saw a shimmer near his right shoulder. A bird-shape hovered just on the edge of visibility, but I was

more worried about the body on the bed and what it was doing to Christophe.

Another long gulping swallow. Christophe sagged, catching himself on the operating table with his

free hand. The fox twined around his ankles, its brush losing the touch of faint color.

Stop it! I wanted to yell, but I couldn’t. I was only observing. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do.

I couldn’t even move.

BOOM . . . BOOM . . . BOOM. The thuds startled me. If I hadn’t been nailed in place I would have

jumped like a cat finding a snake. The feathered wingbeats came back, brushing all up and down

my body—or my unbody, because my real body was lying on the bed.

The mess of my left shoulder was knitting itself back together. Faint color tinged through the tissues, like the tinting on those antique photographs. A pink bloom spread out from the swiftly healing wound, the splinters of bone easing back together with little whispering sounds and the muscles

sliding up, shards of metal oozing free on a slick of clear fluid before the skin wrapped itself up.

The wound flushed an angry deep red for a moment. Then my shoulder made a convulsive movement, and there was a meaty thud. The ball of the humerus socketed itself back in, and the sound

was a shockwave all through me.

Tingles started at the top of my unhead. Christophe’s knees buckled, but he kept himself upright.

“Take what you need,” he whispered to the blind face on the table, its hair writhing and waving just

like a vampire’s. “Take everything if you must. Just live, little bird. Live.”

The thudding grew closer together, beats blurring like hummingbird wings. The tingling intensified

as color ran through the rest of my body. The rags of my T-shirt were dark blue and spattered with

drying blood, and one of my breasts peeked out momentarily through a rent in the fabric. Faint faraway embarrassment scorched all through me. My skin began to take on a blush, hideous in the

middle of that black-and-white world.

Every part of me that wasn’t lying on the table lunged for release, battering against the huge weight

pressing down, keeping me immobile. The body on the table inhaled through her nose, a slight

wheezing sound because of caked crusted blood.

And it began another long, sucking gulp.

Christophe half-fell against the beeping machines, driving them toward the wall. He braced himself,

and his face turned up to the ceiling. His mouth fell open, and his eyes rolled back until all you

could see were the whites. His hips jerked forward and he almost fell again, chipping and cracking

the heavy plastic case of the machine showing the high hard spikes of my heartbeat. The screen

fuzzed out with static as I glanced at it, and sparks flew.