Chapter 8 : The Apothecary's Debt
The spice shop crouched between a pawn store and a defunct laundromat in a neighborhood that optimists called "transitional." The sign above the door was faded enough to be unreadable. A single light burned in the back room.
Monroe knocked in a pattern that suggested code. Three short, two long, three short.
The door opened to reveal a woman in her late twenties with dark hair pulled back in a practical ponytail. Her expression shifted through several stages as she processed the scene: Monroe bloody but mobile, an unfamiliar man half-conscious against his shoulder, the copper stink of recent violence.
Her woge flickered involuntarily. Fox features—pointed snout, intelligent eyes, ears that swept backward through auburn fur. Then human again, control reasserted.
[WESEN DETECTED: FUCHSBAU]
[THREAT LEVEL: D-RANK]
[BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS: CAUTIOUS, ANALYTICAL, HEALER'S INSTINCTS]
"Monroe, what the hell?"
"Rosalee, I can explain—"
"You brought a Grimm to my brother's shop." Her voice didn't rise. That made it more dangerous, not less. "A bleeding Grimm. While I'm here helping Freddy with his books. What part of 'keeping a low profile' did you not understand?"
"He's different." Monroe shifted my weight, and my shoulder reminded me that it still had opinions about movement. "And he's going to die if you don't help."
Rosalee Calvert looked at me. Really looked, the way a doctor assesses a patient or a predator evaluates prey.
"Bring him in. Don't touch anything."
The back room of the spice shop was half-storage, half-clinic. Jars lined the walls—glass containers filled with dried plants, powdered minerals, things that moved slightly when you weren't looking directly at them. A treatment table dominated the center, medical equipment mixed with implements I didn't recognize.
Rosalee worked with the efficiency of someone who'd done this before. My jacket came off, revealing the ruined mess of my shoulder. The four parallel lacerations were still bleeding sluggishly, the edges ragged where Blutbad claws had torn through skin and muscle.
"Blutbad claws." She didn't phrase it as a question. "Three attackers, based on the wound patterns. You're lucky they didn't hit the artery."
"I don't feel lucky."
"You wouldn't." She assembled supplies—antiseptic, suture kit, and several jars from the wall that smelled like forest undergrowth after rain. "Monroe, hold him down. This is going to hurt."
Monroe positioned himself at my shoulders, pressing me into the table. His grip was gentle but immovable.
"Wait," I managed. "What are you—"
Rosalee poured something from one of the jars directly into the wound.
The pain was incandescent. White-hot fire racing through nerve endings I hadn't known existed. I heard someone screaming—probably me—and then the sensation shifted. The fire became ice became something stranger, a crawling sensation like the wound was stitching itself together from the inside.
[FUCHSBAU MEDICAL TECHNIQUES - CATALOGUING]
[COMPOUND IDENTIFIED: ACCELERATED HEALING POULTICE]
[EFFECT: 300% WOUND CLOSURE RATE - SIDE EFFECT: SIGNIFICANT PAIN]
"Done." Rosalee set aside the jar. "The poultice will close the major damage in a few hours. You'll still need stitches for the surface tissue, but you're not going to bleed out."
My breathing came in ragged gasps. The pain was fading to a dull throb, manageable if not pleasant.
"What was that?"
"Old remedy. Fuchsbau medicine predates human hospitals by a few millennia." She threaded a curved needle with something that glowed faintly in the dim light. "This part is going to hurt too, but less. Try not to move."
The stitches were precise, professional. Rosalee worked with the focus of someone who'd trained extensively, despite her claim of just "helping with the books."
"You're wasted on bookkeeping," I said.
Her hands paused. "And you're wasted on breathing if you keep pissing off Blutbad packs. Monroe told me what happened. Three ferals doesn't happen by accident. Someone set you up."
"Yes."
"Any idea who?"
"Working on it."
She finished the last stitch and cut the thread. "Your ribs are fractured, not broken. I can wrap them, but you'll need to rest. No fighting for at least a week."
"That might be optimistic."
"I didn't say it was optional."
Monroe had retreated to a corner, cleaning dried blood from his hands in a small sink. His movements were mechanical, his expression distant. The kill was still fresh in his mind.
"Rosalee." I caught her attention as she reached for bandage materials. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. This favor makes Monroe and me square. After tonight, you're on your own."
"And if I wanted to change that?"
She stopped. Turned to face me fully. The woge flickered again—she was fighting to keep it suppressed, but my Grimm presence made control difficult.
"What exactly are you asking?"
"I'm building something." The words came easier than expected, maybe because the pain had stripped away my usual caution. "A network. Wesen who help each other instead of hiding from Grimms. I need people with skills—information, medicine, connections. You have all three."
"I'm not in Portland permanently. I have my own problems."
"Everyone has problems. The question is whether you want to face them alone."
Rosalee wrapped my ribs with brisk efficiency, but I could see her thinking. Calculating.
[RELATIONSHIP STATUS: ROSALEE CALVERT - CAUTIOUS (-5)]
[RECRUITMENT ATTEMPT: FAILED (PRELIMINARY)]
"I'm not joining your crusade." She finished the wrapping and stepped back. "But here's my number. For emergencies. And only emergencies."
I took the paper she offered. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
"What qualifies as an emergency?"
"You'll know when it happens." Her lips twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "Now get out of my brother's shop. You've attracted enough attention for one night."
Monroe drove through Portland's predawn streets, the city transitioning from night-shift gray to morning commute gold. I sat in the passenger seat, bandaged and stitched and filled with enough Fuchsbau medicine to make my thoughts slightly fuzzy.
"She's going to be useful," I said.
"She said no."
"She gave me her number. That's not no. That's 'convince me.'"
Monroe glanced at me. The hollowness from earlier had receded, replaced by something more complicated.
"You really are building something, aren't you? Not just hunting Wesen. Building."
"The old ways don't work. Grimms hunt, Wesen hide, everyone stays afraid. I'm offering a different arrangement."
"And what do you get out of it?"
I considered the question. The honest answer was complicated—survival, power, the System's relentless optimization. But underneath all that was something simpler.
"I get to stop being alone."
The admission surprised both of us. Monroe was quiet for a long moment.
"My place," he finally said. "You can crash there until you're mobile. And Cross?"
"Yeah?"
"If you're playing some long con, I will find out. And reformed or not, I will make you regret it."
"Understood."
The car pulled into Monroe's driveway. Dawn was breaking over Portland, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. My shoulder throbbed. My ribs ached. My body was held together with stitches, poultices, and borrowed time.
But I was alive. I had allies—tentative, suspicious, but real. And somewhere in my consciousness, the System quietly processed the night's data.
[LEVEL 4 CONFIRMED]
[BESTIARY: 4/200 - FUCHSBAU ADDED]
[ABILITIES: 1 (ENHANCED BLUTBAD SENSES)]
[PACK: 0/3 - RECRUITMENT IN PROGRESS]
The Bestiary grew. The network expanded. The hunt continued.
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