The Forgotten 🐺

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Silver

"Anything yet?" I hear Malia whisper to me, making me see her staring at me

 "As opposed to when you asked three minutes ago? No," Lydia spoke back with a low voice as I must have been deep in this that I didn't hear her.

"It seems his mind is blocked from my magic," I told the group lifting my fingers off of them and back to my side. Lydia sat up right as this wasn't getting us anywhere.

"It's not working," she states as she turns and hops down from the table, her skirt lifted up for a moment as the air gained under her. 

"Maybe you should touch him," Malia states to Lydia, as I brought my eyes to her. 

"That's ridiculous. There's no way-" Lydia was cut short as Malia grabbed her hand and plunged it forward making her touch the right shoulder of Halwyn.

"Anything?" Malia asks, but of course there wasn't going to be anything. 

"Nothing," Lydia replied to her as this must be grossing her out a little bit. Malia grabs her hand once again and lifts the body bag up with the other, as she places Lydia's hand on top of Halwyn's torso. 

"What about now?" Malia asks, but she shook her head as she wasn't getting anything. Malia moves her hand up to touch Halwyn's chin.

"Malia stop," I announce as Lydia pulls back her hand, and was freed from Malia's hold. Malia looks down to Halwyn for a moment, as she grabs his head and turns it to face me, his nape on show.

"I could try it," Malia states as she was wanting to use her claws to dig around his brain.

"You could damage his brain, even more than that bullet has," I spoke to Malia as she met my concern gaze. Malia turns his head back to it's position before walking past Lydia.

"How did it work last time?" Malia asks wanting to know how she connected with Halwyn.

"Last time, I was unconscious," Lydia replies turning her gaze to Malia.

"Unconscious," Malia repeated the word Lydia spoke as she began to look around the room. Then her gaze landed on a hammer type thing on the equipment table. "Ok, we can work with that!" Malia spoke in a cheery tone, before bringing her gaze back to Lydia. Malia runs over to the table, and grabs the hammer and comes back. She held it in her hand, and banged it on the metal table, the sound echoing in my ear.

"See? It will be quick," Malia states holding the hammer high. 

"You're not whacking her over the head," I replied to Malia as she gives me a disbelief look, as I came around to the other side as her gaze followed me.

"You want me to knock you out, right?" Malia asks Lydia, her gaze on her as she was next to me. 

"Render unconscious. Preferably without pain," Lydia states as she didn't want to feel anything and not wake up in pain. "Ok, this is what we're gonna do. You're going to press against my chest hard, constricting the flow of blood and oxygen to my brain. It'll drop my blood pressure and render me unconscious," Lydia gave the plan to us, but her gaze was on Malia.

"That sounds totally unsafe," Malia replies as she didn't like the sound of that.

"I agree. How about I just put you unconscious?" I state to Lydia as her gaze came to me, her eyebrows raised. "Ad Somnum," I spoke as I crushed my hand into a fist, and Lydia fell to the ground, but I caught her and gently place her against the metal doors. 

"Safer option," Malia remarked making me smile at her for a moment. About a minute passed, and we were still waiting for Lydia to come back, but her heart beat steadily. Suddenly, she gasps awake.

"He's not dead," Lydia states almost out of breath as I held up her to stand to her feet. "Halwyn's not dead... And I know how to save him," Lydia states meaning we were successful in Lydia reaching him and all we had to do now was to bring him back...

......................................

Lydia and Malia placed Halwyn onto a gurney and began rolling him through the hospital. We needed an MIR scanner, which I directed them too. I also used a cloaking spell, so no one would be able to see us as we rolled the body from the morgue to the MIR room. Malia wanted to wear scrubs to sneak in but the cloaking spell will do. I push open the double doors as Malia and Lydia rolled in the gurney and came in.

"Now how do we turn this thing on?" Malia asks, her gaze on the MRI. I closed the doors behind me as Lydia spoke about a manual. 

"Claudo te," I chant to the door, as I felt my magic work. "Door's sealed just in case," I told Lydia and Malia as I turn around as they went into the room to start up the MRI. As I got Halwyn's body, and placed it onto the MRI bed, that would go into the machine. I got him comfortable, and went into the control room as I shut the door behind me. Lydia began typing on the keyboard, before pressing a button. The MRI hums for a moment, taking Halwyn's body into the machine. 

"Look," Lydia spoke making Malia and I take our gazes to the screen to see Halwyn's brain scans. "See that image artifacting? That means the bullet is ferromagnetic, probably steel. It'll react in the MRI. We'll increase the magnet's power and the machine will pull the bullet right out," Lydia explained on what was going to happen when it is done. "Ready? It could get messy," her gaze went to Malia and I. 

"We've seen messy. Go for it," Malia spoke for both of us, as I nodded to Lydia, telling her to go ahead. Lydia was getting ready to start the MRI, but she noticed something in the MRI scan. 

"We can't do this," Lydia states with a worried tone. 

"Why?" I ask.

"The bullet. It's not just steel," Lydia began and enlarged the first MRI scan, so we can see. "See those fragments around it?" Lydia points to the small fragments around the bullet. "That's silver. The bullet was coated with it. Silver won't react in the MRI. We pull that bullet out and he'll start to heal," Lydia explained to us.

"Healing is good," Malia spoke.

"But he's a Hellhound," I began as my eyes flickered between Malia and Lydia. "He'll heat up. When he does, the sliver is going to melt and seep right into his brain," I announce to them as this was bad.

"So what's a little silver?" Malia asks, as she didn't see a problem and he would just heal around it.

"Argyria. Silver poisoning. And we have no way of getting it out," Lydia states her concern to us.

"So if we take out the bullets, he dies again," Malia summed it all up in that sentence. But we could kill a man, a man who has been around over a hundred years. He has a right to live as much as anyone else... 

But we can't save them all...