Prologue
Bradley Booth lay on the Gurney in the emergency room, unable to breathe. Just before someone snapped shut the curtain to the adjoining cubicle, he caught a glimpse of a man covered with blood, his body like a heap of discarded clothes. The man moaned piteously. Suddenly, Brad’s pain stopped.
From somewhere up near the ceiling, Frank Willard looked down on his body. Cut, twisted, crushed. A man and two women in surgical green worked on it frantically. They had to bring it back to life. They had to. Oh, my God, he was only thirty-four.
He became aware of someone hovering beside him. A guy about his age. He glanced down to the Gurney in the space next to his. The guy’s body looked perfectly natural—except that it was slightly swollen, and the color seemed drained from the face.
“He’s gonna make it,” a voice said. “By damn he’s going to make it.”
Was he going to make it! Frank thought. He didn’t know how, but maybe so. Quickly, he swooped downward... Quickly, Brad swooped downward. But something felt different, he thought. A fullness!
Something felt different, Frank thought.
Frank blacked out.
Brad blacked out.
