Ghost Slayers

Chapter Thirty-two

By Relm

Pain. It was an interesting feeling. It was one we were all familiar with. Pain came in many forms. Some physical some mental or emotional. When you die it wasn't something you were supposed to feel ever again. Death was an escape from pain. But what happens when you are in-between?

Zelgadis didn't remember how he got to where he was standing. One moment he was half in the wall the next he was standing between the robber and Lina. Blood was rapidly exiting his body and the pain; oh the pain was so unbearable.

Every part of Zelgadis wanted to let go. The pain was too much. He couldn't remember ever feeling pain like that in his life. But then again had he ever been shot before? Not that Zelgadis could remember or want to remember at that moment.

Somewhere in the back of Zelgadis' mind he knew he had to hold on. If he let go the bullet would pass through his body and hit Lina.

The bank robber just stood there dumbfounded. He hadn't been in the bank when Zelgadis first appeared so it was quite frightening to see a ghost just appear and bleed before him. The other two robbers were stunned too as was everyone else in the bank. They all just stared at Zelgadis unsure of what was going on.

The only sounds in that quiet bank were the sounds of dripping blood and heavy scared breathing.

Zelgadis looked up the robber and glared at him. He didn't say a word to the man; Zelgadis just grabbed the gun from him and threw it across the room. "LEAVE!" He painfully growled.

Within seconds anyone in the bank was crawling over each other hysterically trying to get out. The only people who weren't running in fear were Lina and Zelgadis.

"Zel!" Lina went to his side right before he collapsed. In reality she shouldn't be able to touch Zelgadis let alone hold him. But the librarian was flickering between solid and transparent but the blood was very real.

Knowing that Lina was safe Zelgadis tried to let go. But as he soon realized he was beyond the point of doing that. The bullet was stuck and not going to come out. "Lina... help... me..." Zelgadis gasped feeling all his energy leaving him.

"Just hang on there Zel! Don't die!" Lina pleaded with Zelgadis as she lifted him up and dragged him with her.

When dealing with a person suffering from a gunshot wound the best course of action was to put pressure on the wound and call 911. But what do you do when the person in question has been living like a ghost for the past few months? No Lina was on her own.

It was hard pushing past the doors dragging a man that was both bigger and heavier than she was but Lina managed. Some of the people from the bank were gathered around outside looking confused. They were in Lina's way.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Lina screamed at the top of her lungs.

The crowd complied letting Lina through to the car.

Inside the bank the both the pool of blood and the trail leading to the door disappeared.

...

Back at Ghost Slayers Filia was trying to read a magazine while Xellos was staring at her. Just like when Xellos was 'alive' he disliked being ignored. So Filia was trying her best to ignore the purple haired 'ghost'. However you could tell even though Xellos was merely staring at her that Filia was being bothered. The speed from which she turned the pages seemed unnatural for a normal reading speed.

Xellos was amused by this, all he needed to do was stare and he had his Filia bothered. His Filia. 'Interesting that I would take ownership of this woman.' Xellos mentally mused to himself. His memories were foggy at best so he couldn't remember why he was so attached to his Filia so much. It mattered little to him.

Filia was just about to say or throw another thing at Xellos when he phone rang. Happy for a real reason to ignore Xellos – Filia happily answered her phone not even bothering to see who it was on the caller id. "Hello?" She pleasantly greeted the person on the line.

Of course that person on the line was anything but pleasant. "Filia! We have a problem!"

Filia frowned. It was Lina though there was something strange in her tone. "Lina? What's wrong? You sound weird... am I on speaker phone?"

"Yes! I'm on my way back right now! It's Zelgadis! It's bad, real bad!"

Filia's eyes were open very wide from the panic evident in Lina's voice. Lina wasn't the type to crash under pressure so to hear her so stressed was alarming. "Lina what's wrong? What happened to Zelgadis?"

"There was robbers... One of them tried to shoot me... oh the blood, too much blood!"

"Lina you were shot!"

"No! Zel got in the way! Filia he's bleeding badly!"

"What? Zelgadis got shot...? How...? How is that possible?" Filia almost wasn't sure she believed what Lina was saying.

"He's not a ghost Filia!" Lina reminded her. "He must have willed the bullet to not go through him."

"What should I do?"

"Get ready. We'll be there soon."

"Lina I'm not a doctor!" Filia protested.

"You're the best thing we've got." Lina didn't wait for a response she just hung up the phone.

Filia looked around in a panic not sure what things she could do to prepare. What tools did she need? Where should she set up? Could she even do this?

Xellos may be the sort of person to pester someone for fun but even he knew when he shouldn't. Something bad was going on and for once in his life Xellos got out of the way.

...

Lina kept darting her eyes back and forth between the road and Zelgadis. She had put the ghostly librarian in the front seat. Zelgadis was slouched over in his seat and breathing very heavily. It was quite disturbing to see your passenger bleeding while you were trying to drive. It put Lina on edge and made her drive rather erratically. She was speeding and weaving around the traffic in an effort to get back to Ghost Slayers HQ faster. Had there been a cop car patrolling the area they would have surely pulled Lina over for her chaotic driving. Luckily for Lina she didn't have to contend with the police.

It felt like it was taking forever to get back to Ghost Slayers HQ but in reality Lina got back into the parking lot relatively fast. As she parked the car Filia came running down the stairs with Slimer and Xellos following.

"Lina!" Filia called out huffing and puffing. "I brought everything I could think off!"

"Okay get over here!" Lina barked as she opened the passenger door and pulled Zelgadis out of the car and laid him down on the ground.

Filia almost gagged from the sight of all the blood. Everything was covered in it! Even Lina! It was hard to see where the actual wound was. It would have been so easy to freak out and just be flakey all together but Filia couldn't do that. Zelgadis was counting on her. She got down next to him and put down everything she brought. Basically Filia had completely emptied out their medical supply cabinet. At the time it seemed like enough, but now Filia wasn't so sure. "Where was he shot?"

"I think it was his stomach." Lina responded not even sure if that was right. He was standing in front of her when he got shot. It happened so fast that Lina wasn't even sure what was going on. She had been expecting to be dead, not having to deal with a bleeding Zelgadis. She laid Zelgadis' head on her lap while she held his hands.

Slimer looked positively terrified at the sight of Zelgadis covered in blood. He hadn't spent too much time with Zelgadis but Slimer had already gotten a strong attachment to the transparent librarian. So seeing one of his 'friends' on the verge of death was quite upsetting. He kept flying around in circles high above the bloody scene.

Xellos on the other hand seemed more interested than disgusted or horrified. Zelgadis was just like he was after all, a ghost but not at the same time. Seeing Zelgadis bleeding just further confirmed that he wasn't actually dead. How could something already dead be bleeding to death? Only living things can bleed to death. It was in some strange way encouraging to the purple haired professor. So he watched with keen interest.

Filia's hands shook as she donned a pair of latex gloves and opened up Zelgadis' blood soaked shirt. Even with the 'flesh' exposed it was still hard to make sense of the wound. Using some rubbing alcohol Filia cleaned the area.

Zelgadis hissed from the contact with the solution on the wound.

"Zelgadis I'm sorry. I don't have anything to give you for the pain." Filia apologized while beads of sweat formed on her brow.

"Just... do... it..." Zelgadis chocked while gritting his teeth.

Filia was about to reach into the wound with a pair of tweezers when she hesitated. Years of watching medical shows popped into Filia's head that moment making her wonder if this was the best course of action.

"Filia what are you waiting for? Just do it!" Lina ordered her almost hysterically.

"I don't know if I should! Sometimes removing the object does more harm than good!" Filia exclaimed. "I'm not a surgeon I could kill him!"

"We can't take him to a hospital and waiting will kill him!" Lina almost screamed at her. She was very close to grabbing the tweezers and doing it herself.

"Okay okay! Zelgadis get ready this is going to hurt." Filia warned him.

Zelgadis gritted his teeth as he tried not to scream. He was thankful that he had Lina holding his hands, as he was squeezing the life out of them.

Filia was almost going in blindly as she tried to find the bullet. Eventually the tweezers brushed against something solid. Was the bullet? Or was it bone? Filia didn't have time to debate she just went for it. The first few tries had Filia thinking it wasn't the bullet but a bone as it didn't seem to want to budge. But she tried one more time the object relented. Gingerly Filia pulled out the foreign object; the bullet.

Once the bullet was out of Zelgadis he let out a huge sigh of relief right before he passed out.

"Zel?" Lina shook the librarian but she got no response. "Is he...?"

Zelgadis who had been flashing back and forth between being solid and not did one lost flash before going back to his 'normal' transparent self.

"He's still breathing." Filia observed noting the rising and falling of Zelgadis' chest. Amazingly that wasn't even the strangest thing that happened. All of the blood that had been all over the floor, car, Lina and Zelgadis started to disappear. What had once seemed so red and real was nothing more than an afterthought. It looked like it hadn't even been there at all.

"What the hell...?" Lina commented confused by what was happening.

And just when things didn't seem like they could get any weirder the open wound on Zelgadis' stomach started to close in on itself. Within seconds Zelgadis' stomach was back to being the unmarked washboard abs they had been.

"That's... odd..." Filia mumbled.

"Strange indeed." Xellos concurred as he went to poke Zelgadis stomach where the wound had been.

"Don't poke him you piece of garbage!" Filia tried to swat Xellos' hand away forgetting that she couldn't even touch him. "You know this is your fault!" She growled at him. "Zelgadis could have died because of your stupid prank!"

"Well if Zel hadn't gotten between me and the robber I would have gotten shot instead." Lina admitted.

"But Zelgadis showing up at the bank slowed things right? You would have been out of the bank already before the robbers showed up!" Filia rationalized.

Slimer even though he wasn't really paying attention to what the conversation was about was nodding along in agreement. Had Filia not been so focused on the conversation she would have yelled at Slimer. But as it was Slimer's antics went unnoticed.

"So what are you suggesting? We get one of our guns and shoot him so you can beat him up?" Lina raised her eyebrow at her employee.

"I think Zelgadis should beat him up when he wakes up." Filia suggested with an evil smile.

"Assuming he wakes up." Lina sighed worriedly. Yes Zelgadis did seem 'normal' his breathing was still laboured and he seemed paler than usual.

"I'm sure he'll be fine." Filia tried to assure her employer. Truthfully Filia didn't know if that was true or not. Zelgadis' non-physical condition was perplexing on a normal day. There was no telling what the long term effects of this recent situation.

Lina was sure Filia was right but she couldn't help but worry. Zelgadis saved her life almost killing himself in the process. 'Well at least he should stop being so mopey about that poltergeist using his body to almost kill me yesterday. If he keeps going on about that I'll shoot him myself.' Lina decided.