Awakening (25 page)

I studied Luke’s profile. He said I
should trust him. I wanted to, I honestly did. Murder and now
poison. After all this effort, I still had no power. Would selling
my soul be worth it?

Chapter
Twelve

We pulled up to a cottage set back in
the woods. The whole place was painted purple. Twinkly white lights
people usually put up for Christmas wrapped around the porch and
winked on and off. A pink neon sign flashed ‘Open’ from one of the
windows. Over the front door hung a wooden sign with a blue swallow
painted on the front of it.

“
I think I’ll wait in the
car, if that’s all right.” The blue swallow told me that healer who
owned this place was one of my kind. I didn’t know if I could
stomach coming face to face with a healer, not when I was just
hours away from committing such a horrendous act.

Luke didn’t look surprised by my
request. “I won’t be long.”

Murderer.
The word whispered in the corners of my mind. I
would be taking a life. The antithesis of everything my family had
taught me. But I had no choice. I wondered if I told myself that
often enough would I’d start to believe it. The power I’d gain
might make the difference between us living and dying. Or better
yet the difference between my family’s killers
living and dying.

Murderer.
This time the word whispered on the wind. A breeze
moved across my hands, and I looked around. I waited for a face to
pop out, or a voice to speak up, but there was nothing but
silence.

Deep down I doubted I could go through
with the last ritual. And if I refused to do it? If I turned my
back and walked away, what would be the consequences? Luke would be
left alone against a slew of men. The odds wouldn’t matter, I knew
he’d take any risk, pay any price to see Darla returned
unharmed.

What price are you willing
to pay?
The words from my dream, my vision,
came back to me. I had said over and over that I’d do whatever it
took to avenge my family. That I’d pay whatever price needed. But
was my revenge, my survival, worth someone else’s life?

Luke came out of the store minutes
later with a small brown paper bag in hand. He slid into the
driver’s seat, put the bag between us, and started the
car.

I looked down at the bag, afraid to
touch it. “You got what you needed?”

“
Yes.”

“
So where to now?” I looked
out the window and wished as hard as I could that his answer would
be something trivial.
Hey, let’s stop and
get some food
, or
Want to see a movie?
Maybe if I
wished hard enough, he might change his mind and forget all about
doing the last ritual.

Instead, he answered, “The
hospital.”

And at the answer my heart
sank. The hospital. A place full of sick and dying people. I should
have realized earlier that the errand he had to run when he dragged
me to the hospital had to do with the person I was going to
kill.
It’s not killing, but
mercy
, I tried to tell myself. I remembered
the bodies I saw as I walked down the hospital hallways--people
lying in beds hooked up to machines. Weak, sick and full of pain,
but striving to survive, desperate to stay alive. It’s how I always
viewed illness as a healer. The fight against death. Death was the
enemy of my kind. I, as a healer, would do whatever I had to in
order to keep my patients alive.

A single tear ran down my cheek, the
start of a breakdown I struggled to control. I turned my head
before Luke could see me crying. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take
a life. No matter how much I tried to rationalize what needed to be
done, deep down I was still a healer. I wanted to fight to keep
people alive. I didn’t want to be the one ending their
lives.

I wiped the tears away and looked over
at Luke. His attention remained on the road. He was counting on my
help to save his sister. He’d risked his life to save mine, more
than once. We were in this together, weren’t we? We only had each
other. How could I let him down now? How could I let my family’s
death go un-avenged?

The car came to a stop, and Luke
glanced at me. “We’re here.”

My heart thumped hard in my chest.
“But it’s not even close to midnight.”

“
This ritual doesn’t have
to be done in the witching hour. We’re not worried about making the
veil between the living and dead as thin as possible so you can
have an easier time contacting spirits.” His hand came down and
rested on the bag. “This time we have the ointment, and you’re
closer to the spirit world now.”

“
I don’t know if I can do
this,” I whispered. My hands trembled.

Luke reached out and grasped my
fingers in his. “What you do tonight has to be done of your own
free will.”

“
And if I decide not to go
through with it? If I’ve changed my mind?”

His fingers tightened. “I won’t lie
and say that I don’t need your help. I do. But if you’ve changed
your mind, Colina, you can walk away. I’ll find another way to save
Darla without you.”

He looked so earnest that I almost
believed him. Almost. I could see the muscle on his cheek twitching
ever so slightly and the tension radiating off of him. If I left
him on his own, his chances of surviving, of either of them
surviving, was nonexistent.

I took a deep breath and let it out
slowly. “I’ll try. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll
try.”

He wiped a tear from my cheek. “If at
any time you want to stop, we will. I can take over. I can finish
what needs to be done.”

Even if I didn’t do it, Luke would. No
matter what, this person’s life would be over tonight.

Luke reached into his pocket and
handed me the gypsy’s pouch. I tied it around my neck.

Murderer.
There was the word again blazing across my mind. I
slowly opened the door and got out of the car.

Luke got out of the car, he stopped
and leaned back in and a few seconds later pulled out the two
duffel bags. “Ready?” he asked, swinging the wide straps of both
bags over his shoulder.

I nodded my head.

We went into the hospital,
and like before, a myriad of sensations rushed in on me.
It knocked the breath right out of me. Static
electricity slammed against me, frantic whispers buzzed around my
head, and a cold breeze crawled across my neck.

“
Remember to
breathe
,” Luke had told me the first time I
came here. I forced the claustrophobic feeling away and
concentrated on controlling my breathing. I tried to concentrate on
the living--the bodies mingling around in the hallway in front of
us. I desperately tried to ignore the dark shadows that kept
creeping into the edge of my vision.

We headed down the hospital hallways,
but this time people didn’t ignore us, they stared openly. I could
hear people whispering as we passed by and out of the corner of my
eye I saw people pointing in our direction.

Did we suddenly have
‘
death dealer
’
tattooed on our forehead? How did they know who we were and why we
were here?

“
Word spreads quickly in
places like this,” Luke said quietly as he picked up the pace.
“It’s better if we don’t engage anyone. If we keep to ourselves, no
one will bother us.”

I squared my shoulders and followed
him.

We went the same way we had the day
before. As we came through a pair of double doors, a
fifty-something, brunette walked out of a room close by. She was
dressed like a visitor, not a doctor or nurse. She saw us and
gasped out loud, her hand going to her chest.

“
Death dealers,” she said
the words as if she was cursing. Her face twisted into a look of
deep hatred. “You’re not wanted here.”

Luke pointed down the hallway where a
small group of people gathered outside a room. “They’ve called and
asked for our help.”

“
What you do is
sacrilegious.” She stepped into our path.

Did she mean to try to stop us
physically?

Luke grabbed my hand. “We
mean you no harm, but we
will
pass.” His voice was low and
threatening.

The woman’s eyes widened, and after a
moment, she stepped aside. As we went by a string of curse words
flew from her mouth.

Death dealer. I was one of them now,
despised and feared by many.

Down the hall we went. The crowd
parted as we came close. An older man with a brown beard stepped
forward and extended his hand. “Thanks for coming.” The man
gestured toward the room. “We’ve all said our goodbyes. Are you
sure I can’t be there when it happens?”

“
I’m sorry, but this is
something that has to be done by us alone.”

The man stepped back. “I
understand.”

Luke walked into the room, and I
followed.

There was someone in the bed, hooked
up to a half dozen machines. The only sounds I could hear were the
beeping of the machines and my heart pounding wildly in my
chest.

“
Close the door,” Luke said
without turning around. His whole attention now focused on the
person in the bed.

My hands trembled as I grasped the
door handle. I looked out into the sea of sad and worried faces and
slowly closed the door.

Luke carried the duffel bags over his
left shoulder. He walked up to the bed and dropped the bags to the
floor.

“
Make sure to lower the
blinds.”

I nodded my head and followed his
orders. ‘Shut the door,’ ‘close the blinds’, and when he spoke the
words ‘kill’ would I just blindly follow along? I took another deep
breath and forced myself to move to the bed.

The slight form in the bed barely
resembled a body at all, more like skin and bones. I looked closer
before recoiling in horror.

“
It’s…a…a…child.” I could
barely get the words out.

Luke walked over to the edge of the
bed and gently reached out and touched the child’s forehead. “Her
name is Anna. She’s seven years old, and she has cancer riddling
her body.” His eyes met mine. “There’s nothing they can do for
her.”

The little girl twitched
suddenly.

I stepped back.

“
She’s in
pain--excruciating pain all the time.” Luke pointed toward one of
the IV bottles. “The doctors can give her morphine, but it’s not
enough. It doesn’t dull the pain. The dose they would need to get
rid of the pain would kill her.” He looked at the closed door. “Her
family wants to help her move on. She can stay like this for weeks,
maybe a month, but there’s no hope. With our help, she’ll move
directly into the light. We can help her spirit pass through this
life into the next.”

It was a child. He was asking me to
take the life of a child. I took a step back my head shaking
violently back and forth. “No, no, no, I can’t do this!”

“
If you close your eyes and
concentrate, Colina, you can see her spirit is on the brink.” His
voice was low and soothing. “You’re not killing her. Her spirit is
already almost to the other side. She just needs our help to push
her across.”

“
I can’t…” My hands went to
my face. “You want me to murder her.” My cheeks were damp. I hadn’t
realized I was crying.

“
It’s not murder, its
compassion.”

“
But I’m doing this so I
can gain power. I’m not doing this to help her. I’m doing this to
avenge my family, to help you save Darla.”

“
Do your motives really
matter? Her family has asked for our help. We’re here. Does it
really matter why? She needs to move on. By helping her, you’re
also helping yourself, is that so wrong?”

Tears were streaming down my face. “I
can’t do this.”

“
Yes, you can. You’re
strong. Look at what you’ve survived. You’ve lived when the rest of
your family has died. You’re still here, and so is Darla. But for
how long?” Anger blazed from his eyes. “How long until those men
kill my sister. They killed Sarah, they murdered your mother, your
father and your brother.” He unclenched his hands. The anger left
his face, and he reached out to me. “We’re the only ones that can
help this girl and her family. They’ve asked for our help. If we
walk away, she’ll continue to suffer. Her family can only sit and
watch her suffer. Do you really want that?”

I wanted to go to him. I wanted to
feel his arms around me, but I didn’t move.

He lowered his hands and said in a
gentle voice, “Sit down.” He gestured to a chair in the corner.
I’ll get everything ready for the spell. You just sit down and keep
breathing. Okay?”

He was talking to me as though he
thought I was going to bolt out of the room at any minute. And he
wasn’t wrong. Every cell in my body shouted at me to get out. To
walk away. But instead I sat in the chair.

I watched him move around the room. He
placed five black candles around the foot of the bed.