All Wounds

by Dina James

  “Seriously! They’re...more than one color now. Gold on the inside, like it’s taken over the blue partway, but still blue on the outside. The gold looks kind of like a star. Almost like the mark on your neck.”

  “Really?” Rebecca asked. “Great. Something else that makes me look strange.”

  “Hey,” Ryan said and reached for the back of her neck again. He brought his forehead to hers and rested his head there. “You don’t let anyone say anything to you about anything, especially anyone at that school. Bunch of losers there who don’t know anything about anything real or important.

  You don’t have anything to be ashamed of, you hear me?” Rebecca nodded a little. Ryan’s forehead was warm against hers.

  “So...when can I go home?”

  Rebecca pulled away from him. “Let me go get your jacket.” w x

  “Happy birthday, Mistress Healer!” Rebecca heard as she set the faeries’

  daily offering of bread and cream out on the back porch step.

  Rebecca looked up. Inth was fluttering above her head with his brother Cort. They held a banner between them.

  “Aw, thank you, guys! I see your wing is working, Cort,” Rebecca said, smiling at the older faerie.

  Cort grumbled something Rebecca couldn’t hear and shook his head.

  The two faeries fluttered low and offered her the banner they held.

  Rebecca opened her hands and they set it in them. Inth gave his brother a sidelong look.

  “Idiot,” Cort said, and folded his wings so fast Rebecca didn’t realize he’d moved until he planted a quick kiss on her cheek. Then he disappeared, leaving Inth by himself.

  Inth’s brown skin darkened to near-black in embarrassment. He fluttered a moment in front of Rebecca’s face before he bowed to her, then lifted his head just enough to kiss Rebecca’s nose. Then he, too, disappeared.

  Rebecca blushed and stood on the porch, dumbstruck for a moment before she realized her bare feet were freezing.

  “My gratitude, gentlefae!” she called before she dashed back into the warm kitchen.

  She smiled as she took a closer look at the birthday banner they’d presented her with. It seemed to be made of tiny strands of grass woven tight together and hung from a long twig. Words in a language she couldn’t read shimmered in a kind of shiny orange ink against the tight weave of the green grass. When Rebecca touched the lettering, it was cold and hard and didn’t come off on her fingers even though it looked sticky and wet.

  A faerie birthday card. Who else could say they got one of those for their birthday today? Or any birthday, for that matter!

  Rebecca went back down the hall to her bedroom, wanting to put the beautiful thing somewhere safe where she could look at it later.

  She bumped into Sabine in the living room.

  “Oh, excuse me, sorry!” Rebecca apologized. She smiled up at the older woman. “Look what the faeries made! They were waiting for me this morning and gave it to me.”

  Rebecca showed the faerie banner to Sabine.

  Sabine’s eyes widened. “What a thoughtful gift!”

  “I can’t read this language. Can you?”

  Sabine shook her head. “I never learned to read Faerie, though it’s beautiful. I do know that that’s fae-amber, a hardened tree sap, they used for the letters. You might get one of the fae to translate it for you someday, but I’ll bet it says something along the lines of ‘happy birthday’. Honestly I’m not sure if garden faeries celebrate their birthdays or even have a word for the day they enter the world. They hatch fully-grown, you know. They must really like you, Rebecca, to have acknowledged today.”

  “They um...well, two of them...uh...brothers...I helped one...they each gave me a kiss,” Rebecca said, blushing furiously. “But it’s not like they’re real boys or anything—”

  Sabine laughed and shook her head. “Faerie kisses for your birthday,” Sabine said. “Those are extremely good luck for mortals. I’d say this is going to be a good day for you!”

  “The card alone,” Rebecca said, awed. “They didn’t have to do this. Oh, and um...some little slimy...slug-snakes with three eyes and tentacles were stuck to my clock this morning. They didn’t need help or anything. They just wanted to be the first to wish me a happy birthday, which they sort of did...they didn’t seem to know very many English words. Then they bowed and left, giggling.”

  Sabine laughed again. “Arionites. They love to be the first to do something, mostly because they’re slow and are most often the last to manage.

  Their...um...slime, to use your word, is useful to Healers because it helps with skin problems of all kinds. It’s also useful in patching the ectoplasm of some of the more adventurous spirits. If you don’t have any on hand, you might talk to the Arionite king about obtaining some.”

  “Slime? I need slime?”

  Sabine nodded. “Drool, slime, and some things you really don’t want to think about where it comes from. Healers use a great many tools.

  When you think about it, it makes a kind of sense. We heal all wounds, and sometimes the one thing that will heal a being might be the very thing that injured it in the first place. You might have tried hellhound saliva on Ryan’s hellhound bite. Hellhound saliva is extremely cleansing, especially where dark magic is involved, though it’s very dangerous to use due to how caustic it is. It’s equally dangerous to obtain. It’s not as though you can simply ask a hellhound to drool into a bowl for you, even if you had a bowl their drool wouldn’t disintegrate. It takes a special container to hold some things, and that’s one of them.”

  “Wow,” said Rebecca. “I have a lot to learn. I would never have...thought of something like that.”

  She looked down at the card in her hands and smiled again. “I’d better put this away and get back up to Ryan. He’s ready to go home, and needs his things.”

  w x

  Rebecca leaned against the enclave door, watching Ryan shrug into his lucky black leather jacket.

  He straightened his arms and held them out for Rebecca’s inspection.

  “Well, am I fit for expulsion?”

  Rebecca laughed. “Nairhoft has always thought so.”

  “’Scuze us, Bit,” Billy called from the enclave door. “This lot’s had enough of my charming company and are ready to head for home.”

  “Come on in,” Rebecca said, beckoning them in with a wave of her hand.“Shouldn’t be no trouble, but I’m goin’ with just in case,” said Billy as he entered with a group of the rescued Healers. He gestured at the portal.

  “Never know what might be waitin’ on the other side.” Billy had replaced the mirror he’d ripped apart with—of all things—

  two old car doors. Welded one on top of the other and installed by the anubi himself into the wall, Billy had deliberately taken the glass out of the windows and removed the side mirrors. He wasn’t taking any chances with reflective surfaces in the enclave. Rebecca was surprised he hadn’t smashed the bathroom mirrors as well.

  “Now you don’t go nowhere ‘til I get back,” he continued, giving Rebecca a stern glare. “Promise?”

  Rebecca nodded. “Promise.”

  “Good.” He turned to the women behind him. “After you gals,” he said, flashing them his lady-killer grin as he opened the car-door portal with its vintage 1970s push-button handle.

  The younger Healers looked at one another and suppressed giggles while the older, married women just rolled their eyes. One by one, they disappeared into the wall hidden behind the car door. As the last woman vanished, Billy winked at Rebecca and hopped in after them, slamming the portal-cover behind him.

  She laughed. She must be the only enclave to have old car doors for a portal cover. After talking with some of the other Healers, she’d learned a lot about things they did differently, and things they did the same. Rebecca had exchanged e-mail addresses with Sabine and a few of the other Healers. Some of them were even on Facebook and Twitter like...regular people.

  Like Regular people,
not the Strangers they were. Strangers like her.

  Well, maybe not just like her. Still, it was nice to have someone to talk to about things, even if they did hold her in some kind of awe or esteem.

  That was going to be hard to get used to.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Ryan said, and Rebecca blushed as she remembered he was there.

  She smiled at him, and didn’t know what to say.

  Ryan grinned at her and caught her by the back of the neck. He pulled her close and hugged her tight.

  Rebecca breathed in the scent of his leather jacket and sighed. She knew he wasn’t her boyfriend or anything, but still, it was nice to be hugged by someone other than her nana or Robin.

  “Thanks for everything,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you! Thanks for loaning me your pencil,” Rebecca replied, blushing.

  Ryan laughed and held her away as he looked down at her.

  “What?” Rebecca said. “I just realized, I never said ‘thank you’!”

  “Did too,” Ryan countered. “There in detention, when I loaned it to you. Never thought you’d end up saving my life with it. Thanks, Hot Stuff.” She looked up at him, surprised to hear the sincerity in his usually flippant tone. “Um. .you’re welcome. And. .and thank you, for saving mine.” Ryan leaned down and captured her lips for the briefest of moments.

  Rebecca blushed again as a feeling that wasn’t her Healer’s ability tingled through her before he let her go.

  “Anytime,” he said as he walked to the car door portal. “I promised Syd I wouldn’t try shifting until I’ve had some training. He says I’ve done enough fancy maneuvers on my own. I guess he’s right, and I know how to use one of these things.”

  “Be careful,” Rebecca cautioned, then chastised herself for being stupid.

  Just because he’d kissed her didn’t make him her boyfriend, and that was the kind of thing Marla Thompson said to her latest guy. Rebecca told herself it was just the Healer in her talking.

  Ryan didn’t seem to notice what she’d said, or thought the same thing.

  “See ya.”

  Then he opened the portal cover and disappeared.

  chApter eighteen

  “Oh, now that is so unreal!” Billy said with a snort. He threw a piece of popcorn at the TV.

  “Hey,” Rebecca said, pinching his furry ear in retaliation. “Don’t make a mess, or I’ll make you vacuum.”

  Billy scowled and looked up at her. “You and mess. A little dirt won’t kill you, you know.”

  “I mean it, Wolfman,” she said. “And I know how much you love the vacuum.”

  Billy snorted again and turned his attention back to the program. Rebecca smiled and wrapped her arms around Billy’s neck and kissed the top of his furry head. Billy growled in contentment, wriggling as he snuggled back against her. Anubi, Nana had told her upon her arrival back home shortly after Ryan left, were social creatures—pack animals—and enjoyed physical contact with those they considered part of their pack. Billy had made it beyond clear that she was “his Little Bit” and didn’t like to let her out of his sight, even for necessary things like school. Nana hadn’t been exactly thrilled that Rebecca had asked Billy to stay on permanently—something about the rules of anubi dens and pack hierarchy—but she didn’t seem to mind the extra help around the house. Besides, Billy wasn’t the average anubi, and Rebecca reasoned that the usual rules about dens and such didn’t apply to him. Nana hadn’t agreed, but didn’t negate her. Billy loved his garage den and tinkering with Nana’s old Pontiac Bonneville, and for all he ate and made huge messes, the big guy made sure “his girls” were kept warm, safe and fed.

  With Billy around there was always vast amounts of food and enough wood in the house to keep a nice fire in the fireplace. Rebecca knew Nana wouldn’t ever admit it, but her grandmother enjoyed having the werewolf around.

  Nana could make huge batches of cookies and biscuits and whatever else she wanted and never had to worry about it being too much.

  “Look at her! That ain’t how you show dominance, you Mortal mutt!

  Bit, this is dumb! Why you wanna know how wolves act anyway? You got me! I’ll tell you all about how we act!”

  “From what I’ve gathered, you’re not real great at acting how you should,” Rebecca replied, rolling her eyes. “So if I’m going to learn about animal behavior, Nana said to watch nature programs, so there you go. I’m watching. I can do without the commentary, thank you!”

  “I need more popcorn,” Billy said, looking at the empty bucket he held. Massive though he might be, Billy was fast and agile, and gone from the living room floor almost before he’d finished his sentence.

  Rebecca laughed and shook her head as she turned her attention back to the television.

  Or she would have, had her lap not been suddenly invaded by a...thing.

  A big thing...bigger than Mishka, with green eyes that studied her with an intensity Mishka never had. Dark stripes like eyeliner ringed its eyes, sweeping in a point back toward its neck. Rebecca held her hands up, careful not to touch it, and sat very, very still.

  Whatever it was, it was very light. Rebecca’s eyes widened further as the thing pressed its very large paws into her thighs one after the other, like she’d seen Mishka do with Nana. It didn’t make any sound, but it closed its eyes and looked extremely content.

  “Um, hi,” Rebecca said, hesitant as she continued holding her hands up. “Can I help you?”

  A soft chuckle came from the dark corner near the old fireplace, and Rebecca looked up to see the blue glow of Syd’s eyes there. The tall blond vampire moved from the shadow and smiled at her.

  “I wondered if he would take to you,” Syd said, amused. “He’s very particular about who he likes.”

  Billy came back with a very full bucket of popcorn in his arms and scowled at the creature occupying Rebecca’s lap and hands. “I’m gone two minutes and you’re already huggin’ some other guy. Hey, Judas. Hey, Syd.” The...thing...on Rebecca’s lap glared up at Billy as the werewolf made himself comfortable again, reaching for Rebecca’s raised arm to drape around his neck as he sat down. She lowered the other arm, careful to keep it away from the small creature on resting on her legs.

  “‘Judas’?” Rebecca echoed, looking up at Syd.

  “His name. I brought him for Martha,” Syd said. “May I?” He gestured to the couch next to Rebecca.

  “Yeah, sure, but Nana already has a cat, and I don’t think Mishka will like him,” she said, moving her legs a little to make room for Syd to sit down. Judas glared at her movement then closed his eyes again, settling down against Rebecca’s thighs.

  “Look, Judas, I don’t mean to be rude, but um...that’s my leg you’re sitting on, so...if I need to move it...sorry, kitty,” Rebecca said.

  Syd laughed again. “He may look feline, but I assure you, he’s no housecat, and despite the complete contradiction he’s displaying at the moment, labyrinthines are known for their extreme aloofness and partiality. See if he’ll let you pet him.”

  “This is a labyrinthine?” Rebecca said, incredulous. She knew very little about the cat-like creatures, save that they were extremely powerful Ethereal beings and rarely let themselves be seen by anything save their own kind.

  Yet here was one sitting on her lap like he owned it. One—had it been this one?—had injured Cort the garden faerie. She wondered how Syd managed to know one well enough to have it as a friend. “Wow. And you call him

  ‘Judas’? Why?”

  “Because he’s a traitor,” Syd said, reaching to pet the labyrinthine. Judas opened an eye, offered Syd a baleful look, then got up and moved from Rebecca’s legs to her chest.

  “Whoa, hey!” Rebecca said as Judas forced her to hold him.

  “Hey, that’s my hug you’re stealing!” Billy protested as Rebecca’s arm left his neck to hold the creature. Billy scowled at the labyrinthine. “I don’t care what Syd sa
ys. You’re evil and that’s all there is to it.” Judas didn’t seem bothered by the insult and settled down in Rebecca’s arms.Rebecca looked taken aback for a moment, then reached to rub the creature’s ear.

  Judas went limp in her arms. He butted the bottom of her chin with his forehead, pleased.

  “Traitor,” Syd mumbled in disgust. “As I was saying, I brought him for Martha. He will...assist with power in my stead. That and he gets lonely, though he would never admit it, with me gone all the time. He needs company. I thought that, since Billy is staying here and as I spend a great deal of time here with your training, he might be more comfortable here instead of at the lair.”

  “I...um...I don’t know anything about the care and feeding of labyrinthines,” Rebecca admitted.

  “Well, then we have tonight’s lesson before us, do we not?” Syd replied with a smile. He looked to the television. “That is...after your program. Arctic wolves, are they? Oh, this should fascinate Billy.” The anubi growled. “Watch it or I’ll have you for dinner.”

  “How’s Ryan?”

  “Well. Hunting,” Sydney replied.

  “How’s he doing with that?” she asked. She was a little hurt that Ryan hadn’t at least been to see her in the two weeks since he’d been allowed to leave the enclave. It had made her feel like she wasn’t just pretending to be a Healer to see his wound disappear and his health restored.

  Was he avoiding her? Because he’d kissed her? And if he was, why did it matter? It’s not like he’d ever paid attention to her before he was a vampire.

  Rebecca supposed she’d just gotten so used to him being upstairs, checking on him and talking with him. She realized she missed that. Missed him.

  “Doing well,” Sydney replied.

  Rebecca remembered that Sydney could hear her thoughts and tried to shield them as he’d been teaching her.

  “Tell him I miss him, won’t you?” Rebecca asked. “And I wonder how he’s doing. If he gets a chance to stop by, that would be cool.”

  “I shall pass the message on,” Syd replied. He looked like he was going to say something else, then changed his mind and disappeared just as suddenly as he’d arrived.