Beauty and the Beast (48 page)

Nina was smiling as she said, “It sounds like you really enjoyed that snack! Vincent, it has done our whole community a world of good to know how happy you are!

We needed healing after so many years of being separated from you by violence. Your relationship with Catherine has become legendary in our community from the experiences Elisia has shared with us as she has helped you both. We are all going to be thrilled to see you reunited with Catherine today when she wakes up.”

When Vincent, carrying Catherine, and Tony stepped off the elevator into the living room, the others, including Dresden, were already waiting to go to the healing chamber. Letha asked Vincent, “Were you and Catherine comfortable, Vincent?”

Vincent smiled at his aunt. “Aunt Letha, comfortable is a totally inadequate word! That was pure luxury!

Thank you so much. We both rested very well.” Letha smiled happily.

Tanimus spoke up and said, “Everyone else is headed for the healing chamber now. Are you ready to wake your little wife up, Vincent?”

Vincent replied, “I’m ready and anxious, Uncle Tanimus!”

Just as Vincent said that, Catherine became fretful in

his arms. She began struggling as he held her firmly, and then she cried out, “No!” Vincent looked at her in shock.

It was the first word she had spoken since she had been rescued, but he could feel that this was not a good thing. Then, she became limp again. Tanimus and Elisia rushed to Vincent, and they put their hands on Catherine’s head and shoulders.

Elisia said, “Uncle Tanimus, we need to hurry and get Vincent to the healing chamber with her. She is having a crisis, and Vincent needs to get into her mind as quickly as possible to pull her out of this.”

The group left the home and rushed, without discussion, through the corridors. They ended their journey at a small round chamber the Tandins had carved out of the tunnels. This chamber was completely encircled by a wide outer corridor, with candle lamps on the walls, and large comfortable recliners all the way around. The candles had been infused with natural vanilla and lavender essential oil, and the scent was very calming. Inside the round chamber, in the center, there was a large adjustable bed. All around the top of the circular wall was a ring of softly glowing lights. This chamber had been painted a soothing shade of robin-egg-blue with fluffy white clouds. There was a strange black panel suspended from the ceiling of the chamber over the top of the bed. A remote control panel was on a pedestal beside the bed.

The others, both from Father’s world and the Tandin world were already there waiting, and they listened quietly as Tanimus began explaining the procedure. “Vincent and Catherine will be inside this chamber, and the rest of us will form a circle in the outer corridor surrounding the room. You twenty who are from Father’s world have already established telepathic links with Elisia and our other family members. Now, you just need to relax your minds and think positive thoughts about Vincent and Catherine. Try to imagine Catherine waking up and being reunited with Vincent. You will feel the power of our joined minds, but no one will be reading anyone’s mind. We will simply be harnessing the collective faith and healing power of our joined minds.”

Tanimus then addressed Vincent. “Vincent, you need to stay in physical contact with Catherine, and then enter her mind and participate in her nightmares to bring her out of the coma. This is the same thing you have been doing all along for Catherine from Elisia’s instructions.

We will simply be helping to strengthen your own mental power as you do so this time. We will not be in her mind with you, so whatever occurs will be private between you and Catherine.”

Elisia further explained, “Our doctors are going to be monitoring both your vital signs and Catherine’s after I set this remote control for the scanner over the bed. If your life is threatened, we will need to break your connection with her.”

Vincent looked at Elisia in alarm and said, “No! Don’t break my connection with her, no matter what appears to be happening!”

Elisia looked very worried. “Vincent, this will be a much more intense trip into her mind than any you have ever experienced before. The adrenalin rush alone will put a tremendous strain on your heart, and you have not received the proper training throughout your life to do this. You have endured a terrible ordeal yourself, Vincent, and you are still not back at your peak physically yet. You could die!”

Vincent was immovable. “I will have your added mental and emotional support, and I will have the strength of my love for Catherine and her love for me. Stabilize our bodies, if you must, but don’t break our connection. I’m not coming out of her mind without her! She is my life! Without her, there is nothing but darkness!”

Father spoke up at that point. “That is nearly precisely what Catherine said to me about you when I tried to stop her from risking the danger of going after you in the lower cave when your mind had been shattered by Paracelsus. Elisia, there was no point in arguing with Catherine then, and there is no point in arguing with Vincent now. Vincent, just don’t forget that you have a child who needs you out here.”

Vincent looked at Father as he said, “He needs both of us, Father, and he is safe with his family now, in both

worlds. I’m ready to face any abyss, no matter how terrifying or life threatening, to bring Catherine home.” Elisia put her hand on her brother’s arm. “Vincent, at least promise me that if you get into trouble, you will call out to me. I will be there if you do.”

Vincent smiled down at his sister. “I promise you I will do that, Elisia.”

Just then, an elderly human couple came into the chamber. The man was of average height and slender build with steel grey hair. On his arm was a beautiful petite woman with white hair wound on top of her head. Tanimus and Letha walked quickly to the couple to assist them. Letha exclaimed, “Mother and Daddy, you should have asked us to come and help you come here! We didn’t think you were up to this.”

Letha’s mother smiled at her daughter. “You didn’t think we were going to miss out on the opportunity to participate in helping our grandchildren, did you?”

Vincent was overjoyed to see his grandparents. He gently settled Catherine on the bed and then approached them. They both looked so frail, he was afraid he might crush them if he hugged them too hard. However, his grandfather hugged him with surprising strength. His little grandmother was fragile, though, and Vincent was very careful with her as he hugged her. They both were overcome with emotion, and tears were running down their cheeks.

Tanimus introduced them to the group. “These are

Letha’s parents, Doreen and Porter. Since you are now here, Daddy Porter, you are the senior member of our group. Would you like to offer a prayer for us before we start this healing session?”

Porter smiled with happiness at being asked to pray for the group. He proceeded to ask for divine help in supporting their efforts to heal Catherine and wake her up. Father and Peter then followed Elisia to the remote control panel, and she showed them how to program the monitor for Vincent and Catherine, so that their vital signs were then being transmitted to the clinic chamber. Then, Vincent settled on the partially raised bed, with Catherine in his arms, as he waited for the group to establish their healing connection in the outer corridor.

When the group filed into the outer corridor, Elisia arranged everyone so that they were beside and between those they each had the strongest emotional connections with. There were now a total of thirty-two humans and Tandins. That was enough that they could all hold hands in a complete circle in the corridor around the chamber Vincent and Catherine were in. She explained, as she arranged them, that they would hold hands long enough to establish the healing connection with Vincent, and then they could just relax and think positive happy thoughts while relaxing in the easy chairs. When they were all positioned with hands joined, it wasn’t more than a few minutes before everyone in Father’s group could feel

positive energy washing over them like a warm blanket. It was a feeling they would find difficult to describe later, just as Tanimus had told them it would be.

Inside the chamber, as Vincent held Catherine, he felt that warm blanket of healing energy enveloping both of them. He knew that the time had come now for him to enter Catherine’s nightmare world for the last time, to rescue her, and to bring her home.

Vincent closed his eyes—and leaped into the abyss.

When Vincent opened his eyes again, he found himself on Catherine’s balcony, where she had lived before she was kidnapped by Gabriel. When he looked through the balcony doors into her apartment, he was shocked by what he saw. Catherine was standing on the other side of her bed with tears streaming down her cheeks. Her entire demeanor was one of a child who was being harshly scolded. There was absolutely none of the confidence that Vincent had helped her to cultivate. He could see that her spirit was crushed. What was even worse was that every scar that had been removed from her pretty face by plastic surgery after her attack was back on her face. They were

glaring red reminders of the vicious violence she had suffered at the hands of the cruel criminals who had abducted her and slashed her face.

The man she had been engaged to before that attack, Tom Gunther, was standing over her and yelling at her, while she just looked at the floor. He had dark wavy hair and was a little over average in height. His haughty look actually made him quite ugly. He screamed, “Marrying you was the only way I could get your father’s backing for the shopping center project! No one else wanted you with those ugly scars! Now, I’m beginning to wonder if it was worth it! Well, I’m stuck with you, and you are going to go with me and smile for everyone at this party I’m hosting for the project, or I will make you really sorry when we get home! Now, use plenty of make-up to cover up that hideous face of yours! I don’t want anyone else knowing what a loser I married! Am I making myself clear?”

Catherine answered meekly through her tears, “Yes, Tom. Ill get ready to go right now.”

With that, Tom Gunther stormed out of the room. Catherine walked with abject sadness to the end of the bed and sank onto it, covered her face with her hands, and began weeping. Vincent had been so shocked by this nightmare, that he had simply stared at the scene, frozen in place on the balcony. Now, he took action. He opened Catherine’s balcony doors and walked quickly to Catherine. Vincent kneeled in front of her at the end of her bed, and then he gently took her hands away from her

face. Catherine just stared at Vincent as if she didn’t know who he was, but she wasn’t frightened by him either.

Vincent spoke gently to her. “Catherine, you do know who I am, don’t you?”

Catherine nodded her head sadly. “Of course, I do.

You are Vincent, a figment of my imagination.”

Vincent was totally unprepared for that response. “What?”

Catherine explained, “You aren’t real. My therapist says that I made you up as a way of dealing with the trauma of my attack, and with my insecurities, and with my inadequacies.”

Vincent shook his head as he tried to figure out how to deal with this nightmare. “Catherine, there is nothing inadequate about you! You are a strong, confident, capable woman with a generous heart. You deserve much more than rough treatment from a man who thinks of you as a possession or a commodity to be exploited. You are my wife, not his, and I love you with all of my heart! Besides, you were your father’s whole world. He would never have paid an horrible man like Tom Gunther to take you off his hands!”

Catherine countered with, “No one who is real could possibly love me! Look at my face. I’m ugly!” She looked down at the floor again with a completely defeated expression.

Vincent put an hand under her chin and lifted her face, so he could look into her eyes. “Catherine, you are the most beautiful woman on earth to me. Even if these scars were really still visible as you see them now, you would still be beautiful to me. I thought that you were the loveliest woman I had ever seen when I found you with your face slashed in Central Park. I had no idea then that the damage could be repaired, and I adored you anyway!”

Catherine didn’t seem to comprehend what Vincent was telling her. A look of fear passed over her face as she cried out, “Oh, I mustn’t just sit here now! I have to get ready to go with Tom to that party he is hosting. If I don’t get ready right away, he will be angry, and he will yell at me some more!” Catherine jumped up, leaving Vincent still kneeling on the floor, and ran to the closet. She opened it and started searching for a dress to wear to the party.

Vincent realized that he was going to have to do something quickly, or he was going to lose her to this nightmare. He decided that actions might speak louder to her injured soul than words. He stood up, strode to the closet, and swept Catherine off her feet and up into his arms. Vincent took her back to the bed and sat down on the end of it with her on his lap.

Catherine looked up into Vincent’s face with big fearful eyes. “What if Tom returns, and I’m not ready to go?”

Vincent was firm when he replied. “Catherine, if that man shows up here and tries to bother you, I will toss him out on his ear!”

Catherine just blinked at him. Then Vincent put his hands on either side of Catherine’s scarred face, and he began tenderly kissing each and every angry red scar on her face. She closed her eyes and smiled blissfully. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck as this nightmare lost its grip on her. The scars faded from Catherine’s face, and their lips met in a passionate kiss as she sighed and relaxed in Vincent’s arms.

When their lips parted, Catherine laid her head on Vincent’s chest and asked, “Vincent, what am I doing here? I feel very confused, like my life is a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces scattered all over the place and out of order. I should be with you, I think, but somehow I’m not.”