Unknown child

I felt myself turn cold. I didn't freeze as my body took over where my mind was failing me. I was out in the street in moments and I was running. I had found that it felt like I could point to either Isa or Bella as the months had gone on, I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination or not. Right now I followed the one that I thought of as Isa.

Now that I was looking at it I could tell something was wrong. I ran faster, turning two streets before realizing that the messenger was keeping pace. I turned one more corner and I reached the entrance of the market. I didn't slow as people called out in surprise. I turned another corner that seemed like it was a street of specialized vendors. There weren't many people here but there were still a few. This lane had even fewer people. I skidded to a halt next to a priest that seemed to have decided to take a nap face down by one of the buildings that lined the market. I raised a shield just in time to stop a man from lowering his already bloody knife at his target.

The woman on the ground holding her stombic looked up at the shattering knife in surprise. She had raised an arm over her head to try and protect herself from the blow. It won't have been effective but she didn't seem to have any choices left to her. In the raised hand was the blood red stone I had seen most priests carrying.

My shield wrapped around the man who now just held a hilt of a knife. He was still looking at the weapon in shock trying to process why it had decided to self destruct. He hit the wall of the building behind him with a thunking sound. He wasn't the only man in the alley. Apparently my wife was considered a high enough value target to warrant, five killers. Two of whom seemed to be female.

My wife had killed two of them herself before the man had trapped her. One male and one female were left. They had been behind the woman and when the knife had exploded the other male had decided to act. Another shield sprung up behind the woman who was now looking at me and clearly trying not to cry. I turned the shield and scooped up the man and woman. They weren't going to be able to get the momentum needed to even stress the shield, as it lifted them into the air.

The messenger looked surprised by how I had chosen to use my magic, but these people didn't deserve the easy way to lady death. The messenger pointed to my wife when I looked back at him, "Check on her."

She was holding her low abdomen, I knew what was wrong before I even got a good look at her. There was blood all over her clothes and it was not theirs. She started to cry and leaned back from me as I knelt on the blood soaked stones. I reached for her shoulder, ignoring her shaking head. She wasn't afraid of me, she was afraid for me and herself. I let my other sense flow into her. I normally kept myself out of other people, even my wives, but it gave a view of how the body worked that you just couldn't get otherwise.

A knife had gone deep into her lower abs. The muscles were a mess, blood was leaking everywhere inside and what worried her the most was already past any ability of mine to fix. "I am sorry. I cannot fix this. I can fix the muscles and close the wounds on you but our daughter is dead."

She let out a scream that I had not heard from any person or animal before. It made the wound she was holding bleed more. Her yell faded as I used my power to slow her heart causing her to black out. If I didn't act quickly I was going to lose them both anyway.

I kept having to clear my eyes as I worked. The messenger knelt next to me and helped were he could. His control was not as good as mine but I couldn't bring myself to remove the now foreign mass that had to come out. If I didn't take it out the muscles would be forced to push it out anyway and I wanted to minimize the stress on the system. Lucky the messenger was better at keeping himself in check while we worked.

When I was sure my wife would be fine, I looked up at the two people squished together in the shield I had suspended. They had to take turns breathing they were so tight together. I wanted to make them pop like grapes, but I made myself wait. These two might have killed my unnamed daughter but they were not the ones that ordered it, they were not the ones that might try again since this first try hadn't killed their target. They hadn't really cared about if the child lived or not. Beyond that it might hurt me, they couldn't have been sure it would, but it might. No, their target had been my wife who they knew I cared about more then a man should in their reasoning.

The death of one woman no matter who she thought she was, wouldn't be enough to get our lord to banish a house. Even the death of a priest was forgivable if it was found out. I had no doubt that they left enough conflicting clues that I wouldn't be able to find the real person who had tried to kill my family. Not if I killed these two.

The messenger was watching me as I looked up at the two people. He hadn't said anything while I stood there. He took a steading breath and I looked over at him. "What does, our lord want me to do with them?"

The smile the messenger gave me was not one anyone could mistake as nice. "That depends, can you make it so I can move them like that?"

"I am not sure." I looked down at Isa. She was sleeping peacefully with her arms crossed over the scar on her stombic. "I think I can move it but do we have time for me to take her home first?"

"Our lord doesn't sleep, and has all the time in the world. Take the time you need."

I picked up Isa and started towards home. The two people who had failed to kill her but had gotten too close for my peace of mind floated behind me. They were facing each other and the man was bigger than the woman. So I turned them so the man was floating backwards. He could only see where we had been. I raised them as we got closer to the house, no one was going to be able to kill the two unless they wanted to blow poison gas at them.

I probably didn't need to worry. There were already three pretty strong specials at my house and almost 15 other priests. They looked like they were ready to hurt anyone who got near the house. Hopefully they knew who should be there and who should not.

Some of the women were outside talking to them as I approached. They all stopped as they saw who I was carrying. They moved out of my way as I passed the priest. A few ran inside before I got to the line of men. Some of my brothers bowed as I entered but they didn't slow me. I knew where Bella was and my feet led me to the dining room. Bella had just been talking to two of the other sisters that had run inside. She had started to stand when I walked in. She froze as she registered all the blood. She put a hand over her mouth, "Leave." I almost didn't hear the word, it wasn't directed at me. The other women fled.

I used some power to clear a table and set my burden down. Bella moved over to her sister. She checked her, with tears in her own eyes. She blinked them back as she realized her sister wasn't dead. Then she checked where the clothes were cut open, the cut looked like it had happened years ago, but she knew her sister, as well as she knew herself. She had never received a wound there. Bella rested a hand on her own belly.

She just stood there as my other sense told me too much, "I am sorry, I couldn't." Anger flared and I thought she was mad at me for a moment.

Then she turned and looked at me, "You saved my sister; I don't even have to know what happened to know you did all you could. These housers think you are soft because of how you handle us. You are going to show them that this is not a weakness, husband. Now you go make sure that this doesn't happen to us again. Our blood belongs to our lord, not each other, and these monsters were foolish enough to spill ours in the street." Her eyes hardened as she looked at me, "You will make them jealous of 10 for her." Her nose wrinkled and she looked down at the state of my own clothes, "Right after you change into blood free clothes."

I let Bella herd me up the stairs as she directed her sisters into motion. No one in the house came near me as she walked with me. I missed most of what she said but somehow I got washed and changed. Then I was back down stairs. A good number of the men that had been out for the day were back already. They stayed out of my path, they didn't want to be caught between me and my target. Not all of them had seen the calm look I got in the arena but the primal part of their mind warned them that I was in a dangerous state.

Bella stopped outside on the porch steps, she gave me a kiss on the cheek. "I am going to stay here, in case Isa wakes." She looked up at the two people floating in the air. She had seen my shields enough to know what was doing it. "That is a good start. Good hunting, love."

She turned and went back inside without even a turn of her head in my direction, like this was a perfectly natural exchange for her. I looked at the messenger, he had stayed outside this time. "I am sorry for the delay. I hope you aren't uncomfortable out here. You are more then welcome inside if you wish."

The messenger smiled that evil looking grin again, "Our lord is livid, there is no place within his land that is comfortable for a special right now. Our lord doesn't normally value one human life over another, but what happened has put his plans back years. If they had succeeded it would have been even worse. Our lord isn't normally noted for his moderation in dealing with disappointment."

I hadn't stopped walking as the messenger talked. Now that I had returned Isa to her home and her sister, I was walking back to the arena. Black flames moved in every street in the city. They didn't care that the blasted sun was out and shining. It should be thundering and storming, the day should be night but the sun shined down uncaring of how I felt about it. I was glad I had done something to the shield so that I didn't have to hold the spell at all. I might have hurt the occupants without meaning to otherwise. I walked through the black flames surrounding the arena. They seemed alive as they moved just for the time to let me through with the two people and the messenger. The flames even opened the gate into the slightly darker arena. The men that had been fighting seemed to have left the arena. There were other people on the arena floor. More than three quarters of the people were female. That was interesting.