Strange Aeons [Book 1]

9. High Noon in Boston

Chico had fallen asleep the night before still faintly smelling the fumes of the Palo rite that he had presided. Tired and satisfied by attendance and by his little parish, he had slept like a log.

When he woke up it was just noon.

He exited his room, found himself in the garden, opened the garden door, found himself outside the main door, opened the main door and then exited from one of the kitchen cabinets, with the slow movements of who was still getting used to living in a house where exits and entrances were all messed up. He dragged his body and brain towards the kitchen counter and started pushing the coffee maker's buttons.

He felt a sudden pain in his left shoulder, after a solid bump, just like if someone had just patted his back very hard. But the pain was strange, different. Sharp. He didn't realize it completely at the moment, not until he put a hand on the spot and then looked at it.

Covered in blood.

Then, he started feeling the burn, the terrible, painfully burn of a throwing knife lodged deep in his shoulder and fell on the floor screaming.

He sat, with some difficulty, with his back against the kitchen isle, his eyes on the only window of the room, on the same wall. Nobody could have thrown the knife in that window and hit his back.

The wound hurt like hell. He could have healed it with magic, but he had to extract the knife before, and it had plunged in his shoulder almost to the hilt.

He tried to think, while his heart was bumping, and his head filling up with questions, of which the most important was: what to do next?

Towel, his brain blurted out.

He needed a towel to put pressure on the wound after taking out the knife while healing himself with magic, as he learned from years of bad soap opera action scenes. He'd have to cross the room to get to the bathroom. He needed to stay low.

He started to half-crawl towards the bathroom door. The apartment always looked so small, now the road to the bathroom looked as long as an epic journey. He clenched his teeth and continued moving.

The second time, he didn't feel anything at all, again, before another wave of pain came crashing down on him, from the side of his head. This time the knife badly grazed his temple, filling his left eye with blood. One-tenth of an inch more on the right and he would have been directly skewed through the head.

In a panic, Chico rolled on the floor, looking for shelter in the corner that the kitchen isle created with the cabinet against the western wall, far from the window.

He put a hand on his awfully bleeding temple and concentrated between ragged breaths filled with agony. A comforting warmth spread from his palm. He passed two fingers over the wound, interacting with a couple of fluxes, and the flesh softly fell in place, reuniting the hems of the wound and closing it. He wiped the blood from his eye, regaining his vision.

Help. He had to call for help.

Of course, he left his mobile on his bedside table.