Life often kicks the shit out of people without rhyme or reason. Some curl up and take the punishment while others jump up and fight back. Jordan had been trampled by life but kept resisting the urge to give up; however, he wasn’t capable of waging the battle alone. When it got too much for him to bear, I’d get a phone call or an e-mail.
Several months after he’d been besieged by Nightmares, Jordan showed up at my door. I was surprised since he lived five hundred miles away; it wasn’t a road trip someone made on the spur of the moment. He flashed his charming school boy smile and wrapped me in a hug. I offered him a place on my floor for the night; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept there.
Surprisingly, that evening we had the longest conversation of our admittedly short friendship; it was also the first time we’d been alone for longer than an hour. Jordan did most of the talking while I listened to both his words and the undercurrents beneath them. He avoided talking about anything pertaining to him, though he questioned me about several of my relationships. I let him talk, knowing it covered up his nervous energy.
Jordan fell asleep before I did. I laid there in the dark a few feet away and listened to him breathe. I matched my breathing with his, closed my eyes and sent my mind into the Astral plane. From my Otherworldly vantage point I could see Jordan’s spirit. It shone brightly in the Astral plane; a ball of energy glowing with psychic potential. It wasn’t the pure white of a healthy soul, though. A fine network of black lines marred the surface, cutting into it like scars. Jordan’s spirit was no longer broken but it wasn’t whole, either. Jordan was still vulnerable. There were beings of the Otherworld who would take advantage of those cracks, reopening the wounds that caused them.
I called my spirit companions to me—the wise dragon and the savage leopardess. They appeared instantly; the dragon settled into his customary place at my back while the leopardess paced restlessly at my feet. Without words I urged the dragon to go to Jordan, to keep him as safe as the beast had always protected me. Surprisingly the dragon resisted. I felt him latch onto the shoulder of my Astral self with strong talons. Images and emotions fluttered through my mind: flashes of wings, teeth, claws accompanied by feelings of fierce love and possessiveness. He’d been with me for more than a decade and he wasn’t leaving me no matter what I wished. I turned to the leopardess. She appeared after my initiation half a dozen years before and was a feral creature. I trusted her but would never mistake her for anything other than a guardian; she followed me out of duty, not love.
She paused in mid-stride and looked haughtily up at me, her golden eyes glowing with an internal light. The look said she would do what I wished for Jordan’s sake not because I asked it of her. She turned away from me, took two bounding steps forward and leapt toward the Astral representation of Jordan’s soul.
In a blink she and Jordan’s spirit disappeared from sight. I searched for them both but they either were no longer on the Astral plane or the leopardess masked their souls so well I couldn’t find them; and if I couldn’t sense them then neither could anyone, or anything, else.
I returned my consciousness to my physical form, settling back into my body like it was a favorite pair of jeans—well-worn and comfortable. I opened my eyes slowly, adjusting to the diffused amber light streaming in the window from outside. I turned my head toward Jordan’s softly snoring form. The hard planes of his face were relaxed in sleep; Jordan never looked more like the vulnerable boy barely out of his teens that he was. I reached out with my mind, expecting to feel his spirit glowing beneath his tanned skin. I felt nothing.
I warily parted the translucent shields that protected me from the emotions of people other than myself and reached out to Jordan again. I could clearly see him with my eyes but there was nothing there spiritually, not even a void where he should have been. It was strange to have someone inside my house who I couldn’t feel or see with my gifts but it comforted me as well. Jordan was safe from Otherworldly beings and would remain safe for as long as the leopardess was his guardian. I sealed my shields and fell asleep, secure in the knowledge that Jordan was protected.
Before I left for work the next morning Jordan enveloped me in hug and kissed me; it was the last time I saw him.
The leopardess returned to me several years later no worse for her adventures with Jordan. I took that as a good sign; he didn’t need protecting anymore. Unfortunately that wasn’t quite true. Jordan would call upon my witchy Powers to help him in the future but now, more often than not, he phones me simply because I’m his friend. And that is a kind of magic all on its own.
