Chapter 2

The following characters appear in this chapter:

Nicolae

Chief protagonist, 5’-10’’ tall, 170 pounds, 32 years old, dark brown hair, violet eyes, a very strong Talent

Sara Hankels

Victim, 5’-4’’ tall, 130 pounds, 34D-23-34, 22 years old, long brown hair, sparkling green eyes

Chapter 2 opens in Downtown Charleston, South Carolina 1035 years following the end of Chapter 1 and a number of deaths and resurrections later.

From my vantage point on the roof of a building, I could see the young woman as she approached. She was a very pretty woman of about 22 years of age, about 5’-4’’ tall and maybe 130 pounds with a 34D-23-34 figure, long brown hair, and sparkling eyes, but I was unable to tell their color in the low light near sundown on this early September day. She was modestly dressed in a blouse and a skirt that fell several inches below her knees. She was wearing athletic type shoes and carrying a small purse.

A hundred yards or so in front of her were three scruffy looking youths in what I had learned were gang colors. They had been laughing and joking there just inside the opening of an alley for about fifteen minutes or so. They stopped on seeing the young woman to decide who would be first. The taller of the three apparently won and left the group heading toward the young woman.

When they were separated by about fifty feet, he brought out the knife that he was carrying and started running toward her. He was quite fast and quickly closed the distance between them. People were ducking out of his way as he ran, and the young woman attempted to move out of his way also. At the last instant, he swerved into her path, and bringing the knife up, he stabbed her in the belly. The young woman screamed in shock, pain, and surprise and grabbed for the knife in her belly. The assailant kept running and moved into those behind her.

It would do him no good to try to escape, as I had marked the three of them earlier, and fired a blast of Magic from the fingers of my right hand. The blast of Magical energy hit him in the back, destroying his spine and blowing out his ribs, lungs, and heart. At the same time, I quickly turned and fired blasts of Magic at the other two who had been with him and were now racing toward the young woman to plant their knives in her body also. They too were blasted apart and dropped to the sidewalk to skid to a bloody stop, just as the first assassin had.

Having taken care of the assassins, I cast the invisibility spell and transferred down to where the young woman had collapsed, scooped her up, and transferred again to the location where I could heal her wounds, thus leaving the police the perpetrators of the crime but no victim. I was sure there would be plenty of videos of the assault, but they would have to wonder who the victim was, and where she had disappeared to.

A second later, we appeared in the empty but cold refrigeration trailer that I had rented the previous day. It only contained an operating table, some portable lights and the guy who drove the rig. I had rented it specifically for this mission.

“What the hell?” the shocked driver said as we appeared inside the trailer, and he saw the knife in the young woman’s belly.

“You never said anything about killing anyone,” he added in shocked surprise.

“I’m not the one who stabbed her. I am the one who is going to heal her and take care of her. If you want to see who stabbed her, watch the news tonight. There is sure to be plenty of video of what happened,” I told him.

“Okay, where’s my money? I’m leaving. I don’t need to see any of this. I’ll be back in an hour, and you and her had better be gone,” he told me. I tossed him an envelope with the money in it after laying the young woman on the table. In less than a minute, he was gone, and I heard him locking the back doors of the trailer from the outside.

Before proceeding, I cast a ward around the trailer to ensure that I wasn’t interrupted. This was followed by casting a sleep spell on the young woman, and then reducing the freeze spell on her to just a small area around the knife wound. The sleep spell and the cold would lower her blood pressure while I worked on removing the knife and healing her.

First, I removed her clothing so I could see the area of the wound, and so they wouldn’t be further damaged by blood or tears from the knife. She definitely had a fine womanly figure and was very lovely. While doing this required some time, it allowed the cold to lower her body’s temperature before I started on healing her.

Next, I started the healing spell and traced its glyph on her belly. While repeating the healing spell many times over and over, I carefully began to slowly withdraw the knife. It was slow tedious work and required considerable time, surely more than twenty minutes, to remove the knife and finish healing her wounds. On finishing, I placed the knife in a large plastic freezer bag that I had brought with me.

On completing my work, I used a cleaning spell on her clothing and under things, and a repair spell to take care of the tear in her clothing. With that completed, I canceled the ward around the trailer, picked up the young woman, and transferred both of us to my house north of Charleston.

Some time later, the driver returned to the trailer to find it empty except for the table and the portable lights. He locked it up again after turning off the lights and then the refrigeration unit and leaving the company’s parking area whistling a tune and patting the envelope in his jacket pocket.

A second after transferring out of the refrigerated trailer, we appeared in the master bedroom of my home north of Charleston. Laying the young woman on the king size bed there, I would allow her to sleep for a time before canceling the sleep spell. I had already canceled the remainder of the freeze spell on finishing the repair work. I also covered her with a large warm blanket to bring her temperature back up to normal. She needed to sleep for a time, however, to allow the Magic to finish its work.

A couple of hours later following a good meal, I canceled the sleep spell on her. A minute or so later she came awake screaming her lungs out in terror. Her hands automatically went to her belly searching for the knife and the wound there. It required a number of seconds for her to realize that there was no knife, no blood, and no wound. Her screaming died down on this realization and her eyes snapped open.

Groggily sitting up shortly after that, she looked around the bed and then the remainder of the room. Her eyes eventually fastened on me. The blanket had slipped down into her lap.

“Where am I, and who are you?” she asked. It came out as a croak.

“We are at my house north of Charleston. You were involved in an assault,” I told her.

“I had a dream ... I think it was a dream that I had been stabbed,” she said in a somewhat better voice.

“It wasn’t a dream. You were stabbed in the belly. I removed you from the scene, healed the wound, and brought you here. You will feel some pain and discomfort in the area where you were stabbed for the next twelve to twenty-four hours. The nerves in that area still have the memory of what happened to you. You are perfectly all right and totally healed from the knife wound,” I told her in as gentle a voice as possible while sending soothing thoughts to her mind. She looked at me in horror on hearing this.

“But ... but something like that would require a major hospital and a surgical team. I wouldn’t be allowed out of bed for several days, or to leave the hospital. There would be IVs and monitoring machines,” she insisted.

“Not with the use of Magic,” I told her with a grin. “It required less than an hour, and you will be able to move around when you are ready to get up,” I told her.

“But why me? I never saw that guy before. Why did he pick me?” she moaned in tears and started crying. Reaching out, I pulled her to me and held her as she cried her heart out in misery. I held her for many minutes and sent calming and soothing thoughts to her mind while patting her back to try to make her feel better. After a time, the tears subsided, and she seemed better.

“Would you like to use the bathroom?” I asked after releasing her.

“Hum, maybe,” she answered and moved her legs out from under the blanket and over the side of the bed. She winced a little on trying to stand up. Reaching out, I gave her a hand to stand and pointed to the en suite bath.

“Come out to the kitchen when you are finished, if you would like something to eat,” I told her, leaving her to take care of herself in the bath. Some time later, she appeared in the kitchen.

“There is a scar on my belly where I was stabbed, but that is all!” she said in a voice betraying surprise.

“Yes, there needed to be something to show the police,” I told her. She looked at me in confusion.

“Someone did stab you and try to kill you. I killed him and his two accomplishes who were intent on stabbing you also. We then disappeared from the scene of the crime, leaving the three assailants there but no victim. The assault was caught by numerous video cameras in the area,” I told her before turning on the television there in the kitchen to the late evening news which came on a few minutes later. The assault was the first story on the news. Video from several different camera locations were also shown. There were a number of comments from bystanders. There was also an interview with a police representative and a picture of the young woman.

“Anyone who knows the victim or where she is, please contact the Charleston Police Department, as we are anxious to find her and to learn her condition as well as to speak to her about what happened,” the police representative finished.

“Oh ... my ... God!” the young woman breathed in shock on seeing the video and the interview.

“What am I going to do?” she asked in a confused voice following that. “All of my family, friends, and my boss who see the picture of me will call the police to identify me, and they will tell them where I live and where I work. I won’t be able to return to my apartment, or go home, or to work without the police finding me. I’ll probably get fired too,” she moaned in a dejected voice.