by Dale Mayer
“Jesus,” he whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” Devon cried. “I didn’t know he’d do that. I didn’t have time to stop him…”
Genesis shook her head. “You couldn’t have stopped him. He was the only one here prepared to do what needed to be done.”
“What? Bite off a chunk of her leg?” Devon asked in shock. “Is he dangerous? Will he do something like that again?”
Tori smiled. “I sure hope so.” She pointed to the floor. “Look. He took out enough of a bite that he removed the black rocks.”
Matt walked closer. Indeed, the organic mess did appear to have the embedded particles within it, but it was hard to tell from all the blood.
Connor raced over to his side. “Here.” He held out a glass jar. Using the flipper he’d been handed, Matt scooped up the offending flesh and placed it in the jar.
And sealed it tight.
Inside the container, the rocks looked bigger, swollen, as if having gorged on the tissue around them. Matt felt sick to his stomach. He turned to study Celeste floating in the healing water. She was where she needed to be. And from where he stood, she looked fine. Decent. Better than that…she was beautiful to him. Always had been. Covered in mud, or exhausted and in ragged clothes, his heart had always known who she was—his. His jaw worked as he tried to get his thoughts in order.
“Is she going to be okay?” He finally managed to ask. “This isn’t how I’d planned our first meeting to be.”
Tori snorted. “Plans never work out. As far as first meetings, none of us had great ones, either. However, having those out—” she waved her hand at him and the jar he held “—she should heal fully now, but depending on how deep the gash and how widespread the poison, it will take a little time.”
“Right.” He stood, helpless, not sure what he was to do.
Genesis smiled up at him. “You did the right thing, Matt. Not to worry. She came home because she couldn’t deal with this and those rock shards were working their way deeper into her skin. Eventually, they’d have embedded themselves into her bone, and then we would have had a horrible time getting them out.” She glanced over at Devon. “Don’t feel bad, Storm did the right thing. A little rough, a little harsh, maybe, but given the circumstances, it’s all good.”
He nodded but didn’t really feel any better. “Maybe I should take this back to the Center,” he said, focusing on something else. “She’s going to need to stay here for a while.”
“She is. And she’ll need to adjust when she wakes as well,” Genesis smiled gently. “It’s okay. We’ll take care of her. Go.”
“When she wakes up, find out how she acquired these and from where.” Matt picked up the jar. “We need to make sure there are no others left behind.” With a last look at Celeste, floating in the water, he turned and walked out.
“Wait, Matt, I’ll come with you.” Devon raced behind him, Storm loping at his side.
“Fine, you can come, but only if you ditch the guilt,” Matt said as he left the cottage, heading for the small hovercraft he’d flown in.
“That’s hard to do.” Devon got in the front seat. “I know so little about spirit animals, and haven’t been connected for very long, but I feel like I should know how to stop him. It feels like my fault.”
“Then maybe we should be saying thank you,” Matt said. “I don’t know that anything else could have done the job.”
“I’m sure one of the doctors could have removed the rocks in a much easier, clearer way.”
“Maybe and maybe not. Often a traditional medical doctor can’t see what we can see. He might have not been able to extract those things at all.”
Matt glanced over at Devon, who looked devastated. “Look, when she wakes up, Celeste won’t blame you. She’d been the one to talk to Storm before he acted. She’s not that kind of person.”
Devon nodded. “Glad to hear that. She’s the one I know the least about.”
“She’s also the one who is the hardest to get to know.”
Chapter 5
This time when Celeste awoke, it was to find her sisters chatting away at her side in low tones. Celeste smiled. It was a nice way to wake up. She was surrounded by spirit animals. Some she hadn’t seen in years and some she had never met before. She presumed they were still finding their way to Granny’s cottage. She’d have to set about finding them families to join. She already had a dozen or so that wandered in and out of her life, but three stayed all the time, and another three were there most of the time. She’d have to ask her sisters if they could connect to any. It was never good to see spirit animals alone. It’s not like they were trouble, at least not until she’d seen that huge one of Devon’s. She remembered her leg at that point and the lunge the shadow cat had made before he snapped at her leg. The pain had been horrific, had knocked her out. But as she thought about the pain, she wondered if at least part of that hadn’t been the damn pebbles fighting back themselves.
Warily, she assessed her leg. It actually felt…decent. As in, much better. Considering she’d had a bite of flesh removed, she was feeling immensely better than expected.
Now for the visual inspection. She slowly shifted in the water, so she could look at her leg. She gave a happy sigh of relief. It was still brightly colored, but the flesh was filling in nicely. Not fast enough that she was willing to risk standing on it yet, but it was well on the way.
“How do you feel?” Genesis asked, standing and moving closer.
“Better,” Celeste said warmly. “Not quite ready to run the Glory marathon yet, but getting better.”
“Let me see,” Genesis said holding out her hand.
Knowing her sister’s persistence was based in caring, Celeste lifted her leg up out of the water, fascinated when water wrapped around her injury instead of falling back into the pool. “That’s really cool,” she admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it do that.”
“I have,” Tori said, joining them. “Genesis, do you remember when you stepped on that nail? And Granny had to cut out the damaged tissue?”
“I do,” Genesis groaned in remembered pain. “I screamed pretty loudly, as I recall.”
“With good reason.”
Tori studied the wound with her sister. Celeste let out a quiet laugh. “So? How does it look? Did Storm get it all?”
“It looks like he did,” Genesis said, smiling. “Nice and clean.”
“I was afraid the spirit animal bite would cause more problems than what he was trying to fix,” Tori admitted.
Celeste hadn’t considered that. “It’s a strange world we live in, when a spirit animal can actually bite us.”
“Did anyone consider that maybe spirit animals have abilities the same as we do?” Genesis asked. “It’s not an idle question…”
Tori frowned. “You know I have, often.”
“And I’m pretty sure they do,” Celeste said in a low voice. “We need to do some research on it, but there’s never any time. I’ve been so busy trying to survive…” She closed her eyes in relief as she lowered her leg back into the water. As a test, it was a good one. She was not ready to get out.
“It’s tough, isn’t it?” Genesis said. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t even return here for six months, and I lived in town, trying to keep the herb shop open.”
“Is it still?” Celeste hoped so. It was what Genesis had always wanted.
“It is. I hired Victoria away from the coffee shop to work for me.” Genesis shrugged at Celeste’s shocked gasp. “I am working at the Center with the star charts as well, and don’t have time to do both.”
“And I’m working with Genesis,” Tori said. “So we both live at the Center.”
“Well, I won’t be visiting you there much, will I?” And damn, that hurt. The Center was where she’d spent so much of her time—before. She loved that place. To think of both sisters and their men there without her, well, that was just painful.
“Matt was here earlier, you remember that, right?” Tori a
sked curiously. “You can’t just ignore it. He came rushing in to warn us about your leg, then left with the damaging pebbles.”
Was that where he’d gone? Part of her had been wondering if he was sitting out in the kitchen with the other men. The rest of her had been afraid to think of him at all.
“Devon is feeling horribly guilty, and took off with him,” Tori said. “I told him you wouldn’t blame him, but he figures he should have been able to stop Storm before he bit you.”
Relief that she didn’t have to face Matt for a while, and hating that she was going to have to thank him for his part in this, she splashed water on her face, thinking about the spirit animal’s actions. “I don’t think Devon could have done a damn thing. I’m supposed to have an affinity to them and look, I couldn’t do anything, either.”
Then she froze. And laughed dryly. “Actually, I asked if there was anything he could do to help.” She glanced at her sisters. “I’m going to have to watch how I word things from now on.”
They grinned.
“Honestly, I don’t think I could have stopped him, either. Not after I requested his help.” She shivered suddenly. “I wish I could get out of the water, but my leg isn’t ready. I’m getting chilled,” she admitted.
Instantly, Genesis reached a hand into the water.
Seconds later, the temperature warmed up to make a lovely hot pool. “Oh, thanks. That feels much better.” Celeste smiled and closed her eyes, before sliding down into the water again.
“Rest. We’ll be here when you wake up.”
And if there was a tone of, ‘we’ll always be here from now on’ in her sister’s voice, Celeste was too happy to take umbrage at her big sister’s caring. She didn’t want to be anywhere else but here.
*
The tissue had been transferred to a surgical dish, and one of the techs with energy kinetic skills sealed it to keep the stone’s energy contained. Now that they’d seen what Genesis had done originally, repeating it hadn’t been a problem.
Matt and Devon stared at the tissue, watching it pulse as if the rock was absorbing it—eating it. Matt’s stomach heaved. This was going to be a huge problem if they couldn’t quarantine all the rocks before they turned to dust—and fast.
At hard footsteps behind them, Matt turned to see Scott. But the other man’s gaze was locked on the glass box. “What in the hell is that?” he whispered.
“Remember those black rocks we’ve been hunting down? This is a few tiny particles of the same stuff we just removed from a woman’s leg an hour ago.”
“They are going to be hell to find if they are this small.”
“We have to find the rest. Mason said they’d all been stolen, but there might be small ones the thieves discounted due to their size. We’ll need to go and check.”
“I’ll go,” Devon said. “I was heading there anyway, before we heard Celeste had returned.”
Matt nodded and watched as Devon strode off, his fists clenching and unclenching. Devon was still disturbed by Storm’s actions. Understandable. Yet Storm had saved Celeste’s leg. By removing the poison before it had burrowed in deeper, they’d been able to extract it before it hit her bone. Who knew what damage could have happened if it had managed to burrow in that far.
Scott walked around the glass jar. “It shouldn’t have affected her.”
Matt turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“It’s negative energy. Her positive energy should have neutralized the rocks from gaining hold in the first place.”
Matt winced. “Sure, but remember that worry, stress, and fear can have the same affect and allow anything negative to gain a foothold. She was in a tough place when this happened.”
Scott nodded. “Right. We need make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Needing to move him off that track, Matt changed topics. “What did you find out?”
“That there is a history of stargazers disappearing into the storm. Not often and not forever. But somewhere along the line that balance of having a stargazer available to go and work the storms changed. Then they ran out of stargazers.”
“Where did you get this information from?” Matt asked in alarm. Ran out of stargazers? He’d heard something about there being one per generation, so in theory, three could be alive at any one time, and given the longevity of the line it wasn’t unbelievable to consider four or five alive at one time, but there’d been only Granny for so long. And now the three girls. So the system had broken. Was it repairing itself now? Or was it not repairable? If not, then why three at one time?
“From the archives,” Scott said.
Matt studied him carefully. “I don’t remember reading any of this stuff in the historical accountings.”
“Much of this came from the material Genesis allowed us to bring, and the rest we had, but hadn’t been translated.” He shrugged. “I happen to have a talent for translation.”
“Interesting. I hadn’t known that. Any translations?”
Scott hesitated. And that piqued Matt’s interest that much more.
“Not all of them, but any old language that I’ve come up against so far has been relatively easy to decipher.”
A useful skill in some ways, and completely useless in so many others. Yet, as Matt studied the young man, he realized he glowed with power. He just wasn’t willing to share those details any further. Fair enough. They all had secrets.
Even him.
Chapter 6
“No.” She was adamant on that point. She didn’t dare go back where Matt lived. There was too much wrong between them for that.
“We need you back at the Center.” Genesis sat back and stared at her. Then switched her gaze to Tori, as if willing her to help out.
Celeste shook her head. “Still playing the usual games. Ganging up on me.”
“It’s important,” Tori said quietly. “We don’t know what’s going on. Genesis has been working to stabilize and heal the pools, and I’ve been trying to get the forests to heal themselves.”
“And once those two factors happen, then the animals return. I can’t do anything to speed the process up, you know that.” Celeste stared around the small cabin. “Besides, I need time here.”
“Time to hide?” Tori asked gently. “Matt isn’t an ogre. Even if you have nothing to do with him other than with him as the head of the Center, he’s very involved in this problem.”
A snort escaped. “Really? You think that is going to work?”
“Well, hiding from him won’t.” Genesis stood. “I need to return. If you don’t want to come with us, then I’ll come back tomorrow with more supplies. You can make a decision then.”
They were leaving. Somehow that hurt. But of course they had to go. They had jobs. Lives of their own. Partners. And homes. She glanced around the cabin. “I need to stay here a little longer,” she said quietly. “My leg isn’t fully healed.”
She’d been out of the water for an hour and it felt fine, but she could tell she’d need to go back in sooner than later, before the pain built again. “I really don’t want to be way from the healing pool until the leg is back to normal.”
Immediately, Genesis’ face turned contrite. “I’m so sorry. I forgot about your leg.” She dug into her pockets and pulled out a tablet. “What can I bring you back tomorrow?” She glanced at the food on the table. The basket she’d brought earlier had also yielded sandwiches and salad. “There are still several sandwiches for you.”
“There’s lots of food now,” Celeste said. “You’ll make me fat if you bring more.”
“Oh, I’ll bring more,” Genesis said. “We all went through this, you know. Stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. Couldn’t smile at much anymore. Tired all the time. Not scared, but feeling like life wasn’t quite right. Like it would never be right again.”
Oh, hell. Celeste swallowed heavily as she struggled to her feet.
Tori added, “And we all lost weight. I’m still trying to put a few pounds back on. And you, Ce
leste, well, you look gaunt.”
“I’m not that bad,” she cried. “Surely?”
“Oh yes, you are,” said Connor from the sidelines where he’d been the whole time. “Genesis got skinny, Tori became lean, but you’re into the gaunt stage. The longer you stayed away the worse it got.”
She stared at him, then down at her arms seeing the blue veins crisscross the backs of her hands and going up toward her shoulders. “I lost my appetite, then had little in the way of good food to eat. It was like nothing tasted normal anymore. As if my taste buds had up and left me a long time ago. So I didn’t eat,” she admitted. “And there wasn’t any time to worry about it, as there was so much else going on all the time. I burned through the food and then the energy. I had so many animals that left home when I did, that I struggled to keep them all comforted.”
“That’s because they wanted to come back here,” Genesis said in a firm voice. “To make the energy transfer easier. As you stopped eating your daily requirements, you pulled on more energy to keep going. Where did you source that energy from?” Genesis asked curiously.
“The woods,” Celeste confessed. “I haven’t been very far away. So I stayed close enough to the forest to stay recharged, but as I was still hiding. I ran the energy through the spirit pets so you wouldn’t know.”
“The black part of the forest?” Tori snorted. “I couldn’t figure out why it was struggling so badly. I was pulling from the woods the same way, but from a longer distance. It was in terrible condition, as we were both pulling from the same source.”
Celeste stared at Genesis and Tori in disbelief. “Between us, we damn near destroyed the woods. Granny has to be rolling over in her grave.”
Silence.
Celeste pitched her voice low, hoping Connor couldn’t hear. “Did you ever figure that out?”
Genesis stared down at the table and shook her head.
Tori slid a glance over at Connor, and said, “No.”