Black Spring

“More than you think,” Jack said. “Even the average nonmagical person would probably be shocked to see what comes up if they Google their own name. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t answer me. I can see the blood on your clothes, so I bet there’s a body involved.”

“What an investigator you are,” I said. “You should have won a Pulitzer for your reporting by now.”

“No need to be snide,” Jack said. “The way I look at it, we’re in the same boat. We should help each other.”

“We are not in the same boat,” I said. “I can leave this cell anytime I want to. You can’t.”

“You can get out?” he asked.

In demonstration I waved my hand in front of the door. The lock turned under my will and the door swung open.

Jack clutched the bars eagerly. “Let me out, will you? I snuck into the house. I could probably sneak out again.”

I shook my head, pulling the door shut again, although I did not lock it. “You’ll never make it out of the mansion. Lucifer’s got servants everywhere, and he’s going to be on alert now that . . .”

I trailed off, not wanting Jack to know about Evangeline.

“Now that what?” he said. “You might as well tell me. I’ll find out anyway.”

“Then you can ferret it out. I’m not your source,” I said.

“Why are you always so hostile to me?” Jack said. “I could help you. I came to you from the start to help you.”

“I think you’re mixing up ‘help’ with unwanted publicity,” I said. “I don’t want my business published. I want my privacy.”

“Did you ever think that if more people knew about you and what you did, then you would be protected?” Jack said.

“Protected from what?”

“From stuff like this,” Jack said. “The more famous you are, the harder it becomes for someone like Lucifer to make you disappear. People would care. They would look for you.”

“And they would find nothing,” I said. “Even now, even when you’ve been beaten up and imprisoned, you still don’t get it. Lucifer didn’t have to do it this way. If you’re alive and I’m alive, it’s because he wants us to be, because it serves his purpose. He’s not showing you mercy. In fact, if he had been in a bad mood when he found you, then you would be nothing but vapor right now.”

“You mean he wasn’t in a bad mood when he ordered his goons to beat the crap out of me?” Jack said. “I think my arm might be broken. It hurts like hell.”

Now that he mentioned it, I could see that his left arm hung at a strange angle.

“Oh, yeah, that’s broken,” I said. “Now, that, I can fix. I think.”

I pushed the door of the cell open again and crossed to the bars of Jack’s enclosure. I hesitated for a moment. I knew the healing spell by heart, but I had never tried to use it on an ordinary human before.

“Having second thoughts about putting me out of my misery?” Jack asked.

“No,” I said. “I was just thinking that the spell might harm you more than it helped. I’m not sure an ordinary human can handle it.”

“I can handle anything,” Jack said confidently. His face was eager, and I could tell he was more excited about the prospect of having magic performed on him than about fixing what was broken.

“Don’t act like a child,” I said. “If I don’t do this correctly, or your body can’t process it, who knows what might happen. You could explode from the inside out, or have a stroke right in front of me, and there would be nothing I could do about it. You would probably be wishing that you had just waited for a regular doctor to set your arm then.”

“I know you won’t hurt me,” he said.

“Three days ago you thought I had mutilated a person right in front of you,” I reminded him.

“Yes, but now I know better,” he said. “C’mon, just fix my arm since you won’t let me out of the cell.”

He was putting on a brave face, but he was obviously in pain. And I could make it better. And I probably wouldn’t accidentally blow him up. Probably.

I reached through the bars, put my hand on his shoulder. He winced when I brushed my fingers across his arm.

A little pulse of magic flickered through me and into his arm. I was trying to find the precise point where the arm was broken, so that I wouldn’t have to overload him with power. I used my ability to locate the fracture and then sent gentle waves of magic through to heal it.

Jack watched me with wonder in his eyes. “You could do so much with a power like this. You could heal cancer. AIDS. Kids with rare diseases. Why do you hide yourself from the world?”

“This power isn’t an endless well, you know,” I said. “Whenever I use too much magic, it takes something out of me. Can you imagine what would happen if everyone in the world knew that I could heal people? Thousands would descend upon my house, each of them with a story sadder and more horrible than the last one. And I wouldn’t be able to say no. I’d help them, and I’d heal them, and eventually I would be too sick and exhausted myself to help anyone else.”

“But what if you could just help the really needy?” Jack asked as I pulled my hand away.

“Who decides who’s really needy?” I asked. “Does your arm hurt? Do you feel any aftereffects, like nausea?”