[Healer 01.0] The Healer

by CJ Anaya

  “Escape?” I asked.

  “Yes, and don’t worry about your home. The nemokata can’t send their fireballs through here.”

  “Nekomata? What…?”

  “The fireballs can’t penetrate the walls in which living beings dwell,” Victor continued, interrupting my question.

  “My car begs to differ,” Angie argued.

  “Your car is fine,” Tie said. “Their fire only destroys human flesh. We could go back to the café right now and there’d be absolutely nothing wrong with your car, okay? It was just an illusion.”

  I thought about the tree in Mrs. Simmons’ yard.

  Mystery solved.

  The bickering continued until I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Whoa, wait!” I yelled. “What are nekomata, why are they throwing balls of fire at us, and how in the world do you two even know about them in the first place?” My little outburst seemed to surprise everyone. “Who are you really, because you certainly aren’t high school kids, and you definitely didn’t move here with the intention of staying for any real length of time.”

  Tie and Victor looked at each other, communicating in that strange way only guys can.

  “Do they know this has happened before?” Angie asked, breaking the silence.

  “What do you mean, this has happened before?” Victor gave Angie a scowl, which she ignored as she turned to address Tie.

  “When Hope was walking home from the hospital yesterday she thought someone was following her, and then this branch knocked her over and a huge fireball lit up the tree she’d been standing in front of.”

  Victor’s angry scowl moved to his cousin.

  “You knew about this?”

  “I made sure she got home safely.” Tie raised a placating hand. “She hit the ground before the flames came near her.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me there’d already been an attack?” Victor looked about ready to explode.

  “I didn’t think you were even coming. You made it very clear that you didn’t believe me despite my insistence.”

  “Can you blame me?” Victor shouted. “I couldn’t sense her, Tie. She’s standing right here, and I still can’t get a read on her ki or the way it touches the veil.”

  “I had it under control, Vicky. Nothing was going to happen to her on my watch.”

  “But it isn’t your watch, is it, Tie? It’s mine. She’s my responsibility, and you agreed to that before you were allowed to help us.”

  “Someone better tell me what’s going on before I begin screaming at the top of my very operatic lungs,” Angie cried out.

  “You were there when I got attacked last night, and you didn’t talk to me, or help me up…or explain what was going on?” I spluttered. I was still reeling from their comments, but my anger at his involvement yesterday took precedence.

  “What was I supposed to do? Introduce myself and tell you I was there to find out if you could heal people by connecting with their life force, and oh, by the way, there are other people who aren’t so nice, and they would like to kill you?”

  “Heal people? Hope, what on earth is he talking about?” Angie asked.

  “I don’t know, Angie.” I tried to sound clueless. “For some reason these two both think I’m some kind of miracle worker.”

  “We aren’t the only ones. How do you explain that everyone, good and bad, has managed to zero in on you Ms. Fairmont,” Tie asked, driving his point home.

  “You still haven’t told me what nekomata are or who you two are for that matter.” I needed to steer the conversation away from my healing powers.

  “We’ll talk about what nekomata are later,” Victor said in a weary voice. “Right now we need some kind of game plan. We need to get Hope out of town without you-know-who being the wiser.”

  “Who is you-know-who?” I fairly screamed.

  “We’ll need Chinatsu to help us out with that,” Tie said completely ignoring me.

  “Our mythology teacher?” Angie asked. “What in the world does she have to do with any of this?”

  “I’m not leaving,” I interrupted before anyone could answer Angie’s question. “I don’t know who you people are, and I have no idea what’s going on. Do you really think I’d go anywhere with either one of you?”

  “You’re not safe here, Hope,” Victor said.

  “I’m not safe because you two are here. None of this started until you two came into town. Am I right?” Their silence only confirmed my suspicions. “Tell me what’s going on right now!”

  “There’s really only so much we can tell you. The rest you have to remember on your own.” Victor placed a calming hand on my shoulder.

  “She should have remembered all the ugly, sordid details by now,” Tie said bitingly, “but I think she’s healing too much. She’s been using her powers to heal everyone but herself.”

  I felt like I was going to hyperventilate. I didn’t want Angie finding out like this.

  “Crazy,” Angie muttered to no one in particular. “I’m surrounded by good looking guys who are absolutely nuts. I don’t suppose either one of you is up for a really long make-out session?”

  Angie threw herself on the living room couch and pulled out a nail file from her monstrous purse. I was surprised she still had her purse.

  “I’m going to say this one more time, so pay attention,” I said, raising my voice. “I don’t know how to heal people. I don’t have magical powers that allow me to fix injuries, seal cuts, or bring people back from the dead. I don’t even own a broomstick.”

  “Well, now you’re just being silly.” Tie gave me a flirtatious wink.

  The sarcastic remark forming in my mind never got past my lips. I heard the back door open and slam and then my father’s concerned voice boomed from the kitchen.

  “Hope? Angie? Are you here?” He sounded terrified.

  “Dad, we’re in here,” I shouted. “You got home fast.” He was also home safe. I felt relieved knowing he hadn’t been attacked by whatever was out there.

  My dad hurried down the hallway.

  “Someone came into the hospital screaming about a purple PT exploding,” he called out. “You weren’t answering your phones so I came home to see if everything was okay.” He reached the end of the hallway and came into view. When he caught sight of us he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank heavens you guys are all right.”

  “No one should have been able to see any kind of damage to the car,” Victor muttered to himself.

  My father opened his arms and walked over to me. He seemed a little unsteady on his feet, and he smelled like he’d been sitting by a campfire.

  I hurried forward, thinking he’d been injured somehow.

  “Hope. No!” Tie screamed just as my father reached behind himself and pulled out the longest, wickedest looking sword I’d ever seen.

  He charged at me, yelling something in a language I couldn’t understand and thrust his sword forward aiming for my chest. Everything happened slowly after that. Victor ran toward my father, reaching behind himself and unveiling an incredible looking sword of his own. More steel gleamed on my other side as Tie produced another nasty looking weapon out of thin air.

  I randomly wondered where everyone had been hiding their swords.

  My brain felt a little fuzzy, and the entire moment took on a surreal almost dream-like quality.

  My father intended to kill me. I felt a strange sense of loss knowing my last moments on this earth were so near, and I couldn’t be alone with Tie.

  I looked into my father’s eyes as the sharp end of his weapon continued its downward thrust toward my heart. They were cold, black, and empty; completely devoid of any human emotion. In the back of my mind, I was able to acknowledge that the man before me really wasn’t my father, but I couldn’t help feeling betrayed all the same. He wanted to end my life. Destroy me.

  I saw a streak of gold coming at me from my left and felt myself being shoved backward as Tie threw himself in front of me. I rough
ly landed on the floor and watched as my fake father’s sword plunged through Tie’s chest and out his back.

  Tie screamed in agony and dropped to his knees trying to pull the sword from his chest. Victor let out a deafening battle cry and sailed through the air with his sword raised high above him. He brought it down swiftly, severing my father’s head from his body where it rolled noisily and came to a stop near the front door.

  Then there was silence.

  Everyone stayed frozen in their various positions until Tie, with one long, gut-wrenching scream, pulled the gleaming sword from his chest and collapsed the rest of the way to the floor.

  Angie and I jumped forward toward his outstretched body, but Victor managed to get there before we did, placing his hands on either side of Tie’s head and closing his eyes.

  “I can’t believe this. Your dad tried to kill you…he …he killed Tie,” Angie screamed hysterically. There were tears already streaming down her face. She looked up at Victor and pointed an accusing finger at him. “You killed Dr. Fairmont! I didn’t see it. How did I not seen this coming?”

  I grabbed Angie’s shoulders and shook her hard until she was looking at me instead of the gaping hole in Tie’s chest.

  “Angie, that man wasn’t my father, okay?” I spoke as calmly as I could. Angie’s eyes were bright with more unshed tears. “I know a lot is happening you don’t understand. I don’t really understand it either, but I need you to get a hold of yourself here. I’ll try to explain what I can as soon as we help Tie.”

  One thing I loved about Angie, she could adapt to any crazy, unbelievable situation. I watched her take a deep breath and suck back the quiet sobs shaking her body. I knew I could count on her to hold it together a little while longer.

  Having averted that crisis, I turned my attention back to Tie. His bruised face was wet with sweat, and the bloody stab wound was oozing so badly I couldn’t even imagine how much blood he’d already lost. His eyes met mine and pulled me in. I couldn’t look away, and I didn’t want to. He lifted his hand and weakly grabbed mine. I squeezed it to let him know I was there. He wasn’t alone. His warm smile was the only response he was able to give me.

  “Why aren’t we calling an ambulance for him? We need to get him back to the hospital,” Angie urged.

  “There’s nothing they can do that Tie and Victor can’t do themselves,” I said, never breaking eye contact with the broken boy in front of me. “He’ll be fine, just give it a minute.”

  “I’m not going to sit here and do nothing,” she yelled, reaching into her back pocket to pull out her cell phone.

  “Stop!” I batted the phone from her hand, sending it flying to the other side of the room. “You try getting anyone involved right now it will interrupt the process, and Tie will die.”

  Tie shook his head and opened his mouth as if to say something, but all that came out was a wheezing noise and then an alarming amount of blood. I looked at the gaping hole in his chest and began to panic, feeling certain Tie should have repaired what he could, and Victor should have been able to heal him by now.

  “Victor, why isn’t he healing himself?” I asked.

  “He can’t,” he said.

  Victor opened his eyes and sat back in defeat.

  “Then you do it,” I cried out. My voice was beginning to shake. I was about two seconds away from becoming as unhinged as Angie.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t heal him.” He buried his face in his hands.

  “Quit telling me what can’t be done, and tell me what can!”

  Nothing can be done, okay?” The look he gave me was awful. “There is absolutely nothing that anyone can do. The sword that stabbed him was forged in the land of the dead, and I only have so much power at my disposal. What little power I did have, I used to heal you when we were at the hospital.”

  I swallowed down the lump of guilt forming in my throat and let out a trembling breath.

  “Even if I hadn’t healed you tonight, I still wouldn’t be able to help him. You can’t heal a stab wound inflicted by that kind of sword,” he whispered. “Tie is going to die.”

  I couldn’t accept his assessment of Tie’s condition. The idea that Tie was dying right before my eyes was completely incomprehensible. I watched the barely detectable rise and fall of Tie’s chest and felt my own grow hollow and cold. I didn’t have time to analyze the overwhelming wave of emotions that threatened to swallow me whole. A strange kind of energy buzzed inside of me, building, like it was getting ready to explode. I didn’t know who Tie was, and I didn’t know how we were connected. All I knew for certain was if Tie died, I wouldn’t be able to face tomorrow or the next day or the next.

  “Get out of my way,” I commanded.

  “Hope, there’s nothing you can do,” Victor said.

  “Get out of my way!”

  I didn’t wait for him to comply. Moving forward, I pulled Tie’s head onto my lap and held it between my hands. Just before I closed my eyes I looked down into his and felt his steady gaze strengthening me.

  My connection with Tie was just as warm and inviting as it had been the first time, but the colors were fading. He was barely receiving any oxygen due to the blood that rapidly filled his lungs. I searched his body, trying to ascertain the extent of the damage and nearly screamed in pain as his life force sent me very fuzzy images of torn flesh, punctured lungs, and a strange sort of blackness surrounding his heart. The images were gruesome to be sure, but I’d healed much worse and failed to understand why Tie’s life force hadn’t started its own healing process the minute the wound was inflicted.

  I did my best to communicate with it, but I received nothing in return. I sent instructions, commands, and even began begging, but his life force remained silent, slipping from my mind the same way my mother’s had. I wondered if Tie’s life force was damaged as well. The black mass surrounding his heart seemed to be the source of the problem. I panicked, thinking I was losing him, that his warmth would simply cease to exist and I’d be alone, connected to nothing.

  That’s when pure instinct kicked in. I gently pushed his life force into the background and began communicating with his cells directly. I waited for that invisible barrier to stop my progress, but the mental wall I’d been expecting melted into the background, and I was surrounded by thousands of bright lights, tiny intelligences waiting for me to tell them how to proceed.

  And so I did.

  I walked them through healing process after healing process, starting with cell regeneration, blood production, tissue repair. Veins that had been severed were knit together. Ribs cracked by the force of the blow were bound and strengthened. Intelligences within the blood quickly drained the dark liquid from Tie’s punctured lungs and sent it flowing back to its rightful place within the body. The images swirled through my head with intelligences seeking approval, asking questions, and following every instruction I gave them. Everywhere around me Tie’s body was slowly being put back together. Everywhere except for one area, the most important area.

  Tie’s heart.

  It seemed impossible to me, but despite the healing taking place within his body, he was still very close to dying. I zeroed in on the inky darkness and felt my own life force shrink away. It was squeezing his heart with a strange vice-like grip. I tried to communicate with the heart directly, but all lines of communication had been severed. The intelligences were unresponsive. I felt nothing but death.

  I needed to understand what was happening inside the blackness, and the only way I could accomplish that was to plant myself mentally inside the heart. I did it quickly before I could reconsider and nearly threw myself back out the minute my mind touched it. My senses became overloaded with the need to run, to flee the darkness before me. The fear it instilled within me made it impossible to react, or even think. My senses shut down, my life force losing light. My body was freezing and my hands and feet felt numb. I realized that the darkness didn’t cause death, it was Death.

  It was doing the exact op
posite of what I could do. I was able to take a life force and give it light and knowledge. Intelligences were activated and educated. They were given life and shown how to give life in return. The blackness did everything in reverse. It took that light and knowledge away. It shut everything off.

  It made everything disappear.

  Tie’s heart wasn’t pumping blood anymore. It didn’t know how to, incapable of functioning surrounded by the darkness that closed in.

  I had to break it apart. I had to make it disappear, but what weapons did I have at my disposal? Pushing against its barriers only served to weaken me, and there was nothing truly tangible in its form that I could latch onto. I could feel myself getting smaller as the darkness stealthily slid its way in.

  Darkness. Find its weakness. Find its...

  The idea came to me in an instant. I could overpower it with light. I could penetrate the endless night with all the things it could never be. I sent images to the tiny intelligences within the tissues of Tie’s heart. They surrounded me, drawn forward by the idea of being something rather than nothing. I showed them how to pump blood in and out of the heart.

  In and out. In and out.

  The more they moved, the more brightly they shone. In and out. In and out.

  Other intelligences began to catch on, and soon, not only were Tie’s cells shining brightly with light and knowledge, but his tissues, his muscles, and the whole of his heart were beginning to create a light that burned so bright it melted through the darkness. The muscles of his heart began to move on their own again. The pressure surrounding it lessened as the darkness dissolved into the background. Brighter and brighter it burned, until finally the only thing that did eventually disappear was Death and the darkness it brought with it.

  I waited and watched, making sure his heart would continue to beat even if I couldn’t be there to help it. I didn’t want to leave. The longer I stayed, the more I sensed an awful pain trapped within the chambers of Tie’s heart. It was the same pain I’d felt with him at the nurse’s station. I couldn’t see where the problem came from. Everything was functioning properly, but the pain was there like an old, hurtful memory, and I couldn’t find its source.