บท 17: Borrowed luck.
Among the things Yin had spit up were finger nails and a piece of paper wrapped in a cloth. Phoebe opened the white cloth and inside were two pieces of paper with different dates.
She put all these things down and studied them with apprehensive eyes. Hair, nails and two dates of birth.....wasn't it some kind of magic spell?
Spells sometimes involved hair, nails, blood and dates of birth. It was important to have the right date of birth and time.
The Saxon spirit laughed dryly in a soft voice. "I think this is a luck borrowing ritual, no....not borrowing but stealing and not just luck but it looks like the boys life force is being drained as well. Damn, i didn't think people who practiced this kind of dark art still existed. This smells like the work of a very bad warlock."
"Magic city." Phoebe whispered.
Fog country was not a place without whispers about abnormal things, especially in Magic city. That was why it had been named magic city after all, because of the rumored magical past and creatures that went bump in the night which supposedly thrived there.
Still, none of things had ever been proven but the city thrived on this reputation. Magicians were common on the corners of every street. They were not real magicians but performers....illusionists. Sooth sayers, psychics, warlocks, witches and more also set up shop in the city.
Ever since her rebirth, when this magical thing happened to her, Phoebe had been researching these rumors. She had come across a page on the internet of a fortune teller that claimed to change the luck of others.
As someone that sold trinkets that gave her customers good luck, Phoebe had scoffed at the prospect of changing one's luck entirely. If it was that easy, everyone in the world would do it. But, if someone could steal the luck of another and transfer it, then it wasn't impossible to change one's luck completely.
"What is it?" the father asked. "What is wrong with my son?"
Phoebe stood up and took off the gloves. She looked around the room, searching for somewhere to dump them and she saw a waste basket in the corner.
She walked towards it, and threw the blue gloves inside. Then, she turned back to the parents with a grim look on her face. They too were staring back at her with equally grim looks on their faces. The mother looked like she had aged ten years in only a few minutes.
"I have bad news and good news, which do you want first?"
They didn't respond so she decided to give them the news in the order she wanted.
"It's not a ghost."
A small cry came from the mouth of the mother. If it wasn't a ghost and it wasn't a medical issue then what were they to do for their son? Her legs gave up and she collapsed to the floor.
"The good news is that i know exactly what is wrong with your son." Phoebe told them.
The father slowly approached the bed and he sat down.
"What is it?" he asked in a small voice.
The young shaman had just said she had good news and bad news. If the good news was that she knew what the problem was then the bed news had to be that she didn't know how to fix the problem.
"One million is the price i want. I do not work on credit, you should pay me now or after i finish the job. Which will it be?" Phoebe asked.
"Huh!" the mother exclaimed.
"Do you...can you fix it?" the father asked.
The mother scrambled to her feet and she rushed over to Phoebe's side.
"Our Michael, can you help him?" she loudly asked.
Phoebe nodded. She looked at the gold watch on her wrist and then the parents.
"We are losing auspicious time, hurry up. Will you pay now or after?"
"After." the man responded in a firm voice.
He was a businessman and he never signed checks without being sure about where the money was going and if there was value.
"Very well."
She put on a new pair of gloves and reached her hand out to touch one of the boy's hands, the left one. He had a bracelet made out of gold threads with a basketball shaped charm. The energy coming from the bracelet was the same as that from the items the Raven had brought.
She ripped the bracelet off of the boys hand and tossed it onto the other things. She got a small pocket knife from the side pocket of he jeans and started separating the gold threads. In there were dark threads of hair that she held up for the parents to see.
"The bad news is that someone close to your son did this to him, whoever gave him this bracelet."
She looked at the mother as she took a lighter out of her bag.
"Whoever it is, they were born on the same day as your son. This person either knowingly or unknowingly involved themselves in a luck stealing ritual. Your son is fated to live a long wealthy happy life and someone saw this and wanted it for themselves."
Phoebe gathered all the items and put them out on the balcony. Then, she set fire on the items before turning around to face the two frightened looking parents that were following her.
"Now, whoever did the ritual is a warlock from Magic city i presume because this is the kind of magic they advertise over there. That warlock is the real deal, not like most who are fake and said warlock is stealing the lifeforce of your son. That's what has been killing him slowly."
She walked past them and returned to the bed. The boy's eyes were beginning to clear up. She touched his head and transferred some of the energy she got from helping ghosts to him.
That was not enough and she opened her bag and removed a tonic.
"This will help him rebuild his body and strengthen it. The road to recovery is going to be a month long, thirty days to be precise. During this time, keep him away from the public. In fact, you should all disappear for those thirty days because the one who did this is going to face a backlash and they will come looking for your son, to repeat what they had done."
The father cut her off first. He had a frown on his face as if he didn't understand what was going on.
"Wait.. first explain this again. I don't think i understand what you are talking about. Someone gave my son a bracelet through which they have been stealing his luck and life force."
On the bed, the boy made a small croaking sound which brought his mother running.
"Michael" she called his name desperately.
"Mom." the boy replied.
His voice was rough and it came out in a whisper. It was the first time however in so long that it had been heard saying something sensible.
"Baby..." she croaked out and broke down, crying while she grabbed him in a tight hug.
"Mom.." the boy called again. "What's wrong?"
He was becoming more lucid which was proof that whatever Phoebe had done had worked.
Phoebe put the rest of the tonics on the table before tossing the coin up for the raven to return to it's resting place.
"I believe my work here is done." she said.
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