5- Hespah

It hurt. The drugs were wearing off, and Hespah was starting to feel the incredible pain on her heavily-bandaged face. She groaned and slowly opened her eyes, only to find that she wasn’t alone. Shit. A pair of long, thin, dark legs were neatly crossed in her direct line of vision. She knew those legs. Fuck. Hespah struggled to get up, but she was still too weak and groggy from the anesthesia. The legs uncrossed and stood up, and suddenly a pair of long, lean arms were lifting her shoulders. Hespah snarled and tried to fight.

"Calm down, I’m not hurting you."

Suddenly the hands were no longer touching her. Hespah stopped struggling and looked around. Nadina had propped her up in a sitting position in the bed, the pillows stacked up comfortably behind her.

"I haven’t come to attack you," Nadina assured her as she smoothed down her light-grey skirt-suit and settled back into the chair by the bed, "I’m here to ask your advice."

"Bullshit." When had anyone ever come to her for advice? And Nadina of all people . . . She was pretty sure this bitch couldn’t stand her. Was this some prank M’boku had thought up? No– the last she’d heard, he wasn’t anywhere near ready to awaken.

Nadina brushed some invisible lint off of her expensive-looking grey jacket and folded her perfectly-manicured hands in her lap. "You know, I had heard a rumor that you were having some work done," she said with a smile, "but I didn’t think it could be true. Good for you!"

"Go fuck yourself."

Nadina laughed. "Glad to know you’ll still be the same old Hespah under the new face."

"You gonna tell me what this is about?"

Nadina frowned like a fashion model trying to make a serious face. "Yes," she said gravely, "I have a problem." She waved a hand toward the recliner in the opposite corner of the room. "That is M’boku."

Hespah gasped. A child, about three years old, was curled up with a blanket and a toy and sleeping soundly against the arm of the chair. "Why the hell didn’t I sense him?"

Nadina shook her head. "You wouldn’t, not yet. He hasn’t awakened. Right now he answers to John."

Hespah blinked. She turned back to Nadina. "You lost your mind?"

Nadina pursed her lips. "His carrier was a cocaine addict, and her live-in boyfriend was abusing him. I had no choice but to take him."

Hespah looked back at the boy. He was cute. Close-cropped mouse-brown hair, long brown eyelashes, a sweet little heart shaped mouth, and a light sprinkling of freckles across his chubby little cheeks. She’d never seen M’boku as a child before. Of course, when he fully awakened and came into his true self, he’d be the same pain-in-the-ass that she remembered all too well.

Nadina slid gracefully out of her chair to kneel on the floor beside Hespah’s bed. "Hespah, please help me," she begged, grasping Hespah’s hand, "I don’t know what to do."

Hespah sighed. It was true that M’boku was a sick little bastard with no loyalty for anyone but himself, but she had never had any real personal problem with Nadina, except that she was always so fucking prim and proper that Hespah always felt like the bitch was judging her. But she knew Nadina did her best to keep that ass-hole in check. "What options do you have?" she asked.

Nadina shook her head. She looked like she was going to cry. "I can’t leave him at an institution. Interpol has pictures of him everywhere. It seems they want to give him to the carrier’s dead-beat ex-husband. I’m not going to let that happen."

"You’re keeping him?"

"I don’t know what else to do. I don’t have any friends on the outside that I can trust with him . . . And I know he doesn’t have any allies on the inside who might know anyone either. I thought maybe, since you’ve had more experience than any of us, you might know what I should do?"

Hespah thought about it. There had been times in the past when circumstances had forced her to have close contact with Shepetheleh for an extended period of time before he awakened. But never more than a year or two. These days she didn’t even really have to worry about it because he’d been awakening sooner and sooner every time. But M’boku was still a very young soul. He shouldn’t awaken for another twelve to fifteen years. "You know the risks?" she asked.

"I’ve met Finbar before. It’s pitiful. No matter how many times Helwyn is reborn, her mind is never fully recovered. She’s stuck at a five-year-old level and Finbar must deal with the fact that it’s his fault that she’s damaged."

Hespah grunted. She’d known Helwyn before that incident. It was a real loss for their entire community. "Could be worse. Ever heard of Manglar?"

Nadina nodded slowly. "Shepetheleh’s maker. I heard Manglar awakened too soon and it made him insane."

"Yeah. Killed his own guardian."

"I heard about that. And of course when Shubat died, Manglar’s soul was no longer anchored to this world, and he couldn’t return." Nadina shuddered. "So that really did happen?"

Hespah nodded. It wasn’t something she liked to think about. The idea of being trapped in an eternal cycle of death and pain, as your soul continuously tries to reincarnate itself on a dead world . . . Well, it was something she would never let Shepetheleh experience, not if she could help it.

Nadina looked uncertain as she watched her master sleep. "How great is the risk? Will it definitely happen, if I stay with him? Or is it just a small chance?"

Hespah shrugged. "Hell if I know," she replied. "Maybe nothing will happen." She thought about it. "What I’ve seen, I’d say it’s maybe fifty-fifty he awakens early. If he does, then maybe a one-in-five chance he goes nuts. Might be just slightly more nuts than usual, might be total apeshit crazy. If it’s apeshit, then I’d say probably two percent chance he goes suicidal and kills you."

Nadina sighed. "Normally those odds would sound really good, only . . ."

Hespah nodded. She knew exactly what Nadina was thinking. We don’t gamble with their precious lives. Still, if she were in Nadina’s position, she wasn’t sure what she would end up doing.

Nadina stood up. "Well, thank you for your time, Hespah. Just talking things through with you . . . I feel like now I’ll be able to figure it all out. Somehow you’ve made me feel a lot better." She scooped up M’boku, blanket and all, and made her way to the door. As she was leaving she turned and smiled at Hespah. "Oh, and . . . good luck with your surgeries."

Hespah opened her mouth to spit out a retort, but stopped when she realized Nadina was being sincere. "I– ah . . . thanks. And . . . good luck to you too."