“No,” Jillian whispered hoarsely, as it opened its mouth, revealing jaws that would have put any Great White shark to shame. “Oh God, no please—please, don’t bite me!”
She wanted badly to scramble up and run away, through the small metal door that led to the much larger interior of the warehouse. But she was so weak by this time all she could do was scoot a bit on the blood-slick floor. To her left, the body of Jimmy Moreno still stared sightlessly at the ceiling. And looming over her was the Ursus, its massive, powerful bulk seeming to suck all the oxygen out of the small room.
Suddenly, it snaked out a surprisingly long, pink tongue and lapped at her wounded side.
“Please!” Jillian begged again—this time it was almost a scream—would have been a scream if she could have gotten enough air in her lungs.
She knew what was going to happen once it got a taste of her blood—it was going to decide it wanted a bite of her flesh. And then it would sink those horribly long, steak-knife teeth into her body and bite right through! She was sure that would make the knife wound Jimmy Moreno had given her seem like no more than a paper cut.
The vision of what was to come was so incredibly sharp and vivid in her mind, that she was absolutely certain when the Ursus opened its mouth wider, it would be to bite.
So she was greatly surprised when, instead of taking a bloody mouthful out of her side, the enormous beast instead took her sodden chef’s smock between its front teeth and tugged it delicately away from her wounded side.
Jillian had been trying to keep her right hand—the un-mutilated one—clamped over the wound. But the Ursus nudged it gently but firmly aside, baring the place the knife had punctured her abdomen.
By now, she was frozen in fright. It was the same way she had felt when the Ursus was fighting the Trolloxes—she was completely unable to move—paralyzed with fear. But she was so weak with blood-loss, she couldn’t have run even if she’d been able to make her frozen legs move. She just lay there in a pool of her own blood, feeling like the shadow of death was moving over her and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it…
The long pink tongue snaked out again, sliding over her wounded side with surprising delicacy. Jillian gave a hoarse little yelp and squeezed her eyes shut.
This is it—this is how I die. Now that it’s got a taste of my blood, it’s going to want more. It’s going to eat me alive—rip into me just like the dog ripped into Lucy. I’m dead…I’m dead!
Only…the Ursus didn’t sink its teeth into her. She kept expecting it to—kept expecting it to bite down and rip into her with its massive jaws. Its head was bigger than her torso, after all—it could bite her in two without a second thought.
But instead of biting, the huge beast just kept on licking her. Licking and licking the place where Moreno’s knife had exited her body. And everywhere it licked, Jillian felt a kind of healing warmth. It almost felt like someone was pouring warm, soothing water over her injured flesh and not just over her flesh but into it as well. With some surprise, she realized that—as the Ursus delicately probed the wound with his tongue—she felt the warmth seeping inside her.
“What…what are you doing?” she whispered, opening her eyes and looking down at herself.
The Ursus had pulled back for a moment and was considering her wounded flank. He tilted his head from side to side as he examined her, looking for all the world like a worried doctor, wondering if his patient was going to make it.
To Jillian’s surprise, the knife wound was no longer pumping blood. In fact, it was barely visible at all. Instead of a bloody gash, there was only a small pinkish line, like a newly healed scar.
“Oh…” she whispered, staring down at herself. “Oh my God—how did you do that?”
Of course, the Ursus didn’t answer. Instead, he put out one shovel-sized paw and very gently inserted it under Jillian’s shoulder. Then he gave her a little push. After a moment, she realized he was trying to get her to roll over.
“Do…do you want to lick my back, too?” she asked the massive beast. Then she berated herself—how stupid was she, talking to it like it could understand her?
But to her surprise, the Ursus looked directly at her and nodded its huge head up and down once, very decidedly.
Maybe he does understand me, Jillian thought, feeling dazed. And maybe he really did heal me—how else could the wound close like that?
Slowly, her terror of the big beast began to slip away. It stood to reason that if the Ursus wanted to eat her, he already would have. Instead of biting her and mauling her as she had feared, he appeared to be focused on healing her—just like Kalis had promised. And also, she was thinking of him as a “He,” not an “it” anymore, she realized. When had that happened?