‘You had surgery of course,’ he said, and I nodded vaguely, ‘but you have healed remarkably quickly.’ They stared at my neck, and I touched it, expecting to find a nasty puncture wound, but could feel nothing more than a slight bump in the skin.
I’m back, baby! Okay, I guess that’s what my inner Gatekeeper was thinking, and I have to admit, so was I. ‘Family gift,’ I croaked. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘Day?’ said Doctor Smyth. ‘You’ve been here for three days.’
I stared, incredulous. ‘Okay,’ I tried to smile, ‘and where is here exactly?’
‘Hellingstead Hospital.’
I imagined Father and Uncle Nikolaj storming into the Praetoriani with machine guns, demanding to know what they had done with me. ‘Oh god, does my father know where I am?’
Doctor Smyth and the nurse exchanged a glance, which was all I needed. I pictured him racing up and down the corridor barking orders at everyone and demanding that I be moved from the safe, antiseptic environment of the ward to our creaky old house. ‘Your father and uncle were here half an hour ago. Visiting hours are over, I’m afraid. Strict protocol.’
‘That doesn’t sound like my father. He doesn’t pay attention to rules.’
‘I can be pretty insistent when it comes to my patients,’ he grinned, and I felt as if Jesus himself was looking after me. I was sure I was doped up on painkillers as well. I beamed back at him.
Not long after, they left me to rest, showing me how to use the controls so I could sit up. The nurse was a shy Philippino woman, her meddling gentle as she rearranged the pillows behind my back. ‘Try to rest. If you need anything, press this button on the side of the bed.’ She gazed back at me as she left the room, but the only person I was interested getting a sponge bath from was Ava. But I couldn’t enjoy the idea of Ava in a nurse’s uniform when I was a patchwork of skin grafts and stitches, largely healed. How had Father explained that miracle? It runs in the family.
I watched the sunset from the window, setting over the cliffs in the distance. The shock of what had happened was starting to set in, a different kind of trauma but equally disturbing, like the tremors that come after an earthquake. The tears I’d buried so deeply in the basement, to deny those dickheads the satisfaction of reducing me to simpering fool, sprang forth, and I spewed more water than Neptune’s trident ever had in our fountain. I cried until I couldn’t see the bandages anymore.
After I’d snotted half my sheet, my lids blinked shut.
‘Knock knock, Theo.’
They snapped back open. Lorenzo stood in the doorway, picking at the doorframe, averting his grey stare from my puffy face, slightly embarrassed. I gaped at him. ‘Not expecting me, huh? At least I didn’t ring the bloody church bell to announce my arrival.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I started to laugh, nearly hysterical. It was so absurd that he would be here at that exact moment. My whole flipping life was plain crazy. I discovered I hadn’t recovered as much as I thought, the laughing making my stitches stretch and ache.
He waited for it to subside. ‘You’re kidding me. This whole damn building is like a giant mecca of blood. It even hangs up in convenient bags!’
‘Delicious,’ I said. ‘How’d you get in? Not even my father can get past Doctor Smyth.’
‘I don’t have his qualms about convincing sapiens to see things my way.’ Duh, of course, Lorenzo had half the hospital in his thrall. If this were a regular haunt, he’d have tapped all the key players. ‘And we’re going to find Raphael the same way,’ he added.
‘Is he hurt?’ My pulse thudded in my neck, not far from my healing wound. ‘Did they get him too?’
I jerked back when Lorenzo’s fangs snapped out, surprising both of us. Before he had time to control himself, he’d morphed into a beast, his red-tinged eyes burning with rage. ‘If you mean the same people who did that to you – you look like shit by the way – I’d have flayed them alive.’
‘Whoa,’ I said, fighting the wave of nausea building in my gut, ‘too close to home right now.’
‘Sorry.’ He appeared at my bedside, my brain struggling to catch up with his speed. ‘No, he’s fine.’ He mused for a while then looked at me again. ‘You know that story about Peter Pan? It’s as if it were written about Raphael.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He volunteers on the children’s ward. Imagine that, the kid who can turn into wind somehow managed to pass a CRB check!’
Raphael was in the hospital. Was it really him who had told me to breathe, or was that some kind of weird near-death experience? ‘’ere, it’s lights out for the kids, wanna come see?’
It was better than sitting all alone and crying. ‘Get that wheelchair in the corner,’ I said, pointing by the window. ‘I don’t think I can walk.’
A Gatekeeper and a vampire walk into a children’s ward – okay, so it sounded like the beginning of a bad joke, and only one of us was walking – but after Lorenzo had cleared the way by Enthralling all the passing staff, we sailed down several corridors and hailed a passing sapien, who held open the lift door for us. In my lap, the bag of fluid keeping me hydrated. Detaching the catheter had been unpleasant, but Lorenzo was apparently a closet-medic. I suppose he’d picked up a few tips during his many visits to the hospital. We both agreed never to mention it again.
Lorenzo bashed the intercom at the auto-locking doors of the protected ward. He whispered a trigger-word of some kind with his husky voice, and a happy chirp replied, followed by a click. We came through and passed some of the bays filled with already sleeping children, arriving in a cosy room filled with toys, beanbags, and books, some with heart-breaking titles such as, When I go to Heaven. In the centre, cross-legged on a fluffy rug, was the fawn of my dying dream.
The children swarmed him, wounded bees with fragile wings seeking the shelter and comfort of the hive. These kids weren’t sick enough to be in the ICU, but it still hurt.
‘Raphy,’ squealed a girl with golden locks that rivalled mine. She clutched at her blushing twin, buried in Raphael’s arm. ‘Sing us another song.’
I gulped, shaking as his delicate voice blossomed in his throat, bursting out like a chick taking its first wobbly flight from the nest. As the air caught the wings of the notes, they soared, reducing all other words to sludge. And he sung her song – Ava’s song. When I close my eyes, I see more clearly… when I lay down, I am rocked by the sky.
On our journey to the children’s ward, Lorenzo had shifted from foot to foot and hummed constantly, as if he were nervous to reach our destination. Now he was silent, as transfixed as I was.
Raphael started chuckling, grabbing the twins in his arms, and rocking them off their feet. They fell onto his lap, and the other children cried out, trying to take the vacated space at his side. ‘He always ignores me,’ said Lorenzo. Yet he’d only seen Raphael a handful of times, after all, he’d only met him less than a week ago.
‘I don’t think he’s ignoring us. I think he’s too engaged with his fan-base.’
‘The kids? Yeah, I guess they’re cute. Or as Malachi calls them, “The blood supply of tomorrow”.’
I glanced at that title on the bookstand again. ‘I don’t think all of them will make it that far.’
‘I haven’t been totally honest with you, Theo.’ We left Raphael reading stories from tattered favourites, as excited by the tales as his audience. I had no idea how old Raphael was, but in his heart he was the Puer Aeternus, the living embodiment of ageless innocence.
‘At least you admit it,’ I said. Lorenzo wheeled me back in the direction of my ward, stooping so his chin hovered above my hair. ‘Spill your guts, vampire.’
‘I’m not always ’ere because of the blood.’ Suddenly, we stopped in the empty corridor. ‘My girlfriend, Jean-Ashley… don’t look so surprised, okay? And no, she doesn’t know what I am before you ask.’
‘Okay… is this going to take all night or what? I’m knackered.’
‘Shut
up and listen for once, warlock,’ he huffed. I raised my hand in mock submission. ‘Her mum, Anna, she’s in the oncology unit. She has cancer.’
‘Terminal?’
‘Looks that way. Her brain is riddled with it.’
I had no idea what he wanted from me. So I gave my condolences. ‘Harsh, how old is she?’
‘Same age as my mum.’ He walked round and sat on the squeaky-clean floor, resting his chin on his knees. Jörð knows what we would look like to any passersby. ‘How old was your mum when she died?’
I paused. ‘Thirty-six.’
He nodded.
‘I can’t heal her. I can’t heal cancer with my blood. The tumour devours it, grows like a fucking flower. I tried to help her but I’ve made it so much worse.’ He paused. ‘Penny says Clemensen warlocks possess the purest magic in the northern hemisphere.’
I started to panic, the course of the conversation stretching out in my head, leading me into a trap. ‘Do I look powerful to you? I’m in a darn wheelchair in a hospital gown.’
‘Theo, I’ve ruined her life, you don’t understand. The things I’ve done to her.’ He groaned, pressing his palms to his temples, and I worried he might burst his head under the pressure. ‘I can’t let her mum die! Surely, you get it, Theo? Please, can you do something? I’ll owe you one.’
‘You’ll owe me a million!’
‘Is that a yes?’
Oh, Odin, Thor, and Freyr. The steel bite of the trap snapped. Lorenzo peered up at me with irises full of sorrow, his spirit breaking. Not only was doing what he asked the equivalent of incinerating the rulebook with a laser-beam, I would have to pay a stipend beyond my knowledge – and imagination. But in those stormy, grey eyes I saw my ten-year-old self grieving my mother, demanding Father to bring her back.
Familia Super Omni – it was her motto. I was a Breac too. ‘Jörð, yes, I’ll save her.’
I’d never seen Lorenzo truly smile before; the nubs of his fangs suddenly harmless, mischief and wonderment bringing out a hidden dimple as the tension in his body melted away. It was a smile between friends.
31
The Daemon
‘You are the Gatekeeper. You can do anything. But everything you do comes at a price.’
—The Book of Gatekeepers
Lorenzo helped me into the hospital bed – not my finest moment; I was less able than I hoped. Sitting in a moving chair had given the illusion of mobility, and now I struggled to rearrange my limbs into a less excruciating position. I was about as useless as a lump of lard – muscly lard – but lard nonetheless.
‘You better be able to pull this off, Theo.’
‘Thanks for the encouragement, Lorenzo.’
‘I didn’t mean it how it sounded,’ he grumbled, perching on the edge of my bed. ‘We don’t have long. The consultant transferred Anna to the palliative care ward the day before you showed up. What the hell happened to you anyway?’
So his cogs had been churning since I’d been dumped from the back of a van. I considered his desperation. My arrival must’ve been a stroke of luck, or at least hope. For a vampire, he wasn’t as bad as he made out. At least not yet, but he was Malachi’s pet project. I prayed Malachi was the absentee-father type, and he would spare Lorenzo’s conscience in his apparent quest for a prodigy. ‘I don’t want to talk about it yet. Is Anna going home?’
‘Dreckly,’ he sighed, stretching out his lean arms above him, arching his back like a weary feline. ‘She has a care package in place now. She wants to die at home.’
This was deep. A little too deep. Interfering with natural death cycles was dodgy territory, and I was probably being watched by the Praetoriani. After all, they’d told me to open my mail and not leave the county. A polite way of putting me under house arrest. In the middle of Assessment I was about to break one of the biggest rules in the Pneuma community. Thanks to the religious leanings of so many sapiens, miracle healing had the habit of attracting too much attention, and attention was a ticket to a very real kind of hell for us all.
‘Good,’ I said. Lorenzo shot me a sharp frown. ‘Not that she wants to die at home, obviously. I mean, it’ll have to be in private. Getting caught using any magic in public is bad news, let alone this kind of magic. Get Anna home tomorrow before visiting hours. Then get me out of here. We need to do this before my father shows up and stops it.’
‘Can we trust her?’ I wheezed from the chair by the window. Jean-Ashley’s milky hands shielded her face as she sat in the corner, hiding her tears from Anna, her mother nothing but sunken bones as the cancer drew away the last ebbing strength from her flesh.
The tiny bulge of Lorenzo’s fangs vied for liberation with the stubbled flesh of his upper lip. He pressed them taut and honed his fox-like focus on me. ‘She’s under my thrall.’
‘You’re sure it’ll work?’
‘She has been for a while. Trust me, it works.’
Trust a vampire who keeps his woman Enthralled. Right. ‘I won’t ask.’ It was better than, ‘Great, I’m so pleased you’ve turned her into a mindless zombie!’ The empty expressions of the servants I’d glimpsed at the Old Vicarage made my stomach flip even now, and I’d been through a shit-storm of crap since then. What happened between Lorenzo and his girlfriend was his business, right up to the point he wished to include me in it. I had a world to worry about.
‘Good, because I won’t tell.’
‘Let’s hope you keep what happens here as private as you keep your love life.’
‘Let’s hope what happens ’ere doesn’t get as messy as my love life.’
‘Amen to that.’ The great escape from the hospital had drained my strength and I was about to require a record amount. I’d have to dredge it up from somewhere. No fuck-ups this time, Theo. Same to you, Gatekeeper. Okay?
You are the Vessel, the Anchor, the Conduit. Do not open the channel to the Lífkelda for selfish reasons.
I shuddered. I’d never get used to that thing replying. ‘It’s not selfish,’ I muttered, ‘I’m risking everything for a stranger. I’ll use my own magic, as Father taught me. Just stay out of it.’
Lorenzo cocked his head to one side. ‘Who the hell are you talking to?’
‘Don’t eavesdrop on private conversations,’ I said.
‘I’m right next you, dumbass. And I’m a vampire. Ace hearing, your words, remember?’
‘Whatever. I need to compose my thoughts. Give me a minute and stop breathing down my neck.’ Lorenzo didn’t argue, which made a refreshing change. I regretted being short with him but I had little energy to waste arguing.
A single, dim bulb emitted its halo into the room, drawn curtains blocking out the daylight, harsh to Anna’s eyes. I let that lamp filter through my closed eyelids, using its electricity as a source of fire, beginning to Anchor. When supercharged with the world’s magic, it seemed to amplify the dullest lifeforms into the Mona Lisa.
A dark blur overtook my vision and I floated on the edge of pure being, free of thought. The empty cinema screen in my mind’s eye played the first dreamy frames of film, threatening to ensnare me with its props. Suddenly, I remembered what I was doing, and the door slammed shut on the cinema.
What I hadn’t told Lorenzo was that my grounding in the healing of physical ailments was rather basic. It had been Mum’s gift. The Breac family’s women – wise women of the Highlands – had tended to the medicinal needs of their clan aeons before the infamous witch trials, and long after. Mum had taught me a little before she died, although I’d always felt she was saving the breadth of her knowledge for a future daughter. Little did she realise she wouldn’t live long enough to conceive one.
I didn’t have time to collect plants from Uncle Nikolaj’s herb-garden. The Clemensen gift made that requirement redundant. I couldn’t save Jean-Ashley’s mum the Breac way but I had to save her. Because no one saved mine.
The room fleshed out into something textured and layered; the air shifted and stilted over obstacles, a weather system withi
n four walls. Emanating from each occupant, a hazy glow swirled with patterns and colours – auras. Mum explained it to me once. The soul is too bright. You can stuff it in a suitcase as much as you like, but it will always spill out the edges. What we see in those escaping threads hints at the physical and mental state of that person, betraying their aspirations and attitude to life. It is such a powerful tool that the Praetoriani often used trained clairvoyants in court.
We were all feeling pretty intense. Colours bled out from our spiritual wounds. Lorenzo has an aura, too. So vampires do have souls. That myth belonged firmly in the grave of superstition. Thick and shaggy, Lorenzo’s aura had blood red and vibrant orange spears gouging jagged edges from the oval shape. It was a raging battleground in which his base instincts had gained the upper hand, creating a storm that would rival the eye of Jupiter, remote verdant islands the only hint that his heart was still working. That he still felt love.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Anna was a frozen planet tucked away in the abyss of space. I turned my attention to her. Slowly, I walked over, feeling invigorated by the energy fluxing around us, and removed the flowery quilt from her, exposing the dying woman to the ambient air. Luckily, someone had thought to put the heating on. ‘Mrs. Rayner?’
‘Yes.’ A mouse’s squeak had more power.
‘My name is Theo. I’m a friend of Lorenzo’s.’
Anna dipped her chin into her chest, the barest of nods, her shoulders relaxing into the pillow. She liked Lorenzo; a fragment of green quickly drowned in a sea of murky brown, crested with waves of black. Almost everyone has some vermillion in their aura, signifying some will to live, some investment in survival. If there was any red hiding in Anna, it had sunk to the bottom of her diseased ocean. ‘I’m here to help you.’
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 23