Chapter 48: Eleanor

We’d had quite a late night the previous night.

After dinner, which Ness and I had eaten together by the pool, we were joined by the rest of the family and our guests. We sat talking late into the evening.

Eventually Emma and Claire said that they had to go since they were flying home the next day. They insisted on taking my number so they could keep in touch and told me that if I were to ever go back to the UK, and was in the area, I should look them up.

Reggie and Donna also left at the same time, Reggie saying that he would walk the two girls back to their apartment and make sure they got back safe. Since he and Donna were staying until the following weekend I was sure that we would see them again, especially since Dean had given them permission to use our beach while we were there.

After they all left it was time for me to go to bed. I had been thinking about our sleeping situation, and I decided to simplify everything by taking the two double mattresses off the beds in the room where we had entertained the girls, stacking the bed frames against the wall, and placing the mattresses on the floor. It didn’t feel much different there than when they were on the frames, so that would do. It was a far better solution than sleeping separately, although I did end up on the seam between the two mattresses for most of the night. The sacrifices I make...

I chose to run on the road the next morning, rather than the beach, and made it all the way into a small town, about five miles away, before turning back and returning to the villa, just as the rest of the family were getting up.

We ate a lazy breakfast around the pool.

“What are we doing today?” asked Mary.

“Maria Gonzales is supposed to be coming to see me,” I said. “She said something about needing help with some Healing. I need to stay near the villa, but don’t let me stop you from doing whatever you want to do. There is a little town about five miles in that direction,” I indicated the direction I had run that morning, “although there didn’t seem to be much there.”

“I want to sunbathe,” said Amanda. “I’ve walked my legs off for the last two weeks. I just want to work on my tan.”

I looked at Mary, and she was looking at her sister and smiling fondly. “Beach then?” she asked, Amanda nodded.

“Jules?” I asked.

“Fine by me,” she said. “I’ve got my book, I’m happy to chill with that, and maybe swim a bit later.”

“Ness?”

“Boring,” she said. “There has to be something else to do around here.”

“Your daddy and I were going to go and have a walk around the city. Apparently, there’s a bus you can catch just up the road that takes you into Barcelona in about thirty minutes. You could come with us?”

Ness smiled. “Sure,” she said. “That sounds nice. Let’s leave all the old folks to vegetate.”

Jules snorted, “Brat,” she said smiling at her sister.

“You mind if we tag along?” asked Josh, “We could look and see what else is going on too. I hear that there’s a water park, a marina, and possibly a zoo. We could scout around and find stuff to do for the rest of the week.”

Amanda looked horrified.

“I thought we were chillaxing on the beach,” she complained. “Now you want us to do more walking?”

“It’s your vacation,” said Dean as he walked past the back of her chair. “You do what you want.”

He leaned down and placed a kiss on the top of Amanda’s head, as I’d seen him do so many times to both his girls.

Amanda squirmed in pleasure and looked up at him.

“Thanks Pops,” she said, a suggestion of tears in her eyes.

Dean smiled at her fondly and then went and took a seat by Cheryl.

Once again, I felt a shift in their relationship. Somehow, I knew that the days of the twins sharing with Cheryl and Dean were over. They, it seems, had now achieved the status of adopted daughters. I felt that they, Amanda especially, would be both thrilled and disappointed by this change.

I looked at the Steadman daughters and gauge their reaction.

Both Ness and Jules were smiling. They both knew the hole that had been left in the twins’ lives by the death of their parents. Dianna had done her best, and done well, but she could never fully replace what they had lost.

I had, on more than one occasion, seen both Mary and Amanda looking at Jules and Ness a little wistfully as they interacted with their parents. Now, it seemed, that they were being included in that family, and they liked the idea.

Ness went over to Amanda and, for the first time ever, climbed into her lap and hugged her. Amanda, a little surprised at the attention, looked down at the younger girl and then put her arms around her and pulled her into a tighter hug.

Mary, who was sitting on the other side of Amanda from me, was watching her sister and Ness, a tear in her eye, so she didn’t notice Cheryl approach until she was enfolded from behind in a hug. She turned her head in time for Cheryl to whisper something in her ear. I saw unshed tears finally roll down her cheeks as well, as she turned around to be drawn into Cheryl’s embrace.

“Well,” said Jules, climbing into my lap, “it looks like we are true sister-wives now.” She smiled at me.

I looked down at her. “Does it bother you?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m happy for them. My parents are awesome. I loved the fact that you seemed to have adopted them, and I love that the girls and they seemed to have now adopted each other. It couldn’t be more perfect.”

I pulled her to me, my face against the top of her head. I agreed, it couldn’t be more perfect. If only I could have a similar relationship with my own parents, then things would be even better.

I wondered if that were still possible, or had I destroyed any chance of that?

Those that were going into the city got themselves together and set off. Jules, the twins, and I gathered some supplies and headed down to the beach. I sent Maria a text message to tell her that I would be on the beach when she arrived.

Reggie and Donna were there already, sitting and sunning themselves. Reggie was reading a book and Donna was just basking in the rays.

Reggie stood as I arrived on the beach and walked across to me. He grasped my hand.

“Thank you,” he said. “Last night was the first night since I came back that I actually slept through. For twenty years I haven’t had a single full night’s sleep, without medication, until now.”

“I’m glad I could help,” I said. “But take it a day at a time.”

He nodded. “Even so,” he said, “I owe you...”

“Nothing,” I interrupted. “You had my back when those boys were facing off with me. You didn’t know me, but you did it all the same. For that alone I would have helped. But more than that, you, and anyone who puts on a uniform to serve their country, deserves all the respect and help that anyone can give. That you faced combat makes that even more so.”

He released my hand and went to re-join his wife, who had been sitting watching us as we talked. She was far enough away that I doubted that she had been able to hear our exchange, but she smiled as he settled down in his chair beside her. They exchanged words as he picked up his book and began to read once more.

The twins settled down on towels and I spent a pleasant half hour rubbing suncream into various parts of their anatomy. Jules settled under the umbrella, once again with her book. I wasn’t sure what she was reading, but it was keeping her entertained, and she seemed to be enjoying not doing a lot of walking too.

I think, given the choice, she would have been in her workshop tinkering with the toy she had bought in Paris but, since that was not an option, she read instead.

Having finished oiling up the twins I was at a bit of a loose end. It had been some time since I’d actually done any martial arts training, having run or swum most mornings since we’d been on vacation, so I decided to run through a couple of katas.

I’d been at it for about an hour, when I heard a shout.

“Fuck me, it’s the Karate Kid,” then laughing.

I turned to see that the four boys had returned. They didn’t have the rest of their gang with them this time, but I guessed that they had worked themselves up to facing off with us again. Even this early in the morning they looked like they had been drinking.

I saw Reggie put his book down and make to stand, but I held my hand out to him indicating he should stay where he was. He cocked his head to one side, and then settled back. He didn’t pick up his book again, and I knew if he thought I was in trouble he would pitch in.

I walked over to meet them, intercepting them before they could get near any of the girls.

“This is a private beach,” I said, “as I told you yesterday. Please leave.”

“Are you going to make us?” asked one of the boys stepping up and putting his finger in my face.

“No,” said a voice from behind me, “but I will.”

I turned and all eyes were on Maria Gonzales. She was holding a badge out in front of her and had pulled the jacket she was wearing back over her hip to show that she was carrying a sidearm. Her hand was on its grip.

“Police,” she said. “You are trespassing and have been asked to leave. Now you either leave, or I arrest you and have you detained until your flight home, at which point you will be deported and never allowed to return to Spain.”

“I ... We...” the boys stepped back.

“If I catch you here again...” she began but didn’t finish. The boys turned and slunk off.

She turned her attention to me.

“What exactly were you planning to do?” she asked, a suspicion in her eyes.

“I could have dealt with them,” I said.

“I know that,” she said. “But...”

“I mean physically,” I said.

“Four of them?” she asked.

I offered her the memory of my fight with Jasper and his friends. She winced when she assimilated it, presumably at the breaking of Jasper’s arm.

“Was that your plan for them?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “But I knew that if I took one or two of them down they would all go away and not come back. That is the third time now that they have been here, last time they brought about ten people. Fortunately, I had back up that time.”

She shook her head.

“Can we go back up to the villa?” she asked.

I nodded.

Reggie grinned at me as we walked past him. He obviously thought something else was happening with Maria and, given what had happened the previous day, I can see where he got that idea from.

When we got back to the villa I could see Maria’s car parked in the courtyard. I wasn’t sure how she managed to get through the gate; perhaps the police had a special code or something. I noticed there was someone sitting in the car. As we approached, the door opened and a little girl, probably about eleven years old, stepped out. She looked up at me.

“Eleanor,” said Maria, “This is Caleb. Caleb, this is Eleanor, my sister.”

We were seated by the pool, each of us holding a soda, while Maria told me the story.

Eleanor had a form of bone cancer called chondrosarcoma. It was normally fairly treatable with chemotherapy and the outlook was normally quite good.

Since her sister was also a Healer, her outlook should have been excellent. The cancer wasn’t too widely spread yet, and Maria should have been able to deal with it easily.

The problem was that Eleanor was powered, and she was stronger than Maria. In fact, she was significantly more powerful than Maria. The other problem was that her powers were acting to defend against what her own psyche was identifying as an attack on her.

Her powers were nullifying the chemotherapy as a poison in her body. Adding to the issue was that each time Maria tried to Heal her, Eleanor’s power prevented her from doing so. It was a totally instinctive and reactive process that Eleanor had no way to prevent, but it would kill her unless something could be done to circumvent it.

It would be possible to use the anti-psych drugs to suppress her power, but they couldn’t be given at the same time as the Chemo due to drug interaction. The drugs would also interfere with attempts at Healing using powers.

I considered what I had been told. I could see three possible approaches to deal with this.

The first and simplest would be to strip Eleanor of her power. She may be stronger than Maria, but I was still significantly stronger than her. I had no doubt that I could do it. No power would mean that all options for healing her could go ahead. It would save her life – but at what cost? How would she react to losing a power she had grown up with?

The second would be for me, in some way to ‘overpower’ her, and Heal her despite her power. That might be dangerous to both of us. I had no idea how much power would be required to simply Heal her, and if I were fighting against her powers all the way, would I have enough? There was no way to know.

The third way would be to somehow convince her power that it needed to allow the Healing. I was guessing it was some part of her subconscious psyche that was blocking all the Healing, seeing it as an attack on her. I had the errant thought that I could learn something from that but, that aside, whatever was fighting the Healing needed to be persuaded to allow it to go ahead.

I shared my thoughts with Maria and Eleanor.

They both immediately dismissed option one, however I suggested that it be held as a position of last resort. If it were either that or Eleanor dying of the cancer, surely living without powers was preferable. I’m not sure that Eleanor agreed with my thoughts though. I had to accede that it would be her, and her sister’s, decision in the end.

Option two was also problematic for both Eleanor and me. It was decided that, again, it was something we might try if option three didn’t work. So, it was option three – convince her power to allow the Healing. The only problem was I had no idea how to go about doing that.

“What actually happens when you try to heal her?” I asked Maria.

“I can’t break through her shield,” Maria said.

“Are you not able to drop your shields for your sister?” I asked Eleanor. She shook her head.

“I don’t know how to make a shield,” she said, her English good, but far more heavily accented than Maria’s.

I looked at Maria. “How is she shielded then, that is, if she isn’t doing it?”

Maria looked uncomfortable. “I...” she sighed. “I need your oath that, what you learn here today, you will never divulge to anyone.”

“I am a Healer,” I said. “I may open my mind to other Healers if we work together.”

She smiled. “I mean outside the Healer network. They are as jealous of each other’s secrets as they are of their own.”

“And I am part of that network so why the need for an oath?” I asked, looking for clarification, not an argument.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I don’t know you. You are still new to the network.”

“You are going to have to make that decision,” I said. “If I am to attempt to Heal Eleanor, you and she are going to have to trust me.”

I stood up. “Perhaps you should think on it more,” I said. “Let me know your...”

“Wait,” she said. “I’m sorry, you’re right. It’s just that it’s a family secret that we are all sworn to protect.”

That phrase resonated with me. I had the feeling that someone else had said something similar to me, but I could not for the life of me remember where or when.

“As you know,” she said, “my bloodline’s primary power is Telepathy, but for some reason our line produces more ‘multi’s’ than any other worldwide. Practically all of our line have at least two powers, and most have four. My great, great, great, great, grandmother actually had what would be considered the full suite. Telepathy, Empathy, Compulsion, TK, CK, and PK.”

“Wow,” I said. “She must have been a formidable woman.”

Maria smiled. “She was tiny.” she said. “Stood less than a meter and a half tall. I never met her, but I have seen pictures. She was the one who created what she called our ‘protection’. It’s passed from person to person in our line. It’s difficult to describe but you could perhaps think of it as a part of her personality that resides within our mind. It uses whatever powers are available to it to protect the family member. It is separate and distinct from the personality of the person themselves, it never sleeps, and is always on alert. If it perceives anything as a threat it will try and nullify that threat. It can’t attack external to the persons’ body, so physical attacks are still possible. However any foreign material entering into the host’s body that it perceives as dangerous will be destroyed, and any psychic attacks will be fought off automatically using the host’s own capabilities.

“Obviously the maximum power that it can bring to bear is whatever the host has available to them. So I have no doubt that you, if what Jeevan tells me is true, could overpower either of us, but it would be a brute force attack. If we have the same or more power than our attacker, the likelihood is that our protection would defeat any attacks on us. It won’t stop a bullet, but if the bullet is not immediately fatal, the protection will attempt to heal the damage.”

“That is amazing,” I said. “And I don’t wonder that you wanted to keep it a secret. Any power user would be after you to share this. And once it was shared, it would inevitably end up being applied to someone who you really didn’t want it to be applied to.”

She nodded. “You see the reason for my reluctance.”

“I do,” I said. “I’m not sure how we would go about dealing with it though. Perhaps if I had a look at Eleanor’s protection, I might get some ideas?”

Maria looked at her sister who had been sitting quietly listening to us. I looked at her too. She seemed much older than her eleven years would suggest.

“Eleanor?” said Maria. “What do you think?”

Eleanor turned her gaze on me. “Will it hurt?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve never hurt anyone before.”

“Okay,” she said.

I examined her shield. Maria was right. I could have simply torn them away, but I didn’t want to do that. Mainly because it would be traumatic for Eleanor. The shield was good, probably the best I had ever seen. It took me some time before I found a small flaw I could exploit. I extended a gentle tendril through the gap and immediately found myself under attack.

Something, or someone, was hurling what appeared to be invective at me, all in Spanish, while bombarding me with mental missiles. They were coming so thick and fast that all I could do was to hunker down and let them bounce off my shields. Each time one hit it flared, and I felt a little of my power ebb away. I watched Eleanor as this was going on, and saw that she was starting to look fatigued. The attack was using up her energy – and I was concerned that once it got through her available energy it would start eating into her life force. I retreated.

“Well,” I said, “that didn’t work.”

I explained to Maria what had happened.

“I could carry on until she exhausts all her power,” I said. “But if the protection eats into her life force for its power, it could end up hurting her. You must connect to each other, how does that work without the protection kicking in?”

“We’re family,” she said. “And we all have the protection. We can talk to each other, and share memories, but the protection won’t let me use my Healing on her, mainly because my Healing is damaging her cells therefore it’s seen as an attack. The protection doesn’t see the cancer cells as an attack since they are being made by her body.”

I thought about this for a moment.

“When I was being attacked, someone or something was screaming at me in Spanish,” I said.

“What were they saying?” Maria asked. I shrugged. “I don’t speak Spanish,” I said.

“Show me?” she asked, and I shared the memory of my hunkering down behind my shield while barrages of mental missiles assaulted me, all the time a tirade of Spanish washed over me.

“It’s bizarre,” she said after a moment. “They say that the protection is like a fragment of Tatarabuela Gonzales in our minds, but that feels like more. Almost like she’s copied her entire personality in there, and is standing vigil over us.”

“Can you communicate with it then?” I asked. She shrugged.

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” she said. She looked at her little sister, and I saw a thread extending and linking the two together. After a few minutes Maria turned back to me.

“There’s nothing there that I can fix on,” she said. “I can sense something there, but it doesn’t respond to me in any way.”

“Maybe it only becomes active when it senses an attack,” I said. “Try again, but try a little Healing at the same time.”

Maria connected again but in seconds I saw the connection break; it seemed to have been terminated by Eleanor.

“It just dumps me out,” Maria said. “It doesn’t engage at all; it literally kicks me out of her mind and body.”

“So, it won’t attack family,” I concluded, “but nor will it allow you to attack each other. That’s a grandmother’s thinking for you. She will, however, attack an outsider, i.e. me.”

I looked at my watch – It was lunchtime.

“Let’s take a break and get some lunch,” I said. “Eleanor should eat something to get some energy back, and I’m hungry too.”

“I’m making lunch,” I sent to the girls. They replied that they’d be up directly.

By the time they had arrived, lunch was almost ready. I’d made a stack of sandwiches, put out chips and drinks, and some cookies.

The girls were all taken with Eleanor. She in turn was fascinated by the twins. Jules seemed familiar to her, brown eyes and dark hair were pretty common in this neck of the woods. But twins, and golden eyes, not so much.

After lunch the girls headed back down to the beach, taking more drinks with them, and once again I faced Eleanor and Maria.

“I think we were on the right track,” I said, “getting the protection routine to engage with me. But if I just hunker down behind my shields all that will happen is that it will continue to attack until Eleanor runs out of power. We can’t take the chance it would tap into her lifeforce once that happens.”

“So what else can you do?” asked Maria. “If you drop your shields, her attacks will get through, and she might hurt or even kill you.”

“What powers does Eleanor have?” I asked.

“Same as me,” she replied, “But she’s stronger.”

“So how can she attack me?” I asked. “I’m strong enough to resist any Compulsion, I’d recognise and counter an Empathetic attack and the same with Telepathic.”

“She could hurt you with her CK,” Maria said. “She could literally freeze your brain solid.”

I pulled a face at that. “I’d rather that didn’t happen,” I said. Then I had a thought.

“When she was attacking me,” I said, almost to myself, “I definitely felt something like a personality. I wonder...”

“I have an idea,” I said. “Perhaps we can communicate with whatever personality is left in there running the protection.”

“How?” asked Maria.

“I can get through Eleanor’s shield,” I said. “But once I do – I am immediately attacked by this ‘thing.’ It feels like a person, so what would happen if I tried to pull it into an illusion with me. Perhaps It would manifest enough of an understanding that I could communicate with it?”

“It’s risky,” she said. “What if she attacks you inside the illusion? She could hurt you.”

“How?” I asked. “If it’s my illusion, then surely, I’m in control. I should be able to quash anything she throws at me.”

“True,” Maria said, “but she was a really powerful and really experienced power user when she created the protection. She might have some tricks up her sleeve you may not even be aware of.”

“Worst case,” I said, “I’ll bug out of the illusion, and we’ll be no worse off than we are now.”

Maria bit her lip for a moment, but then nodded.

“That should be okay,” she said. “Be careful though.”

“I will,” I said, before turning back to Eleanor, who, as before, was sitting silently staring at me.

“Are you ready?” I asked her, and she nodded. Once more I looked over her shield. The flaw I had found last time was no longer visible so, obviously, the protection had figured out my entry point and closed it. It took a few minutes but I found another. I braced myself and slid a tendril through the shield and into the little girl’s mind.

Once more I was assaulted by a barrage of ‘missiles’ battering against my shield. I ignored them for the moment, letting my shield do its job, while I felt for the ‘presence’ that was not Eleanor’s consciousness. I could feel it, although it was kind of faint and illusive.

Finally I locked onto it and pulled, dragging us both into an illusion. Stupidly I had not really thought about the illusion itself, so I was surprised to find myself smack dab in the middle of a bull fighting ring. I glanced around. I knew I’d pulled the other consciousness in with me, but I couldn’t see them. The ring, the whole stadium, was deserted. I was completely alone, standing on the sand. I felt a prickle on the back of my neck and, for reasons unknown to me, I threw myself forward into a roll. A ball of ice, probably a foot across, narrowly missed my head as I rolled and came up, facing the direction it had come from. I still couldn’t see anyone, but that had been close.

I scanned the arena searching for the source of the ice ball. I caught a flicker of movement off to my left, and once again a huge ball of ice was rocketing toward me. I reached out with my TK and smashed it into fragments.

“Abuela Gonzales,” I yelled. “I only want to talk to you.”

I hoped that the illusion would manage the translation - Since Eleanor could speak English I reasoned that any presence in her mind would also be able to speak and understand it too.

Another ice ball shot at me, faster this time, but I once again knocked it aside with my TK, only to find there was another immediately behind it. The other had been half the size of the first, and invisible from my point of view. I ducked and it sailed over my head. Smashing into the arena floor about twenty feet behind me.

“Abuela, please!” I yelled. “You need to speak to me.”

Suddenly I felt a bone deep chill enveloping me. I could feel my limbs growing heavy. It almost felt like my blood was beginning to freeze in my veins.

I saw threads of power connecting to my body and severed them. I imagined my shield into existence here inside the illusion thus preventing further connection. My arms and legs were stiff though and my movement sluggish, so when the next barrage of ice balls came my way, I knew I had no chance of avoiding them.

Once more my TK came to the rescue. I grabbed the first ice ball and simply stopped it where it was. The following ones crashed into the back of it, destroying it, and also themselves in the process.

“Abuela,” I yelled again. “You’re killing her. You’re killing your granddaughter.”

Silence.

“Who are you to call me Abuela?” a voice challenged from across the arena. “I don’t know you.”

“I don’t call you Abuela as a member of my family,” I clarified, “but as a sign of respect.”

“What do you know of respect,” she spat. “You force your way into my granddaughter’s mind, and speak to me of respect?”

“It was necessary,” I said. “If you let me explain, you will see why.”

“Explain?” she said. “You mean lie?”

“No,” I said. “Explain. Your granddaughter is sick, and your protection is stopping them from helping her.”

“She’s not sick,” she said. “I would know it.”

“Would you?” I asked. “Can you tell when a body is destroying itself? Or can you only detect threats from the outside world?”

There was a longer silence.

“What is this sickness?” she asked eventually.

“It is called ‘Cancer’,” I said. “The body produces cells that it shouldn’t, in places that it shouldn’t, and they destroy the healthy cells. In the end, cancer kills the person.”

“I know what cancer is.” She spat.

“They tried medicine to kill it,” I said. “But you destroyed the medicine. Her sister tried to Heal her. But you blocked Maria from destroying the abnormal cells. Unless you let her be Healed, your protection is going to kill her.”

I saw movement once again and braced myself for another attack, but instead a small ancient looking woman stepped out from behind one of the walls at the edge of the bullring. She walked purposefully toward me, her eyes fixed on me all the while.

I stood still and waited for her to approach. Eventually she stood about six feet in front of me, glaring up at me.