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Pushing Henry away, Sandy was buzzing with energy as she marched right up to the moaning ogre and poured all of her energy into slamming her fist, augmented with Kesini’s power, directly against its sternum, shattering it and its connected ribs, driving them into his lungs.
Mary grinned at Sandy as the ogre collapsed onto his face, unable to breathe.
Henry engaged his glamor and walked over to Sandy. “Did you know him?”
She looked at Henry, and he could see the pain in her eyes. “He-he tried to rape me when I last visited my parents.”
“But you stopped him?”
Sandy nodded.
“Did you know him?” Henry asked. Sandy shook her head. “How could he have known you lived here?” Henry asked.
She shook her head again, and he could see she was very disturbed. She also looked completely exhausted. He realized she must have used a tremendous amount of energy to fuel that punch. Henry hugged her and flooded her with energy from the rift once more. She smiled gratefully as he pulled back.
Henry walked back to the cruisers, watching at the three officers looking back at him. He returned to the talkative cop.
“How did he know she lived here. Sandy doesn’t know him. He did try to rape her, but she escaped-”
“We saw the video. We saw what he did and what she did back to him!” the cop exclaimed.
“This was while he was in jail? So, which one of you told him who she was and where she lived?” Henry asked loudly. It was a wild guess, but Henry gave it a shot.
The officer blinked, but he began to turn to face the officer next to the third cruiser. That man suddenly drew his weapon and fired, but Henry had his shield in place. The first bullet wasn’t for him but passed through the right bicep of the young cop. Henry leapt forward and got himself between them, so the second bullet didn’t reach the target.
The cop by the middle car was caught off guard and lost a chunk of his ear to a third shot before he dove for cover.
Mary slid over the car’s hood and took a round to the chest before she flattened the shooter. She had him on his belly in the slush, disarmed, and cuffed in seconds.
Henry saw Sandy was looking back at him. The ogre looked dead. Just as well.
Turning back, he saw the young man was leaning against his car, hissing in pain as he held his shoulder
“Do you want to call for assistance?”
“This is all of us! Only our captain isn’t here,” he snapped in his pain.
“Call him. Let him know what happened. I’m going to see if your partner needs healing,” Henry said as he moved to the man. It was a nasty wound. The bullet cut a track across the side of his head. Henry held his hand.
“I’m going to heal you. This might trigger your transformation. If you want me to do it, squeeze my hand twice.” He got two solid squeezes. “Okay.”
Most of Baba’s healing spells did nothing for the patient’s pain. Instead, he used magic to reroute the man’s pain signals to the pleasure center of his brain. Henry wasn’t a master surgeon like Eleanor or even a surgeon-in-training like Dayshia, but he could use his own reconstruction spells to have the body put itself back together. This injury was just surface level, so he wasn’t too worried about him being able to cope with it.
Henry launched his rebuilding spell on the man and watched it fill in the groove with new skin and cartilage. The cop’s eyes rolled back in bliss as Henry watched him closely.
The young cop squatted down to watch with wide eyes.
“Holy shit, Larry! Your ear is rebuilding itself!”
“Don’t talk to the patient while he’s healing,” Henry scolded as he didn’t want the man to move. He could tell the man was almost healed and was about to change.
The moment Henry felt it was done, he reversed the rerouting, and the man slumped. Henry pulled his hands back and looked to the young officer. “He’s going to go through his transformation.
The healed officer seemed to shrink a little, and his features sharpened slightly. The tip of his newly healed ear stretched up and back as his hair grew in length until it reached his shoulders. When it was over, they were looking at a new Fae. A very handsome one at that.
“What is he?” the cop asked.
Henry smiled. “He’s a Fae. He’ll be fine.”
A sedan pulled up behind the last patrol car, and a heavy-set man stepped out. He was in civilian clothes, but his mannerisms told Henry this man was the captain.Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.
“What the hell is going on here?” he bellowed. “Why is Steve cuffed on his belly in the snow? What the hell is that god awful thing lying on the lawn? Is it dead?” He glanced down at his unconscious officer leaning against the cruiser. “What the fuck happened to Larry?”
Then he looked to Henry. “Who are you?”
“Henry Gable. A good friend of Sandy Marlow.” He gestured for Sandy to approach. “Her parents owned the home behind us. We came back today so she could collect some personal items before the realtor puts the home up for sale.” He cocked his head as he looked curiously at the man. “How do you not know who that was on the front lawn? Where were you when he was killing his way out of the county lockup?”
“What? Glen! Why didn’t you call me?” the captain bellowed again.
The young man stammered but finally managed to speak. “S-S-Steve said he called you and said you wanted us to handle it ourselves.”
“Who is that?” the big man said, pointing to the ogre.
“Clifford Hicks. Steve’s cousin. He transformed this morning after breakfast. Killed two cops on his way out of the prison and came directly here.”
“Sandy, did you tell anyone you’d be here today?” Henry asked, curious about the impossible coincidence.
“Just my realtor, Patrick Morton,” she said.
“Steve’s brother,” Glen offered.
“I think you need to get a new realtor,” Henry suggested. She nodded with a frown.
“But why is Steve trussed up like that?” the captain asked.
Glen pulled his hand away from his arm. “He shot Larry and me, but this fella healed Larry.”
“Why the fuck would he shoot you?” the leader asked.
Henry frowned. “Glen was about to identify Steve was the one who told Clifford that Sandy was coming to town. I guess he didn’t like his odds of getting away with being part of the conspiracy?”
Glen nodded, then winced at the pain in his arm.
The captain frowned and looked at Henry. “Why didn’t you heal Glen?”
“If I had and he passed out and transformed, who would be left to answer your questions, aside from the man who shot at us to cover up his involvement with this entire mess.”
The captain finally noticed Mary. “And who are you-is that a bullet hole?”
She sighed as she looked down at her shirt. “Yeah, point-blank gunshots make a hell of a mess of my clothes. Your man Steve shot me when I went to disarm him after he shot your other men. I’m Mary Carsten, a friend, and co-worker of Mr. Gable. I was brought in to assist with the pacification of the ogre. Your men discovered their weapons had no effect on it. Nothing less than a fifty-millimeter will.”
The captain sighed as it seemed he wasn’t getting back to his dinner any time soon.
“We need to take all of this back to the station to get it all written down. Glen needs his arm looked after. Larry needs to sleep this off, and Steve is going into a cell. We’ll also have to bring in Steve’s brother. I don’t know what the fuck to do with that!” he said, pointing to the ogre corpse.
Henry looked to Mary, who shrugged. He looked back at the chief. “I suppose you don’t need it as evidence, and you’ll just incur the cost of transporting it and burying it?”
The chief scowled at him. “Yeah.” Grumpy for being reminded of his limited budget.
“You want me to dispose of it?” Henry asked.
“What? You’ll bury it?” the big man asked.
Henry shook his head. “It’s more of a cremation process.”
“What are you going to charge for this?”
Henry shook his head. “Free of charge. It costs me nothing.”
The leader frowned and walked over to take some pictures. He returned. “Fine. It’s all yours. One less headache for me tonight. I suppose you have another friend coming to dispose of the bod-”
The large tear opened under the heavy corpse, which dropped through to fall into lava. The sudden burst of intense heat melted all the nearby snow. The rip closed, and the body was gone.
“What the fuck…” the captain muttered, wide-eyed.
“Problem solved. Listen, I have to help Sandy collect the items she needs, and I’ll need to board up that broken window before coming to the station. That’s okay, right?” Henry held the man’s eye until the captain looked away.
“Yes, sure… Tonight?” the man said.
“Yes,” Henry assured him as he saw an ambulance arrive. Henry walked over to Sandy with Mary, and they walked back to the house. The police captain would have to figure out the logistics of getting four vehicles back to his station with one unconscious, one injured, and one homicidal officer.
This was no longer Henry’s issue. He looked at the sad expression on Sandy’s face. This was.
He pulled her into his arms, and she shook as the pressure released. He didn’t let go until she indicated she was ready to go back inside.
“Why aren’t I colder, standing out here in the snow?” she asked him quietly.
“We’re just not affected by the cold as much-no idea why,” Henry sighed.
As Sandy filled a small box with personal items from her parents, Henry dug around in the basement and in the garage with Mary looking for something to board up the broken window. They struck gold in the garage workshop. Mary was handy with tools, so she measured the opening and screwed some plywood sheets together to cover the window frame.
They collected Sandy and piled into her parent’s station wagon, Mary being the only one who knew how to drive, to visit the police station.
Three grueling hours later, they left the station and went back to the house. Henry and Sandy hugged Mary and Henry sent her back to her bedroom, and Roy. Henry sent Tish a text letting her know he’d be staying with Sandy tonight.
They left the house and stepped into Sandy’s living room.
Henry left a message with Camila to let her know he’d be taking a half-day off. As the office was closing at noon, that was no hardship. Sandy had no shifts until the following week as she’d booked the time off.
“Could we just snuggle tonight?” she asked.
Henry smiled at her. “No wild monkey sex?”
She snorted and slapped his arm. “No! I want snuggles!”