We all piled into the alley; at the end I could see the bright yellow bus waiting, back door wide open. Nadine was standing in the back, urging us forward. A car alarm was going off nearby and it didn’t take my sensitive dragon nose to detect smoke. As we reached the back of the bus, Nadine pulled us up one by one—pausing for a moment, looking at me with confusion, when she saw the bloody half head of a dog in my arms.
“Mittens isn’t gonna like this,” she said, and hauled us both up. I hadn’t even thought that far. I just knew I couldn’t leave him there to die. As I stepped up into the bus and looked out onto the road I saw a car was up in flames; faint sirens were growing louder in the distance. It all made sense now. Nadine had been tasked with the distraction. The car looked nice, a bright canary-yellow BMW, turning black with the extreme heat of the flames. It was that bastard’s car. I don’t know how she knew, but Nadine had blown up the asshole’s car who’d hurt Dom.
Speaking of Dom, he was dripping blood everywhere, panting on the back seat, looking up at Logan.
“Danny! He got hit with a spell when he was fighting the sorcerer. He’s not healing,” Logan shouted.
The second the door closed with all of us inside, Roxy peeled out, turning the corner and causing the bus to rise up on two wheels. Isaac was sitting quietly, holding his staff, breathing in and out slowly as if in a meditative trance. Keegan was looking for clothes for Dominic.
“Danny!” Logan shouted again.
Danny looked green, sickly. The sorcerer took a deep breath and nodded to Logan: “My powers have been bound. I can fix it, but … need time.” He was out of breath and collapsed back into the chair.
“We don’t have time! He’s bleeding out!” Logan screamed, pressing a cloth onto Dominic’s wounds.
“Don’t say that!” Logan suddenly screamed at Dom. They must have been mentally communicating. I left the dog on the bench and stood, fighting a wave of nausea. I was still out of sorts from throwing so much purple magic.
“Can we go to a hospital?” I suggested, walking up to stand beside Logan. Keegan was pacing the aisle, looking frantically from Danny to Logan.
Logan shook his head. “They won’t give two shits about a dying lion. Even a vet couldn’t handle this. It’s a magical injury, and he can’t shift to human—he’s too severely wounded.”
Finally, Isaac opened his eyes. “Pull over,” he said, with a deadly calm.
We all stared at him. We were passing a wild patch of land, thick with forest. There would be no help for Dom here. Roxy kept going.
“Pull OVER!” he shouted, slamming his staff down on the floor of the bus with a thunderous crack. Roxy slammed on the brakes, careening the vehicle to the dirt pullout. Once the bus reached a full stop, Isaac stood, no longer looking weary from being tossed into a wall by that female druid.
The druid pointed to Logan. “Get him outside.” Then pointed to me. “Shoes off. This is your first lesson.”
I didn’t argue. I leaned forward, tearing off my shoes and socks. I would do anything to help heal Dom, and I was assuming the druid had a plan to heal the lion shifter. As I ran to the front of the bus, following the crimson trail of Dom’s blood, I saw that Nadine had hopped over the seats and was tending to the injured pit-bull. Her medic case lay wide open.
Thank you. I sent a silent prayer that the dog would make it. I didn’t know why I’d felt so deeply for the poor creature. He shouldn’t have to die like this. The second I hopped down onto the hard soil, the ache in my skull eased; the final bits of blurriness to my vision fled. I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself, but it seemed the Earth did have a healing effect on me.
Isaac walked to the edge of the trees and held both palms out. Keegan had exited the bus and was standing beside Logan, who somehow was carrying the heavy, limp lion shifter. Keegan stared at the druid’s back.
“Come on, druid,” Keegan roared—I could hear his wolf close to the surface. “You gotta tell us what your plan is. He’s bleeding out!”
Isaac looked over his shoulder at Keegan. “Nwyfre,” he stated. The foreign word stirred something within me; a wind picked up and tickled at the edges of my skin.
“What?” Keegan growled. He looked ready to pummel the good druid.
“Life force, Chi, prana. Nwyfre,” Isaac stated, as if that explained everything.
Isaac then turned to face us fully, holding open his arms and motioning for Logan to deposit Dom into them, but not before tossing Keegan his staff. The alpha caught it with ease, and other than a short pulse of orange, it did nothing in his hand. Lucky bastard.
Dominic had lost consciousness, his head lolled to the side, tongue hanging out. Logan shared a look with Keegan and Keegan nodded. The moment the weight of Dom’s unconscious lion body fell into Isaac’s arms, he grimaced and his face darkened. “He needs a mountain hemlock. Now.” And with that, he was off, running through the dark forest with only the light of the moon and the headlights from the bus to direct his path. How he ran with the weight of an unconscious lion in his arms, I’ll never know. I took off after him, my bare feet padding on the soft mossy forest floor. What in the hell was this crazy druid up to?
Logan and Keegan were right behind me. I ran barefoot through the green overgrowth, zigzagging in and out of the thick trees until suddenly Isaac stopped before a large … Christmas tree. That’s what it looked like to me, bushy and with the typical pine needles.
“Mountain hemlock…” He breathed a sigh of relief. Stepping forward, he peered closer, inspecting the branches, giving no indication that holding a four hundred pound lion was tiring him the slightest bit. Druid super strength must be a thing, and I must not have inherited it. With a slight groan, he gently laid Dominic at the base of the tree, close enough to be touching the trunk with his back.
“Sloane!” Isaac barked suddenly, and I jumped a little, stepping closer to him.
“See this tree? Her branches are full. She’s mature, not a sapling, and there is no disease or rot.”
I heard Keegan growl behind me, and I simply nodded. “I see that…”
Please don’t be crazy, I internally prayed to the gods of druids.
Isaac reached out his hand to Keegan. “My staff…”
Keegan’s eyes were practically glowing. “You’re a healer or something, right? You’re going to save him?” I could tell by the guttural undertones that Keegan was holding back his wolf.
If Isaac was wasting time, Keegan would kill him, I realized.
Isaac wrapped his hands around his staff and the orange crystal flared to life, glowing so brightly we had to shield our eyes. “No, I’m not, son. Earth is the healer, and she will be the one to save him.”
He took to his knees and motioned for me to do the same. Logan was looking at Isaac incredulously. I could only shrug and kneel beside my new teacher. The earth vibrations had been zipping up and down the soles of my feet since I exited the bus, but now, here on my knees, inches away from Isaac and this tree, I felt like I was near a high voltage wire.
Isaac caressed the tree’s trunk. “If you don’t pick the right tree, you will transfer disease to the body. You must learn your trees, Sloane.”