“There’s been an accident, Doc,” I explained. “Hexe told me to bring him here.”
“Take him into the parlor,” Dr. Mao said, pointing to an alcove at the far end of the shop that was partially hidden by an elaborate lacquered screen.
Where the apothecary resembled a traditional Chinese herbalist shop, with jars and cases filled with dried caterpillars and sliced deer antler, the acupuncture parlor looked more like a doctor’s examination room, complete with stainless-steel exam table. As Lukas and I lifted Hexe onto it, his eyelids fluttered and he groaned in pain.
Dr. Mao winced as he saw Hexe’s hand. “Go fetch Meikei,” he told Lukas. “I’m going to need her help.”
Upon hearing his friend’s voice, Hexe opened his eyes and attempted to sit up, only to have Dr. Mao push him back down. “Lie still, Serenity,” he said gently. “I must assess your wounds.” As the were-tiger attempted to examine Hexe’s fingers, he gasped like a drowning man coming up for air and his golden eyes rolled back in their sockets.
“Where’s Tate?” he rasped.
“I’m right here,” I said as I grabbed his uninjured left hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. His eyeballs abruptly dropped back down like the reels in a slot machine. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
He flashed me a wan smile before turning his attention to Dr. Mao. “How bad is it, Doc?”
“You need a boneknitter, not an acupuncturist,” the old healer replied matter-of-factly.
Hexe shook his head. “A boneknitter would be worse than useless. It’s a witch-hammer injury.”
“Who did this?” Dr. Mao demanded, his head suddenly replaced by that of a snarling tiger. Although I knew he meant me no harm, I instinctively recoiled in fear at the sight of his razor-sharp teeth and flashing amber eyes. “It was Marz, wasn’t it?” Mao growled, his stripes once more fading back into his skin. “I may be old, but I’m no fool.”
“Yes, it was Boss Marz,” Hexe replied grudgingly. “But you can’t tell anyone what you know, Doc. Marz has threatened to kill our families and friends—including you and Meikei—if we talk.”
“I understand,” Mao sighed. “But how did the Maladanti get their hands on a witch-hammer?”
“They stole a collection of Witchfinder implements from the Museum of Supernatural History,” I explained. “The Curator was talking about the theft when I was there with Canterbury earlier this week.”
“I’m not surprised that the Maladanti would stoop to such tactics,” Mao grunted as he took out a black and red lacquer box from a nearby medicine cabinet. “Have no fear, you have my silence on the matter.”
Meikei, dressed in a housecoat, entered the parlor. “What’s going on? Lukas said something about an emergency—” She froze upon seeing Hexe lying on the exam table, her mouth hanging open in disbelief.
“Don’t just stand there gawping at the patient, girl!” Mao snapped. “I need you to compound some Chin Koo Tieh Shang Wan while I block his nerves. You know the formulation?”
“Pseudoginseng, dragon’s blood, Angelica root, myrrh, and safflower,” Meikei replied, quickly regaining her composure under her father’s quizzing.
“That’s my girl,” Mao said, with a proud smile. “Now go make pills.”
Lukas moved to follow Meikei into the apothecary, but Dr. Mao shook his head. “You stay here, boy,” he said sternly. “My daughter can run the pill mill by herself. I need you to hold him down when I insert the needles.”
The young were-cat nodded his understanding and laid his arm across Hexe’s shoulders, pinning him to the exam table.
The healer scowled down at his friend’s hand, which now resembled an overfilled hot-water bottle, the fingers jutting from it at unnatural angles. “I wish I could lie and tell you this isn’t going to hurt,” he said apologetically.
“I understand,” Hexe rasped, clenching his jaw. “Go ahead and do it.”
Dr. Mao flipped open the lid of the lacquer box, revealing rows upon rows of golden acupuncture needles ranging from near-microscopic to something you could knit with. As he inserted the first of them into the fractured right hand, Hexe’s body jerked and bowed, as if undergoing electroshock, and then suddenly went limp.
“Don’t worry, he’s still alive. He’s just fainted, that’s all. It is better he not be awake for this, anyway,” the were-tiger explained. Seeing the worried look on my face, he gave me a reassuring smile. “You got him this far, Tate. Lukas and I will take him from here.”
I nodded dumbly and stepped away from the exam table, leaving Dr. Mao and his apprentice to their work. It tore me up inside that the man I loved was in agony, and there was sweet FA I could do about it. As I entered the apothecary, I saw Meikei at the counter, wearing a half-mask respirator as she vigorously pounded the contents of a pharmacist’s mortar with a pestle.
“If my father wants to know what’s taking so long,” she said in a muffled voice, “you can tell him that I’m working as fast as I can and to get off my back, Dad.”
“Actually, I just came out here to keep from being underfoot,” I admitted.
“You can help me make the pills, if you like,” she said, gesturing to a machine that looked like a cross between an old-fashioned meat grinder and a die press. I joined her behind the counter and took my place at the compounding bench. “The Chin Koo Tieh Shang Wan will reduce the swelling and soft tissue damage, and dull the pain,” she explained as she poured the powder from the mortar into the machine’s hopper.
I turned the crank on the side of the press. There was a slight resistance, but not too much, and a second later the mechanism popped out a yellowish aspirin-sized tablet, which dropped down a narrow slide and fell into a small steel basin. Relieved to be of assistance, no matter how slight, I turned the handle faster and the solitary tablet was followed by several more. Suddenly, in midcrank, my vision abruptly dimmed and flared, like a malfunctioning video monitor, and the next thing I knew I was lying on the floor, staring up at a startled Meikei.
“Are you okay?” she gasped as she tore off her mask.
“Wh—what happened?” I muttered, blinking in surprise.
Meikei knelt beside me, checking my pulse and inspecting my pupils. “One moment you were cranking the pill press, the next you stopped and sat down—except there wasn’t a chair.”
“I’m sorry if I freaked you out,” I said apologetically. “I guess everything just kind of caught up to me. . . .”
Meikei frowned and leaned in closer, sniffing me like a cat checking out a mouse hole. “Have you been nauseous lately?” she asked.
“Well, I have been feeling a bit queasy, here and there,” I admitted. “But I’ve been under a lot of stress at work. . . .”
“That’s not why you fainted,” she said with a shake of her head. “You are with child, Tate.”
I sat there for a long moment, my brain vibrating like a struck gong. I tried to figure out what Meikei must have really meant to say, because there was no way it was what I just thought I’d heard. Maybe she said I’d been beguiled, and in my dazed state I heard something altogether different. Surely it must have been a simple misunderstanding on my part.
“Tate? Did you hear what I just said?” Meikei asked, snapping her fingers to get my attention. “I said that you’re pregnant!”