Uncle Mark’s small caliber gun popped, and Matt Smith fell back to land near the cage. He’d managed to hold onto his gun and brought it up to shoot Uncle Mark. Mark fired again and Smith’s head jerked back as a small, but bloody hole splashed open in his forehead. Smith didn’t move again.
I put up what pathetic shields I could to stop the assault from the shadow that was coming, but it didn’t matter. The assault never came. Instead, the shadow snapped across the room to Mark, coating him in its malevolence. Mark slapped his hands to his head. That was when I spotted the snake totem bouncing on a silver chain around his neck. The power in the Caduceus dwarfed that in the snake totem, but it was still a scary weapon in the hands of someone who knew how to use it. My uncle and I screamed at the same time. Mark staggered, kept his hands pressed to his head, and stumbled back against the wall.
I slammed my arm through the bars towards Matt Smith’s body and the necklace he wore. Only the Caduceus would give me the strength to save Jen, to save my uncle.
The Karma Fairy was in rare form that day. Until the recently, my arms had nearly no muscles and would have fit through the bars handily. Now, however, I had added considerable muscle bulk, and all I managed to do was get my forearm firmly wedged between the bars. I screamed and pushed through the pain to move my arm forward. My skin felt like it was being torn off, but I had to get the Caduceus before Mark could. Suddenly, my forearm slipped through and in one additional push, I rammed my elbow through the bars. I brought my hand down on the Caduceus laying next to Smith’s head, and missed. There was nothing under my hand even though it looked like there should be. I screamed in inarticulate rage. What the hell was going on?
I shook my head and suddenly the Caduceus lay about six inches past my fingers. Even over the continuing alarm, I could hear Uncle Mark crying out, fighting the shadow. I didn’t have much time.
“Dave! Get over here! I need you the fuck over here!” I didn’t get a response, and from my perspective, I couldn’t tell if he were conscious or even alive. I looked over at Jen. She was still sprawled where she had landed in a growing puddle of blood. I screamed in horror, denial, and frustration. Never had I been so thoroughly mocked by life.
I reached out towards the amulet with my mind, and commanded it to come to me. I pushed my energy along the new axis that the Caduceus had shown me. I pushed until I was seeing stars, but that damned stick didn’t move an inch.
“Dave! I need you! Help Jen! She’s dying!”
I reached through with my left arm but it was all I could do just to reach Smith’s wild spiky hair. His hair! I grabbed as much as I could with my left hand and pulled. Unlike my mental efforts, my purely physical ones worked. I inched Smith’s body towards me. A few discarded handfuls of hair later, when his shoulder hit the Caduceus, I half expected it to just go up and over the stick, but the stick slid towards me. The angle my arms were at was excruciating, and I’d reached my pulling limit with my current grasp. I had to bring my left arm back, move it through another slot, and pull some more. It hurt like a bitch, but I cried in joy when my right hand brushed the Caduceus. I pulled just a bit more, and I was able to finally get my hand on top of it. I was scrabbling my fingers against it, when Mark’s yells stopped and I saw him stand back up. As power flowed up my arm and through me, his face contorted into a mask of pure hatred. The shadow drenched him, but unlike Smith, his aura flared out in places. The pulse of the Caduceus filled me and suddenly I had options again.
Mark looked around and I knew he was searching for his gun. I had no time and no choice. If I wanted to live, I had to rip Wendigota off Mark and pray I didn’t kill him. I brought up my golden shield and flung it at my uncle. Before it could reach him, he literally flipped back through the door and was gone. I kept my shield going blindly past the wall, hoping to catch him, but there was nothing. I really wanted to know who taught my uncle those moves.
I dropped my face against the cold steel bars and tried to hold back sobs of anger and frustration. I’d lost my uncle. Unfortunately, the world didn’t give a flying fluck and gave me no time to mourn.
“You killed him!” Vinnie yelled out from behind me. “I’m gonna kill you!”
I tried to pull back from the bars, but failed. My right arm was well and truly stuck. I couldn’t pull my elbow back through. So, I had to turn my head to try and catch a glimpse of what Vinnie was doing. I found him quickly enough. He was swinging his push broom at my head like a golf club.
I flinched back from the bars, instinctively closed my eyes, and put some of my newly returned power into my voice. “Stop it!” The broom smacked into the bars in front of me with a muted thump. “Goddammit! Stop!”
I opened my eyes when nothing else happened. The push broom head was wedged tightly between the bars and had been stopped about an inch away from my eye. I craned my neck back to see Vinnie. He was standing above me, glaring down. Happily, he wasn’t moving.
“Okay Vinnie, I mean....” I couldn’t remember his real name. “You! Whatever your name is, unlock this cage, now!”
To my vast relief he did as I commanded. But, now that the door was open, I still couldn’t get myself out. I thought about having him pull me back by my legs, but then I might lose my grip on the Caduceus and I couldn’t even contemplate that. Uncle Mark would be back. I knew it.
“Colette, go help Jen! Hey Colette?”
She didn’t answer and I couldn’t turn to search for her.
“Vinnie, you there, you answer to Vinnie now. Where is the girl who was in this cage?” There was no response other than a nasty sneer. I kicked myself and said, “Vinnie, you can talk now.”
“She’s laying down behind you. I hope she’s dead. You’re a slimy bastard, get out of my head!”
“Do what you can to help her, Vinnie,” I said. I turned my attention to my next best hope.
“Dave! Dave! Wake up!” I put my will into the command and hoped like hell that he wasn’t dead. My mind’s eye helpfully replayed the way he had smacked into that wall—hard.
“She’s bleeding.” said Vinnie with satisfaction.
“Dave!”
“Holy crap Finn, stop shouting! You’re killing me... Oh my god, my head hurts.”
“Dave, you’ve got to get up. They’re going to come back. I need your help. Jen’s hurt.”
“Okay, okay, I’m coming. Did we win?”
“The shadow took Uncle Mark. Go help Jen!” I tried to move my head up high enough to see more of Jen’s still form over dead Dr. Crazy, but it was nearly impossible. I had no leverage.
I momentarily rested my aching neck, which caused pain in my face where it pressed against the bars. “Vinnie, what’s happening with Colette?”
“I’m not sure, it looks like she broke her nose or something and she’s not moving. If I’m lucky she’s choking to death on her own blood.”
I flung power at him. “Don’t just stand there, you idiot! Help her!”
From the other side of the room Dave called out. “She’s hurt bad, Finn. She needs you.”
“I’m stuck. I need you to come pull me out.”
Dave stumbled unevenly over to my cage. I said, “Get the Caduceus off this guy’s head first.”
He did, and soon, I was gritting my teeth against the pain of Dave trying to pull me back through the bars.
“Pull harder.” I was completely panicked. My elbow and forearm had swollen. If I couldn’t get free, I was well and truly hosed and Jen was dead.
“Finn, I don’t want to pull your arm off.”
“Just do it! Vinnie, help him.”
I felt another pair of hands on my right leg.
“Okay Vinnie, on three. Three!”
My elbow cracked, my shoulder popped, and I screamed as I came free. The pain was excruciating, and I couldn’t seem to move my arm, but that was okay. I didn’t need it to help Jen.
I staggered to my feet, glanced at Colette where she lay unconscious on the floor. Jen was my first priority.
“Vinnie, help her!”
I staggered across the room half drunk from adrenal overload and exhaustion. Halfway across, a guard called from the doorway, “Stop!”
Running counter to my luck, he didn’t shoot first. I put force into my words when I said, “Stand guard over us. Don’t let anybody else into this room. Do or say whatever you need to keep us safe.”
I dropped to Jen’s side and tried to scrape up the strength to help Jen. When I regained my breath, with Dave’s help, I ripped away Jen’s shirt. The bullet had pierced her chest just over her left breast and seemed to have punctured her lung. There seemed to be gallons of blood pouring out of her, her breath was terribly ragged, and bubbles of blood were coming out of the hole in her chest. Images of Spring dying in my arms tried to overwhelm me. I couldn’t let Jen die. “Hold on, Jen!” I commanded. “Don’t die!”
“Vinnie! Go get me some duct tape, don’t let anything stop you, get back here as fast as you can.”
“Make up your stupid mind!” yelled Vinnie before he ran out the door.
Spring, wake up! I need you.
Her response was sleepy and lethargic.
Huh? What? Oh, crap. What the hell
,
Finn? Get in there.
I dove my Sight into Jen and started trying to understand what I needed to do first. Spring was there beside me, and we flowed through my friend’s body, coaxing bone and soft tissue to start the healing process. First, we shut down the blood vessels leading to the trail of ruptured tissue, and moved on from there. I couldn’t tell if we were making progress or not, but I couldn’t stop.
The irregular pulse of her heart stopped. Her lungs fell silent and still.
“Oh no, you don’t!”
Spring, we have to restart her heart.
I don’t know how, Finn.
You have to know how!
I’m sorry, but I don’t.
“Dave, she needs CPR now, and I can’t do it.”
I had to scramble out of Dave’s way as I continued doing what I could to control the damage. Dave started compressing her chest, squeezing her heart and manually moving blood through it.
Dave swore and I heard him spit out a mouthful of blood. I couldn’t afford to be distracted as Jen’s life processes starting to shut down around me. The spark was fading from her cells as lack of oxygen started taking its toll.
I couldn’t let her die, but I didn’t know what to do!
“Oh God, Dave! I don’t know what to do.”
I felt a small hand reach between Jen and my chest. It clasped my hand holding the Caduceus.
Colette’s mental voice was very weak, but I could hear her speak into my mind, “Do as I do.”
I held my breath and followed her into Jen’s heart.
Her thoughts came to me,
Here and here,
then
here and here. You see?
Yes, I do!
I followed her mental instructions, Jen’s heart jumped, but didn’t continue.
Again
.
I did. Again, her heart spasmed and stopped.
Here, I will do this,
said Colette.
Look for other issues.
I withdrew, and watched what she did, but still there was no response. I pulled out to a higher level to look at Jen’s whole being. Just like with her brother when he died, her aura seemed to be evaporating like snow on a sunny day. It was leaving, and I couldn’t let that happen. In desperation, I summoned forth my shield and wrapped it around her, then I hardened it and denied passage to her soul. I used the techniques Il Saia had shown me to make a cocoon for Greg’s soul and held her in place. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had to do something. It recalled the first time I’d worked this way on my dying father. As with him, I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. Anything was better than losing her.
I opened my physical eyes and looked down at Jen. Colette’s head prevented me from seeing very much, but I could see Dave grimly compressing and occasionally breathing for her. That’s when I saw her twitch and her collapsed lung started bubbling again.
“She’s breathing, her heart is pumping!” crowed Dave. He stopped his compressions. I looked around frantically and found Vinnie standing behind me with a roll of duct tape.
“I need towels!”
“Huh, it looks like you do.”
“Get me some goddamn towels!”
He went over to the cart and came back with a half dozen rags of dubious cleanliness. I used them to clean the blood off Jen’s chest. My hands were soon covered in blood—again.
Ironically, I knew exactly what to do. “Vinnie, give me a dozen eight inch strips of the tape.”
He did as I asked, and soon, I had a dressing attached to Jen’s chest on three sides, leaving the bottom one open. I held my breath till I saw it working. As her chest deflated, blood and fluid would sputter out. When she inhaled, the tape formed a seal against her skin and allowed her lung to inflate a little more. Soon she stopped coughing up blood and could breathe more easily. I released the soul shield and dove back in to help Spring and Colette do what they could for Jen’s body. She was going to live.
Colette’s mind had sharpened and strengthened as she worked on Jen. I assumed she’d been drawing on the power of the Caduceus. Colette felt nothing like I would have expected three days ago. There was strength and steel conviction where I had thought there would have been fun-loving tenderness and compassion.
Spring interrupted my musings.
Finn, we need to get out of here before Mark comes back for us with more guards.
We can’t move Jen yet.
I think it will be less traumatic for her to move now versus waiting and get her filled with bullet holes.
But, we don’t know he has any more guards.
Well, ask the guard you mojoed.
“Hey guard, how many other armed people are in this place?”
“Between ten and twenty-five.”
Crap.
I turned my attention back to Colette’s care of Jen. Her single-minded purpose and skill reminded me of Il Saia.
Colette, we need to go now. Can you keep her stabilized if we move her?
Perhaps, she has her own fragment of the True Cross—it feels very different than I am used to, but it will aid me.
She must have been referring to Dave’s bear. “Perhaps” would have to do. I pulled away and stood up. Vinnie was gone. I decided we were lucky he hadn’t decided to shoot us or stab us first.