"Fresh frozen plasma," Rafferty answered absently. "Now shut up and let me work, would you?" He might not have finished med school, but he had the attitude and sharp-edged tongue down pat. There was a hush after that. Deep, velvety, and peaceful, enough that I kept trying to drift away. I was attempting to set foot on that sinuous path that led nowhere yet everywhere all at once, but every time I did, there was an insistent force pulling me back. Hand over hand, the grip continued to reel me in with ruthless obstinacy.
Ruthless, obstinate, and with a devotion to healing that left Hippocrates himself in the dust—it was a short but accurate description of Rafferty. That and he did not suffer fools gladly. In fact, he did not suffer fools at all. Niko and I had crossed his path two years ago. I'd smelled the talent on him instantly. He in turn had known there was something different about me, although I'd never given him the chance to touch me and find out for sure. The laying on of hands would've resulted in his knowing something we didn't want him to know. Chances were it was something he didn't particularly want to know either. And if seeing Cal for what he truly was would've been a shock, seeing what I was now was bound to knock his socks off.
"How is he?"
Rafferty's sharp, frustrated exhalation followed on the heels of Niko's question. "Two phrases come to mind. 'Crashing and burning' and 'train wreck.' Take your pick." The heat of his palm intensified. "The son of a bitch sliced him up good. Who the hell did it?"
There was silence, and then Nik's unflinching answer. "I did."
"Ah." The healer was either absorbing the information or letting it flow over him, water off a duck's back. "I'm guessing that's why you skipped the hospital."
"No." There was the sound of skin on skin, a hand being rubbed wearily over a face. "That's not the reason. Be careful in there, Rafferty. Cal isn't precisely alone."
"Fine time to tell me," came the annoyed grunt. "I'm already in. I'm committed now."
Which would be exactly what Niko had planned all along. The reptilian part of me admired the insidious nature of the move and roundly despised the softer emotion behind it. The rest of me simply recognized it as Niko, through and through, and something I would've done in a heartbeat myself. At one time. Needless to say, if I survived, those days were long gone.
"Then the sooner you heal him, the sooner you can get out," Nik pointed out brusquely.
I didn't catch Rafferty's reply, but it was guaranteed to be scathing. It dawned on me slowly that I was healing. It was a snail-like process due to the severity of the wound, but it was happening. The sounds around me were growing sharper and even though I was still fading in and out, I was becoming more aware. Feeling stronger. In fact I felt strong enough to lever up my eyelids for a bleary glance around me. Light russet eyes took me in. "Damn, Cal," Rafferty said grimly. There was a tightening around the corners of his wide mouth, a spasm of distaste at what he was sensing as he healed me. "You look as creepy as you feel."
Thank you, Marcus Welby. Beside him Niko stood, his short hair still startling to my eyes. I saw the sick despair that lay under the tranquil surface of his smooth face, the sluggish movement of black water under ice. And I saw it fade slightly as he watched me open my eyes. His face loosened a slight amount and for one second he closed his eyes and let his shoulders sag. Then he pulled in a deep breath, straightened his shoulders to a ramrod stiffness, and snapped open his eyes. "Put him to sleep," he ordered without emotion.
Rafferty slid him a disbelieving look. "What? I'm still healing him. He's a long way from out of the woods. Sleep is the least of my concerns here."
"Put him to sleep, Rafferty. Do it now," Niko repeated harshly.
Goodfellow stepped up to add his two cents. Nosy bastard. "You might have trouble healing after Darkling here has bitten off your hand at the wrist. At the moment it's best to let sleeping monsters lie."
I could see that Rafferty wasn't used to being told what to do, and it was clear he didn't care for it one bit. But he ignored his bruised ego for the moment and laid his other hand on my forehead. His lips shaped one word. "Sleep." It wasn't audible to my ears, but I heard it ring in a series of echoes through my mind. Sleep. Over and over again until it was a never-ending litany. Sleep. Sleep.
And I did.
Chapter Twenty-two
It was an unnatural sleep. There were no dreams, no sense of time passing. It was less like sleep and more like nonexistence. When I woke, I expected that somehow Niko, Goodfellow, and Rafferty would still be standing in the same positions. They weren't. I was alone. A rustle at the doorway had me amending that. Mostly alone. A wolf stood there, its round yellow eyes fixed unblinkingly on me. The upper lip was raised enough to show a hint of pearly white teeth. Reddish brown fur bristled along its neck and the ears were flat to its skull. It was huge, male, and pissed off.
"What a big furry dick you have, Grandma," I sneered with a voice rusty from disuse. Opening massive jaws, it gave me a silent snarl, turned, and disappeared from my line of sight. With Red Rover gone, I turned my attention to the room and scanned it curiously. It was Rafferty's surgery. Mopping blood from the floor would be easy enough; it was cheap green linoleum chosen for that very reason. There were shelves upon shelves of medical supplies, a squat and ancient refrigerator that chugged on reliably, and no windows. The house was backed up to a nature preserve if I remembered correctly, but better to play it safe. What went on in this room wasn't for the eyes of your average Joe. There were three beds and I was lying in the one closest to the open door. They were all strictly yard sale quality, scarred, stained, and with the occasional kid's name carved into the headboards. "John." "Timmy." "Bobby loves Katie." I was dressed in faded blue scrubs with a threadbare sheet and blanket pulled up to my waist. None of it was in the style to which I'd become accustomed, not by any stretch of the imagination.
I sighed and focused on the ceiling. A crack ran from corner to corner and I followed it idly with my eyes. I'd fucked up. There was no way around that. I'd let two humans and a mutated goat get the best of me. I'd failed the Auphe, who very probably were now no more. Maybe one or two had escaped the destruction of the warehouse, but I wasn't holding my breath on it. No, I was most likely the sole survivor—on our side of the fence anyway. I was the last of the great and grand plan, which to be truthful I'd never much given a shit about. It was only the paycheck that had ever concerned me. But although I'd never cared one way or the other about the Auphe's success, I did care about myself. First, foremost, and always. I wanted freedom and I wanted revenge and it didn't matter in which order they came.
There was no time like the present. I used my hands to push up to a sitting position. Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I balanced for a moment and then stood. At least that's the way it ran in my mind. In reality, nothing happened. My arms remained still at my sides, my legs unmoving beneath the covers. The only movement I seemed to have was from the neck up. I could turn my head in either direction, tilt it back, or rest my chin on my chest, and that was the sum total of it. I might have woken up, but that goddamn son of a bitch Rafferty had made sure I wasn't going anywhere. He had paralyzed me, turned me into a temporary quadriplegic. Until he returned and lifted the hoodoo, letting my nerves talk to one another again, I was pretty much screwed. And didn't that seem to be the story of my life lately?
Now I had to wait. Eventually they would have to reverse what had been done. They had already made the decision; they hadn't let me die. It was what I'd been betting on. Niko had missed his window of opportunity. He had the chance and, from what I could tell, the absolute intention of ending my life. But he hadn't. At the last possible moment he'd shifted the angle of the blade to leave me alive, if only just barely. Since he hadn't killed me then, I didn't believe he'd let me rot now. And while Rafferty might have healed me, he wasn't about to become my caretaker, spoon-feeding me Jell-O for the rest of this body's life. At some point he would have to set me free. And then he better run like a cheetah because what I was going to do to him would make this paralysis look like a tropical vacation.