“Tell the doctors that Jason Asano is about to start poking around and see if that doesn’t free them up,” Jason said. He didn’t wait for a response before walking away.
Erika followed again and pulled him up short.
“You did have something to do with this,” she said.
“Yes,” Jason admitted.
“What the hell is going on, Jason?”
“Look, Emi asked me if I could help Nanna. I wasn’t sure; Alzheimer’s is a tricky one, but I thought maybe I could. I gave it a go and it looks like it worked.”
“Like what worked? What did you do?”
“The doctor’s here,” he said, looking at a door marked STAFF ONLY. Moments later, they saw a doctor through the glass in the door, who buzzed himself out to join Jason and Erika in the corridor.
“Mr Asano?” the doctor asked. The man had no magic, but Jason had sensed the man’s nervous fear approaching. It seemed the Network had told him at least something about Jason.
“Eri, go back and tell the others that we’ll have news soon.”
“If you think I’m leaving you alone for…”
The look Jason turned on her wasn’t backed up by his aura, but the unflinching authority in his gaze made him seem for a moment like a total stranger. She took an involuntary step back.
“Tell the others that they’ll be able to see Nanna soon,” Jason reiterated. “Because they will, won’t they, doctor?”
Jason didn’t turn away from his sister to ask him, but the man hopped nervously like a raw recruit on a parade ground.
“Of course, Mr Asano.”
Only then did Jason turn to face the man.
“There’s somewhere you can brief me on my grandmother’s condition?”
“Follow me, please.”
Jason was led through the doors. He suddenly stopped dead when his senses picked up something. It was retracted and hard to sense, but not hard enough.
He had unmistakably sensed a silver-rank aura.
Jason turned a look on the doctor that could melt steel and fear crossed the man’s face.
“I hope you haven’t done something very, very stupid,” Jason snarled.
The increasingly skittish doctor led Jason to a small office that contained the silver-rank aura Jason sensed, and left him outside the door as he scuffled off. Jason was ready to unleash Colin if these people were foolish enough to try something as he opened the door.
On the other side of the door was a woman with the magically perfected looks he had come to expect from silver-rankers. She had shampoo commercial dark hair and flawless alabaster skin, but Jason was well past the point of being distracted by such beauty. He had kept more than his share of company with beautiful people.
“Jason Asano,” she greeted.
“Random silver-ranker who better not try anything with this many of my family in the building,” he greeted back coldly.
“That’s not my intention at all,” she said. “Take a seat.”
The diminutive office she had appropriated only had space for two to sit with a small desk in between. Trying to dodge Colin in the limited area would be an exercise in futility, which gave him a level of comfort as he took a seat.
“My name is Gladys Erstweller,” she said. “Silver-ranker. That’s what you call a category three, right? Based on the spirit coin of that rank?”
“Yes,” Jason answered coolly.
“You really aren’t worried about the power disparity, are you?” she asked. “Most cat twos get real nervous this close to a three.”
“You wouldn’t be the first category three that I’ve killed.”
“I’m a healer, you know. I can counteract a lot of the powers you use.”
Jason took on the grin of a cat who had just spotted a mouse with a pronounced limp.
“So did the first silver-ranker I killed,” he said. “He died screaming his lost faith to the sky. The archbishop wasn’t much of a martyr in the end.”
“You’re not talking about any of our local religions, are you?”
“No. Now you’ve dug some nuggets out of me to take back to your bosses, it’s time to tell me about my grandmother.”
Gladys nodded.
“Have you ever tried healing Alzheimer’s before?”
“No,” Jason said. “Chronic problems usually get dealt with before they get to that stage in the other world. There’s a god of healing who seems like a good bloke.”
“You say that like you met him.”
“Briefly. Friend of a friend.”
“I can’t tell if you’re making things up or not. Your aura is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Anna will want you to commit to helping our people learn to do that with their auras.”
“We need to settle things regarding my grandmother before I’m going to talk about any kind of arrangement with your organisation.”
Gladys nodded.
“After examining her,” she said, “as best I can tell, you sucked out all the sickness and then fed her a potion.”
“Yes,” Jason said. “Was that not the right approach?”
“It’s not the worst approach you could have taken,” Gladys said. “The basic idea is sound. Excise the disease and then repair the damage. Alzheimer’s is tricky, though. Especially with advanced cases like your grandmother.”
“I was worried about that,” Jason admitted, his expression softening. “Healing magic restores the body using the soul as a blueprint, but I was concerned about what years of dementia had done to affect her soul.”
“That’s precisely the issue,” Gladys said. “You seem to know a bit about magical healing.”
“Just some foundational theory. Do you have some kind of treatment?”
“We do,” Gladys said. “As it is, she’s more or less fully lucid. The memory gaps aren’t going to come back, though. What we can do is a regime of regular therapy and some more nuanced magical treatment. Over the next few months, we can work on consolidating body and soul into a healthy balance and prevent complications from arising in the future.”
“So, my grandmother needs to be in the Network’s care.”
“I’m not just saying this for leverage, Mr Asano. I have better ethics than that. Since you seem to have some grasp on the theory, I can take you through it in more detail, if you like.”
“Yes,” Jason said. “That’s exactly what I’d like.”
After Jason appeared, only to leave again immediately, there was a commotion as his siblings tried to explain his revival to his mother. This was made harder by not really understanding it themselves.
“Well, if you’d actually shown up to the family meeting, which I made very clear was important,” Erika told her, “then you could have asked him these questions yourself, Mother.”
The doctor re-emerged, giving the family some vague explanations that Ian immediately picked out as sketchy. As a doctor himself, he knew when another medical professional was talking nonsense. Plus, every doctor involved with his wife’s grandmother was unfamiliar to him. He had only been working in the area for a year, but as a regional physician, he had made a point of making connections in the local hospital.
Erika had insisted that they wait for Jason before Ian started throwing his weight around, and shortly after Jason arrived, the doctors told them they could see Nanna Glenda.