“Mum doesn’t let me see Grand Nanna very often,” Emi said as she looked around to get her bearings in the evening twilight. She didn’t show any nervousness except for the tight grip she kept on his hand. Jason could feel her trepidation at the thought of her great grandmother’s condition through her aura.
“She’s gotten pretty bad,” Emi said. “She’s usually thinks that I’m Mum or Grandma when they were little.”
Jason nodded. He had only seen the early stages but had kept up an email correspondence when he set off for university. Her emails had become increasingly incoherent over time before stopping altogether. He felt pangs of shame that he had let his bitterness and self-pity stop him from coming back home to see her when she could have used it the most. He wondered if that was why he had brought Emi here, despite the trouble it would inevitably stir up.
“Actually,” Jason said, stopping. “Before we go see Nanna, I should make a phone call.”
Jason’s phone was in the clothes he had switched out for his combat robes to impress his niece with and he had to fish it out of his inventory. As soon as he did, it bleeped with messages from his sister.
“Missed a call from your mum,” Jason said, even as Emi’s phone started to ring. “I’m guessing that’ll be her.”
Emi nodded as she took her phone out, then handed it to Jason.
“Oh, come on,” Jason said.
“You’re the responsible adult,” Emi said.
“Says the girl who’s twelve going on forty,” Jason said, taking the phone. “Erika, hey.”
“It’s time to come back, Jason. Also, did you give me a fake number? When I tried to call you, it said your phone was out of area.”
“I think we were going through a tunnel. We’ve got one thing to do before we come back.”
“What tunnel?”
“Oh, here’s that tunnel again.”
“There aren’t any tunnels around here.”
Jason hung up and handed Emi back the phone.
“You’re a bad man,” Emi told him.
“I prefer naughty,” Jason said. “It’s sexier.”
“Uncle Jason, I’m twelve.”
“Sorry about that. I mean, you’ve had the talk, right?”
“Yes. Stop being gross.”
“Sorry.”
He took his own phone and called a number that Craig had provided him.
“Asano?” Anna said.
“G’day,” Jason said. “Do you prefer Annabeth or Anna? I’m going to go with Anna. Anna, I’m here with my niece and I thought you’d like a heads-up.”
“About your niece?”
“No, about curing my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s. I thought maybe your lot would like to cover it up so it doesn’t make as big a hullabaloo as the last thing.”
Silence came from the other end of the line.
“Anna?”
“Do you have any concept of how many problems I have with what you just said?”
“It sounds like you might want to swear, but I’ve got you on speaker and my niece is twelve, so you probably shouldn’t.”
“What?”
“It’s Garden Shores Assisted Living Community, just outside Castle Reach. Thanks, Anna.”
Jason hung up over the bluster coming from the other end.
“Who was that?” Emi asked.
“You know the Men in Black?” Jason asked. “That was them. Well, the People in Black.”
They avoided the reception building as Emi led them to the cottage occupied by Jason’s maternal grandmother. Jason had his cloak dimmed down to black and occasionally wrapped it around Emi when a staff member passed them by.
“How did they not see us?” Emi whispered as they watched a pair of orderlies wheel a laundry basket towards the utility building.
“My cloak makes us harder to see in the shadows,” Jason said. “With magic.”
They reached the door. Jason took out a small crystal key, one of the single-use opening devices he made for dealing with normal and iron-rank locks.
“Let’s see if this works,” he said, touching it to the card-reader lock on the door. The key evaporated into the air and red light switched to green. Jason lightly pushed the door open. He glanced at Emi, who was staring at where the key vanished.
“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” he said softly. “Just be thankful that no one is trying to eat you.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” Jason said, leading her inside.
Emi slowed down and Jason accommodated her, still reassuringly holding her hand. The room was dark and Jason lit it up with stars on his cloak rather than switching on the light. Jason’s grandmother was sitting in the dark, glassy-eyed. She didn’t react to their presence at all and Emi shrank behind Jason. He looked down at his niece.
“Once I do this, we’re going to leave immediately, okay? We don’t want to be around to answer questions.”
Emi nodded.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked.
She nodded again.
“Are you sure?”
“Come on, Uncle Jason.”
“Alright,” he said. “Here we go.”
He raised an arm in the direction of his grandmother.
“Feed me your sins.”
Emi’s eyes turned into round headlights as a feeble red life force emerged from the old woman in the armchair, with unpleasant colours teeming through it. The tainting colours leaked out in a stream that moved across the room and into Jason’s hand, pouring out of her and into him until the red glow of her life force was clean, even a little firmer than before.
You have cleansed all instances of disease [Alzheimer’s Disease] from [Glenda Pottsworth].
You have cleansed all instances of disease [Arthritis] from [Glenda Pottsworth].
You have cleansed all instances of disease [Liver Cancer] from [Glenda Pottsworth].
Your stamina and mana have been replenished.
Stamina and mana cannot exceed normal maximum values. Excess stamina and mana are lost.
Cleansing afflictions has triggered [Sin Eater]. You have gained an instance of [Resistant] and [Integrity] for each instance of affliction cleansed.
Jason’s grandmother looked at him with addled eyes that saw only a figure shrouded in darkness but sparkling with stars, as if the night sky was standing before her. Jason took out a healing potion, moved forward and tilted her unresisting head back to tip the potion into her mouth. After making sure that she swallowed it, he grabbed Emi’s hand and quickly led her outside.
Emi was still dazzled by the magical light show, moving numbly as she let her uncle lead her around. She didn’t resist as Jason put her in the passenger seat of Shade’s car form. He got behind the wheel but let Shade drive them away. They had been there long enough for Jason’s portal ability to come off cooldown, but Jason wanted to give Emi the car ride back to process. As it was, he was already regretting letting her see so much so quickly.
“What was that stuff you gave her?” Emi asked, after a long time.
“Healing potion,” Jason said. “I took away the Alzheimer’s, but I have no idea how much damage it did to her brain. I’m not sure how much she’ll get back from healing it. I can’t be sure what the results will be.”
Emi lapsed back into silence, Jason leaving her be.
“What do I tell Mum and Dad where we went?”
“That we went to Castle Bluff, and then to see Grand Nanna,” Jason said. “Always tell the truth if you can get away with it.”
30
DISCRETION IS A GOOD IDEA