Elisha Rex by E.C. Ambrose Read Free Book Online

to his knees. “Let me examine him,” he told her.
    The girl hesitated, and Elisha reached out, slipping her hand aside and replacing it with his own. Stab-wounds pierced the young man’s chest and stomach, slicing the flesh, but stopping short of most vital organs. Elisha shut his eyes and hoped his weariness did not extend too deep. He found the hovering resonance of his talisman of Thomas’s hair and called it forth, using his own body as the guide to teach the young man how to heal. Working from the inside out, he sealed the flesh, joining vessel with vessel, nerve with nerve, and finally smoothed back the skin, leaving it faintly scarred, trembling beneath his touch, against the torn and bloody tunic.
    The guard’s eyes blinked open and he jerked upright, knocking Elisha back on his heels. Slapping at his side where a weapon should hang, he shouted, “Get off me! Get the brigade! The city’s aflame!”
    â€œShane,” the girl sobbed. “Praise the Lord, Shane, you’re alive!”
    At those words, he froze, wary eyes turning toward her, to the street, back to Elisha. “Are you the surgeon?”
    â€œThe barber,” Elisha corrected.
    Frowning, the guard searched out his wounds, finding the slash marks easily enough with his probing fingers, but finding no injuries beyond, and his eyes drew slowly back to Elisha’s face. “Thank you,” he whispered.
    With a one-shouldered shrug, Elisha rose and walked away. The healing left him shaky, as always, as if he needed another reason to be off-balance. If he kept to his plan, he could exit the city and recover alone with Martin’s memory. But the crowd still hovered, and he knew that was not to be.
    â€œHere, Barber!” Madoc cried out, waving his arm.
    Elisha managed to lift his head. “Aye?”
    â€œThis one’s asking for you.” He pointed down to a bulky man seated on the ground, his features warped by graying flesh and too-gaunt cheeks. His sunken eyes lit upon Elisha and he blubbered something, with a frantic gesture of his unresponsive hands.
    Elisha recognized the man who’d held the rope, and his stomach clenched, repulsed as much by what the man had done as by how he, Elisha, had punished him for it. He whispered thanks to Martin for stopping him from something much more terrible, and set out toward his victim.
    Squatting before the newly-ugly citizen, Elisha murmured, “I’m sorry. No matter what you’ve done, I had no right.”
    Flailing his hand toward the sky, the man said, “G-g-god thruck me dow.”
    â€œNo,” said Elisha. “God wasn’t here today.”
    The crumbled hand thrashed toward him then, fastening to his arm and jerking at it so that Elisha’s hand flapped. “H-h,” the man started, swallowed, and tried again. “Hands of God.”
    Pulling away, Elisha gritted his teeth. “You’re wrong.”
    â€œN-n-no!” The twisted face screwed itself up, and his other hand came up with a folded bit of parchment. Then, the lips curled into a recognizable grin. “Proof!” he announced clearly. “F-f-from t’ sky!” He waved the parchment in the direction of God, who had apparently delivered it into his lap.
    Elisha snatched the page from the waving hand and held it before his tired eyes. He made out his name, scrawled on the front.
    Coming up quietly, her arm still draped around Martin’s wife, Helena asked softly, “Would you want me to read it for you?”
    â€œNo need,” he said, then sighed. “I don’t mean to be sharp with you.”
    â€œYou had a terrible day,” she said, touching his arm. “We all have.”
    Elisha nodded, and slipped his finger along the opening, breaking the seal. He read the message a few times, struggling to make sense of it, despite its brevity. “Elisha Mancer,” it read, “Welcome home.”
    Four words that