One Broken Legacy

Chapter 27: Rainy Nights

When the door handle jiggled, I crossed my mental fingers and prayed it was Aunt Bea. It wasn't. Alpha Daniel and Kiri entered the room, their clothes and hair slick with rain.

"It's storming in the south, moving fast. I assume you called for help. Will they be able to cure him?" Alpha Daniel didn't spare me a look as he crossed the small living space and knelt beside Nick.

"Aunt Bea will be able to help him and keep him quiet. This isn't going to be pleasant for anyone, especially Nick."

"How long before he's able to move again? I know the history." Alpha Daniel remained in Nick's view. He was aware of the comforts a paralyzed person would look for.

"It shouldn't be long." I curled up on the couch, leaning my head on the armrest. Thunder crackled outside like it was announcing Nick's rescuer. In a way it was.

Kiri curled up next to me, her natural look back. I ran my fingers through her hair, working out the knots. She had to be exhausted, we all were. When Aunt Bea arrived, I would put on a pot of coffee.

"Do you know who did it? Did you see anything?" Alpha Daniel pulled the end table over and perched on it, making sure he was still in Nick's view.

"I didn't see anything. The crowd was thick," Kiri said. "Nick knocked into me, then he was frozen."

"I was behind them," I said. "I wasn't expecting anything like that to happen and suddenly he was down. I'm sorry."

"Where could someone have acquired gorgon blood? They've been extinct since The Silent War."

"It's possible some still exists underground." It was possible, but there would have been a rumor if something like that was circulating. Witches worked in different power levels, so you could always find dangerous materials if you looked hard enough, but gorgons blood was a holy grail of danger. No good witch would dare with the poison. If someone had it, there would have been a full-on battle for it and the Morills would have known about it. A movement of that many dark witches didn't go unnoticed.

"Could we track them down? I don't want this stuff anywhere near my pack, anywhere in general."

"I don't know," I admitted.

The house shook as the storm finally hit the center of town. The scrape of metal on cement mingled with the howl of the wind. With no warning, the door banged open and my aunt barged in, toting her ancient carpetbag over her work cloak.

Kiri shot of my lap, her movements were sluggish but alert, nonetheless.

"Alexis?" Aunt Bea's eyes were wide and her hair was slicked back beneath a pair of aviation goggles.

"I'm here." My knees cracked as I stood. "Do you have everything we might need?"

"I need to see the boy." She waved us all away as she approached Nick, her curly hair bouncing as she began to work. She snapped her fingers and little sparks of light danced between the digits. "Oh, he's fully conscious. Hello Nick, I can't shake your hand, but it's nice to meet you."

From her bag, she drew half a dozen vials of various shades. Their powers were beyond me, but some of the colors looked familiar from my childhood, along with the carpets we had long abandoned cleaning.

"Now Nick," Aunt Bea took on a motherly tone, "this will hurt a little, but I am going to need to flush the blood from your system. It's not as bad as it sounds, and I will give you something so your body can regenerate what it loses, but you are going to feel sluggish and tired."

She turned to address the concerned faces in the room. "Are the boy's parents aware of what's happened?"

"He's mine." Alpha Daniel seemed to reconsider what he'd said and hurriedly added, "My responsibility, that is."