Caleb's initial plan of waiting until the aging problem solved itself didn't work out so well.
His originally diseased left hand had not only stayed diseased but the age had worked its way all the way until it reached his shoulder and weakened the articulations in his entire left torso. His right hand had stopped throbbing but now the pain had moved to his elbow, where the skin was already beginning to wrinkle and age.
He realized that waiting was just going to make this worse, so he skipped the rest of the school day to go look up some information about the covenant's aging. He drove all the way to their secret basement meeting place and rummaged through all the old books that laid unopened and dusty on the shelves. After an hour he had found three books, all of them with a small amount of information he could use.
He then sat back in his car, and began to read.
The first book was entitled the history of the covenant, Ipswitch.
It told of tales of brave men that used to save others from deadly accidents and traps and that were then cursed with a body many decades older than their spirits.
No new information there.
The second, Using, was a simple explanation of the extent of the powers and the consequences. An entire chapter was dedicated to the aging process, detailing the way in which the aging begins to what kinds of using caused the most or least damage.
The third and final book, The Salem Witch Trials, an Illustrated History, was the most useless, simply telling that some of the alleged witches were accused because they looked a lot older than their age suggested.
Discouraged, Caleb sought help with the only other person he could think of that knew anything about Using and aging.
"Hello Gorman." He said quietly upon entering his ancestors' house.
"Hello Caleb." The old man replied, not looking up from the novel he was reading. "What can I do for you? You seem stressed."
"I'd like to ask you some questions." To this Gorman raised his head to look at the eighteen year old.
"I'll answer if I can." He said, putting a bookmark in his book and placing it on the table beside the armchair he was sitting in.
"What causes the aging that afflicted dad?"
"Using." Gorman raised an eyebrow. "I thought you knew this already."
"I do. I'd just like to know more specific causes."
Gorman leaned back in his chair and linked his two hands together.
"Well nowadays the reasons you have to use are quite rare. The good reasons, I mean, like saving a life or punishing a criminal. But you four are a lot more irresponsible, and the sons of Ipswitch grow more and more irresponsible with their powers as time passes by."
Caleb thought bitterly of Tyler and Fae Renfield.
"Do you mean that centuries ago people used more?"
"Oh yes. The covenant members brought it upon themselves that they should be the justice-makers. They would save the lives of the innocents that were ill, and curse the criminals that the true justice system could not punish. Most of the time they became doctors of judges, so they could manoeuvre the system more easily."
"So they aged more quickly?"
Gorman nodded.
"Yes, most of the time. Especially since curses never stopped sucking power out of you until the cursed asks for forgiveness and is granted freedom. And then the proud ones would die cursed, and it would be transmitted to a child."
"Just one?"
"Yes, just like the power, only the eldest child had a chance to be cursed, and even then it was a very small chance. A curse is like a receding gene, sometimes it appears and sometimes it doesn't, but the gene is still within the person."
"What about saving someone's life. Does that take a lot of power?"
"Not saving a life by preventing an action, like stopping a car. But stopping and destroying the murderous virus inside a body takes a lot of power yes. But not as much as killing."
"Killing?" Caleb became instantly more nervous.
"Yes. Don't worry, Chase Collins' death wasn't the kind of death that would age you by much, although the battle was quite intense, from what I've heard."
"Alright. Thanks."
"Caleb. You should not begin to age for at least twenty years, if you keep your using habits the way they were when you were younger. You shouldn't have to worry about it just yet."
"Thanks Gorman."