Chapter Fourteen

AVA-MARIE

This couldn’t be happening.

Oberi surged into a gallop, and we left the others behind us as we burst through the double doors of the Warden’s shitty manor. This place was warded up the ass, so we had to get off the property in order to cast a portal and get out of here. I held on to Charlie, clutching him tightly so he didn’t fall off. He lolled in my arms like a rag doll, spent of all energy, and my panic grew to an immeasurable rate as the flames raged around us. My fury at what Danielle had done to Charlie made the fire grow larger, consuming the mansion and turning every bit of it to smoldering cinders. I hoped Esther, Naya, Mad Dog, and Deuce had extremely painful deaths, because that’s what they deserved for hurting my husband.

We passed the bodies of dead guards stationed around the manor. Oberi leapt over them like they were nothing, and she was right, because they did mean nothing if they had helped cause this. The Elvish Associates had taken them all out so we could get inside the mansion.

In the distance, dots had appeared in the sky above tall, golden skyscrapers. They were only growing closer. I saw wings, and even from here, I could make out the expression of my most hated enemy. The Warden and a whole angel army was on their way to capture us.

Go ahead and try. I had burned this mansion to ash without bothering to blink. I was more enraged than I ever had been before, and I knew if anyone got in my way now, I’d put them in the ground before I gave up a second more of Charlie’s life.

Max was waiting for us once I was past the manor’s open gate and on the empty streets of Celestial City. She gazed at the blood soaking Charlie’s shirt and didn’t ask any questions. She pulled a pocket mirror from her jacket and projected it forward. A portal bloomed ahead, and Oberi charged through it just as I heard the Warden give a cry of frustrated rage.

Oberi stepped out of a mirror that led to the palace hospital wing, followed by our friends. The portal snapped shut behind us, preventing anyone from following. Now that we were in a safe place, I put my hand to Charlie’s heart so I could heal him.

My fingers glowed white as I surveyed his body. The light grew in intensity as I forced my powers through his systems. I hadn’t noticed before when I had healed the vampire bite and regrown his hair, because the poison had been so small, but clearly it had grown. A sickening feeling overtook me as I found the poison sifting through his bloodstream. It was sticky as it clung to the inside of his throat, his stomach, his lungs, a vile substance that tasted disgusting and foul.

When I prodded further, my entire soul quivered as I recognized something familiar— the sting of inferichite.

“I can’t heal this,”

I said in terror. “There’s still poison in his blood. It won’t clear.”

“What do you mean?”

Eddie asked, an edge of denial in his voice. “You can heal anything, princess.”

“Whatever the poison is, it’s made with inferichite. My healing abilities aren’t driving it out,”

I raged. “All I can do is survey the effect it’s having on him.”

“Let’s try to clear it together,”

Marcus suggested. “Fuse our demigod powers with your healing magic. The poison has to leave, then.”

My heart started in hope, because that was the only thing that I figured would work. Marcus moved forward, along with Kallie. They reached up to put their hands on top of my own as I rested them against Charlie’s torso. I could feel their abilities mending with mine as I used simultension to join our powers together, and drive the poison away.

I felt my windpipe closing off from air as I realized that wasn’t working, either. The inferichite was stubborn. It had latched on to Charlie’s demigod magic, and was using it to resist our own. The poison drained him whenever I tried to remove it, sucking energy from his organs and weakening him further than he already was. We couldn’t destroy the inferichite in his system without killing him, but at the same time, we couldn’t heal him at all if there was still inferichite in his body, either.

“Stop,”

I demanded, and my friends drew back. “His body can’t handle it. If we keep going, it’ll make everything shut down.”

“But…”

Marcus had gone paler than a ghost. “If we can’t use simultension, then how are we gonna make him better?”

I didn’t have an answer, and that made me nearly go insane.

Let’s get him in a bed, Oberi offered. Then we can evaluate further.

She sounded very worried, which concerned me even more. If Oberi didn’t understand what was going on or how to fix it, with all her experience and wisdom, then who would?

We hurried inside the hospital, where a variety of doctors and nurses walked around the wing’s lobby. When they turned and saw Charlie, many of the Elves started screaming.

“What is wrong with the prince?!”

a doctor demanded. Charlie threw up again, and more blood splattered out from his mouth and onto the floor.

I nearly passed out. That was a lot of blood to lose, and he didn’t have much more left to give. Marcus pulled Charlie off of Oberi and laid him on the floor, turning him on his side so he didn’t choke.

I didn’t have to ask for a wheelchair, because Kallie had already brought one. She helped me off Oberi, and the second I was in my chair I was wheeling toward Charlie. I tried to heal him again, and again, but the inferichite pushed my magic back and refused to allow me to chase the poison out.

Two nurses wheeled out a gurney, but I screamed, “Leave him alone! No one can heal him like I can!”

I didn’t trust doctors, not after my spinal injury. They’d fuck him up more than he already was.

Ava, we need help with this, Oberi demanded. What we’re doing isn’t working!

I knew we did, but it was equivalent to sawing my torso in half to allow anyone to touch Charlie when he was in this dire of a state.

Elves placed Charlie upon a gurney as he continued to gurgle up blood. He wasn’t conscious, but his face was ashen, and his body wracked with tremors. The poison was getting worse by the moment.

“He’s been poisoned. I need a private room. Someone fetch my brother and my mother immediately,” I barked.

“I—”

the doctor stuttered.

“I am the princess of Ilamanthe! You will do as I say!”

I screeched.

Not a damn soul dared to ask me any more questions. They wheeled Charlie into a large room filled with surgical equipment, potion vials, herbs, and everything else we could use to treat this. Charlie was moved from the gurney to a bed, which could be prepped for surgical purposes if we needed it. A nurse drew his blood to test it.

“I need to know what properties are in that poison. I want a full report the minute you get the results back,”

I ordered.

“Yes, princess,”

a nurse replied, and she ran off to the lab with a tube of Charlie’s blood.

The doctors and nurses rushed to get Charlie hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor. Doctors cut off his bloody clothes and threw them away, until he was covered only by a thin sheet. He shivered, and as I touched his skin again, my fingers grazed his ice-cold arm. He shook underneath my touch. Even though he was out of it, his body was still reacting to the effects of the poison.

Oberi changed into a phoenix. She flew to the bed, landing at Charlie’s side. She fluttered her wings and skimmed her beak over Charlie’s chest, using her healing magic to observe him.

My heart withered and turned cold in my chest as Oberi said, I do not have the power to heal this. It is beyond my ability. Charlie’s body cannot work against the inferichite, so any magic I may use to heal him is useless, because his system will not respond.

“That’s impossible! You brought me back from death!”

I demanded. “You can cure this!”

I cannot do that again, Oberi argued. What I did for you, I was only able to accomplish once, and was a different kind of magic. It was a gift given to me by the gods to save one of you if death came, and death has already happened. My healing magic is strong. But I cannot heal what I do not know, and this poison is strange to me. I have never met it, not in all my eons of existence. I have never encountered a poison that prevents me from healing the body, as this substance turns the system's own organs against the host, and fights us off besides. Anything we can do will be countered by the poison.

“There must be something,”

I insisted.

I’ll try to use my magic to stop the poison from working, in order to buy us time, Oberi stated. If I resist against it, you can work on finding a cure.

It wasn’t enough. One of the nurses called out, “Edwyrd and Abigail will be posted at the door, should you need them.”

“Fine.”

Where the fuck were Ez and Mama? They needed to be here!

A second after I thought that, they stormed in. They didn’t ask questions, just went to Charlie’s bedside immediately and hovered their hands over him. Their Anichi magic glowed as they surveyed the situation. Ez’s gaze darted from Charlie’s face to his abdomen, while Mama squeezed her eyes shut in concentration.

“I need help. I don’t know what this poison is, or what the active ingredient may be, but it’s got inferichite in it,”

I pleaded. “We can’t force his body to get rid of the inferichite without killing him, but the poison is killing him, too. Even with all our power, everything we try just backfires.”

Their hands stopped glowing as they drew back their healing magic. Ez sent Mama an anxious look, which she shared.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s a combination poison,”

Ez said thickly. “It’s got inferichite in it, which prevents you from helping, but I can sense it’s been mixed with noxite, too, which means me and Mom can’t do anything to get rid of it, either. No healer can.”

The Warden had really thought this through. His soul belonged to me, the next time we dared to meet.

“What if we all try together?”

I suggested. “I’ll use simultension to fuse your magic with mine. I’m invulnerable to noxite, and inferichite doesn’t affect you. Maybe if we work together, we can overpower it.”

“It’s worth a shot,”

Mama said, and the three of us grabbed hands. We made a circle with our conjoined grasps, our arms hovering over Charlie’s form.

I tried. I wrapped my magic around my brother’s power, and my mother’s, with so much force it nearly yanked their abilities out of them. My mother was a powerful elemental, so I shouldn’t have been able to do that so easily, but I found even her magic crumbled like melting snow the minute I demanded it show up to serve me. I pushed our magic into Charlie’s veins and attempted to force the poison to leave, but despite my best efforts, it wouldn’t budge.

Ez let out a rasping sound and dropped his hand from mine. He put a hand on the wall to steady himself, as if I’d gone too hard and too fast.

“It’s not working,”

he said. “The inferichite is preventing you from getting rid of the noxite, so we can’t get past it to heal him.”

Mama went to check Charlie again. Her fingers roamed his chest, and her eyes darkened. “The poison is manifesting into a growth, like a cancer. There are tumors spreading all over his body, and they’re getting bigger the longer we wait.”

No. No, no, no. I wouldn’t let this happen.

We kept trying, and an hour passed, but there was absolutely no effect. If anything, Charlie only seemed to get worse.

“The blood draw is in, princess,”

the nurse replied breathlessly as she hurried in.

“What did it say?”

I asked. She gave me the paper without a word, and I read over the results quickly.

Inconclusive. Of course. Just like inferichite, the properties and chemical compounds inside the poison weren’t anything recognizable on Earth. The Warden had probably gotten all kinds of awful ingredients from his buddies in hell, then put it all together to make this terrible poison. And if the ingredients used in the poison didn’t grow here, that meant we probably didn’t have anything on this planet that could counteract them.

I threw the results on a nearby counter and demanded, “Get Marcus in here.”

He must’ve been standing right outside the door, because he heard my voice and came in. “What do you need?”

“There’s noxite in the poison as well. You’re a Curse Breaker, so you can take it out,”

I said. “That way, Mom and Ez will be able to get past the inferichite, because I can’t, and they can remove the poison.”

Marcus leaned over Charlie. He grasped Charlie’s arm and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate.

A few moments later, Marcus buckled to the floor. Ez rushed forward to hold him up, and I demanded, “Well?”

“I can’t get rid of it, though I tried,”

Marcus insisted, rising back up again.

“You’ve drawn noxite out of people before!” I cried.

“Yes, but the inferichite is fortifying it, which means I can’t do a damn thing unless we get rid of the inferichite first!”

he yelled back.

I made an angry noise and pushed him away. “If you’re not going to help, just go.”

Marcus didn’t argue, but he also didn’t seem upset with me. He did as I asked, thank the ancestors, and gave me some space.

Charlie vomited up another spray of blood, which dribbled down his chest and constricted his airways, choking him. Blood got all over the white sheet, and on Oberi’s feathers. She didn’t react, merely let out a wary coo. A doctor moved in, checking the heart monitor.

His heart rate was faint.

“He needs a blood transfusion! He’s already lost a quart or more!” I barked.

“We can’t run the transfusion without first attempting dialysis,”

the doctor responded. “There’s a chance the dialysis machine can clean his blood and get rid of the poison. If we give him new blood now, his body could become overstressed with the introduction of the transfusion and the poison, and reject the donation, not to mention the new blood will become tainted with the poison once it’s introduced.”

“Well get it on, then!”

I shouted. Why were we sitting around talking about it when we needed to take action? I placed my hands on Charlie’s arm, and my Spirit magic observed how his body responded as the doctors did their best to start dialysis. Ez and Mama leaned against the wall, waiting for me if I needed them.

I didn’t like how worried they looked.

The Elvish healers tried everything. They used every antidote they had on hand, from the serpens spelunca antivenom to all kinds of spells and potions. Other Anichi healers arrived to help, but like Ez and Mama, their magic was useless against the combination poison in Charlie’s blood.

Not even dialysis was working. The machine filtered out the toxins in his blood, but the poison kept reproducing itself, so it did nothing to get rid of it.

Charlie was having trouble breathing. His rasping gasps for air made me feel like I was choking. They’d given him a medication that managed to stop the vomiting, at least, so he wouldn’t drown in his own blood if we put him on a ventilator.

Do you want to leave the room? Oberi asked warily as they started prepping the breathing tube for insertion.

“Fuck no.”

I wasn’t leaving him alone even if the world started ending. I held his hand and watched, refusing to shut my eyes or look away as they inserted the breathing tube and fitted a mask over his face, because I’d be damned before I allowed him to go through this alone. There was a lump in my throat that reminded me of how painful the bruise from my own breathing tube had been when I’d survived the Infernal Underground, but I pushed that memory aside, because it was useless to me now. No trauma, memory, or pain was worth anything if it didn’t help me save Charlie now.

Once he was stabilized, the doctors switched to experimental antidotes that had never been tried before, and could be dangerous. It was a sign of how desperate they were.

It didn’t help. Nothing did a damn thing to stop the poison from advancing. The Warden had created this new formula just for us, and there wasn’t a cure for it. The doctors had given Charlie so many medications and treatments I was worried it was making him worse.

Surgery was discussed, but it was discarded as an option almost immediately. They couldn’t perform surgery to remove the growths— in the time we’d been working, the poison had wrapped itself so tightly around his organs that if they tried to cut the tumors out, the surgeons would kill him in the process.

Oberi was doing her best, and my Spirit magic could tell that her abilities were slowing the growth of the tumors. But although she could slow the poison’s hold, she couldn’t prevent it completely. We’d have lost Charlie already if she wasn’t doing her best to hold it off.

Charlie was clearly fading. His skin had turned ashen, and his lips had gone gray. His body sagged into the mattress with all the appearance of a corpse long since dead.

The doctors and nurses stood in a circle, unmoving. They weren’t sure of what else to try. Mama held Ez, who was trying to wipe his face and not let me see.

I took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled.

“Leave me,”

I demanded coldly. “All of you. There’s nothing more you can do.”

Saying nothing, the crowd dispersed, leaving me alone with my Familiar and my husband. My shoulders shuddered as I barely contained my rage.

Useless. They were all useless. If Charlie was going to make it through this, it had to be up to me. Everybody else needed to leave me alone so I could figure out a solution.

I surveyed his condition again. My expression dropped the moment I laid my hand on his chest and used my Anichi magic to assess the situation. At this rate, Charlie would be dead within the hour. And there was jack shit I could do to prevent it.

But that was shitty thinking. I didn’t give up, because I was stubborn, and Charlie was, too. We’d pull through this, like we always did. I just had to come up with a way?—

The door banged open. My teeth gritted together as I heard Cameron’s voice cry out, “Let me in!”

Cameron entered, and his approaching footsteps made it clear he wasn’t going to take no for an answer unless I shoved it down his throat.

I wrenched my wheelchair so I could turn myself around. “Get out of here, Cameron. I don’t want you here, and neither does Charlie.”

Cameron’s face turned red with rage, but his anger was pathetic compared to my own. I’d like to see him try to get his way.

“How dare you attempt to keep me from seeing him. I have the right to say goodbye to my son!”

Cameron bellowed.