Tiffany was beaming. Since she got engaged, each day was more beautiful than the previous one. At the beginning of the week, Ilona had returned, tired, but proud of her successful trip. To have linked a volcano spirit had given her back her liveliness and self confidence. Sure, Tiffany had noticed that her personality had changed to become more reckless and rash, but that kind of thing was to be expected when someone went through so much...

Of course, Tiffany showed her ring to her friend, and to everyone else she passed, whether it was at her nursing school or at the stores when she was shopping. She wanted everyone to know that she was getting married, and what a beautiful ring Jay had given her. She kept admiring it all day long.

The heliotrope stone still gave her hot flashes at times, which was throwing off her emotions. She had never laughed and cried as much as she had in the last few days, but as long as she was careful to control the flow of her spiritual energy, it wasn't that bad.

Even the case with her father was likely to be resolved. Jay had found a lawyer to help her get the visitation ban revoked, and he was very confident that the process would be successful. Tiffany could probably file the case by the end of the month. There wasn't much her mother could do either; she was an adult now. And, with any luck, she would be walking down the aisle on her father's arm next year.

But for now she had another project to carry out.

In her bag she had a beautiful orange outfit for the meditation class. A bit like the two mundanes had last time, but with a slightly more low-cut sport bra. In fact, Tiffany was a little afraid that it would be too low revealing, but Ilona had assured her that it looked good on her, and on second thought, she had to admit that it was more discreet than her bikini.

Tiffany had planned to change in the storeroom, and was arriving nearby, when she noticed the lock was broken. What had happened? She put away the keys that Rafael had lent her, and peeked inside.

In the room was a man with his back to her, but she recognized him at once.

"Dino?" she asked. "What are you doing here?"

He turned sharply and Tiffany noticed he had Orphelia's water gun in his hand.

"You shouldn't have come here," he said with an evil look on his face.

"I wanted to change and the bathroom is too small," Tiffany replied. "You should put that down, it's not yours."

"Are you giving me orders?" asked Dino.

He was getting under her skin. It was not his magical object. And what was he doing here in the first place?

"If you don't put it back, I'll have to tell the others," she said, trying to sound threatening.

Dino burst out laughing. "I'm not coming back anyway, now get out of my way and let me out."

"No! Not until you put down Orphelia's water gun," Tiffany persisted.

Dino's expression hardened, and he slowly moved toward her, apparently wanting to force his way out. It pissed her off. What? Did he think he could get away with it because she was a woman? His blood boiled in her veins. She was stronger than he thought, and he was about to find out!

"Back off," she yelled at him.

Adding the gesture to the word, she pushed him away violently. Dino had not expected this. Before he knew what was happening, he had hit one of the metal cabinets at the back of the room. His shoulder cracked and he screamed in pain, dropping the water gun.

Oh no! I did it again, I hurt someone!

She immediately concentrated on slowing the burning flow of spiritual energy that had invaded her. She should have been more careful, she should have stayed calm, she should have... tears were streaming down her cheeks. Meanwhile, Dino clumsily got to his feet with a grunt of pain, his right arm hanging lifelessly at his side.

"I'm so sorry," Tiffany said, frozen in place. "I didn't mean to—"

"Shut up bitch," Dino spat in her face. "I'll kill you!"

There were three coins in his hand. He took a short breath, then flicked one toward her. It became a hazy projectile that pierced Tiffany in the middle of her chest. Dino flicked the other two coins, and two new bloody openings appeared in her belly.

"Wha...?" said Tiffany as she fell backwards.

She hit the corner of the wall, and the impact caused her to lose consciousness. Her body fell to the ground, blood pouring out slowly while her chest heaved in increasingly irregular motions.

There was no one to help her.

***

Sitting on his mat, Jay listened quietly to Rafael give his opening speech. It didn't concern him too much to be honest. He was not physically connected to his luck spirit, so he had no aura, and his blessing seemed to work in a rather unique way. He didn't use spiritual energy for his powers but directly luck. His own, the environment's, or that of the people he touched.

Nevertheless, he participated in all the sessions. To support his friend in the creation of the Association, to accompany Tiffany who was having trouble dealing with the influence of her blood spirit, and because he thought that it couldn't hurt to learn how to manipulate his spiritual energy. By doing these exercises week after week, he had the impression that he was succeeding in finding a certain logic in the hazy chaos of the surrounding luck. Maybe at some point, he would be able to read its natural variations...

The first exercise started and Tiffany was still not there. She had slipped away earlier with the naughty smile she had every time she prepared a surprise for him, but she should have been on time for the beginning of the meditation. She was never late, well, except when he made her!

Jay forced himself to relax. He was too worried about her. Sure, it was a way for him to express his love, but he didn't want her to think he was clingy. Besides, she had bonded a blood spirit, she was stronger than him now. If there were any problems, she could solve them without his help.

Yet Jay couldn't calm down. The worry was only growing, and it was soon accompanied by a feeling of unease that tightened his chest. He was about to ask Rafael if he felt it too, when suddenly he felt a huge shift in the surrounding luck, like a collapse followed by a great suction of air. Something was not right. Tiffany?

Jay jumped to his feet and stormed out of the room, he had to find her! He checked the hallway, the restrooms, and the lobby before thinking about going upstairs to the storeroom. Rafael and a few others had interrupted their meditation to follow him, but he didn't have time to answer their questions. After climbing half the stairs, he saw that the door was wide open. A trickle of blood making its way across the landing as if it were trying to escape.

No, no, this can't happen!

He finished going upstairs and found Tiffany's motionless body lying on the floor, bleeding from three large wounds on her chest and stomach. What had happened? What could he do? He needed bandages to stop the flow of blood, why didn't they keep a medical kit in the storeroom? This was so stupid!

"Call an ambulance," Jay shouted to Rafael who had just arrived. "She's bleeding to death!"

Tears streamed down his face, blood staining his hands and clothes, but he didn't realize it. All that mattered was saving Tiffany. He wanted to turn her on her side to help her breathe, but then he realized that the wounds were true holes that pierced her on both sides, and that he would just make the bleeding worse.

Rafael approached, hanging up his phone. "The ambulance said it would be here in fifteen minutes."

"That's too long," Jay replied, desperate. "She won't last until then."

"She'll hold on, she's a fighter," Rafael reassured him, but his voice was faltering.

Jay did not listen to him, he had eyes only for his fiancée who was paling with each passing second. His hand clenched with all his might on his blessing token, he took a great inspiration and tried to pour his luck in her, all his luck. It didn't work, it was coming back to him without succeeding in reaching Tiffany. That was because she was unconscious. Not dead, unconscious. Maybe if he had more?

Jay turned to Rafael, Ilona, and the Omarov brothers who were on the landing. He said in a voice broken by despair:

"Can you give me your luck? I will pay you, no matter what the price, I need it now!"

Rafael was the first to step forward, he held out his arm without a word. Jay grabbed his hand and absorbed his luck, he had to force himself not to suck him dry, leaving him just enough to not have a serious accident. Ilona was next. Her skin was burning, giving Jay the impression that his luck was going to scorch him from the inside. He absorbed it anyway. Next came Hippolyte and Borka. As soon as he was done, Jay returned to Tiffany's bedside.

His core was overflowing with luck on all sides, making him feel what it must have been like to have an aura like the others. He tried to condense it with all his might into a ball, a drop, a concentrated extract of pure luck. Then he put his hand on Tiffany's chest, and pushed with all his will.

It doesn't work, she's going to die, she may already be dead!

All this luck had to be good for something. Maybe if he went down to the street, he could get the ambulance there faster? It was a stupid idea, but it was all he had to hold on to. So he ran down the stairs four at a time and rushed out. People screamed when they saw him storming out, covered in blood, but he didn't care.

Jay looked left and right, no ambulance in sight. He held his token up in front of him, then closed his eyes to try to detect the flow of luck. The fog was dense, dark, as if it was trying to tell him that all was lost, but Jay persisted. There had to be something somewhere, a small opportunity to reverse fate.

Suddenly, he felt a tiny light, like the shimmer of a grain of sand carried by the wind. Without hesitation, Jay sent his luck towards this fragile hope. An arrow through the darkness to nourish the flickering glow, and turn it into a real sun. He spent his luck and his spiritual energy without counting the cost, until the light shone on him and the fog began to swirl at full speed.

He felt like he was floating in water saturated with magical power.

Something was about to happen.

And then, reality shifted around him, as if he was moving into another world.

Jay opened his eyes, completely disoriented. There was still no ambulance, just a couple of tourists looking at him and whispering. Yet he felt that the shifting currents of luck had rewritten fate. Was it there? Was she saved? No, it didn't work like that, he was missing something.

At that moment a car slowed down and parked near him. Inspector Diego Martinez got out, examining him with his dark eyes:

"Jay Kumar, is everything okay? Whose blood is this?"

Is it him? Is he the messenger of good fortune?

Jay opened his mouth, but his throat was too dry to speak. He swallowed hard, then said:

"It's Tiffany, someone attacked her. We called an ambulance but I'm afraid it'll be too late. Is there anything you can do?"

Diego wasted no time. As soon as Jay explained the situation, he reached into his car and pulled out a small black bag with a red cross on it. Jay finally saw some hope. He started to run to show the way to the inspector, and Diego followed without a word, a tough expression on his face. Only five minutes had passed since Jay had found Tiffany unconscious.

Soon they arrived at the storeroom. Rafael and Ilona were kneeling by the body. They had lifted Tiffany's top and trying in vain to contain the bleeding. When Jay entered, Rafael looked up at him, hesitant.

"We thought we'd try to cauterize the wounds..."

Diego stopped him. "I have some hemostatic bandages, it'll be safer."

He moved forward, pulling the materials from his bag, but stopped when he saw the pool of blood and Tiffany's wounds. He shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I think it's too late."

Jay froze in place. This wasn't possible, she wasn't going to die like this. They had just gotten engaged! If only he had gone with her, he could have done something. Or if he had bound another spirit, one that could heal. She could actually do it herself if...

The bubble of luck that remained in his core quivered.

"Can you bring her back to consciousness?" he asked Diego in a shaky voice.

The inspector sighed. "Maybe, I have ammonium salts, but there's no point in doing this to her. Better to let her go in peace."

Jay grabbed his arm and squeezed with all his might. "Do it."

Diego shook his head, but Rafael stood up to support Jay, "Do it, now."

Seeing the serious look on both young men's faces, Diego relented. He took out a white bag that he cracked between his fingers before putting it under Tiffany's nose. An irritating smell immediately filled the room, making Jay want to sneeze, but he held back. He didn't want to close his eyes for a single second, he was waiting for the moment when Tiffany would regain consciousness.

Finally, after long seconds of waiting, his fiancée's eyelids twitched, and then she began to cough weakly. Jay pushed Diego to take his place, kneeling next to his beloved, his mouth pressed to her ear.

"Listen to me angel, listen. You need to heal yourself. You need to get your spiritual energy flowing and use your magic. You can do it, my love. Please."

Tiffany's eyes were glassy, she looked at Jay without seeing him. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but the only thing that came out was a trickle of blood.

"You can do it, Tiff, I believe in you. Take what you need, heal yourself."

A dull throbbing sounded, then another. They weren't coming from Tiffany but from the heliotrope stone she wore on her finger. Suddenly it exploded, sending shards across the room, and a flood of spiritual energy penetrated Tiffany, who hiccupped in pain. The blood was no longer flowing from her wounds. Did that mean she...

She sat up suddenly, startling Jay. As much as he wanted to rejoice, he couldn't, because Tiffany's eyes had turned completely white. Her pupils seemed to have disappeared.

"Tiff?" he asked, almost whispering. "Are you okay?"

She didn't answer. She simply grabbed him at the shoulders, and opened her mouth, revealing two long white canines. Then she pushed them into his neck to drink his blood directly from the carotid. Jay did not resist, if it was what she needed, he was more than happy to give it to her.

He heard Diego ask in the distance. "What's going on? Shouldn't we stop her from—"

"No, let her," Rafael interrupted him.

Tiffany drank Jay's blood in big gulps, and the more she drank, the more he felt her skin warm against him. And after a moment, her chest began to rise again with her breathing. His head was spinning, but he was happy. She was going to be all right.

"Now!" said Rafael, as Jay came close to passing out.

Diego grabbed Tiffany to pull her back, but she pushed him away with a gesture, and he fell hard to the floor.

"Hippolyte, Borka!" called Rafael, who was trying to free Jay from his cousin's grip.

The two brothers came to his rescue, each grabbing one of Tiffany's arms to force her off her fiancé's neck. She grunted and resisted. The muscles in the Omarov brothers' arms swelled with the effort, popping their veins as their spiritual energy gave them the vigor of their animal spirits.

"Don't let go," Rafael ordered as Diego came to apply a hemostatic bandage to Jay's neck.

Fortunately for Hippolyte and Borka, Tiffany quickly calmed down. Her eyes returned to normal, and she fell to the floor, exhausted.

"I'm sorry, sorry," she repeated. "I'm sorry."

She noticed Rafael, who was taking Jay's pulse.

"I didn't suck him dry, didn't I?"

Rafael shook his head and gave her a reassuring smile. "He's fine, just a little groggy."

As if to prove it, Jay sat up and asked through clenched teeth:

"Who did this to you Tiff? I'm going to beat him to a pulp."

"It was Dino," she replied still in shock. "I don't understand what happened. He wanted to take Orphelia's water gun and—"

"I'm going to need to know everything you know about this Dino," Inspector Diego Martinez interrupted her. "Based on your wounds, he used armor-piercing bullets. That means he must have contacts with arms dealers. This is a very serious matter."

"Uh, no," said Tiffany. "He used coins, and his shamanic magic."

Diego looked at her, looked down at her belly where the wounds had completely closed, then turned to Rafael.

"What's the fuck is going on here?"