In the endless moments that inched past during his waking agony, he would whisper his name to himself. Jacques.He had a name. He was real. He existed. He lived in hell. He lived in darkness. The hours turned into months, then years. He could no longer remember any other way of life, any other existence. There was no hope, no peace, no way out. There was no end. Only the darkness, the pain, the terrible hunger. Time continued to pass, meant nothing in his limited world.

His wrists were manacled so that he had little room to maneuver, but every time a creature came close enough to awaken him, he scratched at the walls of his coffin in a vain attempt to get out. His strength of mind was returning so that he eventually could coax his prey to him, yet only enough to barely survive. There was no way to regain his power and strength without replacing the huge volume of blood he had lost. There was no creature underground big enough to do that. Every time he woke, moved, fresh blood would drip steadily from his wounds. Without the necessary amount of blood to replace his loss, his body could not heal itself. The circle was endless, hideous, an ugly cycle that would last for all eternity.

Then the dreams began to intrude. Waking him when he was starving, without a way to fill the void. A woman. He recognized her, knew she was out there, alive, no manacles, not buried beneath the earth but able to move freely around. She was just out of his mind’s reach, yet he could almost touch her. Why didn’t she come to him? He could summon up no face, no past, only the knowledge that she was out there somewhere. He called to her. Begged. Pleaded. Raged. Where was she? Why wouldn’t she come to him? Why did she allow his agony to continue when even her presence in his mind would ease the terrible sense of isolation? What had he done that was so terrible that he deserved this?

Anger found its way into his world. Hatred, even. In the place of a man a monster grew, deadly, dangerous, grew and thrived on the pain, became a will impossible to crush. Fifty years, a hundred—what did it matter if he traveled to the very gates of hell for revenge? He already resided there, imprisoned in it every waking moment.

She would come to him. He vowed it. He would bend his will to finding her. And once he found her he would become a shadow in her mind until he was familiar enough with her to force his will on her. She would come to him, and he would have his revenge.

Hunger gripped him each time he woke, so that pain and hunger melted together and became the same. Concentrating on finding the path to the woman, however, saved him some agony. His focus was so complete that he could actually block the pain for a short while. First it was only seconds. Then minutes. Each time he woke, he bent his will toward finding her; there was nothing else to do. Months. Years. It didn’t matter to him. She could not escape him forever.

The first time he touched her mind, it was such a shock after all the thousands of fruitless tries that he immediately lost contact. And the rush of elation caused a bright red spray of blood to erupt around the stake buried deep within his body, draining his remaining strength. He slept a long time in an attempt to recover. A week perhaps. A month. There was no need to measure time. He had a direction now, although she was far away from him. The distance was so great, it took his full concentration to focus and reach for her across time and space.

Jacques tried again when he woke. This time he was unprepared for the images in her mind. Blood. A small human chest ripped wide open. A pulsating heart. Her hands were immersed inside the chest cavity, covered in blood. There were others in the room with her, and she was directing their movements with her mind. She seemed unaware that she was doing so. Her focus was completely on her horrendous task. The ease with which she directed the others suggested that she did so often. The vivid pictures were horrible, and he knew she had been part of the betrayal, was part of those torturing him. He nearly lost the contact, but his indomitable will kicked in. She would suffer for this. Really suffer for this. The body she was torturing was so small, it had to be a child.

The operating room was dimly lit, just the way Dr. O’Halloran liked it; only the body on the table had a bright light shining down on it. Her unusually acute hearing picked up voices outside the room: a nurse consoling the patient’s parents. “You’re lucky Dr. O’Halloran is working tonight. She’s the best there is. She has a gift. Really. When there’s no chance at all, she still pulls them out. Your little boy couldn’t be in better hands.”

“But he looked so awful.” That was the terrified, already grieving mother.

“Dr. O’Halloran has been known to work miracles. Truly. Have faith. She just never stops until she saves them. We think she wills them to live.”

Shea O’Halloran couldn’t have any distractions right now, certainly not a nurse promising parents she could save this child with his chest crushed and his internal organs a jigsaw puzzle. Not when she had spent the last forty-eight hours solid doing research, and her body was screaming at her for sleep and nourishment. She blocked out all noises, all voices, and focused completely on the task at hand. She would not lose this little boy. She wouldn’t. It was that simple to her. She never gave herself any other choice, never allowed any other thought into her mind. She had a good team, knew they worked well with her, meshing like a finely tuned machine. She never had to look to see if they were reacting to what she wanted or needed; they were always there for her. If she was able to save her patients, where others couldn’t, it wasn’t by her efforts alone.

She bent closer to the little boy, pushing out everything but her desire for this child to live. As she was reaching to take the instrument her nurse was handing her, something struck at her. Pain gripped her, consumed her, sweeping through her body like a terrible fire. She had felt such agony only one other time, a couple of years earlier. She had never managed to discover what had been wrong with her. The pain had simply disappeared after nearly twenty-four hours. Now, with a child’s life hanging by a thread, depending upon her skills, she did not have the luxury of fainting. Agony gripped her, twisted her insides, and took the breath from her lungs. Shea struggled to control herself; years of forcing her mind to remain under strict discipline stood her in good stead. As she did with every other distraction, she forced the pain out of her mind, took a deep breath, and concentrated on the child.

The nurse closest to her regarded the doctor with complete shock. In all the time she had worked with O’Halloran, admiring her, almost idolizing her, she had never seen the surgeon lose her focus, not even for a second. This time, Shea had stood perfectly still—a few heartbeats, that was all—but the nurse couldn’t help noticing because it was so unusual. Her hands had trembled, and she had broken out in a sweat. Automatically the nurse reached up to wipe the moisture from the doctor’s forehead. To her horror, the cloth came away stained with blood. Droplets were beading up, seeping through her pores. The nurse wiped the surgeon’s forehead a second time, attempting to hide the cloth from the others. She had never seen anything like it.

Then Shea was once more herself snapping instantly back to attention. The nurse swallowed all her questions and returned to work, the images of what Dr. O’Halloran needed coming into her mind so fast, she had no time to think about the strange phenomenon anymore. She had long ago become used to knowing what the doctor needed before she asked for it.

Shea felt an unfamiliar presence in her mind, felt the dark malevolence beating at her for one more heartbeat before she closed it out, then her attention was completely taken up with the child and the shredded jumble that was his chest. He would not die. She would not allow it. You hear me, child? I’m here with you, and I will not let you die he silently vowed. She meant it. She always meant it. It was as if part of her merged with her patients and somehow managed to keep them alive until modern medicine could kick in.