Eileen Wilks: Inhuman

He smiled at the image of her extracting answers with her tweezers. "I'd prefer to discuss it after the bullet's out."

Another deep breath. "I guess I'm trying to delay."

"Are your hands shaking?"

A pause. "No." She sounded surprised.

"You know how to cause pain when it's needed for healing." They'd talked about that, about how she'd had to learn to allow, even encourage, others to hurt in order to help them reclaim their bodies.

"Yes. Yes, I do. All right. Let's do it."

"You see the entry."

"Yes. It, ah, it's scabbed over and looks about three days old, but I see it."

"Good. The bullet's path was slightly up and to the left, leaving it wedged just beneath the edge of the shoulder blade. I've delayed the internal healing enough that I think you'll be able to see its path. Make a vertical cut, starting about two inches above the entry hole and extending an inch below to give you room to work. There will be some bleeding. I can't prevent that entirely without sealing up around the knife."

The next several minutes went about as he'd expected. Nathan didn't like pain, but it was a familiar enemy. He only tensed once, when her knife skidded across the bullet, sending it deeper.

Otherwise she did well. Kai wasn't trained in this sort of thing, but she understood the basic layout of the body. Her hand remained steady and she followed his directions meticulously. Still, by the time she finished it was a relief to relinquish control and let his body heal. He lay there and panted, exhausted.

She seemed to be doing the same, sitting back on her heels with her eyes closed and her face pale. After a moment she spoke. "It's closing up."

Her voice sounded odd. Spooked, maybe. He couldn't think of what he was supposed to say—agreeing that the wound was, indeed, closing seemed pointless. Perhaps she wanted to know what to expect. "The visible part of the wound heals first, to seal it. Since no vital organs were affected and I'm not in combat, the rest will heal more slowly."

"How slowly?"

"Several hours, probably."

"If you were in combat, it would heal faster?"

"Yes."

"Do you control the healing?"

"No." He reconsidered. That wasn't entirely accurate. "I can, to some extent. I slowed it on the way here, but it's difficult. Tiring."

"Your body prioritizes for you." A thread of humor lightened her voice.

She wasn't too spooked, then. Relieved, he made the effort to sit up. The pain was much less now. "Yes. A good way to put it. May I see the bullet?"

Her eyebrows lifted. "Ghoulish interest, or a souvenir?" She handed him the clump of bloody gauze where she'd dropped the slug.

"I haven't been shot in a long time, and ammunition has changed. It could be useful to know what kind of damage to expect from today's weapons."

"If you're well enough to sit up and examine your bullet, you're well enough to explain why a cop shot you in the back."

"He couldn't shoot me from the front. I was running away." He inspected the smashed lump. Hollow point, as he'd expected. That was standard police-issue and what he used himself. Good stopping power, and less likely to pass through the target and harm a nearby civilian or hostage. Probably a lightweight .38, he decided. Some of the older officers clung to their .38s.

"The officer will be disciplined, I imagine." He lifted his hip so he could slip the slug in his pocket. "He was too hasty in using his weapon. Chief Roberts thinks within narrow channels, but he's correct within his limits."

She huffed out a breath. "That is not an explanation."

He felt a smile start. Kai was angry. If he told her she was pretty when temper brought that flush to her skin, she might pick up the knife again. But she was.

Her Gift was linked to water, and she wore its colors often. The soft flannel she wore tonight was a pale green that made him think of one of the many bright pools in the Summer Lady's land. Her throat rose from the neck of her pajamas, a strong and beautiful pillar the color of warm, wet sand. She would smell so good right there, in the hollow between neck and collarbone.

He took a moment to rein in his body, but the smile lingered inside. "I've been searching for the killer."

"I know that. I don't know why you were at the morgue. Or why you were shot for being there."

"I wanted to see the bodies of the two who were slain. I didn't have permission." The two victims had been killed within city limits, so the city police were handling the investigation. Chief Roberts didn't play well with others, particularly those in the sheriff's office. "I hoped to pick up a… a scent. Traces left by the killer."

"Are you a—a werewolf? A lupus, I mean."

"Eh." The question startled him. Kai had always been careful not to pry, not to ask too many direct questions. But she was his friend. He knew her secret; he could give her more of his. "No," he said, then decided that wasn't enough. "This is the only realm with lupi. They're native to it. I'm not."

She nodded solemnly.

His muscles loosened in relief. She didn't fear him, wasn't upset—and she didn't go on to ask the obvious questions, the ones he wasn't sure he could answer. "I said I wanted to find the killer's scent. I meant the physical scent, but I… there's more, for me. I pick up other traces, psychic traces, but sensually, as a smell. Like you receive thoughts visually."

"Oh." She cocked her head. "I like that. It makes me feel less of a freak to know your talent works a bit like mine."

"You are not a freak."

She tapped her head. "This knows that." She touched her chest. "This doesn't. Did you get a scent from the bodies?"

He grimaced. "I never reached the bodies. The police have them under guard."

"I guess the morgue usually has someone there. An attendant."

"I allowed for that," he said dryly. He'd been sloppy, but not that sloppy. "I didn't expect officers to be stationed at the bodies." He could have killed or disarmed them, of course, but one action would have been immoral, the other stupid. He shook his head. "I don't understand why they were there. Chief Roberts is narrow, not stupid. He must have some reason to guard the bodies, but I can't come up with one."

"He may be thinking of vampires. A lot of people are right now. The bodies were drained of blood, right? So he might have posted people to watch and make sure they don't—well, rise or something."

Nathan snorted. "If he's trying to find a vampire, he's wasting his time. They don't exist. Not the way they're depicted in fiction."

"But… they do exist?"

"Blood-drinkers are real, but not native to this realm. Most of them aren't intelligent, and none of them reproduce by endowing their victims with the ability to rise from the dead."

She grinned. "Or go around seducing young virgins?"

They'd watched Interview With the Vampire together last Halloween. Funny show. He'd chuckled at what she claimed were all the wrong places. "Exactly."

"So you think it's a human who killed those people?"

"Unlikely. A deranged or evil human might drink blood, but he or she couldn't suck out the entire ten pints in the average body. Nor is it easy to drain a body completely in other ways, and the victims were apparently exsanguinated in the same places the bodies were found."

"Then it's an animal of some sort. Something that came in on the power wind."

"Probably." He considered his words for a moment. "By 'animal' I don't just mean inhuman. I mean a species incapable of complex communication."

"Communication? You think that's the dividing line between animal and, uh… I guess I can't say human, but I'm not sure how to put it."

"Sentient is the closest word in English."

"Okay, then. I would have thought the level of sentience depended on intelligence, the ability to reason."