BOBBY LAY ON his side on the floor of his cell. I’d moved him onto his side so that he wouldn’t choke on his own blood, as Olaf had said they could suffocate. I hadn’t put him on his bunk because he’d have gotten blood all over it. He should have healed by now. He should have been up and moving by now. I tried to see if he was breathing under the blanket I’d pulled up over him. I wrapped my hands around the bars, willing him to move.
Olaf touched my hand, which made me jump and look at him. “He is alive, Anita.”
“How do you know?”
“I can hear his heartbeat.”
“I forgot you could do that now.”
He placed his hand over mine. I think if he’d had room through the bars, he’d have held my hand, but the metal protected me from a more intimate gesture, just like it was supposed to protect us from the man on the floor I’d beaten senseless.
“Can someone please go in there and check on Bobby?” Wagner said.
Newman yelled back, “Duke, we could use the keys to the cells.”
Duke’s voice came a little muffled. “I’m working on it.”
“Please hurry, Duke!” Wagner yelled.
“You’re awfully worried about someone you tried to kill earlier,” I said, and used talking to Wagner as an excuse to pull away from Olaf and walk toward the other cell.
Wagner was pressed up between the bars that separated his cell from Bobby’s, as if pushing hard enough would let him touch the other man. His concern seemed as real as the hysteria had earlier. Maybe he was feeling guilty. I knew I was.
“I know. I was stupid and crazy, and I’m sorry, but Bobby hasn’t moved at all since you guys left him there. Shouldn’t he have moved or done something by now if he was going to be all right?”
“Yeah,” I said, and I was suddenly afraid not of Bobby’s beast but of what I might have done to him. I wasn’t as strong as a real shapeshifter or vampire, but I was stronger than a normal person. I’d hit Bobby as hard as I could. I’d been fighting for my life, so I hadn’t held back. Had that been more than Bobby’s body could handle? God, it would suck if I’d accidentally killed him when we were trying so hard to save him.
“Could you have snapped his neck?” Newman asked.
“The uppercut was the most dangerous for spinal injury, and he moved just fine after that.”
“If he was human, I’d worry about some kind of brain injury,” Livingston said from the doorway.
“You mean a concussion?” I asked.
“Can shapeshifters get those, and if they can, do they heal from them better than humans do?”
“He is not dead,” Olaf said.
“Good to know, but I’ve never seen a shapeshifter take this long to heal from something like this. If he’s not seriously injured, he should be moving by now,” I said.
“Can he change into a biform?” Olaf asked.
“I can’t keep up with the new politically correct language. I thought biform meant any shapeshifter and bipedal was what we used for half-man forms?”
Olaf seemed to think about my question and then gave one nod. “Bipedal would be for leopard-man form, but that we are debating it proves that biform and bipedal are too close.”
“I prefer that for correct speech to Therianthrope for shapeshifter and Ailuranthrope for all werecat forms just because some humorless humans decided lycanthrope is an insult to anyone who isn’t an actual werewolf.”
“Does the prisoner have a bipedal form?” Olaf asked.
I shook my head. “He’s got the leopard form, and honestly it was one of the smallest beast forms I’ve seen in a wereleopard. It was about the same size as a regular leopard.”
“That makes him very weak.”
“Are you saying he’s not powerful enough to heal from a beating like this?”
“I am saying that he will not heal like a more powerful shapeshifter would—that is all.” He even spread his hands for me in an it’s-okay gesture. I realized that he was trying to soften the blow for me emotionally. The Olaf I’d first met years back would not have bothered.
I yelled, “Leduc, get in here with the keys!”
“And if I do let you in the cage, what are you going to do, Blake?” He spoke from the door as Livingston moved back to make room for him.
“See how hurt he is.”
“And then what?”
“We call—” And I stopped. “We can’t call an ambulance.”
“We have to,” Wagner said.
“I agree with Troy,” Newman said.
“Newman, you saw what Bobby almost did to me,” I said. “We can’t put EMTs or paramedics in there with him.”
“He’s unconscious, Blake, thanks to you, so no danger to anybody.”
The comment pissed me off, and I let some of the anger into my voice. “I thought he was going to kill me, Newman, and so did you.” I gave him the look that went with the tone in my voice.
Newman glared back for a second or two, and then all his defiance seemed to wash away. “Damn it, Blake, we’re trying to save him.”
“I know that, but if what we saw in that cage is all the control he has during the change, then I’m amazed he hasn’t hurt anyone before now.”
“You saw all the pictures of him in leopard form with the family,” Newman said.
“I did, but all I can tell you is the wereanimals with good control that I know don’t change form like that.”
“What do you mean?” Kaitlin asked from outside the door. There just wasn’t room for all of us in the hallway in front of the cells.
“He does the really painful, violent change where you see all the parts rearrange themselves. It’s grotesque, like a medical textbook where a body is dissected and put back together. If that was the way they all changed form, no one would want to see it onstage.”
“Don’t go bringing up the unnatural businesses that your fiancé has in St. Louis,” Leduc said.
I turned and stared at him. “Did you miss the point of all the new politically correct speech, Duke? Because calling supernatural citizens unnatural sounds awfully insensitive.” My words were calm; my tone was a little warm.
“One of the perks of being the boss on a small force like this is that I don’t have to read the latest memo about the new politically correct vocabulary. We wouldn’t want to offend anyone by calling them what they actually are, now, would we?”
“The men in my life are fine with being called vampire or shapeshifter. Hell, none of the werewolves in my life has bitched about being called lycanthropes.”
“How about calling them soulless demons and rampaging beasts? Let’s call a spade a spade,” Duke said.
I shook my head, not even angry anymore. “The only people who throw around the term demon are people that have never met one for real.”
“You haven’t met a real demon,” Duke said, but his tone wasn’t as sure as his words.
“The fuck I haven’t.” I stepped into him then, and I let myself get angry as I said, “You can live here like this and insult the men I love because people like me are hunting shit down and keeping it away from you and this nice little town of yours.”
“Win doesn’t hunt shit like that.”
“I can’t speak to what cases Newman gets called up on, but I can tell you that I deal with shit like that and worse. I’m War, and Otto is Plague. You don’t call in the horsemen unless it’s some apocalyptic shit.” I was angrier than I’d meant to get, angry enough that my beasts swirled inside me like a rainbow of shapes. I had to step back from Leduc and take some nice even breaths. I hated that I’d let his racist, intolerant assholery get to me like that. I knew better.
Leduc watched me regain control of myself. I couldn’t hide that he’d gotten to me, but he didn’t look pleased by it. I expected him to gloat, but he didn’t. “I don’t know about all that, Blake, but I guess you and the big guy here have earned your reputations. I’ll try not to use words like demon unless one pops up for real.”
“Thank you,” I managed to say.
“Open the door to the cell, Duke,” Newman said.
“And what will you do once I open it?” He’d apologized for his words, but his actions continued to be just as obstructionist as before. One apology doesn’t an open mind make.
“I’ll check on Bobby,” Newman said.
“I can call an ambulance and tell them what we’ve got for them, but they can’t take him to the hospital. The local one doesn’t have an area rated for supernaturals, and since he’s already under a death penalty for murdering someone, they cannot transport him to the nearest supernatural trauma center. It’s too far away for them to risk him waking up on the way, Win.”
“Open the door, Duke,” Newman said, and he sounded like he meant it.
Leduc came forward with the keys. “It’s your funeral.”
I touched Newman’s arm. “I hate to agree with Duke—you know I do—but he’s right about one thing.”
“What is he right about?”
“Newman, come on. You’ve seen me in there with him twice.”
“You risked your life to save him twice.”
“Yeah, I did, but the second time, he spooked me, Newman. I was too close, and it all happened too quick to go for a weapon, but if he hadn’t gone down when I stepped away from him, I would have.”
“Are you saying you would have shot him?”
“With the damage I’d just done to him, if he had come after me, I’d have been grateful to get to a weapon in time to kill him before he killed me.”
“Have you changed your mind? Do you think he murdered Ray now?” Newman asked.
“No, I still think he was framed, but that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.”
“You did this to him bare-handed?” Olaf asked.
“She hit him with one of the prettiest uppercuts I’ve seen in years,” Duke said.
“I used mostly my elbows and knees, but no weapons, no,” I said.
Olaf smiled at me as if I’d spoken sweet nothings. He always reacted like that to the weirdest shit.
“I’ve never seen anyone move as fast as she did,” Kaitlin said.
“You’ve never seen a real shapeshifter move,” I said.
“No, I haven’t, but if they’re faster than you, I’m not sure I want to.”
“If Blake had been any slower, we’d have been putting her into an ambulance,” Livingston said.
“You can’t just let him die like this,” Wagner said.
“Shut up, Troy. You’re in enough trouble,” Duke said.
“Troy’s right,” Newman said. “We can’t just let him die.”
“Boy, you have a warrant in your pocket that says you can shoot him full of holes until he dies. You saw him in the cell. You were afraid for Blake’s life, too. Don’t tell me you weren’t.”
“Yes, I thought he was going to hurt Blake, but that doesn’t give us the right to let him bleed out like this.”
“We don’t even know that’s what’s happening,” I said.
“Then why hasn’t he moved? If he hasn’t got a concussion or a damaged spine, then why hasn’t he come to?” Newman moved toward me, hands in fists at his sides. He wasn’t going to start a fight. He was just upset, and it was coming out in his body.
“I don’t know, Newman!” I had to swallow my own anger down before I lost it. My voice was calmer as I said, “I would never have hit him like I did if I hadn’t thought he would heal.”
“You are used to the shapeshifters in St. Louis,” Olaf said.
I looked at him. “What does that mean?”
“All of them would have healed by now.”
“Are you saying that Bobby won’t heal?”
“He should heal, but it will not be one of the miracles of healing that you are used to at home.”
“Why won’t he heal like that?”
“First, he is not part of any group, so he does not share in their larger energy. Second, he has only one small beast form, which proves he is not a powerful shapeshifter in and of himself. Third, he is not tied to a master vampire, so he doesn’t have that energy to draw upon. I do not think you understand how unique St. Louis is for all these reasons and more.”
Olaf looked at me very pointedly when he said the last part. He seemed to be trying to tell me something with that look, but I had no idea what he was hinting at. I’d ask him later in private, or maybe I wouldn’t. I focused on what was in front of me, one problem at a time or they gang up on you.
“Fine. So I play with too many big dogs to play nice with the small ones. How do we help Bobby here and now?”
Olaf shrugged. “I do not know.”
“Open the damn cell, Duke,” Newman said, and the anger was back. I couldn’t really blame him. We were working so hard to save Bobby, and now it might all have been for nothing.
“Who goes inside with him?” Duke asked.
“I will,” I said.
“You’ll need backup,” Livingston said.
“No,” Newman said. “He’s not a danger to anyone like this.”
“If he wakes up suddenly and sees you bending over him—” Duke started to say, but Newman cut him off.
“Open the fucking cell, Duke!”
Livingston got his shotgun again, and once he had it ready to aim, Duke opened the cell.
“It’s your funeral,” Duke said again as Newman pushed past him.
I followed him into the cell. He’d called me for backup, so I’d have his back. Olaf stayed in the cell doorway so that Leduc couldn’t close it behind us. Good, I was tired of being locked in this damn cell.