‘So… The sins are in me as well?’
‘Yes, but they are contained. As long as you remain strong, they cannot harm you. The sooner we are united, our power restored, the better.’
Khaos almost wished she hadn’t asked. She tried to think of something else, and her eyes were drawn again to the palms of her hands, which should have been scarred. Instead, they were clean. She thought of the fire that the doctor and detective had spoken of. What of the pain she had supposedly endured? Was it all really in her head? If she had survived the fire, with third degree burns, then what else was she capable of?
It really was too much for her to take in, so she tried to clear her mind and rest. Curling her arms round Nyx’s neck, she drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep, while the horse flew onwards towards their destination.
She let the tide of exhaustion flow over her like a wave. She sunk below the surface of consciousness; it was almost as if the coma was returning. Then she felt herself beginning to choke. As she became close to drowning, an arm, a strong brown-skinned arm, reached below the surface and grabbed her by the front of her shirt. The shirt was red, she noted, and her own hands were very small, like a child’s. The strong arms holding her were like the arms that had cuddled her when she felt sad, the same arms she had dreamed of before. She did not get to see the face they belonged to, however, as suddenly the dreamscape changed.
She felt intense heat all around, and could hear a crackling, like a fire was blazing somewhere nearby. She could also smell, very distinctly, the stench of burnt flesh. Very slowly, she opened her eyes, her vision in black and white once more, and found herself in what was probably once an ordinary living room, now half destroyed; crumbling bricks and broken furniture littered the floor, the windows on one wall were smashed in, wallpaper hung off the walls and several cracks were beginning to spread from the floor to the walls. A fire was rapidly spreading to every flammable surface it could reach, that was where the sound of crackling was coming from. She had dreamt of this room before, she was sure of it. Had she not held a baby in this room, last time? She could not see the infant anywhere, but if she strained her ears, she could hear it, crying softly in the background. As her eyes began to adjust to the smoky room, she realised that what she had thought was a pile of clothes on the floor was actually a woman. A dead woman, her body so badly burned that her blackened skin was melted onto her bones, her face contorted into a permanent, silent scream. As Khaos looked around, suddenly every corner of the room contained a similar corpse. She was standing at the scene of a massacre. There were at least four dead people strewn around the room, and the smell of death was everywhere.
Khaos was abruptly awakened from her disturbing dream by their sudden landing She sat up, stretching, rubbed her eyes vigorously as if to rub the horrific nightmare out too. Still mulling over the significance of the dream, she surveyed the new landscape before them.
A desert of pale yellow sand spread out as far as the eye could see, broken only by the occasional dry rock, a trail of animal tracks, and one set of human tracks leading off into the distance. They followed this, at a slow lilting pace, and Khaos looked down to discover that Nyx had become a black-coated camel. They made their way steadily through the desert, following the tracks toward the horizon, the sun beating down on them perpetually.
After another age of travelling, they came across what seemed to be a primitive attempt at a steading; tents made of branches propped together with animal skins slung across them, at one side a small herd of goats and sheep stood; their white fur blotched with brown and black. On the other side the earth was scored in long shallow lines, and a few promises of crops sprouted.
When they got closer, they saw two figures, just outside the steading. One lay face down and stretched out on the ground. The other sat near with his head in his hands, knees drawn up, and sobbing uncontrollably. Nyx and Khaos were close enough to see that there was blood on the head of the prone man, blood on the hand of the other, and on a fist-sized rock that was lying between them.
‘What has happened here?’ whispered Khaos.
‘Try touching his hand. See what happens.’ replied the voice.
Khaos slid off the Nyx the camel awkwardly and tiptoed to the hunched man. She could already guess what had happened, and decided to approach the other man, lying in the dust. On closer inspection she saw that the back of his head had been smashed in, the blood was everywhere and already blackening. She touched his hand, spread out in the dust, wondering what she could possibly gain from this.
‘Now let me try to look.’ Khaos felt pressure behind her eyes, and a pounding headache in her forehead. She suddenly felt dizzy, like she was spinning, and she squeezed her eyes shut, her other hand holding her face to try to relieve the pressure.
When she could bear to open her eyes again, they opened to survey a different world. Everything was in the same place, one man still lay before her, face down, and the other still sat nearby, but everything was grey, as if she were looking through a lens that drained all colour out of the world. The only defining shade was the aura of darkness around the sobbing man.
‘That darkness you see is his sin. Now look behind him.’
Khaos turned to look over the sitting man’s shoulder, and saw the chain of events that led to this; two men, brothers, one a shepherd, the other a farmer. Two men wishing to sacrifice their produce to their god in thanks for a good harvest. One sacrifice is received with blessing, the other with scorn. The farmer has not brought his best vegetables, but the other brother, the blessed one, sacrifices the first lamb born into his herd.
The farmer is jealous of his brother. Hatred takes over him and he lashes out, striking his unsuspecting brother with the first rock he can lay his hands on.
And when the shepherd lies still, and his blood is all over him, the farmer weeps, because he has killed his beloved brother, his best friend, but he has brought only sorrow to himself. He will never get the blessing he so coveted.
‘Look over there. What do you see?’ Khaos turned again, toward the steading this time, wondering what other horror might be waiting for them there. At first, there seemed to be nothing, but then something moved in the shadows, and Khaos thought she saw a small ghostly child, transparent and indistinct. Its face was old, hair sparse, tiny mouth set in a thin, tight line of displeasure. But the most unnerving thing was its eyes; huge and round like saucers, unblinking, staring intently forward with an expression of unquenchable need, like no amount of presents, large or small, would every satisfy it.
‘What is it? Khaos asked, shuddering at its hideousness.
‘It is the demon Envy. It possesses the minds of man, making them do selfish, spiteful things, hating others for their success, belongings, wealth. This is the first time that the sin of envy was committed by man. The first in a long line of sins yet to come. This is how the sins operate, they whisper in the pliable ears of humans, making them do things that were previously not in their character. Cain loved Abel. So you might ask why he killed him. The answer is envy. This is why the sins must be destroyed. This is why your task on earth is of such high importance.’
They did not linger, as there was nothing they could do for the two brothers. They left the gloomy farm steading, and set off once more.
Off in the distance they saw what looked like the beginnings of a huge forest, spreading out further and further as they gotcloser until they reached to the final approach, then it seemed to fill the entire horizon. Circling it was a vast ring of fire, burning brightly, surrounding the garden in a wall of flames. When they were close enough to feel the heat of the fire, Khaos could see movement within it but could not make out what was burning so endlessly.
‘This is the garden of Eden.’ said the spirit voice, reading her mind again. ‘Those men we saw are the children of the first man and woman. They have fallen from grace, and have been cast out of the garden.Tthey can never return. The fire is a burning sword, which we created and put there, to stop
mankind entering ever again. Now you must take it, it will be your weapon, until you remember how to summon your powers.’
‘But it’s on fire! And flying through the air! How am I supposed to pick it up?’
‘Trust and obey, Khaos. You cannot be harmed, remember?’
Gingerly, Khaos reached out to pick up the sword, flinching at the heat. But she steeled herself, ‘Nothing can hurt me, nothing can hurt me.’ She said over and over. As her hand got close, the sword stopped in mid air, now fully visible. It was long and wide, gleaming a bright, copper colour, yet the blade rippled with a cool, blue flame. The hilt was tilted toward her, as if it wanted her to pick it up. So she wrapped her hand around it, expecting pain, but instead feeling only the smooth, cool metal.
‘You must not, no matter what, let anyone else take this sword from you. If it falls into the hands of evil, its power will be forever lost, and you will be vulnerable. Now we must move on. There is much to do.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Detective Heel wasted no time in rounding up all the nurses and other hospital staff who were on duty that night, trying to uncover how the unknown coma patient could have escaped without a trace. Gaining nothing much but several rather inconclusive and even vague statements, Heel proceeded to call in Doctor Kenning, sure that somehow he had let the patient slip away on purpose, just to spite her.
Now he sat in opposite Heel in the interrogation room, not best pleased he had been disturbed from his work to be needlessly questioned, and making sure that Heel was aware of his annoyance.
‘Detective, I’m not sure why you are so determined to interrogate me. I’ve already told you, I was off duty the night that the unidentified patient disappeared, so how am I to know where she went?’
‘But she was in your care. You must have had some inclination that she may wake up. Comatose patients don’t just get up and walk all of a sudden.’ Heel pushed, sure that somewhere, the doctor had made an error of judgement. Another one.
‘Well of course, it’s usually a more gradual process. And they don’t often resist our help, so the fact that she escaped and disappeared is quite strange. Of course. But there were no signs that she was going to wake up anytime soon. Quite the opposite in fact.’
‘Right. So she just randomly got up and strolled out?’
‘It’s not completely unheard of for a coma victim to suddenly regain consciousness.’ said Kenning defensively.
‘Hmm,’ muttered Heel, unconvinced. ‘So how many nurses were on duty at the time that she escaped?’
‘There were five on that floor…’
‘And not one of them could stop her?’
‘Have you spoken to them? I know they have all made statements, haven’t you read them?’
‘Yes. I’ve read them,’ snapped the Detective, eyeing a pile of handwritten notes on the top of her file.
‘And?’
‘Well, it just does not add up that a sickly woman, just aroused from a coma, and only wearing an NHS nightshirt, managed to disappear into the night without a trace! Right before the eyes of five perfectly capable nurses!’
‘Is that what all of the statements say?’ asked the doctor quietly.
‘Well, no…’ The Detective leafed through the pile and picked out one in particular. One male nurse, a Mr Jonathan Reid, claims that the patient… well, just read this bit!’ she pointed to the paper accusingly, holding it under the doctor’s nose.
‘Isn’t this meant to be private and confidential?’
‘Well, it’s hardly unknown to you, clearly! Read it!’ she commanded.
‘On April twenty-third, at around midnight…’ Doctor Kenning began, reading slowly.
‘Not the whole thing! Just the bottom. Go on, read it out to me.’
‘The patient ran around the west corner of the hospital toward car park E, I was the first to turn the corner after her,’ the doctor read in a deliberate monotone. ‘When I got to the car park I was just in time to see her disappear into the darkness on the back of what appeared to be a black horse. Myself and four of my colleagues searched the whole car park area but there was no trace of the patient,’ the doctor finished, a wry smile fluttered across his face for a moment.
‘Is this funny, Doctor? Is it some sort of stupid hospital joke?’
‘I’m sorry, Detective. Do the other statements match this?’
‘They don’t mention a horse!’
‘But they do say she disappeared?’
‘Yes. Without a trace. I have already questioned the nurses, they all stick to their story. They seem genuinely confused about the whole thing.’
‘We have our own reports to fill out, Detective. We are already getting a grilling from our end. What more do you want?’
‘I wanted to interview the coma girl! You knew that! You knew she was a witness, yet you let her escape!’
‘We are as baffled as you are, Detective! But we have no answers for you. There is no trace of her. It’s almost as if she disappeared into thin air,’ mused the doctor.
‘Impossible. She is out there somewhere. And I will find her.’
‘Well, clearly, she doesn’t want to be found.’
‘That makes her all the more suspicious.’ The detective stood up and gathered up her papers and file.
‘Are you done? Can I go back to my other patients now?’ asked Kenning, slightly sarcastically.
‘Just one more thing, Doctor, please. Just humour me a moment.’
Kenning waited, impatiently. ‘What?’
‘Do you mind a personal question?’
‘From you, yes.’
Heel ignored this. ‘Are you, for any reason at all, protecting this coma girl?’
‘What kind of a stupid question is that?’
‘Let me finish. I only ask because, it seems to me, from the off, that you have been deliberately evasive regarding this patient.’
‘I resent that. I have given up much of my time, being constantly grilled by you, listening to your bloody-minded hypotheses about who she might be and what she might have done.’
‘It’s your duty, to tell me everything I need to know…’
‘My duty, Detective, is to care for my patients. If they decide to leave of their own accord, what can I do? We don’t operate a prison, you know. But since you’ve actually accused me of essentially crossing the line with one of my patients…’
‘I didn’t say…’
‘You may as well have. I take it as an insult, however you meant it. I will say, however, that I do not believe for one minute, she is guilty of the crimes you convict her of.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Ever since she arrived at the hospital, things have been… different. Better, I suppose.’
‘Elaborate for me.’
‘The nurses who looked after her said they felt a peacefulness around her. Like, whatever they were worried about, or if they were scared, or in pain, somehow, those feelings would go, after being around the coma girl for only a few moments.’
‘Really.’
‘Really. And, after a few days, we noticed that the other patients, in the rooms next to her, started waking up. Other coma patients. Some of whom have been asleep for months!’
‘This all sounds a bit far-fetched…’ interrupted Heel, unconvinced.
‘To someone cynical, like you, maybe. One man, in the room next to her, was clinically dead. His family were about to turn off his life support machine. When suddenly he awoke, right as rain!’
‘Doctor, this is hardly…’
‘I know what you are going to say. But you weren’t there. And you weren’t around her all the time. You didn’t see the effect she had.’
‘But she was asleep, in a coma, the whole time, yes?’ Heel said, a little impatiently. She was beginning to wish she had never asked.
‘Yes. But she didn’t have to be awake. She just had, you know, something good about her . I just can’t believe someone with a profound effect like that could ever be b
ad.’
‘Hmm. Well. I am surprised, Doctor Kenning. I wouldn’t have thought someone as educated as yourself would believe such nonsense.’ Heel said dismissively.
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand. This is why I didn’t mention any of this to you before. Am I free to leave now?’ Kenning sighed, rising up from the desk as well.
‘Yes, I think you had better go, Doctor. You’ve said quite enough.’
‘Oh, thank you. So gracious,’ said the doctor sarcastically. As he was escorted out of the interrogation room, he shouted over his shoulder.‘You know what you’re problem is, Heel? You have no faith.’
Detective Heel pinched the bridge of her nose, and clenched her eyes shut, trying to gather her thoughts. So frustrating, that everyone she had spoken to at the hospital had no idea what had happened. And when she probed for a proper answer she got airy-fairy responses like this! How ridiculous, for doctors and nurses, supposedly educated people, to even contemplate the possibility that being in the presence of this girl would somehow make their patients feel better, even cure them… It was absurd.
And how could that girl have possibly disappeared into thin air? For a nameless woman with not even the clothes on her back, this elusive girl seemed to have some skill in deception. Despite the horrific things she had potentially committed, a little excitable part of Detective Heel looked forward to an interview with her. She had so many questions…
‘Heel?’ A heavy hand was on her shoulder. ‘Are you alright?’
Detective Heel turned. It was Chief Superintendent Maldon, gazing at her with a kind but concerned expression on his craggy face.
‘Fine, Chief,’ she replied, smiling at him warmly. ‘Just, you know… it’s complicated.’ They began to walk together down the corridor toward Detective Heel’s office.
‘These things always are. That’s why I assigned you this one; I knew it was going to be a can of worms.’
‘Thanks! Yes, not only is it a can of worms, but one of the worms has this annoying habit of escaping my grasp!’
Khaos Page 4
