CHAPTER#143

"Hey. Are you okay?"

She turned her head and laughed, then coughed violently, expelling a concerning amount of blood.

"Looks like you get to be the Caretaker after all." Her voice was slurred. He shifted positions to see her face, and what little light remained in her eye was fading fast. "This is what she wanted. This is what the house wants. It's time that I... go."

"Well, it isn't what I want." He sat down next to her and stroked her hair without thinking about it. It was almost instinctual, like a long forgotten memory. "You seem to have me confused with somebody else."

"Yeah, right." Yuki muttered something in japanese that he couldn't hear. "I won't be your problem much longer."

"What about the others? The ones you turned to stone."

The silence was deafening, but eventually Yuki took a deep breath and held out her hand. In it was a broken stone the shape and size of an eyeball.

"Use... you can use..." she coughed again, her body trembling. Mike rolled her over onto her back and pulled her torso onto his lap. She gasped in pain, then coughed some more, but seemed to be breath much easier. She set the shattered gorgon's eye at her side. "You can reverse..."

"Ratu?" He looked over his shoulder to see the naga approaching. Ratu knelt down next to them and the look on her face told Mike what she thought the chances were of Yuki surviving. He handed her the gorgon's eye.

"She says we can use this to reverse the stone spell."

"Maybe." Ratu pushed the pieces together and a smile crossed her face. "Thank the gods, I can easily isolate this part of the enchantment. Childsplay for someone like me."

Yuki muttered something, and then coughed.

"What was that?" Mike asked. Daisy appeared over his shoulder, landing on Yuki's shoulder. She threw her arms around the kitsune's neck, tears appearing on her tiny face.

"Make sure... Beth..." she coughed again and trembled in his arms. "The demon took her. Turned her to... stone, but... she is still there..."

Ratu put her hand on Mike's shoulder and shook her head. It wouldn't be long now. He looked down at the woman in his arms and watched her skin peel away, revealing the thick fur beneath. Her human form was beginning to relax, her consciousness sliding away from her. Each breath was now a painful gift, and he looked in nervousness at the dark figure standing by the gate, wondering if he would saunter over to collect.

As much as he was a pawn in a game he was unaware of, so was Yuki. Even though she had tried to kill him, she had given her life for the house, fighting with all her strength to protect it. She really had caused him so much trouble, had nearly killed him and all of the others.

Still, this could very much be him some day. How many decisions had he made that felt wrong, decisions that affected others? The woman on the ground before him was heartbroken, devastated, yet he knew from her journals that she loved this home more than anything. In truth, the guilt lie primarily at Emily's feet, the past defining who Yuki had become.

The emerald was in his hand, suddenly ablaze with light. It wasn't even a conscious thought, but he held it above her now, contemplating its deep facets. The energy inside of it pulsed, sucking the sound out of the air and making the ground vibrate beneath him. It was essentially a wish, just waiting to be unleashed on the world.

"Are you sure?" Ratu asked. "With this, you could have almost anything."

A grim smile crossed his face. "I'm not sure of a lot of things, but this is what's right."

Ratu nodded, then looked down at the kitsune. "Then you'd better hurry."

"Emily," Yuki whispered, opening her eye. Her gaze fixed itself on the emerald. "Where... where did you..."

Magic. It was about passion. Intent. It wasn't something he could command, but it was something he could direct. The dying woman in his arms needed more than just her injuries fixed, she deserved peace, a second chance at a life that had been taken from her. His own magic whirled through his limbs in response to his will, creeping through his veins like ice.

Touching the emerald to Yuki's forehead, he leaned forward and closed his eyes, opening his mind and heart, looking past her actions and her mistakes. She wasn't just Emily's former lover, she was also a friend to the house, a writer of poetry, someone who had been hurt so badly on a spiritual level that she had been forced to lash out.

She was a lot like him. He had been given a chance by the house, an opportunity to improve and to heal. As badly as he might want something else in the world, he couldn't bear to know that someone else withstood the same kind of torment he had, a pain so deep that they would rip it free with their bare hands if they could. The world was often a cruel place, but now, in this moment, he would tolerate that cruelty no longer.

The air had gone still, the universe hungrily anticipating his words, ready to bend creation for him.

"I want you to be whole again," he whispered, willing it to be so. The emerald shimmered in his hands, growing bright enough that he could see its glow through his own eyelids. He squinted and watched in amazement as it started spinning in place, sending spirals of light over Yuki's body.

Ratu grabbed Mike by the shoulders and pulled him away as Yuki's body levitated into the air. She floated in place as the light filtered through her, and he could see inky black shadows being cast from her bloodied form into the ground. The darkness slid away from her, only to be caught in the direct light of the emerald and burned away into nothingness.

He and Ratu turned away from the light, and even Tink had turned to look away as well. It became a tiny star in his front yard, chasing away the remaining shadows. An eerie, high-pitched whine filled the air, and then... silence.