The Coming | The House of Voices #2

Twenty Five - Sleep

Sleep

"I'm going to need to cut up his jeans," Ace informed us just as we'd finally finished arranging Parish flat out on the floor of the den. Sitting by his side, I watched Ace stand up and rush over to the desk in the alcove. She opened a drawer and pulled out a sharp pair of scissors and rushed back over. Spade had already left to gather up the things they were going to need to heal Parish's leg.

"It's going to take longer to heal than yours," Ace told me as she quickly cut away the material around Parish's leg to reveal the bloody, broken mess that the Voices had turned it into. I had to force myself not to look away. His leg was worse that than we'd thought - the Voices had snapped the bone in five different areas, and the weight of his own body had caused the fractured bones to give way, piercing his skin and sticking out of his flesh.

There was so much blood and flesh and bits of broken bones everywhere that I thought I was going to throw up. But I forced myself to stay put, to continue holding his hand supportively even though he was passed out cold; to sit by and watch as Spade, who'd returned with an armful of various things that I couldn't even pay attention to, and started to clean the blood off Parish's leg so he could set his bones.

Once the leg was as clean as he could get it, Spade frowned. "Ace," He said, looking up at her, dark eyes thinking. "There's absolutely no way in hell he will sleep through all this with the help of just that spell. We need something stronger."

She tilted her head. "How strong?"

"Very."

With a decisive nod to her colleague, Ace straightened up on her knees and pulled something out of the back pocket of her jeans. A deck of cards. She shuffled through the pack in one quick motion and pulled out a single card. Holding it gently between her thumb and forefinger, she placed the top of the card on Parish's forehead. Confused, I scooted back on my knees to give her space, taking Parish's hand along with me.

Shooting me an amused half-smile, Ace bent over Parish until her nose was just an inch away from the surface of the card and in a soft voice said, "soporare gravi." And then she blew a slow breath of air against the card, causing it to glow a soft orange that spread over Parish's body and disappeared. I would have questioned her, but the instant I opened my mouth something warm and comforting settled over me, something that reminded me a lot of the shock blanket the firemen had given me that night when my Uncle Charlie's house burned down.

Spade smiled at Ace approvingly and then started to set Parish's bones. It was a gruesome sight. Terrible, disgusting and I wanted nothing more than to bury my face in Parish's t-shirt so that I wouldn't have to look at what Spade was doing. But yet, I looked anyway. When Spade reached the biggest and messiest of all the fractures, even Ace - who'd been preparing something really, really smelly - winced, sucking a sharp breath of air between clenched teeth. Spade looked up at her, dark eyes apologetic and then turned to flash me the same look.

"You're up," Spade told Ace as soon as he'd finished with the final break. Bringing a ceramic bowl with her, she quickly moved to sit beside Spade and began gently massaging some of the smelly, disgusting colored ointment onto Parish's leg, thoroughly coating the break points with the stuff. Once she was done with that, she and Spade worked together to wrap a thick ace bandage around Parish's leg. When completely wrapped, Ace touched her fingers to the injured leg and murmured another spell under her breath that I didn't quite catch.

She sighed heavily. "All done," she told me, blinking tiredly. She tittered slightly to the left and Spade put a cautious hand around her shoulder to steady her. Shaking her head, she looked at Spade. "Let's carry him up?" She suggested.