Black Knight

by Christopher Pike

  “He’s healed. He’s out scouting with Marc.”

  “What? That’s impossible,” I gasp. I healed Ora as best I could before we recrossed the river, and then again back at our cave. But the best I could do was stop the bleeding and take away some of his pain. The last I saw him, before I dozed off, the wound to his shoulder blade was still ugly.

  “Li worked on him when you were asleep,” Chad says. “None of us ever saw anything like it. The wound healed right in front of us. Ora doesn’t even have a scar.”

  Li’s a witch! Fantastic!

  “Where’s Li right now?” I demand.

  “Just outside. Keeping watch.”

  “Tell her to come here. I need to talk to her alone.”

  “Gotcha,” Chad says, jumping up. I’d filled him in as best I could about my true identity while I was working on Ora—Marc backed up my miraculous claims—but I know Chad still has a million questions. He’s a good guy, though, very mature. He never gets impatient and he doesn’t mind taking orders from me.

  Li appears a minute later and sits beside me, not far from the torch. I ask how long Ora and Marc have been gone.

  “An hour. They said they were heading for the hot spring to cook more fish,” Li replies, her eyes tired.

  “How are you feeling? Are you getting enough to eat?”

  Li shrugs. “The fish helps but I’m missing my meds more than I thought I would. I’m dizzy and have a pounding headache. I just want to close my eyes and sleep.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “That could be dangerous.”

  She’s talking about falling into a diabetic coma. Her condition is more serious than I realized. Yet she was able to heal Ora. I’m missing something here.

  “I heard about what you did for Ora. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “That you’re a witch.”

  Li shakes her head. “I’m not a witch.”

  “Are you saying you don’t experience another world when you go to sleep at night?”

  She looks at me funny. “What other world? Are you talking about Seoul?”

  “No. Let’s back up a minute. How long have you been able to heal?”

  She hesitates. “Since Lula died.”

  I remember her sister had been tortured to death in a North Korean prison. Li had told me she had been in the room when her sister died. A bizarre idea suddenly pops in my head.

  “Li, you said Lula was your twin sister. Was she an identical twin?”

  “Yes.”

  “What I’m going to ask next—please forgive me for forcing you to remember such a painful time. But you said you were close to Lula when she died. What did you feel right then? The exact instant she died?”

  Li blinks away tears. “Sad. Pain in my heart.”

  I feel like a jerk for pressing. “Anything else?”

  Li lowers her head. “It’s hard to say with words. When Lula died, I felt her come inside me. Like we became one. Then I felt her leave, go to another place, but not so far that I couldn’t still feel her.”

  “And after that you could heal?”

  Li looks up, catches my eye. “Lula is the one who heals. She healed Ora last night. I felt her near.”

  Her remarks strengthen the bizarre theory that’s forming in my mind. The key to activating the witch genes is the death experience. Technically, Li never died. But her sister did—her genetically identical sister. It’s my belief that the two were so close that Lula’s trauma triggered in Li a partial awakening of her genetic potential.

  My father, no one on the Council for that matter, has ever discussed such a possibility with me. But clearly Li can heal. She can heal better than I can. Yet it’s equally obvious that she can’t be a complete witch. She has no awareness of witch world.

  “How many people have you healed?” I ask.

  “Only a few, since I came to Seoul. People I know, or the parents of close friends. I don’t want people talking about me.”

  “Have you ever tried to heal yourself?”

  Li is puzzled. “I don’t think I can. Lula, if she wanted to help me, she would help.”

  “You heard what happened last night. This place is very dangerous. We’re going to have to keep moving, keep fighting, just to stay alive. We need you at full strength. You assume you need your medicine to get better. But I think if you and I—and Lula—work together, we can get rid of your diabetes, or at least make it better. Do you want to try?”

  Li looks around as if searching for her sister.

  “What do I do?” she asks.

  “Lie down on your back in front of me. Lie as close as you can, let your side press against my knees. I’m going to put my left hand on your forehead and my right hand over your pancreas. You put both your hands over my right hand and just close your eyes.”

  From studying Gray’s Anatomy, for the premed program I plan to take at UCLA, I know the pancreas is located not far above the belly button. As Li wraps her fingers around my right hand and closes her eyes, I immediately feel a heat radiating from her palms. It’s extremely hot and we have scarcely begun.

  “You might feel Lula nearby or you might not,” I say. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you feel the energy flowing through your hands and mine, flowing into your body. Right now it feels like heat but that can change. You might feel magnetism as well. Just relax into it and let go. Don’t try to make the energy come. It flows by itself.”

  “Lula,” Li whispers, sweat forming on her brow. “She’s here.”

  “Then let Lula take over. Your sister loves you. Let her help repair your body so you are no longer sick.”

  The weird thing is I see another version of Li, dressed in stylish clothes and with longer hair. Closing my eyes, my vision of her sharpens and I suspect I’m seeing Lula as she appears in witch world.

  Whoever she is, she holds up her palms in my direction and they give off a warm pink light, which washes over me like a soothing shower. I feel Lula is not just helping her sister, she’s soothing me, and I realize how great their potential is. The sisters’ healing genes might be two of the most powerful on earth.

  I don’t know how long we sit under the shower of pink light. It’s so comforting—I feel no desire to stop. But at some point I appear to wander into a dream, with Jimmy and Marc in it. The two are arguing, I’m not sure why, I only wish they would stop. Jumping between them, I stick out my arms.

  It’s then I awaken with a jolt.

  Li is sitting up beside me.

  “Are you all right, Jessie?” she asks.

  “Never mind about me. How do you feel?”

  Smiling, she puts her hand over her abdomen as if she were feeling a kicking infant inside. “It feels good. I feel good.”

  I lean over and hug her and whisper in her ear. “I think I saw your sister,” I say.

  “She saw you. She told me so.”

  We help each other to our feet, both of us feeling dazed from the healing. We go outside to check on Chad and find him talking to Marc. Both stand inside the shadows of the cliff so neither is visible from the valley. The sun’s a lot higher in the sky than I expected and I realize I must have slept late.

  Marc looks me over in his usual lustful manner. “How’s sleeping beauty?” he asks.

  “Rested. How come you came back alone? Where’s Ora?”

  “He’s still at the hot spring and he’s not alone. We made contact with the leaders of two other groups. Kyle, a freaking rock star from London, and Sam, a fashion designer from New York City.”

  “You’re positive they’re witches?” I ask.

  “They sure know a lot of weird shit if they’re not. Yeah, I’d bet they’re for real. They want to meet with you, form an alliance, have their groups join ours. At least that’s what they say.
But me and Ora—we didn’t want to give away our hiding place. That’s why I came to get you, so we could meet on neutral ground.”

  “You left Ora out there alone?” I ask.

  Marc shrugs. “What choice did I have? There was no way I was giving away the location of this cave.”

  “You should have stayed with him,” Chad says.

  “In your bookworm opinion,” Marc says.

  I speak. “You three stay here. I’ll see what this Kyle and Sam really want.”

  “Hold on, sister,” Marc says. “Ora ain’t exactly where you think and I’m not saying where he is unless I get to come along.”

  I fret. “I don’t like leaving Chad and Li alone. It’s not safe.”

  “No place is safe on this crazy island,” Marc says in a tone that makes it clear he’s not going to back down.

  The two of us set off at a brisk clip, heading toward a spot that Marc says is “near” the hot spring. We’ve barely left the cave when he wants to know if I spoke to his double.

  “I did,” I say.

  “How did it go?”

  “He says he’ll think about it.”

  “Think about dying? Boy, Jessie, you must have been mighty persuasive.”

  “Is he telling me the truth?”

  “Did you tell him my secret?”

  “Yeah, that you think I look like the first girl you ever got a crush on. I saved it for last, when I dropped him back at his car.”

  “How did he react?”

  “He kissed me.”

  “Then he’s thinking about it.”

  “I’m serious, Marc. Will he go through with it?”

  “If it was me, I wouldn’t. Not with what he knows.”

  “It is you, damnit. Are you saying he’s just bullshitting me?”

  “What do you want? You just met the guy and you ask him to die for you so he can help save you on a mysterious island in another universe.”

  “Joke all you want. You don’t change into a witch in the next day or two and you won’t be leaving this island.”

  “I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “Listen without jumping on my case. You say I’m him and if that’s true then I do know him. I know the way he thinks, how to make him trust you.”

  “How?”

  “Have sex with him.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Listen! If he’s like me, he’s a lot more romantic on the inside than on the outside. Once he sleeps with you, he’ll feel all protective and shit. Look at us, we’ve only kissed once and I’m out here risking my life so I can watch your back.”

  “I kissed you on the cheek, once, and I was being friendly. Besides, I have a boyfriend.”

  “Jimmy? It’s not like you have to tell him that.”

  “By ‘him’ which one do you mean?”

  Marc shrugs. “If it was me, I wouldn’t tell either of them. Look, I’m just trying to give you a heads-up on the way he thinks. But I still say we’re better off trying it here. At least I know for sure that my ass is fried if I don’t do something desperate.”

  I stop him. “Talking about dying is one thing. Doing it is something else. We can’t kill you and then change our minds. If we do it, we have to go all the way.”

  Marc considers, staring at the forest on the far side of the river. When he speaks next, his voice is somber. “I know why you want my twin instead of me. Your logic make sense, but it’s not the reason. You figure it will be easier to kill him than me.”

  “I don’t feel that way.”

  “You do. You care about me and I care about you, and it doesn’t matter if you have a boyfriend or not. For an all-powerful witch you’re not very good at hiding your feelings.”

  I go to make a wisecrack but my throat constricts. What he says is true. I do care about him, more than I want to admit to myself, and it terrifies me. Because he might die. Because of Jimmy . . .

  Marc can see I’m struggling and takes my hands. “No matter how much you work my counterpart, he’s never going to know you the way I know you.”

  I nod, regrettably. “But we can’t do it here. We don’t have the meat lockers or the drugs or whatever we’re going to use. And we don’t have the time. I can’t be watching over you for hours with Nordra and Viper circling us.”

  “But we do have one thing here that you don’t have in witch world.”

  “What?”

  “Li. You were passed out when she worked on Ora but I saw what she did. You helped him plenty but she closed that wound so perfect a doctor would never know he’d been stabbed. If Li can’t bring me back to life, no one can.”

  “Li can heal but she’s not a true witch.”

  “I thought you said it was the healing gene that was the key?”

  “It is. But Li doesn’t know what it means to be connected. I don’t trust her to guide you through the process. I hardly trust myself. But at least in witch world I’ve got people who can help us.”

  He puts his hand over my shoulder. “You’re scared, admit it. It’s because of what happened to Jimmy.”

  “Yeah.” I’d told Marc how Jimmy had overdosed in Las Vegas.

  He pulls me closer, hugs me, kisses me on the side of the head. “It’s all right, Jessie. We do it here or we do it there. But we both agree we’ve got to try it. Okay?”

  I sigh. “We’ll do it.”

  We continue on our way and Marc fills me in on what he knows about the witches who want to be our allies. Turns out that nineteen-year-old Kyle Downing of London is already known to us. He’s a rock star. His debut CD has already produced three hits and both Marc and I have seen his videos on MTV. His music taste is eclectic—a cross between grunge, goth, rock. On TV he wears dark and white makeup, black leather, acts like a vampire in need of a bloody hit. I seem to recall reading something about him being the new bad boy on the block.

  Sam Verra, Marc tells me, is an ambitious gay fashion designer who is extremely well read, lifts weights, has run the New York City Marathon, has numerous tattoos, and seems to be overall just a nice guy. Marc says he trusts him more than Kyle.

  “Because he’s gay?” I ask.

  “No. Sam’s just got a genuine quality to him. He definitely grew up in Brooklyn. He’s got the accent and knows the town. You’ll like him.”

  “They sound like an odd pair. I wonder if Kyle’s used his powers to get ahead in the business.”

  “If I were him I would have,” Marc quips.

  “It’s important because the Tar frown on that sort of thing. It might mean Kyle’s a Lapra, and if he is we can’t believe a word he says.”

  “What about that razor-sharp intuition of yours? Can’t you tell when someone’s lying?”

  “It doesn’t work so good on other witches. Particularly if they’ve got a lot of witch genes, like all the witches on this island.”

  “Great,” he says sarcastically. I sock him.

  “Hey, my intuition is for real. For example, I know you were lying when you said you cared about me.”

  “I wasn’t lying.”

  “You were. You don’t just care about me. You’re crazy about me.”

  He laughs but his face reddens. I know it’s not easy for him to talk about his feelings.

  Yet he lied to me to come along. Turns out Ora and company are hidden inside the same cloud of steam where Ora and I spoke the previous day. However, the spot makes sense; except for the strong sulfur smell, it’s a great place to hide.

  Ora introduces the newcomers. Kyle is more elfin than he appears in his videos. Pale, blond, with unhealthy blue eyes, he outweighs me by twenty pounds if he’s lucky. His accent is thick; he sounds like an early Beatle, which makes sense since he says he grew up in Liverpool. But he has a charming smile and he seems genuinely happy to meet me.


  Kyle’s uniform is a dull red, his bracelet bright red. He says his group is down to five and two of them are seriously injured—courtesy of Viper.

  Sam’s group has been cut in half; there are only three of the brown gang left. Nordra’s people blindsided them, Sam explains, although he managed to take out one of Nordra’s clan. Going by Sam’s timetable—and the bodies I discovered in the meadow—he ran into the monster before I did.

  “Did Nordra offer to form an alliance with you?” I ask Sam. The guy is more reserved than Kyle, definitely more wary, which I can appreciate. He’s not as big as Ora but he’s got muscles and it’s clear from his description of his encounter with Nordra that he must have the speed and strength gene.

  Yet he holds his left arm awkwardly. He says he’s fine but his sleeve is bloody and his arm looks a little crooked. It’s clear he doesn’t have the healing gene, a dangerous defect when it comes to the Field. For some reason I just assumed all the witches I’d have to fight would be self-fixers.

  Unless Sam’s lying. They could both be lying. For that matter, they should be lying. As the rules say, only one will survive; and I’m confident they’ve seen the same plaque we have.

  “Are you joking?” Sam says in response to my question. “Nordra’s like a force of nature. He smashed into our camp and started hacking away. I was lucky to take down one of his people at the start and pick up a machete. None of my group would have escaped if I’d been unarmed.”

  “Are your people far from here?” I ask.

  Sam gestures vaguely. “Not far.”

  Kyle steps up. “I can see already the direction this is heading. None of us trusts the other.” He turns to Ora and Marc. “Would either of you be offended if we borrowed your leader for a bit? There’re things we best discuss in private.”

  Ora doesn’t mind but Marc’s suspicious. “Leaving us out in the cold is a lousy way to gain our trust,” he says.

  Kyle grins and slaps Marc on the shoulder. “It’s a witch thing, it’s nothing personal.” He stops and looks at me. “But it would help move our plans along, if you know what I mean.”

  I nod. “Ora, Marc—I’ll talk to them alone. We’ll sit over there on those rocks. You’ll be able to see us at all times.”