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  Healer’s Choice

  ( Ghostland - 3 )

  Jory Strong

  The author of Spider-Touched and Ghostland continues her tale of a postapocalyptic world where the afterlife has come to life…

  Born into a world of violence and paid-for sex, Rebekka longs for a family of her own and dreams of freeing those trapped in the shapeshifter brothels of the red zone. A witch’s prophecy claims she’ll one day use her gift to heal the Weres made outcast by their mixed human-animal forms.

  But Rebekka knows that everything comes at a cost. A plea to save five children sends her into the arms of Aryck, a Jaguar enforcer—and into territory controlled by pure Weres. It’s a place where humans and outcasts aren’t welcomed, where plague threatens and the fate of the Weres hangs in the balance. And where the choices Rebekka and Aryck make are paid for with their hearts…if not their souls.

  Healer’s Choice

  (A book in the Ghostland series)

  (2010)

  A novel by

  Jory Strong

  Thanks once again to my editor, Cindy Hwang,

  and my agent, Ethan Ellenberg. Your support of

  and faith in my work is greatly appreciated.

  Thanks also to Leis Pederson for her behind-the-scenes

  efforts and assistance, and to copyeditors Luann Reed-Siegel (Healer’s Choice)

  and Rick Willet (Ghostland, Spider-Touched), the unsung heroine and hero

  who’ve kept me from erring too egregiously.

  One

  THE demon caught Rebekka in the forest, turning day into night and nature into a seething weapon. He arrived in a tornado swirl of fury, encircling her in a wind of dirt and shattered trees and rocks from which there was no escape. Trapping her there until her heart threatened to burst and only terror filled her. And then he relented—allowing what was left of the trail she’d been running on to fall back to earth in a twisted, horrifying demonstration of his power—and that was worse.

  In the unnatural calm following the violence, he took form. A creature of nightmare. A dark-skinned thing heralding damnation.

  Leathery, batlike wings spread out to block the sight of anything but him. Fingers ended in wicked talons and yellow eyes danced with sinister glee. His forked tongue flicked out to taste her fear while a barbed tail coiled around his thigh like a living thing.

  His smile held a wealth of cruelty. His gaze held her immobile, trembling in the face of her own death.

  Lightning-fast his hand wrapped around her throat, a razor-sharp claw digging into her flesh, slicing through it with ease. But instead of delivering torment and death, he released her, drawing his hand back to lap at blood-covered fingers.

  “So there are other players in this game than the one I so recently encountered,” he said. “Your father’s involvement is a surprise. He had no love for humans when I was last among my kind.”

  He laughed, a sharp-edged sound sending shards of ice sliding into Rebekka’s spine. And then as quickly as he appeared, the demon dissolved into nothing, leaving her shaking as she surrendered to terror and sank to her knees at the center of the destruction he’d wrought.

  Rebekka pressed trembling fingers to the wound at her throat, stopped the flow of blood despite the wild pounding of her pulse beneath her fingertips. Nausea swelled in the aftermath of surviving the encounter.

  The sweat from her run became a cold clamminess on her skin. Shudder after shudder racked her frame as the demon’s words played over and over in her mind.

  Her features were those of her mother, as were the deep brown of her hair and the blue of her eyes. There was nothing in her looks to identify who her father had been, and she’d never asked. What child of a prostitute wanted to hear her mother admit she had no idea which man had left more than his money behind?

  Rebekka’s thoughts went to the place above her pubic mound where an ugly black circle with a scarlet red P in its center had been forcibly tattooed onto her skin. A terrifying memory from that day skirted at the edge of her consciousness. She reached for it but it eluded her as it always did, and she let it go, ashamed at the gratitude she felt for not having to confront whatever truth lay repressed by her mind.

  A different horror had her standing, frantically looking around for the Weres who’d been somewhere on the trail ahead of her when the demon arrived. Relief came with the absence of twisted, broken bodies. It swept through her and brought with it sweet denial and a refuge in purpose. Her ability to heal using her hands and will alone was proof there was no stain on her soul, no taint of it in her blood despite the demon’s words.

  Rebekka began running, scrambling and jumping over the demon-created debris. She caught up to the Weres a short time later. Of those waiting, only Levi appeared fully human, his lion form lost forever unless her gift deepened, strengthened.

  The six Weres she and Levi and Tir had freed from the maze less than an hour ago were grotesque mixtures of human and animal, made that way by a man using witch-charmed silver and torture to twist them into an abomination of form.

  Levi’s eyes flicked to the wound on her neck and his nostrils flared, his senses Were despite no longer having a lion form. “I smell the demon Abijah. What happened?”

  “He caught up to me then left. I’m okay.”

  She didn’t want to reveal what the demon said. In truth, she didn’t want to think about it at all or lose the shield of denial she’d managed to erect.

  Lion-gold eyes met hers for a long moment, as if Levi sensed an evasion. He let it go, and she turned her attention to the waiting Weres.

  There were five of them. Two Wolves, a Leopard, a Tiger, and Cyrin, Levi’s brother.

  Pity and anger and sadness churned together inside her. Horror for what they’d endured and for what they’d lost.

  “I’ve told them what their choices are and what to expect,” Levi said. “They all want you to heal them.”

  She looked at the gathered Weres and asked, “Who’s first?”

  The sole female stepped forward. Her body was wolf but her head was human. She was almost the complete opposite of the male. He had a wolf’s head on a body that was human except for the genitals.

  Rebekka knelt on the ground, telling the female, “It will be easier if you lie down.”

  The Wolf complied, stretching out though her body vibrated with agitation.

  Rebekka trusted Levi to have spoken the truth about what the Weres desired, but she couldn’t bring herself to use her gift without making sure the Wolf understood fully what her choice meant. “I can push the parts of you that are human back or I can push the animal away, so you’re one or the other. But if I change you, there’s no going back. You will remain in animal form or in a human one. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” The answer was growled with lips pulled back and eyes darkening with rage. “I am Wolf. My mate is Wolf.”

  Rebekka looked up to find the male had moved close enough to attack. He was tensed, but she’d lived in the Were brothels since she was sixteen, and with Levi at her back she felt no fear.

  She turned her attention to the female, reaching for calm and projecting it outward. She wasn’t telepathic but her gift allowed her to touch emotion, to use it when dealing with animals and Weres.

  “This won’t hurt, but it’ll feel strange, almost like you’re a piece of clay in the hands of a sculptor.” She placed her hands on the female’s furred shoulder. “Try not to offer any resistance. It’ll go faster and be easier for both of us if you don’t.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Rebekka closed her eyes, gathering her will to her as though it were something with form and substance. Her fingers tingled where they touched the Wolf, but the feeling passed quickly. In its place cam
e the stomach-dropping sensation of fingertips passing through furred skin, like the sliding of a blunt knife into soft clay.

  She became both sculptor and tool with the use of her gift. It was a melding that took her completely, sucked her in and blocked everything external out.

  It was instinctive, complex. In her mind she saw what needed to be re-formed, reshaped. She felt her will driving the human parts back and tugging the wolf forward, forcing change where it wouldn’t willingly come.

  By the time it was done and her hands dropped to her lap, she was light-headed.

  The Wolf sprang to its feet and backed away, telegraphing distrust despite Rebekka’s help. The male took his mate’s place, positioning himself on hands and knees rather than lying down.

  Weariness washed through Rebekka. Sensing it, Levi said, “Take as long as you need. The Tiger, Canino, is accompanying Cyrin and me to Lion lands. The three of us will make sure you get back to the brothel safely before we leave.”

  Rebekka reached for strength and found it. “I can keep going.”

  She placed her hands on the Wolf’s back. Though his mate had spoken for him, she still asked if it was his choice to become fully wolf. He yipped in answer, howled, and once again Rebekka let herself become her gift.

  The healing took longer. Rebekka knew it by the change in light, by the hunger pains reminding her it had been a long time since morning and breakfast.

  As soon as she lifted her hands from the male’s fur he sprang to his feet. But unlike the female, he didn’t back away in distrust. He stared, intelligent eyes meeting hers, holding a promise that if it ever came to pass that she needed his aid, he would help her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He turned away then and, with his mate, melted into the darkening forest.

  “You need food,” Levi said. “The others can hunt while I build a fire.”

  Rebekka glanced at the three remaining Weres. They were all big cats.

  Cyrin, Levi’s brother, had the flattened, maned face of a lion. His arms were furred, ending in paws with deadly, nonretractable claws.

  The Leopard had animal arms, legs, head, and back but human chest and genitals. A short distance away was the Tiger, a beast from his armpits down.

  Rage filled Rebekka looking at the men. It poured strength into her.

  What had been done to these Weres was criminal. It should never have been allowed by the vice lords who ruled the red zone.

  There were Weres in the brothels who were an abomination of shape, too. She knew some of their stories but none of them had been trapped and created through torture so they could be used for entertainment purposes.

  “I can do another before eating,” Rebekka said. Her gaze fell on the Leopard. With only his chest and genitals human, he would be the easiest—or so she thought until he indicated his choice, to take a man’s form.

  She was shaking with exhaustion by the time it was done, so tired it sounded as though the ocean thundered in her head. So weary she couldn’t find the strength to stand despite the smell of meat cooking in a fire pit.

  “Thank you,” the Leopard said.

  Curious, Rebekka asked, “Why?”

  “Because I have people to kill and this form will serve me best.”

  Levi returned to help Rebekka to her feet. The Leopard lingered only long enough to eat some of the cooked deer; then after accepting a knife from Levi, he, too, entered the forest, startling a bright red cardinal into flight as he passed under the branch it sat on.

  Food restored Rebekka’s strength enough for her to heal the Tiger, Canino, and then Levi’s brother, Cyrin. Both chose to take their animal forms.

  “Stay here for the night? Or go back to the brothel?” Levi asked.

  Rebekka looked at the rapidly darkening sky. “I’ve been away too long. By now I’ll be needed in the brothels. If we hurry we can make it back to Oakland.”

  Two

  BLOOD and bowel and death. The shallow grave was an afterthought. The burial meant to delay the discovery of the bodies, hiding scent until predators had destroyed answers to how and when and who, and nature had eradicated the trail leading back to where.

  The attempt failed. In jaguar form Aryck could easily find the answers to all those questions. Even why didn’t evade him, not when he felt the same seething emotions over the presence of human intruders in territory held by the Weres.

  Giving up the Jaguar’s black form, fur yielded to smooth, deeply tanned skin. Bones and organs reorganized, the pain sharp, excruciating, lasting only long enough to mark the transition between beast and man, to serve as a reminder of the covenant between his kind and the Earth that had given birth to them.

  Aryck remained crouched at the graveside, looking down at the man and woman he’d unearthed. His pack mate Daivat’s scent rose, intermingled with that of the dead.

  Arrogant fool, Aryck thought, lips tightening into a grim line as he surveyed the carnage.

  He reached in and grabbed the man’s blood-drenched shirt. Pulled the corpse from the shallow blanket of earth with easy strength.

  The head dropped as though it would follow the shower of dirt back into the grave. It remained held to the body by sinew alone, a testament to the powerful swipe of Daivat’s claws in what would have been a fatal strike, though whether it had come first or last was unanswerable.

  The human had been mauled. He’d been attacked in a rage Aryck knew stemmed from an urge not only to drive out an intruder but to prove himself, to issue a challenge to both the interlopers and, subconsciously, to the pack’s alpha.

  Aryck released the corpse. It landed on the rich loam of the shallow hole with a soft thud.

  He took more care with the female, rising to his feet as he lifted her. Her skirt fell open as he stepped backward, stirring the air and adding the smell of sex to that of death.

  Aryck placed her on the ground before returning to his crouch. The front of her blouse was torn and, like the skirt, opened to leave her bare and exposed.

  Bruises marred her skin. Black and yellow. Purple. Old and new alike. A long history of them on her arms and legs.

  His gaze flicked to the dead man in consideration, then back to the woman. Between her pubic mound and left hip she bore a tattoo, a solid circle of black with a bloodred symbol set in its center.

  Dried semen on her inner thighs told a complex tale. Not a single man, but many. All of them human. Except one. Daivat.

  Was it rape? Aryck growled low and deep in his throat. The thought of it was abhorrent, regardless of the species involved in the act.

  He studied the woman, looking for evidence to either condemn or vindicate Daivat of at least one of his crimes, then growled again in frustration at not finding any. Neither his jaguar senses nor his human ones could tell whether she’d given herself to Daivat willingly or not.

  The blood on her clothes and skin belonged to the dead man. Her death had been as quick as her companion’s, but not as messy, a snapped neck instead of a throat ripped open.

  Both killings happened more than a mile away in a tangled stretch of wild grapevines. And like the burial place, the attack was on Coyote land. It was forbidden territory to any Jaguar except those sent for the purpose of gathering information about the humans who’d arrived in a caravan of heavy trucks.

  Their encampment was guarded by uniformed men anxious to send bullets into live targets. The rattle of machine guns cut across the valley daily, scattering predator and prey alike with random bursts of violence and the senseless brutality that was the hallmark of the only-human race.

  Aryck rose from his examination of the female. He wondered what Daivat’s explanation of events would be.

  Entering the forbidden area alone was enough to warrant punishment. Killing the humans without sanction, then hiding the deed rather than coming forward and explaining the necessity of it, made what he’d done worse.

  Weres were three-souled. Man soul and beast soul living harmoniously and perfectly entw
ined in the physical world while the eternal soul resided in the shadowlands with the ancestors.

  In another Were, killing and hiding the deed might signify the beginning of a rogue state, an imbalance or separation of the man and animal souls. Aryck didn’t think that was the case with Daivat.

  This challenge had been a long time in coming. It was inevitable, but only a fool blinded by arrogance would issue it now, and under these circumstances.

  Pure jaguars were solitary creatures by nature, with males fighting to establish and defend their territories against other males. In Weres the animal need of their beast soul was tempered by their human one. It drew them together into communities, for fellowship and safety and to keep from losing themselves in beast form and beast mind. Even so, an alpha couldn’t afford to show weakness or he would find himself challenged by another male.

  Aryck’s fingers flexed in jaguar reaction, instinctively preparing for a fight as he reached mentally for the pack’s alpha, his father, Koren.

  The ability to communicate telepathically was rare among Weres, but it ran strong in his father’s bloodline. You found something? Koren asked without preamble.

  Yes. Aryck transferred images and perceptions to his father, starting from where he’d come across Daivat’s scent and traveling to the kill site, before ending with what he’d discovered in the shallow grave.

  Prostitute, his father said at the sight of the woman’s tattoo. There are settlements in the San Joaquin still following many of the laws enacted during The Last War.

  Though he didn’t elaborate further, Aryck knew his father hadn’t lain with one of the prostitutes, but had seen the tattoo in the days when he himself was an enforcer hunting Weres who fled a death sentence. The mating bond between his parents had been so strong that even though his mother died giving birth to him, his father had never sought another female, much less a human who sold herself.

  Do you want the bodies brought back to serve as evidence?

  No. Dispose of them as you see fit. Daivat remains away from camp. I will summon the pack to the challenge circle and confront him with his crimes once you’ve both returned.

  Aryck’s fingers flexed and phantom claws emerged. Inherent in his father’s words was a warning he should be ready to serve as the pack’s enforcer.