All Wounds

by Dina James

  Though the one fairy was still smiling and waving, his companion did not share his enthusiasm. Rebecca could see why right away—one of its wings was bent backwards, almost to the point of tearing.

  That looked like it hurt a lot.

  “My brother fell foul of your labyrinthine, my lady,” the smiling faerie said. He tried to look sympathetic, but he had a pleased twinkle in his eye.

  Rebecca had no idea what he was talking about. Her labyrinthine? What was that? And why did he call it “hers?” She didn’t have...whatever he was talking about. But that didn’t matter. She put the questions she had away in the back of her mind to either look up or ask her nana later.

  “I see,” Rebecca said. “May I know the name of the injured?” He hesitated. Rebecca had learned that garden fae observed politeness and protocol before anything else, and didn’t give their names to anyone without significant need. Still, she would need a name in order to try and help.

  “You may, Acolyte,” a second small voice said before his brother could answer. “I am Cort.”

  Cort looked to be in considerable pain, but somehow Rebecca knew he was trying hard not to show it.

  “All right, Cort,” Rebecca said. “Let’s get you something for your pain.”

  “Nay, my lady. It’s nothing I can’t bear.”

  “If you don’t need me to help you, why did you come here?” Rebecca asked, raising an eyebrow at the little being.

  Cort shook his head and looked at his companion. “My brother has watched you make your offering in the mornings—” The other faerie cleared his throat. Rebecca hid a smile and lowered her eyes as she saw the other’s cheeks darken.

  She knew she couldn’t help Cort without his permission and she told him so.“Aye, then. As you say,” Cort replied with a sigh, shaking his head.

  Rebecca found her nana’s suitcase and looked through it for one of the glass vials it contained. She opened it and shook out a minute portion of dried skullcap. She crushed the leaf to tiny bits between her thumb and forefinger and separated a faerie-sized dose of the herb out. She held it out to the injured faerie with instructions to chew and swallow it.

  Cort wrinkled his nose but took the herb and did as she said. He grimaced at the bitter taste but managed to get it down.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty awful,” Rebecca sympathized. She turned to Cort’s brother. “You know, if you wanted to meet me so badly, you could have just shown yourself. You didn’t have to wait until your brother got hurt.” The faerie blushed even more.

  “Oh, but—” Rebecca hesitated a moment as something about faerie protocol entered her mind, and she remembered what Syd had said about keeping up with the speed at which her suppressed knowledge would surface. “Your kind can’t just introduce themselves, can they?” That was it! “I’m supposed to ask if I may have the honor of your name. Will you honor me with it?”

  The faerie hesitated again, and Cort made a noise like a growl and kicked his brother. “I am suffering for your fancy!”

  “I am Inth, Acolyte,” the fae managed in a rush.

  “You are an idiot,” Cort grumbled.

  “That wing looks pretty damaged,” Rebecca said to Cort. “It’s very kind of you to endure everything just so your brother could meet me.” The acknowledgement had the effect Rebecca hoped it would. Cort couldn’t help but smile at being called “kind.”

  “It was nothing, Acolyte,” Cort replied, as brave as he could.

  “How are you feeling? Is the pain still there?”

  “Not nearly as much before,” Cort said, though he didn’t sound very sure. “The wing does not ache anymore.”

  “Good. The medicine is working,” Rebecca moved toward him, slow and careful. “Now, Cort, I need to touch you. May I have your permission?”

  “Aye,” Cort replied, swaying a bit on his feet. “As the Acolyte needs.

  I take no offense.”

  “My gratitude,” Rebecca said again.

  She reached toward the small being and touched his wing, careful and delicate, willing her hands not to shake, though she was very nervous. This was the first healing she’d attempted by herself, and for a second she wondered if she shouldn’t wait for Syd to return, at least to supervise, but waiting for Syd could take minutes or hours, and Cort was in pain.

  Besides, Rebecca thought, I need to learn fast and can’t wait around for someone to hold my hand. The knowledge is there. I just have to...

  The wing was as light as tissue paper. When she moved it a little, it seemed to change color. Rainbows of watercolored light, like the spectrum of a crystal, played around the dark room as the faerie wing caught the glow of the candle.

  She knew she could read wounds and see things with a touch, and she concentrated on the injury beneath her fingers. Rebecca learned that Cort’s wing was only bent, not broken. Yes, the damage had indeed been caused by a...cat? Was “labyrinthine” their name for “housecat?” She remembered when Mishka went through her phase of leaving dead mice and headless birds at the foot of Nana’s chair. Gross.

  All thoughts of running to Syd for help fled as the knowledge of what to do spread through her in a flood of tingles.

  Rebecca cupped the tiny being in her palms and spread her fingers around Cort’s back. She closed her eyes and, with slow precision, rotated her hands until the fingers of one of her hands pointed skyward, while the other pointed toward the earth.

  “How warm,” Cort murmured. “My gratitude, Acolyte. That was...

  unexpected.”

  She smiled and removed her hands, looking down at them in wonder.

  For a moment they’d generated a strange kind of heat, and now they were cooling as if she were a toaster that had been unplugged. It seemed vampires weren’t the only ones whose power she could replenish. Cort would need all his strength in order to finish healing on his own.

  She went to the chest of drawers near the bed and gathered the supplies she needed. “Now, I’m going to tape your wing flat against your back so it will heal straight, Cort. Inth, please don’t let him remove the splint for one whole human day.”

  Rebecca marveled to herself at how she just knew that a faerie’s healing time differed a great deal from a human’s. Just knowing stuff was both scary and kind of fun. Freaky but cool. One human day should be enough to heal Cort’s bent wing.

  She turned to Inth. “You’ll take care of him, won’t you?” Inth nodded, though Cort gave him a dark scowl and muttered something Rebecca couldn’t hear.

  “Cort, I’ll also want you to put a cold compress on your head at home for at least a couple of mortal hours.”

  “A compress? Why?” the faerie asked, sounding indignant. “My head is fine!”

  “You didn’t tell me you were knocked unconscious,” Rebecca said, giving Cort a sharp look. “Faeries can suffer from concussion just like everyone else. You took a nasty blow to the head, and it’s going to swell. I hereby order you to one full mortal day of rest, beginning right when you get home. And you’ll go straight home from here, gentlefae. Understand?”

  “I cannot! I am a guardian of the Queen! I must return to my duties!” Cort protested.

  “You are a wounded fae, and I’m your Healer,” Rebecca said. “You’ll do what I tell you to and your Queen knows that perfectly well.”

  “Perhaps so, but that doesn’t mean the Queen won’t be upset with me,” Cort grumbled. “Nor the Captain of the Guard.” He glared at his brother.

  “I hope you are pleased!”

  Rebecca smiled to herself because she could hear the fondness in Cort’s voice.

  w x

  Rebecca had just closed the drawer that held the supplies she’d used when she heard Ryan moan. She went to him without hesitation and sat down on the bed at his side. She touched the side of his face and Rebecca took in the confused look on his face—he could see her, but didn’t recognize her.

  She was very familiar with that particular expression.

  “Hey,” she called so
ftly. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

  “No,” Ryan managed through clenched teeth. He began to convulse.

  “They’re...coming...”

  Rebecca didn’t have time to ask what he meant—or who—before Ryan’s thrashing escalated.

  She leaned over him, keeping him from falling out of the bed. His eyes were so dark they were almost black. Rebecca forced herself not to panic as she let go of Ryan’s thrashing body just enough to begin rolling up her pajama sleeve.

  “No,” Ryan moaned, grabbing at her wrist. “Listen.”

  “Ryan, let go!”

  “Listen,” Ryan said again, his iron grip on her arm tightening even more. “You can’t—”

  “Can’t what?” Rebecca said, trying to pull away, though she knew even in his weakened state that Ryan was ten times stronger than she was.

  Ryan babbled. “—can’t fight them. Neutral ground. Don’t let them...” The dark-haired boy suddenly grabbed her shoulders. Rebecca couldn’t stifle her short scream.

  “You have to be careful,” Ryan demanded.

  “I’ll be careful, Ryan,” Rebecca said, much calmer than she felt. “You have to let me go, though.”

  Ryan fell back on the bed as convulsions shook him.

  This time Rebecca threw her own body over his, using all of her weight to pin him down. She felt something hot against her hip and looked down.

  She gasped as saw Ryan’s bite wound smoking slightly and hissing beneath the waistband of his pajama bottoms.

  With one hand, Rebecca jerked the material down and then fumbled in the drawer of the bedside table that held the candle until she found the tincture for Ryan’s hellhound bite wound.

  She ripped the cork from the bottle and dumped the contents into the festering blackness that was Ryan’s hellhound bite. Rebecca brought her wrist to his mouth and Ryan bit down on it.

  She reached down and pressed her hand hard against the seeping wound. The injury hissed and smoked as it had done the last time she’d poured the potion into it.

  Rebecca was so focused on keeping Ryan’s wound closed that she didn’t realize it when Ryan’s thrashing stopped beneath her until he spoke.

  “Hey,” she heard Ryan say in a weak voice. He turned his head toward her and gave her a slight grin when she looked at him. He looked down toward his exposed wound. His underwear was still in place, but it was clear Rebecca had all but ripped his pajama bottoms off. “Moving kinda fast here, aren’t we?”

  Rebecca blushed and reached to pull his pajama bottoms back up. Ryan groaned and his eyes went blank, though they remained open.

  “That you’ll quite literally throw yourself into your healing is encouraging, Acolyte,” Syd’s voice came from behind her.

  She could hear the amusement in his tone.

  “Though I would very much appreciate it if you’d...remove yourself from atop my thrall,” he continued. “He is still healing, after all.”

  “Shouldn’t you be resting, or hibernating, or whatever it is your kind does during the day?” Rebecca asked as she slowly moved from the bed and began to straighten the bedclothes. She was glad Nana hadn’t been there to see her in a bed tearing the pants off some guy she barely knew while she climbed on top of him. Rebecca might be nearly seventeen, but she’d never even kissed a boy.

  She could totally understand now what Syd meant when he said that a lot of new Healers took things that weren’t meant...like that...the wrong way.

  “The demons have indeed begun kidnapping Healers.”

  “Why?” Rebecca asked, trembling. “I thought...that one at school...

  when he tried to pull me through the mirror...said I had to go willingly, or something. If that’s true, why...how did they get these other Healers to go with them? What do they want them for?”

  “I don’t know,” Syd replied, shaking his head. “I truly haven’t any idea.

  I’m just as confused as you are. The only thing I do know is that they will, most certainly, attempt to come for you again. We can’t worry now about why.

  All we can do is keep you safe until your power can manifest in its entirety.”

  “They’re kidnapping Healers much older than me, whose power has already done that. I don’t know why you think my birthday is going to make me any safer,” Rebecca replied.

  “It will,” Syd said. “I promise you, it will. Now try not to worry, remember. Peace and calm.”

  Rebecca told him about being able to see Ryan’s wound when he bit her, and asked him about it.

  “I can only guess that you were seeing through Ryan’s eyes somehow,” Syd replied. “For that is a very close description of how a vampire sees.” She bit her bottom lip and looked around the room, nervous, and then reached down to brush Ryan’s dark hair away from his face. She gasped as her hand came away wet, and she could see the dark liquid shining against her hand.

  Syd shook his head. “He should have stopped shedding by now. This does not bode well for his recovery.”

  “Shouldn’t we...I don’t know...” Rebecca looked at Syd, worried. “Call his mom, or something? He wasn’t in school today, and obviously didn’t go home last night. What if the police are looking for him?” Sydney laughed, and Rebecca could tell he was laughing at her.

  “What?” she demanded with a scowl.

  “Acolyte, quiet and calm, remember,” Syd chided. “Also remember to be respectful.”

  She felt like Syd should try and remember that, too.

  “What’s so funny about calling his mom? She’s probably worried about him.”

  “No,” Sydney replied in a whisper.

  “Or the school? Won’t someone come looking for him?”

  “No one is going to come looking for him. No one will even notice he’s gone.”

  “He’s human,” Rebecca protested. “I mean...well...he was. He has a mother, and teachers, and—”

  “No one,” Sydney said again, meeting Rebecca’s eyes with a dark glare for a fraction of a moment. “It’s how he...became one of us in the first place. His mother won’t even notice his absence. Not for quite some time.

  And when she does, she will not notify the authorities, or even bother to look for him. She is...most unconcerned with anything other than obtaining her next drink.”

  She looked to the boy on the bed for a moment before she dared to meet Syd’s metallic-blue eyes, despite knowing she wasn’t supposed to.

  Something in his tone compelled her to. “What about his dad?”

  “Ryan spoke of him only once,” Sydney replied. “And that was to say that his father abandoned both him and his mother when Ryan was barely walking. He’s never known his father.”

  Rebecca continued to look into Sydney’s eyes, saying nothing.

  “They will not bother, either,” he said in reply to a question she didn’t ask but he knew she wanted the answer to. “Ryan is well-known for his disappearances. The school will attempt to contact his mother, and his mother will tell them to mind their own business. As I said...no one will bother looking for him. No one cares where he is or isn’t.”

  “Except you,” Rebecca said with soft smile.

  She couldn’t help it. She kept her eyes on his, marveling at how amazing they were. She felt as though she were falling into them, being pulled somewhere by them. She couldn’t look away, even if she’d wanted to. She didn’t even think it was possible to do that.

  The world outside the room vanished. Nothing existed but her and her desire to stay right here, and do whatever Syd asked of her. She wished he would ask her to do something, just so she could hear him speak, but then she’d have to leave where she was to obey him, and she didn’t want to do that. Ever.

  She just wanted to stay right here.

  Then that strange, sudden warmth coursed through her limbs and she jumped back, blinking several times as she stared at him. She blushed, deep and pink, very embarrassed. She knew better than to look into the eyes of a Master vampire. She’d been told several times.
Warned more than once. It wasn’t very nice of Syd to hold her entranced like that.

  “Stop it,” she said, though it didn’t sound very much like she wanted him to. “That’s not fair.”

  “I...I wasn’t holding you, Acolyte,” Sydney stammered as he looked away and shook his head. “You...you were holding me.” He looked shocked at the realization. He looked back at Rebecca, studying her.

  “Do that again,” Sydney commanded.

  “Do what?” Rebecca asked, confused.

  “You were holding me,” Sydney replied.

  “I was not!” Rebecca said, shaking her head. “I mean, I didn’t mean to...um...offend you, or anything. I just...you looked...upset...” Sydney reached for her arm. Clasping her wrist firmly, Sydney brought her hand up. He pressed the palm of his own against hers and closed his eyes with a sharp breath.

  “Now, think of something you want to know,” he murmured. “A question you wish answered.”

  “Okay,” Rebecca replied. She closed her eyes and did what he said.

  A wry smile came to Syd’s lips. “Be serious!”

  Rebecca giggled and tried again.

  “No, no. Think of something else,” he said aloud. “Something I should know. I don’t know who is going to win the next presidential election. It hasn’t happened yet.”

  Rebecca took a deep breath. Syd said she’d see a lot of strange things.

  This was certainly strange.

  The boy on the bed gave her an idea.

  How did you get to know Ryan? she asked in her mind.

  “He saw Billy’s car at the fairgrounds with the keys inside and attempted to steal it,” Syd replied in a low murmur. “Billy caught him, and instead of tearing him to pieces, Billy got to know the boy, then brought him to me. He’d never brought me a human before, and I wondered why he did so then—” Sydney jerked his hand back as though he’d been burned. He looked at Rebecca, incredulous, and pulled away further as he eyed her.

  “Such...such a thing has never been done to me,” Sydney said in an awed tone.