Chapter 8

"What is it with Werewolves and walking?" Billy asked rhetorically under his breath after fifteen minutes of hiking, most of the time crunching through various floras in the dark.

"It's good for you," I called over my shoulder. "You never see a fat Werewolf, now do you? However, I have seen quite a few plump little Witches." I smiled as he grumbled some more, panting.

"It sure is beautiful out here," Marcus said softly, showing no signs of exertion. "The stars and sky are wondrous."

"Montana is called 'Big Sky Country'," Javen told him from the front of our group, his dark cloak billowing slightly as he moved. "Besides the rugged, adventurous landscape, it's the sky that brings people here."

"The only time it really sucks is in winter," I commented, lifting my own cloak up a little so it wouldn't catch on a bush. "The snow glare is brutal. I swear this is the only state where dark-tinted sunglasses are required pretty much every day, year-round." I sighed quietly. "I do miss it, though, sometimes. The sky just doesn't feel the same elsewhere."

"Finally," Billy panted dramatically as we stepped out of the undergrowth and tree line into a cleared field packed with people, lanterns placed here and there for light.

Making our way towards the center, we passed people in various stages of grief. Some were openly weeping, others looked like they'd withdrawn into themselves, a few were angry. I spotted several of my one-time enemies, though I wasn't sure they saw me; one of the reasons I had my hood up.

The other was that it helped buffer the miasma of emotion that threatened to overwhelm me. I was a relatively weak Empath, meaning I could feel what others were feeling, but only if they were feeling it very strongly. With a field full of mourning people, I needed all the help I could get.

Finally making it through the crowd, we found ourselves facing a raised stone platform, the mounds of the dead resting on it. Around the perimeter of the crowd were four people in chairs; the only ones not standing.

"Ramirez, is that you?" a woman's voice asked from one of the chairs.

"Hello, Maggie." I walked over to her, kneeling down so she wouldn't have to crane her neck. Her rich chestnut curls were matted, her creamy skin drawn and pale. She wore her right arm strapped to her chest and I could smell her pain; she also seemed to be keeping her weight off her right side. "You look like hell," I told her.

"I have no doubt," she grimaced.

"Why aren't you healed more than this?" I asked them all, gesturing to the various splints and bandages on every one of them.

Werewolves heal really quickly and can heal even faster if they Change one way or the other; even if it hadn't been a full day, they should have been better along than this.

"Doctor Westen said we should wait until tomorrow to Change," Benny said, his head wrapped up with gauze. "Wanted us to heal the worst first, in case the Change would have us heal incorrectly." Such things weren't unheard of, just not very common. It tended to happen most often with crushed bone and damaged organs.