Chapter 9: 1692

Place: Salem, Massachusetts

I managed to finish the rune just before I heard a group of male voices approaching from the town. Activating my precognition rune, I looked into the near future and saw the men bringing the young boy to my door for healing. I cleared my vision with a blink before looking down at the boy, who had been watching me with pain-filled eyes. I put my hand to the side of his face, giving him a small smile.

"I have done what I can here. Humans from the town are coming to investigate what happened, and they are going to bring you to my home for treatment. I am the healer of the town," I explained to him quickly. "I must go now, before they see me. I will see you soon." He grunted in pain, and I activated my invisibility rune, using it to watch the group as they stumbled upon the carnage.

"Search for survivors!" someone shouted, and everyone spread out to check the bodies. I heard mumbles of "how could this happen" and "what could have caused such destruction" as I carefully walked around the men and out of the circle. I heard a whispered "witch" just as I broke into a run and went straight home. My presence would have brought up questions, like why I was out so late by myself and why I was in the middle of the woods, and I did not want any extra attention drawn to myself.

As I expected, they came running to my door with the boy. I had half-prepared my burn salve while I waited, trying to shorten the time I would use in helping him but not so much that they would grow suspicious of why I had it prepared already.

"Miss," said the man leading the group. He, like the rest of the group, was covered in dirt and blood. "I apologize for calling on you so late, but an attack has occurred in the forest. A large group of our men have been killed." He turned slightly and waved someone else forward. "This young man is the only survivor, but he is severely burned and scratched. Can you take him in? At least for the night?" he asked, and I nodded once.

"Of course. I will keep him here until I deem him healthy again," I responded. "Place him in the guest room. He needs to be comfortable with a wound like that." The man holding the boy nodded once and I directed him to the spare room as the others waited outside. We came back once he was settled under a light sheet and sleeping soundly.

"He has not woken since we found him," the leader commented, and I nodded.

"He is most likely in shock from the injuries. I will do what I can for him. Come back in a few days if you want to check on him, and hopefully I will be able to learn his name in the meantime," I said quietly.

"Goodnight then, Ma'am, and good luck," he said with a tilt of his head. I curtsied before closing the door and locking it behind me.

Making my way into my shop, I grabbed the small mortar with my salve and put the finishing touches on it. I was focusing mostly on lessening his pain, seeing as though a curse burn would not heal easily only being treated topically if the healing rune barely worked, and I knew I could numb him so that he could at least rest without being in constant pain. Something needed to be applied before he woke up and agitated the wounds, and this was his best chance.

I walked into the spare bedroom with the mortar, opening the door as quietly as I could. He was still unconscious, that much I expected, but the less noise I made, the less likely he would be to wake up too early. We had laid him down on his back with his arms at his sides and draped a light sheet over him to keep at least some of the chill away. I could still see him shaking from shock and blood loss, which worried me.

"Hermes," I whispered, and he appeared on the dresser with a soft, quiet flare of fire. He chirped quietly, tilting his head at me.

"My friend, will you stay with this boy through the night? I need to keep him warm, but I cannot cover him too much with the injuries he has sustained. Will you do that for me?" I asked, and he squawked as he dropped his head in agreement.

I smiled as I sat down on the edge of the bed, setting the small mortar on the bedside table. I brought a hand up to the boy's hair, lifting the light brown strands hanging down over his forehead to examine the cut on his head. It had just about stopped bleeding, but his face was a mess from the blood falling down his face and into his hair. Quickly grabbing a wash basin from the bathroom, I used a damp cloth to clean the blood from his face and the wound. The cut was shrinking as I cleaned it, showing me that it was not from a spell. The rune was still working slowly from the size of the curse-inflicted burn, but that and the gash on his arm were slowly but surely healing.

I continued cleaning the blood from his hair and arm while Hermes stood on the other bedside table, watching intently. He was glowing gently as he gave off heat, warming the room to a comfortable temperature that would not make the boy too hot. I took a small amount of the salve and smeared it over the cut on his head, and then did the same to the wound on his arm. He started sweating when I pulled the sheet back and used a small blade to removed the charred remnants of his shirt. Most of the front had burned, and some of the pieces stuck to his skin.

The burn looked no better than it had on the forest. The skin was blistered and discolored in the middle, and the ragged edges of the burn were an angry red. His torso bruised from the impact of the curse, telling me that whoever had cast it was very powerful. A witch casting that kind of spell with such power without the experience needed to control to would have destroyed the entire clearing, not just hit one boy.

I lost myself in that train of thought as I gently and carefully cleaned what I could from the burn. The person in the bed before me was no more a man than I was human, and yet, he had been called a man and deemed able to fight. The Nephilim trained their children for combat early, but very rarely was a child called into a fight such as the one that had taken place. All of the other men in the group who had fallen in battle were most certainly over eighteen years of age. This boy was no older than fifteen. He was still a child in both the human and supernatural worlds, but he was still brought to a fight beyond his capabilities. The blatant lack of care for the child's safety was sickening and made me ashamed to call myself Nephilim.

All of a sudden, the boy flinched and groaned in pain, stirring from his sleep as his body grew warmer and warmer. He was whining in pain as I replaced the water and cloth, grabbing fresh of both and draping the cloth across his forehead. His breathing was increasing, but it was still shallow. I quickly applied a generous amount of salve to his burn, concentrating on what I was doing and not his flinching and cries of pain. I kept telling myself it would help, but the sounds he made caused me to second-guess myself. Finally finished, I took his hand in both of mine and held it. To wrap his wound would only cause him more pain, so I decided against it.

He mumbled and groaned all night long, whimpering in pain when he was not. I stayed with him, dozing off every now and then until he started making noise again. I talked him through the pain until he fell asleep again, telling him about some of the places I had been and the things I had seen. His quick silence at the sound of my voice and increased pressure from my hands encouraged me, making me think he could hear what I was saying, and I found myself telling him everything from the attack on my village by the Lycan up to the moment I found him. The sun was rising on another new day by the time I finished and fell asleep myself, still sitting up.

My dreams were strange. I had had visions while I was asleep, but this was different. I could see a group of people, but I could only see their silhouettes. Seven of them were standing there facing me. All of a sudden, Helen Jameson's face appeared on the smallest figure's face. It slowly morphed into someone else, a young woman with long black hair down to her waist who looked to be just five feet tall. She was only wearing a plain, pure white dress that ended just below her knees. The figures next to her stayed just as black as they had been before.

Carlisle Cullen's face suddenly appeared, just as Helen's had, and moved to occupy one of the other silhouettes. The face of the young boy did the same, shooting over to the largest of the figures and shifting to that of a young man with dark brown hair and a large smile. Dimples adorned his face on either side of his mouth, a stark contrast to the impression his rather large build gave off. His trousers were a strange blue color, but I could not identify the material. I had seen nothing like it, but his shirt was cotton and short-sleeved. Another figure started to glow, but the changes the others went through did not happen with this one. The numbers one, eight, six, and three appeared across the group, followed closely by the name "Galveston" and "0300."

The scene suddenly changed, switching to what appeared to be a war. Another young man, his hair hidden by a light grey cap and his body in a matching shirt and trousers, was fighting off another young man, this one in a similar uniform in dark blue. The man in blue parried an attack by the grey man, using the large knife at the end of his rifle to stab his opponent through the chest. The grey man fell to his knees, dropping his own rifle to the ground and raising a hand to the wound, where the other soldier's knife still stuck out. He drew his hand back to find it covered in crimson blood, the same color coming from his mouth as he began coughing. The other man removed his weapon from his body and ran off, using the same rifle against another blue-dressed man. The grey one, the one my dream focused on, fell onto his side, his body wracked with coughs of blood. He died quickly, my dream bringing me down so that I was looking right into his eyes as the light faded from them.

That couldn't happen. As the vision turned black, bringing me back into myself and slowly waking me up, I knew for certain that the young man in grey had to live. I knew nothing of why, but he had to live. I still had over one hundred and fifty years before that event would take place, but he had to live, and someone thought it important that I knew about his death long before it happened.

I opened my eyes and stretched, my back cracking loudly as I straightened from my sitting position. I had only gotten a few hours' worth of sleep, but after what I had seen, I would not be falling asleep again until I had to. I hated when my visions came to me in dreams because whenever I fell back asleep after I had a dream vision, the vision replayed itself until it woke me up again. Breakfast needed to be made, though, and I had to check on the progress the young boy's burn had made throughout the night. Peeking into the future, I could see him waking up briefly within the hour, just long enough for me to get him to eat a simple broth to keep his body at least slightly nourished as he fought the effects of the curse.

Deciding to start the broth so that it was ready, I stood and made my way into the kitchen, automatically grabbing everything I needed and throwing it in a small pan to warm. I also boiled some of my healing herbs, knowing that the broth would take the nutrients from them. I started a fresh egg for myself in another pan, frying both sides and slipping it onto a plate. I finished it just as I heard the boy's breathing pick up as he started to awaken. He hadn't made any sounds of pain for quite some time, so I quickly walked in so that I could keep him from moving when he did wake up, setting a bowl with the broth on the bedside table. He moaned softly as I grabbed a chair, not wanting to frighten him if he saw me standing over him. His brown eyes fluttered open and widened as he noticed me, but recognition quickly replaced his shock.

"You," he mumbled, his mind obviously trying to give him a name and place. He knew me, that much he was able to figure out, but he had not yet realized from where.

"Give yourself a minute to recover, and you will figure it out," I explained with a soft smile. "Do not push yourself too hard just yet. You have been through much in the past hours." His confusion increased.

"What . . . The fight," he whispered, talking apparently aggravating his wound from the movement of his chest. Taking breaths in order to talk must have been causing him to stretch the skin.

"Keep going," I encouraged with another smile. "You are getting there." He looked up at the ceiling, and I thanked the Heavens that Hermes had seen fit to make himself scarce until later when the boy was slightly more oriented. Seeing a flaming bird after waking up in a strange house with a Nephilim-who-isn't-a-Nephilim who he did not remember after an injury he received while fighting a coven of angry, curse-throwing black witches would have been a little too much at once.

"You found me," he realized with a gasp. "You were there . . . in the field . . . and used . . . a healing rune-"

"Yes," I said, stopping him from talking too much. His voice was filling with increasing pain as he continued to talk. "I found you after the battle. I had to leave so the men who followed would not find me out there and ask questions," I explained. He closed his eyes and took a slow, shuddering breath.

"Is all of that true?" he asked, and I tilted my head slightly.

"All of what?" I responded, and he turned his head slowly to look at me.

"Everything you told me . . . where you've been . . . what you've seen . . . all of it," he explained, and I gave him a small smile.

"Yes, everything I said was true. I am two hundred years old . . . this year, actually," I said, not realizing how fast the number had crept up on me. He huffed a laugh when he realized what had caused my hesitation.

"The years have blurred, have they?" he asked, and I gave a small laugh in response.

"That they do. Things have been changing, but people have not," I answered with a shake of my head.

"I can understand that. No one likes change," he said, closing his eyes again. Listening to this young boy talk made me realize how much he sounded like an adult, like he had already been through Hell and back in so few years as he had been alive, and that was a shame. His life to this point should have been fun and exciting, not grueling and cruel.

"McCarthy," he said, bringing me out of my thoughts. "Alexander McCarthy." He flipped the hand closest to me so that his palm was facing up and I took it in one of mine, shaking it once.

"Isabella Swan," I responded, not bothering with my false identity. He was Nephilim, so it was okay if he knew. He smiled again, a little less pain in his face.

"Oh, I remember your name, but it is nice to officially meet you, Miss Swan." I clasped my other hand around his and shook my head once.

"None of that 'Miss Swan' stuff now. My only rule here is that you call me Bella," I chided and he laughed, but he had to stop as tremors of pain wracked his body from the sudden movement. I kept one of my hands in his and used the other to hold down his opposite shoulder so he did not move too much. His body stilled not long after, but he was breathing shallowly from pain.

"Do you want another rune?" I asked, and he nodded roughly. I grabbed my stele from my skirts—where it never left—and quickly drew the rune on the opposite side of his torso as the burn. It only took seconds for his breathing to return to normal, and the small cut on his forehead sealed shut. It was pink with newly healed skin, but it would eventually disappear.

"This is not helping you heal, but it seems to be taking away the pain," I explained, looking at the still rough edges of the burn and the rather large blisters in the center. "I made a broth for you with some herbs to help with the pain. I do not want to give you any solid food right after an injury like this, but the next time you wake up, I'll try giving you some bread." He just nodded and sighed softly, trying not to inhale too deeply. "Do you want to try some now, or would you rather wait?"

"Now is fine. I do not think I am going to miraculously improve any time soon," he answered, sounding defeated.

"You will," I said softly. "It is going to take more time than usual, but you will."

Feeding him the broth was a project, but I managed to not make a complete mess of him. I could see the pain slipping away as he finished what I made, and his eyes started drooping with exhaustion.

"I have a son," Alex whispered. "Alexander McCarthy Junior. He and his mother are at the Nephilim school in Pennsylvania. I was asked to come here. I had to leave them behind. I missed his birth to came here to battle the witches. He should have been born just as I arrived not five days ago."

"Why did they ask you to come here?" I asked, confused as to why they would ask him. I did not question his status as a father so early in his life. This was a common occurrence, even though I did not completely agree with it. I had given birth to Mary at eighteen, after all.

"I had fought and killed a black witch back home. They thought that, with a group of Nephilim who had fought black witches, we would have no problem defeating them," he explained, his eyes drifting closed. "We were outnumbered and ambushed. We knew they would be there, but not that many or in that exact location. We thought they would be further in. They attacked as soon as our first line cleared the trees separating our groups." I could only shake my head in disgust. They had greatly underestimated their enemies, and it cost all but one of them their lives.

"Sleep now, Alexander," I said, watching as his body relaxed completely. "We can speak more later." He grumbled something before slipping into a deep sleep.

Quick A/N: I'm going on vacation for the next two weeks, but I have the next chapter half way done already. Hopefully I will still be able to update next Friday, but I will not have internet the Friday afterward. After that, though, I will be back to my regular updating schedule.

~Angels of Twilight