He shot a clear solution into my trembling veins and once more, I recoiled into blackness.

Upon arriving in the province of the Picts, Saint Columba had to cross the River Ness. Reaching its bank, he saw a poor fellow being buried by other inhabitants, who reported that, while swimming not long before, the victim had been seized and most savagely bitten by a water beast. When Saint Columba heard this, he ordered that one of his companions should swim out and bring back to him a boat that stood on the opposite bank. Hearing this order of the holy and memorable man, Lugne mocu-Min obeyed without delay, and putting off his clothes, excepting his tunic, plunged into the water. But the monster, whose appetite had earlier been not so much sated as whetted for prey, lurked in the depths. Feeling the water above disturbed by Lugne's swimming, it suddenly swam up to the surface, and with gaping mouth and with great roaring rushed towards the man swimming in the middle of the Ness. While all that were there, barbarians and even the brothers, were struck down with extreme terror, Saint Columba raised his holy hand and drew the saving sign of the cross in the empty air; and then, invoking the name of God, he commanded the savage beast, and said: "You will go no farther. Do not touch the man; turn back speedily." Hearing this command, the beast, as if pulled back with ropes, fled terrified into Loch Ness in swift retreat. The pagan barbarians, impelled by the magnitude of this miracle, magnified the God of the Christians.

—FROM SAINT ADAMNAN'S BIOGRAPHY OF SAINT COLUMBA, ABBOT OF IONA, A.D. 565

Chapter 3

St. Mary's Hospital
West Palm Beach, Florida

Pain and confusion greeted me that first morning after escaping my second drowning. It was bright wherever I was, and I forced open my eyes, then thrashed wildly, panicking, when I discovered I couldn't move.

Several frightening moments passed before I realized I was in a hospital room. Tubes were embedded in my veins, my wrists and ankles strapped to the sides of the bed.

The change in vital signs must have alerted the nurses' station. A Jamaican woman entered, her dialect like a child's nursery rhyme. "So, you've decided to wake. I was sure we'd lost you, heaven's sake."

I tried to speak, but something was obstructing my parched throat.

"Try not to move, Mr. Wallace. You've a badly bruised sternum and two cracked ribs, all from the CPR. You saved that other man you know."

Hank? Did she mean Hank?

"Don't know his name, but he's two doors down. So I guess that makes you a hero."

"Harghra longre hag eye—" Frustrated, I gestured at the tube as best I could with my still strapped hands.