Amy sat numb, crying and sobbing on the floor. She couldn't bring herself to look up at where Gabe had been standing just moments ago. Rubbing her uninjured hand across her face she tried her best to dry off her tears. Jazz and Lance hadn't said anything to her; they may have been in just as much shock as she was by everything that had just happened.
There was a part of her that was still curious about who that lady was, where Gabe was, and what they were gonna do with the horn; she turned off all of that thought process and grit her teeth as she began to stand up on her shaking legs.
"Amy?" Lance whispered out to her uncertainly.
"I'm fine," Amy gritted out as she began to hobble towards the kitchen.
"Amy, wait!" Lance called out to her, "Jazz, can you move?" Jazz hesitantly shook her head, then more brazenly as she caught up to all of her senses. Slowly they both stood and made their way into the kitchen where they heard a lot of banging and clanking.
They watched in stunned silence as Amy ripped apart the whole kitchen looking for something. A dish towel was wrapped around her whole forearm in an effort to stop the blood from flowing but in a matter of seconds it was soaked again and Amy's shaking and stumbling was getting more pronounced as the towel got redder and redder.
Taking a hesitant step forward Lance quietly whispered her name, "Amy?"
Amy seemed to ignore this though and went tearing through another drawer. Finding what she was looking for she quickly made her way to the island and gingerly but efficiently unwrapped the soggy towel from her forearm and gripped what was in her hand tighter. Jazz and Lance watched as she raised a pair of kitchen tweezers and lowered it to her wound.
In stunned silence they watched her dig the tweezers into her forearm and seem to lock onto something. Amy winced and gritted her teeth as she began to pull slowly, tugging one way then the other, as she tried to pry something loose from inside her arm.
Just when Lance was about to interrupt again a light skittering was heard across the island and Amy's relived breath of air as she rolled her neck and looked up to the light. Looking down on the islands surface Lance saw a perfect claw-like nail. When Pandora dug her claws into Amy's arm she must have embedded a claw or two of her fingernails, for as he realized that, Amy was leaning back over her forearm again with the tweezers.
Lance quickly walked forwards and grabbed the tweezers roughly from her grip. Amy glared up at him in fury as she watched him standing beside her.
"Amy, at the least let us help you with that," Lance told her as he dragged a stool around. "You need help. Jazz, quickly boil me some hot water and go get my potions/spell book from my room."
Jazz frowned at this, "Don't you think-"
"Now, Jazz!" Lance shouted in exasperation that Jazz would really start something with him now. "She's kind of bleeding out here, how about you second guess my decisions later, hmm?"
Without a word Jazz quickly left the room and they could hear banging and scraping from the next room over.
Without further ado Lance began poking and prodding at her arm every once in a while cursing and mumbling to himself as he extracted another claw. Amy bit her lip at the pain as Lance jiggled the claw out of her arm; it went so deep it must have sunk slightly into the bone.
She choked on a sob but refused to allow any more tears to fall. Finding the last claw, Lance began dutifully working the claw out slowly but as quickly as he can in an effort to try and cause her as minimal pain as possible.
"Lance?" Amy whispered hoarsely.
"No, Amy."
"But-"
"Amy, look, I'm not trying to be mean but the answer is still no. Take my word for it on this one because it will not help you to recover as you're thinking about that, Gabe wasn't mad at you. I know you think he was but he wasn't," Lance told her earnestly yet quietly. Jazz came back into the room with some warm towels, the large book Lance had requested, some black thread, a needle and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
"How do you know?"
Lance didn't answer her at first as he removed the last claw and placed it with the other two in a small bowl on the island. He reached over for a warm towel and wiped some of the dry and fresh blood off, then poured a load of the rubbing alcohol over her forearm. Amy did her best not to scream as Lance held her arm pinned down so she couldn't do more harm to it. Finally the burn faded and she was aware of Lance wiping down the area again.
"Just trust me," was all he uttered after that.
Amy merely pursed her lips and didn't answer. She frowned as she went over the last few minutes in her head. Who the hell was that woman? And she seemed to know Jazz or ….
"Jezebel?" Asked Amy as she turned around and frowned at her friend. "Why did she call you Jezebel, Jazz?"
Jazz stiffened slightly and wrung the cloth out in her hands a tad too harsh. She unfolded it and handed the clean cloth to Lance who gratefully took it.
"Jazz?"
"Look, Amy, I understand that you want to know but some things are just still hard for me to talk about even to this day, ok?" Jazz said exasperatedly. Amy forced herself not to recoil at her friends' harsh tone of voice and merely glared at her. Something about that woman had set Jazz extremely on edge.
"Look, Jazz, I get that but you seriously can't pull that card with me right now," Amy gritted out between clenched teeth as she put up with Lance's ministrations on her arm. She could hear him frantically flipping through the pages of the large musty tome sitting on top of the island as her and Jazz remained having eye contact. "I just told you and Lance about my fucking cutting problem, I just had this bloody blonde bratz doll walk through the door and slash my forearm to ribbons! I feel like I'm about to pass out and to top this whole fiasco off Gabe knows my secret that I was going to tell him! So I'm sorry that your life is so fucking sad when it comes to your past with that woman but join the fucking club!"
Amy finished that last word on a screaming tone of voice as she almost choked on her voice. A small sob escaped her throat as she looked down at the table. Lance's flipping had quieted and Jazz, who had been staring at her in awe and startlement, quickly looked back down to the table. Her long lashes brushed her cheeks and Amy could see out of the corner of her eye that she was breathing deeply and her cheeks had a slightly rosy tinge quality to them. Her friend sighed and pulled up the chair to sit next to her. Lance relaxed finally and got up to grab a few things from around the kitchen as he draped a cloth over her injured arm and told her to hold it tightly. She still felt a bit dizzy but nodded and applied pressure to the area.
Jazz took a deep breath, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to have that big of an outburst at you, Amy."
Amy merely nodded her head in acceptance. "For starters, her name is Pandora and she is one sociopathic mother fucker of a bitch."
"Damn straight she is," Lance intoned form her other side as he quickly pulverized a dozen or so roots in a wooden bowl. Amy frowned at the weird smell of the paste that the roots created as
Lance kept crushing. She knew by now though to just go with it though and let Lance do his own
thing.
"So I take it you and her have met," Amy said.
Lance grimaced as if he had just swallowed a particularly bitter tasting root. "You could say that."
"Anyways, she was the reason that I came out to my elfin parents. I thought she and I had something special but it turned out that she was just using me," Jazz said as she picked at the table. "After I came out, I thought even with my family's overbearing ways and for disowning me, at least I would have her. But it became apparent fast to me that she just wanted me for my magic and that was that. I got away from her thankfully with Gabe and Lance's help here," she smiled at Lance to which he pulled his lips back slightly and flicked the hair from his eyes. "And the rest I guess you could say is history."
Amy bit her lip, "When you say Pandora …"
"Yup, that Pandora," Jazz said nodding. "The one from Greek mythology. Well, actually it's Pandora's Box, but what do you think was in there when the poor unfortunate sap opened it? Everything evil became unleashed to the world and while it entered everyone on the Earth, it coalesced itself into one being who was known as Pandora."
"I thought the legend says that inside Pandora's Box were all the bad emotions like anger, greed, hate, jealously and so on but wasn't there also hope?"
"Indeed, there was," Lance said as he added some more things to the paste. "However, Pandora is devoid of this last emotion that you just mentioned."
Amy frowned, "But how is that possible? If she's all the darkness then why didn't she get a little bit of light?"
"No one really knows, Amy, and Pandora will never talk about it, so don't bother asking her," Jazz pleaded with her as she grabbed her uninjured hand. Amy flinched but otherwise didn't move and neither did Jazz let go. "She'll sooner take your head off, which leads me to the next part Amy. She is sociopathic. She'll play the role that she's your best friend and then stab you in the back and feel no sympathy with it. She'll think she's entitled to everything you have and that she can do as she pleases and she's easily insulted, so the best thing to do is get away from her as quickly as you can. There's too much to explain right now but she's one frickin peace of work."
"Well, that's true," Lance added as he poured a weird green fluid in the paste. Amy's stomach turned as she watched Lance mix the liquid with the thick substance and she couldn't help but think it was some kind of gross weird oatmeal.
"Please tell me that you're not actually going to feed me that," Amy remarked to Lance.
Lance looked up at her but didn't pause his actions, "Well Aim, it's your choice. You can either swallow it willingly or me and Jazz will force feed you it and believe me, we've done it before."
Amy's nose scrunched at that, "It's fine, I'll take it willingly but what the hell is it supposed to do?"
Lance shrugged, "It will help you with a little blood boost. Don't ask me how it does that but you'll feel better when you get back to your normal blood level."
Amy merely nodded. Turning back she looked at Jazz, "Why did she call you Jezebel though?"
Jazz's eyes hardened, "It's my name from back when I lived at home."
"Oh," Amy merely replied and looked down at the table. How did you even answer to something like that?
Suddenly a thought struck her, "Guys, she asked me something funny before you all got involved."
Jazz and Lance glanced at her showing her that she had their attention again. "She asked me what I was. What did she mean?"
Jazz and Lance exchanged a look and Jazz turned to her, "Amy, look, we're not sure; but we ourselves don't think you're 100% human. We have our doubts but the problem is we don't know why. We've tried to figure it out but none of the books and our sources have heard of anything."
"Which means one of either two things," Lance said pointing his wooden spoon at the two.
"Either we just haven't found the proper book yet or, and this is actually just as likely believe it or not, our sources aren't old enough."
Amy raised her eyebrows at this, "Your sources aren't old enough?" She asked as she snorted in amusement.
Lance looked up at her through the curtain of his hair, "Believe me, it's possible. The older the source the more knowledge they seem to soak up and retain. You'd think it might be opposite with old age but supernatural species sometimes age differently."
"That's fantastic and how old are your sources exactly?" asked Amy.
"Mmmm a couple hundred years at least. I think the oldest one is 925," Jazz remarked from beside her.
Lance shook his head, "Actually she's 926; she just celebrated her birthday like a few weeks ago," Lance corrected her.
Amy rolled her eyes, "Yes, because one year is going to make a difference to a person that's over 900 years of age."
"Actually, don't be fooled; they're very self-conscious of their appearances half of the time. By the way, if you ever meet someone who asks them to guess their age and you know they're not human guess anywhere from 200-300 years old."
Amy looked at her askance, "Why?"
Jazz shrugged, "It's the magical age where everyone considers them youthful."
Lance snorted and Amy merely just appeared shocked into silence. "Ok, sure thing."
Lance put a glass down on the table and slowly scooped the thick gelatinous substance into the cup. After he finished he placed it in front of Amy and gave her a look.
"Ok, so here's what were gonna do; I'm gonna stitch up your arm and I'm gonna need you to drink all of that down. Once were done here, you should be able to rest," Lance told her.
Amy paled slightly, "Umm I don't know if that's going to exactly work."
"Why's that?"
"Because there's no way in hell that I'm letting you stitch me up. I hate stitches."
"Do you prefer a coffin more than the stitches?" Asked Jazz. Amy glanced over at her in bafflement and Jazz just merely shrugged her shoulders back at her. "Well, it's either that or you suck it up and let Lance do his thing."
"Why can't you guys just mojo some of you magic on me and I'll be all set to go?" Asked Amy as her voice cracked. She could feel her getting more and more profoundly dizzy and she gripped the table hard with her uninjured hand to hold herself up. She felt Jazz grip her shoulder firmly as she kept her steady.
"Because, Amy, I don't think any of us are in the condition to do some mojo on you; look, this paste will help you immensely and I'll stitch you up, don't worry I've had practice, then you'll be ok as long as you take it easy," Lance told her. He tried to be soothing but his tone was still terse and strained. Maybe not by anything she had done probably just by the situation in general. "Ok, let me see," he said to her as he reached out to grab her hand.
Amy yanked her hand back, even though she winced as the gash throbbed angrily. "No, ok guys, look me and stitches don't do well, there HAS to be another way here."
"Amy-"
"No! Guys look, I can't, it's like a deathly fear!"
"You will be dead soon, Amy, from that wound if you don't let Lance help you!" Exclaimed Jazz in fear and frustration. Her voice was growing strained and she looked as if her nerves were about to snap like cable lines in a tornado.
"I just want to be normal! I wanted Gabe to like me and now that he's seen this he hates me and I know he does!"
"Amy-"
"I know what you said, Lance, but there's no way he's going to not look at me with any kind of self-respect anymore, I mean look at what I did to myself!" Amy shouted out as she showed them her uninjured arm. She thought that lightly as she saw the crisscrossing of all her old and new scars twining together like a ball of yarn. "I mean I'm an idiot to think that anyone would really think highly of me after this, they're all going to pity me or stare at me like what's so wrong with your life that you're that messed up." She snorted after this and cradled her forehead in the palm of her hand.
"Amy-"
"And you know what, furthermore now we have Missy wreaking havoc or trying whatever with that bloody horn, then we meet this Pandora and she sounds like she could just eat me or something."
"Amy!"
"What?!" She shouted at them in exasperation.
"Look at your hand," Jazz whispered in … was that awe?
Amy frowned but obediently looked down at her arm and what she saw astounded her. Her whole arm was glowing like a giant Christmas tree. The glow however was more warm and comforting. It reminded her of clear sunny days in the middle of a large meadow. She gazed fascinated as before her eyes, and Jazz and Lance's, the skin began to knit back together. For that matter she felt less faint as if she had a whole blood supply miraculously pumping into her, filling her and rejuvenating her otherwise starved body of the life giving force. The warm light shimmered and became brighter. She still stared for as long as she could as the flesh knitted itself back together like water lapping against the shore then suddenly a blinding flash of light blinded them all.
"Ugh what the hell was that?" Amy heard Jazz say from beside her.
"I'm not sure; Amy, you ok?" Asked Lance.
"Yeah, I think so," Amy said. "Actually I feel better than that, I feel fantastic!" She blinked her eyes open trying to force them to adjust. When they finally did, she stared at her arm and saw that the flesh was knit back together with not even a scar to indicate that it had been there. Jazz and Lance gasped as they took in her arm.
"Amy, your arm," Jazz whispered in awe.
"What the hell just happened?" Amy whispered in bafflement.
"Oh, that's just shit-fucking-tastic, it's already started," said a snarky voice from the doorway.
The three of them jumped as they looked towards the voice. Standing in the entrance to the kitchen were Missy and Gabe - and Amy's and Gabe's eyes locked as the room froze.