Burning in Death

Fire ignites at the base of Lauren's spine and crawls up her back, flaring into complex tattoos all over her arms. The smoke from their burning is sweet and dusty at first, as it burns off the makeup covering her arms.

"My kanji are only slightly weakened by the death of their host," the voice of Hitomi says through Lauren's stiffening lips. "And now that I know where you are, I --"

He doesn't notice when Janet shoots Lauren's body. He might in fact not literally notice, if he's operating her body like a puppet rather than possessing it like a demon.

But he does notice when Christine lunges through the burning grass and grabs Lauren by the shoulders. As if tearing spiderwebs, Christine strips the burning kanji off Lauren's body, and stands there panting, holding the chain of firey letters in her hands.

Lauren's body drops like a sack. Nick quickly extinguishes the fire at Christine's feet, but can do nothing for the pain of her burns.

"It's okay, Nick," Christine says, "when you're a Torch, I guess burns don't hurt!"

She slips one of the tattoos over her hand like a bracelet. It snugs into place on her wrist.

"I don't want to go crazy ..." she says, looking at the chain of fire kanji hanging from one wrist. "Hey, I don't have to!"

She turns to everyone else.

"Who wants to be a Torch for a while?"

Kaze to Christine:

"Is van Cortland's healing power available...?" Her eyes are soft and sad. "I would prefer that one."

Christine: "Oh, but his Power isn't a tattoo. It's bound too tightly to him. I couldn't ... oh my ..."

Christine goes over to Van Cortlandt's body.

"It just .. .came loose," she says, holding a wisp of purest sunlight in her left hand. Her right still holds the fire kanji from Lauren.

"It's slippery -- I can't hold onto it!" Christine says. "Kaze, come here, quick! Before I lose it!"

Kaze goes over there. Quickly.

Christine hands Kaze the twist of sunlight. As it passes from her hand, the twist unfolds, into a dawn like that pure sunrise seen only at sea, on a clear morning.

This is not a kanji, but a Power. So it does not tattoo itself in a pattern of ink and punctures on Kaze's skin. Rather, it fills up a spot in her soul she was not aware was empty.

Just as she knows how to Fade, she now knows how to Heal. And suddenly perceives Christine, watching her anxiously, as a barely-contained whirligig of blood rushing, joints sliding, tendons flexing, lungs wetly contracting, brain gurgling ... nothing at all is wrong, she's in good health, but this is how a normal body looks to a Healer.

Except she has burns on her feet and ankles. Christine can't feel them, but they're bad.

"Hell," says Nick Voinovich mildly. A wrench has just hit him in the head, hurled by the Iron Guard's Mover. It clinks lightly and falls to the ground, instead of rebounding, and leaves a white mark of frost instead of a huge bruise.

Nick picks up the wrench, his eyes frost over, and he hurls it back, with the same force it struck him. The Mover is startled and has to deflect it, which means all the other junk he's throwing at Sky falls to the ground.