Sarah stared at the three crimson blossoms spreading across Amanda's chest. Two were very close to her stomach and hovered just beside her belly button. The third was more of a hip wound and bifurcated the joint connecting her femur to her pelvis. None of them looked like they did in the movies. They were too small - too puckered. The surrounding flesh had visibly filled with fluid, and Sarah couldn't help but stare as some of it leaked out in a discolored streak.

  A loud scream echoed across the otherwise placid fen. It was coming from the soldier who'd shot Amanda by mistake. He was urging Sarah to retreat further down the hill, so she could join his team by the water. The parasite didn't pay him much mind. Instead, she simply stood amidst the trampled sedge and watched her ex feebly try to twitch.

  'I'm going to smoke that son of a bitch,' she thought quietly to herself. Sarah would have already done it by now, except she couldn't seem to find the gun that her training insisted should be there.

  Amanda choked on a throat full of bile while she reached up and trapped Sarah's hand. She carefully shook her head. "N-no," she hissed, her palm tacky from the spore-infested mud. "U-up. Get me up!"

  Sarah hesitated; there wasn't a good way to do so without aggravating the warspawn's wound. Raul was less conscientious; he slipped his arm beneath Amanda's shoulder and roughly forced her to her feet.

  Blood spurted into the depression that had been left behind by her butt. It sounded like the noise the fungaloid had produced before the soldiers had perforated its trunk. Pallsburg must have thought so as well because she made a furious bid for control only to discover that Sarah had largely quit the field.

  "E-engage your core!" the woman stuttered after stepping forward to support her injured girlfriend. "I've got you! You can do this!"

  She couldn't. Not easily, at any rate. The bullets had passed through the same space where Amanda stored her magic, and the damage had upended her control. The pain probably didn't help matters either. 'I know we make this look easy, but do you have any idea what you're asking for?'

  Pallsburg didn't reply. Sarah suspected she was too distracted to notice the subtle pressure infringing upon her tongue. It was a situation that didn't change much once Amanda began hemorrhaging mana. First, through the miniscule indents the bullets had left in her stomach and then from the shaking hand she'd awkwardly pressed to her side. Bits of tattered flesh erupted from the weeping cavity and splashed against her filthy palm. In between the fragments of shredded meat, Sarah could spot a spritz of yellow fluid mixed with the ejected blood. The soldier must have punctured one of her kidneys; it was the only explanation since the shot was a touch too high to have passed through the top of her bladder.

  "Let's get the fuck out of here!" Raul hissed while the edge of the wound wiggled like a maggot. "If we go now, we should be able to get treatment for your friend in town."

  Sarah kept staring at Amanda's assailant, her brain aggressively blank.

  "Are you talking about the aid workers?" Pallsburg asked him. "The ones who came to help with the relief effort?"

  Raul nodded with a grunt. "This wouldn't be the first accident they've treated since the seed popped up. They're also stretched pretty thin, so we should be able to slip beneath their radar, provided we play our cards right."

  "Fine," Amanda growled, her throat rattling with a phlegmy gurgle. "Just make sure you don't drop me. I think one of those slugs blew out my back."

  The soldier was saying something again. 'Miss!' maybe, or even, 'Did I miss?' Sarah supposed it'd depend on how much the young man had seen.

  Her eyes finally cut towards the trail, lest Pallsburg slip down the slope. In the time since she'd mentally checked out, Amanda had recovered a bit of color and donated another pint to her sweater. A number of the threads had turned a deep maroon along its lacey hem. The rest were clinging to their initial hue, though it was a battle they lost step by step.

  Sarah listened to Amanda pant, her core straining to contest the damage. When they reached the rise that divided the farm from the swamp, her ex gave a small shudder and retched into the dirt. "I-I need a minute," she announced, her forehead slick with sweat. "Let me just..."

  The sporadic stream of magic that had been keeping her alive writhed out of her grasp. Where once its scent had carried a hint of the esoteric elements, now the fumes grew harsh and visceral until they eclipsed the original bouquet. It was a deviation - the changes to her core's environment had begun to bias its nature. Not completely - Sarah could still smell a few hints of its original, refreshing aroma - however, there were definitely more sanguine notes than had existed a couple of minutes ago.

  "Fuck," Amanda cursed, her sclera shifting to blood-shot in an instant. "It's snowballing through my reserves. I need to dump it."

  Raul immediately backed away, forcing Pallsburg to pick up the slack.

  "What do you...?" Sarah stole control from her host before she could finish the question. There was no way it was going to be safe to linger like a boob at ground zero. Pallsburg might be able to weather the storm more easily than her parasitic companions, but it was still just a matter of degree. At the concentrations they were talking about, she'd have better luck eating a grenade.

  Amanda agreed; the second Sarah set her wounded body onto the ground, the dainty alien gave her thigh a firm push. "You'll need at least ten meters of clearance. I'm going to try to salvage what I can, and the intent will turn it pretty hostile."

  No kidding, that'd basically make it one big spell.

  "How much do you have in the tank?" Sarah hollered as she sprinted through the lush foliage.

  Her ex didn't answer. She'd already turned her attention inward in order to maximize her odds of success. A couple of seconds passed. Sarah tried not to resent the silence while she strove to break a world record. Then the pressure spiked. This time Sarah was pretty sure even Pallsburg could discern the difference.

  She certainly saw the side-effects as blood pasted the surrounding trees. There must have been about forty gallons of the stuff coating the dripping branches. One moment the striped bark had been the spitting image of sand-encrusted snow, and the next it was sporting more effluvia than Carrie White on prom night. The scent was honestly so prevalent that Sarah could taste it on Pallsburg's tongue. Add in the stimulation to her tendrils, and they were lucky she had the wherewithal to stop her host from returning to the trail.

  'No! Wait!' Sarah thought, too stunned to say the words aloud. 'There's going to be another...'

  The air spat violently as the ambient mana was abruptly realigned. If motes were cultivated by grinding them against your preferred environment, then the sudden burst from Amanda would have been equivalent to getting hit with a power washer. The scattered hints of 'Water,' 'Rot,' and 'Wood' didn't fade away so much as they were instantly vaporized by the arcane onslaught. It all culminated in another fountain of gore and the transfiguration of the nearby trees.

  Naturally, this alteration was limited to Amanda's immediate environs. Therefore, once the trunks were displaced without respect for their attached canopies, the latter fell towards the earth in an avalanche of wet timber. Raul was fortunate; unlike his two associates, he'd managed to sidle up against a boulder that could shelter him from the descending logs. Sarah wasn't quite so lucky; due to the dense brush and her amputated tendrils, it took all of her concentration to weave between the detritus without getting beaned in the skull.

  Somehow, she endured the sappy deluge until the holt's reserves were fully depleted. At that point, it was hard to say who was panting harder: Amanda or her exhausted allies.

  "You dead over there?" Raul asked, his head peaking past the muddy boulder.

  Sarah waved him off before realizing he was talking to Amanda.

  "I've been better," her ex admitted since she was still too injured to move. "I'm not going to blow up, though, if that's what you're asking."

  It must have been because Raul stumbled closer to the epicenter of the eldritch crater. "Wow, you... don't actually look that bad?"

  He didn't sound too confident in his assertion, so Sarah drifted over to make her own assessment. Sure enough, Amanda was sitting in a pool of blood with a giant hole through the middle of her shirt. If you judged her on the basis of that first impression alone, she would've seemed two steps from death. Sarah couldn't find any hint of damage to her chest, though. All of the gouges in her stomach were gone.

  The one by her hip was still bleeding severely. Amanda noticed the direction of Sarah's gaze and held back a terse frown. "Yes, my healing spree was incomplete as you can plainly see. I managed to patch up the tears in my liver, but I ran out of steam before I could fix my leg. I'm... going to need some help."

  Pallsburg slipped through the cracks in Sarah's control and started applying pressure to the wound. Amanda stopped her with a word. "No," she corrected her girlfriend, "I mean, I'm going to need your help magically. Do you remember the spell we were working on?"

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Pallsburg winced. Her reaction didn't strike Sarah as a particularly promising sign. "Yeah. I also remember fucking it up. Surely, there's a better..."

  Amanda was already shaking her head. "I'm going to bleed out at this rate. I got a good look at the butcher's bill when my alignment changed, and a compress alone won't cut it. It's gonna be up to you. If you can't keep everything plugged up, then we'll have to see if Miracle Max is taking patients because I'll have joined Wesley as 'mostly dead.'"

  Sarah opened her window with a thought. She tabbed over to the summary in order to confirm what they'd be working with. The screen read, '[4.71 mn - Blood Core] - [Output = .000047 mn/min] - [Purity = .325] - [Compatibility = .014].' She hoped Pallsburg's said something different. If it didn't, if Amanda was relying on them to keep her awake with a sub two percent fit... "You're a crazy bitch, you know that?"

  Amanda laughed at the irritation in Sarah's tone. "Yeah, you may have mentioned it once or twice."

  Pallsburg reached down to pick her up. It wasn't easy to cast this sort of spell on a good day, so Sarah took over the heavy lifting while her host focused on her core.

  "I don't know what you two have planned," Sarah whispered beneath her breath, "but the hardest part of this kludge is going to be resisting the temptation to play doctor. All joking aside, you are not a white mage. You can't just wave your hand and casually cast 'Mend Vein.' If you try to force the wound to clot, there's a good chance she's going to have an aneurysm. Instead, you'll need to manipulate the blood itself and keep it telekinetically adhered to her skin."

  'How much mana should I use?' Pallsburg mouthed to her distracted tutor.

  "As little as you can. I'd tell you to cycle the spell back through your body to help make it last, but I don't trust you to have that much control. You're just going to have to deal with the ambient erosion while we get Amanda back to the car. Maybe try to focus on emitting the motes from your hand. Increasing physical contact should help reduce the mana's attenuation."

  It was functionally the same principle behind the [Crumbling Wall Technique]. They just weren't bothering with all of the complicated catalysts. Of course, those catalysts were the reason why it worked as Sarah knew all too well. Without them, they were forced to pick up the pace until the parasite was cradling Amanda against her chest.

  Raul covered their retreat with his rifle. Ostensibly, it was so they wouldn't get ambushed by the seed's twisted flora; however, Sarah had a suspicion that he just wanted to feel useful. Since the mushrooms were a legitimate threat, she didn't tell him to stop.

  Up ahead, the red and orange leaves gradually gave way to a familiar, well-plowed clearing. Amanda's C-Max was waiting for them by the half-picked tomato patch. Jessica was standing there too, albeit on the opposite end.

  Sarah pulled up short. Her panic-fueled brain immediately twigged to the fact that Raul was behind her with a gun. Jessica must've been just as cognizant of his position because she made a brief show of observing Sarah's charge before deliberately stepping aside. The bitch even offered a little bow.

  "I'm not thanking you," Sarah told her as she hustled past the mute warspawn.

  Jessica flapped her hand dismissively. It wasn't proper sign language, yet Sarah could derive the meaning all the same. 'My world doesn't revolve around your damage.'

  Mannly had said something similar when Sarah had confronted him back in Boston. At the time, she'd simply considered it to be a crude way to rattle her chain. Seeing it mirrored by Jessica, though, lent the sentiment a strange sort of weight. Sarah wondered whether the Vermont cell would have extended him an invitation had the infiltrators ever crossed paths.

  The question ate at her while she bundled Amanda into the car. "Are you going to be okay if I get behind the wheel? Say something now before your insides protrude through your inseam."

  Amanda grimaced but still peeled Sarah's fingers from her hip. "You can worry about me once I pass out. In the meantime, drive fast. I don't want to die with my head propped up by the dash."

  A faint clamor broke out as Sarah jogged around the vehicle's hood to the driver-side's seat. It was coming from Raul; apparently, he'd intended to follow them, and his mother was putting her foot down. They bickered back and forth. Sarah didn't have time for it. To be perfectly frank, she didn't have time for much of anything. Only half a mote remained in what was left of her 'Blood' core. Pallsburg was doing her best to make those exhausted dregs last, but she wasn't exactly a miracle worker. Hell, it was impressive the woman was even still casting at all: Sarah had expected her well to run dry before they'd ever reached the base of the hill.

  Arcane energy continued to bead along her skin in defiance of her low opinion. It felt like a thin film of oil that had been left in an over-worked fry trap. Tasted like it too. Sarah could sense her gorge rising before the nausea was eclipsed by the vibrations of the rumbling engine. She adjusted her mirrors. 'Drive fast,' huh? Sarah could do that. It was arguably the only aspect of her training that she'd enjoyed since arriving on Earth.

  "Why do I hear Eurobeat?" Amanda muttered into the faux-rubber surface of the glove compartment.

  "Pattern recognition," Sarah replied as she slammed the accelerator against the floor and fish-tailed her way up the road. Her thumb bounced against the steering wheel in a sharp staccato beat. She was glad Amanda had elected for a manual transmission or this would have been a touch awkward. Automatics always shifted too slowly whenever she wanted to take a turn in a hurry.

  Sarah dropped out of sixth gear, so she could drift around the upcoming switchback. She may have cleared the corner without brushing the battered guard rail; however, Amanda still clung to the grab handle mounted above the open window. "I said, 'Drive fast' not 'Deliver tofu!'" the injured parasite complained, her knuckles pale from more than merely blood loss.

  Sarah shrugged and watched the speedometer creep back towards seventy. "Do you want to get to the hospital in time, or do you want me to take you to church? Right answers only, grandma."

  Amanda scowled at the dig while Sarah threw them into another hairpin turn. The g-forces pulled her body towards the door and then whipped her back against the cup holder. Sarah barely noticed the impact; she was too busy plotting their course through the sporadic traffic up ahead.

  Cars began to whip past like bars of acrylic death. Most of them were dark-hued suburbans with thinly veiled government plates. The rest were commandeered personal vehicles being used by the local NGOs. None of them responded with alarm when Sarah came barreling forward. Somehow, she got the feeling they were used to desperate maneuvers.

  "Where exactly were you supposed to meet these aid workers, Amanda? ...Amanda?"

  Sarah glanced over and saw her ex slumped against the armrest with a pinched expression on her face. Her cheeks were positively wan while a pair of carmine rivulets pooled between her seat and the door. Pallsburg must have exhausted her core sometime during the drive; that was the only way the blood loss could have possibly gotten that bad.

  "Feel like weighing in?" Sarah asked as she passed off command of their tongue.

  Pallsburg took it after wrestling through her mental fatigue. "I - I didn't ask. Amanda always made it sound like Concord was a dead-end town. We were just going to drive up and improvise once we got there."

  Well... okay, then. Sarah guessed they were winging it. Fortunately, Pallsburg's description wasn't too far off, and she wasn't exactly spoiled for choice. It really did look like there were only two streetlights in the entire municipality. Since she couldn't see any white tents pitched along the main boulevard, she took a right at the fire station and peeled off down an unpainted side-road.

  A small sign by the curb read, 'Speed Limit: 30 MPH.' Sarah was doing more like eighty; it meant she nearly missed the note directing her to Cross and Prospect.

  "Did you...?'

  Sarah nodded her head. She then swung around an awkward intersection and stuck to the right when presented with the option. Narrow caution-yellow warnings advised her to 'remain in her lane.' Sarah thought it would have been better if they'd widened the road to include more than one. As it was, she was a little paranoid there'd be another vehicle coming at them from the opposite direction. She couldn't slow down, though. Not when Amanda was curled against the glass with a stress line splitting her brow.

  Sarah's eyes shifted between her rapidly crashing ex and the bright autumnal scenery. The brilliant red leaves seemed to be offering color commentary the longer it took her to find the aid station. 'Any second now,' they practically whispered. What would happen after they crossed that Rubicon was left to her imagination; however, its incipiency was well assured.

  "There!" Pallsburg finally shouted before yanking their arm towards the windshield. "Past the lake!"

  It was hard to spot what she was pointing at through the bristles of the passing evergreens. Thankfully, the vista was anything except static, and a couple heartbeats spent searching the treeline was enough time to clear the thorny obstruction. An expanse of white cloth eventually broke through the thinning brush. Beneath it, Sarah could see a line of parked trucks bracketing a dozen porta-potties.

  They were also traveling far too quickly for Sarah to attempt to join them. In fact, the parking lot vanished from sight before she could even take it in. A collection of generators soon joined it. Then the mess tent. By the time a small crowd appeared, Sarah was forced to pump the brakes to avoid committing vehicular manslaughter.

  She still startled a pair of security guards who'd been loitering near the perimeter's edge.

  "Hey! What the hell do you think you're-!"

  Rent-a-cop number one shut the hell up after Sarah kicked Amanda's door open. A tidal wave of blood practically raced out onto the tarmac. It must have been about a liter and change once you accounted for the pool beneath her seat. The mess seemed substantially larger, though, when it was splashing up onto your shoes.

  Both of the guards straightened their spine by the time the swell hit their feet. Mister Big and Silent went to fetch a medic while his partner leapt back with a curse. "Alright, nevermind!" he exclaimed angrily. "Question fucking answered."

  Sarah watched him master his disgust so he could check Amanda's pulse. It took him a second to find the beat since his fingers were shaking worse than a subwoofer. Even then, he wasn't terribly reassured by its weak and thready rhythm. "Fuck, where's the..." He fiddled with the side of the chair until he located the lever that controlled her seat. With a sharp click, the headrest pitched towards the trunk while he lifted her legs up onto the dash. Sarah crawled across the armrest to help him manage the weight.

  They'd just about gotten Amanda's feet elevated when a man wearing green scrubs jogged across the asphalt. Behind him was the security guard who'd run off, as well as a square-jawed nurse pushing a metal gurney. The wheels clicked alarmingly every time he shoved it across the blacktop. The doctor wasn't much calmer, though, he was better at hiding his emotions. "How long has she been unconscious?" he brusquely asked her.

  Sarah glanced at the lanyard wrapped around the man's neck. The sharp black font informed everyone that this was 'Viraj Kumar, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine.' How his title differed from a normal degree, Sarah couldn't say; however, he seemed to know what he was doing, so she wasn't sure she cared.

  A tremor ran down her spine. Sarah shook off the wandering thought. "Somewhere between five and ten minutes," she curtly replied. "The source of the splatter is the gunshot wound near her right hip. From what I can tell, the bullet passed through cleanly and left another hole in her back."

  Kumar's assistant began working his arms beneath Amanda's knees, so they could get her onto the cot. "Your relation?" the doctor murmured.

  Sarah only hesitated for a moment. "I'm her partner. Do you need me to sign off on her care?"

  "Not right now, but it may come up. Do you know if she's on medication? Any allergies?"

  Sarah had to think about it for a minute. "She was taking estrogen supplements; I don't remember the name or the dose. As for allergies, I'm pretty sure she reacts badly to latex."

  The doctor bobbed his head. "Alright, we can work with that. You'll be around?"

  Pallsburg's presence squirmed in the back of her throat. "Yeah," Sarah whispered. "I think I kind of have to be."