Undying Love-Chp9

CHAPTER 9: THE HEALING

For the first time since Raziel arrived in this god forsaken Material World, he was taken upstairs to Melissa’s apartment. She tried to prop him on her shoulder and at the same time open the door to her home. For a dead vampire who is not of this world, he sure weights a tonne.

Melissa was greeted by her fox elves as soon as she entered the house with Raziel. He saw them coming out of large bamboo tubes and they come in all sizes, big and small. One of the fox elves that first came out small turned into one huge fat fox elf that seemed like it has been eating non-stop ever since he was born. Raziel looked at the bamboo tubes and the fox elves immediately squeaked in fear and cowered at one corner.

“Don’t worry, my pets. He’s a friend, well, sort of,” Melissa said as she sat him down on her canopy bed. Raziel winced a little when he felt his bleeding calf throbbing real hard.

“This can’t be happening!” Raziel muttered to himself. “I am supposed to heal better and quicker than anyone! Why am I not healing now? Damn it!”

“You mean you can regenerate yourself the moment you get a wound?” Melissa asked in astonishment as she brought the first-aid kit.

“It always works well in the Spectral Realm and in other Material Realms. This is not happening.”

“Well, maybe it doesn’t work that way in this world, whatever you call it. Stick out your leg a little.”

Raziel reluctantly did as he was told. He hated to be ordered around but his throbbing calf was enough to force him to do so. Melissa had a basin of hot water. She soaked a clean white cloth into the steaming water and wanted to press it on Raziel’s calf but Raziel suddenly moved further away from her.

“Just hold still, will you?” Melissa grumbled as she grabbed hold of Raziel’s ankle. She pressed the cloth hard onto the shot wound, resulting to a sudden smack on her hand that held the cloth from the Soul Reaver.

“That hurts!!!” Raziel snarled, his yellow eyes glaring venomously at Melissa.

“If you hold still, it wouldn’t hurt as much, you dumb ass!” Melissa complained, massaging her hand. His smack was really quick and hard—so fast that probably her force field wasn’t quick enough to counter him.

“Well, if you hadn’t dragged me into this wild goose chase, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“Well, if you hadn’t stopped me from letting Judith showing her true self in front of those kids, I wouldn’t be in this wild goose chase! And I don’t think it’s a wild goose chase! We found her and stopped her now, didn’t we?”

“You didn’t even do anything to stop her, just plain silly talk,” Raziel replied coldly. “It was her mate.”

“Well, at least we prevented her from committing suicide,” Melissa argued.

Raziel ran his claws through his hair again as he muttered, “Well, I was kind enough not to kill her. It had nothing to do with you, woman.”

“Excuse moi? You didn’t just fall into kindness or anything; you were struggling to keep your state while holding your aching leg! I’m not stupid, you know! I saw the way you winced every time you raised the sword higher to slash Kent and Judith into sushi!”

Raziel was getting bored of all these useless arguments. He looked away, swearing in his heart that he will get her soul no matter what the cost. Melissa took his ankle and soaked the cloth again.

“Now hold still. This might sting a little.”

Raziel winced and groaned a little as she pressed the hot cloth on his calf. She wiped off the excess blood (which seemed quite greenish-black) and cleaned the wound through and through. She put antiseptic on the wound and took out a surgical needle and some thread from the kit. She sewed the gaping wound and dabbed more antiseptic on it. Finally, she bandaged the calf nice and tidy.

“Where did you learn all these healing treatments?” Raziel asked, quite surprised and amazed.

“My big brother used to study in medical school before he finally embraced his witch identity,” Melissa replied. “He taught me quite a lot and showed me loads of stuff on this field. He never wanted to be a witch at all, but then he stopped being a doctor when he failed to save one of his patients. It caused him quite a great pain. Guess my family finally succeeded in a way to bring him back to witch-dom. I brought this kit along with me when I ran away from home.”

“You are really a peculiar human. You want to be a witch, yet you do not wish to undergo training. I have yet to understand you humans in this Material Realm.”

Melissa didn’t reply. She kept all the utensils back into her kit and put it away. While she was doing her stuff, Raziel looked around. Her house was filled with posters of gothic and creepy creatures, such as Draculas and ogres like the Uruk-hai and the Orcs from LOTR. Her whole house seemed sinister and dark. On her shelves were loads of gizmos used by witches, like talismans, incantation scrolls, beads and such. On a small cabinet was filled with jars upon jars of weird-looking elixirs. One of the fox elves braved itself to fly over to him and smelled him. The other fox elves followed suite, sniffing him like they were dogs smelling something nice to eat. Raziel’s annoyed yellow eyes glared at them and they all cowered again from him.

Raziel noticed a black-coloured safe and pointed at it, asking, “What is in there?”

“If you’re thinking of money, you’ll be disappointed,” Melissa replied after taking a glance at the safe. “That is where I keep all those nasty demons and souls I’ve exorcised so far. I have to put them under lock and key before they get out and harm the living again.”

“Did you say there are souls too?”

“Yes, why?”

“I don’t want to impose but if I were to heal faster, I need suck souls. Would you mind if I consume some of your souls you kept in there?”

“No way hose! Some of those souls are proven useful to me! I can’t just simply let you eat them as you like! If you wanna heal, you gotta heal the hard way!”

Raziel sulked behind his scarf as he stared at the safe. All those souls in there waiting to be consumed. They seemed so tempting. He was not going to walk around with a bandage on his calf and that’s that! Melissa noticed and sighed.

“Oh, alright. I’ll get you a soul that I can spare for you tomorrow. I’m beat. I need to go to bed, pronto!”

She went into her bathroom and took a shower—Raziel could hear the water running—and spent quite a long time in there. Raziel was about to go in and find out what was taking her so long in that room when she came out fully dressed in her black nightgown. Melissa scowled at him and said, “You pervert! What do you think you’re doing? Trying to go in and sneak up on me like that guy you killed?”

“Of course not!” Raziel said as he backed away. “Why do you humans always think something that is far from the truth?”

“Instincts, my dear vampire. We often have to rely on that instinct just in case people are trying to do what we really think they’re trying to do. I gotta go to bed. Goodnight!”

Melissa jumped onto her bed and pulled her blanket over her. All her fox elves slinked back into their bamboo tubes and could be heard snoring away in their slumber. She reached for the controls on her dresser table beside her bed and turned on the air-conditioner. She turned off the lights and all was quiet as soon as she had her head on her pillow. Raziel sat beside the safe, waiting longingly for dawn to come so that he could have a taste of the soul he hadn’t been sucking for quite a while now.

“Raziel?” Melissa suddenly voiced out in the dark.

“What is it, woman?” Raziel asked, his yellow eyes staring at the canopy bed.

“I know you still think that I should leave Judith alone and become the succubus she is, and I know you’re still quite pissed off at my attitude ever since we first met.”

“It is quite true.”

“And I’m sure you’re still mad at me for getting you hurt. I feel partly responsible for influencing you to come with me and for your leg.”

Raziel just grunted in reply.

“But…in a way…thanks for your help. Thanks for…saving Judith’s life.”

Raziel’s eyes widen a little. After all that trouble and after admitting in the first place that he wanted to kill her, she still thanked him? That was the one thing he hadn’t heard for a long, long time. What’s with this human? Why would she want to thank him? He didn’t remember doing anything to deserve her thanks—except the incident at the beach, but that was over now. He actually tried to kill the succubus and yet she thanked her? Humans are so difficult to understand.

“You’re welcome.”