Igniting Spirit (Gathering Water Book 3) (8 page)

That made two of us.

“What do you mean, you don’t think you can heal him?”

“That mark will allow Death to infect his spirit once the protections have stopped. I have no knowledge of how to remove it. The Thanatos never shared that secret. I’m not sure it’s even possible without sharing their ability over Death.”

The room swayed as hopelessness washed over me.

“What if I can Gather the Death away?” Ezra rubbed my back with one hand, reminding me I wasn’t alone and hope was not lost.

Ian looked confused for a moment before his mouth opened a fraction in fear and he took a half step back before he realized what he was doing. Ezra’s hand on my back froze, and I knew that reaction was why he had kept his ability with Death energy a secret his entire life. Ian recovered quickly, and he retook that halfstep as the fear melted from his face.

“I’m not sure. It would be dangerous for the future Dux, but I do not see what we can lose by trying. I must think on this.”

“Ian, right?” Clara interjected. “Let’s have a talk about how you would normally fix this without the Death infection and what I’ve been doing. Between the two of us, we should be able to come up with a viable treatment plan with all our combined abilities.” She looked at Ezra when she said “combined,” and I knew whatever healing plan they were about to discuss would include what Ezra could do.

Ian looked at me, and when I nodded my head, he turned back to Clara and agreed. The two of them started to discuss what was happening. I knew if I tried to keep up with the conversation, I’d just ask questions and slow down the process, so I went to Cash’s bed and sat in the chair opposite the one Clara had vacated.

“Della, I am sorry about Cash. If I had just stayed with you —” Ezra said after coming to stand behind me.

I didn’t look over at him, just kept my eyes on Cash’s face, willing his eyes to open. “It’s not your fault, Ezra. If anyone is to blame, it’s me for not going with you when you came to warn us. I just wanted to explain everything first. I — I didn’t want to lose my family.”

“And my family are the ones who did this to him.” His voice was thick with shame.

“No, they aren’t. Family is more than blood, Ezra. Your sire and his men are
not
your family. I’m your family now. And Penny. And all the people you risked your life saving yesterday. Screw the rest of your blood, they can go swallow lava or something.” I still didn’t look at him, but my words got more heated as I spoke, and my hand reached over my shoulder to him. I seemed to always need his touch.

Ezra came forward far enough to grab my hand with his. Cash looked so very bad. The light of his aura was dim. Without Clara’s invisible cord wrapped around him, Cash’s soul would flee his body. That is, if Death didn’t drain him before that happened.

“Is he going to die?” I asked Ezra quietly, letting a silent flow of tears drip down my chin and into my lap.

Ezra immediately wrapped me in a hug from behind. “I don’t know, Della. But we will do everything in our power to keep that from happening. I promise you .”

I closed my eyes and leaned into his embrace, wishing the back of the chair was gone so he could wrap me fully in his arms. He said we would do everything in our power to save Cash. Now it was just a question of whether we were powerful enough, and I didn’t feel remotely powerful sitting in that room with my ears full of machines beeping to the beat of my cousin’s heart, ticking away the time he had left.

“Della, I found some scrubs for you and your friends. They aren’t pretty, but I’m sure they’re more comfortable than what you’re wearing,” Aunt Ellis said, holding a bundle full of mint green clothes.

“Thank you, Aunt Ellis.” I stood up and took them from her. Her gaze was fixated on Ian and Clara discussing how to heal Cash. I tossed a set to Lena and Ezra, put Ian’s to the side for him when he was done talking to Clara, then slipped my own shirt on and shimmied into the elastic-waisted pants. “Where’s Uncle Connor?” I asked after I was dressed and finally able to remove my “clothing” Shield.  It took a few seconds before my question registered and she turned back to look at me.

“I made him grab a bite to eat so he wouldn’t disturb your friends.”

She kept saying that, calling them my friends. Aunt Ellis was probably trying to hammer in the fact that she was okay with whatever it took to bring Cash back to us, even if it meant befriending the root of all evil, as most people thought of the Clades.

“Oh, let me introduce you, Aunt Ellis. This is Ezra. The woman by the door is Lena, and Ian is the one speaking with Clara.” She might as well call them by name from now on.

Just then, Ian and Clara stopped talking, and turned to me with hope and worry deeply lined around their face.

“Aunt Ellis? I think you’d better call Uncle Connor to come back up here. I think Ian and Clara have come up with something.”

“Come up with what?” my Uncle asked, using his impeccable timing to walk through the door at the exact time his name was mentioned.

“We think we know how to heal him, Connor.” Clara said, since Ian was busy putting his own set of scrubs on.

Hope blossomed in his eyes and I knew they did in my own, as well.

“How?” he asked — demanded.

“It’s… it’s only a theory at this point, but it should work. Only, it’s dangerous, and if everything doesn’t go exactly right, he may slip away while we’re trying to save him.

Connor walked up to his wife, and put an arm around her. They both looked at the still form of their son, then looked at each other with the silent communication that comes from years of deep love and understanding. “Do whatever you must to save my son,” Connor said for both of them, while Ellis buried her face in her husband’s chest.

Journal,

Dad had his meeting with the Elfennol rep. We were right, my Testing is scheduled for a month from today. There are a million things running through my head at this news — things about my abilities I need to remember, and things I need to do. But the thing that is at the forefront of my mind is
him
. Will I see Derek there? What will I say? What will he say? Will we pretend to be strangers, and am I reading too much into our connection from the other night?

It’s hard not to think about him.

Ellis asked if I met someone because I seem distracted. Okay, she said “boy distracted.” I told her that she would be the first to know if I met someone who was sticking around, and she said, “I knew you met someone!” I smiled and shrugged my shoulders and said “You know me, I only date tourists. It’s already over.”

We laughed, because it’s true. The drama of dating local boys just isn’t worth it. And Derek was a tourist, of sorts. And it is already over. My brain knows this, and accepts it.

My heart hasn’t quite caught on though.

*****

We all sat in chairs, most of which were stolen from the surrounding hospital rooms. Uncle Connor had pulled some strings and managed to keep the rooms closest to Cash’s empty. We listened as Clara and Ian shared the plan they had come up with. It sounded far riskier than she’d let on before, and I wasn’t sure it was the best idea. But a quick look over my shoulder to Cash and I knew we didn’t have time for another.

This was our only choice, and Cash’s only chance.

Clara had to chant Cash’s cord into place two more times before everything was ready for us to begin. My grandfather, Toby, and his brother Luke arrived within minutes of each other. They — with Uncle Connor — were both necessary for the healing, and I was pretty sure this was the first time they’d been in a room together since Uncle Connor was a child. They had the bad luck of falling in love with the same woman, and Luke had left town for a couple of decades after she had made her choice to stay with Toby, her husband. There was still the unanswered question of whether Luke or Toby was my mother’s biological father, but when it came down to it, Grandma Anise had chosen Toby to be the father, and I wasn’t about to argue with that decision.

Luke looked uncomfortable in the room full of his family, when he’d been without for so long. He did come and give me a hug and rough kiss on my head. “I knew you’d be bringing help,” he said softly, and I squeezed him back even though I hated hugs.

With Toby, I just exchanged a knowing look. It was only recently that I discovered his gruff and unfriendly nature was just the outer trappings of a deeply caring man, who would do anything necessary to protect the ones he loved, and it hit me that I took after him.

Dove entered the room just moments later, walking in with both of his parents and carrying a duffel bag over one shoulder that probably carried the things Clara would need for her spirit walking.

Pretty much the entire cavalry was here, and almost all of us had a task if the healing were to be successful.

Because he couldn’t be healed until Clara’s cord was removed, and removing the cord would allow the Death energy to infect the rest of his spirit and kill him like Arthur was killed, we had to work extremely fast. And more than just Cash was at risk because of this healing. Cash’s spirit was too low to heal itself, even if the Death mark wasn’t there. Clara would need more spirit energy to heal him — more of the golden web that had crumbled to dust. And that meant pulling the same energy from people who shared it. That was why Luke, Toby and Uncle Connor were necessary. The golden web was a trait that only the Deare and Neale families shared, to my knowledge — and one, thanks to my Ethnos heritage, that I didn’t inherit. I’d never seen what mine looked like, since you cannot see your own, but I was too
other
to help.

All of us who were required took our places around Cash’s bed. Clara and her mother, Heather, had rubbed ash into a circle around his bed. The shape didn’t matter so much, it was just to create a barrier that Clara’s spirit-self would not be able to pass. The longer a person’s spirit — soul — was outside of their body, the more difficult it was to go back in. The circle would keep Clara from jumping ship before Heather could shove her back in, if it came to that. Not everyone could leave their body and come back, it was an ability that Clara had received from her mother’s Native American family.

Heather took a knife from the bag, walked to her daughter, and cut a long line down her forearm. Even though I was expecting it, it was still a shocking sight. Clara then walked over the ash circle, letting her open arm drip over the line, creating a magical barrier that only she would feel. When she came back to her original position, Heather brushed two fingers on her daughter’s arm, covering them with red, then drew an “x” on Clara’s chest. Clara, meanwhile, was singing a tuneless song, while her mother just traced the ‘x’ over and over.

I watched with my True Sight, unable to look away as Clara began to softly glow, then step out of her own body as if it were merely a pair of jeans. Her body fell backwards, caught by her father, Steven, while Dove stayed out of reach so he didn’t accidently touch her and heal the wound by accident — the pain was necessary for her to remember her body, and I could almost see the tether that went from her physical arm, to her non-physical one. I didn’t know if any of the pure humans could see her, or see the blood and ash circle flare up like a Spirit Shield, except attuned only to her spirit.

Ian started his side of things and began to Gather spirit energy from my uncles and grandfather, but he did it in a way I’d never seen before. Well, I’d never seen spirit energy Gathered before, except from myself in a fight, but he plucked a strand in front of their hearts and
pulled
it like yarn. Once he had enough for Clara to get started with, she turned her non-body towards me and Ezra, and nodded her head that we should get ready. Her ghostly fingers snipped at the invisible cord wrapped around my cousin, cutting it like paper. Ezra and I immediately went to work.

Inky veins of Death started working their way down Cash’s body, while Ezra tried to absorb the energy before it spread too far. I had to trust that he would succeed, because I was tasked with protecting what little energy he had left with a Spirit Shield.

It was a lot harder than I’d expected. Like taking a plastic bag, submerging it into ice water, and trying to scoop only the ice into the bag. Of course, we’ll also say the water is boiling, and eating through the bag over and over, trying it’s darndest to melt the ice.

My Shield was the melted baggy, because that’s what the dark energy was doing to it; eating it away like acid. I had to constantly reinforce it — pour energy into it, while simultaneously scooping the rest of Cash’s spirit energy into it.

Clara would be able to weave the energy that Ian was collecting, but would only be able to connect it to Cash’s energy if there was enough of it to stick to.

Her words, not mine. She couldn’t even begin to weave until I’d done my job.

“I think there’s enough to get started with, Della. Don’t worry about chasing it down anymore, just keep it safe,” Clara said, though in her astral form she spoke directly into my mind, her mouth remained eerily unmoving.

We’d already discussed that I should focus Cash’s Spirit energy over his center, right next to his heart. Now that I only had one task, rather than two, I was able to pay a little more attention to what Clara was doing, at least for the moment. Clara took the golden string that Ian had pulled,
tied
it to the small golden ball that was all of Cash’s energy that hadn’t been eaten by Death, and started braiding it anew. She sang an unfathomable song while she braided, words so foreign that I couldn’t begin to understand them. The light of her own spirit self pulsated with the song that only the Ethnos in the room could hear, then the golden energy she was holding began to do the same.

As she weaved, Cash’s aura covered more of his body, and my Shield had to increase with it. Still, the insidious ink leached the Shield, desperate to destroy that which the Shield protected. It was taking so much energy to maintain that I had to start Gathering more energy in order to keep the stream constant. I looked next to me at Ezra to see how he was faring, since the goal was for him to pull every ounce of Death from Cash’s aura before I released the ever increasing Shield, and the onslaught didn’t seem to be decreasing.

I could see the new energy flooding the platinum flames of his aura, bringing a wave of darkness that seemed just as bright, even though that wasn’t logical. He was struggling, and I wondered if Kaylus could sense the mark on Cash was being threatened, and was somehow making it more difficult for his son to unmake his father’s work.

We were standing close to each other, though not close enough for our aura’s to touch and meld together, and I wanted so badly to tell him that I was here, that he was strong enough, that I knew he would succeed in this — but I didn’t want to take his much needed concentration. So, I slowly grabbed his hand and squeezed.

Not in a gesture of solidarity, like I’d meant to. I’d squeezed because the entire world
opened
to me. I’d been Gathering to refill the Shield around Cash’s spirit, and my Well was suddenly full. Fuller than full, but I could manage the power even though just the previous day too much power had caused me to kind of explode and take a twelve hour nap.

Since I was still looking at him, I saw Ezra’s eyes widen as he watched Cash’s prone form. Turning my head forward again, I knew my face held the same expression of surprise. The dark stain covering Cash was leaving rather quickly now. So quickly, in fact, that the black tendrils were visibly leaving him and entering Ezra.

Clara looked at the two of us — hand-in-hand and in shock over completing something so quickly that had been proving so difficult only moments before — and smiled. It was the first time I saw her face move since she left her body, and she literally beamed with it, then continued weaving Cash’s aura.

“I — I think I’ve gotten all of it, now.” Ezra’s voice was quiet, though I knew that everyone in the room heard him. Now that he wasn’t Gathering Death, my own Gathering seemed to slow down to it’s typical rate, and the over-abundant energy that had been collected melted away like butter. It was just as well, since the Shielding no longer required such reinforcements now that nothing was trying to eat it.

Not that I let it down. I trusted Ezra had done his job — I could
see
that Ezra had done his job, but I didn’t like the idea of letting Cash go unprotected right then.

We all stayed in our positions, those of us able to see Clara watching her, and those who could not were watching Cash. The second hand on the white-faced clock hanging on the wall boomed in the silence, and the incense that Heather would periodically renew made me sleepy.

Dove brought chairs for Luke, Toby, and Connor, as their energy was still being pulled by Ian to feed into Cash, then rested his hands calmly on each of their shoulders, using his healing ability to make them more comfortable and ease the aches from being in the same position for so long. Ellis started pacing, her head constantly turned in the direction of her son regardless of which way she walked. Heather started making a paste that would help my family members once the draining was complete; like giving someone orange juice after they’ve given blood, she said.

Ezra and I stayed where we were, hands still clasped. I couldn’t sit, and I couldn’t let go of his hand, so he stood with me. All I was capable of doing was watching the golden web steadily grow, and of clutching Ezra’s hand so tightly that my own fingers were numb.

Minutes, or hours, later, Clara’s ghostly form looked up. The web was complete, and she looked a little lost without the task. The light that she currently seemed to be made of was not as bright as it had been, and the tether that tied her to her body seemed thin.

Lena must have noticed the same thing, and walked over to Clara’s still body and raked her knife over the wound again, deepening it significantly and completely ignoring the cries of outrage from everyone else in the room.

Clara’s non-physical self disappeared, and her body bolted upright very suddenly, with a gasp audible to the entire room.

“Ouch!” Clara said, grasping the worsened arm and peering at it. Dove was there instantly, touching near the injury and knitting the skin back together.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, basically snarling at Lena.

“Chill, Dove. She did right. I stayed too long, needed to be brought back fast.”

I saw Heather and Steven exchanged worried looks, then look at Lena and nod their head in thanks. I wanted to hear more about what could have happened, and how Lena knew how to fix it, but that could wait for another day.

“Did we do it?” I’d rushed to her side as soon as she was back in her body, not realizing I’d dragged Ezra along until I was face to face with Dove — and he was face to face with me, holding hands with another person with such need and trust that I’d forgotten about it. I pulled my hand out of Ezra’s with difficulty, sending my own energy to the area to wake it back up before the infernal sleep-tingles came, and tried not to look guilty. After all, there wasn’t anything to actually feel guilty about..