Ten Plagues

Paul quit protesting. He didn’t need to find out more. Whether LaToya had done the impossible and awakened or Pravus had shifted his weight and knocked her aside or God had simply sent her rolling away from that chisel, the end result was the same.

Paul had witnessed a miracle.

His heart filled with the blessing of it. LaToya would live. God had directly intervened to save her. It wasn’t yet her time. In that dimly lit, lonely waiting room, he shook off the cop and found the pastor and praised God to the highest reaches of heaven.

It was only after he’d spent time in praise and regained a modicum of his peace that he remembered the moment he’d demanded Keren hand over her gun.

“Give me your gun!”

If he could have wrestled it away from her, he’d have gone after Pravus and …

God, forgive me. Paul sat with his legs spread, hands clasped between his knees. His head hung in shame. I’d have killed him.

Paul began again, his earlier closeness to God lost. He prayed for forgiveness, and as he prayed, he knew that it wasn’t God who was going to be the problem. God was there pouring love and forgiveness down on him in abundance. It was himself. This side of himself—the violent, cynical side that had been such a neat fit for the way he’d acted when he was a cop. Now, with Pravus to fight and the police at hand constantly, he was being pulled back into that life.

God, please, I don’t want that to be me. Give me a peaceful and contrite heart. Give me humility. Paul buried his face in his hands as he prayed. Make the longings of my heart be love and joy and sacrifice. Take away this willingness I have to fight and hate. Please, Lord, forgive me for wanting to kill that man.

Paul wasn’t fighting for his soul. His belief in his own salvation was rock solid. It was his own nature that he fought. In the end, he didn’t find the satisfaction he hoped for. Even as he prayed, he felt the hunger to close his hand over that gun and hunt down Pravus personally. Paul felt like he’d lost five years of spiritual growth in a single week.

Keren was part of the problem. She’d pulled that gun with lightning speed. She went running headlong toward danger. She did what a cop was supposed to do. Paul was afraid that if he became involved with Keren—which he wanted to do very badly—the life she led, or more exactly, the lure of it, would swallow him whole.

The nurse appeared again with another update and the news that it would be hours before LaToya was out of surgery. The chisel had pierced a lung and severed muscles. And she had deep cuts that needed sutures. Paul remembered the police questioning Keren and went back to the room where she was corralled.

He went behind her curtains, expecting to find her in a hospital gown. She was almost dressed, just tucking in her shirt.

“Hey!” She glared at him. “Knock next time.”

“It’s a curtain. How do I knock on a curtain? What are you doing with your clothes on?”

“Not a question a reverend should be asking,” she replied smartly. She sat in a chair and reached for her socks.

Paul said, “Get back in that bed! I heard the doctor say he wanted to observe you overnight because you have a concussion.”

Keren began pulling on her socks. “Says the man who checked himself out of the hospital without his doctor’s approval.”

She flinched when she leaned over to grab her shoe. He pushed her hands aside and knelt in front of her and lifted her foot to rest on his knee. “They needed the room because of the explosion. That was an emergency. They’ve got plenty of room for you.”

Keren didn’t wrestle him for her shoe. She straightened gingerly in the hard chair and Paul heard her squelch a sigh of relief. That tiny show of weakness must have made her mad. “Didn’t you take that cervical collar off a week before the doctor said you could? And quit wearing your sling the minute his back was turned?”

Paul lifted her other foot and slid the black Nike on gently, thinking of all her bumps and bruises. “I was fine. Doctors have to be overcautious, because they’ll get sued otherwise.”

“Amen.” Keren stood. “I’m out of here. I promise not to sue.”

Paul steadied her when she wobbled. “You’re not supposed to sleep for twelve hours because of the concussion.” Paul knew he was right, but he didn’t kid himself he’d ever convince Keren.

“No problem. I’m going back to work, so I’ll be up.”

O’Shea called from outside the room, “Her head’s a hard one, Pastor P. She’ll probably be all right.”

Higgins was out there, too, and he laughed.

Paul pulled the curtain aside and let Keren step out ahead of him. “I can’t leave. I’ve got to stay and see how LaToya does.”

“I’ll stay with you.” Keren seemed to forget her plans to begin tracking down Pravus.