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Chapter Forty-three

I had just slipped intoasphalt whenand in real pain, I looked at the faceplate:

Caller Unknown

Heart thued skin, I clicked on the phone

"Hello," I said My face and hands were on fire, despite the copious ah to shade a small Balkan country

"Hi," said the tiny voice, a voice that was somehow even tinier than I remembered

"Maddie!"

"You know my name"

"Of course I know your name, honey" But as much as I wanted to comfort her and reassure her, I needed information "Maddie, honey, how rownup men now"

"Are they black or white?"

"Bofth The white ht lisp and it was the most precious sound I had ever heard I absently started my car and turnedas far away froht as I could My van&039;s side ere equipped with pull-down shades, which I rarely, if ever, pulled up The windshield sunshade was still in place, blocking h laser-like beah here and there

So there was a black guy and a white guy The white guy, I knew, could have been Hispanic or even Asian Maddie was only five I doubted she saw race and color like an older child would Or as an adult would

Sherbet had confir on Children for drugs Children for money Children for sex A slave trade where lives meant little, and no doubtwith the mothers

"Maddie, honey, are you in a house?"

"A house?"

"Or is it an apartment?"

"Peoples live here We take the vader"

The vader? My head i Jesus, I had had ain, but now all one out the

Think Focus

"Honey, what can you see froht pause I heard her pushing aside what sounded like blinds "I see a big house"

"Where?"

"It&039;s high on top of the biggestI knew Siency I had worked for, HUD, used a facility outside of the city to hold se eyes, up against the base of ahill Certainly big enough to call a irl from the streets of Buena Park

And at the top of the hill,the city was a museum Not quite a mansion, but it looks like one froan Museum

The Moon Feather Indian casino, if I recalled correctly, wasn&039;t too far away fro facility, either

She&039;s in Si

I also sensed so else Or, rather someone else And from somewhere over the phone line, I heard what sounded like a door slam followed by a ry

"I have to go," said Maddie, whispering into the mouthpiece Her whisper sounded nearly as loud as her little voice

The line dropped before I could say goodbye

Chapter Forty-four

I was back at the hospital, sitting in a chair at the foot ofquietly Too quietly I would have thought he was dead if not for the hospital equipment that chirped out a heart beat

The dark halo around hier than ever My son, toon my lap was a clipboard with a mostly blank sheet of paper I had found in the backseat of hter&039;s nann Ball pen, which I preferred to use when I didis still new to me In fact, I&039;d only done it a couple of ti crazy

In essence, as it was initially explained to(and verified by a little online research) the process of auto is a way to cohly evolved enlightened beings who knohat the hell they&039;re talking about

At least, that was the idea

Who or what cah in these sessions was certainly open to debate And, yes, there was a part of iving myself the answers I wanted to hear

Just a part of me

The other part of me, perhaps the part that was still hues fros

Or, for all I knew, Ji as a bounty hunter in Hawaii

I went through the various steps of centeringtheh the h the very ground itself, down through Hell and a lost world of dinosaurs, and all the way to the center of the earth, where I htly around three massive boulders

Now firmly anchored, I closedon the physical act of breathing, drawing air in through my nose and out my mouth, even if it was air I didn&039;t need Except I kept thinking aboutfor his life

Focus, Sam

I closed my eyes and, as I breathed, I pictured the stale,overthe air, and then exhaled it

I did this over and over, breathing and picturing, and any tiht

In and out, in and out

Breathe, breathe

My hand twitched

I kept reined the air currents tinged with gold, and the golden air flowing into ht

My hand twitched again, followed by a full-blown spasers ht Whatever it is

Keep breathing Breathing In and out Golden light

Jesus, ood

But now I couldn&039;t deny that so seemed to have settled inpresence

And thenI looked down at my clipboard as tords appeared:

Hello, Samantha

Chapter Forty-five

"Hello," I said quietly, feeling slightly silly, but also feeling like so "Uain and again, and it kept on twitching until it wrote out a reply I could only watch in stunned silence My hand, in thesevery well, it wrote It&039;s a great day to be alive, is it not?

"Am I alive?" I whispered, my voice barely audible to s such asDo you feel dead?

"No, but I feel verydifferent"

Twitch, write You should feel different We are all different

"Am I dead?" I asked "And don&039;t ask: Do I feel dead?"

Your body went through a massive transformation, or metamorphoses, Samantha, but it did not die

"Then why don&039;t I breathe? Why can&039;t I eat?"

That&039;s the metamorphoses of which I speak Or write Your body, quite literally, is not the same, and thus does not have the same requirements

"Like food or air"

Exactly Yes

"But I still need blood"

Of course This is your new body&039;s requirements

"And so my new body is a killer, if it must feast on blood"

Does all blood need to come from that which is dead?

"No," I said, and sley had said earlier, about blood donors Those who donated willinglyand those who most certainly did not Blood debt perhaps