I went to stand near him. "I'm sorry," I said.

"I'm not mad."

This close I could see that the front of his knuckles on both hands were raw as well. I frowned. "I didn't do your knuckles."

"Carpet burn," he said.

I looked at the bloody scrapes and made a face. "Ow," I said.

"I don't mind," he said.

Mary looked up at me. "That woman and man are in with Bert. They wouldn't leave without their son's things." She looked pissed. "I cannot believe that they abused you like that."

I licked the edge of my lip where Steve Brown had belted me and realized that it was healed. I'd put on lipstick and it hadn't hurt. Shit, and wow. A very positive side effect. It's nice that there were positive ones.

I touched my cheek where Barbara Brown had sliced me, and it still hurt. I hadn't seen it in a mirror, but it had probably looked worse an hour ago.

"I'll help you clean that up, when I'm finished with your friend," Mary said without a trace of sarcasm. Friend, without any double meanings. It wasn't just her typing skills that had kept Mary on as our daytime secretary. She had a real gift for taking things in stride. She had Nathaniel hold a gauze pad over his hand while she taped it. She hadn't put plastic gloves on. I couldn't remember if I'd told her what Nathaniel was, or not.

In human form he wasn't contagious, but she probably had the right to know. Almost as if Nathaniel read my mind, he said, "I tried to get her to let me clean it up myself."

Mary glanced back at me. "He told me"—she seemed to search for a word—"he told me, and I told him, that you can't catch lycanthropy from a human being."

Nathaniel looked up at me with those big eyes. The look said, I tried.

"You're right, Mary, in human form there's no contagion."

She smiled at Nathaniel in a very motherly way. "See?"

"Most people don't want to take the chance," he said, softly.

Mary finished bandaging his hand and patted him on the shoulder. "Most people are just silly."

He smiled at her, but it left his eyes wounded. Most people are just silly. She had no idea. I guess I didn't either, not really. I'd just begun to get the reactions from people who thought I was a lycanthrope. I hadn't lived with it for years the way Nathaniel had.

Mary turned to me, touching my cheek gently. She was shaking her head. "I wanted to call the police on them. It's enough to file assault charges." She started dabbing at the scratches. There must have been some alcohol in the stuff, because it stung.

I took a deep breath so I wouldn't wince. "I don't want to press charges."

"You feel sorry for them?" she asked.

"Yes."

"You're a better woman than I am, Anita."

I smiled, and the cheek was a little tight for it. "I've been hurt a lot worse than this, Mary."

"Never by a client," she said.

I let that go. There were stories that Mary didn't know, and we all stayed out of jail that way.

She was frowning at me. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you're healing."

"It's clean enough, Mary, thanks." I went around her to the desk and the bandages. I'd need a gauze pad bigger than the one on Nathaniel's hand. Of course, my scratches would probably be healed by dawn, and his hand wouldn't be. Damage that I caused seemed to heal as if another lycanthrope or vamp had cut them up. We'd noticed that just lately.

Mary turned me around with a hand on my shoulder. "You hold the gauze in place, and I'll put the tape on, just like I did for your friend." The look in her eyes said plainly that I was being silly, too.

I let her tape up almost the entire left side of my face just short of the eye. Barbara Brown had done this before, I'd have bet money on it. Women will try to scratch in a fight sometimes, but most of them aren't good at it. Barbara was good at it, like she'd had practice.

Mary looked at my torn nails. "Does that hurt as much as it looks like it does?"

I never know how to answer questions like that. Hell, yes, or how should I know? "It hurts," I said.

She handed me a small bottle of alcohol. "Take this and soak your hands in the bathroom until they stop bleeding."

I looked at her. "Hell, no."

She gave me the parental look. "You've ripped off most of the nails on both hands. Do you want to get infected?"

I thought about telling her that I couldn't get an infection, but we didn't know that for sure. I wasn't truly a lycanthrope, and while I'd gained their ability to heal, I had no way of knowing if I'd gained all their abilities to keep healthy. It would be a bitch to ignore Mary's advice, and then lose a finger to gangrene or something. But damn, it was going to hurt.

The door to Bert's office opened before I could run off to the bathroom. His face was very solemn, though there was something in his eyes, some flicker, that I didn't trust. Not suppressed laughter, but something.

"Anita, do you want to press assault charges on the Browns?" He said it straight-faced, in a serious voice. He spent a great deal of effort making me take all kinds of shit from clients and never before suggested we press charges.

I studied his face, trying to read where this was going. "No, I don't think that will be necessary."

Steve Brown showed at the door first, with his arm around his wife. "We are so sorry, Ms. Blake. Really, I don't know what came over us. It was... inexcusable."

"Thank you for not pressing charges, Ms. Blake," Barbara Brown said. She'd been crying, and the last of her makeup had worn away. She looked older than when she'd entered my office, and it wasn't just the lack of makeup. It was as if what had happened had sucked a little more of her life away.

"We just need our son's things, and then we'll go," he said. He looked horrible, too. Not that they shouldn't have looked horrible, but something else was going on. I didn't know what, but something wasn't right. Something beyond just grief and embarrassment, and fear of the cops.

"Mary will escort you into the other office for your things," Bert said.

Mary couldn't keep her opinion completely off her face, but she led them into my office. When they were out of earshot, I stepped up to Bert and said quietly, "What are you up to?"

He gave me innocent eyes, which meant he was lying.

"What did you do, Bert? You know I'll find out eventually, so just tell me."

He kept giving me that innocent blank face of his, with that false sincerity that was still in place for when the Browns came back out. I had an idea. But the act was so low I didn't think even Bert would have tried it.

"You pretended to call the cops, didn't you?"

He gave me a "who-me" look, which meant I was right.

"You took their check. The house check."

"Anita, even I wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, you would, if you thought you could get away with it."

His eyes thawed to their usually level of insincerity. "They're coming back, just smile and agree with me."

"Bert, either you tell me what you did, or I'll blow it all to hell."

He took hold of my arm, which he never does, and smiled over my head. "Ms. Blake needs a little more persuasion to agree to our deal."

"Oh, please, Ms. Blake, please, don't press charges. I don't want it in the papers that I'm crazy. Our daughters have seen enough bad publicity about us."

I turned and would have said something, but Bert whisked me into his office and closed the door. Unless I was going to put up a fight, I had no choice but to let him manhandle me a little.

He stayed by the door, with his back against it, as if he were afraid I'd bolt. "Anita, this is fair."

"What is fair?" I said, and my voice was already warming up, ready to be pissed.