Hell of Earth

Chapter TWENTY-THREE

Her wrist was and upper arms were blue and gray. She was fairly sure her shoulder had been dislocated too. Bloom pushed another small bucket of room temperature water towards her. Red flakes shifted along the surface. The smell burned her nose. She frowned and submerged her hand again. The numbness receded again but caused tingling and electric shocks for the first minute.

"Any better? I'm sorry, again." Yue's sweaty face was still ashen and he had to hold on to the bar to keep upright. Despite his state this was the fourth time he'd checked on her. He'd been walking back and forth between everyone since they'd stumbled back into the tavern, much to Bloom's terror.

"It's getting better and stop apologizing, again. I'd take some nasty frost bite over splatting on the ground anytime."

He frowned at her description. "I'm not sure you had that far to fall. I panicked when I saw you airborne."

"I agree with her, if you don't mind me saying, Prince. She might not have died from that height but she would have broken at least her legs if you hadn't created that liquid cord. Probably more. Given the state of your healer I think this is a faster treatment." Gabbro was allowing his own arm to be tended to by his brother. He was still dipping the bandages in salve to cover the blisters and open skin. He kept swirling his own fingers in the medicine and watching it drip off. He barely winced as she began rolling another layer.

Opal followed his gaze to where Kait lay on the ground in the back. Proga was holding her bag now, frowning as he searched inside. Spark and Rengu were beside her, equally unconscious although Opal could tell Kait was in worse shape than either of them. It reminded her of when they'd run from the prison after she'd tended to Proga and tried to save Ermine. Her lips were so pale.

"Big brother, I'm hungry." Obsidian swung his legs back and forth as he rung out another strip of fabric.

"Barkeep, do you have anything for my brother to eat? You don't want to have hungry patrons, do you?"

Bloom's mouth twitched like he had plenty to say to Gabbro about this.

"I'm happy to pay whatever favors or goods you need to account for... whatever it is my friends have put you through. I'm grateful for you assisting them."

The beak-nosed demon gave Yue a similar angry but resigned stare. He made a show out of trying to use his hand with the missing digits to turn the key and head into the back room.

"Don't tell me that was our doing."

"No. It was that shifter." Proga dropped onto the stool next to Opal. It seemed to her he was using 'shifter' as a curse word again. "Kait's in bad shape. We might to need to take her to a real infirmary this time."

Yue put his fist to his temple. "She shouldn't have done that."

"She thought you were going to die." Proga sighed. "It's a bad habit she hasn't grown out of. That's why your father liked her for a healer anyway you know. She'd do anything for you."

"I never asked her to nearly die to heal me." Yue didn't quite manage to get annoyance behind his words.

"She must love you."

They turned to face Obsidian who was now making the end of the bandage on Gabbro's arm into a sticky bow. "You'll do anything for them when you love another demon, right big brother?"

Gabbro took both his hands away from the bandage. "Time to wash before you eat, ok?"

He nodded, hopped down and started to clean his hands with the basin when Bloom reentered carrying a heavy looking crate.