Vicious Circle

“Shit,” Joh

“She pulled herself out of the wreckage! Can you imagine?” She wiped her eyes with her hands. “Her right leg is broken.” She shivered. “Both ankles are broken. Five ribs. One punctured a lung!” She put a hand on her stomach. “They did a CT scan. The nurse told me the good news was, aside from the punctured lung, her internal organs looked good. The bad news was she had a fractured pelvis. The trauma surgeon was going to put in a chest tube to drain fluid from the lung, and put her leg back together.”

“Excuse me.”

We all turned. Two police officers stood three feet away from us. I detected Joh

One of the officers was older, I’d have guessed fifty. The other was half that, and he shrank back a step when Joh

“We are,” Joh

“We don’t anticipate Ms. He

“Sure,” I said. “What questions?”

“We’ve received eyewitness reports that Ms. He

We all said no.

“Do any of you know why anyone would want to tamper with Ms. He

Before either Joh

We all turned to the plump woman with a face like a stone cliff full of crags and crevices. Recognition of Celia brought her to us, but she clearly disapproved of Joh

“They are,” Celia lied.

“Yes,” I lied too.

“Bet this won’t surprise you, then. Her test is positive for the wære-virus,” she said distastefully, with a sharp glance at Joh

“What? Discharging her? The full moon isn’t for another…” I stopped to think.

“Twenty-five days,” Joh

“By then we’ll have her moved elsewhere,” I added. “No one will be at risk.”

“We are not properly set up to care for wæres, and several of our employees here feel caring for wæres violates their moral conscience, and”—she held up a hand to ward off a protest—“federal law allows them to refuse. However, the State Shelter Facility is fully staffed with folks who will treat wæres. For this reason, as well as for her own well-being, she is being discharged now.”

“State Shelter?” Celia echoed, her voice hollow. She and Joh

The State Shelters were like human dog pounds. Their idea of health care was ridiculous. Unwanted pound animals got better treatment. I couldn’t let Theodora go there.

“This is so fucked up!” Joh

Anybody who wasn’t already staring at him did then. The police had disappeared, probably fled as soon as they heard the test was positive.

My stomach was a chunk of ice. “We’ll take her.”

“What?” the nurse asked, incredulous.

Joh

“Are you saying that you want to sign an AMA waiver—Against Medical Advice—and take the patient with you?” She laughed.

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“Persephone, think about this,” Celia said.

“No, it’s perfect,” Joh

“You’ll have to go to the registration area to arrange for payment,” the nurse interrupted.

I ran a hand over my windblown hair. I didn’t have my purse or checkbook—not that I thought I had enough money to cover what they were going to charge. Then I remembered Vivian’s money. “Joh

He did a double take at me, between glares at the nurse, and said, “Yeah.”

“Get it.” I pushed up the sleeves of his oversized jacket and said to the nurse, whose smug grin had disappeared, “I want an itemized bill. Whatever IVs are in her, stay in her. Whatever fluids, medicine, blood, or plasma is currently being given to her. I’m paying for those too.” I turned to Celia. “Did you drive here in your CX7?” We had to transport Theo, and I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone from here to take us and know where we went.

“Erik brought me. His Infiniti.” Celia’s eyes widened as she understood. “The seats fold down. He’s waiting outside the ICU room now. I’ll get the keys and tell him what you said.”

The nurse sca

“I know she’s as good as dead at the State Shelter.”

“We’ll take our chances,” Joh

The nurse walked away.

I shouted after her, “I want the stretcher or backboard or whatever she’s on too.” She didn’t respond. “You hear me?” I shouted. She waved her hand up over her head. From where I was, it looked a lot like she flipped me off.

I sat in the back corner of Erik’s black Infiniti FX45 beside Theo, who lay crosswise in the space on a backboard. She looked like hell. Neck brace, dark circles around her eyes. Weird casts on her leg and ankles. Her toes were dark, greenish, swollen, and shiny. I held the IV bag up to keep the fluids moving into her. The tube poking from her side was the size of a garden hose; it didn’t seem like too much was coming out just now.

I had a healing chant on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t dare call the energy and use it on a wære. Erik and Celia were silent in the front seat; Joh

I smoothed hair off her brow. Why would someone tamper with her car or run her off the road? As I sat there, I gave my first thought to the fact there would be people who would ask those same questions if I killed Goliath Kline. Surely he had friends or lovers or someone in his life…or, rather, undeath…who would mourn him. If I, by some miracle, did manage to kill him, that wouldn’t be the end of it. An’ it harm none…

Being an assassin meant harming far more than just the target.

We hit a bump in the road; Theodora moaned.

“Theo.” I took her hand in mine. “It’s Persephone. I’m here. I’m with you.”

Another bump; she moaned again. “Hurt.”

“Don’t try to talk right now. We’re taking you to get help.” I didn’t want to say “we’re taking you to a veterinarian.” It didn’t sound right or inspire hope. Though going through the change would cure just about anything wrong with a wære, the full moon was weeks away, and keeping her alive until then would be a miracle. But Joh

“Seffffff,” she whispered.

I leaned close. “Shhh. Theo. Save your strength.”

“Wasss him. Ran me off…off th’ rrroooad.” She squeezed my hand. “Go-li-ith.” Her grip went slack.

Checking for a heartbeat, I found the strong beat hammering against my fingertips.

I should’ve felt relief, but I couldn’t. She’d said Goliath had run her off the road! She’d recognized him…her sources for background checking must have included photos. More importantly, Goliath knew she’d checked him out and—just like the reverend had said—he had taken deadly offense to it.

And that meant this was my fault.

“She’s stabilizing.” Dr. Geoffrey Lincoln, D.V.M., slipped his hands into his lab-coat pockets. He was an average-sized man, about five-nine and around 190 pounds. Receding short brown hair, brown eyes, glasses. His jaw had a nice shape to it, but his lips were thin like smokers’ lips. When he concentrated, he made a flat line of his mouth. At Joh