Felipe’s whole body clenched as he hissed and bit back a groan of pain.
“Is it your stitches?”
“No, my leg feels like it’s on fire.”
Pulling up the leg of his long johns, Felipe inspected his calf with a grimace. Oliver couldn’t see much in the dark, but when he lit the lamp from the bedside table, he gasped. On the back of Felipe’s calf was a red, shiny welt the size of a sand dollar.
“How long has this been here?” Oliver asked when Felipe didn’t look nearly as concerned or surprised as he ought to be.
“Since the day we got here. It was just a bug bite, Oliver,” he said pleadingly. “I didn’t think it was going to turn into this.”
“You said you weren’t going to hide things from me!”
“I would have shown you yesterday, but my intestines hanging out distracted me.”
Oliver’s lips thinned, but he said nothing. Kneeling beside Felipe, he lightly prodded the lump. It was hot to the touch and hard beneath the skin. It could have been a bite from a spider or a tick, but it didn’tlook right. Felipe hissed through his teeth and curled his toes when he gave it a squeeze. Whatever it was must have hurt like hell because Felipe complained less about the stitches.
“When did this happen?”
“The little bastard bit me as I was carrying Gwen away from the corpse bugs. It’s gotten progressively itchier and sorer ever since.”
Oliver’s hands froze over the wound. “The bugs from Ridder’s corpse?”
“Yeah, why?”
“No reason.” Grabbing his bag off the dresser, Oliver pulled out the carbolic acid he had bought along with the alcohol. He pictured Felipe’s hand as he struggled to pull back the hammer of the gun, and a cold chill washed over him. The bugs in the church had scurried away from him just like the dead investigators had. Forcing his voice steady, Oliver asked, “Felipe, when did you start having weird dreams?”
“The day we got here, so Tuesday night?”
“That was the same day we went to the church to examine the bodies.”
Felipe’s eyes went wide, and his heart kicked on the other end of the tether as he met Oliver’s gaze. “Oliver, what is inside me?”
“I don’t know but hold still.”
Drawing in a long, slow breath, Oliver exhaled and let his powers expand out. He inched along the tether’s length, but it felt reassuringly strong and stable. As he crept across Felipe’s body, his magic snagged against whisps of something, but none of it was strong enough to catch. The whiffs of pine tar grew stronger the closer he got to Felipe’s leg. The moment Oliver’s powers touched it, the lump jerked. Felipe cursed and covered his mouth as if he might be sick, but when Oliver shut his eyes, he saw the nodule glowing brightly against his eyelids. This time there was no network of hyphae as he had seen in the dead investigators, but Felipe’s whole body glowed faintly as if traces of the Dysterwood’s magic had spread.
“The thing in your leg looks a lot like what was in the dead investigators.”
“Please get it out.”
“I will. Just lie on your right side and stick your leg out straight, please.”
As Felipe laid down, Oliver grabbed a few handkerchiefs from his valise and arranged them under Felipe’s calf. Going through his gladstone, he gathered tins of gauze, tweezers, alcohol, and anything else he might possibly need. He quickly disinfected the skin around the wound before wiping down his tools with carbolic acid. Turning back to Felipe, Oliver tried not to let his emotions show.
“I know what you’re going to say, Oliver,” Felipe said when Oliver swallowed hard, “but I don’t care about the pain right now. Just get that thing out of me.”
Nodding, Oliver steeled himself. Holding Felipe’s leg in his lap, Oliver carefully lanced the wound. Felipe screwed his eyes shut and bit back a half-choked groan as blood welled from the incision. Oliver had expected pus to come gushing out, but when he gently probed the wound with his finger, he found a pearl of tissue the size of a large marble at the center of the lump. Leaning closer, Oliver could see something green sloshing on the other side of the thin wall of tissue. Green residue leaked from the ball as Oliver carefully pried it away from Felipe’s flesh. His partner curled his toes and winced before forcing his leg still.
“It’s burning again,” Felipe said between clenched teeth.
“Sorry, there’s… seepage. It looks like your body tried to seal off the creature. That might be why your healing has been so slow; your body was constantly trying to keep this thing at bay. I’ll have it out in a second.”
With a final swish of his finger, the ball of tissue popped out and rolled across the carpet. Felipe made a disgusted noise and twitched as Oliver rinsed the wound with alcohol, but when he reached for his needle and thread, Oliver noticed the edges of the wound slowly knitting shut. As he wrapped the gauze around his calf, Felipe stared at the thing that had come out of his leg. His throat worked, and his skin had gone a sickly grey.
“Felipe?”
“I’m fine,” he replied tightly as Oliver finished wrapping the wound.
