“But you don’t want any of it?” He’d met many people who didn’t care if they saw tomorrow, usually the severely depressed and the elderly. He supposed a two-hundred-year-old guy would count as elderly, though the body he saw—even the injured one—looked to be around thirty years old. If it wasn’t for the swollen, damaged face, he’d seem as vital as anyone, even if he was on the thin side.
“I don’t believe in any of it. There’s a difference.”
Not one that Bruce could understand, so he focused instead on what he did know. He rinsed out the washcloth and held it up. “This could hurt a bit.” Or a lot.
“If I can use a fairy glamour, I can dull pain.”
Really? “I thought you didn’t believe in it.”
The guy’s eyes flashed with humor. “I believe in the hydrocodone I took an hour ago.”
Now that was something Bruce understood. He started cleaning out Wulfric’s wounds. He was as gentle as he could be, but the guy’s face needed a plastic surgeon. “I don’t usually work on this end,” he said. “I’m the ‘scoop them up and get them to a hospital’ guy.”
“And now you’re the werewolf who eats a fairy apple so he can save the world.”
Bruce didn’t even blink. “There’s lots of irony there too, if you care to look.”
“I am. Believe me, I am.”
Well, wasn’t that cryptic? “Care to explain how I’m going to do that?”
“You’re the one who ate the apple. Don’t you know?”
Bruce shook his head. “All I’ve got is a bunch of murderous fairies telling me I’m going to save them.”
“My mother says it too. About you saving the world.”
Great. “I just came here to help my brother.”
“He’s the one guy who doesn’t need it.”
“Yeah, I’ve already figured that out, but thanks for poking at the wound anyway.” He dabbed hard on a crusted-over abrasion. Wulfric didn’t so much as blink.
“Tit for tat,” the man answered. And when Bruce shot him a confused look, he smiled. “You’re poking at my wounds.”
Right. Banter. He was trading quips with a two-hundred-year-old werewolf who didn’t believe in magic. Could his life get any weirder? “You really need a doctor. And a plastic surgeon.”
“My mother will make me pretty again once this is done.”
“And if it gets infected?”
Wulfric stretched to the bedside table and pulled open a drawer. There were pill bottles in there. A quick scan showed them to be heavy-hitter antibiotics and the hydrocodone.
Bruce nodded. “What about other pains? Bones? Joints? Are you having any trouble breathing? Heart palpitations?” He ran through the standard litany. Wulfric shook his head for each one. “Are you lying to me?”
“Would it matter if I was?”
“To me? Not in the least. To you, if you suddenly keel over from sepsis? Yeah, probably.” Or maybe not, given that Wulfric didn’t seem to care if he lived or died.
“I’m not lying. It takes too much effort.”
“Says the guy with the fairy glamour.”
“That was put on me years ago. I couldn’t take it down if I tried.”
That explained the hero worship Bruce heard in everyone’s voice whenever they mentioned Wulfric. Bruce kept working on the wounds. He stopped when Nero came in with a couple of bowls of broth, two smoothies, and some sports drinks. And one straw.
Nero set everything down on the edge of the bed, his gaze turning sharp the moment he saw the bloody water in the basin and the antibiotic cream that Bruce had been using.
“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that, Wulfric?”
The superimposed image was back, and it showed a healthy Wulfric grinning. “I do try.”
Nero looked at Bruce. “He going to live?”
“Probably. But he needs to be watched closely. He ought to be in a hospital.”
“They can’t see through the fairy shit.”
Right. That did cause a problem.
“I’ve survived for two hundred years. I’m not going to keel over now.”
Even though he might want to. That was the message underneath the guy’s words, and Bruce didn’t have a way to address that. He wasn’t the touchy-feely type. That was why he’d become a paramedic. He routinely rolled out lies like You’ll be fine. The doctors are the best. Your wife is fine and will see you at the hospital.
He’d long since stopped looking to find out if what he’d said was true. He didn’t check up on patients after the hand-off, and he sure as hell wasn’t hanging around to learn that the wife hadn’t made it after all.
Nero, however, took the words at face value. He grunted in approval and shoved a straw into the bone broth. “Drink.” Then, when Wulfric gingerly held it to his mouth, Nero continued, “I can’t believe I offered to make you a steak.”
“I know,” Wulfric agreed. “I gave up meat decades ago.”
“Bullshit,” Nero countered, and Bruce had no idea which was true.
It didn’t matter. He focused on debriding the wounds, then applied the cream and gently laid gauze over the injuries. All through the process, Nero watched them both with heavy eyes, and the superimposed glamour stayed strong.
Bruce had finished putting everything away when Wulfric asked him a question. “So what are you going to do?” he asked. “About finding the demon and saving the world.”
Bruce turned back. He didn’t have a fucking clue. “You’re the one with fairy magic. You tell me.”
He thought Wulfric would treat it as a joke—that was what he’d done with just about everything so far. Instead, the man narrowed his eyes. Beneath his lowered lids, his blue eyes seemed to blaze. And well beneath the glamour, a kind of shimmer happened. It was like his blood suddenly started to glow.
While Bruce was still blinking to clear his vision, the sight disappeared.
“What did the prince tell you?” Wulfric asked.
“That I would be more.”
“Be more? Or have more?”
Bruce had to think back, but he thought he remembered the exact words. “Have more.”
Wulfric grunted. “There you go.”
Bruce almost said something caustic, but Nero beat him to it. “Use your words, Wulfric. Not all of
