Keepers of the Flame Read Online Free PDF Page A

rush as if a
faucet had been turned on above her. The current washed away the echoes of
pain, let her put a thin bubble of protection between her and their patients’
hurting. She helped Elizabeth erect mental shields.
    Sevair
had stopped and turned to observe them.
    Bri
became aware of reverberating sound—this time thready melodies that pulled at
her heart with a yearning to mend. She was still considering the strange notion
that she could hear tunes coming from people when Elizabeth
straightened, squeezed her hand, then crossed the stone courtyard with a steady
step. Her sister headed to a covered walk along what looked like a Castle
keep—cloisters, with lacy stone half-walls and open “windows.”
    Elizabeth
looked down the walk, her emotions amplified and easily felt by Bri. Pity.
Hope. Most of all, the desire to help, to heal. She looked at Bri.
    “Are
you with me?”
    They
exchanged a glance. Bri could almost see the reflection of herself in
Elizabeth’s eyes, knew Elizabeth thought of her as a new-age rebel exploring
fringe healing. Did Elizabeth sense how Bri saw her—a buttoned-down doctor?
    Someone
cried out. Elizabeth flinched. “You saved a life.” And I stood aside ,
she added mentally, blinking hard.
    Don’t
beat yourself up. I took a familiar risk .
    Elizabeth
sighed. I’m willing to risk it with you. “Can we heal fifteen?”
    “We
won’t know until we try. We’ll give it our best shot.”
    Elizabeth
nodded. Bri hurried over, all too aware of otherness surrounding her.
She joined Elizabeth and saw cots set up all along the walkway.
    Elizabeth
sent red-headed Marian a cool glance. “Take us to the worst cases, first.”
Marian spoke to a man and a woman who wore red tunics with white crosses on
them, and they went to the far end of the corridor. Elizabeth and Bri followed.
    Glancing
down as she followed her very impressive twin, Bri saw that the people were
definitely different from those who’d been in the round building. Their clothes
were shabbier, seemed more lower and middle class. She clenched her jaw; she
wanted to help. Elizabeth had positioned herself on one side of a pallet. Bri
took the opposite side. Elizabeth had also set her teeth.
    Relax , she sent to
Elizabeth, opening her own mouth to ease her jaw muscles.
    I
am relaxed.
    Check
your jaw and shoulders.
    Elizabeth
stiffened, then moved a little, loosening her shoulders and her stance. She
took a slow breath in and relaxed her muscles as she exhaled. When she looked
at Bri, her eyes gleamed from a pale face. All this strangeness was getting to them
both, but the restless shifting and the sheer hurt of the sick people
around them demanded their attention.
    Other
people had followed, most standing in the courtyard outside the cloister
windows. The three Caucasian women—Alexa, Marian, and Calli—remained near.
    Bri
stepped up to their first patient, an elderly woman. The woman had a slow, thin
tune with little embellishments. Bri put her left hand on her head.
    Yes, said Elizabeth, you take her head. I don’t trust myself to send the proper amount of energy
to her head. A shiver rippled through her.
    It
was cooler here, especially in the stone cloister walk, than in Denver. Or
maybe it was just later in the night.
    Elizabeth
spread the fingers of her right hand over the woman’s heart, Bri extended her
own right-hand fingers, with one finger touching Elizabeth’s over the woman’s
abdomen, felt loose flesh, the laboring of lungs. Milky eyes stared up at her.
Bri swallowed hard. The woman was as tall as the rest of these people.
Elizabeth set her other hand, spread to touch Bri’s, over the woman’s crotch.
    Bri
and Elizabeth matched gazes, breaths.
    “Ready?”
asked Bri.
    Elizabeth
nodded. You handle it.
    Fear
puddled in Bri’s stomach, but she shut it away, hoping her sister couldn’t
sense it. She opened herself to the energy. She pulled , gently, gently.
It rushed through her like a river. She felt the briskness of