The Healer(The Healer Series Book 1)

by C. J. Anaya

Chapter Twenty One

  The drive to the high school took five minutes. Walking from the car into the football field took less than two. I couldn’t remember a time when seven minutes had dragged by so agonizingly slowly.

  Angie had forced me into attending many football games over the last three years. I was used to being here when all the lights were blazing and the stands were filled with fiercely loyal fans. The field was dimly lit now by the silvery light of the moon in the distance. Everything was quiet and motionless. As the soft turf gave beneath my feet I began to feel like I was standing inside one of those Christmas snow globes. Completely cut off from the outside world and stuck with whatever had been placed within.

  “I am freaking out!” Angie whispered.

  She grabbed my arm roughly. I continued moving forward, scanning the remaining field ahead of me without any idea of what to expect.

  “Stop. That’s far enough,” said a scratchy voice several yards ahead.

  Angie and I froze. I could see a few silhouettes in the distance but was having trouble making out any faces. Suddenly, the lights surrounding the stadium lit up the entire field, and what I saw next made my insides freeze. The nekomata posing as Betty was standing before me grinning broadly. Knowing this creature wasn’t Betty made the sick leer on its face that much more offensive.

  Standing next to it, looking scared and confused was Kirby. He’d changed so completely from when I’d last seen him. I couldn’t believe how full his cheeks looked. His sickly frame had metamorphosed into that of a very healthy young boy. He didn’t look sick at all. My eyes filled with tears as I made a move toward him, but Angie jerked me back.

  “Hope,” she hissed. “Psycho cat has a gun.”

  My focus on Kirby had been so intense I hadn’t even registered the gun pointed at his head. I stepped back and held still. I needed Kirby to think I had everything under control.

  “Kirby, are you all right?”

  He gave me a shaky smile.

  I reluctantly took my focus off him and stared at the hideous aberration before me.

  “What do you want?”

  “We want you. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.” Its voice was guttural, completely unnatural. How could I have been fooled by it at the hospital?

  “Fine. I’m here, and I’m not leaving, so you can let the boy go. He’s served his purpose.” My voice sounded stronger than I felt. In reality, I held absolutely no power in this situation. If the nekomata wanted to it could just put a bullet in all three of us and walk away.

  “I still have need of him,” it said, teeth gleaming.

  “Why?”

  My stomach had managed to twist itself into several different knots.

  “The original plan was to kill you and be done with this problem for good, but now my master has decided it would make more sense to take you alive.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would your master keep me alive when I’m the only thing standing between him and the veil?”

  My knees shook as I asked the question, and I could feel Angie’s vice-like grip on my arm grow tighter and tighter with each word spoken.

  The cat’s grin changed into something ugly and evil. Its’ teeth began to sharpen and its’ eyes turned to green slits as the rest of the body morphed back into what it really was.

  The giant, black cat from Ms. Mori’s house, the one whose heart I’d almost stopped, stood before us.

  I’d never seen anything more horrific in all of my life. If I’d killed that thing when I’d had the chance, Betty wouldn’t have died tonight. The thought weighed heavily upon me.

  I felt a pull on my arm as Angie slid to the grass. She put her head between her knees and started dry heaving. I looked back up to Kirby to see how he was handling things. His eyes were wide with fear, but he wasn’t screaming at the top of his lungs like any normal boy would. I couldn’t believe how still he was or how calm he was behaving.

  “Circumstances have changed, new knowledge has been discovered. This ability of yours to kill as well as heal makes you a valuable asset.

  I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “What do you need Kirby for?”

  “Insurance,” it hissed. “I will need your full cooperation. If you refuse to give it willingly then death will claim this miracle child faster than his leukemia would have.”

  It was cruel, really. I finally managed to save Kirby from the cancer that held him hostage for so long, and now his life was being threatened in a different way.

  “Put the gun down, and I will do whatever you want,” I said.

  All that mattered was Kirby. All that mattered was keeping the people I loved safe. Keeping them alive.

  The nekomata eyed me suspiciously for a moment and then slowly holstered the weapon to the side of his belt. He pointed one hairy claw at me and motioned me forward.

  I took one step and then one more.

  I had no idea how they found us so fast, but it couldn’t have happened at a more vulnerable moment.

  Victor appeared from the sidelines up ahead of us and immediately dove for the nekomata. They both went down in a jumble of swords, armor, and cursing. I ran forward the minute I spotted Victor, but felt an arm wrap around my waist before I could get very far. The arm tugged me back.

  “What are you doing? Let go of me!” I shouted. I searched for Kirby and saw him rolling away from the commotion, trying to get to a standing position.

  “Not a chance, Hope,” Tie grunted trying to pin my arms to my sides. “It’s bad enough that you snuck out, but there’s no way I’m letting you fight another nekomata. I don’t care how hot you look with a sword in your hand.”

  “I don’t care about your stupid nekomata or your ridiculous prophecy. I’m not interested in healing an imaginary veil for an imaginary people from another lifetime ago. I just need to save Kirby!” I was shrieking at this point.

  “You stay here. I will get Kirby.” He pushed me behind him and then sprinted forward before I had time to argue. Victor was still fighting a vicious looking battle with Kirby’s captor, and Angie, to my surprise, had gotten up from the grass and migrated about fifteen feet to my right. She was involved in a fierce yelling contest with Ms. Mori and my father.

  When did they get here?

  My father began moving toward me. I looked for Tie. He held Kirby in his arms and was sprinting in my direction when a second nekomata came running up from behind. I screamed a warning to Tie, but he already seemed to know it was there. He threw Kirby forward, and doubled back.

  “Run,” I shouted.

  I tried to close the distance between Kirby and myself. Tie spun around and pulled out his sword, allowing his momentum to bring him center with the ugly beast. He sliced the cat’s head off as easily as if he were playing a casual game of baseball.

  From the corner of my eye I saw Ms. Mori fighting a third nekomata.

  I was only a few yards away from Kirby when I heard my father shout a warning.

  I looked to where my father was pointing. Victor held his opponent in a choke hold, but the nekomata who’d murdered Betty had managed to free the hand holding his gun, pointing it directly at me.

  “If she doesn’t come with me then she dies with all of you!” His guttural cry rang out across the entire football field.

  I looked to Kirby and motioned for him to stop, trying to slow myself down as well. We were about ten feet apart, but he wasn’t stopping. He looked over at the nekomata and ran faster. I knew what he was doing. I tried desperately to stop moving toward him, but he kept running, closing the distance between us. Kirby flung his arms around me at the exact moment the gun went off. I fell with my back to the ground and Kirby covering me.

  I held still and prayed that the bullet had hit me. I wanted to feel a sudden pain slicing through me signaling the bullet’s impact.

  I felt nothing but Kirby laying lifeless in my arms. I held him close to me and carefully rolled him to my side so I could look into
his eyes and make sure he was all right. The moment I did blood began pouring from his back.

  I didn’t waste any time. I had no idea who was winning or losing in the fight against the nekomata, and I didn’t care. I connected to Kirby and assessed the extent of the damage the bullet had inflicted. What I saw filled me with dread. The bullet had severed his spinal cord at the C-3 level which meant the nerves controlling his ability to breathe had been damaged. He was suffocating. I worked frantically to help his body repair his vertebrae, but his life force wouldn’t respond. It was telling me Kirby was meant to die.

  I felt an inhuman sound rising up from the back of my throat. I began pushing through that invisible veil just as I had the first time. I wasn’t going to lose him. I wasn’t going to let him die, not after I’d fought so hard to give him life. He couldn’t die trying to save me. It wasn’t his job to save me. I used all of my mental strength to shove through that stupid, ridiculous barrier. All the while I could feel Kirby’s heartbeat slowing as his body failed to draw in the oxygen he so desperately needed. I was in a race against time, and my panic began impairing my ability to focus. I’d get so close to ripping through it, and then the spaces between Kirby’s heartbeats would become more prolonged causing me to lose my focus again. I had almost cut my way in, mentally stabbing and slicing at the invisible force before me, when Kirby slipped from me. It felt like he squeezed me lovingly one last time and then gently let go.

  That inhuman noise escaped from my throat and soon I was screaming in a way I never had before. I kept hacking away at that barrier in an attempt to follow Kirby wherever he had gone. I could still feel his presence next to me, but the obstacle ahead of me prevented any contact with him. I continued screaming, cutting, clawing and fighting until the pressure and pain within me came to a boiling point, and suddenly, I broke through.

  I had broken through! I pushed past the veil and moved forward, latching onto the presence I felt before me and pulling back with all the strength I had left sending Kirby’s spirit back through the veil, through this invisible entity that had, for so long, taken and taken and taken from me without giving me a choice or a chance to save what was mine.

  No more.

  I was making the decisions now. I was calling the shots, and to hell with anyone who thought otherwise. I kept that veil wide open as I taught Kirby exactly what he needed to do to heal the injuries done to the spine, the nerves, the blood vessels, and anything else that needed repairing. Slowly he was coming into focus. He was breathing again. He was feeling again.

  He was alive.

  I had no idea how long I floated like that keeping the veil at bay while Kirby’s body began healing itself, but when it was all over I found myself never wanting to leave. Then I found that I couldn’t leave. Every time I tried to move through the veil and join Kirby on the other side I found it impossible to do so. After a little while longer I began to forget who it was I was trying to get to. Then I forgot more. My thoughts grew vague and distant. I considered the possibility that I was dreaming, and I wondered if I would wake up in a nice warm bed overlooking an amazing garden filled with beautiful cherry trees.