“Her wings are gone,” I choked out. “Valen’s got them.”
Charlie’s thoughts flitted across my mine, and mixed with the revulsion was wrath. The Dollmaker had taken her wings as a fuckingtrophy.
I turned Kallie onto her back, though it wounded me to lay her onto her severed wings. I checked her pulse, and my own stopped when I realized there wasn’t a heartbeat. With a quick check of her lungs, I found those weren’t expanding, either. “She’s not breathing.”
“Goddammit.” Charlie summoned Air magic to inflate her lungs, but that didn’t work. I stirred my Toaqua magic to make her blood flow, but nothing happened.
Her body was refusing magic. Both of us felt it, and we panicked.
Charlie began performing CPR. He started on chest compressions while I summoned my Spirit magic. My hands glowed white, lighting up the entire alley as I brought the power of my soul to life in order to save my best friend.
“Oberi, help me,” I ordered, and she changed into a phoenix to lend her aid as I set my healing magic to work. Marcus paced above us, both hands in his hair as he hyperventilated and sobbed at the same time.
Ancestors, there was so much blood. She’d lost at least four pints. She couldn’t lose any more, or she’d die, and she was still hemorrhaging from all the wounds on her body. Her organs were shutting down. Some of them, like her heart, had stopped already, and Charlie’s compressions on her chest were the only thing keeping it beating. Once he got to thirty, he bent over to breathe life into her lungs, giving her two rescue breaths, desperately trying to buy me enough time to stabilize her.
I could force these cuts to heal and regenerate the blood in her body. That was the most important step to saving her life, and I’d fix the rest later. But there was a problem. Despite my magic pouring into her body— and it was— and my command for magic to knit the wounds back together, nothing happened. Her skin glowed with my power, but the wounds remained intact and continued to bleed.
“What’s happening?” Marcus wailed. “Why isn’t it working?”
I went deeper, ignoring her bodily injuries and focusing on finding her life energy. Ancestors, it was fading. Barely a flicker of a flame inside her chest, it dwindled like a dying candle. Her body was nothing more than a half-filled vessel, holding back the only part of her spirit that hadn't yet broken free. So much of it was gone now, more afterlife than earthly.
I latched on and tugged at Kallie's soul, telling her to keep fighting. I pleaded with her to hold on, because she knew I could heal her and get her help.
Kallie’s spirit felt weak and frail. She was telling me she loved me, and she cared, but she couldn't do this anymore. She didn't want to live in a world where something like this was capable. Even if she had to go to the in-between place where her soulwould be trapped, unable to venture into the afterlife, it was better than whatever this existence was. She wanted me to let her go.
I almost did, because it should've been her choice. But I wouldn't until I knew for sure this was truly the call she wanted to make, and she had unfinished business here.
She didn’t want to talk to me. She needed Marcus. He had to be the one to convince her to walk away from death.
“Marcus, you need to talk to her. I can't heal her if she's lost the will to live,” I said harshly.
“Talk—” he said weakly. Charlie continued performing CPR, ignoring us. “Why? Why isn’t she fighting?”
“Because she doesn’t want to. Healing magic is Spirit magic. My magic isn’t working because her soul isn’t responding. You need to convince her it’s still worth it!”
“What am I going to say to make her want to keep going?” he gasped with sorrow, and Rishi wailed beside him. “I’m not the person to do this— I’ve tried to kill myselftwice!”
“Marcus, if you don't convince her to stay, she's going to die!” I snapped. “Bring her back.”
That seemed to snap him out of it, because he moved closer to Kallie. He reached out to grab her hand, which was stone-cold by now. “Hey pretty girl, I’m here,” he told her. “I’m not going anywhere. I’mright here.”
Kallie’s soul flickered, but only a little bit. I couldn’t heal her, but I could at least stop the blood from flowing out. My magic held it in place, hoping Marcus would find the right words to say.
“I’m sorry for everything I put you through,” he started, speaking through his tears. “I’m sorry this happened. I didn’t leave you this morning. You’re the love of my life, and I want us to be together. I want to experience everything with you. I love yousogoddamn much, Kallie. You’re my best friend, and you’re the woman I want to marry. I truly fucking mean that, with allmy heart. I don’t want to be anywhere if you’re not here with me, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to love you exactly like you deserve to be loved.”
Her life force energy got a little stronger. I went to heal up the wounds, but her soul cringed away, telling me she wasn’t ready yet.
“Hey, remember all the things we planned to do together during those long nights we spent in the Criminal Lair?” Marcus asked, cracking a weak smile. “We’d sneak out overnight, and talk about all the places we’re going to visit. Well, we’re still going to do all that stuff. You’re going to show me the art museum in Malovia, and I’ll show you a sunset in Octavia Falls. We’ll build a castle of our own on an island in the middle of the ocean, and no one will be able to take it from us, because it’ll beours. Remember that painting you asked me to make? I finally finished it for you, and it’s so fucking beautiful, just like you. I’m going to hang it up in the entrance hall in our castle, right when people walk in, so when everybody looks I'll point to it and say that she’s my wife, because I want to show you off to the world.”
Charlie went to continue compressions, but I held up an arm to hold him back. Kallie was letting me help now, though she was still wavering on the decision to stay or go. I began to stitch up wounds, and the cuts on her body healed as I brought forth my power. Oberi focused on regenerating her blood, and color slowly began to come back into Kallie’s skin as the phoenix repaired what she could. Kallie’s heart began to beat again, and air finally flowed into her lungs.
Marcus went to lightly stroke her hair. “You told me your favorite girl name is Lilith, remember that? I didn’t say so, but I loved it. Lilith is the most badass name ever. It would be perfect for a little girl that would look just like you. But we’ll never get to use it if you’re gone, and we’re not meant to be separated. Not like this, not ever. We go to the Blessed Haven, we go together,when we’re older than dirt and we’ve seen all we wanted to see, and do all we wanted to do. But not now. Not like this. You and me have all these dreams, and we’re going to do them together. We’re going to conquer the world, pretty girl, I promise. But you’ve gotta stick around so we can see all these places, and do all these things. You wanted to be a queen to save people, but right now, you need to save yourself.”
I moved on to her organs now. Valen had stabbed several of them and left puncture wounds that left her organs in shreds. Normally, these kinds of wounds would require surgery, and be beyond a normal healer’s power to mend. But I was a demigod, and it wasn’t anything I couldn’t fix. I would move mountains and reset the Earth’s place in the cosmos before I allowed Kallie to fade away like this. I healed holes in her stomach and intestines while Oberi fixed up her liver and kidneys, mending them so they were whole again. I didn’t need to replace or regrow anything, so that was a good sign.
Marcus’ voice sank even lower, into a strained and desperate whisper. “We never got to test the limits of my art and your illusions, and when we combine our magic, miracles happen. We have so much left to discover together. We’re going to create so much for this world, and for ourselves, and there isn’t anyone else I’d rather do it with. I knew you were the one for me the second you came into my life, and I’m not letting you go now. What we have, we’ve had forever, maybe in another life or a thousand lifetimes before, but I’m not giving up a single day with you.
You light up the entire fucking world for me, Kallie. This place is going to be a whole lot darker if you’re not in it. I might be the Lord of Death, but you’re my Mistress of Time. And death doesn’t mean anything if time isn’t here to send him her love, or hold his hand.”
