injuries. Is this also because of the gray zone pollution?"
"Yes. It is the only variable, the only change to the energy here that makes sense." Valkyrie paused, gathering her words with care. "Hence the physical abuse." She looked away as she spoke. "Before this was a sensationless realm. Only human blood, which rarely crossed over into our world, could be tasted, fulfill blood hungers ... and only human flesh could fulfill the baser hungers. But once the leaks became significant, no entity was safe. They'll even eat their own, as you saw."
"We need to go over that ridge," Carlos said through his teeth. "Right now I really don't care how many of them are over there, D."
"Will healings work here, you think? Those not mortally wounded - maybe I could relieve some of their pain?" Damali held out her hand for Valkyrie to grasp in a warrior's embrace. "Starting with your heart," she murmured. Valkyrie nodded as she clasped Damali's forearm and slowly entered her embrace. "My Neteru Queen, it has been broken into a thousand pieces," she whispered against Damali's hair. "I can't save them ... I fought as hard as I could, but I couldn't save them all and those left..."
Damali dug the Isis into the floor and rubbed Valkyrie's back. Wings wrapped around wings and Damali held her sister warrior until the quiet sobs abated. "Let me see your injured. Maybe the Caduceus could help?"
Valkyrie nodded and began to lead Damali and Carlos through what had become a makeshift ward. Every few paces they stopped, stooped down, and placed their hands on a maimed or injured hybrid until both Neterus were drenched with silver healing sweat and panting.
"Call for the Caduceus," Carlos said. "We aren't even a third of the way through, and you'll burn yourself out, D. I will, too, and we might have to fight our way home." They joined hands and called out with a singular urgent prayer, and were rewarded by the warmth of heated metal soon entering Damali's palm. Walking the ward together with the healing staff, Carlos held agonized hybrid bodies in place as Damali administered the golden light of healing peace to all those who'd been torn and battered. However, those too far gone simply slipped away with a smile on their faces, and before long, Damali had tears streaming down her cheeks as so many called out to her, "Powers angel, hear my cry and take me home - send me beyond here. Don't let me live." At one point, Carlos had to make her stop as sobs over came her. Damali buried her face in Carlos's chest, heaving in shuddering breaths when she came upon one border-raid victim who had been so badly molested he had gone psycho logically blind. The huge demon hybrid reminded them both of Hubert. His wings had been ripped away, leaving bloody gristle and exposed sockets. Deep claw gashes filleted his back and hips and thighs. He simply stared at Carlos with blind eyes and asked in a quiet, dignified voice that they let him die. When Damali had neared him with the Caduceus, he held up his hand.
"No, please," the unknown soldier said in a soft, broken voice, and then turned toward Carlos's energy. "Like a war rior ... not defiled and then healed and left to remember."
Carlos nodded, lifted his blade before Damali could scream no, and removed the hybrid's head from his shoulders. "It was his choice. His right," Carlos said. "I felt what they did to him through every fiber in me." He walked away and drew in several steadying breaths.
"I would have wanted the same thing - to go like that"
"I, too," Valkyrie said and swallowed hard, landing a firm grip on Damali's shoulder. "He was a good warrior. Rest his soul now in peace."
Resigned, Damali picked up both the Caduceus and the Isis, one in each grip, feeling more like an angel of death than a Powers angel hybrid of healing, or even a Neteru. Oddly, the ones that had been badly injured in battle, their wounds physical and seemingly worse, cried out for the Ca duceus, whereas those who'd been violated quietly stared at her Isis and spoke in a whisper. The moment the choice flowed from their lips, Carlos ceased their misery, refusing to allow her to have their blood on her conscience.
"You heal, I'll deliver mercy," he said, holding her arm. "Because when this is done, we're gonna both need to heal our minds."
She