Micah had told me his dad was five foot six, but he looked smaller in the hospital bed. His hair was auburn, but whereas Nathaniel's hair was a rich brown with red undertones that sometimes you noticed and sometimes you didn't, Rush Callahan's hair was more dark red with brown undertones in it. I wondered if he'd say he had red hair? I hoped he'd wake up enough for me to ask. Right now, his face held that slackness that only heavy drugs can give it; even sleep doesn't smooth out the face in quite the same way as heavy-duty painkillers. His skin was pasty pale, so that the few freckles he had stood out like brown ink spots, but underneath the much lighter skin tone and hair the bone structure was Micah's. Micah was so delicate for a man that I'd just assumed he looked like his mother, but he didn't. He looked like his dad. The biggest difference, other than the faint lines around the eyes and across the forehead, was the mouth. Micah's lips were fuller, more kissable looking. His father had thinner lips, more traditionally Caucasian male. I realized that almost every man in my life had full lips. I guess we all have preferences in partners that we aren't even aware of ourselves. Micah's father's hair was almost as curly as Micah's, though cut a lot shorter. But his dad's reddish auburn curls haloed around his face in a thick circle. His curl was looser than Micah's, or mine, but it was curlier than Cousin Juliet's. She was waiting out in the hallway. She'd wanted to give Micah some privacy, and she'd said out loud that she'd try to head off any relatives so the privacy would last longer. I think she wanted Micah to have a few minutes before he had to deal with any more awfulness from his family. Uncle Jamie and Aunt Bertie had been enough for one visit, though we'd probably be seeing them again, unfortunately.

Micah said, 'That's weird.'

There were so many possibilities for weirdness in that moment that it felt odd to ask, 'What's weird?' But sometimes you have to ask the obvious question.

'Mom used to help him with his hair, but once they divorced he cut it short because he couldn't deal with the curls. I haven't seen his hair like this since the year I was twelve. He must have a new girlfriend, or something, and I've never even met her.' The sorrow in his voice was nearly touchable, but since I couldn't touch his sadness I wrapped my arms around his waist and held him. His arm came around me almost automatically, his eyes staring down at the man in the bed. He'd put his sunglasses in their slim case that rode in the breast pocket of his suit jacket the way other people carried reading glasses. He stared down at his father with eyes that would be a stranger's eyes in his son's face. Like the mystery girlfriend who helped with curls, there would be a lot of catching up to do. I prayed that they'd get the chance to share all of it.

The room was dim, most of the light from the glow of one lamp near the bed. The drapes were drawn against the night, and the small beep of the monitors that let the nurses' station know Mr Callahan was still alive seemed loud in the silence.

Nathaniel came up behind us and put his hand on Micah's shoulder, because there wasn't room for both of us to hug him at once. Micah put up his free hand to cover Nathaniel's hand. There are pains too deep for words, but there's touch to say what words can't.

'Can you both smell it?' Micah asked.

Neither of us had to ask what he meant. Even with my human nose I could smell it: sickly sweet, but with a sourness underneath, so sweet seems the wrong word, but rotting flesh does have a sweet undertone to the smell of it. I'd spent most of my adult life smelling it at crime scenes and zombie raisings, though oddly the zombies that I raised didn't smell as bad as some. The amount of smell seemed to get worse the lower the power level of your animator. My early zombies had looked rotted, but they hadn't smelled that way. I'd seen other zombies raised that smelled as bad as a real corpse. The white sheet was raised on a framework so that it didn't touch Rush Callahan's body, like they do with some burn victims. Whatever wound was underneath that white, untouched dome of sheet had a faint scent of rot, like a preview of the corpse to come.

I swallowed hard; my throat was tight, and it wasn't because I was going to be sick. I'd smelled much worse. It was almost as if Micah were keeping such tight control on himself that someone had to cry for him. But damned if it was going to be me; I was here to be strong for him, not to be the first one to cry. I would not be this much of a girl, damn it!

Standing in that room with the smell of death already there, I hugged him tighter, because I didn't know what else to do. He rested his face against my hair and hugged me back. Nathaniel came in at our back, wrapping his free arm around me so that he could cuddle himself against Micah's back and touch us both.

There was a soft but authoritative knock on the door. It opened without our saying Come in, and in came a tall, thin man in a long white coat. He flashed a professional smile as he came through, cheerful and empty of meaning, because it makes people feel better when you smile. I knew the smile, because I had a client smile, too, and it meant about as much. You smile, because if you don't people worry more. He was a doctor, and people worried enough around him, so he smiled.

'I'm Dr Rogers; you must be Mike.' He held his hand out toward us, but mainly at Micah. He looked enough like his dad that there was no guesswork between him and Nathaniel.

'Micah. I haven't been Mike in a decade.' He let go of us enough to shake Dr Rogers's hand.

He turned to us, and I said, 'Anita Blake.'

Nathaniel shook his hand, too, and said, 'Nathaniel Graison.'

Rogers nodded and said, 'I'm glad you got here.'

Micah gave him very serious eyes. 'My mother told Anita that it was only a matter of time; is that true?'

'We've slowed the disease, but we have no way of curing it. I'm sorry.'

Micah nodded, looked at the floor, and reached back for our hands. I gave him my left hand, and Nathaniel hugged him on the other side, like I'd been doing when Rogers entered the room. The doctor's gaze flicked to the two men and me, then back up to the men. I thought he was going to say something unfortunate, but he was all professional.

'How long?' Micah asked.

'I can't answer that for certain.'

'Guess.'

'Excuse me?' Rogers asked.

'Guess, give me an estimate how long my father has,' Micah said.

Rogers shook his head. 'I'm not comfortable doing that.'

'All right, then tell me what you're doing to treat my father.'

Rogers was comfortable discussing that. There had been a few cases on the Eastern Seaboard that were similar, but not identical. 'Those patients died within hours, but I used their protocols on our patients here and it slowed the spread of the ... infection.'

'Is it an infection?' Micah asked.

'Yes.' He sounded very sure.

'What kind of infection is it?'

'It's close to necrotizing fasciitis, and we've treated it the same way, with removal of the necrotic tissue, massive antibiotics, and time in a hyperbaric chamber.'

'How much ... tissue have you removed?' Micah asked.

'As little as necessary.'

'That's not an answer, that's an evasion.'

'If you insist I can show you the wound, but I wouldn't recommend it.'

'Why not?' Micah asked.

'It won't change anything and it won't help anything. It's just an unnecessary visual for you.'

Micah shook his head. 'I need to know what you've done to my father.'

'I haven't done anything to him, except the best I could under the circumstances.'

Micah let out a slow, even breath.

I said, 'This isn't my father, but you're scaring me. Where was the bite?'

'His left arm.'

'Does he still have his arm?' Micah asked.

Dr Rogers made a face. 'Yes, but if we can't get it stopped we may try amputation, though honestly I think it will just slow it down, not stop it.'

'Did you try amputation with any of the other victims?' I asked.

'Yes, but either we didn't do it soon enough, or once the infection is in the body it hits the bloodstream almost immediately and that takes it throughout the body.'

'I have to see,' Micah said.

Dr Rogers didn't understand immediately, but I did, and Nathaniel did, because he said, 'Micah means he needs to see the wound.'

'Really, I wouldn't ...'