“I didn’t ask them to. I asked them to help us save the woman who was in jeopardy.”
“Usually that means they will heal you more than you asked, for being selfless,” Neil said.
The comment bothered me. “I wasn’t being selfless; I’d have done almost anything to save the woman.”
“I think they didn’t heal it because they couldn’t,” Becki said.
“And I think they didn’t heal it because they knew that there’s some magic in there that needs to come out before the skin closes over it,” Neil said.
“If I’d thought to ask, or if I’d needed it completely healed, the angelic power would have healed it,” I said.
“Well, the claw marks were bleeding when we got here,” Becki said.
“Did they tear open?” I asked.
“Not that we could find,” she said.
“Then how were they bleeding?” I asked.
“We’re not sure.”
“It wasn’t just blood,” Neil said, “there was power mixed in with it. The kind I usually only sense when really bad things have attacked people.”
“Like demons,” Charleston said.
“Exactly,” Neil said, and coughed, wincing visibly enough that I asked Becki to take care of him.
“Not yet,” he said, though he was beginning to sound a little less sure. He waved her off and said, “The bandages are holding a magical poultice that will draw out any negative energy that isn’t yours.”
“Will the dressing need to be changed?” I asked.
“It depends on how much negative shit the demon left behind,” Becki said.
“How will I know if it needs to be changed, or if I’m clear again?” I asked.
“I’ll help check you. They walked me through it along with one of our newbie witches,” Charleston said.
I looked up at him. I was beginning to feel silly lying on the floor. “Thanks.”
“We all play to our magical strengths in this unit. You have angels and demons; I have herbalism and folk remedies like poultices that will drain the bad juju out of a wound.”
“Can I sit up now?” I asked, not exactly sure whose permission I was asking. If I hadn’t felt bad about probably breaking the paramedic’s nose, I wouldn’t have asked anyone’s permission.
“Slowly; if it hurts, lie back down,” Becki said. She was back to sounding angry, but I was beginning to think it might be her natural state. She wasn’t angry, she was cranky; they sounded the same, but angry usually didn’t last, cranky could be a constant.
I sat up using more of my arms to push than I normally did, so that I didn’t overtask my abs. There was a pull of the medical tape against my stomach; it didn’t hurt more than it had before, but Becki thought my caution was pain and tried to push me back to the floor. I outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, and most of that was muscle. She wasn’t going to be able to push me anywhere.
“It doesn’t hurt, I’m just being cautious like you told me to be,” I said, looking at her as she kept trying to push her gloved hand against me.
She stopped pushing but didn’t move her hand as she looked up at me, because with her kneeling and me sitting she was now shorter than me. “A man who actually listens and does what I ask, that’s different.” The sarcasm dripped out of the last two words.
“Hey,” her partner said, “I am not that guy.”
She frowned and looked at him, her small hand still on my shoulder as if she’d forgotten it there. “I didn’t mean you, Neil. I meant, you know who I mean, all of them.”
“You do need to find better guys to date,” he said.
“They see someone this small and think I should be cute and soft, which they think means weak.” The one comment probably explained the bad attitude. If she went around with a huge chip on her shoulder, then men might not assume her personality matched her packaging.
“I’m sorry they’re jerks,” I said.
She looked up at me, then moved her hand as if just realizing she’d left it on my shoulder. “You’re over my height limit, sorry.”
It took me a second to realize she thought I was flirting. I showed her the wedding band I was wearing. “I was apologizing for other jerky men, not trying to flirt.”
She looked embarrassed. “Sorry,” she said.
MacGregor the Elder came into the room. “Good to see you conscious, Havoc.”
“Good to be conscious,” I said.
“The Infernal specialist is here, Lieutenant.”
“Infernal specialist? I’m fine.”
“It’s not for you,” Charleston said.
“Wait, what happened to Lila and Ravensong? Where are they?” I heard the panic in my voice and tried to calm down. How had I not asked about them sooner? I felt like a bad friend.
“Lila got the wind knocked out of her.”
Charleston hadn’t mentioned what happened to Ravensong, just Lila. I felt that tightness inside me that was the body tensing for bad news. “What happened to Ravensong that would need an Infernalist?”
“One of her hands is . . . damaged,” Charleston said.
I got to my feet and asked, “Damaged how?”
“Her hand is deformed. It looks like the demon hand from the hospital.”
“That’s not possible, true transformation magic is not something that demons do. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Your expertise is angels, Havoc, not demons.”
“But we study both sides and demons aren’t contagious. They can’t turn people into one of them. It does not work like that.” I made every word clear and firm because I knew it was true. They had to be wrong.
I turned for the door and Charleston caught my arm. “Havoc, let the specialist look at her. Once they have something to report I’ll make sure you’re with me when they make it.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t possible, Lieutenant. I need to see Ravensong.”
“Not a good idea,” Neil said from where he was still sitting by the wall.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because whatever is in those wounds is demonic in nature and so is whatever is happening to her hand; until we know what happened, let’s keep the two of you separated.”
“The doctor at the hospital didn’t see anything demonic in my wounds.”
“He’s a paramedic healer, Havoc; if he advises we keep you away from Ravensong for now, then we do it. Let the specialist from the College of Angels look at Ravensong, then we’ll go from there.”
That stopped me; I couldn’t even think clearly for a second. “Why did you go to the College of Angels for your demon specialist? They aren’t who the department normally hires to help with demons.”
“You saw that bottle, it’s old as hell and has demon blood in it, contained behind spells that keep it fresh and sentient.”
“Sentient blood? Even demon blood doesn’t think after it leaves the body, Lieutenant.”
“Whatever demon ichor is in that bottle opened it and let itself out, Havoc. None of us have ever seen anything like it. We can’t even find any precedent in the metaphysical database, so we reached out to the College of Angels. This thing took out some of my best people; if we hadn’t had a containment spell box made by one of the best wizards in the country, God knows what harm that damn bottle would have done before help could have arrived,” Charleston said.