“It’s not always about one’s personal happiness. Sometimes it has to be about the obligation we have to others. A duty to pay back for the gift you were given.”

“Is that why you became a physician?”

Doolittle sighed. “I was already a physician, a very freshly minted one, but still a physician, when I realized I had medical magic. It came together with the shapeshifting. That last bit I had kept to myself. I wasn’t sure what to think or how to handle it. At that point, medical magic was new, and to have someone with the capability who already had medical knowledge was very rare. I was one of two physicians with medmage abilities in our graduating class. Jim’s father, Eric Shrapshire, was the other. We both found ourselves in a delicate position. There was a lot of pressure to go into research. We both received offers to go private, catering to a single family on an exclusive basis. A lot of the offers were very lucrative and I was seriously considering some of them.”

“So why didn’t you take them?”

“One night Eric called me and told me that he’d made up his mind. He’d watched a documentary on loupism. It affected him deeply and he realized this was his calling. In the chaos of post-Shift Atlanta, he realized that shapeshifters, with their regeneration and resistance to diseases, would be overlooked. The attention of the medical community would center on human diseases, because regular humans would be the most vulnerable. Normal people saw shapeshifters as monsters, and monsters would be the last on the list no matter how much they needed help. He felt he could make a real difference by working to aid shapeshifters.” Doolittle looked up at me. “He didn’t know I was one of the ‘monsters.’ He saw people in need being neglected and he chose to help them. He felt it was his duty, while I was selfishly trying to select the best combination of benefits and money. I decided then that I could do no less.”

Jim’s father had died for what he believed in. One day he was brought a child who’d gone loup and committed multiple murders. Despite this, he had hidden her rather than euthanizing her, as required by law. The crime was discovered, he was convicted, and in the first week of his jail sentence, another inmate stabbed him to death. Years later Jim had tracked down his father’s killer and made him pay.

“I had joined the Pack,” Doolittle said. “Took a new name. Beatrice, Aunt B, had vouched for me. She and my wife had been best friends.”

“I didn’t know you were married.”

“She passed away a long time ago. In another life.”

“If you hadn’t become the monster doctor, would you still practice medicine?” I asked.

“Yes.”