"It's fine," Bliss said. "Nothing I haven't seen before," she snapped.
"You might be surprised," he said.
She pulled off his shirt a little roughly, and the fabric scraped the open wounds.
"Ouch!" he yelped before he could help himself.
"Sorry," she said. She struggled to conceal the horror on her face when she saw the extent of his injuries, continuing to undress him until he was naked underneath a cool sheet to cover the terrifying sight of broken bone and skin and muscle, the blood congealed into a purple cake.
Arthur came back and lifted the sheet, examining the wounds. He nodded, muttered a few things to himself, and then put the sheet back down. "Clean him up as well as you can," he told Bliss. "I'll need to collect a few other things before we begin."
"You gonna make it through this?" Lawson asked, challenging her.
"I'll be fine," she said, but her voice was gentler. She cleaned his face first, dabbing slowly at the crusted blood and pus, wiping the dirt away. Bliss felt his eyes on her as she cleaned the rag, submerging it in the warm water and removing it, rolling it into a tube and wringing it out before returning it to his skin. Soon the pan of water was red with blood. Her hand was shaking a little as she cleaned around the wounds.
"It's okay," he said. "It doesn't hurt that much."
"Liar," she said softly.
Arthur returned. "Lawson, it's time."
"What?" Bliss asked, pausing with the wet rag in the air and looking between Arthur and Lawson, whose face had turned even paler.
"I'm going to burn it out," Arthur said, confirming his fear. "To leach the poison. I'm sorry, Lawson, but it can't be helped. It's the only way."
"Do your worst," he said, sucking air through his teeth.
"You're going to burn him?" Bliss asked.
"Hellhound claws are poisoned with silver, which is slowly dissolving into his blood, to keep the wounds fresh, to make sure they never heal. We're going to have to burn it from his blood. You might not want to see this."
"I don't want to see this," Lawson said.
Bliss shook her head, with no hesitation. "I'm not afraid of blood."
"Are you sure?" Arthur asked.
She rolled up her sleeves, a determined look on her face. "You're going to need someone to help hold him down."
The fire made a sizzling sound as it hit the silver, and Lawson shook and fought and kicked and screamed in agony, but Bliss kept his arms above his head, holding him until her palms were red and sweaty, fighting him, so that Arthur could do his job. She found Lawson's casual disregard for his own safety appalling and heroic at the same time. "It's working," she said, watching each wound close and the skin turn smooth as the fire burned out.
Lawson's face contorted in pain, but he finally stopped struggling and his wrists went slack. By the end of it her clothing was muddy with his blood and the room smelled like smoke. Arthur put his tools away. "That should take care of it," he said, leaving the two of them alone.
Lawson turned to Bliss. "Thank you," he croaked. "I know that wasn't pretty."
She tossed him his shirt and pants and looked away while he got dressed. She felt closer to him after the experience; she had seen the depths of his suffering, and she was somehow no longer afraid of him. This was a boy she could count on, she thought, someone who was strong, who could bear a burden without flinching or weakening.
"So you're going to tell me what happened back there? How you got that hound to leave us alone?" Lawson asked.
"I don't know." It was a weak answer, and she could tell he wasn't buying it. But she couldn't afford to tell him the truth. Not yet. She could still feel the hound's dank breath on her. She had looked straight into its crimson eyes, sure that death was upon her, and it had turned away. Who are you, Bliss Llewellyn? The hound feared you.
There was only one reason the hellhound had left them alone: it had taken her for its master. Lucifer's dogs. And she was Lucifer's daughter. She might have killed the spirit of her father inside her, but she was still his flesh and blood. The hound knew what she was. The hound knew she was one of them.
If Lawson knew, if any one of them knew ... She knew she could never tell them. They could never know the truth about her. Lawson would kill her without question this time. She had seen what he did to hellhounds. She had seen his mouth red with the blood of the hounds he had slain.
"You don't know," Lawson repeated. "Tell me the truth - this didn't start with your aunt's kidnapping, did it?"
"No." Bliss shook her head. Maybe even if she couldn't tell him about her father, it was time to come clean about something else. "Meeting you wasn't a coincidence. You were partly right... I was looking for wolves, but not for Romulus." She bit her lip. "There's a war going on among us ... with the Silver Bloods ... the same demons who are your former masters ... and my people are losing. I was sent to find the wolves, to help us. My mother told me that the wolves were demon fighters and that we will need your help in order to win the war against Lucifer. I'm supposed to bring your kind back to them ... to join the fight."
"And why should we do that?" Lawson asked. So this was the part the wolves were to play, he realized; this was what Arthur had been preparing him for.
"I don't know. I was sort of hoping you would know. My mother - she was the one who set this all up, but she didn't tell me very much except that I had to find you."
Lawson crinkled his forehead. "Arthur said a friend of his told him to help us ... he called her Gabrielle."
"Lawson - Gabrielle is - Gabrielle of the Angels. Allegra Van Alen. She's my mother."
He stared at her. "You are an archangel's daughter."
"In our history books, in our repository, it says the hounds turned against their masters once," Bliss said.
"Yes. But we paid for it dearly. Lucifer punished the wolves for their disobedience. We were cast into the hellfire, and he turned us into little more than animals." Lawson looked grim and troubled. "We were once the Praetorian Guard, keepers of the passages, but now ... we are nothing but a bunch of fighting dogs."
Bliss shook her head. "I don't believe in the permanence of curses," she said. "Otherwise ... I would have given up long ago." She shuddered. "What does Romulus have to do with any of this? I've heard of him, but not in connection with our history."
"He was one of us, he was our leader, but he betrayed us, sold us to the demons, for power, to curry Lucifer's favor," Lawson said.
Bliss scratched her nose. "Yikes."
"Yep."
"Can I ask you something?" she said.
"Anything." He smiled and Bliss smiled back. They looked at each other for a long time, but finally, she broke away from his intense gaze.
"Your ... brothers ... you guys don't look alike."
"You noticed."
"Well ..." Bliss laughed.
"We're not brothers in the usual sense," he said. "We don't have the same parents. Wolves don't even know their parents. We're taken from our mothers as soon as we're whelped. But we are brothers. We made a pact to each other. It's like the opposite of the curse."
"The anti-curse." Bliss smiled. She liked the sound of that. "Lawson, the girl in the picture - the attack Malcolm mentioned - the hounds took Tala, didn't they?"
"Yes."
"And she was special to you."
"Yes."
Bliss wrung the edge of her shirt. "I understand. Even before the hounds took Aunt Jane, I lost someone too."
His name was Dylan Ward, she thought. She had loved him at first sight, that first night at the club when everything had happened, when her life had changed. She could still see his dark hair and dark eyes illuminated by the flame he'd held out to her. It felt so long ago. Dylan, she thought, and she felt the tears well up in her eyes again. I miss you. He had been her rock and her escape through that long terrible year when she had been a prisoner in her own mind. He had helped her and she had freed him. She had loved him with all her heart and soul, but he was gone now.
"He won't return?" Lawson asked quietly.
"No. He's gone. He's somewhere else now, a better place." Bliss looked down at her empty hands. "I have to let go."
Lawson took her hand in his. "I can't. I know Tala is out there. I know I can find her. I know I can save her."
"Yes, you can," Bliss said, her eyes shining. "Because I know where she is."
Chapter Twenty
Arthur Beauchamp insisted on staying behind.
The four boys and Bliss were packed into his beat-up van. The old warlock looked frail but resolute in front of his cavern. The woods were quiet and all was still in the middle of the night, with no sign of the battle that had raged.
Lawson felt his wounds healing underneath his bandages, but his chest hurt for a different reason. He remembered seeing the old man at the park bench a year earlier. How scared they had been, and how relieved to find help at last, shelter, education, guidance. Arthur had been more than their guardian, he was a friend. "Come with us," he said again.
"No, my boy, when they realize what happened, the hounds will return in greater numbers. I will hold them here for as long as I am able," Arthur said. "Besides, I am not without reinforcements." He removed a wand from his suit pocket. It was ebony and made of bone. Dragon bone, the warlock had explained to them once. An ancient magic, older than the underworld, made before the earth was formed. It shone in the dim light, gleaming with sparks. "I think it is time I broke my restriction."
"Arthur - I can't ask you to do this," Lawson said.
"You did not ask me. Someone else did," Arthur said with a wry smile. He turned to Bliss. "I owe your mother a favor. Yes, I saw the resemblance. You have her eyes." He held up the wand, making an arc in the air. "I failed her once, long ago. In Florence, when she needed a friend. I told her I would make up for it - I told her to ask me anything, and I would do it. This was my promise. That I would keep you boys safe, and I will."
"Goodbye, Arthur," Bliss said. "Lawson - we should go."
Lawson revved the engine. Malcolm waved. Edon and Rafe nodded their goodbyes.
Arthur waved his white handkerchief. "With luck, we shall cross paths again one day. Lawson, don't forget what I told you about the passages. Now leave me to it."
The hospital wasn't far. Lawson couldn't believe Tala had been so close. He should never have left her. Was it truly this easy? Were his dreams to be fulfilled that night?
"This is it," Bliss said when they arrived at the four-story building at the top of the hill. Lawson let the van idle in the parking lot as he staked out the place. The hospital was dark, the lobby closed for the night, curtains drawn. There was a sleepy guard at the front entrance who didn't seem to notice the van parked at the far end of the lot.
Lawson turned off the engine. "Rafe, Mac, you guys stay here. Edon, come with me." It would be safer if it was just a small team, and he and Edon could handle whatever came up. He was leading them toward the back entrance when he stopped.
"What is it?" Edon whispered.
Lawson pointed to the bronze cross emblazoned on the hospital doors, and the name of the clinic: St. Bernadette's Psychiatric Clinic. His heart began to beat wildly in his chest, bursting with hope. If Tala was alive and unharmed, if she'd managed to escape the hounds, she would have sought refuge in a place like this - a holy place that the hounds could never enter. A place she would be safe.
"Crap," Edon swore.
"What's with him?" asked Bliss.
"Oh nothing, he's just a little irked he can't go inside," Lawson explained.
"St. Bernadette's?" Bliss asked.
"Hallowed ground," Lawson explained. "Off-limits to underworld scum."
"I'll wait outside," Edon said. "Take it easy in there. We've had enough fireworks for the day."
"How come you can come in?" Bliss asked as Lawson jiggered the back door open.
"Dunno. I just can. Discovered it by accident one day at a church soup kitchen. Rest of the boys couldn't cross the threshold, but I snuck in smooth as butter. Maybe someone likes me up there," he said as he pushed the door open, and then they were inside. "I cut the alarm, don't worry." He stopped at the foot of the stairs. "You remember where she was?"
"Room fifteen. I think it was on the third floor."
It wasn't. The hospital was a maze of identical hallways and rooms, and to make matters more con fusing, there were several room fifteens. None of them held Tala. There was a nurses' station at each landing, but they managed to move around without being noticed.
"I'm sorry - everything looks the same. This is the hospital, though. Maybe they moved her," Bliss said as she looked around nervously.
He followed her down a corridor that led away from the main part of the hospital. "This is it!" she said excitedly as they came upon a room with a guard's stool in front of it, but there was no guard. And when Lawson opened the door, the room was empty. But he sensed a presence that felt strange and familiar at the same time. Tala?
"This was the room, right?" he asked.
"I think so," Bliss replied.
This isn't right. It isn't the right scent. But maybe it has been too long ... maybe being with the hounds has changed her ... He couldn't breathe. There was too much to hope for, too much at stake.