“What are you doing?” Jesse asked, moving to stand behind me. I didn’t answer him. I had to concentrate. The soul kept drawing in more and more energy, feeding itself and bringing itself back to life. “Rachael?” When the soul stopped taking in my energy I knew it was healed. Now I had to put him back in his body.
I didn’t know any way other than to force it into his body like pure energy. It would hurt but there was no other way. I slammed the soul down against his chest, restarting his heart and re-embedding his soul at the same time. The man jerked to a seated position, drawing in a sharp and agonized breath.
“Rachael!” Jesse pulled me to my feet, moving me away from him.
“Jesse, it’s fine!” I insisted. “I did that for him. He had a family. He wasn’t ready to die. It wasn’t his time.”
“Actually.” Joshua wandered back over. “It was his time. There are no rules against bringing souls back from the dead but there will be consequences. There always are. They can come in any form and most end in the person you saved dying again.”
“It wasn’t his time,” I repeated. I knew I was wrong but I had to believe that things would work out for this man.
“I’m not here to argue with you.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m here to escape a few hours of torment. However this is turning out to be even worse than the torture I suffer in Hell. I’d rather have my ears cut off than listen to either of you for one more minute.” Joshua moved to yet another victim after his rampage.
“Thank you.” The man I had brought back got to his knees in front of me, grasping my hand tightly. “I will repay you. I swear.”
“You don’t have to repay me,” I told him. “It was nothing.”
“But it wasn’t nothing!” his eyes started to tear up. “You have given me my life back! I will never forget what you have done for me today.” I didn’t know what to say. I was still new to… well all of this. Everything to do with being an angel of death. I didn’t like it and I really wished I hadn’t doomed myself to this.
“Find your family,” I stated. “They will be looking for you.” He quickly got to his feet, dashing further into the city. “Don’t say anything.” I knew Jesse didn’t like this. I wasn’t about to let him tell me what I had done was wrong, though.
“I wasn’t going to.” He surprised me by sounding pleased with it. “I think you did a good thing. I don’t like this whole angel of death business any more than you do. I don’t like anything that puts you or the baby…”
“Don’t talk about it in front of him,” I stopped him before he went too far. Joshua was beside an Orc, deep inside the creatures mind, but I knew him well enough to know he was always listening and he wasn’t supposed to know about that.
“Sorry.” Jesse glanced over at him. “I don’t like anything that puts you in danger. Or her.” He spoke quieter, resting a tender hand on my stomach.
“Jesse.” I turned as Joshua drew the soul out of its body. Jesse quickly moved his hand so he didn’t draw attention to where it was placed.
“What are you standing around for?” Joshua wanted to know. “Move! Go reap someone so I’m not stuck here any longer than I absolutely have to be.” I closed my eyes briefly so I wouldn’t snap at him. I had murdered him. I deserved to be treated like that. He should get a free shot at me.
I bent down next to another human, searching for his voice. I let myself disappear into his mind, cut off from the rest of the world. It was the worst thing I could have done at that moment. I just wouldn’t know it until it was too late.
“Who are you?” It was a question I would get used to.
“My name is Rachael,” I answered. “I am here to take you to your place of rest.”
“No!” He was angrier than any of the other ones were. “You will not kill me!”
“I am not the one who killed you!” I tried to calm him down. “I am here to help you.”
“You want to help me?!” he demanded. “Then get the hell out of my head!”
“I’m trying…”
“No!” he shouted. “You are not trying anything! You will not kill me!”
“I don’t want to…” It wasn’t him that cut me off this time. It was an agonizing, shooting pain in my back. I choked on the sensation, rippling through my disconnected body.
“What’s wrong with you?” His voice faded as my subconscious ripped its way through his mind, trying to get back to my body. The pain threaded its way through every vein in my system, tearing through me.
“Rachael!” Jesse’s voice slowly made its way into my panicking mind. He guided me back to the reality of Ebulon where I found myself in worse pain than I had been in that man’s head. I couldn’t even scream; it hurt that bad. What was going on?
“I thought you said that there weren’t any more coming!” Joshua’s angry shout momentarily distracted me enough from the pain to see the tip of a barbed arrow piercing the skin under my collar bone.
“What…? What happened?” I could barely whisper.
“There weren’t!” Jesse didn’t answer me, turning to Joshua instead.
“Well you didn’t do enough research, now did you?” Joshua was standing near the gates to the city, his sword in his hand. I turned slightly, the pain intensifying. Jesse was next to Joshua, his hunting knives in his hands. They were looking out at a huge squadron of Orcs, charging towards the city.
“Jesse.” I tried to get his attention. Neither of them realized I had been shot by an arrow because they were focused on the approaching army. The arrow had gone into my back and went the entire way through my body. If it had hit something vital, I would have known. I had to help them because they couldn’t help me.
I started to get up, gritting my teeth against the pain. As soon as I tried to take a step, the darkness descended around my vision. I stumbled and started to fall, the poison from the arrow flowing through my blood stream.
“Jesse.” I barely heard her whisper as I turned around. Rachael fell towards the ground, an arrow embedded in her back.
“No!” I ran to her side, barely catching her before she hit the street.
“What are you…? Good God!” Joshua turned to see what had happened.
“Jesse.” She struggled to breathe, her wide, panicked eyes focused on me. A cold sweat covered her skin and her heart was beating so fast I could feel it against my leg from her body resting on my lap. Her blood spilled out onto the hand I held tightly around the base of the arrow in her back.
“You’re ok, sweetheart.” I tried to reassure her but I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t have the kind of training required to help her. She had a poisoned arrow shot the entire way through her body.
“You need to pull it out and you need to do it fast,” Joshua told me, glancing back and forth between Rachael and the quickly approaching Orcs.
“She might bleed out!” I wasn’t just going to pull this thing out. I could kill her.
“If you don’t get it out of her, she’ll die from the poison,” he stated.
“Just let me think!” If I wasn’t a guardian, I would have been a healer. I really liked helping people. The reason I wanted to be a guardian more than a healer was because of Rachael. Gabriel had given me the option as a child. He showed me several pictures of angels I could help if I used my power to be a healer. However; as soon as he had given me a picture of Rachael there was no longer a choice. I knew I had to be with her. Now I was losing her and my baby and there was nothing I could do.
“Fine! Think all you want while we all die!” The Orcs were so close that I could hear their individual roars of bloodlust. I didn’t have much time.
“Don’t let me die!” she begged, her voice still a whisper. A single tear escaped from her eyes, the fear all over her features. “Don’t let us die.”