Immortal Souls (The Immortal Souls: Magic & Chaos)

Book 2 - Chapter 11

Danny was happy to feign sleep and not allow his body to heal as they dragged him onto a stretcher and carried him into one of the hospitals.

He was content to stay paralysed as they loaded his body onto a military aircraft and carried it for several hours across the world once he'd been sufficiently stabilised.

He was more than happy to keep himself injured and allow himself to heal the human way, until he heard a doctor tell his 'brother' that there was need of major surgery.

"And just how painful will this surgery be?" Jack asked the doctor.

The doctor seemed confused by Jack's level of interest in how much pain Danny would be in. "Well, he'll be under anaesthetic so he won't be conscious enough to feel anything."

"Mmhm . . . how much pain will he be in afterwards? And don't lie doctor, you can tell me all the tiny details of how horrific it will be."

"Okay . . . " The doctor sounded completely weirded-out. "Well, he'll be in a lot of pain, but he can heal."

"Will he ever walk again?"

"The bullet is lodged in his spine, but we won't know just how much damage it has caused until we open him up to see if it's been severed or not."

"What are the odds?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know."

"How long will the recovery time be?"

"For injuries like this one we usually have the patients do about a year of physical therapy, but again, that would all depend on how bad the damage is."

"It is pretty bad," Jack said. "I made sure to sever the spine. He's completely paralysed from the waist down . . . I'm not sure you can fix that . . . can you? I would have thought you'd need some kind of witchcraft to fix an injury like that. Tell me doctor, do you practice witchcraft or just medicine?"

Danny let an internal sigh. God, he really can go on for days when he feels like it.

He heard the doctor shift in discomfort and rustle through some papers. "Are you sure you're his brother?"

"Yes, he's my little brother, my baby bro, my . . . " Jack paused for a moment. " . . . Some other way of saying the same thing. You get the idea. I don't need to say it. Can't you see the family resemblance? We have the same hair colour for God's sake!"

"It says here he's American . . . you don't sound—"

"Listen, Bob, can I call you Bob?"

"My name is Peter—"

"Bob, don't tell me who I am and amn't related to, I think I'd know, okay? So can you do me a favour and stop asking stupid questions and just tell him he'll die unless he does what I say? Can you do that for me Bob? . . . Can you?"

Danny tried not to laugh at Jack's ridiculousness. He knew that Jack was only behaving like this to try and get a reaction out of him. Or to try get him to use Magic. Which Danny did not want to do. But the way this conversation seemed to be heading he was starting to get the feeling that soon he would have to give Jack what he wanted.

"Barbara! Call security!" The doctor yelled. His voice sounded further away, he was probably moving closer to the door, his only means of escape.

"Don't do that Barbara!" Jack yelled to the woman, who was probably one of the nurses or the doctor's assistant. "If you call security I'm not being your friend anymore!"

"Oh for fuck sake Jack," Danny yelled, opening his eyes just in time to see the doctor jump with fright. "I'll take the damn potion if it will shut you up!" He didn't want someone else getting involved in this madness, and after listening to Jack ramble on like this for the better part of the day, he was willing to do whatever it took to make him stop.

Jack smiled victoriously. "It will shut me up, but you'll have to erase his memory too." Jack placed an arm around the doctor's shoulder making the small man seem very uncomfortable.

"Barbara!" the doctor yelled, his eyes shifting towards the closed door.

"Shhhh . . ." Jack whispered, stroking the side of the man's face, making him look evenmore ill at ease. "Barbara doesn't need to know."