In this chapter, Joe gets Met to help him with his weight. That means he needs magic from Church. It also means that Paul is going to witness a Solum surgery. Let's see how he takes it.
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
15
Magic Medicine
"Who thanks a priest?" Paul asked rhetorically as we got on the elevator for the ride to the ground. "Think about it. We're like dentists in many ways. People come to us when they're in pain, we do what we can for them and the process usually hurts worse, then, those that are still alive go away to heal.
"The difference is, a dentist gets to be a regular person, he gets to go home at night and have a wife and kids, or maybe a drinking problem, or maybe both. He doesn't get held to a higher standard. If a dentist stubs his toe and swears, no one thinks less of him. What would have happened, do you think, if I stubbed my toe crossing the parking lot to the rectory and let fly with an expletive?
"No," Paul insisted and went on without letting me answer, "they wouldn't understand. Don't misunderstand me, young man, I don't bemoan my life. It was a good life, in many ways a rewarding life, but it was a difficult life. Priests spend their whole lives immersed in ceremony and the pain of others.
"For our own solace, we are told to look to the Lord, to put our faith in God. Well, he is a difficult master. We, the clergy that is, we hope, and we pray that we are doing the right thing, that the faith we've dedicated our existence to, is the correct one. We give advice and comfort, we council and minister, and we count on the Almighty to guide us. Does he guide us? Who's to say?" Paul shrugged helplessly.
Without warning, Paul clamped down on his story. He shut off the sharing like he'd slammed the lid on a suitcase full of memories. "I don't know." He said with a bitter note in his voice. "Maybe I wasn't a good priest. Maybe I chose the wrong path. Maybe I've been a fraud all these years. I've been thinking a lot about that the older I get, the closer I get to the end."
The elevator car reached the bottom of the shaft and its doors opened to let Paul and I out onto the plains next to the Vic. Paul stepped out and turned to face me, blocking me from stepping off the elevator. "Don't listen to me, Church." He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. "I'm just a silly old man with too much time to think. Time to think isn't good for a man. Introspection can be dangerous. When I started to doubt, I should have plunged myself into greater work. I should never have asked for time to reflect."
We moved toward the car as I thought about what Paul had been saying. It was interesting to me that Paul had told me all that he had, and then decided he was oversharing. I tried to let him know it was OK to share with me. "This is a two-way street." I reminded my friend. "I can't always be the one unburdening myself on you. If you have a burden, I want to share it. Maybe that's why you're here."
We got in the car, and I started it up. I drove us toward the house. We were passing the monument when Paul spoke again. "Do you believe everything happens for a reason? That last thing you said makes it sound like you do, but you don't strike me as the type."
"I'm not." I shook my head at the windshield and checked the rearview mirror for no reason. "I just meant that you should take the opportunity while you have it. I don't know if you're going back to Earth or not. I don't think you know either. You've as much as said you don't have anyone to unload on. If you need that, here I am. I'll listen to anything you have to say, and I won't judge you for any of it. You can even swear around me if you want, or at me if it'll help. I've got a pretty thick skin."
"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you." Paul muttered and turned his face into the breeze that flowed through the passenger window.
I didn't push him to expand on his earlier confessions. I'd made the offer and he could take it or leave it alone as he pleased. I drove us to the house and backed into the garage. Paul and I got out and went through into my kitchen. Neither of us was quite ready for the sight that greeted us when we got there.
It seemed that we'd walked into an improvised operating theater. Met was there, dressed what I assumed was one of Joe's long sleeve shirts. The garment was charcoal grey and fit the petite man like a tent.
Joe was lying on the kitchen counter. He was either asleep or unconscious. He was covered by a white sheet and had a pillow under his head. Beyond his head was one of my largest black-glass serving bowls. The bottom of the bowl was full of gelatinous, wet-looking, yellow stuff. I moved up next to Joe and noticed that his face and neck were both much thinner than I remembered.
I gave Met my attention without saying anything. Paul moved next to me but didn't remain silent. "What's wrong with him?" Paul asked Met.
Met explained. "He came to me for help to reduce the weight he's carrying. He said it had something to do with getting Shawn back and that Church would give me the magic I need to do the work. I've already done his face and neck, but I don't have the power for his body. I need your help." Met directed the last sentence to me.
"So, the contents of this bowl?" Paul asked.
"That's the fat I took out of him." Met replied dryly, professionally. His voice sounded like Shawn's clinical tone, but with less caring in it.
Paul peered into the bowl and spoke like he was talking directly to it. "Fascinating." He observed and turned to us. "May I watch the process, please?"
I was surprised that Paul wasn't fazed by the sight of a bowl of human fat, especially as he was standing right next to the human it came out of. I expected him to react more like I once had to sights like that. During the time that I served as Shawn's battery at his surgical practice, I saw him do many invasive procedures, and I lost my lunch many times before I got used to it. I still couldn't claim to be completely immune to the sights and smells of the inside of the human body, but I didn't `heave my guts' as often as I used to. Paul's nonchalance impressed me.
I was also a little surprised at how calm Met was about asking for my magic. I didn't know what I expected, but he and I had never worked together like I had with Shawn. I assumed Met would be at least a little hesitant about it. I soon as I thought that, I reminded myself about how much he and Shawn had worked together in recent months. I assumed they'd at least spoken about the way I used to power Shawn's efforts.
As Met was a physician, and a good one, I presumed he was open to anything that would enable him to do his job better, or more effectively. I decided not to overanalyze. Apparently, Joe had sought the help I had asked him to seek, and Met was willing to provide it. Any other details were irrelevant.
Met answered Paul while I was busy with my thoughts. He seemed to take the request to watch in stride. "Fine with me." Met said, as dryly as before. "I warn you; I plan to take most of his skin off to get to the fat. This is one of the most invasive procedures I've ever done."
I didn't like the way that sounded. I didn't like the idea that Met was getting ready to do something to my brother that he'd never done before. I questioned his knowledge. "Can you do it?" I asked. "I mean, are you qualified? No disrespect."
Met answered with no emotion on his face or in his voice. "Yes. I can do it and he'll be much better for it. It would usually take a team of physicians working over several days to perform a procedure of this magnitude. I'm looking forward to having the power to do it all at once."
"Let's get to it then." I verbally shrugged and stepped forward to be close enough to Met to transfer my magic. "When Shawn and I used to do this, I'd put my hand on his back to give him power. I can do it in batches or continuously. How do you want it?"
"Continuously would be best. Can you use your telekinesis or your Vitalis powers while you give me magic?"
"Sure, why?"
"It would help if you could hold him up while I work so I don't have to wake him so he can move himself. I'm not strong enough to move him around and I don't have any apparatus here to help me. Also, if you can use your white magic, you can dispose of the fat as I remove it. There's no reason to keep any of it and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it all."
"That's fine." I agreed. "You direct me, and I'll do whatever you want."
Met appraised me with his eyes and did the same to Paul. "If those clothes are important to you, you may want to change them. There will be blood and it may spurt. That's why I'm dressed like this. Joe gave me one of his shirts. It won't fit him when we're done."
I took a look at our relative positions and how they related to where I assumed Met would be standing. I figured that I could protect Paul and me from any spatter with a telekinetic shield. "I'll put a barrier up between us and Joe. Don't worry."
"Anything you say." Met replied in the same dry tone. As he spoke, I found myself wondering if the man had no bedside manner at all or if I was just so used to Shawn's caring nature that Met's matter-of-factness was jarring. That turned out to be yet another mental question that I didn't bother to pursue because it didn't matter to the task at hand.
I waited and watched while Met arranged his tools on the counter. He had quite a collection of scalpels and knives that looked too much like the butcher knives I used in my kitchen for me to be happy about it. When Met had his tools ready, he pulled Joe's sheet down to expose his nudity. I made a mental note to instruct Met not to tell Joe that we'd seen him in his full bloated glory.
Met primed us on what he was about to do. "I'm going after the belly fat first. Once that's gone, the rest of this will be simple sculpting. He's already unconscious. I've suppressed his pain receptors and slowed his respiration and blood flow. Church, you let me know if I need to slow down to let your power recover."
"Don't worry. I'll be fine no matter how much you use."
Met nodded and got ready to work. I erected a barrier to protect Paul and me from any stray fluids and stopped it short so I could put my hand on Met's back. I brought my magic to the surface of my hand and offered it to him. His body was apparently already low from the earlier procedure, and it drew the power in as I made it available.
Met felt the magic recharging his system and went right to work. He used a fine black glass scalpel to cut Joe open from his collarbone to his naval and then in an arc at the base of his ribs down both sides of his big gut. He peeled the skin back and sliced it from the fat with a flexible paring knife as he went. He handled the skin like he was removing Joe's shirt and cut the fat away underneath it like he was butchering a slaughtered animal. He went roughly about the process.
I remembered what Shawn had said to me, about having to `speak to' Met about the way he handled his patents once they were unconscious. I didn't like the fact that Met's habits had made Shawn angry and had indirectly led to hurt feelings between he and I. I also didn't like the fact that Met seemed not to have learned his lesson.
I also didn't like the fact that the patient who Met was handling like a dead animal that needed to be butchered was my brother. Even though Joe pissed me off, he was still my brother. The surgery he was undergoing was being done at my request, so I didn't want to see him treated roughly. I got mad at my husband's medical partner.
I barked at Met and gave him shit for treating my brother like an object instead of a person. I demanded he be at least somewhat gentle. Met exposed some emotion as he responded to my criticism. He bristled at what he seemed to view as my interference in his work, but he complied without too much argument. I thanked him for adjusting his approach and that mollified him a bit.
We quickly developed a system where Met stripped the fat away from Joe and offered it up to the air. I accepted it with my telekinesis and destroyed it with my white magic. Once the fat was gone, Met refit Joe into his skin like he was tailoring clothes for him and cut away the excess. He sealed the wounds with a touch of his hands and moved to the next spot of Joe's anatomy.
The process went much faster than I thought possible. Before long, Met had finished the physical work and had pressed his forehead to Joe's to perform the full-body task of reknitting Joe's skin to the flesh underneath it. He also gave Joe's immune system a boost.
It was that last process, the full-body work, that seemed to take the most energy. The last piece of the process was the only time during the entire procedure when I felt a large enough draw on my magic for my internal power plant to start. It only ran on low power for a short time, but it ran.
When Met finished, he backed away from his patient and asked me to take care of the clean-up. I used my white magic to eliminate the fat from the bowl and the blood that streaked the counter. I also destroyed the stained sheet that had covered Joe and the ruined shirt Met had worn to protect his own clothes.
After that, I used my telekinesis to dress Joe in his clothes from before. Joe's clothes made the work Met had done look even more obvious than when we saw the results directly. Joe swam in the garments that had been snug on him just an hour or so earlier. Except for the scraggly beard and long hair, he actually looked like Joe again. I was so glad.
Met watched me do what I did and asked me for one more magic boost before he woke Joe. I gave it to him without question. He thanked me for the help and stared at me for a long beat before he spoke. "I find your power disconcerting." He said to me and cringed a little like he expected me to react to his saying it.
I shrugged. "So do I."
Met didn't react to my admission. He went back to his work putting his tools away and clearing up his work area. We stayed and watched until Met was ready to wake Joe. I stopped him before he did. "Paul and I are going to Paul's place." I announced. "Let us get away before you wake him, and don't tell him we were here."
Met didn't see the point of my request and said as much. "He'll know I didn't do all this on my own." Met reasoned aloud.
"Knowing it and waking up to us standing over him are different things." I explained. "Humor me please."
Met agreed and waited for Paul and me to leave before he did whatever else he needed to do.
We were in the kitchen in Paul's apartment, and I was thinking about yet another cup of coffee. I tended to drink the stuff all day, more so when I was nervous about something. Shawn was always after me to drink more water. He also told me that drinking coffee when I was already nervous just made everything worse.
I knew he was right on both things, but that didn't change my habits. I liked coffee and enjoyed having a hot beverage, even in the dead of the summer. It was familiar and the familiar was comforting, even if the caffeine did make me jittery. I went around the island to the culinarian and asked Paul if he wanted a cup.
"Do you want one?" He asked, turning the question around on me.
"I thought I would." I announced, confused by Paul flipping my offer on its head.
"Sit down then." Paul came up next to me and prodded me to the other side of the island. "I have to figure out how this machine works eventually, and it will be easier with you here."
I took a seat and put my hands flat on the countertop to keep them still. Paul called up the touch screen on the culinarian and squinted at it. I told him about the zoom' function for the icons. The larger images made the process easier for him. He scrolled through the selections with the hands of a man long accustomed to the use of smart' devices but also with the hesitance of one who maintained a healthy suspicion of the technology. He was quickly able to program a black coffee for me and a green tea for himself.
He handed my cup over and set his on his side of the counter. "Are you hungry?" He asked.
I was. I checked my phone to see if I should be and saw that it was after two. The first arrivals of the people Bem had called to help get Shawn back would be at the house soon, but they weren't there yet. That didn't matter much as far as whether I ate or not. It was just an observation related to the time. I checked my phone again out of habit, slipped it back in my pocket and gave my attention back to Paul. Somehow our roles had reversed, and he was my host, and I was his guest. "What's that?" I asked like my brain had just switched on.
"Hungry," he reminded, "do you want to eat?"
"Sure...whatever you're having."
Paul went back to the culinarian menu and made several small, surprised noises as he scrolled through it. I sipped my coffee while he explored the menu. Half a cup later he set a plate in front of me. On it was a toasted corned beef sandwich on rye bread with melted Swiss and sauerkraut. Keeping the sandwich company on the plate was a bread and butter pickle and a pile of ripple-style potato chips.
"Where did they get the recipe for these sandwiches?" Paul asked and raised a topic I hadn't thought much about. "Yesterday I had an Italian hoagie that tasted like it was made at a South Philly delicatessen and today, I'm getting ready to eat a Rueben sandwich. How is that possible?"
I made him wait for an answer while I bit into the hot sandwich and chewed. It was delicious, though not a selection I normally would have made. "I suspect this world has more contact with Earth than anyone lets on. I mean, you and me have emailed regularly for years. I have no idea how that works. Shawn's Uncle Ars gets cable TV and watches old cop shows. He sent us to Earth for his investments, but not really." I trailed off and took another bite of sandwich.
Paul chewed a bite he'd been working on, swallowed, and asked me what I meant. "I don't understand. Your..." Paul paused and seemed to think about something. When he went on, I realized he'd been trying to figure out how to identify Ars. "Your uncle-in-law...he did send you to Earth to see about his investments. That's why you were there when we met."
I swallowed my own bite and corrected Paul's misapprehension. "That's what he said. It's true that we did see to his investments, but anyone with his power of attorney could have done what Shawn and I did. Ars sent us to Earth because he knew my brother was sick. He didn't tell us that because he knew from talking to Shawn, that my relationship with my family was...uh...complex. When we got back here, he already had identifications made up for Joe, Andy, Mary and the twins." I emphasized my point by repeating myself. "He already had them made up, with photos. The man is ten steps ahead...always."
I took another bite of sandwich and was reminded that we were talking about food. "Anyway, I shrugged, "I don't know how the contact between the worlds works or why it's being done or why it's a secret, but I can only assume it's happening and happening regularly. It would make sense if only based on the sandwiches you mentioned.
"Lunch meat is more or less a northeastern United States phenomenon. The Jewish delis in New York and the Philly Italians are responsible for most of what gets eaten on a long role or between slices of rye. Somehow the Earth culture is getting here. I don't question too much. Ars would never tell me even if I asked him point blank. As far as the food goes, if it's familiar and good, I'm thankful for it."
Paul nodded to me over his sandwich. I presumed he agreed with what I'd said. "Ars sounds like an impressive individual." Paul said. "I look forward to meeting him. As to the food, wise of you, young man, not to look that gift horse in the mouth, so to speak." Paul observed between bites.
We finished our meals in silence. When we were done, Paul gathered the plates into the wash cabinet and programmed another cup of coffee for me while he got a glass of water for himself. He leaned against the counter and opened the conversation with a statement. "That process we witnessed earlier, what young Met was able to accomplish for your brother...remarkable."
"It was." I agreed. "Why didn't that bother you?"
"South America." Paul explained. "I've seen things...between the earthquake and the village. I used to help butcher the animals in the village...and I've seen people...shattered by violence, both natural and unnatural. Not much gets to me anymore."
Paul's admission surprised me...again. The more I learned about him the more interesting he became. I tried to move the conversation along to get him away from what I assumed was a difficult subject. "I'm not numb to it, but I deal with it better than I used to. I've seen Shawn do amazing things; break down entire organs and rebuild them brand new, knit shattered bones, repair worn-out joints, amazing things. The only reason I'm sitting here is the work he did on my body. My lungs, my heart, my liver and kidneys, all of me has benefitted from his magic."
"But he couldn't help Joe with his ALS." Paul said as a question.
I played with my coffee cup on the glass countertop as I tried to remember what Shawn had told me about that. I didn't want to explain it incorrectly. "Shawn says that nerves are tough...difficult I mean. If he's fixing a muscle or an organ, peripheral nerves associated with that work, those he can deal with because the body's normal processes will repair peripheral nerves.
"Central nerves are different and autoimmune diseases are different. When the body can't do something as a normal process, or when those processes break down, no amount of energy added or subtracted will make it do what you want it to. That's why Joe needed a specialist. He had problems with his central nervous system that were caused by an autoimmune disease."
"I find the limits interesting." Paul mused after a moment's reflection. "It's somehow comforting to know the doctors cannot fix everything with the wave of a hand."
"No, they can't. You also have to remember, what you saw today was only possible because of my magic. I asked Shawn about doing that for Joe, quite a while ago, when he first piled the weight on. Shawn was more specific than Met when he told me about the team approach to major weight loss procedures on this world. He said that, to deal with someone of Joe's size and weight, it would take a three-doctor team working together over at least a week. The trouble isn't how long the work itself takes, it's the amount of magic energy it requires."
I held up my right hand and looked at it. Even after all the time that had gone by, and all the feats of magic that I'd performed, it still amazed me that the energy came from me. "You saw how fast Met and I did it. That's why Shawn can command the fees he's paid for his work. Performing surgeries all at once like that is easier on the patient and cheaper in the long run because you don't need the extra people and the patient doesn't need to stay in the hospital for days on end. They fly into Oppidum, Shawn does his thing, and they leave the same day or sometimes the next day."
As I explained what I knew and what I'd been told, Paul's face took on an expression that I'd started to notice usually precedes his more insightful comments. "And yet," he said, "you told Met you find your power disconcerting."
I lowered my right hand and wrapped it around my coffee cup. The left joined it. I dropped my eyes down to my hands and thought about my magic. I tended to think of my magic as a product of my hands. I think that is because it was easy to see my power as an extension of my physical body, and my hands are what I usually use to interact with the world. The trouble with that was my hands actually limited my magic.
My battle with the barrier around the Demon's Citadel had taught me that I could discharge magic directly from my core. I thought of that technique as my `nuclear' option. The fact that I wielded so much power bothered me. All men have the power to kill. I had the power to kill and destroy on a grand scale. Doing so had a real cost, but if I ever reached the point where I didn't care if I lived or died, the knowledge of that cost would no longer be a limiting factor.
I tried to explain that to Paul. "You've heard me refer to myself as a bonfire of power. If I was completely honest, I'm more like a nuclear reactor, or maybe an atom bomb. The amount of magic at my disposal is literally world changing. I mean, I could rampage through a city like a foam rubber monster in a Japanese horror movie. It bothers me sometimes...the responsibility of it. I'm not a big one for responsibility."
"But you wouldn't do those things." Paul said, seemingly for clarification.
I hedged my answer. "I don't think I would."
"You don't think you would?" Paul asked as he searched my face with surprised eyes.
I met the man's eyes because what I was about to say was probably the most important thing I'd ever said to him. I even chose to address Paul by his professional title to get his attention. "Father, you should know, if something happens to Shawn...if they hurt him...if they..." I trailed off instead of saying the words and squeezed my eyes shut to force the welling tears from them, "someone is going to have to kill me."
My phone chimed in the middle of my confession. I drew it from my pocket and checked it. There was a text message from Bem. The first of our friends had arrived. I rose from the island and readied myself to greet the arrival. "Come on, Paul, there's someone I want you to meet." I said to the man who was staring at me like I was a dog he'd been told wouldn't bite, but he wasn't convinced.