June 2018, Montana, USA
***
The hospital would have been idyllic with its shaded grounds and large windows studding its white façade, if not for the astringent smells wafting down the long halls. Plus, the halls themselves were depressing. No matter how much natural light came in, no matter how well the air circulated, this was the place of sickness. It hid behind every curtained door they had passed.
Anabelle took Volya's hand and squeezed it. "It'll be okay," she said.
"Of course," he replied automatically.
Lydia flanked his other side and said nothing, but her spicy perfume couldn't hide the sour smell of sweat from Volya. She fretted more than her daughter.
Volya suddenly wanted the long hall to be even longer, no matter how much the smooth walls reminded him of his childhood at the orphanage. In a way, the hospital was worse, because at the end of the hall wasn't the principal's office, but a private sickroom. The man who occupied it, seemed too large for any structure to contain him, let alone a hospital bed. His name was Cole Anderson, Liam's father. His appetite for joy used to match his size, and yet, there he laid, quietly. He stared at the world with unseeing eyes. Only the beeps of equipment hinted that he was alive.
On this visit, Volya wouldn't be just sitting in the room, holding Cole's hand, while his mist-wolf rushed down the infinite halls of genetic memory, searching for an exit.... This time he intended to do more. Much more.
He sniffed the air again, but the hospital smell was too potent. He wasn't getting Liam's scent through it, though the tingling at the nape of his neck announced his mate's closeness. Liam would be there, in the room. He came there straight from the airport, with Ruth Anderson, his mother.
At the thought of meeting Liam's mother, Volya stopped in his tracks. Lydia and Anabelle followed his example.
"It's going to be okay," Anabelle repeated. Her voice quivered. Lydia's lips pinched.
Volya heaved a sigh and resumed walking at a crawling pace. He envied Lydia and Anabelle their mundane reluctance to face Ruth. There was no love lost between Cole's ex-wives. Ruth didn't like Anabelle either, but his problem was next level.
He had to face his boyfriend's mom with an intro like, hello, I'm this white dude from Slobodinsk... that's in Russia by the way. And, oh! I'm going to return your ex to 2018 from the trap of time with my magic. Glad to meet you, ma'am!
If after that he failed to deliver, he'd look like a... Well, Anabelle had said that Ruth didn't mince words, so she'd let him know exactly what he'd look like to her then.
Volya swallowed. Despite their dallying, the door to Cole's room was before them. He took a breath in and slid it open. Liam's scent hit his nostrils immediately, so intoxicating, he couldn't believe he didn't smell his lover before.
Liam sat in the chair next to the headboard, with his back to the window. The first thing that struck Volya was how much his features sharpened since the last time. The fatigue must have gotten worse, like it always did on the weekends when Liam couldn't make it from L.A. to Montana where Volya lived with Lydia's family. Or two weekends in a row. Once it was three.
Volya stopped himself from dashing to Liam with clucking sounds. He had no right to do it in front of the tall woman who positioned her chair next to the middle of the sickbed. She clutched Cole's hand. Her full lips moved in a silent prayer. Her already straight neck stiffened at the sound of the intruders.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Anders," Volya said. "I'm Volya. I'm... ahem." His accent, mollified by his year in an American high school, resurfaced with a vengeance.
Ruth Anders' dark eyes looked him up and down. "You are the faith healer?"
Even the nimbus of the fly-away curls didn't impart fragility on this woman. If anything, the silver coils next to black skin gave another jolt of vigor to her appearance.
"Ahem. I'm Liam's... friend?" A really close friend, though this was probably a bad moment to bring up their dating.
Behind his back, Anabelle shifted. She was probably looking at her feet. They were lovely today, shod in gladiator sandals showing off neon-green toe-nails.
"He can do it, ma'am," Anabelle whispered. "He can bring dad back to us."
Ruth measured her with the same dispassionate stare she had given Volya a second ago. "We'll see, won't we?"
Silence fell.
"Well, don't stand there. Come in," Ruth said and turned her head to Liam. "He needs to come in to do the healing, right? Or is your Rasputin so good that he can heal from the threshold?"
Liam stirred in his chair. "Mom!"
Volya studied the bags below his lover's eyes and sunken cheeks. Jeez, at this rate Liam would need a healer too. A real healer, not him. He wasn't even a shaman, just a guy who saw into the past.
Volya walked into the small room, apologetically moved a book and reading glasses to the side of the nightstand. He extracted a long candle and a lighter out of his backpack.
"I want you all to form a circle, holding hands," he said.
"A prayer circle?" Ruth asked.
Couldn't hurt. "Yes."
He fingered the silver cross under his t-shirt and decided to keep it on. He'd seen plenty of visions with it touching his skin, so it was just the Mnemosyne that couldn't stomach silver. And the tech-wiz June who ran it. He effing missed June. He missed Sangha. He even missed Young. And Damir. He missed Damir most of all, but this was water under the bridge.
The team members went their separate ways, swearing to keep the memory of the strange events of the past summer a secret from the rest of the world.
Liam pushed to his feet and patted his mom on the shoulder. "Let's do it, mom."
There was no way for Ruth to keep from clasping hands with either Lydia or Anabelle. She glanced at Cole's huge body on the bed. Found his eyes staring into something only he could see. Then she lifted her chin and grabbed Lydia's hand so decisively, for a second Volya feared she might crush it. Her other hand linked to Liam's.
"Hurry up, healer," Ruth muttered.
"Volya," Liam suggested evenly.
Even in a hospital room, about to do magic that would test his skill to the max, Volya's knees weakened at the sound of Liam's voice. Nobody said his name the way Liam did. Damn it, they should have gone out for coffee or something before meeting here to help Volya acclimatize to having his boyfriend around.
Except he couldn't torture Liam with uncertainty.
Ready? he asked his mist-wolf.
Always ready, the wolf replied cheerfully.
Volya lit the candle and lifted it, drawing a sign of a spiral. The fiery symbol hung in the air between him and the circle. The long road traveled. The universe.
"Heavenly Father," Ruth started with the softness that Volya didn't expect of her. "Heavenly Father, I believe. I know that thy power is infinite and that with thee all things are possible..."
Volya let the words wash over him and closed his eyes. The candle felt slippery between his fingers. He drew a circle, held his breath. If the circle connected, the magic was gaining hold. He peeked. The fiery line was perfect. Sun. Power.
The room faded into mist, the spiral growing and deepening into the vortex. A tendril of smoke at its edge twisted around and opened into a wolf's maw.
Seek, Volya said. He pulled in the emotions from the humans and fed it to the spiral. Seek. The wolf ran, carrying Volya's consciousness along. The fire was a thread of Ariadne in the midst and now it widened into a road... a highway of fire. The images sprung on either side, flickering and out of existence. Armies clashing and palaces burning or being built. Intimate moments and frames seemingly void of humans, like the pictures snapped accidently on camera.
Volya didn't have time for studying each one or putting any historic clues together, though he'd done a lot of reading over the last year trying to piece the history together. But he was still a dilettante and it all flushed by too fast, too bright, too random.
Their run sped up even more.
He could barely see beyond the reflections of the flames, leaving red and white spots in his vision. He was coming to the end of his ability. The shell that he was would burst soon under the pulse of the magical tide he raised. Something had to happen soon. Cole! Cole! Cole! Just be there, man...
Something familiar tugged at Volya's spine, nearly jerking it clean out of him. He screamed, Cole! one more time. It came out garbled. The breathless acceleration and the stitch in Volya's side died down in an instant. The wolf stumbled and rolled over its head, four paws wheeling desperately through the air, one after another.
Stop. Find.
It was Liam, but not Liam. Volya dragged his heart away from the temptation that was Liam. The fiery curtain lifted, letting the right name back into his memory.
Cole! Volya called.
Mist broke into part and pixels. They moved with the speed of ants on steroids, building up a corner of history from the mist. Volya smelled smoke and heard distant gunfire. He closed his eyes out of respect. Wherever and whenever Cole was, if he would remember his prison, it was up to him to tell the tale.
Volya was only a messenger. So he closed his eyes and conveyed the message.
Cole! They are waiting for you. Anabelle. Liam. Ruth. Lydia.
Come back.
The mist-wolf howled, exploding his skull with vibrations of magic...
He was back in the hospital room or in the shadow version of it, like an image that was desaturated way too much.
The hot wax dripped on Volya's skin, hot enough to draw attention to itself, not hot enough to burn. The flame flickered right above his curled fingers. He focused on its dance, letting magic take over for a second. It guided his hand through the air.
He drew upon Ruth, and Anabelle, and Lydia, and Liam again, amplifying their message.
Then, the last glyph, an upside down triangle—the end. It was now up to Cole.