Free Blood and Silver - 04 by James R. Tuck

to use his family as hostages to force me to do what she wanted.
    What she had wanted me to do was her.
    I said it got really weird.
    It all came down to a big fight that left Larson without the use of his legs. I realized, now that he was in front of me, I had not seen him since he had been in the hospital.
    Come to think of it, that was pretty shitty of me.
    What can I say? I had been busy.
    He wheeled back from the doorway to let me and Kat inside. I was carrying Sophia wrapped in one of the blankets from the backseat. I stepped in. Kat shut the door behind me, locking it.
    “Larson.” I did the guy nod.
    “Deacon.” He nodded back. Arms corded with wiry muscle, he spun his chair around. He began rolling down a hallway. “Let’s go see to the patient. Follow me to the lab,” he called over his shoulder. I motioned Kat to go ahead of me.
    The hall was short and dim, completely bare of any decoration. It ended in a ramp that led down into a mad scientist-style laboratory. The room had tile floors and white walls. A desk stood in one corner surrounded by bookshelves that had no books on them. The books were piled on and around the desk instead, haphazardly slid and stacked. The rest of the room had countertops lining each wall. On these were a lot of equipment I did not recognize, but it all looked medical or scientific of some type. The lab smelled like a cross between a laundry mat and an herb shop. A flat table stood in the center of the room with telescoping lights arranged above it. Larson pulled a sheet of thick white butcher paper over it and motioned me to lay the Were on it.
    It was a relief to set her down again. My back was burning from being thrown into the cinderblocks, and my arm throbbed and ached with every heartbeat where Cash had opened it up with his teeth. I slid Sophia off my arms and onto the table as gently as I could. She didn’t whimper like she had when I picked her up from the backseat of the Comet, but I felt her tense, holding her breath tight.
    Once I got out of the way, Larson went to work. Tenderly, he moved the blanket and began examining her. Her eyes opened for the first time, one liquid brown, the other a crystal white-blue. She looked at him warily; then her brown eye rolled around to me, fixing me with a stare. A dog’s eyes can look remarkably human. A Were-dog’s eyes are eerily human. Even the difference in their color didn’t ruin the effect.
    “Tell me what happened to her.”
    I held the Were’s gaze as I answered. “I don’t know any details or anything that happened to her before I found her. But she has been choked and beaten with a heavy chain by a big sonuvabitch of a Were-lion. He looked like he was trying to kill her.”
    “That sounds brutal.”
    “It was.”
    “I assume she’s a shape-shifter of some kind. If not, she would never have survived that kind of beating.”
    I nodded. “She feels like a lycanthrope. Some form of dog Were, even though I don’t recognize the breed.” Larson knew about my ability to sense the supernatural.
    “Her name is Sophia.” Kat leaned over the back of Larson’s chair, her blond hair and left breast brushing across his cheek. He didn’t pull away. Neither did she. Her hand lightly touched Sophia’s stomach, fingers fluttering like a butterfly against the skin. “This area is swollen and fevered. It’s different from her other wounds.”
    Larson leaned forward as Kat pulled back. I arched an eyebrow at her when she looked up. A blush popped into her cheeks, but she didn’t turn away. Larson’s voice was soft and comforting. “Sophia, I am going to push in on your abdomen, let me know if it hurts in any way.”
    Before his hands could touch her, she turned and snapped, lips pulled back, sharp teeth biting the air. Her body curled around into a ball, covering her belly. The snarl stayed on her mouth. A low growl rumbled, vibrating off the table she was on.
    Larson leaned back, his hand up and moving with him away