Carol slumped forward, trying to remember how to breathe, how to think, how to move.
Her eyes idly watched the drops of blood that were hitting the floor, droplets spraying on her bloodless skin. Her ears twitched a little as her hearing returned, she heard the quiet murmuring of her servants and the howling blizzard outside. A flame hissed and sputtered, sharp, bitter incense made her nose wrinkle in disgust. Her mind cleared a little and she gasped for air.
Pushing herself upright, so she was once more sitting somewhat elegantly on her silk cushion, she took a moment to work some spit into her mouth. Ten men and women watched her, eager to hear what she had discovered. The sacrifice lay dead on the raised floor, blood pooled around him in arcane patterns.
“We must clean the body and remove it,” she rasped. “Sister Maria, you will lead the ceremony.”
Her second in command, her status shown in the elaborate green bands of her white silk robe, began to chant to the spirits. The other servants followed her. Each one lifted their robes, revealing their upper thigh. The chanting got louder as they raised their ceremonial daggers, kissing the blade as lovingly as they would their own spouse.
The chanting stopped, and they lightly slashed their thigh, letting the blood run freely down their leg. The blood ran down their legs like a living thing, heading for the dead body. It slithered up the body, covering the gaping wound in his chest, making it whole and firm once more.
“Very good,” Carol said, studying the now unblemished body.
She reached into herself, drawing forth a tiny bit of energy, calling forth a spirit she'd made a deal with the day before in anticipation of this moment. A grey moth crawled out of her mouth and flew to her outstretched hand. “Take this body, give it life and have it walk in front of a car well away from here.”
The spirit moth dipped its wings in agreement. It flew to the body and entered the open mouth, wriggling like a snake. The body slowly stood up, dressed and left the room. Carol smiled with satisfaction that her husbands employee wouldn't raise any unnecessary questions.
“My lady,” Maria asked hesitantly, “did you get the answers you needed?”
“Yes, sister, I did,” she answered.
“So can we bring our benefactor into the world?”
Carols' smile got wider. “Yes, but it won't be easy.”
“What do we need to do?” Maria asked, while everyone in the room leaned in to hear the response.
“We have to destroy hope,” she said.
Her servants looked at her in confusion, not that she cared. Her mind was far from the ceremonial room busy planning what would be her finest moment.
**
Pine Valley Boarding School,
Outside Edmonton, Alberta
“Are you OK, El?” Faith asked.
Estelle, El to her friends, fell back onto her bed clutching her stomach. “Yes,” she groaned. “It's the last week of school, I'm not going to be sick for it.”
She tried to get up again, slowly rising to her feet, holding onto the bed frame the entire time. Every time she blinked electric blue bolts erupted behind her eyes. The room began to spin again as soon as she was standing up. “I just need some breakfast,” she muttered, wishing the vertigo would go away as her stomach roiled.
Her roommate put a hand against her cheek, only to jerk it back a second later. “You're burning up! We're going to the nurse.”
“No nurse,” she muttered. “Hate doctors.” The room seemed to get further and further away, moving her hand made the air feel like water. The movement distorted her vision, sparks rose from her skin.
She didn't hear Faith sigh with frustration, or notice her roommate grabbing her arm and put it over her shoulder. “Yes, you've told me many times about how useless doctors are, I don't care. If I have to drag you to the nurse, I will. Letting my roommate drop dead wouldn't look good on my college application form.”
Grumbling, El allowed herself to be half carried out the door and down the hall, her eyes focused on the sparks and waves of multicoloured lights rose from their bodies. The hallway was crowded with teenage girls heading to the bathrooms, getting ready for class, and talking with classmates, to Estelles' eyes, the whole scene was a kaleidoscope of confusing images and colours. The students got out of the way when they saw Faith and El staggering to the front door of the dormitory.
The world seemed to do a loop de loop and El headed for the ground. An arm, stretching impossibly long caught her and Faith before they hit the floor, holding them up as the owner of the arm came running up.
“Thanks, Liqin,” El murmured, while her friends arm returned to a normal length.
“No problem,” the Asian girl said, draping El's free arm over her shoulder. “You're going to the nurse?” she asked.
“NO!” El shouted. “I want breakfast!”
“We're going to the nurse,” Faith said.
El tried to get away from them, but her friends kept a firm grip on her. “You're traitors! I am not sick. I'm just hungry!”
“Has she been like this all morning?” Liqin asked.
“No, she was able to get dressed, but then she fell down and started going... crazy,” Faith told her.
Stretching a finger like putty, Liqin felt El's forehead and gasped in pain. “She's burning up!” Closing her eyes to concentrate the girl doubled in size and her arms became even larger, scooping El up, she strode down the hallway, “Make a path!” she shouted.
As soon as they were outside, she lengthened her legs and began running as fast as a horse across campus, scattering students and surprising the teachers. For her part, El curled up into a ball and tried not to throw up.
They hit the school infirmary and nearly broke the door down.
“What on Earth is going on here?” the head nurse shouted, jumping up from the desk where she'd been doing some morning paperwork.
“It's Estelle, she's burning up,” Liqin said, putting the girl onto the bed before gratefully shrinking back down to her normal size.
The nurse rushed over, took one look at the pale, delirious girl and placed her hands on El's temples. A faint glow surrounded the nurse, flowing from her skin into the sick girl. Slowly colour returned to her skin and her temperature decreased to a light fever. The connection cut off abruptly as the nurse bent over in exhaustion.
“I don't want to try that again this year,” she muttered to herself.
El slowly came to. “Why am I at the nurses office?” she asked.
“You were burning up,” the nurse said. “Now that you aren't in any immediate danger, lets do a quick checkup.” Turning to the other girl, she said, “Thank you Liqin, for bringing her here, but you need to get ready for class.”
With a quick goodbye, Liqin left the two alone. El grudgingly let the nurse do her job, saying she felt fine the entire time. Ten minutes later, the nurse picked up the phone and called for a car.
“Why do we need a car?” El asked.
“I gave you enough healing that I could have cured you of measles,” the nurse told her. “But somehow you're still running a fever and its rising again. You're going to the hospital, and I'm calling your parents.”
“Oh joy!” El said, rolling her eyes.
**
Evelyn ran along the rooftops, bounding over streets and grinning as the world sped by faster than any car. Looking up at her husband who soared above her, she waved at him and pointed at a nearby roof. He started to descend, and she came to a stop overlooking a small cafe.
“Breakfast already?” Andrew asked, as he landed beside her.
“Of course, I've been running all morning and I need some sugar,” she said, leaning in to kiss the air an inch away from his lips.
“Funny, I've been flying just as long as you've been running and I'm not the least bit hungry,” he replied, giving her gold coloured armoured stomach a very gentle poke.
She snorted and rolled her eyes, even though he couldn't see it through her gold tinted goggles. “You don't fly, you just fall with style. Now are you going to join me for a cinnamon bun and a coffee or not?” She placed a hand on her hip and gave him a sexy smile as she asked.
“How can I say no to that?” he asked.
Flicking his wrist, a black strap came off his blue and grey sleeve, Evelyn grabbed it and gave a nod. Gravity shifted, causing her and her husband to begin falling into the sky. Another shift, and they were falling horizontally over the street. Then the gravity returned almost to normal, and they were slowly falling down to the sidewalk. To the pedestrians it looked smooth and elegant, as if they were really flying.
Some of the onlookers pulled out their phones to take pictures of Edmonton's best known superheroes. Prairie Sun and Fly By. They took a moment to smile and pose heroically in their costumes, a gold and light brown suit with a padded cowl for her, and a sky blue and grey suit with a tinted helmet for Andrew. They were used to the attention, it came with the job.
Waving goodbye they walked into the cafe, ordered their food and headed back to the rooftops so they could have some privacy. Slipping off her cowl, Evelyn ran a hand through her short hair, while Andrew flipped the visor of his helmet up.
“You put in our time off request for next month, right?” she asked, taking a seat on the ground.
He took a sip of his tea before answering. “Yeah, it shouldn't be a problem, they're going to get Starlette from Saskatoon to help fill in for us,” he said. “So Estelle will be going to Paris this year.”
“Good,” Evelyn said. “I don't want to have to cancel it again.”
“She'll get there. Waiting won't harm her.”
She looked up at the sky. “I know, but she's been begging to go all year, and after she was so excited last time only to be told it couldn't happen at the last minute. I just want her to be happy.”
He lightly brushed her cheek with his gloved hand. “She is happy, Evelyn. Despite everything, she's a smart, wonderful young lady, who is full of energy, and nothing is going to change that.”
Giving herself a shake, Evelyn smiled at her husband. “Sorry, I'm just feeling antsy. Nothing exciting has happened recently.”
Their radios chose that moment to beep.
“Ask, and it shall be given you,” Andrew said with a grin.
**
Evelyn raced through traffic, dodging cars as if they were standing still. The speed spirit that was bonded to her sent off waves of pleasure as it was able to serve its purpose, pushing her to run faster. Grinning, she happily did so. The pleasure of running, even if it was to stop a crime pushed her worries away.
She saw the speeding car up ahead. The police weren't following closely to avoid a dangerous chase in the center of the city, so the criminals weren't doing any stupid stunts. Pulling a metal spike covered in runes, off of the harness on her suit, she held it up to her mouth and whispered, “Get to work.”
The runes began to glow as the spirit inside of it woke up. She felt herself slow down slightly as the spirits influence reached out to affect her. Ignoring the annoyance, she reached the back of the car and slammed the spike into the side, easily piercing the metal.
The car screeched to a halt. The still spinning wheels began to smoke, and the engine roared, but the spirit of stillness held them firmly in place. She came to a stop as well, looking confident in her outfit, while Andrew flew overhead, ready to assist.
“RCMP!” she shouted. “Step out of the car now and get on the ground!”
One of the criminals started to raise a pistol. Evelyn didn't even bother grabbing her own weapon. She put on a burst of speed, covering the 5 meters in a second, grabbed the gun and the mans arm, twisted them sharply enough to fracture the bone and sprain his wrist. She was holding his gun and back in her original spot before he could start to scream in pain.
“Anyone else want to try something stupid?” she demanded.
They slowly got out of the car, hands raised, and completely cowed. The police who had been following the criminals came up, cuffs at the ready.
Andrew landed beside her. “Sun,” he said, using her codename, “we have to get to the hospital.”
“Why?”
He leaned in close, “Somethings wrong with El.”
'The first spirits officially appeared in February 1946, near Hiroshima, Japan, when several US Servicemen were Bonded. An investigation by the US Army soon revealed hundreds of Japanese citizens, mostly centred around Hiroshima and Nagasaki had also Bonded with low level spirits. A similar investigation near Alamogordo, New Mexico, found similar results, albeit on a smaller scale.'
Estelle looked up from her homework, frowning as her parents walked into the hospital room. “You guys didn't have to come,” she said, wiping her dark brown bangs away from her eyes. “I just had a fever, I feel a lot better now.”
“You're sick, we came,” her mother said, in her no nonsense voice. “Besides we're still officially on call if they need us.” She raised the sleeve of her shirt a little revealing her golden suit underneath.
Her father gave her a big smile while picking up the doctors chart to look over. “Sorry El, we know you hate hospitals but your school nurse was right to worry. You're vitals are all over the place.”
“Only because they took like half my blood for their tests,” she grumbled. “I feel like a pincushion.”
Her mother pointedly looked at her, then at the multitude of machines beside the bed, and finally gently tapped the clay rune glued onto the middle of her forehead. “Sure, they have attached to all of these monitors and activated a high level healing spirit, just for fun. Stop being stubborn, lie down and don't complain. Now are you hungry? Do you want a drink or help going to the bathroom?”
“I'm OK. I just don't want to miss school, I have to help finish a group project for history. It's really good, we even managed to get an interview with one of the first Bonded,” she said. “We worked our butts off, I need to be there.”
Her mother wrapped her hand in the blanket and gently patted her shoulder. “What you need to do is relax and let the doctors look you over. If this is serious, your teacher will just mark you for the work you've done. And you're fourteen, you should be happy to miss a bit of school.”
“Maybe if I wasn't in a hospital I'd be happy about it.”
“Well,” her father said, putting the chart down, “we should be able to find out what's wrong with you soon. They've got you scheduled for a spiritual diagnosis as soon as possible.”
Her heart fluttered in her chest. “They think I might have bonded?” she asked.
His face would have made any poker player proud, but her mother's hand tightened on her shoulder making her wince in pain.
“I don't know,” he told her. “This doesn't say much beyond the plan to check you for spiritual influence. You've done it plenty of times, this won't be any different.”
Looking to her Mother for strength, Estelle saw a small pasted on smile that might have fooled someone else into thinking everything was fine. “I've never had anything like this happen,” she said. “The curse is stable. It hasn't changed or anything. It can't. Can it?”
Her Father came to stand beside them, carefully not touching either one. “Estelle, we don't know anything yet. Now take a deep breathe and let it out slowly.”
She followed his instructions, closing her eyes to focus only on her breathing. It took her more than a single breath, but a minute later, her heart was beating normally. Her Mother had let go of her shoulder and was merely hovering over her. She rubbed it and winced at the bruise which was already growing where she'd been touched.
“I think I'd like a hot chocolate now, Mom. Can you guys go get it for me?” she asked, suddenly wanting some alone time.
They nodded and headed for the door, where her Mother blew her a kiss.
**
Once they were well away from their daughters room, Evelyn motioned for Andrew to stop. Leaning against the wall, she ran a hand through her short hair and tried to compose her thoughts. “She can't have a spirit, can she? We were told no spirit would want to bond with her because of the curse.”
“The chart didn't say anything specific,” Andrew said, motioning for her to calm down. “But it did say to watch for signs of bonding and mental instability, as well as sudden changes in her vitals.”
“Oh god,” she whispered, feeling tears in her eyes. “She's twisted?”
“They don't know,” he told her. “This is just a precaution. It's better to be safe than sorry, right?”
He gently embraced her, his chin barely touching her hair, and his hands hovered over her. She took a moment of comfort listening to his heart and feeling his breath against her skin. It wasn't much but it was enough to help her regain her composure. Stepping back, she saw a few small cuts on his chin, almost like he'd cut himself shaving. Pulling a tissue from her purse, she handed it to him.
“Thanks, I needed that,” she said.
He smiled and nodded, “Happy to help.”
They quietly went to the small coffee shop and got drinks for all of them. Getting back to the room a nurse was checking Estelle, while a doctor was lighting incense in the corners of the room. Stepping inside, they waited near the door as the doctor methodically placed rune covered leather and silk banners on the walls.
“You're Mr. And Mrs. Young?” he asked, not stopping his preparations.
“Yes,” Evelyn answered.
“I'm Dr. Meyer, I'll be doing the spirit diagnosis in just a few minutes, you can stay here as long as you're quiet.”
Andrew nodded. “Don't worry, we've done this quite a few times, we'll stay out of the way.”
Satisfied that they wouldn't do anything stupid, the doctor continued his prep. Taking an ebony bowl he carefully poured in red ocher and a handful of herbs, which he then began to crush with a matching hand grinder, muttering under his breath in an almost sing song pattern. The smoke from the incense swirled in the air creating a cloud over Estelle, who was laying still, her hands turning white from gripping the blanket so hard.
Dr. Meyer added a touch of perfumed water to the ocher, mixed it well and dipped his finger into the damp powder. His voice grew louder as he painted runes and patterns onto Estelle's face, neck and hands.
The cloud of smoke slowly lowered itself covering the bed, shifting colour to match the red runes. Estelle breathed deeply, taking the smoke into her body.
Evelyn resisted the urge to tap her foot, forcing herself to bite her nail instead. She knew the ritual wouldn't take long, only a few minutes once it got started, but even so the time seemed to be slowing down. Andrew was watching patiently, studying the monitors and the doctor, looking perfectly composed as always.
The doctor finished the ritual began writing, his eyes staring blankly at Estelle, his hand moving without any apparent conscious thought across the paper. The smooth motions became jerky, harder, digging into the paper, tearing it with every move.
Evelyn barely noticed that, the monitors began beeping as Estelle convulsed wildly. Her back arched so rapidly she almost launched herself off the bed. The clay healing rune on her forehead exploded spraying the nurse with shrapnel.
She screamed as her daughters eyes and mouth began glowing and sparks flew from her body. A ball of energy formed in her hand pointing straight at Dr. Meyer.
Her body moved before her mind could react. Throwing herself forward with every ounce of speed, time went into slow motion as she raced against the bolt of energy heading for the doctor. Pain erupted in her side as the energy ball struck her, sending her flying into the doctor. Her suit helped absorb the energy, and the impact, it was enough to keep her alive. If she'd been able to breath, she'd have been screaming.
Through the haze of pain she saw her husband push the nurse to the floor, covering her as the smoke erupted from Estelle's mouth hard enough to crack the ceiling.
People came running to the room while alarms blared.
“Mom.”
Hearing her daughters voice, Evelyn forced herself to roll onto her hands and knees and crawled to the bed. “I'm here,” she said, gasping as a broken rib made itself known.
“Stay down, Evelyn,” Andrew said as he looked over their daughter. “Estelle is all right, she's alive.”
There wasn't time to say anything else as nurses and security began to bring order to the chaos.