Walking the Ley Lines

Prologue: The Whirlwind

"Move your hand, child," said Seamstress Abby, pulling my right hand and makeshift compress from my bleeding chest. As she slid her arm away I could see the thick black stitching high up her wrist and another ring of stitches high up between her bicep and shoulder. She drew a pair of scissors from her gray dress and sliced my shirt open.

"The light!" she called. Her assistant plugged a lamp in the wall and held it over me. The humming yellow bulb was bright enough to make me close my eyes. She gently felt around the wound with ice cold fingers.

"Stabbed me with a piece of glass," I said, trying to keep still.

"Something for the pain?" she asked, hovering close to my ear.

"No," I almost whispered. "I've a job to do."

"It'll need stitching," she warned. "And you'll need blood."

I opened my eyes a crack despite the searing light. "Put it on my tab," I whispered, fighting off a wave of nausea. She nodded, smiling a little and yanked a strand of the long silken black hair that fell almost to her ankles out of her scalp. Then, she threaded a hooked bone needle, produced from a pocket of her dress. I closed my eyes again. Someone, presumably her assistant slid a leather belt between my teeth and I bit down.

Stinging fluid poured across my oozing wound, it felt like hot irons being pressed into unskinned flesh. I bit down harder. Then she drove the bone needle threaded by her own hair into my skin. Somebody pressed down hard on my shoulders and somebody else held my arms, keeping me motionless as I, almost unconsciously, tried to flinch and jerk away from the woman stitching the open wound back together.

She finally finished, spreading something warm and greasy across the stitched wound. I saw the bright lamp light vanish behind my eyelids and opened my eyes. Her assistant was unplugging the lamp and returning it to a compartment behind the bar; the handful of rough looking patrons that had helped hold me in place were returning to their drinks. One bearded man I didn't recognize clapped me on the shoulder and stuck a cigarette between his yellow teeth. I nodded thanks at him and the others. Abby walked away for a moment, her long black hair bouncing a little.

I looked down at the wound in my chest and the hardening green substance smeared across it. "What's this?" I asked. It smelled like pine oil and lavender.

"Little blend of this and that," said Abby, returning. "It'll help keep everything together." She took the filled glass in her hand and slid it onto the table next to me. "How long were you traveling with a hole in your chest?" she asked.

"It took longer this time, to get back here," I said, sitting up and wrapping my fingers around the glass.

"Too bad," She said. "Your father told me he made it from Houston to Pocatello in one step, once."

"Yeah, he told me that story too," I said, taking a sip. The wound ached as I moved my arm, but it had stopped throbbing. Dad said a lot of things. He was in ADX Florence Penitentiary in Colorado, same place they held the Unabomber. I slid off the table and walked with careful focus over to my usual booth.

Abby waved her assistant forward and the pale, thin creature hung a blood bag from a hook on top of my booth and, with surprising care, wiped a bit of alcohol on my arm and slid a needle in my vein. Then he blinked his large black eyes and lurched away. Then Abby set a plate of steak and eggs on my table. The warm smell of pepper and seared beef made my mouth water.

"Thanks, Abby," I said as she handed me a fork and knife.

"Just don't die before settling up, alright?" she said, flashing a smile. Then she returned to the bar, scrubbing the counter with a sponge like nothing had happened. Her assistant shambled about cleaning the table I'd been treated on.