“Even before their first shift? That’s what this was, right? The first time—”
“Yes. It’s a little early for her, but we knew it was coming. Hank could smell it on her.”
Cecilia wanted to ask more. Questions piled on top of each other in her brain, but she could see that Mother was exhausted. The woman needed her rest. So she suppressed her need to know in favor of Mother’s health, but it was a hard thing to do.
“I want to hear all about it,” she said, keeping her tone gentle. “But maybe in the morning. Can I help you to bed?”
Mother gave her a grateful look, but then her gaze skidded around the room at the disaster that surrounded them. “I should—”
“Rest. Hank and I will take care of things tonight. Don’t you worry.”
Mother’s expression was grateful as Cecilia helped her stand.
“And if you give me the name of your cardiologist, I can write up…well not everything.” They’d lock her in the loony bin for sure. “But I can tell him about what I saw…” Her voice trailed away. It was in her nature to document everything, especially an older woman’s heart episode. But she could see from Mother’s face that there were other problems with her suggestion than the fear that she’d mention werewolves in her notes. “You don’t have a cardiologist, do you?”
“I got Hank there.”
It took Cecilia a moment to remember that Hank had told her at the beginning. “An army medic is a far cry from—”
“He takes good care of me.”
Cecilia looked over to where Hank was watching them with a stoic expression. Or simply a bear expression. It was hard to tell.
“No insurance, then?”
Mother shook her head. “The neighborhood takes care of me.” And when Cecilia raised her eyebrows at that, Mother shrugged. “The wolves around here ain’t that bad. Not generally. It’s since this Flu thing that they’ve gone crazy.” She looked sadly at the two hybrid bodies. “Any way to know who they were? Before the Flu got ’em?”
Cecilia swallowed. She hadn’t wanted to think about that. She hadn’t wanted to look at the bodies and think anything butmonster. Orattacker. That Mother was already aware of the person beneath the fur showed she had a bigger heart than Cecilia. The things—the sick people—had broken through her window and attacked them. Hank was even now standing guard as a bear to make sure no one came at them again. And yet here was Mother thinking of the souls beneath the monster masks.
“I don’t know,” Cecilia answered honestly. “I’ll do what I can before the coroner gets here, but the bodies decompose incredibly fast.” That’s something they’d learned after the first wave of the Detroit Flu. And they were now on their third.
“Find them. Everybody has someone who cares. A mother should know when her child is gone.” There was a wealth of sadness in her tone and Cecilia wondered whom the woman had lost, but she didn’t press. Mother needed all her strength to climb the stairs and collapse into bed. She didn’t even undress and when Cecilia went to help her, she waved her away.
“Go on and help Sammy. Hank said new shifters are starving at first, before they sleep for a couple days.”
Good to know. “I’ll bring you some broth to drink. You need to keep your strength up, too.”
Mother patted her hand, the gesture maternal and vague. The woman’s eyes were already closing. “Go on now.”
Cecilia did, listening carefully as Mother’s breath deepened into a steady rhythm. She resolved to do some quick research on how to care for cardiac patients, but in the meantime, she had a new shifter to feed and after that, a whole new species to investigate. And though she wanted to make sure the living were taken care of, the bulk of her mind was caught up in the desire to examine the dead.
She’d found her clue and boy was it a doozy. There were so many avenues of research to follow, and all of them so exciting she couldn’t decide where to start.
She made it downstairs and headed straight into the kitchen. Hank remained at the front window, his big bear body on alert as he sniffed the night air. He looked over his shoulder at her, and she smiled.
“Mother is resting. I’ll check on her soon. She said that Sammy would be starving so…”
Hank left the window to follow her into the kitchen. She smiled as he came close, wondering if this was what it would be like to have a large dog as a pet. One that followed you wherever you went, who listened and never talked back. Who stretched up onto his back legs to paw at a cabinet.
Well, probably not that last one. Damn, he had to be seven feet tall like this. Where did he find the mass? As a man, he’d been over six feet, but somehow during the shift, he’d gained height and at least a hundred pounds. She was still watching him, thinking about the difference between man and beast when he managed to get the cabinet open. But he didn’t have the dexterity to pull down a box of protein bars without risking the entire cabinet.
“I’ll get it,” she said as she stepped forward. He backed up, tottered a moment on his back paws, and then gracefully collapsed down. He didn’t touch her, though she felt his heat as he went down. And damn, she’d never been this close to a bear before.
All that inky black fur was beautiful. And the brown muzzle seemed cute and fuzzy. No trace of a scar on the bear, she realized. And were his eyes larger? Yes, they had to be. She wanted to take measurements of both man and bear, but she got lost in the liquid depths of his gaze. He’d dropped to all fours and now they were staring at each other, nearly eye to eye.
She reached out without thought, but then held herself back. “Is it all right?” she asked. “Can I touch you?”
He dipped his head in a nod. She smiled then did what she’d wanted to do from the very first moment he’d changed in front of her. She started at his muzzle, the short brown hair feeling more bristly than she expected. He turned his face into her palm, and she grinned at the feel of his wet nose. His tongue licked her palm, soft and as sensuous as she imagined. It was sweet, the way he curled around her small finger. A single quick lick, almost as if he couldn’t help himself, and then he ducked his head.
