Sorsha strode into the park not more than fifteen minutes later, her long skirt billowing behind her and a messenger bag that I knew was filled with herbals and potions bouncing against her hip with every step. Fierce determination filled the woman from head to toe and I knew that Sorsha-the-Healer had arrived, not Sorsha-My-Friend.

The healer flicked a quick glance at me, a quick and dirty triage, before she focused on the elf. She knelt at his side and got to work while I stayed right where I’d landed. I tried to tell myself it was because I was staying out of the way. I definitely wasn’t staying put because exhaustion had slowly rolled over me.

Caith Morningstar didn’t do something so mortal as get tired. If she did, her Uncle Luc—aka Lucifer, High Lord of Hell—would never let her forget it.

Sorsha placed her hands above the boy’s body, palms close but not touching him as she examined him with all her senses. Her hands glowed brightly as she murmured words from an ancient language that tickled my mind but that I couldn’t fully recall.

She delved into her messenger bag and pulled out her herbs. She crushed several between her palms and then stroked the elf’s skin, rubbing the dried leaves into the worst of his wounds. She mixed others into her thermos and I forced myself to move, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get the liquid into the kid without my help.

With a groan, I stumbled forward, and dropped to my knees at the kid’s side. Walking was not a good idea. Maybe I’d just crawl everywhere from now on. That sounded like an excellent fucking plan.

I held the elf’s head up while she poured the mixture down his throat. He coughed and sputtered, struggling against my grip, but I didn’t let him move. We’d all had to suck down Sorsha’s nasty brews at some point. It was like a rite of passage or some shit. The kid had just joined the “Sorsha Tried to Kill Me with Weeds” club.

“Is he going to be okay?” I glanced at Sorsha and then refocused on the boy. His breathing gradually leveled out to a regular rhythm, but he still looked pale—even for an elf. As for his cuts… they still had a slight shimmer of blue light flickering across them.

You know, like the cut in my side. Goody.

“His aura is weak.” She sighed. “That… thing,” she glanced at the dismembered ghoul’s corpse. “Did more than just wound his body. His aura will need to be cleansed before his body can rebuild his manna.”

“You can do that, right?” I raised my eyebrows. “I mean, you can heal him?” Even though he’d survived the attack, I knew that the ghouls’ taint could work to transform a living person. If he wasn’t cleansed, he could still end up turning into one of those things.

Sorsha didn’t say anything for a long moment. Instead, she closed her eyes and touched the boy’s forehead, fingers sliding over his cheeks and throat, and then stopping over his heart. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen something like this.” She shook her head. “This isn’t the touch of a normal ghoul. It’s something more… insidious. I can keep him stable for now. His aura should recover over time as long as he’s kept stable and comfortable.”

“Good.” Very good. I pulled up the side of my shirt to flash my own wound. “So you can help me too, right?”

Her eyes widened and she whispered a low curse. “Damn.”

Perfect. “That doesn’t sound good. I was looking for an ‘Of course, Caith.’”

Sorsha reached for me, palms glowing as they had when she’d worked on the elf. Except the glow wasn’t as bright when she examined me. That had to be good, right? If I was just as bad as the kid, her mojo would have to work harder.

Yeah, I was totally fine. I had this beat.

“I need to get you to the clinic.”

Or not.

“No.” I shook my head and gestured for her to back away. “I can’t be bed bound. I’ve got to make sure there’s no more of these wandering around and turning Orlando into a Lunchable.” I tipped my chin toward the ghoul. “And I need to chat with the mayor. Then I have to get back to Bry. The ghoul didn’t kill me, but my kid will if I don’t make it home like I promised.”

Sorsha just sighed while she cleaned my wound and rubbed some nasty smelling herb mixture into the scratch. She covered it with a bandage of golden leaves and then smeared a different poultice on top. She handed me a cup of the same herbal nastiness she’d given the elf. “Drink this.”

I gagged before I even got the cup to my mouth, knowing it was going to be more disgusting than I could imagine. Without waiting another heartbeat, I brought it to my lips and swallowed it all in one gulp. It tingled a bit on the way down, a nice warmth almost like human hard liquor.

Which made me think of some nice Hell spirits and how they’d make me forget about the ache in my side.

“It’s your choice,” she said. “But if you don’t rest and let me finish my healing, it will only get worse.”

I groaned. I knew she was right even if I didn’t want to admit it aloud. I hated telling someone they were right because that usually meant I was wrong. No woman wants to ever be wrong. I mentally shuddered.

But as much as I wanted to get back to Bry, I didn’t want to turn into a flesh-eating monster who might decide that the kid was a nice midnight snack.

“Help me with him.” Sorsha pushed to her feet and I followed, bending at the waist to heft the elf from the ground before we carried him to Sorsha’s van. We got him settled in the back, nestled under some warm blankets. The healer climbed behind the wheel and looked to me. “You coming?”

“Yeah, I’ll come by later.” I nodded. “I need to clean things up here and do a little hunting.”

She handed me the thermos with what remained of that nasty herbal concoction. “If you feel warm or dizzy, drink what’s left. And don’t be long. You may feel fine now, but this will spread quickly if it’s not treated fully. Understand?”

The chick really had the doom and gloom thing down pat. I lightly pressed my hand to the bandage on my side. It hardly hurt, which made it hard to believe it was as bad as Sorsha said.

But… I trusted her judgment. She’d helped me with Bryony in the past—making sure my kid lived through that whole crazed psycho possession thing. Plus, I knew how dangerous regular ghouls were.

I nodded. “I’ll be there.”

The healer jerked her head in a brisk nod and drove off, leaving me alone at the edge of the park. I stared at the rotting body in the distance. Boyd could send a few of his men out in hazmat suits to dispose of the mess. I dealt with elimination, not cleanup.

I turned and retraced my steps back to the morgue. I needed to check on Jezze and see if she’d found anything in the wreckage. I moved slowly, trying not to aggravate my wound. It hardly stung, just a little cool to the touch, but the fact that it remained proved something was wrong. My body should have fought off the ghoul’s infection by now, but this creature had been far from normal.

I headed around the building to the front entrance. I may have gotten out through a window but my bangin’ ass wasn’t going back through that glass.

Boyd was still standing there, speaking to a couple of people dressed like they worked in the morgue. He frowned and looked at me. Then he glanced toward the darkened stairway to the basement—no doubt wondering how I’d gotten out without being noticed.

His eyes widened as he took in the sight of my torn and bloodied clothing. “What happened? Did you get… it?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I got it, but—“

“No!” He waved his hands. “No buts. I can’t have any buts. I want this situation contained. Now.”

And I wanted the world to finally accept that Elvis was living with Uncle Luc—Uncle Luc was a huge fan—but I didn’t always get what I wanted.

I was worn out, my energy draining more and more with each passing moment, my patience was fading right along with it. “Look, Boyd—“ It took all of my strength not to call him Asshole instead of his name. “I’m not the one who opened this can of shit.”

But I sure as fuck would find out who did. I only had four fucking rules in Orlando: order, secrecy, discretion, and no one fucks with me and mine.

“But I’m working to get the lid back on it.”

He glared at me, eyes narrowing. “Fine. Is the lid back on then?”

I’d shove the lid up his ass in a minute.

“I killed a ghoul, but it was already outside by the time we got here. It attacked someone.”

He rubbed his cheek, palm scraping his scruff, deep in thought. “Someone?” He lifted his eyebrows. “Human or tween?”

Motherfucker just had to make a distinction. He wouldn’t give a damn if I told him it was a tween. Tweens weren’t really his constituents.

“I have one of my people on it, but we need to find out if there were more of them.” I jerked my head toward the people standing nearby. “Yo, you two, you got a record of corpses that were in the building today?”

They exchanged a glance and then looked to Boyd. Once he nodded his permission, the guy on the left spoke. “We have records of all cadavers.”

“Good. Get the list and check it against what’s left down there. You should only be short one body. If there’s more, we know there are more ghouls wandering around out there.”

And infecting others, but I didn’t want to state the obvious. I also didn’t mention that the ghoul had been under the control of someone else. That was my jurisdiction, not Boyd’s. But I also knew there were probably more of those ghoulish assholes in the city even if they hadn’t come from this morgue.

“Check the other hospitals in the area as well as funeral homes within…” I scrunched my nose. “Within fifty miles. Make sure there are no other disappearances.”

Boyd nodded to the two humans and they hurried off, leaving me with the mayor once more. “You don’t think this is an isolated incident?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Better safe than sorry.”

Jezze chose that moment to tromp up the stairs, purse slung over her shoulder. “Finished cleansing the bodies downstairs. We shouldn’t have any more of the walking undead cropping up from here tonight.”

“Good.” I slowly nodded. “I bagged a ghoul outside. They’re gonna see if—“

The room tilted and my vision blurred, the dim entryway going fuzzy. I listed to the right. Then I was surrounded by the scent of sage as small hands gripped my biceps. Jezze had caught me and was doing her best to hold me upright before I managed to topple to the ground. I shook my head and blinked hard, fighting to clear my vision.

“Dude, Caith.” Jezze braced me, hitting my injured side as she steadied my body. I groaned with the nudge, pain flaring from the wound, and Jezze lifted my shirt. “What the hell?”

I groaned again. “I think I need to get to Sorsha’s.”

Unfortunately, when I said, “think,” I meant “right fucking now.”

Jezze ducked and pulled my arm across her shoulders, supporting me while she turned us toward the door.

Boyd—aka Asshole—hurried after us. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You’re leaving? What about this… situation?”

I could see a little better, but Boyd still looked like a blurry human beach ball. “Call me with a body count and we’ll get on it, but I need to know if there are more of those things out there first. I’m not hunting for something that doesn’t exist.”

“And if there are?” Boyd wrung his hands.

What part of “we’ll get on it” had the asshole not heard?

Fuck, I was already the reigning Bitch Queen, but I was feeling bitchier than normal.

I continued shuffling to the door, leaning on Jezze. “I’ll handle it.”

Jezze led me to the SUV; Boyd’s whining a screechy record playing in the background. The witch helped me into the vehicle and then she scooted behind the wheel. It didn’t take long for her to get us on the road and heading toward Sorsha’s clinic. On the way, I filled Jezze in on what had happened at the park, including the ghoul’s blue-hued light show and its unusual intelligence.

“Fuck,” Jezze cursed. “Sorcerer or necromancer?”

“Not sure. I’m hoping it’s just a noob experimenting with dark magic and flexing his powers, which means he’ll burn himself out pretty quickly. But…”

“But On High hates us and we’re never that lucky.”

I grunted rather than correct her. I wouldn’t say On High hates us. Uncle Luc? Yes. Me? I feel like he gives off more of a cunty vibe in my direction.

“I’ll work on a locator spell.” Jezze tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “The undead have a twisted necrotic energy. I should be able to track any others. If there are any others.”

I snorted. “Something tells me there are. This was too weird to be an isolated incident.”

“Plus, we’re never that lucky.”

“Yeah, there’s that,” I agreed.

When we reached Sorsha’s, a couple of her assistants came out with a wheelchair to help me inside. I hated showing any weakness by using the fucking thing, but since I couldn’t stand, I didn’t have much choice. Once we got inside, the healer directed us to a bedroom and the assistants helped me climb onto the soft mattress. She lit incense around the bed along with some sour-smelling candles that had my wolf sneezing.

“I hope that stuff is supposed to heal me,” I pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting back another sneeze. “Because if that’s your idea of calming aromatherapy, we need to talk.”

“Your aura needs to be cleansed,” Sorsha spoke but didn’t look at me, her attention on the rank candles. “There are several steps. This is just one. I’m already brewing another tea that should be ready soon. I made enough for you and the elven boy.”

“How is he?” I closed my eyes and rested against the bed.

The kid was lucky to be alive. If I’d arrived a minute later…

“Stable.” Sorsha’s soft steps let me track her progress through the room. “The poisonous energy is in his blood. I need to make sure it doesn’t get a firm grasp in yours.”

It looked like I’d be out of commission for a little while. I spent a few minutes with Jezze, going over what needed to be done to track any other ghouls in the area. She headed off with a promise to call when she had more information.

Which left me to face the demanding healer.

“How long until I can get out of here?” I cracked one eye, searching through the dim room for my friend.

Sorsha came and stood over me. “I don’t know, but you need to rest. Don’t make me give you a sleeping draught.”

“Part werewolf.” I snorted. As if that’d work.

It was her turn to snort. “You think I haven’t treated werewolves in the past? Bless your heart.”

Dammit, bless your heart was Southern for dumbass.

I closed my eyes, ready to ignore her but I sure as hell wasn’t going to sleep. I just needed the room to stop spinning.

Right.

Apparently, I couldn’t even lie to myself, because between one breath and the next, I was out cold.