"We need you back with us now."

I nodded, then closed my eyes, because it made the inside of my head fuzzier for a moment. "Agreed," I whispered, "how?" I opened my eyes, and fought to focus on that lovely face, the gray eyes that looked blue tonight with the dress and the eye shadow.

"Call the munin, Anita. It will clear your mind, and heal much of this damage."

I frowned at her. I must have heard her wrong. "Call munin, now?"

She nodded. "Raina could heal this."

I closed my eyes and fought, fought hard to gather my thoughts and explain why this was such a bad idea. Munin were the ancestral spirits of the wolf pack. But they could be a lot more "lively" than just normal ancestor worship. Especially if you had psychic ability, or, most yummy, talent with the dead, the munin could be much, much more lively. Raina was the old lupa of the pack. I'd killed her because she was trying to kill me. The munin could "possess" people who had the talent for it. I'd become her favorite ride. I'd spent a long, long weekend in Tennessee with my spiritual teacher, Marianne, learning how to control the munin in general, and Raina in specific. Micah and Nathaniel had gone with me to "help" me deal with it. I'd asked Richard first, wolf business and all, but he had flatly refused. Raina was dead. He wanted nothing more to do with her. Neither did I, but I didn't have a choice.

She'd been a sexual sadist, but she could also heal with sex. It didn't have to be full-blown sex, she just liked it tliat way. I'd tapped into her power a few times to save lives, but the cost had been high. Her memories alone were worth avoiding. The ardeur wasn't normally a thing of healing, and Jean-Claude had speculated that the fact that I could heal with sex and metaphysics might be more because of Raina's munin than vampire powers. It was almost as if the more often I was used by, or borrowed magic from, someone else, the more likely it became tiiat their magic would become part of my arsenal. Raina had played with me enough that it had somehow effected the ardeur, or that was the theory. Why not use the ardeur to heal the hand? Healing with the ardeur was catch-as-catch-can; sometimes it worked without your wanting it to work, and sometimes it didn't work at all. I did my best to explain it out loud. "Not sure I can control her, like this. Bad, if she's in charge."

"You are badly hurt, Anita. If you were truly vampire, then you'd need more blood. A lot more than normal. Jean-Claude thinks that the ardeur will rise and try to feed that need."

I frowned harder at her. "I don't. . ."