Book 2: Chapter 17: Miracles

Book 2: Chapter 17: Miracles

The acrid stench Elijah associated with the Voxx filled his nostrils, reminding him of past battles. The smell of human misery reminded him that something else was at play, though. So, after only a few moments of hesitation, he pushed forward, his bare feet sounding loud against the cold tiles.

“Sir? Can I help you?” came a high-pitched voice. Elijah turned to see a pretty woman with dark skin. If he’d had to guess, he would have said that she was in her mid-twenties, but long, stressful hours had robbed her of some of her vitality. “You really shouldn’t be in here, especially dressed like that.”

Elijah looked down at his attire. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” he asked.

The woman wore purple scrubs that had been mended in a few spots and a pair of comfortable-looking sneakers. “You’re barefoot. In a hospital. Surely you can’t think that’s appropriate.”

“Oh. Right. I keep forgetting about that,” Elijah said, suddenly self-conscious. Unfortunately, his bare feet were a necessity. One with Nature required him to be in contact with the ground, and while being indoors didn’t seem to deactivate it, for some reason, wearing shoes – or any kind of foot coverings – did. It was a quirk of the system, and one he’d yet to find a way around. So, for now, he needed to remain barefoot, though he hoped to one day find a means of subverting the augmentation’s requirements.

Though he supposed he should count himself lucky that it didn’t deactivate when he leaped into the air or stepped foot on man-made surfaces. Otherwise, the seesawing of his effective attributes would’ve driven him insane.

“Occupational hazard, I’m afraid,” he said. “Anyway, I’m Elijah.”

She frowned at him, then said, “Jess. What are you doing here?”

He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m a Healer.”

“Seriously?” she asked dubiously. “You don’t look like any Healer I’ve ever seen.”

“And you’ve seen all sorts of Healers, have you?”

“Well, no. But none of them I know walk around barefoot. Or looking like they stepped out of a Renaissance Faire.”

“Ouch. My outfit’s not that bad. The dwarven lady who made it was very skilled.”

“Dwarven?”

“Never mind that.” Letting his staff fall against his chest, he slapped his hands together and said, “Alright. I’m full of Ethera and ready to heal. Where can I set up? Now, I feel obligated to inform you that my spells – well, one of them at least – can get a bit messy, so it’s probably best if I set up somewhere with a drain in the floor. Like a locker room. Or maybe outside. I don’t know. This is your turf, so I’ll let you decide.”

“What are you talking about? How can a healing spell be messy?” she narrowed her big, brown eyes and crossed her arms. “Wait. Are you messing with me? Did Sam send you here? This is a serious place with seriously ill people. If you –”

Elijah gripped his staff and said, “Woah. I really am a Healer. You people really are the suspicious sort. Makes a guy feel a little unwelcome, if I’m honest.”

“Prove it.”

Elijah rolled his eyes. “So little trust,” he muttered. “You could just get one of those Guards outside to identify me.”

“Or you could heal someone.” She looked back at the room full of patients, then pointed at one. “That one. He’s already been healed, but there’s still a little bit of the plague left in him.”

“Why didn’t you heal it all?” Elijah asked.

“Ethera. I’m running on fumes here,” she said. “Same as the other four Healers. If it wasn’t for us, the plague would’ve already killed everyone in town. But even with everything we’ve done, there’s a limit to our Ethera, and...well...we can’t get to everyone in time. Not even close.”

Elijah could hear the frustration in her voice, and what’s more, he understood it. He’d felt something similar when the panther had died. Despite all the power they’d been given – and it was miraculous what healing could do – there were still limits.

“Do you care if I get the room wet?” Elijah asked.

“Why would the room get wet?”

“It’s part of my spell. Well, one of my spells.”

Which was precisely what happened.

The first cast didn’t really do much. But under the effects of Healing Rain, combined with a second cast of Touch of Nature, he sent the black tendrils into a retreat. The next cast pushed them back further. And the fourth banished them altogether. Elijah was fairly sure that the woman was cured – though she was still disoriented – but he cast Touch of Nature a final time before he pulled away.

He glanced back at Jess, who stood on the other side of the doorway, her mouth agape, and he said, “I think that takes care of her. You might want to get her somewhere else so it doesn’t reoccur.”

“What did you do?” she asked.

“Healed her,” he stated. “Why? Can’t you do the same thing?”

“Not like that.”

“Oh. Well, call me special, then. I’ll take care of these others, then we can move to the big room. Unless you don’t want me making it rain in there, in which case we probably need to set up some sort of –”

“Wait – you still have Ethera?”

“Sure,” Elijah said, checking the state of his core. He could still cast Touch of nature a dozen more times before he ran dry, but his Regeneration was high enough – especially with Aura of Renewal augmenting it – that it wouldn’t take that long to recover.

Not for the first time, he wished that Touch of Nature was a little more potent. But then, he supposed that it would probably cost more Ethera, so it would almost assuredly even out.

“I can keep going for a while,” he said. “And the rain is persistent, so it’ll keep coming down for...I don’t know... another hour, maybe? After that, I’ll have to cast it again, but by then, I should have plenty of Ethera recovered.”

“But...but how do you have...if I did what you just did, I’d be out for the rest of the day...”

Elijah shrugged again, then gave her a grin before saying, “Like I said – I’m special, I guess. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to save a couple of lives.” He winked at her. “Because that’s what heroes do.”

She snorted in laughter. “That...was terrible.”

“Really? It sounded cool in my head.”

“Did it?”

“No. Not really. But in my defense, I’ve only really had gnomes and a tree to talk to for a while, so my conversational skills are a little out of practice. Oh, and a goblin. A few dwarves, too, but they’re not great conversationalists.”

“You might be the oddest man I’ve ever met,” Jess said as she positioned herself behind the healed woman’s gurney. It was the sort that one would find in hospitals, so it was equipped with wheels. “And I know actual wizards.”

Elijah shrugged, then knelt beside the second patient. “If you’re going to be anything, be the best version of that you can be. That’s what my dad used to tell me. So, I’ll take that as the compliment it was obviously meant to be.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that he probably wasn’t talking about being weird,” she said, pushing the woman toward the door.

Elijah cast Touch of Nature on his latest patient, then glanced at Jess and said, “Maybe not, but I’ve decided to embrace it anyway. Besides, who wants to be normal, right? Odd is so much better. Sexier, too, I’m told.”

She stopped. “Did you just hit on me? Here?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. That all depends on your reaction. If it’s disgust, then of course I wasn’t coming onto you. I’m offended that you would even suggest such a thing. But if you’re even mildly interested, then I’m one-hundred percent flirting. Or trying to. Like I said, I’m a bit out of practice.”

She just shook her head and continued to wheel the woman away.

Elijah glanced at the comatose man he intended to heal and said, “That went well, right? I think it went well.”

Then, he laid his hand on the man’s arm and cast Touch of Nature.