"07 - Burnt Offerings 4.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

He was pretty rather than handsome, and couldn't have been more than five foot
six. The hair helped the illusion of femininity. But his shoulders were
disproportionately broad, part weightlifting, but part genetics. He had great
shoulders, but they belonged on someone about half a foot taller. He had to be
eighteen to strip at Guilty Pleasures. His face was slender, jaw too smooth. He
might have been eighteen, but he wasn't much over. Maybe someday he'd grow into
the shoulders.
We were in a semiprivate room on the isolation ward. The floor that most
hospitals kept for lycanthropes, vamps, and other preternatural citizens.
Anything they thought might be dangerous. Zane would have been dangerous. But
the cops had carted him away, wounds nearly healed. His flesh had pushed my
bullets out onto the floor like rejected bits of organ. I didn't think we needed
the isolation ward for Stephen and Nathaniel. I could be wrong on Nathaniel, but
I didn't think so. I trusted Stephen's judgment better than that.
Nathaniel hadn't regained consciousness. I'd asked what his injuries were, and
they told me, because they still thought I was a cop, and I'd saved their asses.
Gratitude is a wonderful thing.
Someone had pretty much gutted Nathaniel. I don't mean just cut open his gut
with a knife. I mean opened him up and let his intestines fall onto the floor;
they found bits of debris on his intestines. There were signs of severe trauma
to other parts of the body. He'd been sexually abused. And yes, a prostitute can
be raped. All it takes is saying no. No one, not even a lycanthrope, would agree
to being raped while their insides were spilling onto the floor. The rape could
have been first, then they tried to kill him. It was a touch less sick done in
that order. A touch.
There were marks on his wrists and ankles like he'd been chained. The marks were
rubbed bloody like he'd struggled, and they weren't healing. Which meant that
they'd used chains with a high silver content so it would hurt and not just
hold. Whoever had done this to him knew ahead of time they'd be getting a
lycanthrope. They were prepared. Which raised some very interesting questions.
Stephen said Gabriel had been pimping the wereleopards out. I understood why
people would want something as exotic as a wereleopard. I knew that
sadomasochism existed. Shapeshifters could take a hell of a lot of damage. So
the combination even made a certain sense. But this was beyond sex games. I'd
never heard of anything this brutal outside of a serial-killer case.
I couldn't leave them alone, unprotected. Even without the threat of sexual
murderers, there was still the wereleopards. Zane might have cried and kissed my
feet, but there were others. If they had no pack structure, no alpha, they had
no one to tell them to leave Nathaniel alone. Without a leader it might be a
matter of having to back down or kill each of them individually. Not a pleasant
thought. Real leopards don't sweat who's in charge much. They don't have pack
structures, but shapeshifters aren't animals, they're people. Which meant no
matter how solitary and uncomplicated the animal form, the people half will find
a way to screw things up. If Gabriel had hand-picked his people, I couldn't
trust that they wouldn't come and try for Nathaniel again. Gabriel had been one
sick kitty, and Zane hadn't impressed me much either. Who you gonna call for
reinforcements? The local werewolf pack, of course. Stephen was a member of
their pack. They owed him protection.
There was a knock on the door. I took the Browning out and held it on my lap
underneath the magazine I'd been reading. I'd managed to find a three-month-old