Saint's Sacrament - Sins of the Father (68 page)

“Dad
.” Saint sniffed and leaned closer to his ear. “You’ve got more than one ulcer. There is also a clogged artery I want to address. As you know, I need your permission, so please, for the sake of procedure, just say I have permission to take these ailments from you.”

Osaze
nodded. “Son, you have permission to remove all the ulcers and unblock the artery,” he said quietly.

“Thank you.”

He glanced over at Kyung Mi who, thus far, appeared unmoved by the display. This looked like a chiropractor visit; nothing odd, nothing strange for those used to seeing natural medicine and healing techniques. But things were about to escalate indeed…

Jagger moved closer
to sit a few feet away from Saint. Keeping his hand pressed on his father’s heart, Saint closed his eyes and slipped further and further into trance, mumbling prayers and concentrating on the older man’s body. As seconds turned to minutes, Saint’s chest began to tighten. He pressed his palm harder into Osaze’s chest, causing the man to gasp beneath him. Like a drop of oil sliding down a wall, Saint could almost see the artery coming unclogged, the blood moving freer and his father’s breathing becoming a bit less labored. With his eyes still closed, he reached with his free hand toward his father’s face, pulled the man’s bottom lip down and in a swift motion, lowered his lips to his father’s. . Saint slowly opened his eyes. The white-hot haze left his mouth, swirling about him, taking over the room. Some entered his father’s mouth, as it was supposed to, while the rest swam about, heating his flesh.

“Oh my God!” Kyung Mi
gasped. The poor woman was probably terrified, but he had tried to prepare her. Suddenly Osaze’s chest rose and he coughed, clawed at his shirt and shook violently.

“Dad
,” Saint said calmly, “I need you to relax. I know it is painful, but this is temporary. I’m cleaning your heart, scraping all the damage away…”

Osaze winced, coughed louder
, then his body went still.  Saint continued on. Red and white smoke filled the room, mingled with wispy swirls of purple mist. Jagger stood to his feet. He put both hands out, as if he were holding an invisible box, and blew lightly into the space. Cool air filled the room, helping to change the temperature to something a bit more comfortable for Kyung Mi. Again, the woman gasped, causing Saint to shoot her a glance. She looked at him and Jagger in amazement, but remained seated.

Saint had lost track of time. He presumed that at least two hours had passed since he’d began the healing. He wanted to do the man’s heart first because that would require more work than repairing the hole in his gut and clearing the ulcers. He was hurting so badly, but he didn’t want Jagger or his father to know. They’d try to intervene. If he played it cool, he could finish the healing and rest as needed. He continued on, gliding his fingers down his father’s body until he reached his intestines. He pressed his fingertips into the affected area, eliciting a low moan from his father. So that he wouldn’t exert any extra energy, Saint came up with an idea.

“I have…a question,” Kyung Mi said, interrupting.

“Yes.” Jagger looked at the woman. “Saint and Osaze can’t speak to you right now. What is your question?”

“Is there a way to have Osaze not have to feel this? He looks…” Her eyes watered as she stared down at him. “To be quite uncomfortable.”

“Ma’am, the patient needs to be awake during the healings unless they
were incapacitated previously, such as being a coma. It is deemed necessary for their full recovery. They have to feel the pain, feel the illness leaving. It is an awakening, a process. It also helps ensure they don’t find themselves in this position again, if any of it was self-inflicted, because once a healer cleanses a patient’s body, that same healer cannot go through the same process again with that patient. It is forbidden,” Jagger explained.

Saint pressed on his father’s gut, and the man began to pant and his eyes rove
d around wildly under the lids. Saint went into trance. Pushing and praying. Pushing. Praying again. He gripped his father’s flesh, twisting it to encourage the ulcers to leave his body. As the room grew colder, he felt goose bumps bud across Osaze’s body. Saint held tight to the man’s gut and lunged forward to again dispense the fog from his mouth into his father’s—this time, its color was an fluorescent green. The room began to shake as if they were enduring an earthquake. The lamp seesawed until it fell onto the ground, the bulb bursting. All of the lights in the house blinked wildly. Saint continued on.

“Ahhhh!” Osaze screamed out, his eyes glaring up at the ceiling, glossy. “Ahhhh!” He grabbed Saint’s hand,
and a struggle ensued.

“Dad!” Saint screamed
. “Calm down!” He was brought out of his trance, but soon the man let him go, and closed his eyes, regaining his composure.

“Saint, be careful
…,” Jagger warned.

He’d been doing a good job of disguising it, but the pain was becoming almost unbearable and now, hot sweat
streamed down his face and every muscle in his body was inflamed. His heart was beating out of his chest and he felt woozy.

I’m almost finished
…please don’t stop me.”

He
pressed ahead. More time passed though minutes were abstract in his mind during the wretched process. Saint opened his eyes and looked around as he drew closer to the completion. The space was in total disarray, but the lights were back to normal and the room was no longer rocking.

“Mmmmmm
!” Saint loosened his grip on his father and clumsily fell back as his heart and gut tore with insurmountable pain. “Oh God!!!” He tore at his chest, and curled into a fetal position. When he looked around him, everyone was staring at him.

He couldn’t understand why
, after healings, his pain was so much worse than even the patient endured. No wonder Angel Children healers were selective about who they assisted. This was debilitating.

Kyung Mi moved slowly
toward him. He could see her shaking hand and her eyes glazed with tears as she reached for his arm. Jagger approached her and shook his head. “No.”

The woman recoiled, still shaking, still quiet.
She had tried to comfort him. Osaze slowly rose from his lying position, muttering in confusion, then he caught a glimpse of his child.

“Saint!” he shouted. He grabbed his son’s leg.

“Mr. Aknaten! Please don’t touch him!” Jagger ordered.

“He’s dying!” Osaze was frantic.
“Allah!” The older man lifted his hands in prayer.

“No
, he isn’t. I would’ve intervened if he was. He’s fine. This will stop in a few minutes.” Jagger narrowed his eyes on Saint and casually looked down at his watch.

Saint’s eyes bounced from person to person
while he thrashed around, his muscles jumping, his nerves raw and his mouth quiet, minus the occasional groan. He’d now accepted the pain, and swore to God, Heaven and Hell that he wouldn’t do this for a very long time if he could help it. To be hit with a disease in mere seconds had a way of breaking the human body down. It didn’t have time to fester, to grow, to take control. It simply arrived, in its adult, full-grown, ‘look at me now’ form, nasty and violent. As soon as his body recognized the situation for what it was, it would begin to attack the ulcers and clogged artery that now resided in his temple and that process would hurt like hell, too…

Saint slowly closed his eyes as his body continued to twitch. He was certain he’d drooled on his father’s rug; moisture ran across his bottom lip. He hated that he couldn’t uncurl his arms and hands, as if he were a stroke patient. He hated the way his toes were curling and stiff and he hated that people could see him like this. Yes, even in doing something so selfless, he was vain at that moment. His hair was in disarray, and he now could feel bile coming up his throat. He didn’t care when others got sick around him, but he never wanted to appear weak in front of others, though he knew that was impossible to avoid at times. Before he knew it, Jagger had him in his arms and placed him down on the couch.

“Saint, you did a great job. You need to lie down here for a few minutes, and then we’ll prepare to go back to the hotel. I’ve already sent Xenia a text message to let her know we will be leaving soon, and she has everything prepared for your rest and recovery.” Saint nodded and looked at his father who was sitting on the floor staring at him. The man had tears coming down his face. This was now the third time he’d ever seen the man cry. Once, after he’d lost his wife. Second, when they visited her grave and became closer, and now tonight. He didn’t know what to do with it, didn’t know how to process what he was viewing, so he turned back away and closed his eyes to drift into a deep sleep…

~***~

It’s happening again…

Xenia held Isis in her arms and rocked her while she relaxed on the couch. The little girl was now fast asleep. She’d tossed her phone back on the coffee table after reading a message from Jagger. Relief set in. She hated herself for crying about it. Hated herself for being glad. This child, too, just like her sons, was gifted. She knew it was magical, and having given birth to the Princess of Life gave a very slim chance that Isis wouldn’t be gifted in some capacity, but a bit of her had prayed the little girl could live a normal life. She’d seen what Saint had
gone through. He’d struggled his entire life with it, he didn’t want it, and he’d tried to hide and push it away. Now that he embraced it, he was constantly busy, more so than ever. She just wanted her husband back and she suspected, though he didn’t dare admit it, that at times he wished he could just be a normal guy, too. It was too late for that now though—he was who he was, and he’d moved too far along the path to retract.

She looked down at Isis, smiled and kissed her cheek. The girl was levitating objects, just like Hassani, but she was less than two years old! Saint had told her these things wouldn’t s
how their existence until later. Obviously those rules didn’t apply with this little one. Xenia surmised it was possibly because of her birthright, hoping it was nothing more. She got to her feet and made her way back to the crib in the adjoining bedroom, placed Isis gently down into it, and covered her with a blanket. She leaned over to look at the precious one.

You’re so beautiful…
Mommy will always be here for you, baby.

She wiped another tear away and
returned to master suite to prepare the place for her husband’s arrival…

~***~

Saint groaned in the back of the cab. Jagger had considered renting a car for the festivities, but there was no sense in it. The man would just blend in with everyone else that had too much to drink that evening. The cabbie surely thought Saint was another drunk who’d spent too much time at the local watering hole. He sat inside with him, biding his time as they drew closer to the hotel. Osaze had tried to speak to him, tried to thank him, but Saint was unreachable. In the commotion, Kyung Mi confessed her amazement, as well as confusion. The woman had a hard time grasping what she’d witnessed. Smoke pouring from mouths, the room changing temperatures so drastically, furniture shaking, lights blinking. It was like nothing she’d ever seen. Jagger wrinkled his nose as a foul stench crawled into his nostrils and instantly made him queasy. He looked at Saint.

I hope this bastard didn’t shit on himself…
or maybe it’s the sewers.

Saint mumbled, leaned forward, then flopped back when the driver put his foot on the brake.

“Sooosutfriedolemite,” Saint blurted, his eyes closed. More strange words left his mouth that Jagger couldn’t decipher nor decode. It had been an ordeal getting the man redressed. Saint kept shifting around and fighting him, calling him names as he became more and more delirious. All semblance of reality had been lost.

When they arrived at the hotel, Jagger paid the driver and ushered Saint out the car
. He had to hold him up through the hotel doors, across the vast lobby with its intricate, detailed furnishings, until they arrived at the elevator. Saint almost tripped over his own feet, and he seemed to be growing heavier and heavier, as if he were picking up invisible boulders along the way. Jagger struggled to drag him the rest of the way. The guy must’ve weighed a ton. The doors opened, and in a flash, Jagger gripped him around his waist then pressed the man’s back against the wall.

The instrumental of, “
The Spanish Flea’ by Herb Alpert played as elevator music.

“Saint, you’re a mess
tonight, bro.” Jagger chuckled while Saint grinned, half out of his mind. “You did great though, I’m proud of ya.”

Saint r
aised an arm, his golden eyes hooded like a dope fiend after a long, delightful hit and pointed at him, barely able to keep his balance.

“
Jahhhhh! Argyle socks, fuckkkkkaaaa!!!” Saint looked up at the ceiling lights, screaming more strange obscenities, as if they, too, had done him some injustice.

Jagger shook his head and continued to laugh until they reached their floor.
Scooping the man around his narrow waist, they hobbled together like potato sack racers down the long, hallway, turning the sharp corner, skipping over a silver tray placed outside one door. All the while Saint cursed in a sing song voice. Before Jagger could knock on the door, Xenia swung it open, reached out as if her man was drowning and helped pull him inside the hotel room.