Page 81 of Murder Mittens

“Good. Come to the bathroom so I can help you rinse that off. Wearing their blood can’t be comfortable. Yvonne? She’s done.”

“Her phone is ringing. Should I answer it?”

“You better. And when you do, ask what we’re supposed to do with a lynx. What do lynxes eat? Should she shift back to human? Can she? How does this even work? Is she okay being a lynx?”

Goodness. The pregnant woman asked a lot of questions.

Yvonne came down the steps, and she held my phone to her ear. “Hello? Who is this? Uhm, do you know the woman who owns this phone? She’s a lynx right now. Is it okay for her to be a lynx? Is she hungry? How do we tell when she’s hungry? She doesn’t eat people, does she? Oh. Good. She seems fine? You are fine, right? The gentleman on the phone wants to know.”

No, I was not all right. I needed Sebastian to come scratch my itches. I forced myself to shift to my borderline hybrid form so I could talk without giving the pregnant women a scar-filled show. I held my paw out for my phone, which she handed over. The display informed me Sebastian had called. “Meow, Mr. Mane.”

“Really? Meow? Are you all right? The CDC updated me with your tracking information and your drug reports. Are you aware you’ve been drugged with quite a few things?”

“Is one of those things an aphrodisiac, or is the pixie dust just going for my throat? I’m hungry for lion,” I growled at him.

He chuckled. “That is why I called. The rep over at the CDC didn’t think the neutralizer would handle it. I’m on the way, and I should be there soon. What’s the situation?”

“I’m done my job, although you’ll have to confer with the women for the location of the children. I opted for quick, brutal, and efficient, and I didn’t leave them alive long for questioning. I spoke to one of the women, confirmed she was not there of her own free will, and started with the killing. As I’m done the killing, I’m starting with the showering, because blood isn’t a good look on me, and I feel dirty covered in creeper blood. Once I’m done with the showering, I’m expecting to drag my lion off somewhere questionably private.”

“Excellent. Good job. We have the counter for the drug with us, so try not to work yourself up too much before I get there.”

I hissed at the unfairness of it all. “But what if I don’t want the counter? What if I want my handsome lion? What about my needs, Mr. Mane?”

“I’m sure you can have all of your needs handled after the drugs in your system have been neutralized. Including the aphrodisiac. You could have a heart attack if they leave all those drugs active in your system.”

Well, that didn’t sound like a good time. “I’m so disappointed right now.”

“I’ll make it up to you later.”

“You better.”

Epilogue: She’s obviously innocent.

Thanks to the drugs I’d been given, my virus levels dropped to dangerous levels. Twelve hours after killing the Loureni brothers and their accomplice, the CDC’s surgeons did the equivalent of skin me alive, applying grafts to most of my body while a surgeon replaced the damaged bone in my cheeks, shaped to be as natural as possible.

A week of constant exposure to Sebastian had been enough to flip the polarity of my blood, allowing him to meet the CDC’s standards to be a blood donor for a lycanthrope under sedation. Between my virus levels being so low and the procedure itself, I lost two days of my life. Once I began emerging from unconsciousness, I got to enjoy the highest grade of pixie dust to keep me from causing trouble.

As the spa in our hotel in Chicago employed and worked with lycanthropes, they agreed to handle the application of creams and work with the surgeons to make sure I emerged with minimal scars.

The procedure worked, although I’d have a few thin scars near my hairline, on my wrist, and along my sides. Most wouldn’t notice them, and in a few years, time might work its magic on them and help them fade.

A week after the operation, I emerged from the pixie dust haze in the suite, which had a disconcerting number of wrapped presents and gift bags littering every surface. I yawned from my place on the couch, stretched out with my head on Sebastian’s lap. “Why are there so many presents?”

“You like presents, and I wasn’t allowed in the spa for your treatments, so I bought you presents while I was waiting. Some presents are from the family of the women you rescued. You’ve been exceptionally well behaved at the spa even drugged, so you got extra presents from the staff. I think the CDC has been adding to some of the presents on behalf of the women you rescued. They were able to lead the police to the children, we were able to clear the politician of wrongdoing, and they were willing to undergo angelic verification regarding their kidnapping and rape. We got leads on some other accomplices, and they’ve been apprehended. Unfortunately, one has already been killed while in prison, as it had gotten out he was murdering women post-delivery. The Loureni brothers were giving the women to this crook of a surgeon, who would deliver the infants through cesarean section before killing the women and studying their reproductive organs before dumping the bodies. It turns out even hardened criminals don’t approve of that sort of behavior. It would have been more merciful if you had been the one to kill him.”

“If I don’t have a fixed face, don’t tell me about it for a while.”

“Your scars are gone, and you’ve passed your last exam. The creams did their work, your virus levels are still low but recovering, and I’m to take you home for a week of general relaxation. The CDC has submitted medical leave documentation to your work in case you don’t actually want to quit.”

“I definitely want to quit.”

“Well, you have a month to give notice, then. They cited an emergency operation without notifying your work of the nature of the surgery. Unfortunately, your boss knows your parents, and the notice was put in yesterday.”

Crap. “Have you spoken to my parents?”

“Only enough to tell them you were fine and recovering, and that you would tell them about it yourself as soon as you are ready to travel. That can be as early as tomorrow. Tonight, I’m to fulfill all of your needs, and we’ll leave in the morning. I also got you a lot of products from the spa for your skin, as you’ve likely never cared much about it before now, so I assumed you had a lot of makeup to make your face disappear but not a lot of products meant to keep your skin healthy.”

I rolled off Sebastian’s lap, got to my feet, and went to the bathroom to check the mirror.