Pure Healing (20 page)

Focusing his eyes, he scanned the orderliness and disinfected whiteness of the clinic. He was alone but for a small, light blue bundle on the bed beside his own. The figure was so tightly curled, no sign of her face was visible from behind her coltishly folded arms and legs. All Leonidas could make out was long black hair and slim ankles and feet, one ankle adorned by a simple gold chain with tiny bells.

He’d recognize that anklet anywhere. It belonged to the Healer’s handmaiden, Wan’er.
The General tried to rise to his feet with a shaky push from both arms on the bed, but he severely overestimated the strength of his muscles, and fell in an undignified heap to the floor beside the bed.
Before he could even grunt in pain, a blur of blue silk appeared at his side, strong little hands grabbing him around one of his biceps.
“You should not be out of bed, General,” Wan’er said in a chiding but worried tone.
Alexandros shook his head as if to clear it and leaned on the handmaiden slightly as he staggered to his feet. “I can’t stay one more hour as an invalid. The faster I get back in action, the quicker I’ll get my strength back.”
The handmaiden frowned but chose not to argue. It was her experience with warriors that one had to carefully choose one’s battles: these Pure-males did not take direction well.
Once he’d steadied himself and felt relatively certain he wouldn’t fall over without Wan’er’s support, Alexandros casually removed her hands from his arm and leaned against the clinic wall.
“How long have I been out? Where are the others? Where’s Leonidas?” he asked in a rapid torrent.
Despite his obvious desire to avoid her touch, Wan’er calmly stepped close to him and smoothed her hands over his torso and limbs, checking methodically for the condition of his wounds. To distract him from her feather light touch, she answered, “You have been unconscious for over a week. It was a minor miracle that you’d made it back to the Shield with the extent of damage to your body. You were an inch away from death, and despite Rain’s infusion of healing energy, it took every ounce of strength for your body to regenerate. I’m surprised you are able to get up so soon, to be honest.”
Unsuccessfully dodging the handmaiden’s persistent hands, Alexandros finally relented and stood still beneath her perusal. He hoped he was too weak to get aroused, but with Wan’er, he didn’t have much confidence in his otherwise unbreakable selfcontrol.
Her thumb suddenly pressed down on one of his ribs and Alexandros almost doubled over in pain. “Hmm,” she mused, “right lung not completely regenerated, rib fracture still tender. While I cannot keep you from action, I do strongly advise you restrict yourself to a sedate walk and don’t move too suddenly.”
She speared him with a gimlet glare, “In the interest of a speedy recovery, you had better heed my words, else I’ll make sure you regret it.”
Alexandros found himself unable to hold the intensity of her stare and looked away uncomfortably. “And the others?”
Wan’er continued with her gentle probing and replied, “Ayelet, Rain and Valerius are headed to China; Orion and Eveline to Europe to recruit. I believe Tristan and Aella found a lead to the Sentinel’s location, but they are awaiting your recovery to confer.”
When he would have moved outside the silken cage of her arms and body, she stayed him with one hand around his ankle, as she balanced on the balls of her feet in a stoop before him, examining his lower body.
“I am not finished,” she stated authoritatively, leaving Alexandros to wonder who here was the General and who the handmaiden.
At her prodding, he lifted one foot, balancing his weight against the wall. She rotated his ankle this way and that, nodding at the healing progress made, then slid her hand up his calve, squeezing systematically around to his knee and upwards along his thigh.
“Enough,” Alexandros grasped her hand when she would have filled her hand with his swollen staff.
Wan’er easily wrestled her hand out of the warrior’s grip and rose to face him. “Rather prudish for a Macedonian, aren’t you?” she eyed him curiously.
“I’m just trying to preserve your maidenhood,” the General retorted.
She gave him a sideways smirk. “I’ve seen and held it all, warrior,” she replied without even a hint of embarrassment, even as heat inched up his neck and filled his cheeks.
Switching topics easily, she said, “Come, I shall take you to Aella and Tristan. They are conferring in the throne room.”
It occurred to Alexandros that if she had indeed examined him while unconscious, she must have known already that as far as his manhood was concerned, he was entirely intact. Then the wandering hand was for…
Startled, he jerked his gaze to her back just as she looked behind her and threw him another lopsided, mischievous smile. She turned back around and led the way out of the clinic to the throne room with a sassy sway of her hips.
Vixen, the General thought, even as an answering smile curved his own lips.
In the throne room, he found Aella and Tristan already fully armed and ready to head out. At the sight of him, Aella rushed forth to embrace him heartily and Tristan pounded his back a bit too gladly, making Alexandros’ shoulders creak in protest.
“Welcome back to the living, General,” Tristan greeted with a bark of laughter.
“You look good,” Aella added, looking him up and down, “like raw meat warmed over under the noon sun.”
Alexandros grimaced at the graphic picture that came to mind. Unfortunately, he felt rather like the Amazon’s description as well.
“Just give me five minutes and I’ll be ready to join you,” Alexandros said, but even before he finished speaking, all three were shaking their heads.
“No sudden movements,” Wan’er reminded him, “that includes vampire hunting.”
“I’m sorry, General, but it’s too dangerous to take you with us,” Aella said. Implicit in her statement was that as long as he was not fully healed, he would be a liability on the hunt.
Alexandros was loathe to face the truth, but he knew she was right.
“Besides,” Tristan commented, “we need you here.” He handed Alexandros a thumb drive. “This contains images we took from the past few hunts around Greater Boston, including a revisit to the tunnel in which you and Leonidas were ambushed. Look through them and tell us if anything triggers a memory or a feeling. We will plan our next course of action upon our return tonight.”
Alexandros did not argue with this assignment of responsibilities. His Gift was the ability to track any prey, under any circumstances.
He could view, touch, listen, smell anything his target had come in contact with, and even if he’d never encountered it himself, he would be able to pinpoint at which time the target had passed it, used it, worn it, as well as ascertain the direction in which the target was headed afterwards. As long as there were three such objects for him to react to, he would be able to triangulate the exact location of the target with laser precision.
If the USB contained three relevant images, by nightfall he would be able to locate where Leonidas had been taken. Dead or alive, he would bring his comrade home.
For his enemies’ sake, the Sentinel had better be alive.
*** *** *** ***
Forty-eight hours after they took off from Boston Logan Airport, Ayelet and Valerius waited in front of a beaten down train station for Rain to purchase their tickets from Shangri-La to the outskirts of Lushui County.
“I feel a bit like a circus sideshow,” Ayelet muttered as various Chinese travelers passed by them with undisguised interest, and sometimes, with outright consternation in their expressions.
With her long curly dark hair, voluptuous
proportions and form fitting leathers, Ayelet looked like an ancient Byzantine goddess come down to earth. Valerius, hard as he tried, simply could not blend into any background in Yunnan, China. Well over head and shoulders, and more often chest, above the average Chinese, his biceps larger than most men’s thighs, his shoulders wider than twice their lengths, he was a veritable Goliath.
Northern Chinese were known to be taller – after all, they produced the likes of Yaoming, the NBA legend. But Ayelet and company were traveling through Southwest China, where people were generally smaller, darker, more prone to gawk at the foreigners, for the living monoliths they appeared to be.
“But you are a very beautiful attraction,” Rain said, smiling as she walked back to her awaiting friends with their train tickets. “I am sure the men are wondering how best to approach such a goddess. It’s not everyday people around here get to see the likes of you and Valerius.”
“They look more terrified than titillated,” Ayelet responded wryly. “My arms are bigger than those men’s legs.” She nodded to a group of what looked to be construction workers sitting on the steps of the train, staring unabashedly at her.
“Oh but they are much stronger than they look,” Rain assured her. “You have to be to live in these mountains. Both men and women have to carry more than twice their weight sometimes to transport goods and necessities from the closest town to their homes in the mountains. You’ll see soon enough.” She moved to stand beside Valerius and wrapped both her arms around one of his, leaning into him.
“Are you tired, Healer?” the warrior asked with concern, wondering whether Rain was strong enough to undertake the journey ahead of them.
She shook her head and beamed up at him, momentarily blinding him with her dazzling smile. “I just want to stake my claim so those girls know that you are mine,” she said cheerfully, making Valerius look around them, spotting a few giggling young women leaning out of windows on the train, staring and gesturing at him.
Valerius quickly looked away, uncomfortable with the attention, only to hear Rain’s amused chuckle. “And I like to be close to you,” she added, making him blush harder. “If I could, I’d wrap around your body like a second layer of skin.”
Though the whispered words were for his ears only, Valerius face burned as if she’d shouted them for all the world to hear. Despite his embarrassment, however, he felt ridiculously pleased. It was incredible to him that this ravishing, ethereal, angelic creature wanted him, even coveted him.
“I also bought sustenance for our four hour train ride,” Rain said more loudly to include Ayelet in the conversation. She raised one fist that held a large bag, weighed down with food.
Ayelet came forth to examine its contents and raised her head with a dubious expression. “What’s in here?”
“Tea eggs,” Rain answered, pointing to six large eggs swimming in what looked like soy sauce and tea leaves in a clear plastic bag, the shells colored darkly and cracked to bits. The better to let the juices absorb into the eggs, Rain explained.
“Pork buns, plain
mantou
, and tangerines. All for ten yuan,” the Healer announced proudly. There was enough food there to feed half a dozen people, and it was less than two U.S. dollars.
“And I got you this,” Rain said, holding up a shallow paper carton to Valerius with something that jiggled on the inside. “It’s blood jelly. Lots of iron. Good for you to keep up your strength.”
Ayelet made a face even as Valerius accepted the food with a gracious nod of thanks. She liked Chinese food just fine, but anything to do with congealed pig’s blood she’d just as soon pass on.
After they boarded the train and settled into their seats, no more than two long hard benches separated by a wooden table, Ayelet asked of the Healer, “Have you ever been to this part of China before? Do you happen to know Cloud Drako?”
Rain nodded in answer to the first question. “Yes, I’ve been to these parts a few times. After two thousand five hundred years, I’ve been to just about every place in China more than once. When I want to get away for a while from modern civilization, I come down here or go up to Tibet, Inner Mongolia, places still relatively unsettled, secluded from all but the most adventurous tourists. But I do not believe I have met Cloud.”
She thought back to the pictures Ayelet had shown her on the flight. “He must really not want to be found. It is rare that Pure Ones residing in the same country, even on the same continent, would not know of all the other Pure Ones around. And as he is of the warrior class, if your sources are true, it is doubly rare that I would not have known him through the Rites of the Phoenix.”
Valerius stiffened imperceptibly beside the Healer when she mentioned the Rites. He needed to find a way to overcome the blood boiling territoriality where Rain was concerned. The Rites were a part of her life, written into her destiny. He knew from the start that he wasn’t her first Consort and he wouldn’t be her last, but it was a bitter pill to swallow nonetheless.
Unaware of the Protector’s troubles, Rain continued, “Perhaps I would have heard of his human name. Do you know it?”
Ayelet shook her head. “It’s hard to trace his original human name. His soul is almost two thousand years old, but I believe this current incarnation is not his original body.”
“That would explain why I don’t recognize him,” Rain said. “Perhaps I knew his soul from a previous or even the original incarnation, but I don’t know this current face and form. He looks only partially Han.”
Ayelet knew that Rain referred to the race that made up the majority of the Chinese population and gave the people the traditional “oriental” looks.
Indeed, Cloud Drako, with his lightning blue eyes, height of six feet four inches, broad shoulders and leanly muscular build, appeared to be a mix between Asian and possibly Russian ancestry, which was not uncommon around the borderlands of western China.
“Is he still human then?” Rain asked. Only Pure Ones directly resurrected in their original human form were guaranteed to be immortal. Reincarnated Pure Ones would have to have an Awakening before they could embrace their immortality. Until that time, they would age and live like any other human. Sophia was one such example.
Ayelet narrowed her eyes in thought. “I am not sure. It is possible he has already passed his Awakening. His Gift is tremendously powerful. I cannot imagine that he is able to wield it with such strength as a human.”
“A Gift of telepathy?” Valerius queried, his protective instincts heightening.
Ayelet nodded. “I believe he has the ability to mesmerize others. He can push his will into people who meet his gaze. I almost gave up the search before it began, suddenly feeling as if there was nothing to be found even though I held the evidence of his existence in my hands.”
“How can we get around his Gift when we find him?” Rain worried. “If he does not want to come with us, how can we possibly convince him?”
“I’ve considered this ad nauseum,” Ayelet replied, her brows drawn in concentration. “First, we must avoid his gaze at all costs. We must make use of all our other senses and not rely on our sight.” Briefly, she wished Dalair was here, but during the Phoenix Cycle, the Healer could not be far away from her Consort, and they could not afford to take two Elite guards from the Shield.