrom on the high, rocky point. The white structure stood sixty feet tall, its bright light turning in a slow arc, casting its beam out into the world.

Jack opened the door to find the floor covered in a pool of gasoline, his backpack hanging from a nail in the circular stairs. Jack grabbed the bag and reluctantly stepped outside, passing it to Cristos. Keeping his gun trained on them, Cristos knelt on the muddy ground, oblivious to the rain that fell around them.

He dug through the bag, pulling out the passport and tossing it away. He found the dagger and looked at it under the wash of the lighthouse beam, its jewels sparking so many memories, but he tossed it, too. He found his prayer book and dumped it aside, finally pulled out the second book that belonged to his father. A smile of triumph creased his face as he turned back the red leather cover. He began thumbing through it, allowing the rain to fall on the pages to reveal his father’s hidden writing. He kept turning, lost in thought, as he absorbed his father’s words. Finally, he came to a section near the end, and his smile was washed away.

He flipped the pages ahead, back…

“There are pages missing.”

“I know.”

“Where are the pages?

“They were already torn out.”

“Bullshit!”

“How would I even know what pages to tear out?”

Cristos pondered his response.

“What is on those pages that is so important to you?”

“The names of the people,” Cristos said slowly, “who kill me.”

Jack looked at him as if he was crazy. “So you can kill them first?”

The rays of the lighthouse swept over them.

Cristos’s mind was working. He looked around him as if some answer could be found out at sea.

He finally dug back into the bag, drawing out his father’s money, some papers, the drawings of Jack and Mia, and finally, the wooden prayer necklace. He examined it, rolling it around in his hands. He finally turned to Jack. “Where is the necklace?”

Jack stared at him, confused. He pointed at the prayer necklace as if it was obvious.

“These are prayer beads.” Cristos looked back in the bag, but it was empty.

“Where is my father’s necklace?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Blue stones on a silver chain.”

Jack stared back, trying to hide his shock.

“Don’t tell me that it wasn’t here, that you don’t know where it is.”

And Jack realized… He avoided eye contact with Mia, fearing that he would reveal the location of the blue necklace that hung around her neck.

Cristos grabbed Mia, pulling her close, laying the gun against her temple. “Remember what I said before you had me executed? Hold tight to your family.”

Jack’s eye filled with rage.

“Where is that blue stone necklace?”

The moment hung in the air as Cristos dug the gun into Mia’s head.

“Ten seconds, and I’m going to start with her.” He scraped the gun through Mia’s dark, wet hair. “Know this. Your daughters are sleeping just across the water. Why do you think I chose this place?”

Cristos wrapped his left arm around Mia’s neck, holding her tight in a headlock. He turned the gun on Jack.

And as the revolving light of the lighthouse passed over them, a shard of blue light hit the jewels of the necklace in the gap above Mia’s sweater. Cristos saw it, spun her around, and tore open her sweater.

And there it was, hanging from her neck against her skin, the blue stone necklace that belonged to his father, the one that was spoken of in rumor, in mystery, said to keep him alive. It was passed down through the years to the leaders of their small country and would have passed to Cristos if his heart was true, if his father so deemed.

But Cristos didn’t need his father’s blessing now to take possession of it, to avail himself of its power.

Cristos smiled. What he sought had been under his nose for hours.

But in all of his distraction and focus on the necklace, Cristos never saw Jack lunge for his gun.

Jack grabbed it, wrenching it away, launching it toward the cliff’s edge.

Mia tore herself away from Cristos, backhanding him in the cheek with amazing strength before scurrying away for the gun. And Jack attacked with all of his strength, but the powerful man fought back, possessing the training that Jack could never match, blocking his blows, anticipating his moves. He spun a kick to the side of Jack’s head, sending him sprawling backward to the ground.

But Cristos didn’t continue at Jack-he dove at Mia and the gun she was picking up near the cliff’s edge. He punched her hard, sending her dazed into the mud. He grabbed the gun, spinning back, bringing it to bear on Jack.

And as Jack scrambled up along the muddy ground, Cristos saw a flash of Jack’s left arm and became momentarily distracted by the Cotis lettering on his tattoo.

“Where did you get that?” Cristos demanded.

Jack stared at Cristos, seeing a look on his face that he thought impossible. It was fear, a look he had seen on Mia when she had asked Jack to hide the case.

“Do you understand what that is?” Cristos said. “It’s a prayer for the dead.”

“I don’t want to hear any of your-”

“You died, Jack, and someone saved you. Who was it? What did he look like? Was it my father? Is he alive?”

Jack covered his arm with his hand as if in shame, as Mia slowly got to her feet behind him.

“Let me see that!” Cristos screamed, thrusting the gun at Jack.

Jack slowly rolled his sleeve down, taunting Cristos.

“Let me see it, now.” Cristos jabbed the gun toward Jack for emphasis.

Jack let a smile slip out, mocking Cristos. “How does it taste, the flavor of fear?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” It was Cristos’s turn to smile coldly. And he pointed the gun at Mia.

Without warning, he pulled the trigger. The gun exploded, its report echoing across the island. Mia stumbled backward, the bullet hitting her just above the heart. Her eyes fell on Jack, wounded, not comprehending what just happened, and she began to collapse. Jack lunged for her to catch her, but her legs gave out, and she stumbled backward over the cliff’s edge.

“No!!!” Jack’s scream came from his soul as he watched in pure shock as she fell away, her body tumbling end over end, crashing to the rocky shore below.

Jack turned his rage on Cristos, grabbing the barrel of the gun, wrenching it out of his hand, but Cristos snatched it back, only to toss it over the cliff.

Cristos smiled at Jack, his dark eyes filled with malice and hate. He drew back his fist and attacked Jack with a series of blows. He was the expert destroying the novice; there was no need for guns to bring death.

But despite being outmatched, Jack remained on his feet. He drove his fist into Cristos’s jaw, all of his anger, all of his pent-up rage unloading into the man, shattering his jaw.

As if he had had enough, Cristos grabbed Jack, hurling him over his shoulder onto the ground, driving his elbow into Jack’s stomach. Jack rolled away as Cristos grabbed the left sleeve of his shirt, tearing it away.

Like a desperate animal, Jack grabbed a handful of mud and hurled it in Cristos’s face. He followed up with three hooks to Cristos’s broken jaw, sending him tumbling backward. Jack leaped onto him, driving his fist into Cristos’s exposed neck, his nose, every vulnerable part of his body. Despite all of Cristos power and skills, they were failing against the raging man on top of him.

But then Cristos’s hand fell upon the prayer books he had tossed to the ground. He pushed them aside, finding the prayer beads, continuing to search… until his hand fell on his goal. With blinding speed, he stabbed Jack in the chest with the jeweled dagger, the blade plunging into the wound just below his shoulder. A fire ignited in Jack’s body as Cristos dug the blade in, twisting it. Jack fell to his back as Cristos leaned over him, leering down on him.

Seeing Cristos’s dark eyes, seeing the face of the man who killed his wife, Jack refused to succumb. The knife and the face above him only managed to anger him further.

Jack clawed the ground for a weapon, a rock, anything to attack Cristos with, for Jack knew that despite the hate that flowed through his veins, he was on the edge of death.

Cristos’s leer curled into a smile. “How does death taste?”

Jack grabbed the hilt of the dagger and wrenched it out of his chest. He quickly turned it and plunged it into Cristos’s heart.

“You tell me,” Jack said through gritted teeth.

And as Jack dug the blade into Cristos’s beating heart, feeling its dying pulse through the hilt, Cristos finally saw the front of Jack’s tattoo, the fateful words written there. And he knew they were written by his father. They were the words from the torn section of his father’s book, the prediction that Cristos had sought in vain, the clue to his future, the prophecy that he had tried so desperately to eradicate so that he could choose his own path, not the one prescribed by his father’s prophecies.

But as he read them, he understood that his quest, his search, had only proven to fulfill what he tried so hard to avoid. For the phrase in the middle of the prayer of death was written to him by his father.

You shall die at dawn, on the first day of the seventh month, killed by an enraged man who has lost everything he loves.

On the eastern horizon, where the dark of night met the depths of the sea, a golden ribbon crested the waves stretching north to south, as far as the eye could see, a subtle glow that began to wipe the darkness from the night, pushing away the shadows, ushering in a new day.

And in those final moments, no longer able to breathe, his lungs on fire as his heart struggled to burst from his chest, Cristos knew that he wouldn’t escape death for the second time. Jack struggled to his feet, blood pouring from the wound in his chest. He grabbed Cristos, lifted his weakened body, and tossed him over the cliff to be smashed on the rocks below.

• • •

Jack raced down the rock face, slipping, sliding, his hand seeking purchase, the sharp rocks cutting his palm. With dawn’s early light still in the far-off distance, he struggled to see through the last shreds of night that danced along the rocky slope. The precarious path provided no firm footing as he tried not to slip and perish on the rocks below. He glanced at Cristos’s broken body, folded over a rock near the base of the cliff, momentarily lit by the sweep of the passing lighthouse beam. A pool of blood coated the sand beneath him. And Jack slipped. He skidded downward, trying not to tumble over and split his head open. As he grabbed a weathered rock with his left hand, it gave way, the sharp edge cutting into his left forearm, turning the tattoo into a shredded mess.

Jack leaped the final eight feet to the rocky beach, where Mia lay facedown in the shallow water, bent, contorted, motionless. Jack fell to his knees at her side, quickly turning her over to see the spreading wound on her chest.

Finding no pulse, no breath, Jack laid her on the sand, tilting her head back. He began CPR, forcing air into her lungs, life into her soul. He placed his hands just above her sternum and began rhythmically pumping, forcing her blood to pump. And he could see his efforts forcing the blood to accelerate its escape from the wound.

“Please, Mia. Breathe. Breathe, dammit.” Jack locked his lips over hers once again and gave her the breath of his life.

“You can’t die. Let it be me, please, let it be me. Let me trade my life for yours.”

He forced more air into her lungs and quickly set about pumping her chest. He tore open her shirt, laying his hands just below her bra strap, and looked at the wound. It was above her heart, mercifully missing the vital organ. Maybe, just maybe…

With a heaving gasp, Mia exploded with life, hacking, coughing, an eruption of water shooting from her lungs. Jack lifted her, taking her into his arms, holding her in his lap.

“Jack…” she whispered.

“Shhhh…”

Mia looked up, her eyes drifting up the rock face to the cliff so far above. “How could I have survived?”

“The water must have broken your fall.”

She reached her hand up to the bullet wound, wincing at the contact. Jack pressed his hand over it, trying to stop the flow of blood.

“How did you…?”

“Frank’s dead.”

Mia looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“He was shot.”

“I know he was shot. Everyone knows he was shot. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” Jack said, his head tilted to the side, confused.

“You do? After all these years, to finally release all of that guilt…”

“I don’t understand. What you mean?”

“Jack, Frank died fifteen years ago. Are you OK?”

And as if caught in a whirlpool, Jack’s mind began to fracture and reconstitute. Frank “Apollo” Archer, shot by those two kids, dying in Jack’s arms… Yet Jack saw Frank that very day, was with him all day until he died minutes ago up in the mansion, the same scenario… shot by two… pinned down… a bullet through his heart.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “That can’t be…”

And he thought about his father, his regrets for never speaking to him, never telling him how he felt, how he loved the man in spite of everything. He never got to tell him all of those things before he passed away six months earlier.

And the letter he couldn’t remember writing to Cristos, the one he kept in his pocket, the one where his handwriting disappeared.

His dog in his kitchen this morning, killed in front of him more than twenty years ago when he was seventeen, run over before his eyes in the driveway. If only he was there a moment sooner to save him…

Things from so long ago, lost to time, things that could never reappear.

All dead… But Frank was seen by others, had interacted with everyone. He was no ghost, no figment of Jack’s imagination. Frank helped him save Mia, helped hunt down Cristos. Jack glanced over toward Cristos’s broken body, and his mind snapped, for Cristos was not there. There was no blood, no sign of him ever falling on the rocks.

And he thought on Ryan’s words, on Emily’s suggestion that it was all in his mind. The tumor. Was it causing the delusions, causing him to see the dead, to imagine those he lost around him? But Jack couldn’t be losing his mind. Mia was there before him. And then he thought, if they were dead, did that mean that he…

“Jack, don’t you fall apart on me,” Mia begged, seeing the pained look in his eyes.

“Mia, Ryan said I would become delusional, see things. The tumor must be pressing-”

“What tumor?” Mia said in shock.

“I tried to tell you, early in the week. I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to say…”

“What, Jack?”

“I’m sick.”

Mia looked at him, confused. “Jack, you’re not sick. You’re as healthy as could be; you just had a full physical a month ago.”

It was Jack’s turn to be confused.

“Jack,” Mia whispered, her eyes filling with tears as if revealing the death of a friend, her heart breaking with her every word. “It’s me. Don’t you remember?”

“What? No, the file, in my desk…”

“That’s my file, Jack. It’s me. I’m the one who is sick. I’m dying!” she cried. “Maybe six months…”

Jack stared at her, his mind a jumble. And he held her tight, his mind becoming unhinged with grief. “No, please…”

“Oh, Jack, please don’t lose it. You have to survive for the girls. You have to be strong.”

“No. Mia, you have to survive. I saved you.”

“Oh, Jack. I will fight, but you remember what Ryan said the chances are?”

Jack’s heart was breaking anew. Everything he had struggled for, everything he had gone through to save her…

Mia looked up into his eyes with her warm, caring heart. “You saved me today… and you’ll go on saving me, day after day, until you can save me no more.”

Jack held her close. He had fought so hard to change fate, but it was all for nothing.

His senses were suddenly filled with the smell of Mia, the odor of her perfume, as if it filled the air around him. Her smell from the powder room that had sparked his memory, that he smelled on her pillow at night, that was forever part of her.

Jack looked at his wrist. He saw the large cut he had sustained coming down the cliff face. And as he looked at it in the light wash from the lighthouse, he became aware of a stunning reality. The tattoo that had so frightened him, that had scared Cristos, was gone. No evidence was there of the Cotis artwork. Not a drop of ink, not a word, just his arm bleeding profusely.

And the light from the lighthouse softened, becoming moonlight…

Jack’s eyes flashed open. He found himself lying on the riverbank, the raging Byram River just feet away. Moonlight danced off the wet leaves and rocks, the thundering river painting the soundscape. There were pieces of the car washed up on the shore by his feet, packages and bags from the rear of the Tahoe. The air was filled with Mia’s perfume, her signature smell, as if it inhabited the world around him.

And as he turned his head, he saw Mia lying facedown in a shallow eddy of water. He scrambled to her, turned her over, draping his body over hers.

Ignoring his pain, he ran his hands around her face. “Mia? Please, Mia…”

He laid his mouth over hers, breathing for her. He pumped her chest as he had done moments ago on the beach. Praying with every compression, “Please, God, please don’t let her die. Take me, take me instead.”

He glanced over to see the crumpled wreckage of the Tahoe, both airbags deployed.

He turned his eyes back on her and found her staring up at him.

“Jack,” Mia whispered. Moonlight reflected off the stones in the blue necklace that he had clasped around her neck just fifteen minutes earlier, its explosion of color filling his eyes.

“Jack, are you all right?”

Jack looked into her eyes. She was alive; somehow he knew she would live.

Jack’s memory was clear, unhindered. And he saw the last moments.

The SUV hit the bridge pavement… the rear wheels lost their traction… the Tahoe went into a sudden fishtail, he held tight to the wheel as it skirted left to right and back again. He pulled hard to bring the vehicle under control. Mia’s left hand shot up and gripped the passenger strap above the door. Their collective breath caught in their throats as the car spun headfirst toward the guardrail… crashing through, diving toward the raging river. They knifed into the rushing current, water exploded upward, and despite the airbag deployment, Jack’s head smashed into the steering wheel, and all faded to black…

Jack looked at the car door washed up on the riverbank beside them, at the objects that littered the muddy ground around him, the raging river having washed it all up onshore. There were soccer balls and tennis rackets; the girls’ blue and brown bears, their hair matted, covered in mud; there was the half-open birthday present for Joy, the expensive black purse he got for her birthday next week; Mia’s shopping bag from the department store, the rose-red lipstick sitting in sharp contrast to the muddy ground; three bottles of Mia’s favorite perfume shattered, shards of glass twinkling in the moonlight as the fragrance permeated everything around them.

And all of the pain flooded in, as if a pause button had just been released on his nervous system. His head was throbbing, the cuts on his face feeling as if they had been doused with acid, his chest on fire with a pain he never knew could be so severe.

Jack finally looked at his chest. A shard of metal protruded from the left side, running clear through. His left arm was mangled and bloody. There was no sign of a tattoo, no sign that anyone had written on him… no sign of being shot.

The contusion on his head was severe; he didn’t need an X-ray to tell him that his skull was cracked, to tell him that his wounds were fatal.

As the pain grew, overwhelming him with agony, he began to falter, his eyes struggling to remain open, his breathing heavy, focused as if he could fight off the inevitable. Despite his strength of will, he finally collapsed onto his back.

It wasn’t until 4:30 a.m. that the broken guard rail was noticed by a passing vehicle.

It was just after 5:30, the glow of dawn on the horizon, when Mia and Jack were rushed to the hospital.