“Come on, Eric. You know I’m not a regular doctor. I see you haven’t broken your nose again.”

“You did such a good job with it last time, I’d hate to mess up your work.”

“Doc’s on retainer for us,” Gabriela says, stepping into the room. I catch a glimpse behind her. She’s built this surgical suite inside her warehouse. Between the infirmary and a mage doctor on her payroll, I wonder how much use she’s getting out of it. She doesn’t do anything without a reason, so things must be worse for her than I thought.

Now that she’s not doing her Old Hag of the Woods shtick, she’s gotten a lot more colorful, and clearly gives no fucks about it. Purple jeans, sparkly Doc Martens, a t-shirt for some punk band called Bad Citizen Corporation.

She dyed her hair since the last time I saw her. Red fading into purple, with blue highlights. It’s pulled back in a ponytail, and despite her My Little Punk Pony getup she gives off this sixties rebel, Che Guevara vibe.

Of course, that just might be because of the big fucking machete in a scabbard across her back.

She throws a white button-down shirt at me. “That should fit. I understand you and the doc know each other.”

“Not anymore,” Vivian says before I can open my mouth. The pause goes on a little longer than anybody’s comfortable with.

“Okay, then,” Gabriela says. “Moving on.”

I pull the shirt on, wincing as I lift my arm. Even with healing magic, that’s gonna suck for a few days at least. The shirt’s a little too tight across the shoulders, but it’ll do.

“I like the My Little Pony look,” I say.

“Thanks. Since I can’t scare the shit out of the Mexican Mafia as somebody’s nightmare grandmother, I figured I’d go the other direction and really make them underestimate me.”

“Is it working?”

“You want to see the heads I’ve collected?”

“Maybe later. How bad was I?”

“Almost dead,” Vivian says. “A couple more minutes and you would be. Dan could have done a hell of a lot worse to you.”

I slowly slide off the table. I accidentally brace myself with my left hand and pain shoots through my arm. Yeah, I’ll be popping Vicodin like breath mints for the next week or so.

“Wait. Who?”

“Dan Malmon,” Gabriela says. “I had one of my guys run the address you gave me. The guy who died in the fire was his mother, Kate. She was one of us.”