THE LAST GATEKEEPER

Duns Ford II

           The thick smell of West Rose brought Crow out of his slumber and a weak arm seized the Apothecary’s arm.

            “What’re you doing with that West Rose?” Crow said solemnly and his eyes held the deepest of sobering gloominess.

            “What this, it’s too treat the bones in your back.” She said after getting over the shock of the Hunter’s alertness. He’d been trained to do that.

            “That’s not coming anywhere near me.” Crow snickered and glared into her eyes. She pulled away.

            “You act as if you’re contagious to the stuff and only ones with the disease are.” She put the pieces together and nearly fell backwards into shelves of ingredients. “You’ve got the-the-the Disease.” Her voice was filled with a fright deeper than she’d ever had. She’d only heard of the Disease and read of it but now she’d seen it. He seemed fine.

            “Shut up you old witch and come closer or I’ll kill you.” He said and sat up. She stayed where she was but she went dead silent. “If you tell any of them about this, I will kill you. It’s not contagious what I’ve got you know so when it comes for my sinful soul let it be but I don’t want these idiotic inbred to go psycho while I’m here for something that’s not even dangerous!” He sighed and then lay back down. “West Rose will probably kill me.” Crow said in a more calmed voice but it still held the morbid stain it always did.

            The Apothecary was struck with fear. “How do you mean you’re not contagious?” She asked after a few seconds.

            “I mean what I mean, I’m not contagious. It was granted as a curse, the furthest of east is infected with The Disease but I’ve never even been there. It was Dibala…” He sighed. The faintest of orange light gleamed in from the front room.

            “Who’s Dibala?” The Apothecary asked and then took one step closer.

            “A Witch who was once much like yourself but she’s surpassed her limits as any ordinary Witch. Dibala, Witch Queen of the West.” He shut his eyes.

            “Witch Queen, you’ve met the Witch Queen?” She asked, now interested.

            “Yes and you will as well but first you have to fix me.” Crow said.

            “I can’t without the West Rose.” She drew closer and finally grabbed the West Rose off her working bench.

            “Why not?” He asked. She took another look at her thick, old and dusty spell book.

            “Because the only spell that can reconfigure your spine requires West Rose.” She said and began to ground the West Rose in a mortar and pestle.

            “Can’t you just use Dull Weed instead?” Crow asked and then felt another bit of spine pain. It’d become a bruising pain now.

            “Dull Weed, yes but we’d have to go to the Capital for it.” She said and began mixing other things with the West Rose. “That’s at least a week’s trip.”

            “Damn.” He said more so to himself than to her. “This is going to hurt like hell I just hope you know that and it might kill me, when it does, I hope you tell everybody you killed me.” Crow snapped his head down into the pillow and clenched his teeth. The pain would be shocking from what he knew of other Disease victims. She looked at the Demon Hunter and then placed the mixture on to his chest. It was a collection of dead leaves, West Rose, Rat bones ground into dust and her own blood.