Chương 26: 1-25 Blood in the night

By the time they peeked around the corner, Josef had already donned his mask again. Even if it was out of place, if it came to a fight then he wanted the added layer of protection for his identity. There was blood, alright, a large amount of it even, though what he saw wasn't at all what he expected. His concerns for Zippa's younger brother weren't entirely unfounded, as the reptile in question was involved in what was happening up ahead. However, he wasn't on the receiving end of the violence.

Bezzo was rather aggressively tearing at someone with his claws, rending flesh and sending blood spraying everywhere. The target of his attacks wasn't some fanatic elf as he had feared, though, but a beastkin. They were a lycan, most likely a woman, going by her build, and her light brown fur was stained with red streaks. Her state looked concerning enough to question how she was even standing, much less fighting as ferociously as she was.

There was an angry snarl etched on her face, and her eyes looked empty but bloodshot. Then Josef noticed a third person in this mess. There was someone on the ground on the opposite side of this fight, bloodied and unmoving.

"Shit, it's a feral." Zippa rushed ahead, clearly aiming to join his brother's fight. Josef suspected that there was something more to what he just said, but this wasn't the time to ask questions. He directed both Dusty and Nibbles under his breath. They were to join the brothers in their fight, providing whatever support they could. He slipped past everyone as quickly as he could to reach the downed person.

Meanwhile, he did his best to control the feeling of panic in his chest and called on the mana inside him to channel healing magic. His breath hitched and his hands started shaking as he kneeled down next to them. It was hard to identify what they even were. Not only were they face down on the dirt and thoroughly drenched with blood, but there was also so much missing. Something, or rather someone, had ripped off pieces of flesh, including ears, tail, fingers, and even part of the thigh.

As if some wild animal had tried to eat them. Going by the amount of blood pooling underneath the smaller beastkin, he suspected that their front half didn't look much better either, but he couldn't check without at least stabilizing them first. That was what he immediately started working on, as further blood loss needed to be minimized.

He immediately placed Regeneration on them to help with restoring blood and fighting infection, before switching to Greater Heal to focus on closing wounds and stopping the bleeding. The injuries he could see from his current position would be relatively easy to deal with, though by the amount of magic that drained away into the rest of the body, he could tell that those were far from the only issue.

Josef didn't bother wasting time on anything pretty or functional, so he simply closed the stumps on the fingers and tail, knit flesh where their ears once were, and restored blood flow through the thigh. It was a rush job of exposed flesh, not even bothering to add skin as he instead coaxed the blood-vessels to writhe like snakes as severed ends started reconnecting with one another. He only worked with the thickest vessels his magic encountered, clamping the smaller ones shut. That would have to do for now.

Then came the moment to turn them, and he did so without a care for the amount of blood his hands were getting smeared with. Between his prior treatments and the current level of adrenaline, he was somehow still coasting along without falling into shock. Even though the sight of their front half did its best to remedy that fact. Going by the face, Josef figured that they were likely another kind of feline, like Marik, though this one looked more like a cougar. Her face was frozen in a distorted expression of fear.

The horrific injuries continued on her front side, as he now came face to face with a torn throat, several severe lacerations on her arms, and an open stomach. He could even see some of her exposed organs. Was she even alive? Josef didn't make the time to check. He concentrated on the injuries. Every second was precious, and there was so much more to do. He didn't bother with anything more fancy than plugging the blood-flow of her lacerations, before moving on to the throat.

Lacking any intricate anatomical understanding of the area, he had to expend more magic to make up for that shortcoming. At least he knew to have it focus on the jugular and the windpipe. How was he going to free that one up from the blood that must be clogging it? He cursed out loud.

"Nibbles!" He didn't bother with detailed distractions, hoping the rat somewhere behind him could make time to help. His familiar had surprised him before. Maybe he could do something, like transferring the blockage to himself and coughing it up. That thought held a glimmer of hope. Now he just had to focus on her stomach. Desperately, he tried to shove whatever was hanging out back inside. Regeneration could take care of any infections, as long as he could get everything back into place.

If only he had any actual idea what he was looking at here and how he was supposed to fit it back together. Was that the liver? Maybe a kidney? He was pretty much breathing out expletives at this point. So what if he couldn't identify the parts? This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. There was always magic to make up for that. So he pushed. And his body screamed at him. His chest hurt and fingers began to darken.

Josef had almost run out of mana, and his body was paying the price for that overreach. He wanted to cry. To push just a little further. How could he stop now? He needed to save her. He…

"SQUEE" Nibbles was shaking and tugging at his arm, trying to pull him away as darkness had spread past his wrist. Josef didn't want to see it, but a pair of scaly arms came around his chest and fully pulled him away from the body. Was someone talking? Why were his ears ringing? It was deafening. Finally, his eyes met hers. There was nothing in them, as they were dull and glazed over. Her expression hadn't changed at all since he had begun his treatment. She was gone.

Josef didn't know how long he was kneeling on the bloody ground before his mind finally snapped back into place. At least his fingers were regaining their feeling as Nibbles took care of him. Getting a sense of his mana, he cast a Regeneration spell on himself. It was slow, but it would help. His eyes were fixed on the ground, unable to lift his gaze to the body in front of him. He couldn't stay like this, not right now. Something inside him scrunched up in defiance at what had happened, and it wanted him to move.

To do something instead of just sitting around. Turning away, he looked around to scan the rest of the alley. Bezzo was sitting on the back of the lycan, looking disheveled and his scales had been stained by blood, though thankfully it didn't appear to be his own. That, or Nibbles had taken care of whatever injuries he had sustained in his fight. The woman under him was looking much worse, with her arms twisted at unnatural angles and her ankles torn open.

He would have been concerned for her survival if her chest wasn't still rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Dusty was settled right next to her, his unblinking red eyes fixed on her body. She wouldn't be going anywhere, that much was sure. Finally, his gaze traveled up the hand that was latched onto his shoulder. He met the eyes of Zippa, whose gaze was full of sorrow as well as pity. He couldn't keep eye contact, not right now.

"What about her? Does she need treatment?" He eventually got the words out. They felt heavy and rough in his throat. Had he cried himself hoarse? He shook his head.

"No, she's… stable, though her mind's a different story."

"What happened to her? Why would she…" He swallowed, trying to repress the memories of the chewed up meat he had treated.

"It started a while back, maybe even a century at this point. Some sort of disease that afflicts the mind of beastkin. From one day to another, they seem to regress, becoming more animal than person." Bezzo sighed heavily as he picked up his question.

"Nobody knows where it came from, and there is no known cure, magical or otherwise. In very rare cases, someone snaps out of it later on, but no one knows why. Thankfully, it rarely infects us scalefolk. Otherwise, I would have just run away. Any sane beastkin would, because no one wants to risk spreading it." The description made him think of magical rabies, though that was probably a poor comparison. It sounded just as awful. Was he able to contract it himself? He really hoped he would be fine.

For once, being possibly part dragon was a relief.

"Has it ever affected elves?" Josef received a headshake in response. Then he was probably going to be fine himself, being similar to those as well.. He finally stood up, with some help from Zippa, and stretched his legs. He felt awful and everything hurt. In a way, this was worse than any injury he had suffered in the dungeon. This night had cut him deeply on a wholly different level.

"What should we do with her?" He gestured to the lycan, then immediately corrected himself.

"With them."

"Slit her throat and burn both of them." Bezzo's voice was cold and devoid of emotion.

"But your rabbit seems to have a problem with that." Had Dusty stopped him from killing that woman? Not that Josef wasn't grateful for his intervention, but that seemed strangely decisive from his familiar.

"Bez…" the older brother sighed.

"I understand where you're coming from, but there are nicer ways to say it." Josef noted that he didn't deny that course of action. He himself understood it on a fundamental level. After all, if a disease affected the brain, then there was a good chance it had caused irreparable damage. For that woman, death might be a mercy. And if this stuff was infectious, then cremation was the safer option. Still, if Dusty acted like that, then there probably was a reason for it.

"Does anyone have a way to make fire?" He almost whispered.

"Leave it to me. You go check on the other one." Zippa gave his shoulder another squeeze and stepped past him, partially blocking the view of the corpse. He did exactly that, trying not to pay too much attention to the burnt smell that was spreading in the alley as he did so. Under any other circumstances, he would have been amazed by a reptile literally breathing fire from their mouth, but not tonight. Tonight was completely and utterly fucked, and he couldn't even put into words how much he wanted it to be over.

"She's stable enough, though fixing her limbs is going to take some time. I'm surprised her bleeding has stopped already. Also, I have no idea why she isn't waking up." Bezzo snorted.

"That would be my poison, which spreads quickly through my claws. She's not going to wake up anytime soon with how much I clawed into her." Some sort of skill that poisoned his claws? Probably reduced blood pressure, too. That was a fascinating idea, and he wanted to inquire more, but that could wait until later.

"I'm gonna need some help to move her." He blinked as his thoughts continued.

"Actually, where could we put her? I don't want her in the basement where she could infect other patients." He couldn't bring her home either, because even if Zassa was safe, Coco certainly wasn't. Also, Dizzy's whole biology was weird, so that wasn't an option.

"This is madness. You can't heal a feral. Nobody has ever managed to do that. What makes you think-""Enough, brother. We'll take her home. We can put her in my room. It's isolated and has a lock." Zippa interrupted his brother's rant, stepping away from the burnt body. Then, seeing signs of further protest, he added, "No complaints. My life would be completely fucked without him, you know that. If a room is all he needs, then a room he gets. That's the least we owe him."

The older brother waved the younger off the lycan's body and gestured to him to grab her legs. Together, they lifted her off the ground with little effort and carried her away. As they moved, under his breath and with a brittle smile, he continued.

"Also, I believe in our friend." Josef wasn't so sure if he could believe in himself right now, as he decidedly didn't look back at the smoldering remains behind him. So much for having a nice evening.