With a sharp crack, the thunder accompanied a particularly powerful bolt of lightning which found young Brian equally intriguing. As Nina watched, the electrical current darted straight down at the child. His feet were planted in the muddy water as the bolt connected with the top of his head.
“Jesus!” Nina screamed in horror. “Brian!”
But by the time Nina’s words fell from her mouth it was over. Hysterical, she raced towards the boy’s limp body, lying in the watery muck. “Oh Christ, no!” she whined, choking on her rapid breaths, falling to her knees to assess the boy’s condition. “Brian?”
“Aye, Miss Nina?” the child answered as she cradled his head.
Nina almost swallowed her tongue. Dumbstruck she stared into the boy’s eyes as he spoke. Apart from burned clothing and the whites of his eyes having turned crimson from the current that coursed through his small body, Brian seemed fine. Even his skin, which was smoking, had not been charred. In fact, not even a blister could be seen.
“What the f…?” she gasped, checking his vitals. “How do you feel?”
“Tingly,” he reported quite evenly. “My head hurts like I had too much ice cream, Miss Nina, and my fingers are pins and needles, but I am okay.”
“My God, I cannot believe this,” she muttered as she examined his hands. “Come, we have to get you to a hospital.”
“I am fine, Miss Nina,” he protested, his voice stern and resolute. “I have to get this scabbard home or my grandfather is going to beat the shi… crap out of me. There is no time for hospitals and that.”
“Alright, listen. Let me drive you to the clinic just quickly to get checked out,” she negotiated.
“No. I said no,” he argued.
“Do you realize that, if you do not see a doctor you could die, Brian?” she snapped. It was time to do what she did best. Her feisty manner had not been tested this much by any of the children thus far, but Brian’s categorical objection started to piss her off.
“I don’t care!” Brian barked, ripping her hand off his wrist. He started to walk on with difficulty, but she knew his only objective was to return the scabbard before his grandfather returned home. Although she understood this, there were clear signs of damage to his equilibrium. Nina guessed that an electrolyte imbalance was playing havoc with his system. She rushed up on the boy and roughly grabbed his shoulder, swinging him round to look at her.
“If you do not come with me right now, young man, I am telling your grandfather that you took his scabbard,” she threatened. “Besides, how will you explain your burnt clothes to your mother, huh? I am calling them if you don’t come with me.”
“Don’t you dare!” he hissed, but Nina Gould was known as the type of lady not to be fucked with.
“Try me!” she smirked maliciously. “And do not forget about the trouble you are already in for fighting with Percy and Jimmy, pal. Do you really want to talk back to me?”
He looked utterly hopeless, swaying as he tried to hold his footing. She was right and he knew it, but he was afraid of his grandfather’s temper. Nina sighed, looking up at the thunderous heavens. “Listen, I will do my best to keep you out of trouble if you just do this one thing for me, okay?” she tried to coax. “Anyways, for all we know the doctor will not even take long and I can drive you home long before your grandpa gets home. What do you say?”
Brian felt his head spin. He was not in much pain, but he realized that the lady had a valid point and he could use all the help he could get. All he gave her in response was a nod of approval. Nina and Brian hastened back to her car in the downpour.
“I am going to get sick again,” he sniffed as she switched on the car heater.
“No, you won’t. The heater is only on mild, so it cannot make you sick,” she maintained.
“But I get sick from nothing,” he assured her. “My mom too. Oh shit, she is also going to be furious with me. I am not supposed to get wet like this.”
Nina scoffed. “Looks like it is just your week to piss everyone off, hey?”
Brian chuckled. “Aye, Miss.”
When they arrived at the emergency room, Nina met with local physician, Dr. Le Roux, on duty. Brian was asked to wait in the examination room while Nina tried to relay the incident to the doctor. At least she had managed to convince the boy to allow her temporary custody of the scabbard while he was being examined.
“Let me see if I understand this,” Dr. Le Roux said in disbelief. “He was struck by lightning a few minutes ago.”
“Aye,” Nina replied.
The two stood leering at one another for a moment. Dr. Le Roux’s brow twitched at the report, but she thought she should give the academic the benefit of the doubt. Dr. Gould was not exactly an idiot, so her word as witness had some gravity.
12
New Acquisition
Purdue was cheerful to a fault. The dining room of his mansion, Wrichtishousis, had incurred severe structural and esthetic damage since it was gutted by a fire a few weeks before. The staff of the house was just as happy to see the repairs and renovations finally being completed, since the grand old room with its high ceiling and bar area was one of much life. This was where Purdue usually received his friends as guests, using the adjacent area of the same room to watch football and play billiards.
“Oh my God, Nina is going to be so jealous,” he grinned as he stood watching the final touches being added to the room before the furniture was due for delivery.
“Why is that, sir?” asked Lillian, the motherly housekeeper. Purdue adored her, even with her tendency to be nosy and a little intrusive at times.
“Lillian,” the butler, Charles, urged from his post at the lobby table, but she paid him no mind.
“It’s alright, Charles,” Purdue chuckled. It was the perpetual exchanged between the butler and the housekeeper in his home — the curious and harmless older lady overstepping her boundaries while the painfully rigid butler would reprimand her at every turn.
Purdue put his arm around her shoulder and led her to the unkempt part of the lobby where the evacuated pieces of furniture waited to be relocated and arranged by Charles and his staff. “I bought a new table for the dining room,” Purdue told his housekeeper. It was not big news, Lillian thought, but she was happy for her boss nonetheless.
“That is wonderful, sir. It is such a pity the previous dining table was destroyed,” she sympathized. Lillian remembered why the dining room was destroyed. Another in a line of bad choices in women that her playboy employer was all too known for, happened. A shoot-out that almost killed Purdue followed the malicious woman’s wrath, and it all ended up in a destructive fire that broke out from the hearth. “Glad you found a new piece worthy of replacing it, sir.”
“No, no, you are missing the point, my dear,” Purdue smiled. He reminded Charles of a naughty child waiting for a well-planned prank to unfold. “You see, Lily, the table I bought to replace the old one is from an era of romance and chivalry. Good old 12th Century Britain and its legends has yielded a stunning piece of work, built by a carpenter from the Isle of Arran.”
“Ooh!” she enthused, clasping her hands together. “And how old is it, then?”
His staff knew how obsessed Purdue was with history, which was the primary reason for his constant expeditions far and wide to unearth relics of legend.