A Song of Forgiveness

by Lillian I Wolfe

  “Come on. Wake up.” I rubbed his hands and wrists, hoping to feel more warmth coming to them. His breathing was shallow adding to the panic trying to overwhelm me. We needed him. I needed him. “Gavin...please.”

  A sob stuck in my throat, threatening to break through and launch more tears. What had happened in there? Why had the explosion happened? Was it something I did?

  Oreille returned, hurrying up the hillside. “I finally got a signal. Help is coming.” As she came over, she stared at Gavin, not even needing to ask if anything had changed. It hadn’t. She looked me over as I did her.

  Like mine, her clothes were dusted with dirt and little twigs stuck in her hair. A cut under her eye had bled, leaving streaks on her face. Another under her chin showed a thick blood clot. She’d been thrown forward in the blast and probably landed on her front side.

  “Is anything broken?” she asked as she assessed the damage.

  “A fingernail,” I quipped. Then shook my head a bit. A bad move as pain shot through it and I winced.

  “You may have a slight concussion,” she said. “Sit and I’ll bandage your head before you lose any more blood.”

  I was still bleeding? I hadn’t realized, but as I touched the wound at the back of my head, I felt the wet flow, not fast but enough to worry me. How long since the blast? How much blood had I lost?

  Orielle pulled out the first aid kit and in a short time, she had done a quick clean around my injury. A nasty cut, she informed me, about three inches long that was bleeding quite a bit. She put a padded bandage on it and wrapped my head with gauze like a bandana to hold it in place.

  She turned her attention to Gavin, noting no major bleeding, but agreed that it looked like a broken arm. She put bandages on the cuts, then sat back. A worried look covered her face as she checked his pulse and turned to look at me.

  “I need to get a fire going.”

  I started to push myself to my feet, but she held up a hand.

  “No, you stay seated. I will take care of it. Just keep an eye on Gavin and call me if he wakes or... convulses or anything like that.”

  Almost dark now, I began to feel chilled and hoped that help would come soon. Watching as Orielle gathered dried grasses and twigs to start the fire, I conceded that she was not bad to have around in an emergency. Certainly more useful than I was. Then she rounded up several larger limbs, breaking them into smaller pieces, and got the fire going. It was only a few feet from me, a little closer to Gavin, but the warmth spread toward me anyway.

  Weary, she moved slowly as she lowered herself onto the ground beside me and let out a deep sigh. “Now, we wait. The fire will help the rescue unit spot us.”

  I said nothing, just closing my eyes and enjoying the growing warmth. We were injured and stuck in a foreign country. I didn’t feel all that confident.

  “What happened in the cave? Did Belphegor come?” Orielle asked.

  I opened my eyes and gazed at her. “Yes, I think he was there. I heard him in my head. But there was another pacura yiaiwa as well, right on top of us and it interrupted the chant as I got off a light blast at him. That one caught Gavin in the attack and he went down. I resumed the chant, finished the last phrase and there was a flash, like in the vision I’d seen, so I think the spell worked. But I didn’t get the box closed before I had to send another blast at the yiaiwa that was recovering and the next thing I knew, I was thrown into the air and out of the cave.” I fell quiet with nothing else to say. I think we succeeded but I couldn’t be certain.

  She thought for a long time. “Then maybe Belphegor is trapped in there. Or maybe he instigated the explosion.”

  “Too many options,” I said. “I could have set it off with the blast. Maybe my magic doesn’t play well with the ancient spells.”

  She shrugged. “We have no way to know. Don’t worry about it now. Let’s just hope that Gavin recovers from this.”

  Please, God, or whatever deity rules this part of the Universe, I offered in a silent plea. Let him be okay.

  HELP ARRIVED WITHIN the half-hour, a team of medics coming down from a helicopter hovering above us. They lowered a stretcher down and swiftly worked to get aid to Gavin and get him up to the bird, where they secured the stretcher to the outside.

  One of the medics checked me out, making sure I wasn’t unstable, and deciding the compression bandage was working fine, didn’t do anything more with it. He handed me a blanket and told me to just stay down by the fire until more help arrived.

  Tossing another blanket to Orielle, he explained they would be taking Gavin back to the hospital in Maoli Khader. As soon as they were back up, they would guide their ground team to Orielle and me. He expected it would be about forty minutes and to just stay by the fire and wait for them.

  In a way, I was relieved I didn’t have to be airlifted. At the same time, I wasn’t looking forward to walking back out, even with guides.

  As I snuggled under the blanket, feeling relatively safe with the fire burning, I turned my gaze on the caved-in entrance and, struck with a sudden thought, broke out laughing.

  “What?” Orielle asked, surprise on her face.

  “We took all that time getting the mud cover down in almost one piece and it’s buried and broken under that rubble pile.” I felt the pull of a laugh on my lips again and giggled.

  For a moment, she looked bewildered, then a chortle broke free followed by outright chuckles.

  After a couple of minutes, the giddiness of the situation settled down and we gasped out our last snicker or two before growing quiet again.

  “I hope he’ll be all right,” I said.

  “Moi, aussi,” she said in French. One of the few times she’d spoken it around me. “On the surface, Gavin did not seem too badly injured, but he should not be unconscious either.”

  My mouth felt a bit dry. “I think that’s caused by the yiaiwa. When one attacked me on the transitional plane, I felt chilled, almost frozen, and I passed out in the chapel where I was singing. The attack on my cat almost killed him although we were both in spirit form. This was a real-world attack. It could be much worse.”

  In the back of my mind, the real possibility Gavin could die ate at my conscience. Had I caused that explosion with my blast or was this all Belphagor’s doing? My thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of my cell phone. I pulled it out of my pocket, shaking the dust off, and looked at the screen.

  A voice call coming in from Ferris. Worried, I answered it, noticing as I did that I also had two text messages from him I’d missed. What had happened?

  “Are you all right?” he asked without preamble.

  “Uh, yeah. We had a little accident, but I’m okay.” I hedged my answer, hoping to avoid any detail.

  “Accident? When? I’ve been trying to reach you for almost two hours.” He sounded alarmed.

  “Has something happened to Nygard?”

  “That’s the deal here. I’m at your place and we were watching a TV show together when he suddenly went nuts. Bolted up, ran around the room howling, and tried to walk through walls. I thought he was going to hurt himself. I tried to grab him, but he’s a fast little sucker when he wants to be. Then after about twenty minutes of this madness, he suddenly calmed down and settled down on your bed like nothing had happened.”

  “So, he’s all right now?” I figured that would put his upset at about the time I was confronting a demon and getting blown out of the cave. It sounded like it ended when I woke up. I realized now that the buzzing in my head might have been my phone as Ferris tried to reach me.

  “Yeah. He seems fine. You want me to take him to the vet?”

  “No, I think he was just reacting to the accident here. We have a pretty strong connection.”

  “I noticed. How bad was that accident?”

  I let out a breath and considered a safe answer. “I got a little bump on the head and a bit banged up, but it’s nothing to worry about, hon. I’ll call you when I’m ready to board the plane home, okay?”
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  After a pause, he said, “All right. Keep me posted if anything changes. Love you.”

  I ended the call with my own endearment, then considered that connection I had with my cat. He could come to me in the ethereal world, but not in a physical world, but he still knew when I was in danger.

  THE RETURN TRIP WASN’T as bad as I had thought it would be. For one thing, we only had to hike part of the way and once we hit the trail, we were helped to wheelchairs and pushed the rest of the way out. I almost fell asleep en route except that the med tech pushing me kept waking me up.

  While the hospital was an old building, the interior seemed fairly modern and the staff tended to us with kindness and attention. The doctor I saw, a man who looked young enough to be my kid brother, checked the head wound, then cleaned and stitched it up.

  Although he didn’t think it was too serious, he wanted to check me into a room to watch for any signs of a concussion since I’d had one previously. Other than that, I was mostly banged and bruised, so I would be colorful for a few days.

  Now, thirteen hours later, I sat in the waiting room on the Intensive Care floor with Orielle. She’d had a couple of stitches over her eye and butterfly tape on her chin, but was otherwise unharmed except for a few contusions.

  “Have the doctors said anything yet?” I asked.

  Gavin had been treated, his arm set in a cast, but was still unconscious with low blood pressure and uneven breathing.

  She shook her head. “They say it’s a coma and his temperature is sub-par, but they can’t find anything that would be causing it. Once he stabilizes on his vitals, they’ll move him to a regular room, but they have no idea when that might be.”

  “What do we do now?” I asked feeling helpless.

  “Wait, I suppose. When is your plane back scheduled?”

  “We were going to go back on Monday morning at eight.” We’d lost a day coming over, so the return flight should get me back to Reno by Sunday evening. My plan was to only miss the one day of work while we took care of this. Now, I wasn’t so sure what the next step was.

  Orielle clasped her hands that rested on her knees and gazed at the nurse’s station where only one person was on duty at the moment. The others were going about the business of helping people, dispensing medicine, and getting food for them. Behind the door, down two on the right, Gavin was fighting for his life.

  “Look, Gillian, there is no reason for you to sit here and wait with me. I will stay until he is either awake and on the mend or until he is stable enough that I can move him to a hospital in America. Go on home. I will let you know if anything changes.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to leave him here. I wanted us to go back together, but I also saw her point. “If he isn’t awake before I need to leave for the airport, then I’ll fly back. But if he does wake up, I will delay until I can talk to him. I need to do that.”

  “I understand.” She managed a small smile.

  I knew that her feelings for him ran deep and she would stay until there was a resolution. Neither of us wanted to consider what that might be. As much as I cared for Gavin, I didn’t have the resources to stay in India indefinitely while I had someone, not to mention a fur baby, waiting for me at home. Hard decision, but not so hard in reality.

  THIRTY

  I arrived back in Reno as scheduled, eager to see Ferris. I looked battered and shock registered on his face when he saw me. I still wore a bandage around my head and I’d pulled on a knitted cap to hide it, but part peeked through in the front.

  He picked up my pack after I’d come down the escalator and put his free arm around my shoulder, leaning in for a kiss.

  “How bad is the head wound?” he murmured in my ear.

  “Needed some stitches, but it’s not too bad. No concussion or anything. And I’m a little banged up.” He’d noticed the black eye and bruises on my cheeks as I’d seen him taking inventory while I descended. “I’ll tell you about it later. Let’s just get home. I am soooo tired.”

  The flight had been a long one. When I’d left, Gavin was still in a coma and the prognosis hadn’t changed any. He would come out of it when he was ready or never was the bottom line. I’d fretted all the way home about what was happening in his mind. Was he aware at all or was he a captive of Belphegor? What if the demon had enslaved his mind? I seemed to be sprouting new scenarios every few hours to worry over.

  As soon as I walked in the door, Nygard made a running leap for me, landing on my shoulder and snuggling around my neck, his rumbling purr starting as soon as he landed. I petted his head and made my way to the sofa, easing down to keep my balance as much as to favor my leg that was sore from the deep gash in it.

  “I’ve got a pizza in the oven, so we can eat here,” Ferris said as he sat beside me and set a cold soda on the coffee table. “Now, tell me everything.”

  So I did, not leaving out too much of the detail. I watched the concern grow on his face as I got to the part with the demon and what happened in the cave. He was not a happy man.

  “You could have been killed.”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head sharply as if he couldn’t believe I’d agreed. “Was it worth it? Did it work?”

  “I think it worked.” I shrugged my shoulder up a little, bouncing the cat, who expressed his opinion. “I don’t know for sure. I know we summoned Belphegor and he came, then the boom and the cave collapsed. He should be trapped in it.”

  “Should be... That’s not very definite.” He rubbed his hands together as if he was scrubbing them. “What if it didn’t?”

  I stared at him, not sure what to say. “I don’t know. Really. This was the plan and it didn’t come off well, but I don’t have a backup and Gavin is...out of commission for who knows how long.”

  The alarm in the kitchen went off and he went to get the pizza. All I wanted now was to have dinner with him, cuddle for a while, then go to bed. I was exhausted.

  Every morning for the next three days, I checked my text messages and found one each day from Orielle saying: No change.

  My mood would drop and I went about my day as usual with a cloud of depression hanging over my head.

  Digby was still in Australia and hadn’t sent much in the way of a message although he’d sent photos of Alice Rock, kangaroos, and the view from the back porch of his parents’ house, so we knew he was still alive and functioning. I hoped it meant he was having a good time, but like his partner, I was a little concerned.

  On Thursday, the message from India changed and now said: Stable but still in coma. Moved to regular room.

  It was better news. At least he was not considered critical anymore, just comatose. We both knew the longer Gavin remained in a coma, the more worrisome it would be and the less likely he was to recover from it. After that, the no-change messages resumed.

  Roger had been on my mind a lot as well. I hadn’t heard anything from Moss since I’d talked to him about the snowmobile. I didn’t know if that good or bad. Perhaps they were still investigating. While part of me felt I shouldn’t worry about the guy’s spirit, another part urged me to make amends with him. He wasn’t a bad person, just misdirected.

  As I drifted off to sleep the night I’d learned Gavin was stable, I slipped into one of those dreams—the kind where I felt it was real even though I was sleeping.

  I opened my eyes to see Zac standing at the end of the bed. As gorgeous as ever, everything about him shouted “angel” from his cherubic face to the white casual clothing he wore. He flashed a grin at me.

  “I missed seeing you,” I said reaching for the short robe beside my bed and pulling it on. “I’ve been asking for your help for weeks now.”

  “I know,” he replied, glancing down with a sorry look on his face. “I couldn’t come to visit. I had other commitments.”

  I climbed on top of my bed, folding my knees. I could see the bandage on the damaged one and bruises on both. They were turning a sickly-looking green shade.

  �
�Too busy to help when you’re needed. That’s a sad state, isn’t it?”

  “You know that everything is unsettled at the moment and you’re not my only ward.”

  “No, I didn’t know that... about other wards. The unsettled part, yeah. That’s why I needed you.”

  He nodded, then cheered up. “But you handled it brilliantly. I’ll admit, it got a little messy, and there is some collateral damage.”

  “Is that what you call it? Gavin’s in a coma and you call that collateral damage?” My volume rose as I spoke. I was angry with him. If he was supposed to help me, why wasn’t he there when I needed him?

  “Some things can’t be controlled, Gillian. But now, you should be fine and you can resume helping lost spirits as you are intended to do.”

  He made it sound so rational. You’ve saved the world, now go back to being a spirit escort.

  “Maybe I’ll do that,” I said. “I guess this means that you no longer need to visit me. Is that right?”

  “You said it. You’ve graduated, girl.” He winked at me, then vanished.

  When I woke up, the dream was as clear in my mind as if I’d been up talking to him. And I was annoyed. That was all he had to say? But if everything was good, then we must have been successful, so it cleared the way for me.

  Ferris was not as pleased when I told him what I wanted to do. “No, I don’t like this. You weren’t certain and because a dream angel said it was okay, you’re ready to go there again?”

  “Yes, on Saturday. I’d like you to go with me and we’ll bring Nygard, just in case there’s a problem.” I didn’t think we’d need his power boost, but I wasn’t convinced there might not still be a stray yiaiwa or two hunting for me.

  “And you’re going to risk Ny?”

  “No, but I want him close.”

  His eyes narrowed and he grumbled at me, but he agreed to go to the cemetery with me.