The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

A Novel Wrinkle

Mordecai awoke with a gasp, sitting straight up in bed to stare wildly about the room. Was his mind still locked into the future? Or had he returned to the past as the explosion had ripped open the station corridor, a raw, seething mass of pyroken that easily overcame the station's safety fields.

And then his eyes quickly found a wan and exhausted looking Duffy, struggling to stay awake in the overstuffed chair he was occupying in the corner and he felt a wave of relief sweep through him. He was back. The Brit was looking out the room's only window with blood shot eyes, a thoughtful expression on his face as he watched the sun come up. Just as Mordecai's eyes fell onto the man, he spoke in a low, almost wistful voice.

"Well, what do you know? I'm still alive!" he murmured.

"Duffy?" Mordecai rasped hoarsely and the old Brit's head jerked around in surprise, his body tensing into a knot of anxious anticipation.

Only to relax when he saw Mordecai sitting up in the double bed occupying most of the simple room the vampires had given them. It was nothing more than a box with a window in one wall and a door in the opposite one, the bed and the overstuffed chair the only furniture decorating the white-painted chamber.

"Thank god," Duffy husked, a faint smile touching his haggard features. "You don't know how happy I am to see you in one piece!"

"Indeed," Mordecai replied, frowning as he felt his movement somewhat restricted by something tied around his ribs. Slipping a hand beneath the loose fitting shirt he was wearing, he wasn't surprised to find himself heavily taped and bandaged. From the beating he had taken at the hands of the werewolves the night before, he expected no less.

What was surprising, however, was the complete lack of pain from what should have been broken ribs and torn organs. Instead, there was a low sense of discomfort, as if he were sporting relatively minor bruising instead. A quick diagnostic revealed the answer to his unspoken question: his broken ribs, at least six in number, were almost completely healed. As were the lacerations on his kidney and liver, the deep bruising to other soft tissues virtually non-existent. 'I heal fast, but nowhere close to that!' He silently marveled.

Not only were his internal injuries well on their way to being completely healed, but the tears in his skin that the werewolf fists had ripped open were also just about gone. What the hell was going on here?

"Actually, Duffy, I'm somewhat surprised to find myself in one piece," he commented in a low voice, slowly shaking his head as he continued to probe at the expertly wrapped bandages. "From the pounding I took, I should be unconscious for the next three or four days just so my body could assess the damage. Yet, here I am, actually sitting up the next morning." He paused there. "This is the next morning, isn't it?"

"It is indeed, old bean," Duffy confirmed with a tired nod. "You haven't been unconscious for more than nine hours or so."

"How the hell is that possible?" Mordecai wondered out loud, pushing aside the blankets that had been covering him to carefully swing his legs over the side of the bed. The floor was slightly cool to the touch as his bare feet touched it. A quick glance yielded that he was wearing a loose-fitting pair of sweat pants now, instead of the slacks he had on in the garage. Somebody had changed his clothing and he was willing to wager that it wasn't Duffy.

The ex-patriot detective shrugged.

"To tell you the truth, I haven't the foggiest. However, it could be something to do with the fact that they pumped nearly two litres of whole werewolf blood into you, straight from the most available body."

"Werewolf blood?" Mordecai echoed with a frown. Well, if that were the case, his rapid healing certainly had an explanation. Psionic scientists and doctors had long proposed that werewolf blood contained a virtual soup of hormones and growth factors essential for maintaining their enhanced bodies.