“Hold it down,” Shadow ordered, and both Hawk and Emile moved to obey. They grabbed the flailing arms and pressed them down against the cold morgue-metal. The body gave a sudden surge, as if it were being shocked, and sudden warmth spread beneath Hawk’s grip on Henry’s dead wrist. The hot, red flush of blood began to spread like paint through water, and dreadful, guttural moans began in the dead man’s throat.

  Shadow waited throughout it all, holding the transparent bundle of energies that was Henry’s mind. The body shuddered and danced, slamming the dead head back against the metal. Emile released the flailing arm and placed their hands between the beloved skull and the metal bed beneath. There was one muttered Ow, but there they stayed. Hawk climbed up upon the metal bed and grabbed the other wrist, holding both down as best she could. The angle was awkward. Her back began to ache nearly immediately.

  Then, with a breathtaking suddenness, the body ceased being dead. Hawk thought this was good, felt a relief. Then the body opened its eyes. It, she thought, not his, because there was nothing in those eyes. A terrible blankness, an absence of any thought. What was endearing on the infant was horrifying now. She felt reflex try to move the limbs in her grasp, but there was no true strength attached.

  Shadow moved now. “Step out of the way, Emile,” He said, and they obeyed, already starting to weep. The horror Hawk felt was plain on their face, an indelible stamp of reality’s boot, hope gone rancid and slick against touch.

  “He’s not there,” they sobbed.

  “No. Not yet. Stand aside.” And his hands, his dreadful alien hands, brought the glowing wreath of light down upon Henry’s temples like a crown. There was another dreadful moment where the energy didn’t go in, and Hawk felt sure that it wouldn’t, that her friend would stay dead, that all of this had been for nothing. Then, gloriously, the tendrils of light began to sink into Henry’s flesh. It wove through the warp of his substance, recreating memory, feeling, emotion, perception. The guttural noises the body made became more purposeful. And then he began to scream.

  Shadow, his hands now free, grabbed Henry’s shoulders and pressed them against the morgue bed. “Emile, Hawk, keep him from hurting himself,” he said. “This part is painful.”

  Emile hesitated, then looked to the beloved face. Henry’s expression was no longer slack, but pained, mouth open in a scream so intense it was nearly silent, and then they moved back to their spot at the side, holding down a wrist as Henry’s back arched against the pressures of return.

  It’s not going to work, Hawk thought, frantic. It’s been too long. We waited too long. Everything will fail. Grim against this self-doubt, Hawk forced her hands to obey, to hold onto the beloved flesh until she knew failure was inescapable. And she was wrong, because the struggles against her began to still. The screaming ebbed, then died entirely, and Henry lay panting on the metal morgue bed, looking up at the ceiling with articulate eyes.

  “Yes, yes. Give him a moment. Coming back to life is its own birth, and the labor pains are real.”

  “You didn’t say this would hurt him,” Emile said, nastily. They looked ready to go for a jugular.

  “He was already hurt, Em. He didn’t truly feel it because death and shock numbed it out. Now he can feel the stabbing clean, if only as a memory. Now it’s fading. He’s remembering who he is.”

  And then Henry rolled his body purposefully to one side and spat out the orb fragment, curiously dulled, onto the floor. Then he dry heaved multiple times, each rolling convulsion precisely unlike the cold white noise of a seizure. Then, as the heaves faded, he rolled back onto the morgue bed and looked up apologetically at Shadow. “No offense, dude,” He said, his voice a dry rustle of leaves, a parched desert of flesh, “But I’m not eating that shit.”

  Emile wailed. In it was all the grief they didn’t vent, all the hope they had not allowed themselves. It all burst forward like the breaking of a dam, and they flung their bare arms around Henry’s neck and began sobbing as if their broken heart weren’t mending as they spoke. “You were dead,” was the most coherent thing they managed.

  Surprised into wordlessness, Henry put his own arms around Emile and held them close. “Hey,” he rasped. “It’s okay. I’m here. Everything’s fine.” He paused. Swallowed. Began rubbing their shuddering form up and down the bare tracery of backbone. This only made them sob harder, driven out of language by the grief they hadn’t permitted themselves. Now it spilled out, the abscess burst, just when it was no longer necessary.

  Henry, perplexed but smiling, turned his head up towards the Shadow. “I don’t suppose I could get water?”

  Shadow, laughing, said, “We’ll find you a bottle.”

  Emile, offended, lifted their head from Henry’s shoulder. “You’re seriously talking about water at a time like this?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Babe, please,” he croaked. “It’s been a couple days since I’ve had anything to drink. Water, please?”

  ***

  They got him water. And they got him a wheelchair and a medical gown, and he was wheeled over to the medics who were rather perplexed and shocked that the dead body from the morgue was now walking (well, sitting), talking, and guzzling bottles of water as if these were going out of style. Captain Spectre was complained to. He arrived, looked at Henry breathing, and gave the formerly dead man a hug.

  “Welcome back to the living,” he said.

  Henry was looking at the man, musingly. “I thought for sure my memory would just…cut out from where I had that last implant. But you were there, weren’t you? You were there when I…died?” he hesitated, then made a face after spitting out the lethal word.

  “And it was one of the worst things I’d ever seen. Glad to have you back, man,” Spectre said. Then he turned to Mattias, who was also in a wheelchair and a medical gown, and gave him a solid slap on the shoulder. “You too, sir. I trust you’re the only occupant in your cranium?”

  “I am well,” the former Archon managed, with all the dignity once awarded his former station. This was marred by the hospital gown; it had little smiley faces printed in egg-yolk yellow.

  The two celebrated invalids were brought to the open room of beds, some of which were now occupied as triage was completed. Shadow frowned at this, and left the little gathering to speak to a medic. Shortly after, a steel frame and curtains were brought forward and arranged around two of the beds to create some makeshift privacy. “We’ll see about having them moved to an actual hospital soon,” Spectre said, by way of apology. “They’re just…all full, right now. From the evacuation and Glass Exposure.”

  Words that reminded Hawk this crisis went beyond her own personal fears. Henry seemed to have his own revelation along those lines, because he turned to Spectre and said, “That shouldn’t be necessary. I feel fine. I feel better than fine.”

  “You’re going to a real hospital and that’s the end of it,” Emile said. They were still naked from the waist up. Someone had given them a medical gown, perhaps thinking that their shirt had been ruined by the resurrection ritual, and they were wearing it like a duster. Their medical gown was covered in small roses. It looked like blood splatter, and was inadvertently perfect for the enby scientist.

  “Says the person dressed up like a BDSM scarecrow,” Henry said, smiling. Then he added, “My person?” with a little bit of extra lift on the end.

  “Your person, and you’re my person, and don’t we forget it for one minute,” Emile said fearcely, and leaned in to kiss Henry, though they first locked the wheels on his chair.

  Henry broke the kiss off. “People are watching, love.”

  “Good,” They said, and went back to passionate PDA.

  And then Shadow said, “So, perhaps we should discuss it being…well. My turn?” And he once more produced the vial of Mentaphen.

  “What?” Henry said, and then spotted the vial. “Oh, hell no, dude. That’s not worth it.”

  “It is the better option, I think. A restoration of what should have never been lost. Not so different from what you have been through.”

  “It’s the hell I went through,” Henry said.

  Mattias, who had not been made aware of Mentaphen, said “What are we talking about?”

  Hawk spoke first, keeping the Shadow from presenting the substance as anything good. “It’s something like what Kaiser stabbed you with, that put Henry in your brain. Only this is meant to be permanent.”

  “And to blot out the host personality,” Henry said, musingly. “And now that I think about it, I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts this shit is what Kaiser was working towards. His own immortality serum. Why the hell didn’t I see that before?”

  “You hadn’t died, before,” Mattias said. “And yes. I could see a god of limited life agreeing to sacrifice the lives of others to sustain their own life.”

  “You view Kaiser as a god?” Hawk said.

  “As something like them,” Mattias agreed. “Not as powerful, not as immortal, but very much alike in morality.” And Hawk felt you’d have to know Mattias to understand how far from a compliment these statements were. Gods were not good or kind in Mattias’s philosophy. “So why are we entertaining this poison?”

  Offended, Shadow said, “It isn’t poison. It’s all that remains of Alex West.” A pause. “And I want it.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Hawk managed. It was either that or start screaming.

  “Shouldn’t I? Alex West’s life is enviable. For one, he never met a god in person, never suffered the loss of his self to their greed. He did not endure the centuries alone. He has lost no battles. He has no great power to lurk beneath his every action, has never had to fight himself to avoid becoming like the gods. He never faced corruption.”

  “Dude,” Emile interjected into this speech. “The guy was a con-artist. He defined corruption.”

  “But he made good, did he not?” there were nearly tears in the Shadow’s eyes. “Can’t you see? I want to be a good man, not a misbegotten wreckage. Hawk, surely you can see it?”

  A plan had begun to form. Not that it sprang full formed from this moment, an Athena from his speech’s brow. Hawk’d had the pieces the first time around, when panic and confusion had driven all to bits. Now they solidified, a super-solution of action gone critical in an instant. She also knew this plan was not entirely right. She was going to have to do something terrible. And she had to do it. Because otherwise…otherwise…

  You’ll lose him. You know you’ll lose him.

  “Yes,” She said, as her plan coalesced into place. She held out a hand. “I’ll even do it for you. Why don’t you hand it to me?”

  Alex, practiced con-artist, would have known better. Shadow, showing he wasn’t that at all, handed it over with a sigh of relief. He sat down in a chair while a chorus of no’s echoed through the room. It clearly disturbed even the other patients. But Hawk knew she had to be resolute. Stiffen her spine. Act as if she were going for an Oscar.

  She started towards his chair and paused. Set the vial down on a nearby table. “I need to get a syringe. Give me a moment.” And she walked towards the entrance of this ward-room, which also happened to pass directly by Captain Spectre.

  And his side arm.

  She took a deep breath. Deep and slow. She would need to be perfectly calm for this. Then, in a singular smooth motion, she grabbed the gun and whirled around, aiming as best she could. She fired two shots, clean. One went into the table surface, through it, into the floor below.

  The other shot blasted the bottle of Mentaphen into smithereens and mist.