Harsh Lessons (39 page)

Marcie looked
awful
.

Leeth felt terrified. 
What if this didn't work?
  'Where's her injury?  Show me!  Where's the scar tissue? 
Exactly
.'

'Who are you?  This girl is sick, she needs-'

Ranatunga stared at the girl, her face distorted by a stocking pulled down over her head.  She ignored him, striding to the door as it slammed open, two guards with tasers appearing.  The girl whirled between them, fists and feet flying, bouncing slightly as she turned.

He blinked.  Somehow, both guards were falling to the ground behind her.

She continued speaking as if nothing had just happened.  'I need you to cut the scar tissue, so she can be magically healed.'

'You're insane.'  He glanced at the older white male, face obscured by a large, floppy hat, struggling with his wrists bound to the wheelchair he'd been tied into.  'Insane.'

A small hand like a vise took him by the chin, and he found himself dragged to the girl in the bed.  'The spine goes up in the back of the head, right?'  She released him, gently easing the girl over on her side, exposing the back of her neck.

He was half way to the door when something like steel grabbed him by the wrist, almost dislocating his shoulder as he was hauled back to the bed.  She bent to the bound man, removing a case from a side pocket, and opened it one-handed to reveal a set of surgical implements.  'I need you to cut the scar tissue.  I don't have much time!'

'No.'

The man in the wheelchair still struggled, dislodging the floppy hat that had been pulled down over his face.  Ice ran down the surgeon's spine.  The man was gagged with some kind of red ball.  Some kind of fetish device. 
His
features, too, were compressed by a nylon stocking.

'Quite, quite, insane,' he breathed.

Stunned, he watched the girl take a scalpel, squirt disinfectant on it, and thrust it at him.  Behind her, the man made wild eyes at him.

'Cut. The scar. Tissue.'  Her voice cracked, and he saw she was crying.

'No.  Never.  That would cripple her.  Probably kill her.'

'She's
already
crippled!'

'No.'

'All right.  Just show me.  Point to the area where you'd have to make a cut, to re-injure her in the same place.'

'No.'

The scalpel pressed directly,
exactly
, over his heart.

'If you don't point for me, you're no use to me.'  She thrust one hand out towards the wild-eyed bound man.  '
That
is an expert healer.  And if you tell us where the withered nerve endings are, and if the injury is fresh, he can heal them.' 
I hope!
  'We are going to do this, now.  With or without your help.  If you care about Marcie, you'll tell us where to cut.  And if you
don't
care about Marcie, then you don't deserve to live.  I'm doing this, one way or the other.  So:
where do I cut!
'

She's terrified too
, he saw.  But utterly determined.  And the expression on the man in the chair?  Shocked, but resigned. 
Not denying her claims
.  Perhaps he
was
a mage?

Shakily, Ranatunga indicated the location, even as he shook his head.  'The area is small: a centimeter across, twenty three millimeters in.  But you can't. You mustn't.  You'll cripple her; more likely, kill her!'

A horrified expression on her face, she touched the spot he'd indicated, and a tiny slice appeared, somehow.  A faint red seam.

'Down exactly there, right?' she asked, turning to him.  Indicated a distance with her finger and thumb.  'About so deep?'

He nodded, jerkily.

She spun to the man in the wheelchair, and the scalpel flashed four times, freeing his arms and legs.  She hauled him up by his shirt-front.  'This is Marcie Dunkirk.  Guess what's going to happen to
you
if she doesn't walk out of here in the next few minutes?'

Releasing him to dart to the bed, she slowed, and carefully rolled the girl over.  Then propped the pillow under Marcie's chest, arching the back of her exposed neck.

Leeth looked down at her best friend in the world, calling the tingle into her hands, terrified yet certain.  And stabbed down with one fingertip, projecting the force down through the tiny surface incision she'd used to mark the spot. Held her finger dead still.  Then twitched it, once.

Blood flowed, Marcie jerked, and she heard Dr Ranatunga gasp.  She spun to her uncle, quailing at the horror she saw in his face even through the distortion of the stocking.

'Now heal her.'

'You're insane,' whispered Ranatunga.

The gagged man's eyes never left the young woman – who had to be the same intense young woman from this morning.  The man gestured to his mouth; to the gag.  His hooded eyes burning.

'Oh, no.  I know you don't need to speak to do this spell.  Now heal her. 
Heal her!'

Behind her, the door to the room thrust open.

And Marcie's father stormed into the room.  With her younger sister, Amanda, behind him.
 

Chapter 48 

The bunch of flowers fell from Marcie's father's hands, slapping down on the floor in a sudden silence.

'What the
fook
is going on here?'  Fists curled, he took a step forward, trying to understand what he was seeing.

'I leave me daughter for
ten fookin' minutes
and the whole hospital goes mad?  What's going on here?'

'
Jane?'
whispered Amanda.  'What are you
doing?'

'I'm not Jane.  But I
am
a friend.  And we're healing her.  Right now.  Marcie will walk out of this hospital today, or we'll die, trying.'

'
Jane?' 
Amanda still stared at her.

Marcie's father took another step forward, but his youngest daughter locked her two hands on his.  'Da, no. 
Wait
.'

He stilled.

Harmon met the man's eyes; then his daughter's; then moved to Leeth's friend and cast the spell.

The room fell silent as he let the magic and his Imaginal sight study the damage.  Both the extensive scar tissue left by the body's correct but wholly inadequate response to that damage, and Leeth's fresh injury.

He shook his head.  Shifting his sight back to the physical world, he met Leeth's eyes, and indicated another place, higher on the neck.  Made a cutting gesture.  Held up two fingers.  Then took Leeth's hand, holding her forefinger like a pen – or a scalpel blade.  And his eyes burned into hers.

Her own eyes widened as she understood what he meant, and summoned her
sharpness
again.  Then held up her other hand, thumb and finger moving together, then apart:
how deep?

He indicated the required distance, and saw her nod her understanding.  Shifting his senses back to the Imaginal, now
seeing
the invisible blade for the first time, he was stunned for a moment by its deadly beauty.

Then, guiding her unresisting finger, he began to cut.

Three more times he sliced; tiny incisions.  Marveling each time at the perfection of the cuts.  Finally, he pulled her hand back and released it, ignoring her as he sank his spell into the paralyzed girl on the bed.

Began coaxing the nerves to grow, to seek out their matching ends, and reconnect.

Chapter 49 

'This is Nina Summers, Kroneco News, outside New Francisco's Sisters of Mercy hospital, where a drug-crazed young woman has taken control of an entire wing.  We understand she has abducted the hospital's leading cerebra-spinal surgeon, forcing Dr Jay Ranatunga to operate…'

At that moment, a man, face covered by a large floppy hat and strapped into a wheelchair, was pushed out the side entrance by a young woman, her own face covered in camo-makeup and a stocking.  Two police moved to intercept – and collapsed as the woman leapt the chair, slamming their heads together with a
crack
that drew the attention of the news cams.

The woman then wrenched open the back door of a waiting ambulance and threw the man and chair into the back.  Thrusting the door shut, she slapped a sheet of paper to the back window and disappeared around the vehicle to slip inside. Moments later, the ambulance started, then the driver's door flew open and a man flew out.

Nina zoomed the drone news camera in on the hand-lettered sign.

"Take him if you want him," it read.

Chapter 50 

Mother was livid.  'But she couldn't have known Nelson could hack in and take control of the ambulance!'

'I agree,' Eagle said.  'I'm quite sure she merely
guessed
.'

'No doubt,' said Father, 'but I agree with Mother.  The girl is wild, and dangerous, does not obey orders, and knows far too much about us.'

'She is also quite clearly unstable,' Mother added, 'and is now loose.  We need to Retire her: she risked exposing the Department.'

'Really, Mother?' Eagle asked.  'Dr Harmon's face was never seen, on camera.  Leeth herself did an excellent job of avoiding her own – distorted – image being captured on her way in, and she had added the camouflage makeup before her exit.  Thanks to his gag, the Doctor's voice was never heard.  Never recorded.  Nelson and Little Brother's shell game retrieval of the Doctor in the Stockton tunnel went smoothly, and Leeth herself appears in no database.  Except our own.'

He held up a finger.  'It is also quite clear, is it not, that Leeth did not plan this in advance?  The events unfolded immediately after her unauthorized visit this morning to her friend's doctor, at the hospital.'

Mother stared at him.  'Are you
pleased
by this outcome, Eagle?' she demanded.

Eagle smiled.  'Consider: she defeated Dojo; escaped us; abducted her uncle and brought him to the hospital, without either of them being surveilled until their emergence there; orchestrated her friend's healing – which required a ruthless determination that should impress even
you,
Mother.  As well as setting up her uncle's return to us, and her own disappearance.  And she killed no one, while doing any of it.

'If this were a mission, with those as the objectives, how would you rate her performance?'

Father looked thoughtful; even impressed.

Mother, on the other hand, looked as if something unpleasant had nested in her mouth.  'None of that changes the fact that she disobeyed orders, and is now on the loose.'

'A fair point.  And I
do
want to reacquire her: she is proving to be everything I hoped for.

'You will work with the Doctor, and devise a plan to bring her back in, eager to rejoin us.  We will treat it as her graduation test: she will no doubt be seeking to avoid us;
you
will be seeking to find her and restore her to us.'

Mother looked even more displeased, if that were possible.

Eagle leaned forward.  'A contest, Mother: you versus Leeth.  She will be attempting to stay off our radar.  Let's see how long it takes you to recover her.  Would you care to wager how long she will remain at large?'

Mother thought.  The girl had stolen a mere hundred-cred cashstick, and Nelson could breach any security system in the country.  Well, with one exception.

Two days
, she decided.  'Give me four weeks.'

'Agreed.  And if you win, I will place Leeth's training directly in your hands.'

Eagle smiled.

Chapter 51 

Free!

Leeth hugged herself, looking out over the broken grounds and tumbled buildings of the Hunters Point Dumps.

Over there, and up into the heights, the Blackberry tribe.  Down along the water's edge, the Fisher clan.  She turned, slowly, identifying landmarks she'd studied, and the peoples who lived and thrived in the quake-tossed landscape.

Listening for another drone, she felt the slingshot tucked snug in the rear pocket of her shorts.  Her PowerShot.  Ready to smash any sneaking spy-drones from the sky.  That was another good thing about her weapon: there was no shortage of ammo!

Free!

Like Marcie.

She teared up – happy tears – remembering her friend's hesitant, disbelieving joy as she'd moved her legs; swayed weakly on shaky limbs, before her father had swooped in to engulf her in a bear hug.  As Amanda had slammed into the two like a small rocket of delight.

Yeah, it'd been great – until Marcie's dad had turned to her, joy and horror mixed in equal measures in his face.

Until the fear she'd seen, in Marcie's eyes.

How long had Marcie been awake? 
Had she been
conscious
when I re-severed her spinal cord?

The reluctant dread in her expression, the way Marcie had flinched in against her father when she'd taken a step toward her, wanting to join the group hug….

She'd slammed her uncle back into the wheelchair and barreled from the room.

But now, she was free.

So the Department thought her a child?  Foolish?  Well, she'd show them.

She felt a smile spread across her face.  She had time, now, for the RedSkulls gang.

She could even collect the whole set.

And of course, The Breaker was out here too, somewhere.

He'd
be a worthy opponent.
 

AFTERWORD

And there we'll once more leave our characters.

I hope you enjoyed this second episode of Leeth's story.  If so, you may be pleased to know the sequel, titled
Shadow Hunt
, should be released early 2017.  And if you did enjoy this, there
is
one simple thing you could do which may make a real difference for authors like myself: publish a review.  I still believe that if readers like you tell others about books you read-, each book can earn exactly the success it deserves.

So if you're one of the first twenty people to publish an honest and substantive review (say, a hundred words or more) of
Harsh Lessons –
good or bad – and send me your email address, I'll add you to the list of people to receive a free electronic copy of
Shadow Hunt
when it's ready, for putting in the effort to help make the new self-publishing industry work.