“No doctors,” I mumbled. “I need a healer.”
Nathan rested the shotgun in the gear sled, then kneeled by my side. He took one look at the wound and frowned. “This is beyond the skill of anyone I know.”
“Eric,” I said. “Eric will know someone.”
Nicola dug out her cell phone, powering it up and holding it up in the air.
“I can’t get any bars,” she said. “We’re too far away from town.”
Nathan thought for a moment, then went to the gear sled. He began unfastening the straps that secured our bags and the sweat lodge materials in place. In a matter of seconds, he’d cleared everything out of the sled except for the blankets and hides he’d used to line the floor of the sweat lodge. These he arranged into a makeshift mattress. With Nicola’s help, they lifted me and placed me into the sled. They then wrapped me in even more blankets, using the straps to secure me in place.
Nathan crouched next to me, his hand on my shoulder. “This is going to suck. I’ll try to make the ride as smooth as I can, but it’s going to be pretty bumpy.”
“Do what you have to do,” I said through clenched teeth. “I have a feeling I’m going to pass out in a few minutes, anyway.”
Nathan nodded, then climbed aboard the snowmobile. He fired the machine up, and we roared off down the trail.
Chapter Twenty-One
I don’t remember much about the journey back to the truck. I slipped in and out of consciousness several times. A particularly bad bump in the trail would send such a searing hot bolt of pain through my body that I wouldn’t be able to keep from blacking out again. Eventually, I’d wake up to the sight of tree branches whipping by overhead, the pain in my thigh having faded to a dull and distant ache. Even wrapped as tightly as I was, I felt extremely cold. The chill seemed to bite all the way through the hard plastic of the sled, piercing the thick layers of blankets and hides that should have kept me warm enough to be sweating. All I could do was relax my body against the constant jostling, enduring the agonizingly slow progress through the woods until I eventually passed out again.
Things only got worse once we got back to the truck. Nathan stashed the snowmobiles in the bushes instead of wasting time loading them onto the back of the truck. When it came time to lift me into the cab, I knew I’d lost a lot of blood. My socks were squishy in my boots, and the light blue fabric of my ski pants was stained dark purple from the waist down.
Nicola squeezed my hand. “You’re going to be okay," she said. “I got in touch with Eric, and he told us where to take you. We’re going to get you the help you need. Just hold on a little longer.”
Still more than an hour away from Whistler, we drove for only twenty minutes or so before Nathan turned onto a side road. He navigated a bumpy logging road as carefully as possible without slowing to a crawl. The going was slow, but he assured me that help would be found at the end.
When we did eventually stop, it was in front of a small cabin. Smoke drifted lazily from the chimney, and the place looked like something out of a fairytale. An old man came out to greet us, a grimace of concern on his face when he helped Nathan carry me inside.
The cabin was lit only by a small fire crackling away in a big stone fireplace. An old oil lantern sat on a rickety wooden table in the middle of the room. The old man ordered Nicola to light it, then pointed to a nail on the wall where she should hang it. He and Nathan then lifted me onto the table where the old man set about slicing my pant leg open from the bottom. He cut the fabric away until he’d exposed every bit of my bloodied thigh, muttering all the while.
“This is a very bad. Very bad, indeed.”
He spoke with a thick European accent. I nearly broke into a fit of giggling at how similar he sounded to Nicola’s terrible fake accent from the bar the other night. I was still with it enough to recognize the laughter as a sign of delirium, but I was too tired to do anything but chuckle softly to myself.
“Can you help her?” asked Nathan.
“I will try,” he said. “It will not be pleasant. Perhaps it would be best if you two wait outside.”
“I’d rather stay,” Nathan said firmly. “Nicola, if you want to go, I’m sure Alex will understand.”
Nicola just shook her head and went to stand by the fire. She looked confused and afraid. I wanted to say something to put her at ease, but I couldn’t find the words. Even staying conscious was proving difficult enough. My body had grown tired and cold. All I wanted to do was sleep. I’d been injured enough times to know I was in pretty bad shape. If this healer didn’t get to work fast, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it.
The old man produced a small, smooth piece of wood.
“Bite down on this,” he told me. “I must clean the wound now.”
I did as he suggested, eyes widening in fear when I saw him bring an old and rusted metal pail towards the table. He dipped a filthy looking rag in it, then began wiping the area around the gash in my thigh. When he washed away most of the dried blood, he started cleaning out the wound itself.
I couldn’t help but cry out from the pain. The piece of wood fell from my mouth, but Nathan picked it up and set it back in place. I chomped down on it as hard as I could, grabbing at Nathan’s sleeve and digging my fingers into his forearm while the old man scraped blood and pus from the wound.
“What did this?” he asked. “Never have I seen anything quite like this before. How did this happen to you?”
Nathan explained everything we’d been through since leaving our campsite. The healer continued his labor while he listened, nodding and grunting at particularly poignant moments — like how the cougar had kept getting up no matter how hard it had been hit.
“That is not a good sign,” the healer grumbled. “I have felt this darkness you speak of. I would not have been able to place my finger upon it until hearing your story, but I have sensed a growing unease in the forest. I first moved here because I thought I had found a peaceful place to practice my arts. Lately, it feels less and less so.”
“You’re not the only one feeling it,” Nathan said. “It seems to be getting stronger. This is not the first time Alex and Nicola have been attacked.”
The healer looked towards Nicola, and she nodded in confirmation.
“Disquieting news,” the healer said. “But it does explain the malevolent energy radiating from this injury. Mending this will take more than a few stitches and some bed rest.”
“Whatever it takes,” I said, letting the stick drop from my mouth. “Just get me back on my feet.”
The healer nodded, then shuffled over to a cabinet full of jars and baskets. He whistled to himself while digging through several bundles of dried herbs and flowers. I watched — his outline blurring in my feverish view — while he filled a mortar and pestle with ingredients and began banging away.
“Fetch me a scoop of beaver lard,” he said to Nicola, pointing at a barrel in the corner of the room.
Nicola approached the barrel like it was full of snakes, wrinkling her nose and leaning back after opening the lid. “Oh, nasty!”
She dipped a wooden cup into the barrel, holding it at arm’s length and pinching her nose with her free hand when she brought it back to the healer. The old man dumped it into the herb mixture, swirling it all together until he had a smooth paste.
“I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything to dull the pain,” he said when he returned to my side. He looked down at me with a little frown. “I think, perhaps, this might be best in your case.”
I hated the fact that he seemed to be able to peer into my past so easily. Then again, my rocky history with painkillers was probably scrawled across my psyche in fifty-foot tall graffiti. That didn’t detract from his point. This was going to be painful beyond belief, but if it would get me back in fighting shape, I was willing to do what had to be done. My last bout with painkiller addiction wasn’t so far behind me that I was ready to risk it again. Even if the healer had offered me something to numb the pain, I’m n
ot sure I’d have accepted.
I let loose an ear-splitting scream when the healer smeared the first glop of herb mixture into the wound. He used his fingers to push the cream deep into torn muscle and sinew. Once he’d filled the long gashes completely, he closed his eyes and placed both hands on my thigh. He massaged the flesh together, sending agonizing flashes of pain throughout my body. Blackness swarmed around the edges of my vision, but I whimpered and clung to consciousness.
He began to hum and murmur in a low throaty voice.
Magic flowed into me. I felt the healer’s energy mingling with my own. He joined his gift with mine, using our combined energy to flood my system with healing magic. Worse even than when he dug his fingers inside the wound, was the excruciating pain of muscle, sinew, and flesh knitting themselves back together. The sensation was like maggots crawling under my skin. My flesh writhed beyond my control. It was like it had a mind of its own. My cheeks and forehead radiated heat. Sweat dripped from my brow, and I offered Nathan a pitifully weak smile of thanks when he dabbed a cool wet cloth over my forehead. The last time I’d been healed like this, I’d been dead asleep. I’d never undergone a procedure like this while still wide awake, and it wasn’t a process I ever wanted to repeat. The longer the healer worked, the worse the pain became. Every time I thought I’d be delivered into the sweet release of blackness when the pain threatened to overwhelm me, the healer’s energy jolted me back to alertness.
“We’re getting close,” he said softly. “Don’t stop fighting. I need your energy now.”
I bore down and mustered everything I had. Giving myself over to the process, I worked alongside the healer to flush myself of negative energy. Although I could still feel the murky tendrils of Black Fog fighting to maintain its hold on my emotions, I worked to first scrub it from the wound the cougar had inflicted. My skin crawled and burned, resisting every effort to cleanse it. Even after the slash on my leg was fully healed, I could sense psychic poison still coursing through my veins. My body shook, and I held onto Nathan’s forearm so tightly I worried my fingers might pierce his flesh. He simply stood stalwart, mopping my brow and repeating supportive words of encouragement.
“That’s it,” the healer said, his voice growing excited. “We’re almost there.”
With one final effort, I hunted down the evil influence in my body, obliterating it with bursts of white healing light. I didn’t know where my energy ended and the healer’s began. We worked as one, pushing ourselves to the extreme edges of our ability in order to rid me of the Black Fog’s influence.
“That’s all we can do for now,” the healer said after he’d withdrawn his presence from my body. “A shadow across your mind remains. I can do nothing for this, but I believe we have rid you of the worst of the dark influence inflicted by the cougar.”
“What does that mean?” asked Nathan. “A shadow on her mind?”
“I cannot rightly say.” The healer shook his head. “Whatever plagues her is beyond my reach. I believe it existed even before the attack today. I worry the darkness may already have taken hold of her.”
Nathan looked down at me. I saw fear mingled with concern. He knew full well how powerful the Black Fog was, and I could practically read his thoughts as he tried to gauge how much I’d been affected.
“I’m still in control,” I said, my voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s only background noise. Now that I know what it is, I can track its influence all the way back to when I first arrived in town. The stronger the magic ability, the more sensitive we are to these kinds of things. It’s going to hit people like me before it affects the general population.”
“We have to stop the spread before that happens,” said Nathan. “I don’t know how, but I promise I’ll help you figure this out.”
“Thank you. I have a feeling I’m going to need all the help I can get.”
I turned my head and checked on Nicola. She’d settled into an old rocking chair by the fire, and was staring at us with remoteness in her eyes. I can only imagine what I’d looked like writhing on the table while the healer did his work. Lacking the fear and adrenaline that would have sent her into a panicked survival mode every other time we’d been in danger, she was left with no defense against such raw exposure to my pain and suffering. It was damn scary watching someone struggle to escape death. Nicola was too young to have witnessed something so brutal. I couldn’t read her mind, but I figured she had to be wondering what would have happened if she’d been the one injured by the cougar. That train of thought could do a serious number on your head if you let it.
“How are you doing over there, kiddo?” I asked. “You don’t look so hot.”
“I’m fine,” she said softly. “I’m just trying to… process.”
“You did a good job today,” Nathan said. “That was quick thinking dragging Alex back to safety. You probably saved her life.”
“I doubt it,” she said. “All I did was hide. The only reason I came out from behind the snowmobile is because I saw you heading towards the cougar with a shotgun. Alex had already mostly killed it by then anyways.”
“Still, your instinct was to help me when you had the chance,” I said. “Not everyone would have done the same in your position. Trust me, I’ve been let down by people far more experienced at facing supernatural danger.”
Nicola just turned her attention to the fire. Falling silent, her body language made it clear she didn’t want to continue the conversation any further. If she needed time to process, that’s what I’d give her. I wasn’t exactly going to be running around town tonight trying to hunt down answers. The downtime would do both of us some good.
Nathan helped me sit up, feeding me sips of water from a flask the old man had brought over. My head swam with dizziness, and I felt so bone-weary I didn’t know if I could lift my arms. Eventually, Nathan and the healer moved me to the rocking chair where Nicola had been sitting. They draped a blanket across my legs, then Nicola spoon-fed me a broth that had been reheated next to the fire. Once I’d eaten as much of the thin soup as I could manage, Nicola continued to sit by my side. She made sure I didn’t fall asleep by yammering on about celebrity gossip and other ridiculous things she read on her various social media feeds now that she was able to connect her phone to the network again. I didn’t care the tiniest bit about anything she was telling me, but I was immensely grateful for the distraction.
Bit by bit, my strength returned. The healer gave me several doses of different tea infusions throughout the afternoon. Some were bitter, and some were sweet. Each brought a little more clarity back to my thoughts, filling my muscles with strength I’d need to at least stand under my own power. When I finally did stand up and try to walk across the room, I limped a little on the injured leg. It felt okay enough to manage the drive back to Nicola’s chalet, so we thanked the healer and set off back to town.
Chapter Twenty-Two
We hadn’t even been home for an hour before Nicola started showing signs of impatience. Phone plugged into a wall charger, she tapped the screen furiously, responding to the dozens of messages she’d been left while out of reception. While I lay on the couch sipping at a mug of mint tea, Nicola complained about how her friends claimed she was never around anymore. Hell, I’d only been looking after her for five days, and she’d spent most of that time out partying at one place or another. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when she began dropping hints that she was planning to go out that night, but after being attacked by a cougar and undergoing a seriously intense healing process, I didn’t think it was too much to ask that we just stay home for the night.
“You don’t understand,” Nicola said. “This is our night. My girls and I always go to the bar on Fridays. If I don’t show up, people are going to start thinking something’s wrong.”
“Something is wrong,” I said. “A mysterious evil force has awakened and is probably trying to kill everyone in town. Is that not a good enough
reason to maybe skip the bar just this one time?”
Nicola stared at me as though I just suggested she fly to the moon to fetch me a hunk of green cheese. It hadn’t escaped my notice that she’d been acting a little strangely since witnessing the healer’s work on me. I’d expected her to have had a tough time wrapping her head around everything, but I’d only anticipated a bit of bitching and maybe a temper tantrum before the reluctant acceptance that her life truly was in danger. Call me naïve, but I really believed she’d eventually come around to the reality that she had to be a little more careful how she behaved from here on out.
“I just don’t think it’s safe,” I told her. “If we stay here, I can protect you. There are too many random elements in a place like that. There’s no way of knowing who in the crowd might be under the control of the Fog. Whatever this thing is, we know it can take control of animals. For all we know, it can use humans the same way. It may not have been strong enough to do that before now, but with how aggressively the danger is escalating, I don’t think it's wise for us to push our luck.”
“Whatever,” Nicola said. “You were hired to look after me, not to keep me locked up at home. I’m going to go crazy if I have to sit here all night. I’m going to the bar with or without you. If you’ve got a problem with that, just try to stop me.”
We both knew I could stop her if I wanted to; there were two dozen ways I could restrain her. In the end, all that would accomplish was provoking her even further. The last thing I felt like doing was going out clubbing, but Nicola needed to know I trusted her and was on her side. As stupid as I knew it was, I found myself considering the option of going out for just a couple of hours. If Nathan wasn’t busy, maybe he could even come along and help me look after her.
“Fine,” I said. “But I get to dress how I want. Even if that means wearing a hoodie and embarrassing you in front of your friends.”
Black Ice (Black Records Book 3) Page 18