Chapter 22 Phoenix
The phoenix rests on the windowsill
Waiting for the first leaves to fall
She is nothing without her iron will
Courage, love and dreams, they are her all
And When Darkness Wraps the World in Shade
The Phoenix…
She Sings
The air was moist and warm. The yells and bangs all around her that accompanied the building of the new hospital were sending shots of warmth through her blood. They were going to be prepared now; they were going to keep everyone as safe as humanly possible.
“Ready, Malaika?”
“Yeah,” Malaika said, shaking herself out of her thoughts, “You should go home and take a rest Hannah, you’re tired.”
Hannah handed her the box of small first-aid pouches and shook her head before taking a seat beside Millie. “No,” she said stubbornly, “Mahmoud’s been out there for hours and hours, he should be back soon and I can take his place.”
“Right,” Malaika cast a glance over at Millie who was playing with one of Dr. John’s nieces, “You look out for her for me and take a little rest here then, and let Mahmoud take her home if he comes during the lesson.”
“Sure.”
Malaika walked purposefully over to the small group of eager young men and women. They would walk out after this and try to save lives, she knew they’d do it whether she deemed them competent or not, so she had to do her best to prepare them.
……
He could almost touch the silence, and the way the light of their lamps was dancing across the dirty pavement was beautiful. Mahmoud’s legs were becoming weary and he didn’t object when Jeremiah began to steer them towards the new hospital site.
Just as they turned the corner, though, his eye caught a glimpse of something glowing from behind. He whipped his head around and came face to face with an old, graying man who was making his way down the street with a lamp in hand and a grim determination on his face.
Mahmoud flew across the last few steps between them and stood before him, suddenly not knowing what to say. “Well, boy,” the man spoke, “You beat me at it.”
“Thank you,” Mahmoud whispered, “Thank you for showing me a glimmer of hope in the shadows.” He lifted the cloak off his shoulders and handed it to the man.
“Don’t give that to me, son, you’ll be needing it.”
“Please.”
He pushed the man’s hands away from him gently and then, impulsively, bent his head and kissed a wrinkled hand just as if he was greeting grandfather.
Jeremiah nodded to him and then continued weaving his way down the road, but Emmett shot him a weird look and stayed staring at the man a while before catching up with them.
He began to say something about old people and knowing when you were out of your element but Jeremiah grabbed a handful of his shirt and cut him off and Mahmoud stiffened.
“You’re out of your element my little friend,” Jeremiah said bitterly, “If you weren’t so stupid you’d be teaching people how to work their electricity and showing them how to rebuild their lives instead of playing Ninja out here in the streets.”
“I don’t think it’s any of your business and we’ve already discussed this Ninja thing too many times to count. Don’t be telling other people what to d-”
“Then bloody well shut your mouth!”
Mahmoud relaxed his clenched fists and walked ahead of the two shaking his head. Their arguments would drive him up the wall one day, so although he understood the importance of convincing Emmett to understand and accept his own talents and his place he left it to Jeremiah this time. They would think of something one day, he just hoped it wouldn’t be too late.
Their voices were getting closer, and Mahmoud stopped for a second, intending to wait, until a very familiar cat brushed against his ankles and he looked up. Jumping back to action he practically ran out of the street without looking back or thinking. His heart beat an erratic rhythm in his chest and he steered them towards the center of the city, the still-arguing voices behind him helping to calm his tearing heart.
“Harold, help!” the scream cut through his ears and he turned quickly and ran towards the voice, lamp raised before him, with Jeremiah’s thudding footsteps behind.
They were all dressed in long black cloaks. Mahmoud didn’t wait to observe them or their actions. His mind was fixed only on getting the woman, who was writhing on the floor in pain, out of there. Emmett pulled her husband up to his feet and together they supported the couple until they were safely tucked away behind a crumbling wall.
As one, they both turned back and hurried towards Jeremiah. Mahmoud wanted to yell at him and shake him (if that were even possible). He had knocked one of the black hooded figures to the ground and the others had been unarmed but they still stood there, their eyes searching frantically for their lost weapons, their manic grins faltering. Emmett’s expression was like Mahmoud’s rational mind, telling him they should not be allowed to run, because they would do it again.
“Tear them apart,” Emmett snarled at the bigger boy, “Just like the lives they tore to shreds.”
Mahmoud shook his head, his heart aching within his chest for some kind of sense, for a logic that didn’t hurt so much. “No,” Jeremiah said, “But if I see your face again, if I see you doing anything to hurt anyone, I’ll tear you apart like my friend here wants.”
Jeremiah had grabbed one of them by the collar and the other had scampered away. Mahmoud watched his retreating back until he merged with the darkness and then turned back to the man in Jeremiah’s grip. It seemed that Jeremiah was having trouble controlling himself as he stared at the man’s uncovered face.
“If I kill you,” Jeremiah’s tone was cold, bitter, menacing, and knowing him Mahmoud knew that this was a sign that his friend was on the verge of hysteria, “I’ll only be just like you, an animal; a sickening parasite. But if I see your blasted face again I’ll do it…I’ll murder you and it’ll be worth every eon I spend in hell for it.”
The man- no boy’s face was sharp and controlled, cold and his eyes were hollowed, almost unseeing. He didn’t even flinch. But Jeremiah must have seen something because he suddenly let him go and the boy fell to the ground in a heap of black before standing and straightening. He walked away calmly, coolly, as if nothing had happened. As if three enemies weren’t behind him. Maybe, Mahmoud thought, he had read Jeremiah as well as Jeremiah had read him and knew that the bigger man would keep his word.
They stood still and watched the couple limp away in each other’s arms, towards the hospital which was nearby. Even Emmett had the sense to keep his mouth shut. Finally Mahmoud noticed that Jeremiah’s eyes were trained on a particular window and that there was a faint light coming from within. He brought his hand up to rest on his friend’s arm and a single tear splashed down the big man’s cheek.
Mahmoud shuddered as Jeremiah began to talk: “Tell my mother,” he whispered, “Tell her how I died, tell her why I chose this. Make her understand.”
“I will, mate,” Mahmoud wanted to scream at him and tell him to go do it now, do it himself, before it was too late, but he guessed that the soldier had already tried, “I will.”
“You remember last night, when I brought Hannah home crying?” Mahmoud’s heart clenched as he remembered the girl’s shuddering, screaming form. She had not only been crying; she had been close to bloody insanity. Later that night he had pounded the image of her sorrow into the left wall of Emmett’s flat. The boy had not complained, but Mahmoud had heard him whisper something about directing anger before Jeremiah had punched him.
“It was him. She said he was an old schoolmate before she broke down. She was screaming something about essays and newts and beautiful owls. It was even worse than when we got home. If…if Malaika hadn’t been there I would have hunted him down and torn him to a million tiny pieces.”
Mahmoud’s eyes connected with Jermeiah’s and he swallowed before asking the question he needed to have answered, “Why did you let him go today?”
There was a short silence, and then Jeremiah turned around and violently punched the wall he had been holding the boy up against only minutes before, “Because he was just like me, because Hannah whispered to me that kids didn’t deserve to be made soldiers, because she said something about tearing apart souls and killing light.”
“You can’t kill light.”
Mahmoud whispered it mechanically as blood began to pound in his ears, “She said you can’t kill light. But I don’t care how many innocent people you killed in wars, Jeremiah, there’s a difference between you and him.”
And for the first time since he’d known the boy, Emmett’s interruption didn’t make him want to scream at the boy or shake sense into him, “Why don’t they go away, the green marks in the sky?”
“Because they’re poison.”
………
Mahmoud’s face was pale when they got back and Jeremiah was clenching and unclenching his fists. Hannah ran over to the thin boy and grasped his uncloaked shoulders firmly, pushing him down into a hard, straight-backed chair that reminded her of Professor McGonagall.
“Read me something from your book, Mahmoud,” she entreated, “Sing to me.”
He opened his mouth and allowed his song to spill forth and she noted, as her heart began to relax, that he was calming down as well. She resisted the urge to sit on the floor with her head on his lap because she knew it would make him uncomfortable, so she brought herself a chair instead and watched Millie clamber into his lap and put her small arms around his neck.
Emmett was whispering something urgently to Malaika. He was no doubt telling her about his very first heroic save or some other such thing. Hannah pulled herself off the chair and brought the cloak closer around her shoulder. She pulled on Jeremiah’s sleeve and dragged him towards Emmett, needing to shut him up even though she didn’t know what he was saying, but when they got closer his speech was uncharacteristically sincere.
“I know none of you will ever understand me, Malaika,” he was saying earnestly, “I know none of you will get it, but it’s all so terrible, it doesn’t make any sense to me that we can let them get away with it when we know they’ll come back and do it again. I’m not vengeful or spiteful and my heart…it hurts every time I think I’m being like them, cruel or hurting someone. But, Mahmoud was right that day, we have to fight although we hate it; we have to… to…end this before it kills us. Look at him!”
The last bit was said in a tone that made Hannah immediately change her mind about the boy. She willed herself not to look back at Mahmoud because she knew it wouldn’t do anyone any good and cleared her throat.
“Let’s go, Emmett.”
………
Malaika was dressing the wound and trying to smile at the woman, but all she managed was a strained sort of grimace. She was thinking about Emmett’s words, because whether she liked to admit it or not she understood the boy’s side of the argument, but she also understood that it wasn’t her place to talk. She was a nurse, she couldn’t kill a fly, and no matter how much she thought of ways for the fighters to end this it wasn’t her place to try and break that admirable discipline that they had. All three of them.
She knew even Hannah could be terrible in her anger, she could practically feel power radiating from the girl’s tortured screams last night, but Hannah Abbot wouldn’t even let a curse or a swear-word fly against the sickening being they saw last night.
“Ma’am,” Malaika looked up to see a heart-wrenching smile and a firefighter’s hat, “I’d like to speak to you about a suggestion I want to make for the safety precautions in the terminal ward…they told me it would be best to speak to you since it was your design we’re building.”
“Right,” Malaika shook herself out of her thoughtful daze and pulled her original copy of the plan out of her pocket before giving the woman a smile (this time genuine) and turning back to the firefighter, “What did you have in mind then?”
It only took minutes for him to convince her and she trusted in his experience as a firefighter. Soon, they had a revised plan and she walked off to talk to someone about it. When she got back Malaika barely stifled a gasp at the sight of the firefighter playing with her little sister Millie and making her laugh, actually laugh again like a little girl should. Mahmoud was also watching them from his cross-legged position on the floor. She would have to do something about those chairs; it would be torture to actually make patients sit on them.
………
Hannah stroked Millie’s sleeping head gently as she waited for Malaika to finish washing her face. They would have to do something about Malaika soon. The woman didn’t take any rest; it was either out on rounds or on site in the hospital. Even Mahmoud and Emmett got more sleep than her.
“Ready?” Malaika asked and Mahmoud immediately launched himself towards the door and opened it for the girls, his head inclined respectfully. Hannah tried not to giggle, but she couldn’t help it when she saw Malaika’s annoyed expression.
She took one last look back into the flat and saw Emmett and Jeremiah bent over a map of the city, heads almost touching. They began to argue even before Mahmoud closed the door, but Hannah helped him steer an irate Malaika away.
“My sister’s in there, damn it!” she protested hotly, “Don’t they stop for a bloody second?”
“There would be something wrong if they did,” Hannah said wisely, “Besides, they’re actually doing something useful this time, I’ll bet you anything they have the map done before we’re back!”
Malaika and Mahmoud snorted their answer but she just lifted her lamp and her chin and strode ahead of them. Emmett was not stupid. He was just like Hermione Granger, smart to the point of genius, but he valued bravery much more than his real strength. And that was fine. He would eventually hear what they were saying and realize that the city needed light and hope just as much as protection. She imagined the other two boys dragging him forcefully from house to house and making him fix the eklecticity before he was allowed to go on another “adventure” - under pain of demoting him to a shabby grey cloak that didn’t suit those Ninjia fighters at all. She giggled for the second time that night.
Behind her Mahmoud’s thoughtful expression lifted and he turned to staring at the back of her cloak. “Nothing can break her.”
Malaika shot him an amused smile and he ducked his head quickly, staring determinedly at the ground. A sudden shriek up ahead brought them both back to the immediate task and they rushed off after the girl.
