The Guardian's Protector: The Chamber of Souls (37 page)

‘I remember,’ Amy said, shaking her head. ‘But I can’t see him in harm’s way.’

Adaizi sighed. ‘You know you’ll have to train as hard as you can to fight the Dogod yourself.’

‘I know.’ Amy gulped, remembering exactly who he was and what he wanted to do. She knew she had to do all she could to save Tom from him.

‘Then you are prepared to kill Ethan yourself?’

Amy took a deep breath before answering. ‘The thought of Tom being born just to fulfil a purpose he didn’t want makes me feel ill,’ Amy said, shaking her head. ‘He was forced into this mission,
told
he was the only hope of saving the universe because of his unique light. He only agreed for the highest good.’

‘Only the most selfless, divine soul
would
agree.’

‘You’re right, but I’ll make sure he doesn’t have to. Yes, I’m prepared to kill!’ Amy said, although only with half conviction.

‘It was hard enough for us to stop him, and he has now got eleven of the twelve powers he needs to become omnipotent. If he finds the last power portal and gains the power in this last life of his—’

‘I know,’ Amy interrupted. ‘He has to leave this life without that last power.’

‘If
we
couldn’t stop him from gaining eleven, how can
you
stop him from gaining the twelfth?’

‘How can Tom then? Aren’t I as gifted?’

‘I mean you alone. We need you both.’

‘I will do my best for that not to be necessary.’ Adaizi gazed into Amy’s eyes for a moment, looking like a lost hopeful girl. Amy tried to look as convincing as she was trying to sound. ‘And I’ll have you and Mark!’

‘Then let’s begin,’ Adaizi said. Adaizi gestured for Amy to sit down on the bed and Amy’s heart turned over. ‘To use the light, you have to find the source. The energy flows from within your body: from your emotions, into your breath and OUT!’ Adaizi threw out a tornado-like vortex into the air that flashed like electricity then disappeared.

‘How do you expect me to do that?’ Amy asked, stunned.

‘Adrenaline! That’s what gives you the power or the
fuel
you need to make the light work. You need a burning in your stomach like the churning you get when you’re enraged with hate or alive with passion. Most Guardians use love, but it can be any powerful emotion that gets your stomach turning over. You have to concentrate to find your own source of adrenaline.’

Amy looked confused. ‘How do I get to feel all that in a split second?’

‘When we come to battle, your instincts will already be alive with natural adrenaline so you won’t need to concentrate to get the fuel. First things first, though. Let’s teach you to heal. Healing is easier.’ Adaizi grabbed Amy’s hand. ‘There’s light right under your palms. All you have to do is bring it to the surface.’

‘How?’

‘Look at your hands and see past your shade. You don’t even have to believe any longer, you can
see
your power. You now just need to
feel
it. Light Healing comes from the combination of loving emotions and wilful determination.
Feel
it!’

The mystical delivery of Adaizi’s speech was enough to spur Amy on: her hands began to shine with speckles of light.

‘Ah!’ Amy screamed, shaking her hands and then rubbing them frantically on her knees. She hated pins and needles.

Adaizi laughed. ‘That was fun.’

‘That was freaky!’ Amy said. Then, feeling her eyes tingle, she ran to the mirror in her en suite.

With a stunned expression, Amy peered into her eyes, amazed, to see them filled with glitter. Even when the thousands of tiny lights sank beneath the surface, they lingered underneath, leaving a permanent sparkle, brightening what was already a stunning grey. Her eyes were now somehow awake, filled with their own source of power, like it could burst out at any moment.

‘The power is a part of you now. You’ve just awakened it,’ Adaizi informed, chuckling to herself from behind. ‘Just keep practising until you can hold the light for a good few seconds, and then you’ll be ready for lesson two.’

‘Okay,’ Amy said, walking back to her bed in a hand trance.

Every time Amy was alone, she stared at her hands in awe. Fascinated by the tingling little lights that rose to the surface, unable to believe she possessed a magical power that had the potential to heal. She could only manage a second before it got too bright and freaked her out completely, but she was, at least, getting used to the feeling.

When the Tuesday came that Amy had to visit her parents, she told Jack to make sure Tom stayed inside. Mark took her via Light-Void as arranged but waited outside. When she entered her parents’ house, everyone was crying. The bad news hadn’t waited for her to arrive.

‘What?’ Amy asked.

‘He has less than six months,’ Frank said. He rested his head back in his hands and Joan began to cry.

‘Oh.’ Amy didn’t know if it was because she knew that even if he died he’d be okay, or if it was because she knew there was hope for him because of her healing power, but she felt bewildered by their reactions. One part of her knew that before her visit to Omnipion she would have been hurting badly too, but she just stood in wonderment.

‘Oh?’ Frank snapped.

She looked at him sympathetically and wondered how mankind would react if they knew what she knew. She felt privileged to know that everyone had a stream of wellness waiting for them. That there was nothing but pure bliss to flow into when they died. She understood why nobody could know. The true Test was how you interacted with the world around you without the knowledge of reward but, if everyone could just know that they would feel a great sense of achievement when they died, that they could even move up another level and become an expanded being, no one—except black souls—would fear death.

As Amy sat next to her dad and held his hands, what she saw astonished her. Behind his right temple, as though she could see the inside of his head, lay something dark and pulsating. It made her feel nauseous. ‘Maybe something can be done,’ Amy began.

‘Nothing can be done, you moron!’ Frank shouted, sitting bolt upright. ‘Never mind all that Tom-can-heal-you crap! Why don’t you go back to la la land where you can dream of fairies and stupidity!’ He batted his hand at her as if he wanted her to leave.

‘Frank!’ Thomas hissed, in a warning tone.

‘No, Dad, she’s got to learn!’

As Amy gazed around the room, she saw they all felt the same. Every pair of eyes was hostile and hurt. She would be saddened and enraged if the new part of her didn’t have infinite understanding. She only wished they too could understand the true nature of things.

Looking at them now with her knowledge, her family felt somehow alien to her. They seemed childlike and unreal. She wanted to tell them that it wasn’t just one life they had to worry about; not even every life on the planet. Life in the whole universe was in jeopardy if Ethan had his way. And even if it was just this one life they cared about, there was no such thing as death. He would only move onwards and upwards.

As innocent beings, still blinkered by the Test, Amy could see how leaving them behind was an act of compassion.

‘The mind is a powerful tool capable of anything,’ Amy began, her eyes filling with tears, ‘even blocking all its own power with simple ignorance.’ As she said the words that had never entered her mind before, her old heart gave a pang. Like having a flashback of her old self and feelings, as if the memory of Nevaeh and the Divine Realm were leaving her; she suddenly felt every ounce of their pain.

Before she let it consume her, before her own grief and devastation set in, she turned and walked straight out the door and into Mark’s waiting arms. He pulled her close, kissed her gently on the top of her head and Light-Voided her back home.

Upon landing, although it didn’t ease any of her hurt, Amy stopped a moment just to hug him. It was the worst start to the New Year Amy could possibly think of. She wasn’t looking forward to the rest of it either because, even though she knew it was for their own good, saying goodbye to her family would hurt.

As Mark pulled her closer, she then thought of Tom; he would have to share the same sacrifice. The thought of having to tell him he could never see them again broke her heart. Amy pushed away.

Walking through the Garden of Need, she focussed on her feelings and let out a bright, warm glow from her hands. Mark smiled approvingly. As soon as they entered the home, she went straight to her room to concentrate.

After a couple of hours, the strong feelings subsided into mere flat depression, and she went back to only being able to hold the light for a second.

Amy’s only consolation was Jack. Although she’d still have to be quiet about herself and Tom, she could still be close to him.

For weeks, Amy concentrated all her efforts on her hands but, even concentrating on how much she hated Ethan, she could only hold the light for a few seconds at a time. Amy felt she’d let Adaizi down and the more frustrated she became, the harder it was to hold the light. The sicker her father become, the more depression set in. Watching his fast deterioration, Amy began to feel a real strain.

It was mid-February, even though the doctors had given him six months, when Thomas was admitted to the high dependency unit at the Royal Oldham Hospital. Two weeks later Amy, now a nervous wreck, opened her bedroom door to Mark, who asked in a hushed voice: ‘Do you want me to help you keep the light?’

‘Are you supposed to?’ she asked, taking note of how suspicious he looked.

‘Not really.’ He stepped inside and closed her bedroom door.

Amy realised he was putting himself on the line for her again and sighed. ‘Do you always have to break the rules?’

‘I’m only
bending
the rules, this time!’

Amy smiled. ‘Alright.’

‘I don’t know why you’re smiling,’ Mark goaded. ‘You’ll never be able to protect Tom. You can’t even muster a little sparkle!’

‘What?’ Amy’s eyebrows shot upward.

‘Adaizi agrees with me too,’ he added, his expression hard.

‘Why?’ Amy asked, her eyes reddening with rage.

‘It’s hopeless,’ he said coldly. ‘We appreciate you want to protect Tom, but come on, you clearly—’

‘Hey!’ she screamed, white flames bursting from her palms. She stared in wonder as they flickered and sparked around her hands. ‘Haha!’ she bawled, overwhelmed with her ability.

‘There’s a lot of fire in you, Amy,’ Mark said. ‘You can use your will to summon the light, then your love to heal.’

Amy then looked at him sadly. ‘You didn’t mean what you said, did you?’ Her light faded as she spoke.

He pulled her in to a tight embrace. ‘You know I didn’t! I’m behind you one hundred percent.’

‘Thank you,’ Amy said, needing his comfort like a bitter apple needed to be covered in chocolate.

‘You need to try and feel something like that on your own, though. Once you can hold the feeling, you’ll have the fuel you need to dispel things.’

The fact was, even though Mark had hurt her feelings, it worked. Each time she thought about his words, it spurred something inside her, allowing her to sustain the light. She called Adaizi when she could hold it for about eight seconds.

‘That’s brilliant, beautiful,’ Adaizi cried when Amy showed her. Amy felt like a school child who had been rewarded for an exam they’d cheated on. ‘Now then, we just need you to use the light to heal.’ Adaizi took a knife from her pocket.

‘Pardon?’ Amy asked, totally lost.

‘I will hurt myself so you can heal me!’ Adaizi clarified, pressing the knife into her beautiful cocoa skin. ‘Whenever you’re ready!’ Adaizi said to a startled Amy, as if this was normal practice.

‘Okay,’ Amy said, panic helping her summon the most powerful light yet.

‘Good,’ Adaizi continued, holding her hand under the pooling blood. ‘Now place your hands on top of my arm and will the light to leave your body and seep into mine.’

As she thought about pushing the light out, the tingling sensation turned ice cold. She knew then, because she had felt Tom’s hands go cold in the past, she was doing it. She was pushing the light into her arm.

‘Keep going…keep feeling…and keep pushing,’ Adaizi said encouragingly.

Amy thought about how Ethan wanted to kill Tom, and all she had to lose because of him. The light lasted the longest amount of time yet, around fifteen seconds. When she lifted her hands, she expected the cut to be gone but, although the bleeding had stopped, it wasn’t fully healed. Adaizi placed her hand on top and after one quick second of her light, the wound was gone.

‘That was good, beautiful. I’m impressed.’

‘It wasn’t good enough!’ Amy snapped.

‘It will be.’

Amy looked defeated. ‘I’m running out of time, Adaizi!’

‘You’ve done great already! You must
believe
you can do better and you
will
do better!’

Amy knew that was true, but to her, what she’d achieved was a tiny step. She wanted her true powers now! She didn’t understand why she had to train, had to believe. Once she had it, she could heal her dad. But the only thing Amy believed was that her time would run out.