by Vance Huxley
“Maybe, or maybe only for a little while. According to the leech her organs are shrunk as well as damaged so she’d die without magical assistance.” Kelis sighed and picked up another lead bar. “I already thought of that.”
“But what if the two with seeds were right there, waiting? Could medics keep Jane Doe alive long enough to get our leech into each girl and kill the seed, then back into Jane to save her?” Rob sat frowning, looking at a lead bar and not seeing the growing smiles around him.
Abel’s face fell again. “The NHS won’t let a leech crawl around intensive care.” Though now Abel wondered if the National Health Service had a magical division.
“Phone Creepio. If it works he owes us big-time.” Kelis tossed her lead bar down in disgust. “No he won’t because we’ll do it anyway to save the girls, which is a pity.”
“Never mind that. First we find out if it can be done.” Rob lifted his bar as if to throw it at an inoffensive tree but changed his mind. “Flobberclomps. We’re stumped anyway because we can’t leave Brinsford and we daren’t let Jane Doe go without us. Creepio is just waiting for a chance to kill our leech.”
“Will you stop making up swear words! I’ve already imagined a bleddering, a sort of mermaid made of a Bedouin and bladderwrack seaweed. Now I daren’t say it in case I create one. Flobberclomps will be really disgusting.” Kelis scowled at a grinning Rob. “Just say curses, or blimey or heck. None of those will create anything dangerous like a hell or something bloody.”
“Hush, children. Don’t let the Creepio hear you squabbling.” Abel called Creepio’s number and as usual got the bland assurance someone would be in touch. All five returned to filling lead bars with magic, though the distraction didn’t work. Abel, for one, had begun to wonder if they’d been crossed off Creepio’s list when the phone finally rang.
As soon as Abel made his suggestion Creepio didn’t waste any time at all. A few very short sentences later he rang off. “Well?”
“Give me a chance, Jenny. He’ll be here with the two women and a complete intensive care unit within an hour. They’ll blood-type Jane Doe in the ambulance, though it’ll look like a delivery van on the outside.” Abel stared at the phone, definitely worried. “I really hope it works after that.”
“Flobwhatevers, we’d better break the news to the leech! What if it says no?” Kelis picked up the remaining empty bars, keeping them separate from the full ones.
“Then mummy will order it to obey.” Rob chuckled when Ferryl/Claris growled at him.
∼∼
Back at the church Ferryl/Claris really did have to order the leech to obey. It was utterly terrified of the church, with good reason, and didn’t expect to escape if it went into a church vehicle. Oddly enough it had no hesitation over killing the seeds, because according to the creature they belonged to an inferior, defeated nest. Abel, for one, wondered if some of that attitude had to do with its Firstseed, mother in effect, trying to kill it. Zephyr worried more about the vicar getting close to her, because he seemed very interested in exactly what she was. After Ferryl reassured her even church magic couldn’t get into the tattoo, she vowed to stay safely tucked away.
The five of them also worried about how to hide Creepio’s ambulance, but there wasn’t any need to veil the large furniture removal lorry that turned up. The vicar and two men dressed in overalls carried one of the infected women into the church. A veil covered her and the stretcher, while the vehicle stopped anyone getting a clear look at who went through the lychgate into the churchyard. The two supposed workmen switched the eighteen-year-old leech victim for Jane Doe.
Once Jane Doe had been carried out of the church, disguised as a pew, Creepio asked everyone to wait a moment before following. He kept his voice low, so the infected woman couldn’t hear him. “I am worried that the seed inside her will sense if the other one dies, and release those toxins you spoke of.” He gave Kelis a very stern look. “This glyph will block leech-recognition, stopping it from detecting other leeches. Don’t try to repeat the glyph from memory, because you won’t see it clearly enough and a mistake could be dangerous.”
Kelis stuck her nose in the air. “I’m not stupid. Though if you drew it instead of just casting?”
A withering look was all the answer Kelis would be getting, as Creepio turned to the altar and sketched lines in the air. The smirk afterwards might have been because he’d cast the glyph very quickly, making sure Kelis couldn’t follow his movements. Despite that, Abel had a lot of trouble keeping a straight face when Ferryl/Claris lagged behind in the church. He bit back a snigger as Zephyr asked to fly free and drifted off to join her without letting Creepio see her. The lure of a new glyph had overcome Zephyr’s worries about losing her identity if she wasn’t linked to Abel. The pair would be inspecting the altar, reading the flow of magic in an attempt to unlock Creepio’s secret.
Creepio didn’t even look back at Ferryl/Claris, confident there would be no trace. Even though the vicar knew that a few magical creatures could see magic, he had no idea an intelligent being could sometimes use the flows to decipher the original glyph. Now two such creatures were inspecting his work, one he believed was a captive Wind Spirit, Zephyr, and an apparent schoolgirl who shouldn’t be able to see magic at all. As the stretcher came through the lychgate, Creepio worked a partial seeming to disguise opening the door in the side of the van. “Is the creature still willing?”
“No, it’s scared you’ll kill it although the leech will still save the two girls for you.” Kelis didn’t hide her sneer.
“For God, not me.”
“Are they both confirmed? That might be a problem if their God mark, the cross on their foreheads, stops it entering.” Everyone stopped in their tracks as Rob spoke, and Abel at least prepared for real trouble. He thought Creepio would force the leech to try anyway.
Creepio waved them on up into the van. “One is confirmed, the one I put in the church. I can nullify her mark to allow the leech into her, then bless her again if she lives, but I must see it come out of the other one first.” He pointed at Jane Doe. “I will not let that thing claim another of God’s children.”
“Don’t the two girls have names?” Kelis turned to look back at the church. “Or are they like Jane Doe, too badly hurt to remember?”
“They are possessed by blood leeches, and magical creatures do not have names.” Creepio hesitated, glancing at Abel’s arm where Zephyr, a named magical creature, usually lived. “Only those with souls have names, and are worthy of God’s mercy. When the blood leech infected the women, it destroyed their souls and claimed two of God’s children.” Even though the vicar spoke with absolute certainty, Abel knew from their last conversation the vicar thought the souls were salvageable. The nods of agreement from three of the medics might have been why he’d stuck to church dogma this time.
Ferryl/Claris caught them up in time to hear him. “The leech in Jane Doe didn’t claim any of God’s anything, because I wasn’t even baptised.” She opened her mouth to continue but stopped just inside the back of the lorry.
Abel bumped into her, opened his mouth to say something but then the view shut him up. Now he’d moved through the seeming Abel could see that the apparently empty van had been stuffed with medical gear. The five medics weren’t taking chances, they probably had enough equipment to put all three patients on full life support. Zephyr slipped back into her tattoo without Creepio seeing her and reconnected to her tether. “We have the flows, but it will take time to decipher the actual glyph.” Abel wasn’t even sure why they’d bothered, it wasn’t something they’d be likely to need.
The young woman already in a bed looked pale and thin, but not anorexic like Claris had been. That had to be a good sign, because seeds were voracious so the hosts looked starved by the time the creature became aware enough to keep its host healthy. Jane Doe roused and the leech inside her spoke. “It is still a seed, without real purpose except to grow, though it feels relieved now I am here. Taking them away f
rom the older nest members has frightened both seeds. Separating them has made that worse.”
“Do they know you?” Abel wanted to ask if they’d know this leech had left the nest but didn’t want the seed to find out.
“They recognise that I come from the same Firstseed. Please put this host to sleep or she will fight and scream when I release her.” The leech spoke quietly, and very politely, but Abel could hear the strain through Jane Doe’s voice.
The medic looked from Jane Doe to Creepio to Abel. “How does this work? Can we connect up the life support with the creature still in there? It would be best if we have everything working before it stops whatever it does.” Even as she spoke another medic took a blood sample through a door into the front section.
The leech answered, through Jane Doe. “Tell me when it is safe to release her, then send her to sleep. Firstseed has told me to obey doctors.” The medic didn’t hesitate, she started to connect Jane Doe to the equipment and even asked the leech questions about which organs were most damaged. As the list grew the medic looked up at Creepio, confused, and asked how she’d been hurt so badly if this creature was under control. Jenny and Kelis helped Creepio explain there’d been a bigger leech in there for forty years, then a seed.
Meanwhile Rob had thought of another problem. “What about infection? I’ve got this for the leech.” He brandished a plastic waste bin they’d washed out with disinfectant. “But shouldn’t we be in white overalls or something?”
Another medic, tending the seeded woman, pointed to a large, very complicated glyph on the wall. “Ideally we would have everyone scrubbed and do this in a hospital, but we’ll have to rely on that for anything you’ve brought in. Leeches themselves don’t pass infection. It must be a survival mechanism to stop them poisoning their food.” She looked the teenagers over and smiled. “If you are carrying a flu virus or you’ve got a mouth sore, it’s history. Free medical care, compliments of the church.”
Creepio cut in. “Don’t try to copy that glyph, because you’ll never remember it exactly. Get one bit wrong and it will kill all the good bacteria in your body as well. It also uses a lot of magic, enough to drain a human in about five minutes which is why we rarely use it. This vehicle carries a ton of metal charged with church magic, just to power that glyph.” One glance at the tangled mass of curves and lines and Abel knew he’d never memorize the glyph. He didn’t even fancy his chances of copying it accurately if he’d had pen and paper.
“I can try to memorise it? I will also memorise the magic flows so I know if I have it right.” Zephyr had strict instructions to keep inside the tattoo, and not to send out spooky-phone. Ferryl wasn’t sure how much information the church might get if she did so in a church vehicle. “I have nothing else to do.”
“Good idea Zephyr, and it will keep you occupied so you don’t see something interesting and forget to stay hidden. Ferryl will want to know how that glyph works.” Abel had seen Ferryl/Claris’s eyes sharpen so she was definitely interested, though he doubted even she could memorise the whole thing accurately. Out loud he answered Creepio. “No chance, I’ve already got enough trouble remembering my school work.” Abel and the others waited as the medics finished preparing Jane Doe behind a screen.
Eventually a medic announced they could keep Jane Doe stable, though he didn’t want to guess how long. The other one shook her head at the proffered waste bin and offered Rob a large stainless steel bowl from a cupboard. “I would prefer you to do this part. I’ve never seen a live one, just dying remnants as they dissolve.”
“It’s gross.” Rob put the bowl near Jane Doe’s mouth. “Whenever you are ready, leech.”
As Ferryl/Claris lifted her hand to cast the sleep glyph, the leech came up with another request. “Please wake the other one once I am inside, so I can explain what is damaged. I may not be able to make the host talk if it is in a drugged sleep.” That caused a short delay, because nobody had thought they’d be asking a patient the extent of internal injuries. As Rob proffered the bowl again all the medical staff drew in a little, obviously very interested. That included Creepio, so Abel quietly reminded him this leech mustn’t be harmed. He still wasn’t sure Creepio would let the leech survive if Jane Doe seemed to be all right on life support.
∼∼
Rob tried to stifle his amusement at the medics’ reaction when the leech’s tendrils appeared, pulling on her teeth and lips, dragging it up her throat to slither out of Jane Doe’s mouth. They were all torn between fascination and disgust, with most of them looking as if they wanted to kill the glistening, pulsing blood-bag on sight. The leech’s physical body, slick with blood and with seemingly random feeding tubes and clawed tendrils sticking out all over, looked utterly gross. Since the medics must be magically aware they could also see the larger magical body, covered in throbbing veins and long, thin, ghostly wisps. The wisps were what the leech embedded in a victim’s brain to control them, and Abel knew that a truly magical creature like Zephyr could see their full extent. The medics recoiled as the wisps sensed potential hosts and stretched towards them, though the connections recoiled when they came near Rob’s ward.
The wisps withdrew into the leech’s body once it landed in the bowl. It used the clawed tendrils to turn so the purplish brand of the binding glyph showed, but now a Tavern ward had been etched alongside it. Kelis looked curious but Ferryl/Claris smirked. “It does not trust the church. I know you can break through the ward, but that amount of magic might damage delicate equipment and kill your other patients.” Creepio had a face like thunder but didn’t answer as Rob took the bowl over to the seeded woman and the leech climbed into her mouth. Despite her medication she choked briefly as it slid inside, but soon settled again and the medics reduced her drugs to wake her up. By that time the two medics with Jane Doe had stopped watching. Their equipment began to beep, lights flashed, and they threw themselves into keeping Jane Doe alive.
The monitors attached to the seeded woman stayed quiet, but as she began to wake she shuddered a little. Even as Ferryl raised her hand, ready to cast a sleep glyph, the young woman quietened so the leech had taken control. A few lights changed colour while others lit up, and although no alarms beeped the medics looked worried. “How long does it take?” Abel put a finger to his lips and the medic shut up. Nobody, even the leech, could be sure how much the seed understood. If it could already understand speech it might learn it was about to die.
Though Creepio seemed to have forgotten that. “Wake her up now, properly. If she screams, the seed is still alive.” He turned to Kelis. “In which case your leech has joined it and I will take her outside and kill them both.”
His eyes opened wide as Kelis put a finger on his lips. “Shut up. Wait.” Creepio must have realised why, because he didn’t make any more comments. Instead Kelis, Abel, Rob, Ferryl/Claris, Jenny, Creepio and the medics waited for the young woman to rouse. Eventually she began to move again, her limbs twitching while her head shook back and forth. Creepio stirred but Kelis raised her finger again.
After a few more minutes that felt like hours, the young host calmed down and her eyes opened. “More magic please, Firstseed. Next time do not speak of killing. The seed began to release poisons and tore a hole in her heart. The toxins reached her stomach, kidneys and liver before I could absorb them. Now I am trying to heal her heart and other serious injuries where the seed grew into her organs. I have sealed the hole in her heart but the repair is still very weak.”
Kelis wagged her finger at Creepio. “That’s you and your big mouth. You were that keen to kill a leech you nearly killed three women.” Behind her Jenny carefully drew the connection glyph on the young woman’s skin and applied a lead bar full of magic.
“Three?” At least that part diverted Creepio from Kelis ticking him off. The way the medical staff were glancing at the pair, they were expecting fireworks.
“If our leech is killed then Jane Doe dies, and the two seeded women will eventually die because you can’t sav
e them.” Kelis turned from berating Creepio because the two medics with Jane Doe were working frantically. “Is she all right?”
“We can’t maintain her!” A syringe went in. “There’s too much damage in there. How long do we have to keep her going?” The medic distracted the vicar and any angry retort died as he took in the frantic activity around Jane Doe.
“Leech, just heal that host enough to make sure she lives. She can finish healing naturally. Hurry!” Ferryl flexed her fingers but she couldn’t heal from outside, and daren’t switch hosts in front of Creepio.
Jenny swapped to another lead bar, testing the ones she’d taken off. “They’re both nearly empty. It’s using a lot of magic in there.”
“Have you brought enough?” Creepio actually put a hand to his cross, presumably to offer a leech some church magic, but Jenny showed him the bars in her school backpack.
A fourth bar went onto the glyph while the medics with Jane Doe looked more and more worried. Eventually the younger woman opened her eyes again. “Enough. Her name is Amanda. Her liver, kidneys, upper stomach and lungs were affected by the toxins but are working and her internal bleeding is stopped. Make her sleep.” She turned her head to the side and tendrils appeared so Rob quickly put the bowl in place. He didn’t quite run the three steps to Jane Doe but came close, and the leech quickly climbed inside.
“Do we stop?” The medic working on Jane didn’t sound as if she thought that would be a good idea.
After looking at the blank expressions on the rest Abel answered. “We don’t know so keep going. We’d better wake her up again, so the leech can let you know.”
“That’s not a good idea, usually.” The medic watching a bank of monitors shrugged. “But what do I know? I’ve just seen one miracle. At least we’ll know what to concentrate on.” The way he hovered over the monitoring equipment probably meant he wasn’t too sure. Moments later Ferryl/Claris annulled her previous sleep glyph and the leech began to explain the worst problems. Jenny moved over to Jane Doe, applying lead bars to feed the leech with more magic.
