of her way, slinging wet strips of plaster, their battle leathers smeared with white streaks of the paste.
The deep slashes to Duncan Sharp’s neck and shoulder shifted from purple to black. Hair sprouted at the edges of each bloody cut. Orange tiger-like hair. The gluey scent of the plaster and the tang of antiseptic mingled with the smells of ozone and burning flesh as Mother Keara tried cauterizing the slashes again, this time with a directed jet of blue flame from her index finger, as exact as any surgical laser. The eerie light from the controlled fire made her fragile features seem almost translucent, and bits of her gray braids smoked from dozens of tiny sparks.
The tiger fur disappeared, and the slashes stopped expanding wherever the full heat of Mother Keara’s fire touched the man’s flesh.
The detective’s eyelids fluttered. He let out a low moan and jerked against the padded metal cuffs binding him to the rails of the hospital bed. Bela shoved both heels against the green tile floor, refusing to surrender her hold on his face. He fought her, his neck bowing as he tried to free himself from her grip.
His heart stuttered, once, then twice.
“Come on.” Bela hit him with another blast of earth power, and another, and another. She wasn’t quitting, and neither would he. “Come on, damn you!”
His heartbeat caught like an engine and roared strong again.
“Yes!” Bela’s shout echoed in the treatment room. “That’s more like it.”
Her own heart picked up the same rhythm, almost bursting from the rush of small triumph. How much could he take? Humans weren’t cut out to absorb so much elemental energy, but regular painkillers were out. That kind of medication would dull his mind and his instinct to resist death. The infection or poison in those slash wounds might spread faster.
Bela bent forward and pressed her lips against Duncan Sharp’s ear, ignoring the stench of fire and blood and lingering dirt and ammonia from the battle. “Keep fighting this,” she snarled, hoping to engage the amazing determination she sensed roiling through his essence.
Some part of him seemed to respond to her, and his breathing and heart rate slowed into a more reasonable pattern. The relief helped Bela breathe better, too.
Mother Keara stopped stinging the detective with her fire and dropped into the room’s only chair at his beside, limp, her head down like she might be trying to meditate. “Best I can do for now,” she mumbled. “I’ll be needin’ a rest. Some beer. And a little help with this, I think.”
The lighting in the lab’s treatment room showed the blood and bruises in glaring detail as Andy and Dio went back to fixing Duncan Sharp’s arm. Droplets of water rolled down Andy’s leather sleeves as she worked, drawn from nearby pipes, faucets, and sprinklers, but also from the ample ambient moisture in the air. Andy’s damp red curls were plastered against her freckled cheeks, and she alternated between chewing her lip and glancing at Bela for reassurance as she tried to concentrate on the strips of plaster.
“You can do it,” Bela told her as she gently massaged the detective’s jaws with her fingertips. “It’s just a simple radial fracture.”
“Just a simple radio what-the-fuck,” Andy shot back. “Like I’ve been studying human anatomy my whole damned life, Bela. I’m an ex-cop and a greenhorn Sibyl, not a surgeon.”
Bela ignored her bluster and kept working on the detective. Sibyls, even new ones like Andy, had no need for scans to tell them what was broken or how to set it, and Andy was doing just fine. Better, even, than Bela could do, because Andy was a water Sibyl. Healing was her most natural talent outside the management of water, like science for earth Sibyls, communication for fire Sibyls, and archiving and research for air Sibyls.
Every time Andy placed another strip of plaster on the man’s arm, she infused both the cast and Duncan Sharp with a dose of water
The deep slashes to Duncan Sharp’s neck and shoulder shifted from purple to black. Hair sprouted at the edges of each bloody cut. Orange tiger-like hair. The gluey scent of the plaster and the tang of antiseptic mingled with the smells of ozone and burning flesh as Mother Keara tried cauterizing the slashes again, this time with a directed jet of blue flame from her index finger, as exact as any surgical laser. The eerie light from the controlled fire made her fragile features seem almost translucent, and bits of her gray braids smoked from dozens of tiny sparks.
The tiger fur disappeared, and the slashes stopped expanding wherever the full heat of Mother Keara’s fire touched the man’s flesh.
The detective’s eyelids fluttered. He let out a low moan and jerked against the padded metal cuffs binding him to the rails of the hospital bed. Bela shoved both heels against the green tile floor, refusing to surrender her hold on his face. He fought her, his neck bowing as he tried to free himself from her grip.
His heart stuttered, once, then twice.
“Come on.” Bela hit him with another blast of earth power, and another, and another. She wasn’t quitting, and neither would he. “Come on, damn you!”
His heartbeat caught like an engine and roared strong again.
“Yes!” Bela’s shout echoed in the treatment room. “That’s more like it.”
Her own heart picked up the same rhythm, almost bursting from the rush of small triumph. How much could he take? Humans weren’t cut out to absorb so much elemental energy, but regular painkillers were out. That kind of medication would dull his mind and his instinct to resist death. The infection or poison in those slash wounds might spread faster.
Bela bent forward and pressed her lips against Duncan Sharp’s ear, ignoring the stench of fire and blood and lingering dirt and ammonia from the battle. “Keep fighting this,” she snarled, hoping to engage the amazing determination she sensed roiling through his essence.
Some part of him seemed to respond to her, and his breathing and heart rate slowed into a more reasonable pattern. The relief helped Bela breathe better, too.
Mother Keara stopped stinging the detective with her fire and dropped into the room’s only chair at his beside, limp, her head down like she might be trying to meditate. “Best I can do for now,” she mumbled. “I’ll be needin’ a rest. Some beer. And a little help with this, I think.”
The lighting in the lab’s treatment room showed the blood and bruises in glaring detail as Andy and Dio went back to fixing Duncan Sharp’s arm. Droplets of water rolled down Andy’s leather sleeves as she worked, drawn from nearby pipes, faucets, and sprinklers, but also from the ample ambient moisture in the air. Andy’s damp red curls were plastered against her freckled cheeks, and she alternated between chewing her lip and glancing at Bela for reassurance as she tried to concentrate on the strips of plaster.
“You can do it,” Bela told her as she gently massaged the detective’s jaws with her fingertips. “It’s just a simple radial fracture.”
“Just a simple radio what-the-fuck,” Andy shot back. “Like I’ve been studying human anatomy my whole damned life, Bela. I’m an ex-cop and a greenhorn Sibyl, not a surgeon.”
Bela ignored her bluster and kept working on the detective. Sibyls, even new ones like Andy, had no need for scans to tell them what was broken or how to set it, and Andy was doing just fine. Better, even, than Bela could do, because Andy was a water Sibyl. Healing was her most natural talent outside the management of water, like science for earth Sibyls, communication for fire Sibyls, and archiving and research for air Sibyls.
Every time Andy placed another strip of plaster on the man’s arm, she infused both the cast and Duncan Sharp with a dose of water
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