by Laura Emmons
“I will always rush in to save you, Mags…always. I’d take fifty bullets for you, Margaret MacDougall, and I always will.”
I sighed. There was no point in arguing. I’d take fifty bullets for him, too. Resigning myself, I gathered information. “Where the hell did you go?”
He answered simply, “Scottish Mount, North Carolina.”
“Why did you go there?”
“I wanted to follow up on a hunch. The Poets said something on the vernal equinox. I went to the source to get clarification. It’s so cool down there.”
“What’s in Scottish Mount?”
“Supposedly the headquarters of the entire Coven of Appalachia is in Scottish Mount. I went to talk to their Poets.”
“Did you find what you wanted?”
“I think so. I found their Great Poet. He talked to me.”
“So, what is it?”
“You’ll find out soon.” He smiled mysteriously.
I would have pressed the issue but at that moment, someone knocked on the door. I got off Evan’s legs and resumed my position next to him on the bed. “Come in,” I called.
Corey slowly opened the door and poked his head around it. “Hey,” he said, “can I come in?”
“Of course you can, kiddo. Come and sit here,” I motioned to a place next to me on the bed. To Evan I said, “Can you slide over a bit?”
He looked amused that I had taken over making all the decisions in his room, but complied.
Corey took a seat next to me. I reached out to give him a hug but he beat me to it. He squeezed for all he was worth. My heart went out to him. He’d suffered so much for someone so young. I squeezed him back.
“Hey, I’m okay…all right? I was never in danger of being seriously hurt; I just tired myself out and needed some sleep.”
He looked into my face. “You needed twenty-seven and one-half hours of sleep. That’s a LOT of shut-eye.”
“Really? I was out for that long?”
Both of them nodded at me. Wow.
Corey turned to Evan. “So how are you doing today? I thought Fi had lost it for sure when she said she needed to cut you open again to get the bullet out, but you look a lot better.”
“Thanks to the MacDougall family, I’m good. I’m a little sore, but I’ll be fine. How about you? Now Mags is back, are you ready to tell us what happened?”
“Yeah, sure,” he looked at me and mouthed, ‘You scared me’.
I mouthed back, ‘I’m sorry’.
He nodded and took a deep breath.
I urged him, “Start at the point where I stayed with Evan and you took off after Madison.”
“Okay, well you said not to hurt her, but after she tried to shoot me, and did shoot him, I decided, screw that, so I chased after her. She was crazy upset. We had been standing right inside the clearing but outside the standing stones. She took off running for the arch the gods use, so I’m chasing her and who comes out of the arch but that blue back itch.” He paused to see if I would admonish him for his use of language.
I didn’t. She was a back itch.
He continued, “Madison’s screaming ‘Save me’ and so Ariana picked her up and flew off with her. I was so pissed I still ran after them. I changed direction and headed for the trail which runs up the mountain, but before I could get out of the clearing these tiny guys with wings and goatees started sneezing on me. I said, ‘Hey!’ but then I started floating. Dariene came out of her arch and picked me up by the waistband of my pants. I tell her to follow the blue back itch and she does. Now both Madison and I are being carried up the side of the mountain. I can see Ariana’s gonna set her down on the top of the mountain and I’m not gonna catch her, but Dariene pulls this wicked end-around and gets to the top first, so Madison pulls out that dang gun and starts firing. Dariene pulls me back up and starts bobbing and weaving. Madison’s aim is sherbet. Every time she fires the gun she gets thrown back several feet because you have no leverage when you’re floating in air. At one point, I thought Ariana was going to drop her. The tiny goatee guys started flying interference for me. It was so cool!”
I wasn’t amused.
He wiped the grin off his face, quickly. “Anyway, I start counting shots so I know when she’ll run out of ammo…”
“How did you know how many bullets she had?”
“It was simple. She held a Sig-Sauer P228 9mm, so she had thirteen shots total. She’d already fired one, so I started counting.”
“Where did you learn about a Sig-Sauer P-whatever-thingy?” I was appalled.
Corey scoffed. “Video games, dude.” Like everyone would understand that. I vowed silently to take a good look at his video game collection when we got home, but he’d returned to his story.
“So finally, the dimwit figures out she can’t aim unless she’s on the ground. She yells for Ariana to drop her. I’ve counted eleven shots so far. She fires one more time before she’s on her feet. She fires while standing on the trail and the blowback throws her on her butt. Then she gets it. She sets herself on her knees, uses both hands on the gun and takes aim. She would’ve hit me for sure, but she’d run out of ammo. I tell Dariene to put me down on the ground. She does and I take off running down the trail toward Madison. Madison pulls the trigger but nothing happens. I’m screaming and charging her so she starts running back down the hill. Then she trips on a root and goes sailing over the edge. Didn’t you see this part in a dream?” he asked me.
I guess I did.
“So I look over the side of the mountain and there’s no aura…all gone. I guess Ariana figured that out too, because she starts yelling and swooping down on me. I’m ready. I want to get my hands on the back itch. I grab her forearm and try like hefalump to cook her.”
“What happened?” I asked, holding my breath.
“Nothing,” he said dejectedly, “I got hurt and she didn’t. She just laughed at me and twisted out of my grasp. She said I couldn’t kill someone who’s already dead. She said something about how dare I try to harm the godhead and she’d be back for me. Then she flew away and I walked back down the hill.”
“I’m so sorry, Corey.”
“Yeah, I’m okay now.”
“What about Madison?” I asked. “What about her family?”
“She didn’t have any family,” Evan said. “Her story’s a pretty sad one. The council will see she gets a proper burial.”
“What’s her story?” I asked, feeling sorry for the woman, even though she’d hated me.
“I know it,” said Corey, looking down at his hands. “I’ve been seeing bits and pieces of it all year.”
“Okay, Corey, why don’t you tell it then?” I had the feeling he needed to get all of this off his chest so he could put it behind him.
“I guess it really started when she was six years old,” he said softly. “She was playing with a ball outside and her dad was cleaning out the gutters. Her ball rolled under the ladder and she ran after it. She accidentally bumped the ladder and it collapsed. Her dad landed weird and broke his neck on a garden wall. It was an accident, but her mother never thought so. Her mother started drinking heavily and Madison’s childhood was really crappy. After a while she believed her father’s death was her fault, because her mom told her it was, like, every day. Her mom died of liver disease when Madison was sixteen, and she barely grieved. She went to live with relatives, but they feared her. Everyone thought she was cursed. She’d gone all Goth, so it didn’t help her image. As soon as she could drive, she started sneaking out at night. She hid in the Yule cave, because no one went there the other 364 days of the year. One day, Ariana visited her. Ariana convinced her to be a spy. When Evan became the Great Seer, Ariana convinced Madison to try and date him. She became obsessed with him. Sorry, dude,” he said to Evan, who just shrugged. “Anyway, Ariana started using compulsion to make Madison do all kinds of gross things,” he shuddered and I decided to let him skip that part. My poor brother had been traumatized enough. “She’d started this cam
paign to get Evan to notice her, but you came here for the summer, and you know the rest.”
“What a sad story,” I sighed.
“Yeah,” said Corey, “but it still doesn’t give her the right to try and kill us. So anyway, are you going to be okay?”
“Oh yes,” I said, more brightly than I felt. “I just need sleep. It’ll be all better tomorrow.”
“All right, I’m gonna find someone to take me home. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you, Corey.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Then, after a few seconds he said, “me too.”
***
After Corey left, a wave of total exhaustion hit me.
“I agree,” Evan said. “We should go to sleep.”
I crawled under the covers. He handed one of the pillows to me and shimmied down so he could lie next to me. I wanted to crawl up and bury my face in his chest, but I couldn’t take a chance of aggravating his injuries, so I settled for grasping his hand and sleeping by his side.
Epilog
May Day
Four days passed before Evan was able to get up and move around on his own. I did not sit idly while he recuperated. When I’d returned from spending a second night at the Keach house, I found our home a bustle of activity. Fiona talked on the phone in the kitchen, Steve barked orders from the living room, and Rose and Pat worked on the Internet in her office.
“What’s happening?” I asked Steve.
“You told me a battle is coming and I need to be ready to fight, but you have no idea how much effort is required to prepare for battle. I talked with Fiona and we agreed we need to have a few fundamentals in place. Since we have no idea when to expect an attack, I figured we should get started soon.”
“Wow…what fundamentals are you talking about?”
“The first thing we’ve agreed to work on is setting up a medical facility. The incident with you and Madison really brought home how inadequate our preparations are to deal with multiple simultaneous injuries. Fiona wants a triage facility set up somewhere close to the crossed rings and a more comprehensive treatment center built nearby. I need to make sure you guys, especially your brother, have a security detail in place before I go to college. Rose and Pat are working on supplies and logistics. Welcome home, by the way, how do you feel?”
“Ready to go,” I said absently, marveling at the organization he’d put together in such a short time. “What can I do?”
“You should ask Fiona. It’s good to have you up and about.”
“Okay, thanks, Steve.” Still overwhelmed by all of the noise and motion around me, I wandered into the kitchen.
Fiona nodded hello when I got there. I waited for her to finish the call.
“All right, Bob…I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” She hung up and turned to me. “There you are. All better?”
I nodded yes.
“Good. Steve’s found a place he thinks we can use as a treatment facility. Do you want to check it out with me?”
“That sounds great.”
On her way out the door she called to Steve, “Call your dad and find out if he can arrange a full council meeting in Evan’s room in two hours. I want Corey declared coveted before sunset. How goes the protection detail?”
“Sure thing, Fi. It’s all coming together. We’ll keep him safe. Don’t worry.”
***
Fiona drove us in her truck until we reached the outskirts of Great Cacapon. She turned right on the first cross street we came to inside the village limits and announced we’d reached our destination. She followed a dirt road which looked like it hadn’t seen any use in a long time and rounded a copse of trees that hid the house from the road. It was the most interesting structure I’d seen yet in Morgan County. Santa Monica had such a variety of architectural styles of residences I’d become a bit of an amateur architecture buff. I’d label this house as a cross between a Mid-century Ranch style house and a log cabin. The upper floor was one continuous structure, but since the house was literally built into a hill, the bottom level was separated into two sections connected by a glass-walled corridor.
“Once we finish the basements off, it’ll be almost 1,800 square feet of useable space on a two-acre lot.”
“It’s nice. How much does it cost?”
“For you, it’s free. Evan agreed to sign the property over to you, since you should have inherited it anyway.”
“How many properties do our family own?”
“Since we’ve had so many untimely deaths, I’d have to say quite a few. This house belonged to Ewan and Margaret.”
“Do you mean Grandpa and Grandma Stewart?”
“That’s right. They passed away within a few months of each other and no one could decide what to do with their possessions. This house was transferred to Logan. When he died, in accordance with clan law, all of his property was inherited by Evan, but everyone agrees this house should really belong to you. Let’s take a look inside. Steve walked through yesterday and determined it’s safe.” She pulled a set of keys out of her pocket.
I followed her into the old house. It looked sound and had lots of big, open rooms. From the outside you could pull a car up to one of two entrances on the lower level or drive around back and enter from the upper level. That would be useful in transferring injured people. We could probably fit as many as twenty overnight patients in a place like this.
“Do you really think we’re in for a bloody war with Arianrhod and her followers?”
Fiona never sugarcoated things. “Now she knows Corey is the Destroyer, yes.”
I heaved a great sigh.
“So what do you say? Can we use your house, temporarily?”
“Of course you can.”
***
The following day we buried Madison in the same cemetery where my mom rested. We held a small and quiet, but respectful, service. We offered her dignity in death.
***
The day after Madison’s burial, Fiona and I visited Evan in his room. We woke him.
“Hey,” he smiled when he saw me.
I kept my clinical face in place.
He sat up and looked around the room. “What happened in here?” he asked, shocked.
“I cleaned. It was unsanitary.” The tone of my voice should have told him not to argue.
“But…how will I find anything?”
I quirked my eyebrows at him and he silenced any objections. I smiled to myself.
“What’s up?”
I responded before Fi did. Technically, he’d been my patient before he became hers.
“It’s a clinical assessment. Take your shirt off…let’s find out how you’re doing.” I turned on my healer vision and Fiona started to discuss the case.
“You can see that the wall of that artery is still thin where the bullet tore through it.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t sure how thick to rebuild the flesh. In normal circumstances, his body would grow the tissue back slowly, allowing the outer layers to age and harden before adding new layers of tissue. I worried if I made the wall of the artery too thick, he might have other complications.”
“You were right. The repair is textbook perfect, that is, if we used textbooks. Moving on along the trajectory of the bullet, you can see all of the muscle and lung tissue has grown back well. There’s still a nick in that rib, though.”
“Oh, I see it,” I responded. “I didn’t concern myself with bones at the time. Shall I repair it now?”
“You might as well.”
I looked at him, “I doubt this will hurt, but you might feel a little discomfort. Let me know if it’s too much for you to bear.”
He stared at me dumbfounded. He’d never seen me treat a patient with Fiona.
I’d learned a lot in the last couple of months. I didn’t wait for a response. I held my hands over the rib and concentrated on building the missing fragments of bone until the edge of the rib was smooth.
Fiona started to talk abo
ut the jugular vein. “Rose and I had to cut him open and do major repairs here to remove the bullet.”
“Okay, I understand what you did. You cut out the alternate piece of vein I’d made around the bullet and built a whole new tube. How did you accomplish it before he bled to death? It’s a major part of the circulatory system.”
“This was extremely difficult. I pulled the bullet out with forceps carefully and slowly while Rose rebuilt the tissue in the location the bullet had vacated it until the pathway was complete and the bullet could be pulled out entirely. This method resulted in minimal blood loss.”
I nodded at my comprehension of her technique. I still had so much to learn.
She continued to teach. “Okay, so that’s his current status. What do you think?”
“If he takes it easy, he should be able to get up and move about now.” I didn’t need a stethoscope to see his blood pressure was strong. The tissue appeared thick enough to support a little stretching also.
A huge grin crossed his face. “Does that mean I can go to the May Day celebration tomorrow?”
Fiona looked at me.
Evan looked with his hopeful face.
I considered his request. The May Day celebration, like all of the other holy days in the Wheel of the Year, started at sundown on the night before May first, and ran through the next morning.
“An all-night celebration might be too much for you just yet. If you wish, I can drive you out there right before dawn, so you can receive Llew’s blessing. You can stay at the party for a few hours, and I’ll bring you back for a nap.”
If possible, his grin grew even wider. “I can live with that.”
“That’s the idea,” I said dryly. I looked at my mentor.
She nodded. “I concur. It’s a good treatment plan, Healer Margaret. I can tell Evan is in good hands, so I’ll leave you kids to talk.” She closed the door behind her again.
I dropped my clinical face in an instant, matched his grin and threw my arms around him. A big kiss and a squeeze later, I let him get up and start moving around his bedroom. He spent a good bit of time figuring out where I’d hidden all the mess. I helped him shower and dress, which was more fun than just a Healer-patient exercise. After he’d had a decent meal in his family’s kitchen booth, I asked him about school.