Burnt Offerings

By the time the cops arrived, Zane was healed. He'd curled around Nathaniel's unconscious body like it was a teddy bear, still crying. He stroked Nathaniel's hair and muttered over and over, "She'll keep us safe. She'll keep us safe. She'll keep us safe."

I think the "she" was me, and I was in way over my head.

5

Stephen lay in the narrow hospital bed. His curly blond hair was longer than mine, sweeping across the white pillow. Angry red and pink scars crisscrossed his delicate face. He looked like he'd been shoved through a window, which is exactly what had happened. Stephen, who didn't outweigh me by twenty pounds, had stood his ground. Zane had finally shoved him through a wire-mesh safety window. Like shoving someone through a wire cheese grater. If it had been a human being, they'd be dead. Even Stephen was hurt, badly hurt. But he was healing. I couldn't literally see the scars fading. It was like trying to watch a flower bloom. You knew it happened, but you never got to see it. I'd glance back at him, and there'd be one less scar. It was u

Nathaniel was in the other bed. His hair was longer than Stephen's. Waist length, I was betting. Hard to judge since I'd only seen him prone. It was the darkest of auburns, almost brown but not. It was a rich, deep mahogany. The hair lay on the white sheets like the pelt of an animal, thick and shining.

He was pretty rather than handsome, and couldn't have been more than five foot six. The hair helped the illusion of femininity. But his shoulders were disproportionately broad, part weightlifting, but part genetics. He had great shoulders, but they belonged on someone about half a foot taller. He had to be eighteen to strip at Guilty Pleasures. His face was slender, jaw too smooth. He might have been eighteen, but he wasn't much over. Maybe someday he'd grow into the shoulders.

We were in a semiprivate room on the isolation ward. The floor that most hospitals kept for lycanthropes, vamps, and other preternatural citizens. Anything they thought might be dangerous. Zane would have been dangerous. But the cops had carted him away, wounds nearly healed. His flesh had pushed my bullets out onto the floor like rejected bits of organ. I didn't think we needed the isolation ward for Stephen and Nathaniel. I could be wrong on Nathaniel, but I didn't think so. I trusted Stephen's judgment better than that.

Nathaniel hadn't regained consciousness. I'd asked what his injuries were, and they told me, because they still thought I was a cop, and I'd saved their asses. Gratitude is a wonderful thing.

Someone had pretty much gutted Nathaniel. I don't mean just cut open his gut with a knife. I mean opened him up and let his intestines fall onto the floor; they found bits of debris on his intestines. There were signs of severe trauma to other parts of the body. He'd been sexually abused. And yes, a prostitute can be raped. All it takes is saying no. No one, not even a lycanthrope, would agree to being raped while their insides were spilling onto the floor. The rape could have been first, then they tried to kill him. It was a touch less sick done in that order. A touch.

There were marks on his wrists and ankles like he'd been chained. The marks were rubbed bloody like he'd struggled, and they weren't healing. Which meant that they'd used chains with a high silver content so it would hurt and not just hold. Whoever had done this to him knew ahead of time they'd be getting a lycanthrope. They were prepared. Which raised some very interesting questions.

Stephen said Gabriel had been pimping the wereleopards out. I understood why people would want something as exotic as a wereleopard. I knew that sadomasochism existed. Shapeshifters could take a hell of a lot of damage. So the combination even made a certain sense. But this was beyond sex games. I'd never heard of anything this brutal outside of a serial-killer case.

I couldn't leave them alone, unprotected. Even without the threat of sexual murderers, there was still the wereleopards. Zane might have cried and kissed my feet, but there were others. If they had no pack structure, no alpha, they had no one to tell them to leave Nathaniel alone. Without a leader it might be a matter of having to back down or kill each of them individually. Not a pleasant thought. Real leopards don't sweat who's in charge much. They don't have pack structures, but shapeshifters aren't animals, they're people. Which meant no matter how solitary and uncomplicated the animal form, the people half will find a way to screw things up. If Gabriel had hand-picked his people, I couldn't trust that they wouldn't come and try for Nathaniel again. Gabriel had been one sick kitty, and Zane hadn't impressed me much either. Who you go

There was a knock on the door. I took the Browning out and held it on my lap underneath the magazine I'd been reading. I'd managed to find a three-month-old copy of National Wildlife, with an article on Kodiak bears. The magazine hid the gun nicely.

"Who is it?"

"It's Irving."

"Come in." I left the gun out, just in case somebody would try to push in behind him. Irving Griswold was a werewolf and a reporter. For a reporter he was a good guy, but he wasn't as careful as I was. When I saw he was alone, then I would put the gun up.

Irving pushed the door open, smiling. His frizzy brown hair encircled his head like a brown halo with the bald spot gleaming in the middle. Glasses perched on a small nose. He was short and gave the impression of being round without being fat. He looked like anything but a big bad wolf. He didn't even look much like a reporter, which was one of the things that made him such a great interviewer but would probably always keep him from being on-camera material. He worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and had interviewed me many times.

He closed the door behind him.

I put up the gun.

His eyes widened. He spoke low, but not in a whisper. "How's Stephen?"

"How did you get in here? There's supposed to be a cop on the door."

"Gee, Blake, I'm glad to see you too."

"Don't mess with me, Irving. There's supposed to be a guard out there."

"He's talking to a very pretty nurse at the desk."

"Dammit." I was not a real cop, so I couldn't go around yelling at them, but it was tempting. There was a law floating around Washington that might give vampire hunters federal badges soon. Sometimes I thought it was a bad idea. Sometimes, I didn't.

"Talk to me fast before I get kicked out. How is Stephen?"

I told him. "You don't care about Nathaniel?"

He looked uncomfortable. "You know that Sylvie is de facto pack leader while Richard is out of town working on his master's degree, right?"

I sighed. "No, I didn't know."

"I know you're not talking to Richard since you broke up, but I'd think someone else would have mentioned it."

"All the other wolves creep around me like there's been a death. No one talks about Richard to me, Irving. I thought he'd forbidden them to talk to me."

"Not to my knowledge."

"I'm surprised you didn't come in here asking for a story."

"I can't do this story, Anita. It's too close to home."

"Because you know Stephen?"

"Because everyone involved is a shapeshifter and I'm just a mild-ma

"You really think you'd lose your job if they found out?"

"Job, hell. What would my mother say?"

I smiled. "So you can't play bodyguard."

He frowned. "You know, I hadn't thought about that. When one of the pack got hurt in public where it couldn't be hidden, Raina always used to ride to the rescue. With her dead, I don't think we have any alphas that aren't hiding what they are. No one I'd trust to guard Stephen, anyway."