Healing Hands (The Queen of the Night series Book 2) (26 page)

“What a sad story,” I sighed.

“Yeah,” said Corey, “but it still doesn’t give her the right to try and kill us. So anyway, are you going to be okay?”

“Oh yes,” I said, more brightly than I felt. “I just need sleep. It’ll be all better tomorrow.”

“All right, I’m gonna find someone to take me home. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you, Corey.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”  Then, after a few seconds he said, “me too.”

***

After Corey left, a wave of total exhaustion hit me.

“I agree,” Evan said. “We should go to sleep.” 

I crawled under the covers. He handed one of the pillows to me and shimmied down so he could lie next to me. I wanted to crawl up and bury my face in his chest, but I couldn’t take a chance of aggravating his injuries, so I settled for grasping his hand and sleeping by his side.

Epilog

May Day

Four days passed before Evan was able to get up and move around on his own. I did not sit idly while he recuperated. When I’d returned from spending a second night at the Keach house, I found our home a bustle of activity. Fiona talked on the phone in the kitchen, Steve barked orders from the living room, and Rose and Pat worked on the Internet in her office.

“What’s happening?” I asked Steve.

“You told me a battle is coming and I need to be ready to fight, but you have no idea how much effort is required to prepare for battle. I talked with Fiona and we agreed we need to have a few fundamentals in place. Since we have no idea when to expect an attack, I figured we should get started soon.”

“Wow…what fundamentals are you talking about?”

“The first thing we’ve agreed to work on is setting up a medical facility. The incident with you and Madison really brought home how inadequate our preparations are to deal with multiple simultaneous injuries. Fiona wants a triage facility set up somewhere close to the crossed rings and a more comprehensive treatment center built nearby. I need to make sure you guys, especially your brother, have a security detail in place before I go to college. Rose and Pat are working on supplies and logistics. Welcome home, by the way, how do you feel?”

“Ready to go,” I said absently, marveling at the organization he’d put together in such a short time. “What can I do?”

“You should ask Fiona. It’s good to have you up and about.”

“Okay, thanks, Steve.”  Still overwhelmed by all of the noise and motion around me, I wandered into the kitchen.

Fiona nodded hello when I got there. I waited for her to finish the call.

“All right, Bob…I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”  She hung up and turned to me. “There you are. All better?” 

I nodded yes.

“Good. Steve’s found a place he thinks we can use as a treatment facility. Do you want to check it out with me?”

“That sounds great.”

On her way out the door she called to Steve, “Call your dad and find out if he can arrange a full council meeting in Evan’s room in two hours. I want Corey declared coveted before sunset. How goes the protection detail?”

“Sure thing, Fi. It’s all coming together. We’ll keep him safe. Don’t worry.”

***

Fiona drove us in her truck until we reached the outskirts of Great Cacapon. She turned right on the first cross street we came to inside the village limits and announced we’d reached our destination. She followed a dirt road which looked like it hadn’t seen any use in a long time and rounded a copse of trees that hid the house from the road. It was the most interesting structure I’d seen yet in Morgan County. Santa Monica had such a variety of architectural styles of residences I’d become a bit of an amateur architecture buff. I’d label this house as a cross between a Mid-century Ranch style house and a log cabin. The upper floor was one continuous structure, but since the house was literally built into a hill, the bottom level was separated into two sections connected by a glass-walled corridor.

“Once we finish the basements off, it’ll be almost 1,800 square feet of useable space on a two-acre lot.”

“It’s nice. How much does it cost?”

“For you, it’s free. Evan agreed to sign the property over to you, since you should have inherited it anyway.”

“How many properties do our family own?”

“Since we’ve had so many untimely deaths, I’d have to say quite a few. This house belonged to Ewan and Margaret.”

“Do you mean Grandpa and Grandma Stewart?”

“That’s right. They passed away within a few months of each other and no one could decide what to do with their possessions. This house was transferred to Logan. When he died, in accordance with clan law, all of his property was inherited by Evan, but everyone agrees this house should really belong to you. Let’s take a look inside. Steve walked through yesterday and determined it’s safe.”  She pulled a set of keys out of her pocket.

I followed her into the old house. It looked sound and had lots of big, open rooms. From the outside you could pull a car up to one of two entrances on the lower level or drive around back and enter from the upper level. That would be useful in transferring injured people. We could probably fit as many as twenty overnight patients in a place like this.

“Do you really think we’re in for a bloody war with Arianrhod and her followers?”

Fiona never sugarcoated things. “Now she knows Corey is the Destroyer, yes.”

I heaved a great sigh.

“So what do you say?  Can we use your house, temporarily?”

“Of course you can.”

***

The following day we buried Madison in the same cemetery where my mom rested. We held a small and quiet, but respectful, service. We offered her dignity in death.

***

The day after Madison’s burial, Fiona and I visited Evan in his room. We woke him.

“Hey,” he smiled when he saw me.

I kept my clinical face in place.

He sat up and looked around the room. “What happened in here?” he asked, shocked.

“I cleaned. It was unsanitary.” The tone of my voice should have told him not to argue.

“But…how will I find anything?” 

I quirked my eyebrows at him and he silenced any objections. I smiled to myself.

“What’s up?”

I responded before Fi did. Technically, he’d been my patient before he became hers.

“It’s a clinical assessment. Take your shirt off…let’s find out how you’re doing.”  I turned on my healer vision and Fiona started to discuss the case.

“You can see that the wall of that artery is still thin where the bullet tore through it.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure how thick to rebuild the flesh. In normal circumstances, his body would grow the tissue back slowly, allowing the outer layers to age and harden before adding new layers of tissue. I worried if I made the wall of the artery too thick, he might have other complications.”

“You were right. The repair is textbook perfect, that is, if we used textbooks. Moving on along the trajectory of the bullet, you can see all of the muscle and lung tissue has grown back well. There’s still a nick in that rib, though.”

“Oh, I see it,” I responded. “I didn’t concern myself with bones at the time. Shall I repair it now?”

“You might as well.”

I looked at him, “I doubt this will hurt, but you might feel a little discomfort. Let me know if it’s too much for you to bear.” 

He stared at me dumbfounded. He’d never seen me treat a patient with Fiona.

I’d learned a lot in the last couple of months. I didn’t wait for a response. I held my hands over the rib and concentrated on building the missing fragments of bone until the edge of the rib was smooth.

Fiona started to talk about the jugular vein. “Rose and I had to cut him open and do major repairs here to remove the bullet.”

“Okay, I understand what you did. You cut out the alternate piece of vein I’d made around the bullet and built a whole new tube. How did you accomplish it before he bled to death?  It’s a major part of the circulatory system.”

“This was extremely difficult. I pulled the bullet out with forceps carefully and slowly while Rose rebuilt the tissue in the location the bullet had vacated it until the pathway was complete and the bullet could be pulled out entirely. This method resulted in minimal blood loss.” 

I nodded at my comprehension of her technique. I still had so much to learn.

She continued to teach. “Okay, so that’s his current status. What do you think?”

“If he takes it easy, he should be able to get up and move about now.”  I didn’t need a stethoscope to see his blood pressure was strong. The tissue appeared thick enough to support a little stretching also.

A huge grin crossed his face. “Does that mean I can go to the May Day celebration tomorrow?”

Fiona looked at me.

Evan looked with his hopeful face.

I considered his request. The May Day celebration, like all of the other holy days in the Wheel of the Year, started at sundown on the night before May first, and ran through the next morning.

“An all-night celebration might be too much for you just yet. If you wish, I can drive you out there right before dawn, so you can receive Llew’s blessing. You can stay at the party for a few hours, and I’ll bring you back for a nap.” 

If possible, his grin grew even wider. “I can live with that.”

“That’s the idea,” I said dryly. I looked at my mentor.

She nodded. “I concur. It’s a good treatment plan, Healer Margaret. I can tell Evan is in good hands, so I’ll leave you kids to talk.”  She closed the door behind her again.

I dropped my clinical face in an instant, matched his grin and threw my arms around him. A big kiss and a squeeze later, I let him get up and start moving around his bedroom. He spent a good bit of time figuring out where I’d hidden all the mess. I helped him shower and dress, which was more fun than just a Healer-patient exercise. After he’d had a decent meal in his family’s kitchen booth, I asked him about school.

“You missed three weeks at the end of the term. Are you going to be able to make up enough in your classes to graduate?”

“I spoke to Mrs. Donnelly about meeting requirements for graduation. I won’t be able to make up enough classwork before the end of the school year.”

I gasped. “What are you going to do?”

“She said I have two choices. I can take the GED exam or repeat my senior year.”

“So when’s the exam?”

“Actually,” he said, a little hesitantly, “I told her I’d repeat the year.”

“Why would you want to spend an extra year in high school?”

“Well, think about it, Mags, what have I got to look forward to after high school?”

I’d never given it any thought. My plans revolved around going to college and medical school, but I wasn’t a leader of my community with all sorts of responsibilities to others. At least I wasn’t a leader yet.

He spelled it out. “After high school, I get to stay right here. I’ll work more hours in the store, I’ll spend more time on council issues and I’ll transfer from the Sleepy Creek youth chorale to the adult choir. Why do I care if I do that this year or next?  If I stay in school, I’ll get to graduate with you, I’ll have a real diploma, and hopefully I’ll have a date for the prom.”

I looked at him mockingly, “Whom are you taking to the prom?”

He didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he asked if I would drive him to the sacred meadow.

“I have to talk to Llew,” he explained.

“You’re gonna have a casual chat with a god?”

He shook his head. “It’s important.” 

I drove him to the clearing.

***

Once we arrived, he made me wait for him at the altar table in the center of the clearing. He pulled a necklace out of his pocket and put it around his neck. It looked remarkably like the moon necklace Fiona had given me last summer, except Evan’s necklace had yellow and orange stones, and gold instead of silver. The amulet depicted a sun, not a moon. He stood in front of the portal to the heavenly realm and called upon the King of the Sun.

When Llew arrived, it was as magnificent an entrance as it had been the first time I’d seen him. He floated above Evan and listened to his animated presentation. Even with my Hunter’s hearing though, I couldn’t hear what Evan said. Eventually, the god spoke back. Llew flew back through the portal and Evan walked back to me.

“How’d it go?” I asked, tentatively. I knew better than to ask what the conversation entailed. He’d tell me when he was ready.

“He granted one of my two requests. We’ll just have to wait and see on the other one.”

“Okay.”

The next night we spent watching a DVD in his house and went to bed early.

“I’m missing the bonfire jumping show,” he grumbled.

“I would have thought you’d had enough bonfire jumping.”  I referred to the Litha celebration last summer, where he’d tricked everyone into thinking he could fly over the fire by using astral projection.

“No,” he chuckled, “the idiots like me don’t jump the bonfires on Bealtain. The McFadden family puts on a display using their Hunter athleticism. It’s kind of like watching Cirque de Soleil with live fire.”

“It sounds great. I’d rather you be around to see it next year.”

“Point taken,” he sighed.

***

I woke him up around 4:30 AM. We stopped at the Well of the Young. Following clan custom, we made our pilgrimage and asked for Dariene’s blessings for the growing season. To our surprise, she didn’t just speak to us from the bucket of water. This time she flew out of the well and faced us in person. I took the opportunity to thank her for saving my brother’s life.

“There are things I must share with the two of you,” she spoke urgently. “You should know that when I originally saw your brother in my vision in 1850, I didn’t know what I was seeing. If I had, I never would have shared it with the old Queen. That one vision has driven her to do so many horrible things. She fears your brother above all else.”