I recognized the scent of one soldier. We had been enemies, but he had learned to respect me.
"Hello, Jackson," I called. "Come out and join the party."
He muttered, "I told you no one can sneak up on her," then stepped into the hallway. He was dressed the same as the injured soldiers strewn around the corridor, minus the gas mask. He held his rifle at the ready, not pointing it at me.
Yet.
At his back were two more Rangers, but they didn't have the stink of the juice the first group had used.
"Hello, Luna," he said. "Long time since Alaska."
The major had a shit-eating grin on his face. "Jackson," he said, "you know what to do."
"Yes, Major," said Jackson, "I know exactly what to do." Jackson made a hand signal to the two behind him and they stepped back slowly, taking cover behind the stairwell door.
The major's smile faded and mine increased as Jackson spread the fingers on both hands and slid one hand to either end of the rifle, keeping as far away from the trigger as possible. Then he knelt down, placed the rifle on the floor, and shoved it in my direction.
The rifle stopped at my heels. Jackson put both hands behind his head and said, "I have no beef with you, Luna." He raised his voice and shouted, "I didn't join up to shoot women in the back."
"She's not a woman, she's a terrorist," shouted the major.
I turned to my right, picked up the rifle, and backed up to the left-hand wall.
Seeing me with a weapon in my hands triggered something, and the major finally tried to use his pistol. The impotent click-click of the hammer hitting a dud was gratifying. Mason was still at work.
"I'll have you court-martialed for this!" shouted the major.
Jackson was still a smart-ass. He nodded at the remains of my assailants. "I'd rather be alive in Leavenworth than end up like your Roid Rangers."
"Roid Rangers?" I asked.
Had Mason's spell affected all weapons on this floor or would these new weapons still fire? No sense leaving a loaded weapon around. I ejected the magazine from the rifle and cycled the action to clear the chamber.
"That's what we call those assholes," he said. "They get juiced up to make them as strong as you. To match whatever you're using." He still thought we werewolves had some secret steroid to pump us up.
"As strong as me?" I asked.
He looked at the crumpled bodies, heard their moans and cries for their mommies, and shuddered. "Doesn't look like it worked."
Jackson liked sports metaphors. "You could put the best grade school basketball team in the country on stilts to give them the same height as NBA players, but they would still lose."
"Lucas could bench one thousand pounds," said Jackson. "How strong are you?"
"Stronger than Lucas," I laughed. "And you know I'm not the strongest of my team, right?"
Jackson shot me a look of disbelief.
"But I am by far the best fighter," I added.
Jackson nodded and said, "Do you mind if I get up?"
Jackson's eyes widened and his mouth started to open. I spun around and caught the major's thrown .45 before it could hit my head.
My slap sent him against the wall of the corridor. With one hand wrapped around his flak vest, I hoisted him up against the wall. He weighed a lot less than a thousand pounds.
"Jackson," I said, "you're not alone, are you?"
"They sent me in to negotiate," he said. "I don't know what else they have planned." The second statement came too quickly, like a well-rehearsed lie.
"But you're not alone," I repeated. "How many?"
"There's an entire platoon out there!" said the major. "You terrorists will never get out alive." I dropped him to the floor.
"How many soldiers are in a platoon?" I asked.
"Forty," said Jackson. "I'm not alone."
"Neither am I," I said as Mason and Logan stepped through the door.
14
"Oh shit," said Jackson and the major in unison.
"Tell them it's a trap," said Logan. "There's three of us." Platoon or an entire army, Logan had no fear of a fight.
Logan and Jackson laughed like he had recited the punchline to an old joke. Had Logan been a soldier?
Logan stepped to the end of the corridor and opened the window. Wary of danger, Logan and I both took a deep sniff of the air. We exchanged a glance and looked at the major.
"There's no fucking platoon within a mile of here," said Logan.
Logan looked at the major and grinned. "Special Ops team, secret orders. There's no backup for you assholes."
The major's face fell, and Jackson gritted his teeth. They had been trying to bluff us into doing something stupid.
"Looks like your chain of command is down to one," Logan said to the major.
The beeping of Mike's monitor slowed again, reminding me we didn't have a lot of time left.
"Logan, stop playing with your food," I said. "We have a lot to do here."
Jackson, still on his knees, started babbling about how he didn't know that the backup platoon was a lie.
"Shut up, Jackson," I said. "The only reason you're still alive is because you gave that little girl a candy bar in prison."
"Selene?" asked Jackson. "How is she? I'm glad she got away. That was no place for a kid."
Damn it. If he had joked, or said anything else, I would have had no compunction about killing him. Jackson showing a human side would make me regret killing him.
I decided. "Okay, Jackson, you can get up." Logan grunted—werewolves don't let prey get away—but said nothing against his alpha.
"What about the other two?" asked Mason.
I had forgotten about Jackson's two teammates waiting in the stairwell. Damn. Too many scents, too many targets, too much confusion for a werewolf.
"Jackson," I said, "call your friends in."
Jackson popped open the door and called his two colleagues back.
They entered, still holding M16's, which pissed Logan off. "Drop the weapons," he growled.
One look at Logan, this five-foot-ten, potbellied, snaggletoothed, disheveled man, and they gulped and complied.
Even with five of their finest soldiers lying at my feet, and covered with their blood, I couldn't compel the fear that Logan engendered with a scowl and a growl. Sometimes, life isn't fair.
I shook my head. Time to worry about how unfair life was after we had finished here.
"Go downstairs and tell the doctors and nurses that they can come up and tend to the patients." The next words tasted like poison, but they had to be said. I needed to send a message. "Tell them to take care of these soldiers."
There was a moment of confusion, then Logan said, "Go!" They scampered away like rabbits.
In minutes, a dozen doctors, nurses, and physician assistants entered the area. Dr. Emory took charge, directing the physician assistants to check on the patients. Then he started assisting the ER personnel in evaluating the soldiers.
Emory pointed at me, and an EMT approached. For just a second, I saw myself as he saw me: a tall, nearly naked, blood-covered woman with wild hair and crazy eyes.
The EMT stepped up to me and looked in my eyes, triggering my wolf. I gritted my teeth and calmed her down. He was just checking for a concussion.
"You've got a lot of blood on you," he said as he tilted my head to the left and right. "Can you tell me your name? Do you know what day it is?"
"I'm fine," I snapped. "The blood belongs to them." I pointed to the Roid Rangers. “Don’t worry about me. Take care of Mike.”
I turned away and headed toward Mike’s room. "I just need to clean up."
My clothes were blood-soaked rags, and even my shoes had been splashed with blood. I picked everything up and headed back to Mike's room. I had some spare clothes stashed in my bag.
A few minutes of cleanup and I was back outside, now dressed in a cheap black T-shirt and a short black skirt. They had ruined my shoes by bleeding on them; I had to use my emergency shoes
. The outfit didn't match my replacement shoes—bright red Vans slip-ons. I concentrated and my nails and toenails shifted color to match the shoes.
Logan snorted, reminding me he didn't like the scent of magic, not even the tiny amount used by the magic nail polish Mason had given me. Too bad; I was still the alpha. He would have to get used to small amounts of magic.
I couldn’t do much for my hair, so I just brushed it out. I would have to wait for it to grow back.
The injured were now loaded onto roll-around cots, in preparation for transfer to ICU.
I overheard two doctors discussing the injured. “Broken left humerus, broken collarbones, concussions, broken legs. All of them had the exact same injuries?”
“Yes, that’s really weird.”
Mason had stepped up beside me. "All the same injuries?" he asked in the fairy language.
"All except for the idiot who tried to stab me," I responded in the same tongue. "They all have the same injuries that Mike received."
"So that's why they're still alive," said Mason.
"I'm sending a message," I said.
I looked at Jackson and shifted back to English. "Take your friends and leave. Hope you never see me again."
I saw the light of an argument flare in his eyes, then it faded as he contemplated the toll here. "Yes, Luna," he said, before ushering the other two soldiers away.
"Logan," I said, "take the major someplace secure. I'll want to talk with him later."
"I need to stay with my men," stammered the major. Logan growled and grabbed him by the back of his neck. The major tried to strike at Logan, but Logan delivered an open-handed smack across the face that left him with unfocused eyes and wobbly limbs.
Dr. Emory stepped up. “We’ll do everything we can to get your cousin into the OR, but it’s still going to be a few minutes.”
One look at my face and he scurried away at high speed.
One minute later, Mason and I were back in Mike's room. Mike’s vital signs were much weaker than before.
With the delays caused by the fight with the Roid Rangers, it looked like Mike’s surgery would be too late to save him.
I growled in frustration. "Mason," I asked, "is there anything you can do for him? You fixed his eyesight with those magic goggles."
Mason shook his head, crushing my hopes. "I had to call in several favors to get the components, it took me a month to fashion the glasses, and they only affected his eyes. I don't have the skills to heal him."
Mason stroked Mike's cheek. A reassuring gesture or a magic probe?
"Can't you make him a pack ally? Give him some of your pack's energy?" asked Mason. "Like you did with Kuga and Selene's mother?"
"That requires more energy than my pack can afford," I said. "It also requires his participation, and Mike's unconscious."
"But you sent Logan away so you could try something," said Mason.
I hated hiding my magical nature from my pack, but coming out as a stinking magician would probably cost me my life. It would definitely cost me my pack. Logan, the first member of my pack, had seen some strange things around me, but seemed to accept my explanations; he blamed everything on Mason or the magical gadgets he had gifted me. But if I rubbed his nose in it, he could turn on me, too.
"I wish my dad was here," I said. "He's the magician with healing talents in the family."
"He's not as good as you," said Mason. "He's sensitive but can't handle magic like you can."
I touched Mike's hand and used magic to probe his body. He was weaker than before. I fought down a flash of anger at the time I’d wasted fighting a rogue Special Forces squad, and gathered my energies.
"But my dad knows so much more about humans than I do," I said. "I might kill him or leave him disabled."
"Does he have any chance with human medicine?"
"I don't think so," I said. "He's too weak now for the surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain. His injuries are feeding on each other, making survival almost impossible."
"What's the biggest issue?"
I scanned Mike again, probing deeper and releasing the smell of magic. "The pressure on his brain will kill him first. If not that, the cracked ribs and impeded breathing will cause pneumonia. After that, the multiple fractures ensure he'll never be able to walk normally." I paused. "Never mind. He has damage to his spine. He'll probably be a paraplegic."
Mason was using his teaching technique on me, using questions to make me think through the problem and solve it.
"Can you do something about the intracranial pressure?" Mason asked. "Didn't you cure a concussion for one of your pack once?"
"More than once, but I just channeled energy to them. Then werewolf healing took over and fixed them. It's not the same thing. Zapping Mike with moonlight won't help."
"What can help?"
I stroked Mike's cheek and probed deeper, reviewing which elements I could use. "Fire to cauterize the leaking blood vessel in his head. Water to move the fluid from his head and relieve the pressure. Air to increase the oxygen in his lungs."
"And the broken bones and spinal damage?"
I stroked Mike's broken collarbone and probed. There was a tiny tingle at the break, like a static charge. Probing deeper gave me a strange image.
Mason's lessons had emphasized that magicians had to find their own way to interact with magical energies. It was like the fable of blind men touching an elephant: Magic was too big to comprehend, so each of us saw it differently.
Mason saw magic as equations; balancing the equations was how he used magic. For Mason, the equation for moving a mountain was the same as moving a molehill. He could do enormous damage, but lacked delicacy.
I based my interpretation of magic more on feelings, harmonies, and instinct. And now, looking at Mike's broken collarbone, I could sense how the bone on each side of the break yearned for the other side. The yearning caused an electromagnetic field that pulled calcium and other elements to bridge the gap. That was how bone healed.
“Okay, Mason. We’re his best possible chance. Can you set up that ‘Do Not Disturb’ field to let us work uninterrupted?”
A few gestures and all sounds outside of our room went away. “Done,” said Mason. “They will forget they had a patient in here until the spell breaks.”
I started the cauterization process in Mike's brain, then urged the fluid around his brain to reverse its flow.
I talked through my steps while working, both to keep Mason updated and to get his input on the process.
"Okay," I said, "the pressure in his skull is coming down and the bleeding has stopped. For the broken bones, I want to try something I heard my dad talk about once."
"What's your plan?"
"There was a doctor named Bassett," I said. "In the seventies, he found that healing bones have an electrical current across the break. He wanted to promote faster healing for fractures so he induced a current from outside to speed up the healing. But he never perfected the technique."
"Why didn't it work?" asked Mason. "Because if it had, everyone with a broken bone would have a cast plugged into the wall socket."
"His first experiments required implantation of electrodes in the bones. The risk of infection and leaving metal in the site was too great a negative. He tried doing the same with electromagnets outside the skin, but correct placement of the coils was too delicate."
"Do you want me to set up some electromagnets?"
"No, I can do it with Earth’s electromagnetism, at a scale much more delicate and with greater precision than any human machine."
While I talked, I had been urging Mike's collarbone to knit together. Looking closely, I could see a difference between the healed section and the rest of his collarbone.
"Mason, I have an ethical question," I said.
"If you feel that you or the cubs would be in danger, let Mike go. I'm sure he wouldn't want you to endanger yourself for him."
"No, it's not that," I said. "I think I have enough energy to
do this without danger."
"So what's your question?"
"Would it be ethical to upgrade Mike? Like you did with his eyes?"
"Upgrade? What can you do to improve him?"
"Make his bones denser, smooth his joints, strengthen his ligaments and make them more resistant to tearing."
"So he'll be like a werewolf?"
"No, nothing like that. He'll be stronger, faster, more resistant to damage. But he'll still heal like a human."
"So, more like your pack allies?"
"About the same level of strength, but no link to the pack."
Mason thought for a few minutes, then asked, "What are the downsides?"
"He'll be heavier, denser, leaner. It might make it much harder for him to swim, like it is for werewolves. His appetite will increase. The biggest challenge is emotional. He might feel separated from humanity."
"What happens to your pack allies if they miss their humanity?"
"They can renounce the link and go back to being human. They eventually forget what they once were. But for Mike, this will be permanent. I don't know if it would be ethical to make this decision for him."
I was almost finished with the intracranial work to lower the pressure. I needed to start on his cracked skull and multiple fractures.
"If he's going to hang with us, he’ll need something more than good eyesight," said Mason. "Look, he trusts you, I would proceed as if that medical POA was real and do everything possible to upgrade him." Then he chuckled and added, "As long as Mike is good for the cost of the procedure."
"Cost? I will not charge the man for my help. He saved my ass twice." Anger surged, and I fought it down.
"Well," said Mason, "if you're going to 'rebuild him: stronger, faster, better,' the price is traditionally six million dollars."
"What the hell are you talking about, magician?" Then I remembered that old TV series. Mason's inhuman sense of humor was at work again. I snorted a laugh, then said, "Don't interrupt me while I'm upgrading Mr. Austin."
Suddenly serious, Mason stepped up behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders. "I can give you some extra energy."
Lycan Legacy - 4 - 5 - 6: Princess - Progeny - Paladin: Book 4 - 5 - 6 in the Lycan Legacy Series Page 12