"That's it. Inhale and release." Following Eve's instructions, I inhaled and exhaled on her command, practicing the breathing technique for when I was due to give birth with Hayley sitting worriedly next to me.
"Relax Hayles, I'm not in labour yet." I joked with her as I then exhaled deeply, rubbing my face tiredly as I then looked at Eve, one of the Crescent pack members who was going to help me deliver the baby out here. "Are you sure it's a good idea to deliver a baby out here in the middle of a swamp? I mean, hospitals are also a pretty good place to go, especially considering they've got all kinds of drugs to knock down the pain a few pegs, right?"
"Honey, the werewolves have been having babies out here since before you were born. Stop worrying." Somehow, that didn't really bolster me all that much, but since Hayley felt it would be safer to give birth whilst surrounded around her pack, I wanted to respect her wishes. This was her baby, after all.
"Then what, Eve? I mean, after Lia goes through the delivery, it's all then up to me. I don't even know what it's like to have a mother, let alone be one." Hayley said with concern, clearly getting the jitters since it was getting close to the due date but Eve merely smiled sweetly and encouraged her gently.
"Trust me, when the time comes, you'll know exactly what to do."
"I hope so. As fun as it is to image Klaus changing dirty diapers, I'm pretty sure that I'll be doing this alone." Imagining Klaus with dirty diapers was just…wrong. On so many levels.
"I somehow doubt that." Just as I promised to kick Nik's ass if he doesn't step up and do his fair share of parent duties, Elijah arrived and stood at the doorway where he politely spoke up, though his politeness was a mere mask for the reason he had come.
"Pardon the interruption. I wonder if I might have a quick word with the conspirators of a supposed uprising." Well, this ought to be good. Hayley and I shared a glance before with a sigh, I pulled down my shirt and rocked myself to my feet in order to get up, going with Hayley and Eve to follow Elijah who had already drawn the attention of Jackson and Oliver, whereby Elijah got straight to the point. "You're making a grave mistake."
"So, you're just worried about us. Is that it?" Oliver demanded sharply, standing in an aggressive stance which showed he did not trust Elijah one little bit.
"Look, Elijah. We know all about your brother's reputation, but if there is even a chance that these rings can help us take control of our curse…" Interrupted by Oliver to correct Jackson by saying that theirs was a gift, not a curse, Jackson pointedly ignored him. "Then, honestly, we don't care what he's really after. Won't have to."
"I see. There are those in the Quarter who will consider this a great provocation."
"Apparently, most of them see us breathing the same way." Turning away from Jackson and Oliver, who were still on board with siding with Nik in order to get what they wanted, Elijah instead turned to Hayley, perhaps hoping to make her see reason.
"You signed a pledge, and you looked me in the eye as you did so."
"We don't want a fight, Elijah. We just want a better life."
"Allegiance with my brother will guarantee you anything but that."
"It's not what it looks like Eli. All these wolves want is to not have to lose control over themselves every month. If anything, this will benefit the other factions massively. There will be no more accidental wolf attacks, the pack can move back into the city without having to chain themselves up every full moon, and they'll be able to combat their image of being mindless beast on the full moon. No offence." I added quickly to Jackson and the others, who waved it off without being insulted. "Besides, I'm more than happy to make the moonlight rings, but unless I have the means to craft them, I won't know how. I can make daylight rings, but the moonlight rings require special elements that will take me time to figure out. Possibly months. In the meantime, if they can just look like they're going along with Nik, they can keep myself and you in the loop of what he's planning." I continued to reason, folding my arms across my chest. "Besides, I believe that Nik really is doing this in order to provide a safe place for the baby. She'll be born out here as part of the pack. If these wolves can control when and where they shift, they can protect her from anyone who would want to hurt her."
My sound reasoning and logic had Elijah second guessing himself, which was exactly what I wanted. I guess druids really did have a knack for giving wise advice, I totally rocked at this. Before I could continue to make my argument in support of following along with Nik for the time being, the sound of a throaty engine caught our attention and soon enough, a guy on a motorbike came into view and stopped within the encampment as we approached him, confused as to what someone was doing all the way out here. "Which one of you is in charge?"
"Who's asking?" The next part happened so fast that I didn't even remember hitting the ground. One second I was on my feet, and the next I was on my back with my eyesight turning white with my ears ringing painfully as they burned. I lay there, stunned and gaping for a moment as I struggled to breathe until a shadow loomed over me and I found it was Jackson and Hayley, their shadows having merged until my eyesight came back. I couldn't hear them, my ears ringing too loudly from what transpired to be an explosion of the motorbike.
"I'm fine." I shouted loudly but I could only hear a dull drone of my own voice as I tried to shake off the shock. "I have protective spells around the baby, the blast and the fall wouldn't have hurt her." Hayley visibly exhaled with relief as I started to look around, the emptiness of sound making everything all the more horrific to view as bodies lay everywhere from the blast. I quickly cast out my magic, patches of herbs and flowers growing everywhere around me as I dropped to my knees to yank them out of the ground in order to begin rubbing certain ingredients together, seeing that several of the wolves were suffering from wolfsbane burns. I began the treatments, healing the more severe wounds despite the fact that werewolves healed on their own, the regeneration process was too slow for this degree of injury.
Elijah briefly stopped by me and although I could now only hear out of one ear, I promised him that both me and the baby were alright as I finished healing one person then moved onto another, ordering the injured to be gathered together so that I could heal them together. I pulled my hair back and tied it up to keep it out of my face, switching into full focus mode as more and more injured were brought to me. One of them had been impaled by a tree branch, so I worked on removing the smaller splinters of wood and bark before closing the wound, chanting away as flowers and herbs continued to grow under the injured, withering away as I channelled their healing properties into the injured whilst Ollie flung a trashcan out of anger.
"Vampires. They don't even have the guts to do their own dirty work themselves. I mean, why bother when you can just compel some poor son-of-a-bitch to do it for you? I say we hit them back! Hard."
"Stay here, Oliver. I need you to look after everyone until I get back." Hayley was swift to take charge and force Oliver to submit to her, shoving him against the shack as she growled.
"Where the hell are you going?"
"If this was vampires, I'm pretty sure that I can guess who gave the order. I'm gonna go find Marcel." I wanted to tell her to stop for a minute and think but after snapping a branch to make a stake, she was already gone. My attention had to remain with the injured, focusing on the most severe injuries and burns first as they risked fatalities the most, and thankfully so far, none had succumbed to wounds due to my fast treatment. The shock of what had actually happened was yet to sink in due to the fact that I was so focused on my task, however when the second bout of explosions suddenly erupted, this time I was standing right next to one. Despite having disconnected myself from my visions, one pushed its way through to the surface with enough forewarning to allow me time to thrust out my hands to create a barrier which, when the fire exploded outwards, slammed against the shield with only a couple of feet between me and the blast.
There were eight explosions in total, and once the one I was holding back died out, I collapsed to my knees and had to gasp for air whilst holding a hand out on the ground to support myself. I was shaking all over, and Elijah was already there with me as he grasped hold of me. "Ophelia, are you hurt? Tell me if you are injured."
"I'm not…I'm not…" That was when I became aware of the fact that this time, everyone had been caught somehow, with all the more injuries to be had. By holding back the blast of the one closest to me, I had also protected the severely wounded so at the very least, they were okay. Jackson was in a rage, but still managed to maintain his composure as he ordered his guys to search out any more explosives as well as begin digging out anyone who was trapped, so I hastened to get up and help. Elijah tried to hold me back, but I couldn't just stand there and do nothing so, with a moment to gather my wits, I allowed my magic to flow through me. It was like a warm current, comforting me and settling my fractured nerves as I then pushed the magic beyond the boundary of my body, feeling it rise up through my feet from the earth.
All at the same time, the debris of the shelters and shacks began to rise as I held my palms upwards, an energy field beginning to generate itself around me as fresh grass began to grow under my feet and spiral outwards, forming a Celtic knot around me as flowers then grew also. I released healing waves through the air, healing the minor injuries in a heartbeat and stabilising those that we were losing, and as my magic took action, everyone stared at me in awe and wonder as I then held the debris for the injured to be pulled out. Once that was done, I focused on healing everyone I could get a hold of, rushing from one shout to another and when Ollie yelled for my help, I quickly came to his side to find Eve bleeding profusely and still trapped under an RV. "Okay. Hold on. Hold on, Eve." Before I could use magic to lift the RV, Elijah was beside us and raised it without any issue, allowing Ollie and I to pull Eve free.
"Okay Eve, time to pay you back for all those breathing exercises you've been forcing on me. I need you to breathe nice and slow, inhale and release, just like you taught me." I said to her, gripping her hand and hovering a hand over her injury to analyse it, using magic to figure out exactly what had been hurt and found a great deal of internal damage. "Tables sure have turned, huh? Come on, breathe with me, inhale and release. Ollie, you do it with her. If she doesn't calm down, her body will go into shock." Making Ollie take over the breathing part, I focused on the healing. The herbs I needed grew as I needed them, letting me pull them from the earth and chew them up in my mouth since I didn't have time to grind them into pastes as I needed. It was gross, but it would have to do. Some of the herbs were to treat infections whilst the others helped deal with the shock, and as I poured my magic into Eve to help fix the damage, she gradually calmed down enough to speak.
"Never thought you'd be turning those breathing exercises on me honey."
"Well, I couldn't very well miss the opportunity could I? You'll be fine Eve. I'll have you patched up and good as new in no time." Giving her hand a squeeze, I continued my treatment until she was stable enough to be moved to the shack with the others, allowing me to move on to the next critical patient.
"You must moderate yourself, Lia, do not push yourself too hard."
"Eli, there is no way I'm doing nothing when there's so many people injured like this." I said to him as Ollie yelled at Jackson that they should be hitting back against whoever had done this. "Don't worry about me, I have plenty enough strength for this kind of thing. Just try and stop me." Knowing better than to get in my way once I had made my mind up about something, I continued my work until the very last person had been healed and all that remained were minor scrapes and bruises. The children I healed up completely but the adults insisted that I conserved energy, walking away with only minor injuries to make sure that I didn't push myself too far, and once I was done I seriously needed to sit.
Eve, now back on her feet, brought me something cold and refreshing to drink and placed a wet towel over my head to cool me off as I breathed deeply, resting for a moment in order to recover from using my magic so suddenly and quickly. "Our pack owes you Lia. There would have been many more deaths if weren't for you."
"You don't owe me anything Eve. It's the sworn duty of a druid to heal those who are sick and injured." We left it at that, but now that I had a moment to think, the daunting feeling of dread now settled in from what had happened. I sat there for many hours just staring into space, even after the sky had grown dark and Oliver began to rouse up the rest of the pack in a bid for blood, and I had to wonder who could have orchestrated this. Someone who wanted war, clearly, and I believed that neither Nik nor Marcel had anything to do with it. The witches, if they were going to strike at someone, would choose to strike at the vampires due to their longstanding hatred of one another, which left only one other faction. The humans. I did not know whether or not to believe that they could do this, or what their reasons might be, and truth be told I didn't want to know.
Ever since I had come to New Orleans I had been mixed up in one battle after another, all for land which no one could truly own. Perhaps I should put up a banishing boundary and just make everyone leave so I could have some peace and quiet. It would be a lot simpler, for sure. However, I didn't have the energy or willpower for that kind of magic, and in truth, all I wanted was to go home. I was glad when Elijah, who had been waiting for Hayley to come back, finally took me by the hand in order to lift me to my feet before picking me up and carrying me to his car. He took me home to the compound where Nik was waiting for us, and when he came to the car door and opened it, I finally drew myself out of my deep trance to look at him.
Without a word I drew myself towards him, wanting his closeness and his embrace more than anything else in the world, and together we just stood there for a long while, Elijah leaving to give us privacy. Nik never once berated me for putting myself and his daughter in danger, merely stood and held me in silent relief to have us back safe and sound, which I appreciated more than words could say. I was yet to learn about Father Kieran's death, whose hex had overcome the amulets I had given him to drive him towards madness until the very end, where Nik had turned him in a vampire so that he could at least say goodbye to Cami with sanity before it had taken hold of him again and Nik had been forced to kill him himself. All in all…today really sucked.