“Let me see,” said Grandma.
Thankfully, Shelby didn’t argue. She turned, showing Grandma the red, raw skin of her right bicep.
“We can deal with that,” said Grandma, and picked up the straight razor. She flipped it open before neatly slicing open the back of her own hand.
Shelby shrieked, too startled for composure, only to calm and stare as she realized Grandma wasn’t really bleeding. A thick, viscous fluid was leaking from the cut, virtually clear, with only a hint of blue. “What in the . . . ?”
“Cuckoos don’t have hemoglobin, dear,” said Grandma.
“Do they feel pain?”
Grandma laughed. “Yes, but sometimes we have to work past that,” she admitted, and put down the straight razor before dipping her fingers into the “blood” and beginning to lather it onto Shelby’s wound. Shelby squawked again, only to subside, looking puzzled, when there was no pain. Grandma smiled. “As I was saying, we don’t have hemoglobin. What we do have is a natural antibiotic, with preservative and painkilling properties.”
“They’re very popular with the kind of men who like building men like me,” said Grandpa. “Alex, let me see your feet.”
I stuck them obediently out, managing not to wince when he pulled off my shoes and started examining my blisters. “It’s all right, Shelby, honest. Cuckoo blood won’t heal you, but it’ll make the pain a lot less immediate, and we have drugs to help with the rest.”
“It should reduce scarring, though, and that’s a good thing, as Martin tells me you’re a very pretty girl,” said Grandma, finishing her finger-painting and reaching for the gauze. “You should both have showers, but I want you to leave this on for at least an hour before you wash it off, and I’ll make up a kit for you to use after you get dry.”
“She means she’s going to bleed into a jar,” said Grandpa. “Don’t sugarcoat it for the kids, Angie.”
“I got that, thanks,” said Shelby, closing her eyes. “Alex? You all right?”
My feet looked mostly intact. “I’m fine,” I said. Judging by the tightness in my back and shoulders, I might not stay fine, but right here and now, I could give the reassurance. “Grandma . . .”
“Yes, she can stay here.” Grandma began to wrap gauze around Shelby’s arm. “I don’t want either of you sleeping somewhere undefended until this is taken care of. Do you have any idea who may have attacked you?”
“No,” I said grimly, “but we’re going to find out.”
Grandpa’s hand landed on my shoulder, heavy enough to keep me in my seat, even if my feet hadn’t already been giving me good reason to keep still. “In the morning,” he said. “You need sleep, both of you.”
I thought of my room, where the mice were probably preparing a grand celebration to commemorate my getting set on fire. “About that . . .”
“I already bribed them to relocate to the attic for tonight, and leave you alone,” said Grandpa. “It was the second thing I did after Sarah woke us.”
Curiosity demanded to be satisfied. “What was the first thing you did?”
“Arm the exterior traps. Nothing’s getting through any of these windows tonight.”
It was the exact right thing to say. I smiled. “Thanks, Grandpa.”
“Any time, kiddo,” he said, and patted my shoulder one more time before he took his hand away. “Any time.”
We didn’t shower before we went to bed; we didn’t do anything but peel off our smoky, ruined clothing and collapse onto the mattress, with Shelby on the inside, and me closer to the door, so that anything that tried to attack would have a slightly harder time of it. She was already half-gone, thanks to the Vicodin my grandmother had left out for her. I had refused to take anything but a few aspirin. One of us needed to be aware of our surroundings.
That was a foolish fantasy. My eyes were closed before my head hit the pillow, and the last thing I remembered was the warm, familiar weight of Crow settling on my chest. He cawed once, tone inquisitive, and then there was nothing but the dark and my own exhaustion pulling me under.
Nineteen
“Playing fair is for people who don’t mind playing to lose.”
—Kevin Price
A nice, if borrowed, bedroom in an only moderately creepy suburban home in Columbus, Ohio
I WOKE TO THE sound of shrieking. I was out of the bed and on my feet in less than a second, already reaching for the gun that I kept in the nightstand. The fact that I was stark naked hit me mid-motion, followed immediately by another shriek. This time, I identified the voice as Shelby’s. It was coming from the floor on the other side of the bed.
“I’m coming!” I shouted, and ran around the bed, already searching for a target . . .
...only to find my girlfriend, who was wearing my bathrobe, lying on her back with Crow sitting proudly in the middle of her chest. His wings were half-mantled, and when he moved them the tips of his primary flight feathers dragged against her arms, tickling her. He moved them as I watched, and another shriek was the result. I lowered my gun, blinking in bemusement, and wished I’d thought to grab my glasses before coming to her rescue.
“Er?” I said.
“You!” Shelby sat up, performing a complicated maneuver with her arms, so that Crow wound up in the classic feline “forepaws on shoulder, hind legs resting on arm” position. He turned to look at me over his own shoulder, and I swear the feathery bastard actually looked smug. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Shelby, there is a list of things that can be used as answers to that question. It’s annotated. There’s even an index. How’s your burn?”
“Hurts like a bitch and a half, but I’ll live; hope you like girls with interesting scars. You’re moving away from the point.”
“I’m naked, I’m sore, and I just woke up. I don’t know what the point is, ergo, I cannot be moving away from it on purpose.”
“This fellow!” Shelby shifted her arms again, presenting Crow to me like he was an adoption drive puppy. He put up with it admirably, telegraphing his mild annoyance at being held that way with nothing more than a swishing of his tail and a ruffling of his feathers.
“When he pecks your eyes out for manhandling him, I’m not going to be as sorry for you as I should be,” I said. With that, I turned around and walked back to my side of the bed, where I sat down, stowed my gun in the nightstand, and finally put on my glasses. The room snapped into blessed clarity. I’m not blind without my glasses, just nearsighted, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy everything being blurry around the edges.
The mattress jolted as Shelby pulled herself up from the floor and plopped down on the edge of the bed. “Did I wake you?”
“Given the last few days, not only did you wake me, but I thought you were being murdered.” I twisted to scowl at her. She was still holding Crow, and her torso was mostly concealed by the mass of black feathers and tawny fur.
“Sorry,” she said. Giving Crow’s head a scritch, she added, “But you could have told me about this big fellow. I woke up with him sitting on my chest, trying to sort out who I was and what I was doing in bed with his monkey.”
“Oh, hell, I didn’t warn you about Crow? I’m sorry.” Anger transitioned to contrition in an instant. “It was late, and I was crashing so hard, I didn’t even think. I hope he didn’t freak you out too much.”
“If by ‘freak me out’ you mean ‘absolutely delight me,’ he did that in spades.” She kept scritching Crow’s head. He let his beak hang open, eyes closing in bliss. “I had to leave my poor Flora back home in Australia. There was no way I’d have been able to smuggle her through customs, but I’ve missed her every day since, you’ve no idea how hard it’s been on me.” Crow’s purring was loud enough to be audible from across the bed.