It knew it, too, almost immediately, knew it had injured one of mine.So it did it again, stepping on the shattered leg and grinding it into the floor, making Noah howl.And I fell for the trick and jumped for the creature’s throat—and almost made it.
But he’d expected it, and I saw the trap too late.Two of his pack jumped me, one from either side, as soon as I elongated my body, exposing my vulnerable areas.I felt them tear into me, heard the cub scream, tasted my own blood in my mouth, meaty and good, and laughed.
Death would come, but I would take them with me.I would save the cub, and there was nothing they could do to stop me.And I would be remembered; they would sing of me in the night when the moon was full, yes, they would sing!
So I stayed on the big one, even as they gutted me.Saw his surprise, his fear, hisrealization.That this was to the death, as if there was ever any other kind of fight,hisdeath, and now he knew it, could smell it on my breath, could see it in my eyes as I took him down, as his pack fell on me but not in time, not before I ripped the bastard’s throat out and—
Those savaging me were suddenly gone, taking chunks of my flesh along with them.But gone, nonetheless, although I could not have protected myself further.I was bleeding out, my intestines lying gray and ropy on the floor around me, my lifeblood gushing out alongside them.I could have done nothing, and yet they were gone.
I did not understand.
Until I looked up blearily from the floor, from beside the broken body of the big one, and saw through fading eyesight...
Cyrus, standing in the middle of the room and roaring, his terrible maw a bloody joy to behold, and one of my attackers lying helpless in his hands before he ripped him apart.The other was under a mound of my pack, being torn to pieces.I smiled.
I would die, but I would not be consumed.I would be spared that indignity.They had saved me that, my clan, my family, my love.
They would live, and they wouldsing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It’s really quite fascinating.”The voice faded in and out.“You see here—I have to work quickly, or the wound heals itself before I can finish.One can literally watch the process in real time: bones knitting back together, flesh sealing up, even blood vessels closing and beginning to flow normally again.It is the most exciting thing I have ever witnessed, and I can assure you, I have seen a good deal!”
I felt like I was lying in the surf as it washed over me, with waves crashing and blotting everything out, and then receding, allowing me to surface and breathe for a moment.It was a little like drowning, over and over again, or how I expected drowning would feel.But I learned the rhythm, and the last time I surfaced, I pushed off hard from the beach and came up gasping.
“Oh, shit,” someone said, and I opened my eyes to find myself staring around at one of the operating rooms in HQ.
A very familiar bastard was stepping back from the table.He had a bloody scalpel in one gloved hand and had just thrown up a personal shield with the other, why I didn’t know.This room was in the belly of HQ and well protected.
And then the pain hit, I howled, and everybody ran for the doors.Everybody except the aforementioned bastard, AKA Arturo Sedgewick, the Corps’ chief physician.He stood his ground with his little scalpel, and the eyes I could see over his surgical mask merely looked annoyed.
“I knew you were going to do this,” he complained as I tried to remember how to breathe.
“Do what?”I croaked and then looked down.
At the open cavity of my abdomen, at blood and sutures holding my skin open around a gaping hole in one side of my belly, and at a long line of stitches on the other.Stitches that were coming loose by themselves as the skin knitted up behind them, unraveling the line.I stared at them for a second, weirdly fascinated, then pulled on the end of the thread...
And had the whole thing come out, with the tiny holes closing up after it, erasing like magic.
“Do you mind?”Sedgewick asked acerbically.“I’m not done.”
“What?”I looked up at him, understanding nothing.
“Yes, that’s helpful,” he said sourly.I opened my mouth to ask the first of a whole raft of questions, but never got the chance.“All right, nighty night,” he said, and raised his hand again.
And then I was falling down a lengthy hole, screaming all the way.
I hit down in a crouch, my toes instinctively gripping what felt like cold dirt, and my heart racing.For a moment, I just crouched there, wondering what the hell?Possibly literally, I thought, fear grabbing me by the throat.
But no demons came to drag me off to my just desserts, and no angels flitted by, at least none that I could see.Of course, I couldn’t see much.It was dark in here, quiet—I could no longer hear the surf—and strangely peaceful.
And then really boring, because nothing was happening, so after a while, I cautiously stood up.
If this is the afterlife, I’m really disappointed,I thought, moving tentatively around.There continued to be more nothing, not even the red aftereffects of the brilliant lights in the operating room, where I assumed Sedgewick was still battling for my life.Although how hard he was, I didn’t know, as Weres fascinated him, and I thought that Relics might even more.
A live war mage, on the other hand, wasn’t interesting at all, and Sedgewick had been known to try to sneak in autopsies on Weres without Clan permission.What might he do for a chance to carve up a Relic?I glanced around, suddenly nervous again, but if there was a way back to consciousness, I didn’t see it.
Or a way anywhere, for that matter.There were no open doors beckoning me to come toward the light, which I guessed was a good thing.But also no more overheard conversations, or the eighties music Sedgewick had had playing in the operating room, or—
