“I’m fine.” Cheyenne stretched out her arms and grimaced. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Probably.”
“It’s bad, kid.” Corian nodded, and Lumil ran toward them from the other side of the warehouse, pushing a wheeled office chair ahead of her.
Shrugging out of her backpack, Cheyenne eyed the chair and the dark bloodstains covering the upholstery.
Lumil slowed down, glanced at the chair, and shrugged. “I disinfected it.”
“Great.” The halfling slumped into the chair and clenched her eyes shut. At least they’re not tying me down for an interrogation like they did with the last guy in this chair.
She shivered, her teeth chattering as a wave of chills washed over her.
Corian stood beside the chair and gently guided her to lean forward. “Take off the shirt, Cheyenne.”
“What?”
“Whatever that was got you everywhere. Take it off.”
Persh’al swallowed and turned away. Gritting her teeth, Cheyenne lifted as much as she could of her shredded shirt over her head, and Corian quickly helped her with the rest of it.
She looked down at her bare chest and stomach, smeared with blood above hundreds of tiny puncture wounds. Her teeth chattered again, and Corian looked her over carefully before pointing at her backpack. “Salve in there?”
“Yeah.”
“Persh’al, get it.”
The troll stepped sideways, trying not to look at the shirtless Cheyenne while reaching for her pack.
Cheyenne rolled her eyes and laughed despite how quickly the rest of her was going numb. “Dude, I’m sure you’ve seen worse than a drow in a bra. Just get the damn jar.”
He glanced at her with a frown, snorted, and moved a lot faster when he wasn’t trying not to look at her. The jar of darktongue salve came out, her backpack thumped to the floor, and then Corian held the large brown glass container and unscrewed the lid.
Cheyenne rocked forward in the office chair, her eyelids fluttering again as another wave of chills washed over her and made her shiver.
“Here.” Byrd appeared out of nowhere with a handful of towels, but Corian brushed him aside.
“We don’t have time. Persh’al, I need extra hands.”
“Mine?”
“Now!”
Persh’al leaped toward them, and the last thing Cheyenne saw were four hands reaching toward her, two of them covered in tawny fur, two of them light blue, covered in globs of the sticky white healing salve. A second later, her arms were pulled gently forward by someone she couldn’t see. Then the darktongue salve did its work.
The flesh on her arms felt like it was on fire, raging all the way up her neck and spreading into her cheeks. Cheyenne screamed and lurched back in the chair.
“Keep going,” Corian muttered.
“Seriously?”
“If she loses any more blood, we’re in trouble. Keep going.”
Cheyenne’s teeth chattered again, despite how hard she clenched her jaw against the agony in her arms. If I don’t bleed out in this warehouse, this damn salve’s gonna kill me anyway.
Corian grabbed her by her blazing shoulders, his tawny brow creasing in concern. “Sorry, kid.”
Even if she’d been able to speak, she wouldn’t have had the time to ask what he was doing. The nightstalker pressed down on her shoulders, and Cheyenne couldn’t help but lean over her lap. Then his hands covered the puncture wounds bleeding freely on her back, and a new wave of searing agony washed over her. The pain pulsed up her spine and neck like her drow magic, bursting into her head.
“Damn.”
Persh’al’s whisper registered somewhere in the back of her mind, but that seemed to be disconnected from her body. I’m screaming. I have to be screaming right now.
The rest of the darktongue salve was quickly applied, but Cheyenne could no longer tell where that was or how much more was needed. She slumped over her lap again, gasping and blinking away tears of pain. Finally, the burning racing across every inch of her skin died as the healing salve finished its job. The in-between monster’s puncture wounds healed from the inside out, and the only proof of their existence were the smears of blood on her arms, chest, and back.
Cheyenne drew a long, shuddering breath and ran her hands through her white hair, then propped her elbows up on her knees and held her head, not quite ready to open her eyes yet.
“There.” Corian nodded and stepped back, studying her. “Good work, Cheyenne.”
She blew out a breath and shook her head.
“You okay, kid?” Persh’al stepped toward her chair, and she looked at him with glazed eyes.
“Sure. As long as I don’t have to do that again.”
Corian’s mouth twitched into a grim smile. “I don’t think we missed anything.”
Lumil returned with a bottle of water and cracked it open before handing it to the halfling, her yellow-orange eyes wide with caution.
“Thanks.” Cheyenne guzzled half the water and ignored the streams of it spilling out of her mouth when her hand started shaking. She wiped off her chin and sat up in the chair. “Now what?”
“Now you get to tell us what happened.” Corian folded his arms and studied her.
“I don’t know what happened.” Cheyenne met Persh’al’s gaze. The blue troll shook his head. Nobody knows.
Corian watched their exchange and cleared his throat. “Start with when you got separated.”
“That’s pretty much it. We got the orcs through the doorway to whatever rez is on the other side.”
“Rez 17.”
“Okay. Then those things attacked Persh’al and me again. And I saw—” Her eyes widened, and she reached into her pocket to pull out the silver coil of Elarit’s activator. “I was still wearing this, and I saw something inside those monsters. It wasn’t like code, just a bunch of flashing lights and symbols. This thing wouldn’t translate them for me, but I think the creature I was fighting knew I had it. That I could see inside its skin.” She looked at Corian and shook her head. “I think it wanted to make sure I
