Chapter 101 - Gifts of Life

  Bonfires and other flames lit up the space around both Harvard enclaves. There were far more sources of light than I was used to seeing even after full night had fallen, which implied there was something out there in the darkness, something people were scared to face. Whatever it was that had struck these people, I had the immediate impression it had them rattled.

  All at once, I saw Emmy. She ran out into the open, dashing across the ground below. It’s probably more accurate to say that she spotted me and started waving madly, which caught my attention.

  I grinned ear to ear as soon as I saw her. All the stress and fear I’d been feeling, worrying about whether she was safe or not, it all fell away in an instant. I descended, setting down a couple of feet away. Emmy was moving again before my feet even hit the ground. She crashed into me and wrapped her small arms around my waist. I reached down and scooped her up into my arms.

  “Mr. Castle! You’re back! I missed you,” Emmy said.

  “I missed you too. I heard it was a tough day here. You and Maggie are all right?” I asked.

  Emmy was still a kid, in spite of all the weird and probably traumatic things she’d seen, so I wanted to keep this conversation relatively light. I didn’t know how much she might know about any attacks that occurred, and I didn’t want to make her afraid if there was no reason. But these days, there was almost always something worth being scared about, so maybe that was moot.

  Emmy nodded solemnly. “Dog people came. They hurt some people. That’s why they called Maggie up here.”

  “That’s right. You two are usually down at the stadium, aren’t you?”

  She nodded again. “Yup! We live in the big football place. But Maggie knows about medicine and nursing and stuff, so when the monsters attacked and hurt some people, they asked her to come and help. You want to see her?”

  “If she’s free, sure,” I replied. “I really need to find out more about these dog people you mentioned.”

  “So you can superhero them?” Emmy asked.

  “Something like that. If they’re hurting people, I’m probably going to have to make them stop doing that.”

  “I’ll take you to her!” Emmy said. She wriggled, working herself loose from my arms, and I leaned over to set her down gently.

  Emmy ran ahead, skipping her way across Harvard Yard toward one of the buildings at the edge, a library I assumed had been reworked into an infirmary. It was a good thing I had another Heal crystal with me. If they had a lot of injured people, that would go a long way toward fixing them up.

  We went inside, and Emmy led me down one hall, then another, into a large room with a series of hospital beds set up inside, curtains giving the patients at least a little privacy. Those same curtains kept me from seeing precisely how many people were there to get care, but it was over a dozen, and judging by the bloodstains on the floor and bloody dressings scattered about, most of them were recent injuries.

  “Maggie!” Emmy called out. “Look who I found!”

  “Emmy, I need to focus right now. This isn’t a good place for a little…” Maggie’s voice trailed off as she turned and her eyes met mine. She flushed, then ducked her head and smiled. “Cameron. It’s good you’re here. I wish you’d been a little earlier, though. We could have used you.”

  “I came as soon as I heard. The folks at MIT said you’d been attacked?” I asked.

  Maggie tousled Emmy’s hair. Emmy giggled at that, then ran off, leaving her bemused older sister shaking her head with a rueful smile. “No idea where she gets all her energy. Anyway! Yes. A work team tearing down buildings outside the Yard was attacked earlier by what they described as werewolves.”

  “Well, we’ve got goblins and giant spiders. I guess werewolves are just par for the course?” I said.

  Maggie shrugged. “Maybe. They killed a couple of people, but mostly they just savaged their victims without killing them. I didn’t get to see the attackers—they were long gone before I arrived to help the local medical team. But whatever they were, they had long, sharp teeth and weren’t shy about using them. They killed two people and gave serious wounds to eight others. Nobody lost a limb, not yet anyway, but we’re worried about infection.”

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  “I might be able to help with that,” I said. I pulled the Healing crystal from a pocket and held it out to her.

  “What’s it do?”

  “It’s a Heal spell. Tier three. It’ll burn through mana pretty quickly, and you’ll want to give it to someone with a Will crystal to help with that. But it should help you get your wounded back on their feet that much quicker.”

  Maggie took the crystal from my hand, her eyes wide. “Holy shit. How did you get this? Can you get more?”

  “Maybe, but not easily,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter. Even this helps,” Maggie said. She turned away, calling out to a nearby colleague. “Fred! Tara! Wait til you see what I’ve got here!”

  Two people in scrubs came over. Maggie introduced them both. Tara was a local pediatrician, and Fred was a nurse, same as Maggie. They’d been working together to save as many lives as they could, but it was clearly wearing on them. Maggie was right. Even a single Heal spell would be enough to make a huge difference.

  “You should take it,” Maggie said, trying to press the crystal into Tara’s hands.

  But the older woman shook her head, drawing her hands back. “I’m not a good call.”

  “Why not?” Maggie demanded. “You’re a doctor. You got this whole infirmary space up and running, helped us get supplies over here from the Smith Center… Without you, we’d never have made this place operational.”

  “I’m not so sure about that last bit, although I’m glad I was able to help,” Tara replied. “No, the main reason why is because I already have stones slotted. I have a tier two each in Intellect and Stamina, but no Will. As Cameron pointed out, we need to give this to someone with a Will crystal.”

  “Not me,” Fred replied. “I only have one stone, and that’s for Strength. Picked it up early on.”

  “You have a Will crystal though, don’t you, Maggie?” Tara asked.

  Maggie looked abashed, like she wanted to say no. But instead, she nodded. “I do, yes. Tier two Will, and tier one Language.”

  “You should take it,” Tara insisted. “You have medical training, so if that helps at all when it comes to magic, which I am not at all sure is true, then you’ve got that edge. More important, you have the Will to keep casting Heal more times than I can, and you’ve got the compassion and courage to be brave when you need to be. Whoever takes that stone will probably have to face more than a little danger from time to time.”

  “Me?” Maggie asked.

  I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she turned to face me. “I don’t know how much difference my opinion makes, but I think you’ve got the qualities your doctor friend is talking about in spades.”

  Maggie blushed again, which made me crack a thin smile. She was pretty when she got embarrassed. I could see why Alex kept pushing me in that direction. And it was that moment where I first had the thought that, you know what? Maybe. Perhaps, someday, Maggie and I might…be something more than just friends.

  I was in no way ready for that just yet, though. It was too damned soon after losing Amanda. Even admitting to myself that I liked Maggie enough to consider the idea felt like a betrayal. She’d been dead a week. Sure, the world had practically ended in the time since, and everything was insane. That didn’t excuse me one iota if I forgot about the woman I’d loved so long that quickly.

  Maggie could be a good friend, sure. But nothing more. Not now, anyway. Maybe not ever.

  While I’d been pondering that, she’d made a decision. She held the crystal in her palm and sighed, long and deep. “All right, then. I’ll do it. One of us has to! These people need our help. How do I do this?”

  “You have a tier two Will and tier one Language stone, you said, right?” I asked.

  Maggie nodded.

  “Okay, that means you can’t unlock the third slot until you rank one of those up to tier three,” I explained. “There is a workaround. You can pop out one of the existing stones and slot the tier three Heal. That will open your third slot, which will let you re-socket the one you took out.”

  “That sounds useful,” Maggie said.

  “Wait!” I said, before she could act. “Every time we take out a stone, there’s a chance it cracks and becomes useless. If you break the Will stone, that hurts your ability to Heal.”

  “And I’m still the only person I know of with the Language spell. We can’t afford to lose that one. Maybe someone else should take it, after all,” Maggie said.

  “There’s another option,” I replied, digging into the pouch that contained all my spare crystals. I pulled out a pair of stones and held them up. “These are two tier one Will crystals. You put these both in your hand and they’ll absorb into your system, ranking your Will up to tier three. That will open the third socket.”

  “And once that’s open, I can add the Heal spell,” Maggie said. “I get it. But these are valuable. Are you sure?’

  “One hundred percent. We need good healers ready to save people. The stronger we can make you, the better off all of us will be,” I said.

  Tara and Fred both nodded their agreement.

  “All right. I’ll do it,” Maggie said.

  She took the crystals from my hand. Almost instantly, they sank into her palm, and I saw her eyes blink rapidly in the now-familiar look someone had as they were ranking up a crystal. A few seconds after the Will stones merged with her existing ones, her other hand absorbed the Heal crystal, too.

  That really sent her staggering. The amount of information the Heal spell passed along had to be pretty serious. Plus, Maggie hadn’t had too many of these upgrades. I’d ranked up crystals so many times that even the ones which hit heavily were starting to feel almost normal.

  Maggie staggered back a foot, then another. Tara went to her side, holding her arm to stabilize her. “You all right, honey?”

  “Yeah. It’s just a lot. Wow, I know how to cast Heal now,” Maggie said. “There’s a diagnostic component to the spell, too. I can pretty much see what’s wrong with someone now, and then use Heal to correct it.”

  “That sounds amazing,” Tara said. “And we’ve got people who need your help badly. You up to doing some Healing?”

  “Absolutely!” Maggie said. “Let’s get to work.”