Page 28 of Wolf Bane
“Can’t.”
“Uh.Okay?”I hesitated at that.“The thing is, it looks like someone might be screwing with some of the were populations and?—”
“Like how?”
“Like… maybe spreading an illness,” I said slowly, wincing.“I know.I know.It sounds weird, but I was looking into some stuff last night after I called and there might be a pattern here.ICW?—”
He swore, leaning on his horn before speaking again.“Look, I’ll do what I can when I can, but in the meantime, I’m stuck on this skip trace and then I have a court appearance on Tuesday, so it may not be any time soon.”
“Wait, you don’t even know what I’m asking,” I yelped, toast momentarily forgotten.“I didn’t say in the message, just that I had some questions that needed answering!”
“And I can answer ‘em after Tuesday,” he said with the sort of false patience you’d use with a whining child.“Shit, there’s a speed trap ahead.Talk later.”
“Hey!”The line was definitely dead.“Damn it…”
Waltrip was being weird as fuck—a skip trace and a court appearance weren’t out of the ordinary for him in his line of work as a PI, but to be dismissive like that?Either I’d gotten hold of a body snatcher pretending to be Waltrip, or he was distancing himself from… me?ICW?The were community?
Shit.
He was a solitary were with no pack, no clan, not even a family member that he acknowledged, so to put more distance between himself and even his slim alliance with the were community was not great.
One more thing to talk with Ethan about.
I shoved the last of the toast into my mouth, mentally rearranging my planned morning just in time for the sound of running feet outside my back door.I had it open before Mal reached the porch steps.He was breathing fast, the stink of fear and stress pouring off him in waves and, mingled in, the strong spike of menthol and the too-sweet scent of cough medication.
“What’s wrong?”I asked, dusting the crumbs from my shirt.“Is it Mariska?”I was already grabbing the small but robust first aid kit I kept near the door.It had the basics but also a few extra things, like a pen light, a portable oxygen monitor, and a suture kit, most home kits didn’t.
Mal, dark-circled eyes wide, nodded.“She’s getting worse.I thought it was the crud going around but…”
My stomach flopped slowly over.Does she know the Clemens kids?“Show me.”
* * *
Mariska was curledon the sofa, looking far smaller than she should.Pale, dark eyes like pits in her pointy face, she glared up at me.
“Stupid Tomas got me sick,” she complained.“He licked my pudding cup at lunch then sneezed in my eye.”
Mal made a disgusted sound, shaking his head.“This is worse than a cold,” he muttered.“The fever keeps shooting up then dropping fast.She’s… she started shifting last night.Like without meaning to.”
“Everything itches,” she grumped.“Like the tiny hairs?In my skin?They itch and want to come out!And Dad’s too loud.He was talkin’ to Wally and laughed, and it hurt my ears.”
Wally?I turned a curious smirk his way.Mal rolled his eyes.“Waltrip.She calls him Wally.And he was just checking in to see how we’re doing.He’s nice like that.”
“I bet.Hey, Mariska, can I see your tongue?”She stuck it out as far as she could while I got the pen light out of the kit.“Now roar really big like a lion.”
“I’m not ababy, Uncle Landry.You can just tell me to sayah.”Still, she roared anyway, giggling into a coughing fit immediately after.Mal jittered nervously at the end of the couch, behind her head where she couldn’t see him.“That hurt,” she muttered, sinking back into her little nest of blankets and stuffed animals.“Am I gonna die?”
I shook my head.“No.Not yet.Not unless you’re planning something crazy like cliff diving or doing a HALO jump into an active volcano.Hey, want to see your finger glow in the dark?Mal, close the curtains.”I popped the little pulse oximeter onto her finger, the tiny red light inside indeed giving her finger an ET vibe.Ignoring Mal’s intense stare, his silent demand for more information, I noted her readings and then checked her lymph glands in her neck and armpits and listened to her breathing for a minute.
“Have you given her any medicine?”
“Those gross chewables that taste like grape ass,” Mariska answered for him.
Mal sounded distracted and defeated at the same time.“Mariska, language.”
“They do!”
“They didn’t help,” Mal supplied, deciding a lecture on language wasn’t the hill to die on just then.“Her fever is just wild, spiking up to 101 then dropping back to normal, then going up and hanging out there for hours…” His breath hitched in a dry sob.“She’s never been sick like this before.”
