*Adrik*
Once we were all convened in Vitaliy’s new office, we started to go over the evening’s events. Battista and Vitaliy weren’t aware of what had happened when Stephen got rid of the things hanging around the hospital administrator and the mayor.
“Is that what made them cough uncontrollably?” Vitaliy asked.
“We think so. When it happened, the demons were almost desperate to find a way in. It really agitates them when they hear Stephen speak,” Ivan said.
“I think the coughing is the body trying to reject it,” Sephie said.
“Does this mean the mayor is good to go now? We don’t need to worry about him further?” Battista asked.
“Not exactly. He still has weaknesses that a different demon can exploit. Viktor is what fixes that, but we haven’t figured out a way to do that subtly yet. It’s visually very obvious when he fixes someone,” I said.
“It’s visually obvious to you. Has anyone who is not you seen him do it yet?” Battista asked. “You all can see things no one else can anyway. Maybe the average person couldn’t see it.”
He did bring up a valid point. Viktor hadn’t used Kostya around anyone else outside our group yet. I glanced at Ilya, asking, “did you see it?”
“Yeah, but maybe it was just because I’m his brother?” Ilya said.
“Or maybe Kostya wasn’t thinking about being discreet,” Sephie said. She looked at Viktor, asking, “can you ask him if there’s a way that he can do it so no one else would notice?”
Viktor was silent for a few moments. None of us had any idea that he could communicate so quickly with Kostya, but clearly he could. He said, “he thinks he can make it so it’s not obvious. He still needs me to touch the person to make it happen, but that’s easily explained.”
“Want to test it?” Sephie asked, grinning at him.
Viktor smiled his sweet smile that was reserved specifically for her. “Who did you have in mind?”
Sephie looked toward my father’s men, Eduard and Sergei. “I’m really sorry, Sergei, but you need help. You’ve needed help since I met you. I just wasn’t sure you’d let anyone help you.”
Sergei had been with my father since I was a kid. Not as long as Aleksei, but I’d still known Sergei for most of my life. He was a hard man, but he was a good man. Whatever Sephie had picked up on, I was sure that Sergei deserved help with it.
Vitaliy was surprised. He looked at Sephie then looked at Sergei, asking, “this is true?” Sergei was silent, but everyone could tell from his body language that he was clearly fighting something.
Sephie answered for him. “I don’t mean to call you out in front of everyone, Sergei, but you’re struggling. It’s getting louder, which means it’s harder for me to ignore.”
Andrei said, “I can hear it too. You don’t have to deal with all that on your own, you know.”
Misha got curious and did his own searching when Andrei said something. “Sergei, you know that wasn’t your fault, man.”
And then I knew what Sergei was still struggling to deal with. When I was a boy and the other bosses tried to get to my father through me the first time, Sergei was the one that was with me. The attack killed the driver, Petr. It almost killed Sergei. I somehow managed to survive, but that was the first time I found myself in my own darkness. I was out for days. My father never left my side and he never left Sergei’s side.
Sergei struggled to not blame himself for what had happened. He said he felt like he should’ve been able to see it coming. He was overprotective of me from that point until I hit adulthood. We all thought he had handled it, but clearly he was still carrying around guilt from it. Silently beating himself up for it for almost my entire life.
Sephie went to him, placing her hand on his shoulder. “You are very good at your job. You always have been. You always will be. What happened that night is not a reflection of you. It needed to happen, Sergei. He needed to go through that experience so he could save me when the same thing happened to me. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here,” she said quietly. Sergei looked at her, his eyes wide. He was trying to comprehend what she’d just told him.
Ivan walked closer to them. “Nor would I, Sergei. He saved her so she could save me. That night had to happen. You kept him alive though. There’s no way he could’ve survived that crash without you shielding him. You did exactly what you were meant to do.”
Sephie glanced at Stephen. He walked closer to her and Sergei. She whispered something quietly to Sergei. He nodded his head, then Stephen touched his arm. It took a few moments, but Sergei gasped loudly, like he just jumped into freezing water and his lungs were revolting. Stephen didn’t let go. Sephie recognized that Stephen was having to work to get Sergei cleared completely, so she grabbed his other hand, giving him the needed boost. It took a few more seconds and Sergei visibly looked better.
She looked at Viktor, who basically traded places with Stephen. Sephie looked at Battista, as well as Eduard, saying, “you two have to watch and let us know if you can see anything.” They both nodded. Battista looked completely fascinated by what was happening.
Viktor touched Sergei and we all clearly saw his aura, much like Andrei could see regularly. It was dim, with plenty of holes in it. Viktor removed his hand, waited for a moment, then put his hand back on Sergei’s shoulder. We didn’t see Kostya this time, but we could see the effects of Kostya being there. Sergei’s aura lit up while all the holes were being filled in.
I glanced at Battista, asking, “can you see that?”
“See what? He just has his hand on his shoulder,” he said.
I looked at Eduard, asking the same thing. He said, “it just looks like Viktor has his hand on Sergei’s shoulder to me.”
“That’s all you saw the whole time?” I asked. They both nodded. Once Viktor was done, I said, “we have our answer then. They didn’t see anything. I didn’t see Kostya this time, but Viktor still lights them up when he touches someone.”
Sephie turned to Battista. “You didn’t see anything other than Viktor’s hand on his shoulder?”
“I saw nothing. I’m actually disappointed I saw nothing. I would like to see something,” Battista said.
“She can show you,” Misha said. “I’ll help,” he said, offering her his hand.
“I might need both you and Bubba,” she said. She walked over to Battista, asking for his hand. She tried to push what it looked like for all of us to him. It took a few moments, as well as Andrei’s help, but we saw Battista’s eyes go wide as he finally saw what the rest of us saw.
“That is incredible,” he said.
Sephie offered to show Eduard as well, using both Andrei and Misha again. He cursed in Russian, having never seen anything like it in his life, which made her laugh.
“Well, now we know that we can fix someone discreetly. We just need to let Kostya know when he can leave his headlights on and when he has to turn them off. And Ilya’s girlfriend is going to have to learn when to keep her mouth shut,” Sephie said, grinning at Ilya.
He laughed, saying, “you haven’t even met Sasha and you’re already trying to steal his job.”