Hero's Curse (13 page)

I listened carefully. Tim was right. I could hear the rats going the other way. It felt like heaven to lie back down. “It’s working.”

He giggled with excitement. “I knew it would! Mr. Paladin, how many Redcaps did you kill?”

Even while saving my life Tim was annoying. When I didn’t answer, he kept on babbling…

I don’t remember passing out. I woke up to intense pain; someone was getting nowhere trying to tug my helmet off. The motion wasn’t doing good things to my neck, shoulder, and upper arm.

“Young man, change back to your regular clothes so we can bind up your wounds.”

It took awhile to focus but when I did, I saw two elderly nuns crouched over me. I dimly heard, “Victor Paladin, did you hear me?”

I followed her voice and looked straight up. There was a third elderly nun at my head. She was the one trying to pull my helmet off. My armor was designed to be put on and off by magic. It appeared it couldn’t be taken off any other way.

I mouthed, “Azam-shay.”

My head and upper back dropped as my helmet and backpack disappeared. I heard the nun say, “Shit, piss, and corruption!” The nun cursing for some reason hit my funny-bone. I would have started laughing if hitting the ground hadn’t hurt so much. I felt a slow trickle of liquid warmth spread down from my neck. The wound in my neck had reopened.

Once I was back in the same t-shirt and jeans I had been wearing before I armored up, the nuns began cutting my shirt off to get to my wounds. I felt a needle enter my arm. It must have been morphine because shortly after the pain wasn’t as bad. I didn’t feel the urge to scream when they started cleaning and bandaging my neck and right shoulder. I was vaguely aware of a splint being applied to my left arm.

I then noticed Aidan standing a few feet behind one of the nuns. He looked grim.

My throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton, my mouth was so dry I could barely whisper, “Aidan, why aren’t you using magic to heal me?”

The nun working on my neck interrupted him before he had a chance to reply. She sounded pissed, “We tried to. You resisted every effort we made.”

Even with the morphine in my system, I wasn’t Mr. Happy. The penguin’s negative attitude wasn’t helping. I didn’t bother trying to hide the irritation in my voice, “I was unconscious. How could I resist?”

Her voice became louder, “You young idi…”

“Sister!” Aidan broke in like he was trying to put out a fire. “Sister Catherine, Victor really doesn’t know the answer to that question. He isn’t trying to be difficult.

“Victor, you almost killed the sisters when they tried to heal you. Your unconscious defenses are uncommonly strong. You really don’t like having your soul touched.”

I took a deep breath. I felt too shitty to lose my temper. “Alright, I was unconscious then, I give you permission now. You can heal me.”

Aidan gave the weak smile of a doctor bringing bad news. “Unfortunately, you can’t just decide a thing like that, Victor. We don’t have the power to heal you against your will. To be healed by us, you have to trust us. Trust isn’t something you can choose to give. You either trust or you don’t. While you were unconscious, we learned that you do not have faith in anyone but yourself.”

I couldn’t argue with the truth. My anger left and was replaced with fatigue. “What happens next?”

He gave up on the fake smile. His voice was grim. “Tim’s on his way over with a doctor. You have lost a lot of blood so it’s not safe to move you.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not good. Victor, what happened to your right shoulder? A blade penetrated three millimeters of Enhanced Mithril strike plate like it was styrofoam. It had to be a named weapon with a spell of sharpness.”

A thought dawned on me. “Why can’t I throw a healing spell on myself?”

The pushy nun butted in again. “Don’t be silly. Your soul is down to almost nothing. Anything but the most minor of spells would destroy you.”

“Sister Catherine is right, Victor. You’ve already cast two major spells today and you have lost a lot of blood. Blood sacrifices are powerful because of the connection life fluids have with your soul. You’ve lost too much blood.”

“I’ve no regrets about ditching the shield, but I would have been better off with the usual healing spell.”

He gave me a wry smile, “I was not going say ‘I told you so’, but since you have brought it up…” He shrugged. He didn’t look happy to be proved right.

My blood loss was probably all from my neck. By instinct or luck, the rat must have been gnawing at my jugular vein. I’ve studied the human body and I’ve worked in hospitals to get fake IDs. The patient files I’ve been interested in are those of young men who die from trauma. Those who aren’t killed right away usually die of blood loss related circulatory shock. The physical signs of circulatory shock are rapid heart rate and rapid breathing. I had both. My eyes wouldn’t focus, my skin was cold and clammy, and my mouth was dry. The average male body holds six quarts of blood. It’s a commentary on my life but I’m no stranger to massive blood loss. From my physical symptoms and the blood flow I remembered coming from my neck, I estimated I had lost at least two quarts of blood. I could feel my body going into circulatory collapse.

My blood type is O negative which means I can donate blood to anyone, but I can only get blood from my own exact type. Only one out of twenty blood donors have the kind I need. Only hospitals have the equipment and expertise to store blood. Multiple blood types are required and blood needs to be kept at precise temperatures.

Aidan said the doctor was coming with more supplies. Unless they had a way of magically making O negative blood, this probably meant he was bringing saline. Even if the doctor arrived in the next few minutes, unless he had at least four pints of O negative blood, I was still up shit’s creek.

I looked at their faces; all three of the penguin brigade and Aidan. Their expressions told me they thought I was going to die. For most of my adult life, dangerous men have wanted to kill me. I had just taken out twenty-six Redcaps by myself. The irony that a rodent would end up doing the job made me guffaw. Shit! That hurt. In between short rapid breaths, I whispered, “Aidan, the guy who stabbed me had a titanium spear. He called himself Raeleus.”

“A Thiarna Dhia!”
^[5]
The leprechaun was so excited he skipped his Irish accent and went straight to Elvish or Gaelic or something. His entire body shook with excitement. “Did he have a Mithril back-and-breastplate too?”

I was starting to fade. “His breastplate looked like the spear.”

Aidan went perfectly still. “After you killed him, did his spear and breastplate disappear?”

I couldn’t see where he was going with these questions. I was too tired to care why. “After he was dead, I didn’t pay much attention to his gear…I think I saw a breastplate on his body. I have no idea what happened to the spear. It’s probably there by his body. I’m not sure.”

Aidan literally started jumping with excitement. “Where is his body?”

“Back down there, to the right”. He left without another word. It was just me and the nuns. Jehovah was an ass, but he had a sense of humor. The first and last memories I would ever have was being surrounded by grumpy penguins. I really wasn’t looking forward to being an angel. I could tell the nuns were as clueless as I was about why Aidan was excited. They were finished bandaging my wounds and were now praying over me. The drone of their voices was as good as any lullaby…

“Victor! Victor!” I woke up and immediately wished I hadn’t. The morphine was no longer holding the pain at bay. I couldn’t keep air in my lungs. The nuns had backed off and Aidan was at my side holding my paralyzed right arm. While I was unconscious, he had drawn a spear and a motorcycle jacket on my inner forearm. “You have to stand.”

He and the nuns lifted me up into a sitting position and then helped me stand. I could feel what little blood I had rush from my head. If they hadn’t been holding on to me, I would have collapsed. I tried to slow my breathing and got my bearings. If I had been able to move my arms, I would have pushed Aidan and the nuns off of me. If I was going die, I would end it standing on my own. They got the hint and backed off. My expression dared Sister Irritable to say something. She looked like she wanted to take a ruler to my knuckles but she didn’t say a word.

Aidan was insistent, “Victor, look at the pictures I’ve drawn on your forearm.” I did, expecting three dimensional images to appear in the air. I just saw hand drawn pictures on my skin. With a tone of regret, Aidan said, “I had to jury-rig everything. I only had time to modify the breastplate. Please hold those pictures in your mind and say, Obex.”

“Obex!” For the second time today, blue flames engulfed my body. Raeleus’ spear appeared in my hand and immediately dropped to the ground. I was back to wearing a motorcycle jacket. I got lightheaded again. Immediately Aidan grabbed me and said in my ear, “Now lad, say salveo.”

“Salveo.” It started with a feeling of warmth at my wounds. The heat spread throughout my body and then reached my skin. For a few seconds, my body lit up like a light bulb. I felt like I did after my anti-scrying spell—totally hammered. My knees buckled and I grabbed onto Aidan. I realized I could move my arms; there was no pain.

The leprechaun kept me from falling. His voice was gentle. “You can rest, warrior. You are going to live.”

Chapter 10: True Love and Jehovah

I was so FUCKING tired of passing out. When I woke, I was in a small room on an overstuffed recliner. Someone had put a new t-shirt on me. I was still wearing the jeans I had put on this morning. I had an IV in my arm. They must have been feeding me through the IV because I didn’t feel like shit. I had to pee in the worst possible way. The problem with getting liquid nutrition is the fluids have to go somewhere.

I pulled the IV out carefully and put pressure on the puncture. Aidan and the penguins had left my pants on so my ass wasn’t hanging out. I was good to go. When I opened the door, I recognized where I was; the lower level at Rare Change and Medallions. A couple doors down I found a single seat rest room. There’s no pleasure like the sensation of letting go when you’ve been holding it too long.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how much my bladder can hold. I was on the verge of being bored waiting for it to completely drain. I heard Tim’s voice, “Oh my God, Mr. Paladin has disappeared!” I could hear him rushing from room to room, looking for me like we were playing hide and seek. I hurried up, finished, washed my hands, and opened the door just as Tim was running by. “Tim, I was in the bathroom.”

I try not to make the same mistake twice. When he lunged to hug me, I sidestepped and he missed. Tim wasn’t good at reading social cues. I could see he was going to try to hug me again. I put my hand out like a defensive spear pointed at his gut. I could see the neurons connecting in his head, ‘Oh, Mr. Paladin doesn’t like to hug; he’d rather shake.’ So he grabbed my hand with his both of his and started pumping it up and down. “Congratulations, Mr. Paladin. Oh my gosh! Destroying an infestation of twenty-six minions and retrieving Obex is absolutely amazing!”

That reminded me, “What happened to my mount, Harley?”

He kept shaking my hand. “Paladin mounts disappear as soon as they’re not needed. I don’t know where they go; Master Cahill might.”

I firmly yanked my hand away. “Where is he, anyway?”

“He’s busy linking your new jacket to the rest of your gear. What he’s doing is delicate, so he asked to be left alone. I’ve been in the room with you for hours. I just left to grab a sandwich.”

When Tim mentioned food, I realized how hungry I was. “Where did you get the sandwich?”

He blinked at the change of subject. “There’s a deli just down the block.”

I motioned to him to follow me out of the basement. “Show me where it is. I’m hungry too.”

The deli was just down the block, easy walking distance. Since Tim had already eaten, I told him I could go by myself but he wouldn’t hear of it. He wanted to help. As I walked, he was like a little dog, running around me and nipping at my feet. At the deli, I ordered five roast beef foot-long sandwiches with all the fixings and one large drink to go.

Tim desperately wanted to help. To get him off my back, I let him carry my drink and the bag holding four sandwiches. I kept the fifth to eat as we walked back to the shop. We went downstairs into the tiny kitchen.

“Tim, sit down.” I gestured at the table in the room. After he sat, I pulled a chair across from him. “Explain how I got healed and what the deal is with Obex.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Tim looked pleased. He liked to teach. “Since time eternal, the gods having been playing the Great Game. The goal is to amass the most power and to gather the most souls. A small part of the Game is called ‘Mythic Hero’. A god sends a hero across dimensions to kill a monster, take its treasure, and then bring it home. The Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale really happened. A human boy was sent to a different dimension and killed a giant and brought back his treasure. The definitions of hero and monster depend on where you stand. From the Jotunn’s or Redcap’s point of view, a human paladin is the monster and he’s the mythic hero. Every time a hero comes back with treasure, one god wins power and the other loses. The reason why every human culture has legends of mythic heroes is because human beings have been sent on mythic quests ever since we were created.”