Nothing of the woman who owned them was visible, save for where human skin turned into dark alligator hide at the thigh, and human feet became reptilian claws.
One glance was all it took. Rebekka closed her eyes, her will and gift combining, tugging at the exposed skin, pulling it downward and forcing the retreat of anything nonhuman in its path.
When it was done Annalise replaced the blindfold and they retraced their steps, taking a circuitous route until they were once again parked near the brothel entrance and the strip of cloth covering her eyes was removed.
“You have a choice of payment,” Annalise said. “Between gold coins and the favors we can call in, enough to buy the freedom of several prostitutes, or this.”
She lifted a leather-bound book from her lap and offered it to Rebekka. “Take a moment to examine it before deciding. It was written toward the end of The Last War, after chemical and biological weapons had been widely used. It belonged to a healer who was also Were. He didn’t have your gift, nor was he a medical doctor. He treated any who came to him regardless of whether they were human or his own kind.”
Rebekka carefully opened the book and scanned the neatly printed index. The script was small and concise, written by a man who lived in the days before the supernaturals made their existence known.
There were entries for salves and potions that aided in healing, as well as those used to reduce pain—and worse, to counter the effects of weapons she prayed no longer existed.
Her hands tightened on leather, instinctively resisting the urge to touch the hated tattoo. The Last War had been started by religious zealots, by people determined to cleanse mankind of sin. When terror and mayhem didn’t achieve their goals, they let loose a virulent strain of a sexually transmitted disease.
Millions had died as result, and with countries fighting for their survival and governments descending into chaos, there was no money for research or cure. Only time and the mutation of the virus had ended it. But even so, for years afterward, any human who was labeled a whore or a prostitute was marked, not just as a warning to those they lay with, but so they could be gathered up and exterminated like vermin should the engineered disease return. All this, when the weapons let loose in the name of ending war had nearly destroyed the world.
Rebekka forced her thoughts away from a past that had played out well before her birth. She paged through the book, reading the healer’s accounts of his work. If they were to be believed—and she did—then many of the salves and potions he’d discovered and recorded were better than what she left in the brothel for those times when she wasn’t there.
“Have you reached a decision?” Annalise asked.
A fist tightened around Rebekka’s heart at the choice between helping only a few, Feliss among them, versus easing the suffering of many, of gaining knowledge that could be shared and passed on and didn’t depend on her presence or her gift.
For long, agonizing moments she tormented herself with remembered images of the horrifying damage done to those prostitutes she called friends, the repeated healings. But in the end, despite the raw, jagged ache in her chest, she said, “I’ll accept the book in payment.”
THE mewling sounds of acute distress reached Aryck as he cleared the weed-covered metal fence and collapsed walls of what had once been an exclusive residential development. He shifted form, urgency making the change so fast and smooth that between one leaping bound and another he went from four-footed to two.
All of the cubs were in jaguar form. One lay still while the crying of the other three grew more piteous when they realized help had arrived.
Great patches of fur had been consumed, just as Caius’s skin had been. The scent of raw muscle and blood was heavy in the air, and, underneath it, infection.
A glance told Aryck what had happened. Debris had shifted, fallen, creating a pit and tumbling the cubs into it.
They’d struck a canister left over from the days of war, crushed through rust, and let loose a portion of the contents. Small, bare footprints and drag marks revealed Caius’s presence, probably emerging from a hiding place to help the others since Aryck doubted the older cubs had invited him to explore with them.
“Don’t touch them with your bare skin,” Aryck reminded the Jaguars shifting into human form around him. “Wait for the blankets and gloves to arrive.”
He crouched next to the still form of the oldest cub, hands clenching into fists to obey his own orders and keep from using them to determine the extent of the damage. Along the mental link with his father he sent images and a request for instructions.
Take them to the stream. Whatever weapon this is, Phaedra has determined it’s safe to touch the skin after it’s been washed off.
It would mean taking the boys farther from camp, extending their suffering before it could be relieved. Are painkillers being sent?
Yes, with instructions on their use.
How is Caius?
Phaedra has done what she can for him.
His father’s mental voice held no inflection, but it still conveyed a truth Aryck already knew. There was no guarantee any of the cubs would survive.
The Jaguars who’d followed with blankets and gloves arrived. Aryck felt his horror mount when the unconscious cub was lifted. The entire side he’d been lying on, including the fur on his face, had been eaten away.
He must have been first to fall into the crater, and if not the one whose body landed on the rusted canister and opened it, the one who’d been closest to it, with the others following him into the pit, perhaps landing on top of him so when it came time to drag him out, Caius’s strength had been drained.
There were teeth marks on the cub, indicating at least one of those wearing fur had helped. But given the damage Caius had sustained, and the fact he was in human form, with hands to grab and lift, he’d done much of the work.
Shock could account for the unconsciousness, as could concussion. Or there might be more serious injuries.
Aryck wrapped the blanket around the cub before scooping him up and standing.
Thanks to whatever painkiller they’d been given, the other cubs were now silent bundles in the arms of pack members.
“They need to be bathed as quickly as possible. We’ll go to the place were the stream pools in the cedar grove.”
“And the Tiger cub?” one of the Jaguars asked.
“He remains alive.” For now.
Caphriel’s Visitation
PROPPED up by pillows on her bed, Rebekka became engrossed in the journal. It was more than a healer’s collection of cures. It was a window into his soul, a view of a world where bombs might just as likely hold contaminants capable of slowly eating a person alive as be constructed to kill anything living while leaving buildings untouched.
She shivered, glad she hadn’t been alive in the final days of The Last War. And when reading about them became too much to bear, she closed her eyes, preferring a fantasy where she healed the Weres fully, allowing them to shift and escape the brothels and the red zone.
Sleep came, leaving her defenseless. It held her under with an unnatural awareness, a disjointed sense of being awake even while dreaming.
In that state she looked up from the journal and saw the urchin standing next to the bed. He was thin and scabbed and pale. His clothing nothing more than grubby rags.
Her heart raced in terror at the sight of him, its frantic beating beyond the fear of seeing a stranger in her room. He smiled then, making his face beautiful as he reached out and touched her before she could scramble away.