"I'm gonna shower. If you see ninja doctor tell her thanks for the slime." I grabbed my bag and stormed down the hall. At least I had learned from previous mistakes and had packed some extra clothing along with my armor and weapons. A man should always have access to emergency pants.

I found a bathroom, eagerly stripped out of my torn clothes, and jumped into the scalding shower. I had not thought that anything could be grosser than the wight and vampire fluids I had been sprayed with on the freighter, but I had been very wrong.

Under closer examination the stuff appeared to be vegetable-based, except for the particles that I hesitantly identified as ground bones or teeth. Skippy's wife was one weird chick, not that he was exactly a bastion of normalcy himself. As I was scrubbing the filth off under the stream of hot water I realized a few things. First, I should have been in intense pain from the water striking my injuries. Second, I wasn't in any pain at all.

As the stuff was sluiced away, I discovered that rather than being inflamed and scabbed like my arms should have been on the day after such an accident, they were mostly clear, with only smaller spots of scabbing where the very worst of the injuries had been. The gashes that Holly had sewn shut looked like they had been stitched a week ago instead of last night.

Stepping out of the shower I held my arms above my head in amazement. Other than the discoloration and missing hair, the formerly destroyed patches were well on their way toward healing. I turned my arms over, disbelieving what was directly in front of my eyes. It was a miracle. I quickly dried off and dressed.

I found the others in the kitchen. The smell of coffee was strong, and Holly was frying some eggs over the stove. Trip was leaning against a counter, subgun still casually slung and steaming mug in his hands. Gretchen was nowhere to be seen. Skippy's people did not seem particularly social. Surprisingly, Julie was out of bed and sitting at the improvised table, laughing and talking with the others. She had a small bandage on the side of her head, and there was a larger bandage peeking out from under the edges of her shirt. She smiled when she saw me enter, and she looked a thousand times better than when I had brought her here only twelve hours ago. Other than the fact that everybody was armed, and there was a flamethrower sitting in the corner, it looked like a breakfast commercial.

"Good morning, Owen," Julie called happily.

"Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes," Holly added. " 'Bout time you rolled your carcass out of bed. Thanks for all the help with cooking. Both of you."

"Hey, I'm on guard duty," Trip said as he patted his H&K.