Of Light And Shadows

Chapter Twenty Nine...

"That was quick," Sellik said as she returned with a bunch of different items in her arms. "I was only gone a few minutes and you've kissed and made up already."

"We didn't kiss," Jia said quickly.

"Relax, I'm just teasing." Sellik flashed her pointed teeth in a smile, green eyes twinkling. "I need access to your knife wounds." Lucifer nodded and sat forwards, taking off his jacket and tie. Jia took them from him and moved to sit back on her bed, laying them on the mattress beside her.

Sellik pulled on a pair of gloves and a medical mask as Lucifer unfastened the buttons of his shirt and sat back. She frowned at his pact mark but said nothing about it.

The wound over his heart had torn from the force of Evan's punch. Sellik clucked her tongue disapprovingly as she pulled out a blue ointment and dabbed it on his skin.

"This is going to be unpleasant," she warned. "You were unconscious last time."

"You might want to look away," Lucifer said to Jia. Sellik picked up a scalpel and pricked his skin with the tip where it had been covered in the blue stuff.

"Did you feel that?" The Demon shook his head. She nodded and Jia sucked in a sharp breath as Sellik sliced open the knife wound in one clean cut. Lucifer grunted quietly as Sellik slipped her fingers through the incision. "I can't numb the insides," she said.

"I know." His teeth were gritted as he replied. Jia felt the colour drain from her cheeks as Sellik took out a syringe with a long needle and shone a bright light into the wound.

"It's not too bad. I shouldn't need to open you up any further to fix it. Cracking through the sternum would be a pain."

"You think?" He kept his eyes on the ceiling.

"I can see the laceration causing the bleeding. It's long but it looks like there's only the one. The weakened heart tissue must've split when it whacked into the sternum. It's opened up right along the existing scar but not too deeply."

"How do you fix a tear in a heart without surgery?" Jia asked, hearing the tremble in her voice. Lucifer turned his head to look at her, focussing on her face instead of the attendant.

"With this." She withdrew her bloodied fingers from the small hole in his chest to pick up the needle. "I have a version of the healing ointment that's safe for internal use. Lucifer has a habit of getting bruised up so I thought it would be useful." She revealed a small vial of liquid the same colour as the cream she used to heal Jia's bruises. "I can inject it directly into the torn tissue and it should be good as new within a few days."

"As nice as this is," Lucifer said quietly, "can we move faster? Having my heart exposed hurts." Sellik nodded and filled the syringe half way, testing it to make sure it wasn't blocked before leaning over to position it correctly. She slipped it between his ribs and depressed the plunger slowly. Lucifer's fists clenched in pain and Jia heard his broken fingers splinter. Sellik sighed in frustration.

"Why didn't you tell me you've done your fingers again?" she snapped.

"I was preoccupied," he muttered through gritted teeth. His breath came in short gasps as he waited for Sellik to finish up.

She set the needle aside and pinched the wound shut, reaching for another ointment and what looked like a surgical staple gun from the human world. When the wound was closed she wiped away the blue cream and replaced it with the other ointment she used on Jia's bruises. She pressed an adhesive gauze pad over it and passed him a cup of pink liquid to help with the pain.

"There. If you get hit in the chest again I'm going to leave you to bleed, now give me your hand." He did as he was asked and she frowned when she touched his forearm. "Is your arm broken too?" He nodded. She examined the break and frowned. "This injury is the same as Jia's."