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“Who are you?” I asked.
She let out a little growl. “You wouldn’t recognize me, I suppose, though I’ve been watching you all of your life. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I think. You’ve been watching me all of my life?” I cocked my head to the side, the feel of my muscled body solid and comforting. I felt almost invulnerable when Panther came out to play, although I knew I wasn’t.
She gazed at me, her eyes glowing. They were the same emerald as mine. And then I saw a glimmer of light surround her, and a flutter of golden hair, and she began to vanish. I raced forward, suddenly understanding.
“Wait, don’t go! Come back!” As I loped over to where she’d been standing, I heard one last message from her.
“I’ll always be here, Sister. I’ll always watch over you.”
And then she was gone. I stared at the empty spot as the scent of bonfire descended around me again, and then I closed my eyes and slid into unconsciousness.
When I came to, I was back in my usual form, with Camille patting my face. “Delilah, Delilah? Are you okay?”
I blinked against the sharp light that was filling the room and let her help me sit up. Where the hell was I? As I glanced around, I realized that we were in the FH-CSI medical offices, and I was sitting on a table.
“How long have I been out?” I asked, wincing. My head hurt like hell.
“About an hour. You hit your head on a pipe when you fell, but Sharah says you should be okay. How do you feel?” She pulled over a wheelchair and forced me into it. “No walking about until we know that you don’t have a concussion.”
“Chase—how’s Chase? And Karvanak—” Panic took hold as I suddenly remembered how I’d gotten here. I tried to stand, but a whirl of dizziness forced me back into my seat. I must have really bonked my head, that was for sure.
As Camille pushed me into the hallway, images began to flood my mind. Karvanak. Chase. And—my sister. The ghost leopard. So it was true, I had a twin sister, and she died. As I tried to digest the knowledge, Camille guided me through a set of double doors. She pushed me through into a large room that held three beds and several chairs. We were in one of the recuperation wards.
Chase was there, sleeping in one bed. And on the bizarre side, Menolly was standing by his bed, holding his hand.
Zachary was in another bed, looking a lot like a mummy, wrapped in bandages. Smoky sat on a chair, and for the first time since we’d met him, he looked tired. Vanzir was there, too, sporting more bandages than I could count, and his arm was wrapped in a splint. Everybody looked covered in bruises, including Camille.
Morio and Sharah entered the room.
“Chase, Zach—how are they doing? Is Karvanak dead?” I motioned for Camille to wheel me over to Chase’s side. Menolly stepped away, giving me a soft smile which—for her—translated into a yeehaw.
“Chase will be all right, though there’s no way to ever reattach the finger,” Sharah said. “It’s his mind I’m more worried about. They roughed him up. I can recognize the signs of torture, including those that don’t leave marks. He’s been through hell. I’ve sedated him. Rest is vital to the healing process.”
I stared down at my sleeping detective, wondering how we would weather this hell. How would he fight these new demons come to haunt him?
“And Zach?” I said softly.
She shrugged. “He’ll recover, too, but it’s going to take a long time for his back to heal. If Karvanak had kicked him any harder, he would have broken Zach’s spine and left him paralyzed. As it is, he’s got a broken tailbone, two fractured vertebrae, a broken hip, broken leg, fractured wrist, and he’s taken a lot of soft tissue damage. I’m guessing he won’t be walking on his own for at least six months, and he might always have a limp. It’s too soon to tell.”
“He was hurt saving Chase’s life,” Menolly said. “He threw himself between Chase and Karvanak.”
I pushed myself out of the chair, ignoring Camille’s entreaty, and cautiously made my way to Zach’s side. Images of the fight were flooding back. Blood, so much blood on our hands. My pulse quickened, and I suddenly realized that now, instead of dreading the memories, my adrenaline was shifting back into high gear. I felt myself itching to continue the chase, to follow the enemy and tear him apart.
“You saved Chase,” I whispered, leaning down to kiss Zach’s forehead. “I remember now. Right before I shifted . . . I saw you jump between Chase and Karvanak.” I looked back at the others. “What about him? What about Karvanak?”
“In the end it took all of us to bring him down,” Smoky said. He motioned to Camille, and she sat on his lap. He wrapped his arm around her waist and let out a long sigh. “He was a greater demon, but still . . . he was just one demon. There are thousands like him in the Subterranean Realms.” He left the thought unspoken that was running through all of our minds. Thousands of demons, waiting for Shadow Wing to open the floodgates.
It was then that I noticed that Fraale and Roz were nowhere to be seen. When I asked about them, Menolly frowned. “They left after the fight. Roz said they needed to talk.”
“Well, hell. We saved the seal this time, but we almost lost two of our own.” I walked back to Chase’s side and took his hand in mine. What would happen when he woke up? To him . . . to us?
“I take it everyone else is unscathed? More or less?” I asked, still holding Chase’s hand. His other hand was bandaged, and by his color, I saw that they had the infection on the run. But infections and lost fingertips couldn’t hold a candle compared to bad memories.
“Yeah,” Camille said. She sucked in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it whistle out in a sharp stream. “And you—you saved us all. The Scytatian would have killed everyone there if you hadn’t . . . well . . . done whatever it was you did to him.”
I blinked. I still hadn’t told them about the ghost leopard. About my twin. I tried to summon up the words, but this wasn’t the time. Right now, all I could think about was the bone-weary pain that ran through my body. About the fact that both of my lovers had been hurt. About the fact that my sword had spoken, my dead sister had come to fight by my side, and that my master—one of the Harvestmen—wanted me to have his child. I felt so overwhelmed, I didn’t know where to begin.
