I needed to decide what to do.
The Reuben was delicious, as were the homemade kettle chips. I hadn't eaten anything that decadent since I'd noticed the lump on my left ball a couple of weeks ago. “So where are you taking me?”
Rafferty glanced at the open door. “I'll tell you when we get in the car. It'll only take fifteen or so minutes to get there though.”
When I finished eating, I straightened up the break room a little bit, then Rafferty escorted me through the bookstore. I waved casually at Taylor and Daphne, reminding them that I’d be out on medical leave for a couple of weeks. I knew I'd have to explain how Rafferty and I had gotten together when I came back to work, if they didn’t hound me by text before the day was out.
When we were in Rafferty’s truck, he pulled a blue sticky note out of his pocket and entered the address into the navigation system.
“Where is that? The Second Ward?”
“Yeah.” He put the truck in gear and pulled out into traffic. “It's not a great area.”
I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows. “We're in the truck. Spill.”
He took one hand off the steering wheel and rubbed his forehead before tilting his head toward me and giving me a pleading expression. “This might all be some sort of weird hoax, so try not to get your hopes up.”
“Um, okay?”
“I don't think you met Nancy last night, but she works in administration at the women's hospital in the Medical Center.”
“No, I didn't meet her, I don't think.”
“Right. She heard about your cancer diagnosis, and this morning she gave me this address.” He tapped the blue sticky note, which he’d stuck in one of the cup holders. I waited. He was drawing this out, and I was getting more and more curious as to why. He put his hand back on the steering wheel. “So all the Wonders who work in the hospital system have some sort of informal chat network or something. I don't know any details.” He took a deep breath. “Nancy said word has been going around recently that there’s a magic carrier who is literally a healer.”
I blinked. “No way. No magic carrier has abilities like that. None of us can use our magic to affect anyone else, much less heal them.” Even as I said it, my heart began to beat faster. What if this healer was an anomaly? What if they were real?
“According to Nancy, the guy cured some kid of leukemia, but the info is really sketchy. All they have is this address and that we’re supposed to say we’re coming to see Mary Poppins.”
Sketchy didn’t begin to describe it. I told my hopes to calm the fuck down. “Yeah, it could be some sort of con. Cash up front before he lays his hands on the patient and declares them cured.” I peered at the GPS. “But that looks like a residential neighborhood. Seems like you wouldn't want to give your home address out if you were screwing people over.” I frowned. “For that matter, if you really did have healing abilities, it’d be dangerous as fuck to give people your real address. This has got to be some sort of office space or something.”
But when we arrived, the area was definitely residential. The house was medium-sized, with white siding and a covered front porch. The front yard was pretty overgrown, but there was a small sedan under the carport, and a potted plant on the porch. From the street it certainly appeared as if someone lived here.
Rafferty parked the truck along the curb, and we got out. The street was quiet, but there were lots of other cars visible. No kids though, which was a relief. This area had a pretty high crime rate.
If someone had true healing abilities, they’d be rich, right? But if you charged an arm and a leg, wouldn’t you let people know up front so if they couldn’t afford it they didn’t waste your time? This had to be some sort of con, like Rafferty said.
He came around the front of the truck and joined me on the sidewalk. There wasn't even a fence around the property to keep people from walking up to this guy's front door. Was it a false address? Cautiously I opened up my magic and scanned the house. No one was inside, but in the backyard?—
“Shit! Come on!” I ran toward the right side of the house.
“What? Elton!” Rafferty’s heavy footsteps pounded after me.
I rounded the front porch, and sure enough, ahead of us was a gate into the backyard.
“Wait! Let me go first!”
I stepped aside to let Rafferty pass. I appreciated how he didn't question me, just volunteered to use his strength to protect me. Not that the person in the backyard was any threat, but the thought was nice.
He slowly opened the gate, putting his face to the opening before pulling it wide and jogging through. The yard was lovely. Some of the plants had lost their leaves for the winter, of course, but there were what I thought were mature fruit trees in the center, and a bunch of shrubs along the fence. The grass was overgrown here as well, but about half of it had been tamed with the lawn mower that was sitting at the edge of the mown area. The guy who'd been pushing it, though, was on the ground, rolling onto his side and attempting to sit up.
I pulled the gate shut behind me as Rafferty reached the man. “Hey, did you fall? Did you hit your head?”
The guy made it to a mostly upright seated position, leaning heavily on one hand. He lifted the other to tentatively feel at his scalp. “I just got dizzy. I don't think I hit my head.” He looked between me and Rafferty, staring at our chests, which meant he was examining our magic.
His own magic was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Most Wonders and magic carriers had a magical core, essentially a big spinning pinwheel of magical energy that kept our abilities going and created connections and bonds with other Wonders and magic carriers.
This guy, however, didn’t have a spinning pinwheel. Instead it was like his entire body was infused with magic. He didn't have a defined core at all. His body, his arms, his legs, and his head all glowed with magic, but it was faint, like a drained battery. If he’d had a regular magical core and was displaying that dim a glow, I’d have put him to bed for a week and fed him every few hours to get his energy back up.
