December 31, 3:10 p.m., in front of the hospital.

Rafael didn't want to go home. He was in that state beyond tiredness where sleeping didn't make sense anymore, even if it was what his body needed. Once the elation of having freed his uncle and the irritation about the police's attitude had passed, Rafael found himself in an inner void where all he could do was give his brain time to integrate all the emotions of the night.

He walked towards his motorcycle, his eyes in the void. He barely had enough concentration to keep control of his aura. Leonard was fine, that was the important thing. He hadn't expected Ilona's presence, he should have though, she was following Tiffany everywhere now. Thank God, she had been remarkably discreet. Until she asked him to take her home anyhow. He still didn't know what to do with her...

Just thinking about it made him tired, he was caught between the memory of their happiness together and the suffering she had caused him. This opposition frozed his thoughts. And when he succeeded in forgetting Ilona, he thought of the avalanche of questions that his parents were going to ask him when he would return home. He was afraid that his mother would insist much more than the inspector to know what had really happened, and that she would spend hours reproaching him for having put himself in danger.

He decided to go see Alek and immediately set out. The old shaman had his quirks, but he didn't interfere in other people's lives. Maybe would he even let him sleep for a few hours in his room? The time to pull himself together. Why had he promised to help Leonard find a way to integrate magic into society? Something was wrong with him, this was going to be a disaster!

Of course men were going to use spirits for their own benefit, of course governments were going to try to control magic, just like when that oil company had wiped out Alek's tribe to exploit their resources... What could a young shaman and a naive scientist do to stop them?

I promised though...

A car honked for him to move forward, the light had been green for a while. Rafael shook his head and concentrated on the road. He really needed to sleep, but with all that light to photosynthesize it wasn't the right time, maybe if he could find a place to take root he could... another honk, damn. He bit his lip to prevent his thoughts from drifting again.

Rafael somehow managed to get to the nursing home. Sarah, the receptionist, greeted him, but he headed straight for Alek's room. He wasn't in the mood for conversation, not to mention that he could still feel his spiritual energy escaping from his face and hands. He hoped, without much conviction, that the old shaman would have a solution to bring him back to normal.

Rafael entered the room and discovered Alek in his evening clothes. This meant that he was wearing an almost white shirt and an old worn-out jacket. Rafael hesitated in the doorway.

"Hi, uh, do you mind?"

"It's okay kid," Alek said, revealing his toothless grin. "You can stay a while, activities don't start until four."

"Activities?" asked Rafael, confused.

"Yes, tomorrow, it's the new year on your calendar. Which is stupid because it's not spring yet, but what can we expect from a degenerate civilization like yours? Anyway, the staff has organized some entertainment to keep us busy, and I plan to take advantage of it to get closer to the new female resident. She's not even eighty yet, can you imagine? What an opportunity!

What, eighty years old? How old is he again?

Rafael tried to compose himself. "I just wanted to tell you that I found Leonard and set him free. He had been kidnapped by another shaman who could make herself invisible and emit light rays..."

"Ahh, a light spirit," Alek remarked as he admired himself in the mirror. "They're rare, hard to bind too. It's easier to settle for a blessing with those one."

"I got burned," Rafael said, pointing to his face. He felt a little silly because Alek had probably already noticed. "Should I do something or..."

"It's only a scratch, it'll heal in no time," laughed Alek. "I'm sure the other guy is much worse off, isn't he?"

Rafael wasn't so sure. The pepper spray had succeeded in making him run away, but there was probably not much left of it now. He had been lucky that the fight was not longer.

"What, no?" asked Alek when he saw his expression. "Don't tell me you let him get away?"

"The important thing is that Leonard is off the hook," Rafael replied. "The police are after his kidnapper, so he probably won't dare come after us."

"The police?" growled Alek. "Fucking mundanes against a light shaman who can make himself invisible? That's stupid, I expected better from you, kid. I'd be you, I'd start thinking about how to defend against the next attack, and find a way to get rid of him permanently. I can teach you a disruption rune for light spirits if you want, that'll give you an edge. Either way, he's got you in his sights, guaranteed!"

Rafael shuddered at the thought, but he couldn't see what he could do. Alek was probably wrong anyway. The priest was just as new to this as he was, and on top of that he had lost his mind. It was not one of those Russian shamans hardened by the ages.

"Anyway," Rafael continued, "I'm sure Leonard will come to see you as soon as he's out of the hospital. Did he ever tell you about his thesis, and his plans to reveal the shamanic magic to the world?"

"Oh yes he has, way too much," Alek said. "By the way, did you know that the women here don't want to hear about the prey you've hunted, or the enemies you've slaughtered? I don't get it, how can they determine a man's bravery? Are they sleeping with the first person they meet or what?"

"Uh, I think they look mostly at money and beauty," Rafael answered.

"Money, huh? I'll have to get some," Alek said thoughtfully.

"You don't seem to care much about Leonard, I thought he saved your life?"

"He's an adult, and I paid my dues by sharing my knowledge with him, not to mention the mirror pendant I gave him. I'm not a babysitter. I have plenty to do with my own stuff."

What stuff? Hitting on the new boarders? And here I thought he was reliable...

"I'm glad he got out of it," Alek continued. "Maybe now he'll decide to bind a spirit rather than cling to his silly morals. The world isn't all roses, it's eat or be eaten. Well, kid, you gotta go now. New Year's Eve is about to start, I'm going to join the others in the main hall."

Rafael grumbled but took the way out anyway. He had no choice but to go home. The idea of getting back on his motorcycle in his tired state didn't appeal to him to say the least. It had been a mistake to come to see Alek, he didn't care about them. Now that he thought about it, Alek hadn't even offered to help with the search for Leonard. He was a wreck, all right, but he could have done something with his death spirit.

That said, the nurses probably wouldn't have agreed to let him out in his condition.

It was already getting dark outside. At the edge of his consciousness, Rafael felt the nocturnal lethargy taking hold of the surrounding plants. He had to hurry before being also affected. It would be a shame that the priest came across him sleeping in the middle of the street... Alek was right all things considered, he was imprudent, he shouldn't have returned from the hospital alone.

Rafael laboriously straddled his motorcycle and started it. Prudence is the mother of safety, he though as he released his control over his aura, it was better to concentrate entirely on driving. Luckily there were far fewer people on the road than before, most people had already arrived at their New Year's Eve destination.

When he arrived home, he had only one thought in mind. Sleep. He promised his parents that he would answer their questions the next day and collapsed into bed. He would not be partying this year.

 

***

 

The next morning Rafael woke up with the sun.

Happy New Year, he thought wryly.

His face and hands itched terribly. He had blisters, just as the doctor had predicted, and in the least affected places, shreds of skin were ready to peel off. He felt like a monster. He went straight to the bathroom and there he got an idea: He had to stay hydrated, right? What if he used the powers of his plant spirit to absorb as much water as possible. He could synthesize chlorophyll, he should be able to create roots on the surface of his skin.

No sooner said than done. He undressed, immersed himself in the bathtub, and began to circulate his spiritual energy. His plant spirit seemed to be waiting for it. Tiny roots appeared on his skin, and he didn't have time to think about how to use them as they were already instinctively absorbing water. He felt the liquid flowing inside, it was no longer water but sap that came directly to bathe his cells.

It tickled.

But that was not all it did. When the nourishing liquid reached his cells, they suddenly became more active, as if they were awakening from a long sleep and this food was all they had been waiting for to start functioning again. They began to multiply, to grow stronger. Rafael noticed with his shamanic vision that the new cells were not exactly the same as the previous ones. They had evolved to integrate the resilience of the plants, they allowed a better circulation of spiritual energy...

How much will this bond change me?

It was probably too late to worry about this. The plant spirit was now part of him, and he had never heard of breaking that kind of bond. One more question to ask Alek. Anyway, if he hadn't become a shaman, the mad priest would have killed him, and Leonard would still be in his clutches. Better to change than to die, even if it meant becoming a freak.

The skin on his face and hands tingled, the itch was almost unbearable. It wasn't painful though, but rather something that indicated the return of lost sensations. Where there had been only a stabbing pain since the priest had burned him, he felt again the touch of water, its temperature, and even... its richness in mineral salts?

It was too much! All these sensations that were suddenly coming back, it was excruciating. The tension made Rafael's hands tense, he wanted to tear his skin with his nails to make the tingling go away. He plunged his head into the water and screamed with all his might. He wanted to flee, and as this thought came to him, he filet as if his mind was fracturing. The spirit of the plants took its place to continue to absorb the water, while the conscience of Rafael was shared between the various plants near the house.

He entered a vegetative torpor, losing all sense of time. The only thing that mattered was the passing of the clouds in front of the sun, and the slow accumulation of food through his roots.

The lack of oxygen suddenly brought him to his senses. He lifted his head out of the water and breathed in loudly. The plant spirit silently withdrew in the background, but this lightning possession filled Rafael with fear. Alek had warned him, it was the first thing he had explained to him about shamanic magic: if his will was not strong enough, he risked going crazy, or becoming only a vehicle for his spirit. An empty shell.

I have to be more careful.

Rafael got out of the bath, a little shaky, but when he saw his hands, he immediately forgot the danger he had just barely avoided. His skin was no longer tattered. He no longer had any blisters either. His fingers immediately came to meet his face and it was also smooth. He looked in the mirror: there was no trace of his burns. His skin had a strange half-brown, half-rosaceous tone, but it was healthy. He was healed.

He began to laugh to himself in the bathroom. Tears even began to roll down his cheeks. He didn't know if it was the aftermath of the plant spirit possession, the happiness of being healed, or just the tension of the last few days that was loosening up, but he couldn't stop. He laughed so hard it made his stomach hurt

Someone knocked on the door, then Tiffany's voice rang out. "Rafael, is everything okay?"

Rafael's laughter subsided and he managed to answer, "Yes, yes, leave me a moment, I'm going out."

He quickly put on his clothes, then spread the cream the doctor had given him on his face and hands. It couldn't hurt, and it would save him from awkward questions about the disappearance of his burns. Finally, he opened the door. Tiffany was waiting in the hallway, a worried expression on her face.

"Is everything okay?" she asked again.

"Yes, I'm fine," he replied. "How about you? Did you have a good New Year's Eve?"

Tiffany winced, "I met Jay's mom yesterday, Deepali. She absolutely wanted to take me out to dinner. It was... weird. She asked me a lot of really personal questions."

"You ate with her mom?" asked Rafael, surprised. "What happened? Are you two together now?"

Tiffany blushed to her ears and shook her head frantically. "No, not at all, we just met at the hospital. I don't know how things got to this point. I feel like I have no control over anything..."

"Neither do I," Rafael admitted, "These last few days have been crazy, maybe that's what being an adult is all about, knowing you have no control and yet having to keep going."

For a minute, the two cousins fell into a pensive silence, then Rafael offered:

"Shall we go downstairs to eat breakfast?"

It was time for him to face his parents.

As he feared, his father and mother were sitting in the living room, waiting for him to come down. The silence was deafening. Rafael sat with them while Tiffany slipped away into the kitchen, probably more to avoid being caught in the fight than to give them privacy.

"Leonard told us everything," Alice began. "You're crazy for putting yourself in danger like that."

Everything? They know about the spirits?

"Something had to be done," Rafael tried.

"Of course something had to be done," his mother agreed. " But not by you, you should have called the police! I don't understand why you broke into that church by yourself when a criminal was there! What were you thinking?"

"Actually, I thought the priest had left and..."

His father interrupted him: "Look Rafael, we understand that you wanted to help your uncle, we are very proud that you managed to find him, and made the kidnapper run away, but you should have been more careful. Look at your face and your hands!"

"You're right, Dad."

Rafael sighed, he had expected this lecture, but he still didn't see how he could have done otherwise. Without shamanic magic, the rescue operation would have been a disaster. Besides, the fact that his parents didn't mention spirits or magic showed that Leonard hadn't told them everything. They simply didn't understand the situation.

"How did you get those burns by the way?" her mother asked. "Leonard didn't tell us about a fire..."

"It's nothing," lied Rafael. "I got some hot wax on my skin but the doctor said it wasn't serious. I'm just putting on some cream as a precautionary measure."

"Um," Alice replied, not convinced. She carefully examined Rafael's face and hands behind the whitish layer of cream, but, finding no blisters or other marks, she reluctantly dropped the subject.

"It's true that I was careless," Rafael admitted. And in more ways than one, he thought to himself. "But I've learned my lesson, and now that Leonard is free there's no reason for me to be in that kind of situation again."

The phone in his pocket rang.

This was not a good time. If he couldn't convince his mother of his seriousness, he would be hearing about this affair for weeks! Unknown number. He hung up immediately, but he didn't have time to resume his conversation with his parents when the phone rang again. This time he picked up.

"Hello?" he said.

"Hello Mr. Rafael Duprat? Inspector Diego Martinez speaking.”

Rafael's jaw instantly tightened. "Yes?" he asked in a strained voice.

"I'm sorry. Your uncle was murdered in his hospital bed during the night."

Rafael's mind stopped working. His gaze was fixed in the void as if that would allow him to change reality. His uncle had been killed and he would never see him again. A huge bubble of rage swelled inside him, until it overwhelmed him.

I'm going to tear that priest to pieces!