"It's all right," Rachel assured him. "It just means she'll get through it more quickly." She then glanced to Sam and, her voice vibrating as Dani's thrashing bounced her around, said, "Hi, I'm Rachel Argeneau."
"Sam Willan," Sam said, tearing her gaze from Dani and offering a distracted smile. "Mortimer's life mate."
"Bastien told us," the redhead assured her. "Sam, do you think you could go look in the smaller bag and bring one of the little black cases inside it to me?"
Sam nodded and rushed to the bags, seeming happy to have something to do to help the situation. When she returned with the little black case, Rachel shifted to a more stable seat on Dani's arm and then took the case and opened it to reveal two needles and two ampoules inside.
"What's that?" Decker asked with concern.
"A combination paralytic and numbing agent," Rachel answered as she retrieved one needle and one ampoule and prepared a shot. "It won't completely remove the pain, but it will ease it considerably and paralyze her so that she can't hurt herself or anyone else."
"How long will it take to work?" Decker asked as Rachel gave Dani the shot.
"Pretty quickly," she announced. "Fortunately, Bastien's boys have come up with some pretty powerful stuff. This shot would kill a mortal, but the nanos will prevent that on her. Unfortunately, they'll also make it so that the drug is only effective in the short term and will have to be administered at regular half-hour intervals."
Decker nodded. The nanos tended to try to fight off the effects of, and remove, any chemicals in the system that weren't there naturally. It made it very difficult for one of their kind to be an alcoholic or drug addict. The immortal that went down that route had to continually be taking in large amounts of alcohol or drug-soaked blood from a mortal to stay high or drunk. Even the tranquilizer on the bullets they used was effective for only half an hour to forty-five minutes, which was more than long enough to get the rogue chained up and subdued. At least, that was normally the case, Decker thought, recalling that Leo had been affected for only a matter of minutes.
"It's starting to work," Etienne commented, drawing his attention to Dani. Her thrashing had calmed down considerably, and her face was no longer contorted with pain and horror.
"Dear God," Rachel breathed suddenly, her gaze locked on Dani's face. "Bastien didn't tell us who it was. This is Dr. McGill."
"You know her?" Etienne asked with surprise.
Rachel nodded. "She trained in Toronto and interned at our hospital for six months before opening her own practice... in Windsor, I think." She frowned and turned to Decker almost accusingly. "What the hell is happening?"
"She's my life mate," Decker said quietly.
"Oh." She relaxed. "So you turned her?"
He shook his head. "Not me. Leo did."
"Christ," Etienne breathed, drawing Rachel's confused eyes his way.
"Who's Leo?" she asked with bewilderment.
"He's the no-fanger that disappeared from the clearing up north when they found Nicholas," Etienne said. Apparently they'd been filled in briefly on at least part of the recent events and Rachel had merely forgotten the name, because she said, "Oh," and nodded again.
"Did you know about Nicholas being Thomas and Jeanne Louise's brother?" Leigh asked curiously.
Rachel nodded. "I had trouble drinking blood when I was first turned. Thomas helped me out. He said his sister-in-law used to have the same problem, but they found a fix for it and he hooked me up with a couple of straws. I didn't think anything of it until I was talking to Jeanne Louise at Kate's wedding shower and asked her about brothers and sisters. She said there wasn't anyone else, just her and Thomas."
Leigh nodded, "We had a similar conversation where she told me the same thing. I guess she took it badly when Nicholas went rogue."
"Yes," Rachel murmured, and then finished, "I didn't confront her then on what Thomas had said, I wasn't sure if I'd misunderstood him or something, so I waited until I could ask Etienne about it and he told me about Nicholas."
Silence fell in the room for a moment, and then Leigh asked, "Why is it so awful that Leo turned Dani?" When everyone turned to glance at her, she shrugged and added, "I mean, Morgan was a rogue and he turned me and no one seemed bothered by it, but everyone seems super upset that this rogue, Leo, turned Dani."
"Because Leo isn't just a rogue, he's a no-fanger," Decker said quietly.
"I know, but do the fangs really matter?" she asked. "I mean, we use bagged blood anyway."
"It's not that," Rachel explained, "According to Bastien, being turned by a no-fanger is dangerous."
"Why?" Sam asked curiously.
When no one else answered, Decker said grimly, "Because it means she only has a one in three chance of coming out all right, an edentate, just missing the fangs but otherwise like us."
Sam's eyes widened with horror. "You mean she could die?"