by Dale Mayer
There was no sign of her until a new ambulance unloaded a gurney. She floated closer, seeing a beautiful young woman, her aura thin, flat against her body, anguish and pain rippling down her sheet-covered form. The energy worker in Maddy understood the trauma had already affected the woman’s psyche. The shock, the pain, and something akin to despair. She didn’t understand the full story yet as she’d only gotten the little bit Brandt had to offer.
The sheet had been tented over the woman’s back. As it was pulled back Maddy gasped. Poor girl. It was one thing to hear the details, but quite another to see the actual damage. She couldn’t help herself. She immediately poured cooling, healing energy down the woman’s spine on the inside, sending the energy to the underside of the injury to stop it from burning through the underlying tissues.
The girl moaned but was no longer in agony. Instead, there was a teary gratefulness to the sound. The girl’s mother reached out to clasp the girl’s hand.
“Vanessa?”
“It feels so good,” she whispered. “I don’t know what it is but it’s helping.”
Her mother frowned and stared at the several nurses working on her. A doctor came over to assess the damage.
Maddy laughed. It was the same young doctor who’d asked her to consult on a case last week. She smiled and whispered inside the doctor’s head, Hello, Dr. Vitner.
The doctor jerked, looked around then smiled. “Vanessa, this just might be your lucky day.” To the nurses she said, “Let’s get the treatment started.”
She turned to the mother. “I’m so sorry. As you’ve been here before, you know the routine.”
“I’d hoped to stay…” Her voice trailed off at the doctor’s head shake.
“Sorry. This is a tough stage for your daughter.” She led the mother to the doorway. “We’ll let you know when it’s done.”
Maddy whispered in the doctor’s mind, Let me help.
Dr. Vitner looked over the nurses. “I’ll handle the beginning of this.”
Surprised, they nodded and backed away. “Do you want us to stay or go and start on the next stage?”
“Go and set up for the next stage. I want to take a closer look at this case. The police are going to be involved in this one as well.”
They nodded, understanding in their eyes. With sympathetic glances to the young woman now lying blissful on the bed they left the room.
“I hope I’ve done the right thing and that’s really you,” Dr. Vitner said.
Maddy laughed. It’s me. Let me take a look.
The doctor walked closer. “This doesn’t make any sense. The burns stopped and started with distinct lines as if a sheet of burning metal had been placed on her back.”
Where were the original skin grafts?
Maddy could see many grafts and the energy from before, but there was also that same damn blackness she’d been seeing on too many sad cases.
“They were all over the place, really.” She motioned to many of the areas so Maddy could see. “Some took better than others. Some became almost invisible, but some – there were a few that didn’t graft as nice.” She took a deep breath. “We replaced the initial grafts as soon as we could with her own skin as per normal treatment.”
Maddy pulsed more cooling energy through the woman’s back, easy and healing as she sent the energy upward through the bone and tissue to heal from the inside out. She considered Dr. Vitner’s comment. Had the original skin donor been the origin of the black energy? If so, why was it still here? That would have been months ago, and the original skin would have been removed – thus removing the black energy – and been replaced with Vanessa’s own skin.
Could the original skin – the remnants of the energy from that donor – have blended into Vanessa’s tissues? Healing and growing stronger. Would that have been enough to have allowed the energy to stay? Or was something else going on?
Dr. Vitner frowned. She studied the woman’s back. “I don’t understand how this kind of damage could have happened.”
I might. And she did. Unfortunately Dr. Maddy was starting to really understand. And the tracking and finding of any and all other potential victims could be almost impossible.
As far as she could see the grafts that had been damaged were beyond repair, and she didn’t dare heal them if they were the ones causing the trouble. The last thing she dared to do was let the asshole behind this know of her existence – or what she could do.
I’ll work from the inside up. You can work from the outside in. I’ll see how far up I dare go.
“Dare go?” the doctor asked.
Yes. And Maddy left it at that. How could she explain that she was afraid the donor of that original skin graft might just be alive – living an energetic existence – and killing people?
Especially when skin donors were usually dead.
Chapter 30
Celina walked out onto Stefan’s balcony and tilted her face to the sun. It was a beautiful warm morning. She’d have brought a change of clothes if she’d had any idea that she’d be spending the night. There was such a sense of peace here. She loved it. Going home to her cozy apartment where everything had a place seemed confining all of a sudden.
She smiled as Stefan slipped his arms around her shoulders and tugged her gently back against his chest.
“Okay?”
“Better than okay.” With a happy sigh she reached up to clasp his hands. “Thank you.”
She felt his start of surprise.
She laughed. “No, not for the night of wonderful sex, but more for the level of acceptance. And for showing me how much more there is to learn out there. When I lost my sight I closed off inside, thinking I needed to focus on controlling my world to keep safe. My life became very limited. An end to so much. I hadn’t realized how much. I’d figured learning ‘out there’ was over, and how the only learning I was ever going to do was how to survive as a blind person in a visual world.”
He hugged her gently and rested his chin on her head. “A natural reaction. I’ve crawled inside at various points in my life, just to be able to heal. When life became too much or a hurt too great. By doing that we narrow our focus to control what we can when our life is out of control. Then, when we regain confidence, we widen that circle of experience at a rate we believe we can handle.”
She laughed. “I’m not sure I’ve made it to that point. It widened without my permission.”
In a serious voice he said, “Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it seems as if we’ve become victims, but it’s a chance to get out of victim status and take charge again. From where I stand you did a wonderful job.”
She turned her head so his heart pounded against her ear.
“And I am grateful that you let me into your inner circle,” He said in a deep caring voice.
“I’m not sure I had much choice there either,” she teased.
“You always had the choice. Some rules, even personal ones and energetic or karmic ones, just have to be obeyed.” His voice deepened. “Whether we like it or not.”
Sensing something deeper, darker, she twisted slightly to see him, an instinctive reaction she couldn’t stop even after a year. “What do you—”
The phone rang in his pocket.
He hesitated as if he wanted to say something, but she knew how many different things he had going on. She stepped back slightly. “Answer it. Maybe it has something to do with this nasty predator.”
“True.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Hello, Maddy. What’s happening?”
Celina bumped up against the railing at her back. She turned and stared blankly out over his property. She didn’t want to eavesdrop but the tiny snippets were worrisome.
“Right. It would have to be someone very close to her,” Stefan said.
Celina wondered if she was the “her” in question. Stefan ended the conversation and said nothing for a long moment. She could feel questions as if they were actual items floating on the air.
“W
hat do you need to know?” she asked, trying for a light tone of voice but failing. Her stomach clenched with nerves. He reached over and stroked her back gently.
“A few questions have arisen. One, you said you’ve lost everyone in your life. Can you give me a list?’
Surprised but willing she said, “Caslo, both parents, and my fiancé – in that order. There might have been others, but those were the ones I was extremely close to.” She frowned, remembering some of his confusing discussion about dead entities and possession. She shook her head. “Don’t even think that they could possibly be involved in any of this. For one, they’re dead. All of them.”
“Are they?” he murmured. She sensed more than saw that he quirked his lips.
“Yes,” she said sharply. “I see ghosts, remember? I haven’t seen any of them ever.” She stopped, remembering Caslo, and sighed. “Okay, so that’s not quite true.”
“Which part?”
“Caslo. He was an old friend. My best friend. I had thought he’d become so much more, but he was taken away to a special institute when I was like twelve.” She instinctively slipped her hand into her pocket to hold the soothing rock that Caslo had given her. “He had some weird things he could do – honestly I can’t even remember the specifics, but this place was supposed to help him. I’d hoped I’d hear from him, I prayed every night that he’d be able to contact me – somehow – to say he was okay and would come home one day.”
She wrapped her arms around her chest. “I loved him. God, I loved him. Losing him was my first lesson that life wasn’t fair. And about the perfidy of humans. I’d asked his parents over and over again where he was and when he was finally coming home. They always gave me this pitying look and said ‘maybe soon.’ He never came home. They moved away soon after and I lost touch. Then years later I’d almost forgotten about him, but every once in a while he was there in the back of my mind.”
She gave him a tremulous smile. “One day, he came to me in ghost form. He was the first ghost I knowingly recognized. I was delirious with joy and yet horrified for him. For me. I wanted him back in my life, but never as a ghost. I couldn’t send him to the light for the longest time, then finally I realized he was stuck here on Earth because of me. And I couldn’t have that. I loved him so much I had to let him go. So I sent him away. It wasn’t my finest hour, as he didn’t take it very well, but I finally had to tell him to never come back.”
Even the memory hurt. She bowed her head and sniffled back the tears. “God, I regretted that the minute he was gone, but I couldn’t call him back. It was for his own good.”
“I wonder about all the ills in the world committed because it was for someone else’s own good,” Stefan said, his voice pensive, deep.
She barely heard him. Then he said, “And your parents?”
“They were travelling in Mexico and were involved in a horrific vehicle accident. It was bad. There were no bodies to bring home. It made it easier and so much more difficult.” She sighed. “My aunt went down to deal with the official stuff. I couldn’t. There was no way I wanted anything to do with that country. I can’t ever see wanting to go there.”
“Interesting.”
“What, my reaction? Their death, or that there were no bodies to recover?”
“All of it.” His voice was so noncommittal she was immediately suspicious. “And your fiancé? What happened there?”
“He died from an aneurysm in his brain. I lost him so fast.” She tilted her face, wishing the sun was still out. But along with the conversation the weather had chilled. “There was no preparation. He was here one day and then gone.”
She swallowed the tears back and said, “Anything else you need to know?”
“How was your relationship with him up to the end?”
“Outside of the fight that night, mostly wonderful. We both fell so hard that we were locked up in our own world. Probably too much, as I said before.” She winced. “Looking back, it was definitely too much. He was possessive. Then again, so was Caslo. I’d promised Caslo that I’d always be there for him before he left, but obviously that was a lie,” she said bitterly. “And I promised Peter I’d never leave him. He’d said the same – many times. He was really big on promises.” She closed her eyes in pain at the broken memories. “If you made a promise, then it was forever, he said.” She turned slightly to face him. “Another promise I couldn’t keep.”
“He died,” Stefan said quietly. “That’s not your fault.”
She shrugged. “It felt like it was. God, you should have seen us. We did everything together, even dressed the same half the time. It was really stupid.”
“How is that stupid? You loved him.”
She winced. “And I guess that’s where I slid. I wondered if I did love him. I wondered if I gave all my love to Caslo and then had nothing left for anyone else.”
He stroked her back. “Love doesn’t work that way.”
“No. By the time Peter came into my life I was desperate to not be alone anymore. I wanted someone in my life who cared. I was just as possessive as he was because I needed someone to love me. I was so tired of being alone. And so afraid of being alone forever. He felt like my only choice, my last chance to have someone love me.” Her voice broke, and damn if those tears didn’t start to fall again.
She wiped them away, furious at herself for letting all that out. “God, I’m pathetic.”
“No.” He tugged her into his arms. “You aren’t. I understand loneliness. Most of us do.”
“Then why do I feel so guilty? I did everything I could afterwards to lock myself in and away. People like Jacob wouldn’t let me stay locked away. But I was always afraid he’d die too, just like everyone else that got close to me. And look what happened to him!” Her voice rose and broke at the end.
“Shh,” he said against her hair. “He’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s never going to be okay again.”
*
Stefan struggled with the information he was getting and the information he was intuiting. He didn’t know how much to ask her because he didn’t know how much she could handle. There were several major truths ahead of her. All at once was too much. So which were the easiest or most important right now?
Taking a deep breath, he asked the one question that had to be asked. “What happened to your fiancé’s remains?”
She stiffened. Then stepped back. Her voice cold she said, “I was the one in charge of that. As he was brain dead at the hospital I donated his body. Once the decision was made and I knew that’s what he’d wanted, I signed the forms for the doctors to recover what they could.”
Her eyes were glassy but defiant.
“What kinds of body parts were donated?” He deliberately kept his voice mild, curious. She didn’t have to know everything all at once. “Do you know?”
She waved her hands around. “Some. I was thrilled to know they could use as much as they did. Heart, kidneys, lungs, veins, even skin.” She beamed. “It helped a lot to know that even in death Peter had gone on to give so much to other people.”
Stefan nodded, then remembering she couldn’t see he said, “Good. I’ve heard that from other donor families, that it brought them much satisfaction in helping others in need.” He turned her to the kitchen. “Now, how about some lunch?”
He mentally contacted both Brandt and Dr. Maddy at the same time and passed on the information. We need to see if any or all of these victims received donor organs and if they came from Peter, her fiancé.
The dual shocked responses were immediate.
Dr. Maddy said, That would make a horrific sense.
Brandt said, I’m on it. I’d just gone down that road myself. It might not have been her fiancé though – it’s quite likely that all the organs came from the same body. God, it really makes you rethink that whole process.
Stefan sat Celina down on the island stool. “How about a big salad?”
As if
the conversation had been processing through her mind and she had an inkling of what was to come she said, “Anything that’s not from a dead animal.”
*
Brandt moved to the computer and started clicking the keys, bringing up the information, or as much of it as he could get a hold of. He hadn’t printed off a file for himself as he had for Stefan, preferring to work electronically. But right now he wished he had. He shifted closer to his chart and slowly pulled the bits and pieces from the files. When he came to the trucker who’d had the heart attack while driving the fuel truck, Brandt noted he’d had bypass surgery many months before his final action.
That could be one. The old woman with the burning legs could have had veins donated to repair hers. But he was guessing. Getting ahead of himself.
He checked the girl and her burning back, already knowing she’d had skin grafts, but when was that and was there a way to track from whom? Not in this file. Not deterred, he carried on until one by one he’d found what he needed. Two of the cases he had little to no information on their physical health and more digging would be required. For most, they’d been through a traumatic injury or health crisis and had indeed received donor organs. At least the big organs. He had no ideas how many body parts could be used to help others. Like the skin stuff. He had a lot to learn. He picked up the phone and called the local hospital to see how the process worked.
That led him to the donor center. And more questions and more phone calls and more questions.
He sat after the last call and wondered. Could it be?
Really?
Stefan mentally answered. I’m very much afraid it is.
Holy shit.
*
He shuddered. Nothing felt right. Or good. Something was wrong. He didn’t know how to fix it. His energy was failing rapidly. The time to do something was now. In fact, the time was past. He had to make a decision. Doing this took too much energy. He needed a big surge to center in just one place. But he had to make sure he ended up at the right place. That was the trick. He had to cut off everything but the one he wanted. And he had to do it fast.