Dragon Heartstring(41)

“No!” I screamed, rocketing down to earth.

Another woman screamed. “He stabbed him! Help!”

Police were now pushing through the crowd, dispersing the riot. Max, Demetrius’s friend I met that horrible night at the clinic, fell to the ground on his knees next to Demetrius. Just as I did a second later. Pritchard Cade knelt as well, calling to him. “Demetrius! Can you hear me? Son?”

I put my hand to his cheek. His eyes were shut, but possibly from the blunt force of hitting his head against the pavement. I heard and felt his pulse beating rapidly. Too rapidly.

“Maxwell, help him,” said Mr. Cade, speaking to the out-of-uniform policeman.

“I will, Mr. Cade,” he said, checking his pulse and speaking into his wrist comm. “Pull the ambulance to the curb. We’re bringing him out.” He moved to Demetrius’s shoulders and lifted, calling out, “Jackson! Blake! Help me here.”

Two uniformed officers at his back knelt to help him carry Demetrius. “Excuse me, ma’am,” said one.

I followed with Mr. Cade to an ambulance and stepped inside next to Max.

“I can heal him,” I said.

“He needs a doctor,” said Mr. Cade, red-faced and desperate with worry and fear.

“Mr. Cade,” I said, placing a gentle hand on the man’s arm, the man who for whatever reason despised our kind. “I know you are afraid. I am as well. I care for your son more than you can possibly know. Let me heal him. I can save him. Right now.”

Mr. Cade, dark eyes wide and chest heaving, held my gaze a moment before he said with a trembling voice, “Okay. Heal him. Please.”

“Close the ambulance doors.”

Max stood and pulled them closed, blocking the din of the boisterous crowd. I knelt on Demetrius’s left side. The knife had missed his jacket, penetrating through his shirt.

“Please. Help me get this off.”

Mr. Cade lifted Demetrius’s head and shoulders as Max and I struggled to remove the jacket.

“Pass me those scissors.”

There was a suture set on the side table. Max reached over and passed me the scissors. I quickly cut through his shirt and pulled the fabric free from around the wound. Blood still streamed in small rivulets.

“I need you to grasp the hilt with both hands and remove the knife by pulling straight up,” I said to Max. “Not at an angle.”

Without question, he rose onto his knees, grabbed the hilt, and pulled it free. The wound immediately spurted blood.

“Oh, God!” shouted Mr. Cade.

I ignored him and placed both hands on the wound on the left side of his chest, the metallic scent of blood filling my nostrils, a tang on the back of my tongue. Warm and wet oozed beneath my fingers as I pressed my palms hard to the open gash. I sought the cold fire deep within me.

Whispering an old prayer my Aunt Asheera had taught me, I chanted over and over again, “The world holds the secrets, the sky whispers and breathes, the earth nurtures the old ones, giving life to all she sees.” The burning cold lanced from my core, circled within my breast, and twisted into an inferno. “See him, old ones,” I whispered. “Find him and see him. Heal him.”

When the fire had been stoked to its fullest, I snapped open my eyes, knowing they were full of the dragon. Still cradling Demetrius’s head in his hands, Mr. Cade flinched backward. Probably for the best.

I inhaled a deep breath and blew the cold fire, intense and bright, circling the wound repeatedly. Demetrius, even unconscious, arched his back with the pain. For cold fire did cause great pain as it sought the sinews of muscle and stitched them together. Then I did it again, the blue flame pouring like an arrow into the wound, sealing it faster than any I’d ever healed. Demetrius writhed.

“Hold him,” I urged.

Max gripped his uninjured shoulder and pressed him down. I sucked in a breath and blew out a third flame, making damn sure his wound was sealed well and good. He didn’t try to twist away this time as the intense suturing had already taken place.

I sat back, light-headed from expending so much energy.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Max.

We watched as a scar formed over the place where the wound had been. Through the smeared blood, we could see his skin altering beneath, shimmering supernaturally. Taking a cloth from the suture kit, I poured some water from a bottle and wiped the skin clean. There, left behind, was a silver, scaly pattern of interlocking threads. One overlapping the other, weaving into another, with the subtle shape of an anatomical heart, as if it had imprinted what lay beneath his chest.

The scars from an Icewing healing were different for each person, for each wound. My eyes welled with tears and slipped down my cheeks. For Demetrius bore a scar that mimicked what I felt, what I knew to be true, though we’d never said the words to one another. It was as if the universe cast our stones, and fate had marked him for me just so there was no doubt he held the heart of a dragon within his chest. One that matched my own.

“Thank you,” came the low, soft words of Demetrius’s father.

I glanced toward him as he brushed his son’s hair away from his forehead. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“You are quite welcome.”

The words almost caught in my throat, for this was no common exchange of gratitude. It was the crossing of a bridge that I was proud to have built.