Chapter 132 - The Doctor And The Nurse

"What is it?" Katya asked. "Can you fix it?"

Ghost hummed. "It's a mess… I wish I had a help here. If only our patient wasn't a witcher… Well. Diana. I will be pulling aspects out of our patient now. It's harder to see what I channel without sight, and the well would be an obstruction, but fundamentally it's the same thing. If you see me pull more than one aspect, tell me. We will have to separate them before I put them back. I don't want to add any more magical contamination here if I can avoid it… One Ghost is just enough for the world, ha-ha-ha!"

"Got it," I nodded.

"Do you need my help?" Katya asked.

"You may go. Somewhere… Other patients? You can try dealing with them."

"Of course… Why not try that again," Katerina muttered and moved away from us. "I should see if any more teams arrived, too… Keep me updated this time! If you can't move from the station, then use the damn phone!" she threw to her medics before slamming the door behind her.

"Ah, much better with one less person hovering over my shoulder," Ghost said. I heard him clapping his hands together. "Well, let's begin, Diana. See, our patient's nervous system is overstimulated, but through the informational aspects. Using informational aspects as a means for spells… Doesn't always work. An idea must be powerful so the change of it meant the change in the nature of the thing itself. In this case, whoever did it, used ideas strong enough. They have nooo place in the human's brain, though. Let's take them out first and try to avoid taking any memories with them."

With these words, a thin line of aspect drew from the patient. A pure idea of energy. I nodded. "This one is good."

"Great. Now, let's stick it… Oh, why not here?" Ghost channelled it into the empty ampule on the nightstand. "Don't touch this thing when I finish with it. It might end up glowing."

Was that a joke, or did he speak seriously? It was hard to say with how positive Ghost always was. I didn't have time to think for too long, though, because he pulled the next aspect. Another idea, but this time of movement, and attached to it, a sliver of knowledge of movement. Such similar aspects, but I could feel the difference in the textures as they brushed over my mind.

"Wait! There's two." I relayed to Ghost what I've seen.

"Great job! I didn't want to leave our patient paralysed. Now, you catch the idea from me, while I put the knowledge back where it belongs… or close to it, at least. Oh, I so much prefer having my sight to work with…"

Ghost had a really fine control over his channelling—he did it so slow, that it was no trouble for me to catch the idea from him and add it to the ampule while Ghost held the other aspect inside his well before just as carefully putting it back.

"We shouldn't put any more aspects at this ampule," he noted when he was done. "Find some other junk, alright? I'm afraid this might just explode. Though, I'm almost done."

I soon fell into a rhythm. "Almost done" in Ghost's terms meant a dozen more aspects. We separated them into half a dozen of junk items, taking care that neither of them became overloaded enough it started to behave erratically. It was bad enough that as soon as I opened my eyes, I had to pull them away from the items to stop my rational mind from clashing with all the planted ideas.

It was just like the paradoxical red/blue apple I made for the witches in Orion Coven. Good old days… days when no one summoned demons in the middle of the city.

Ghost didn't look to be disturbed at all. He just gathered the items together and threw them into a garbage bin. "Don't cringe like that, my honorary pupil. You will grow used to such things if you live as long as I did!"

"Honorary pupil?" I wanted to protest at first, but then… After seeing him in action, and after looking at him personally, I doubted anyone else in Nightingale Coven could teach me more about achieving immortality than him. As a bonus, he didn't look at me as an arch-witch to exploit one way or another. So, I smiled, happy both to do something and to meet this weird guy. "Thanks, honorary teacher."

He laughed. "Alright. Our pal is still sedated, so we can remove that from his body and see if my healing worked. Hey, can one of you give me a sample of the sedative you used?"

"Are you sure this is wise to cleanse him? You aren't sure yet if you succeeded," the snappy medic said.

"S-sure, Doctor," the helpless medic said at the same time, already giving Ghost another ampule.

The snappy medic let out an unhappy grunt and mumbled something undecipherable, but probably unpleasant, under his breath.

The process of cleansing the patient from the sedative was about the same as healing him, except this time I could also compare the aspects Ghost pulled out with the ones in the vial. It wasn't always exactly the same—the sedative already reacted with many things in the patient's body—but it was a hint, at least.

I didn't keep track of the time, only noticing that the sun had completely disappeared behind the horizon by the time we finished. I let out a long breath. My mind was exhausted from the concentration I needed for all the fine work I did. The exhaustion disappeared like a dream when I heard a weak moan from the patient's lips.

"Did it work?" I asked and watched with bated breath as the man twitched his limbs and slowly opened his eyes. The rest of the room seemed to hold their breath together with me, including other conscious patients.