Chapter 7

The Prince opened his eyes. He controlled his breathing, sharpened all his senses and focused on his surroundings. Darkness. The left side of his head pulsed in pain. He clenched his teeth and slowly exhaled. Only when he wanted to touch that area with his hand did he realize his current situation. He couldn't move. He tried with all his strength to free himself in vain. As he pulled his limbs, he felt the tightness of metal buckles against his skin. All his body was restrained of movement. His breathing sped up. Total silence. A sterile stench reigned in the air. He didn't know where he was nor who had caught him. His last memory was having held Loreto Clair in his arms. The announcement he had heard was true. She was sick. Seriously sick. He felt it as soon as he had approached her and perceived her energy. She was slowly dying. Now he remembered the impact against his head. They had hit him intending to knock him unconscious. He tried to analyze the situation with ease. Darkness was his ally. Thousands of years living underground had developed the elves' vision, turning their pupils in reflectors of the scarce light available. He studied again his surroundings with his eyes, for his head was also retrained of movement. He couldn't spot any form of furniture around.

The light halo was sudden. A lightening shorter than a second of time. It hit his skin and retinas like a live fire flame. He let out a scream in pain. He struggled, unable to protect himself. Once again the halo returned, this time for three seconds. They were three centuries of agony. The exposed skin of his torso, arms and face burned like being skinned alive. He clenched his eyes with all his strength, yet the light filtered through, burning his pupils. The guttural scream ached in his throat, tears of pain watered his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He was standing yet trapped to a sort of structure at his back. Darkness returned. The Prince panted, exhausted. All his body pulsed and burned in pain as also his eyes did.

"Your Highness, I am agent Johann Krauss. We need to know the location of the incomplete crown of Bethmoora. Will you cooperate with us?"

The voice sounded metallic from above and with a strong German accent. Nuada breathed heavily as the rage nested in his chest and tensed every single one of his muscles.

"Never," he whispered between his teeth.

The light returned. His own torn shout deafened him. The stabs were like a million needles stinging in his organs. His brain dilated inside his head and pressed against his skull. Each organ in his body boiled about to explode.

"Stop! You're hurting the Princess!"

Another male voice screamed from above. The light stopped. Nuada panted, fatigued. He fought against the agony and tried to focus. The Princess. Nuala. He was then in the hands of the agents with whom she had left. She was to blame for him having been caught. She had helped them. Rage consumed his heart, burned by light. There was only one thing in such disadvantageous panorama that made him crack a smirk of satisfaction. Without attempting it he was inside the facility where Nuala along with the last piece of the crown and the map to the Golden Army also were. First, he'd need to escape this torture chamber and recover his strength. He acknowledged then that, were he not chained to the structure at his back, he would have already collapsed to the floor. Silence came back along with total darkness. His skin still burned. They had undressed him from his coat. Where were his sword and lance? They'd pay for this. Something made little sense. What were those agents doing in the theater where Loreto Clair performed? And what had happened with her after he fell unconscious? The realization dried his mouth and made him slowly exhale in a supernatural effort to not be ruled by wrath. Nuala was not the one who helped them capture him, but Loreto Clair.

Red opened his way through the agents with the unconscious singer in his arms. The truck was waiting for them in front of the theater's side door. Nuada had already been restrained and taken to the agency. What they weren't counting on was that the singer would take the order of passing out literally. As soon as they all entered the vehicle, the engine roared at full speed and dodged the traffic until reaching the private heliport. They jumped in the helicopter with their destination to the agency headquarters. Loreto Clair was still unconscious. Red, Liz, and Abe exchanged concerned looks. And what if they intervened too late and Nuada had hurt her? Abe took off the black leather glove from his right hand and opened his fingers until exposing his webfeet. He neared it to the singer and like a radar he levitated his hand above her body, beginning at her head. When he reached her abdomen he stopped. He faced his partners.

"What does she have, Abe?!," Liz urged.

Abe raised the singer's T-shirt and stuck his hand on her stomach. Then he took off the glove of his left hand and with both palms he examined all her core. He swallowed hard.

"I'm afraid miss Clair has a malignant tumor in her stomach."

As soon as the helicopter touched firm soil, Liz, Abe and Red carrying the singer in his arms ran inside the agency. Manning saw them puzzled as they passed by. Liz shouted the order to prepare the medical department for they had an emergency. After shortening the road through the labyrinthine aisles, they arrived at last to the surgery and medical area. The agency counted with some of the best doctors and scientists in the country and world under a strict confidentiality contract to treat agents in case of wounds caused during field missions as also to tend to them in case of sickness. Red left Loreto Clair on the surgery bed and, frowned, took two steps backwards. Liz took his stone hand and without words invited him to wait outside. Abe hastened to update the doctors. In a matter of seconds all the medical staff prepared the patient, injected infusion through an intravenous catheter at the back of her right hand and applied local and general anesthesia.

After six hours of intervention through laparoscopy, the team of surgeons and Abe extirpated the tumor. It was malignant, just as Abe had read. The agency's medical doctors had complete trust in the readings of Agent Sapien. In over four decades working side by side with him, his extrasensory and psychic skill was a hundred percent precise in all kinds of changes in human bodies as also in that of other species. The agent took off his gloves and mask and went out of the surgery room. Immediately Liz and Red interrogated him.

"We removed it," he said in a low voice, exhausted, "which doesn't mean metastasis may not occur. Let's hope not. We induced Miss Clair into a coma for her recovery."

Red gave him a tap on the shoulder and congratulated him.

"It seemed to me her look was not at all healthy," Liz commented like thinking out loud. "When Manning and I went to the theater to talk to her. Her extreme thinness and her exhausted demeanor alarmed me, but I thought it was because of the typical rock star lifestyle."

"Jazz, Liz, Loreto Clair sings the sweet Jazz," Red said and hugged her by the shoulders.

The three walked towards the library. In one aisle Manning found them and interrogated them about what had been the chaos of a few hours ago and what had happened with Miss Clair. Abe explained everything. The agency's director was shocked when he learned they had accidentally helped the singer to get rid of a stomach cancer. He lamented the young age of Loreto Clair and damned the disease which day by day claims millions of victims worldwide.

"How old do you think she is, Manning?," Red mocked. "Cosmetics do wonders," he joked.

Everyone stood still. Princess Nuala was tumbled down against one of the many closed doors of the aisle. Abe ran to aid her. He took her in his arms. She shook. She screamed in pain at the slightest touch and retreated against the opposite wall like a prey. Red knocked the door over with his stone hand. Inside, they found Krauss before a double mirror and at the other side, Nuada chained from head to toes screaming in pain. Liz, Manning and Abe joined Red and faced the German agent. He was exposing the Prince to ultraviolet light. Abe, who differed from Red never letting himself be ruled by rage, slapped Krauss's hand away from the bottom. The cabin where the Prince was held captive returned to darkness.

"Stop! You're hurting the Princess!," he screamed, enraged.

Krauss exhaled through his mechanical gills.

"New orders from Washington," he said undisturbed. "We must get the crown of Bethmoora and neutralize once and for all the Elven threat."