Chapter Five #4
On the other side, two demons wearing enforcer uniforms are standing guard. I close the portal as David rushes into the living room.
“The boy is in the kitchen,” one of the enforcers tells me.
“Thank you.” I’ll check on him first, then find out what’s going on.
In the kitchen, Dustin is pacing quickly, words falling from his mouth at a rapid rate.
He seems to be more excited than anything else, which is a good sign.
Noah is sitting at the table, his face ashen, looking as though he can barely keep himself upright while Andrew fusses beside him.
There’s a half-empty glass with a grayish liquid in it on the table.
Dustin looks to be fine, so I turn my attention to Noah, frowning. The life force is moving very sluggishly through him. I don’t know a lot about humans, but that can’t be a good thing for any living being.
“What did you do?” I ask him as he picks up the glass, takes a swallow, and grimaces.
“Overdid it,” he mumbles. “I’m still not recovered from when I teleported.”
“Did you hear that, Caolan?” Dustin demands excitedly. “He teleported. A human! From one dimension to another! I’m sure that shouldn’t be possible. It shouldn’t, right? I wish I’d paid more attention to my studies, but I’m sure it’s not possible.”
Andrew’s hands twitch. Time for me to step in before our alliance becomes strained. “Dustin, do you want to be helpful?”
He sobers immediately and straightens. “Yes, of course. What can I do?”
“Use your phone to call Garin. I’d like a full report of the situation at the hotel, but I need to be here right now, so I’m depending on you to be intermediary.”
Nodding, he whips out his phone. “I can do that.”
As he paces to the other side of the kitchen, I focus back on Noah, who’s drinking the last of the gray stuff.
“Thank you,” Andrew mutters. “I like him, but right now I’m a bit on edge.”
“I understand.” I really, really do. “What did you do, exactly, Noah?”
“Threw some fireballs,” he says. “I haven’t been using the magic during my recovery because we thought this might happen, but I couldn’t just stand there while those douches tried to take Dustin.”
“Your assistance is very much appreciated,” I tell him absently as I watch the flow of the life force. “I can’t say for certain, but I don’t think you’ve done major damage. It looks like you’ve drawn too much of the life force too quickly.”
Andrew’s head snaps up. “You can see that? What else can you see? Can you fix it?” He sounds desperately hopeful, so much so that it pains me to shake my head.
“I can’t, I’m afraid. There’s a medic with the advance team who might be able to help.” I wave to get Dustin’s attention, and then tell him to ask the medic to join us when she’s free. I imagine she’s dealing with other injuries at the moment, and Noah’s not critically hurt.
“Can you explain what it is?” Noah asks. “We know so very little about how humans use magic. It’s on my list of things to ask Eerika about, but other questions have had priority.” He rests an elbow on the table and props his head on his hand.
“I can tell you how it works for us and how I think it would apply to humans,” I say cautiously. “I don’t know a lot about humans.”
“Anything you can tell us would be helpful.” Andrew lays a hand on Noah’s arm.
“Well, if human use of the life force works as ours does, you would draw it through yourself and direct it—does that sound familiar?”
“Yeah,” Noah says. “Sort of.”
“When you first began, did you find even the smallest tasks difficult?”
“Yes!” Noah perks up a bit. “I had to build my magic muscles and work up to bigger things.”
I nod. This is familiar ground. “And after what happened, you’ll need to build those muscles again. If I can extend that metaphor, tonight you forced them to do something they are not truly strong enough for right now, and as a result, they’ve seized up.”
Noah squints, but Andrew nods. “So he hasn’t truly set his physical recovery back?”
“I do not think so, but the medic could tell you for certain. I believe he drew too much life force too fast through his energy meridians. They stretched further than they’re accustomed to in order to accommodate it, but now they’ve collapsed in tight to recover.
That limits the amount of life force that can circulate through you and is why you feel so bad.
” I shake my head. “This is one of the few things that can’t be self-healed at all. ”
“You can self-heal?” Noah asks enviously.
“To some degree, although it is always faster and easier for a dedicated healer to do it.” I hesitate, because this is something I’ve been cautious about discussing with him. “It is connected to the ability that allows us to determine the length of our lives.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Andrew says thoughtfully, his gaze appraising Noah. “You’d be, what, self-healing the damage done by aging?”
“Something like that.” I hesitate again.
“Can you not talk to us about it? That’s fine, we understand,” Noah tells me, but I know from Eerika’s reports that he’s constantly eager for knowledge.
“No, I can talk about it. I’m just not certain… I have been unsure about how much you know on this topic.” I choose my words carefully. If Noah already has this knowledge and is deliberately not sharing it with Andrew, I do not want to be the one who tells his secret.
“The topic of self-healing and deciding how long you want to live? We know nothing about it. Well, I don’t anyway. Andrew’s been alive longer than some dirt, so he—”
“Did you just compare me to dirt?” Andrew sniffs.
“What does that make you? A dirt lover?” He looks over at me.
“No, I don’t know anything about it either.
I’m a little more familiar than Noah is with what we’ve been calling folklore about your people, but this doesn’t feature.
” He pauses. “Although some of it does suggest immortality, which isn’t too far off. ”
I decide to stick to the facts. “It is essentially a constant self-healing to keep the body youthful. When we reach a physical age we enjoy, we create a spell that maintains a steady flow of life force throughout our beings. That is what prevents further aging. Should we later choose to mature further, we are able to do so and then reinstate the spell.”
“That’s super cool,” Noah says. “So if you decide down the track that you want to be a silver fox, you turn off the spell for a while and let nature progress?”
Silver fox? The translator spell shows me an image of an Earth animal. That can’t be what he means.
“I think there is some confusion. Does ‘silver fox’ have multiple meanings?” I’ve been caught out on this before. Their language and slang can be most confusing.
Andrew laughs, and even Noah snorts. “Yeah, sorry. Didn’t think that one through. Silver fox can also refer to an attractive older man.”
It… can?
He must see my confusion, because he adds, “The word fox can mean an attractive person—I don’t know why.
It’s slang from before I was born and not really used much anymore.
And silver is because older people often have silver hair.
So if you have an attractive older person with silver hair, they’re a silver fox. ”
I smile and nod because it does make sense, in a convoluted way. And the animal in the image the translator spell showed me wasn’t hideous, but I still don’t think I’d like to be compared to one.
Dustin ends his call and comes back over to the table.
“The medic will be here soon,” he declares.
“She is nearly finished. Garin says the advance team is pissed as fuck but in good shape.” He seems to take great relish in swearing in English.
“For reasons that aren’t obvious, the strike team was small and focused on one apartment only.
Once the alarm went up, the others were able to come in from behind and grind them to bits.
” He lingers over that phrase, then looks at Noah. “Did I say that right?”
Grinning, Noah nods. “Yep.”
I don’t think I want to know. He’s making friends, which is a good thing. And Noah struck me as sensible enough—certainly David wouldn’t put so much trust in him if he wasn’t.
Dustin turns to me. “We’re going to grind all our enemies to bits.”
“That would be ideal, if messy,” I tell him. “The rest of the report?”
He obediently conveys the relevant information, including the name of the elf who died and his role within the team, a comprehensive rundown of injuries and who received them, and the details already determined about the strike team—who are all dead.
My sadness over that fact should probably not be solely because they would have been a useful source of information, but it’s hard to feel bad for people who support the destruction of one dimension and the enslavement of another.
I’m impressed by Dustin, though. He’s told me exactly what I need to know without getting too sidetracked or needing to refer to notes. Yes, he received the information just a few minutes ago, but there were a lot of names and details to keep track of, and he’s done it.
Perhaps we’ve been underestimating him after all. This could be a very good experience for him.
His phone rings, and a delighted grin spreads across his face as he answers it. I can’t blame him for that—phones are wonderful .
“Okay,” he says, then looks at me. “The medic is ready. Garin said to warn the guards that they’re opening a portal to here.”
I don’t waste time answering, just turn and go into the living room. David looks up from where he’s talking to Gideon and Percy as I approach.
“Our medic is coming to treat Noah,” I report. “By portal.”
Immediately, Gideon goes out to the entranceway.
“Thank you,” Percy tells me. “We appreciate that. Do you know if he’ll be okay?”
“I’m not an expert, but I think he’s fine. He just overexerted himself.” I want to put my arm around David’s waist, but I’m not certain if it will be welcome. Does using each other for sex allow for public intimacies?