He was lying several feet away, his clothes shredded but his flesh whole. And he was breathing.
I hadn't killed him.
The relief that swept me was so great that for several seconds I could barely even breathe. It had worked. Against all the odds, we were out of the cell, we were alive, and for the moment, we were safe.
But shifting with another person in tow was something I never wanted to attempt again.
I closed my eyes and waited until the shaking and the sweeping bouts of dizzy nausea eased, and I became aware of groaning. Not mine. Tao's.
"You okay?" I asked, my voice sounding as wretched as I felt.
"What the fuck," he said, his voice whispery and filled with pain, "did you just do?"
"I saved our asses."
But for how long? The second we'd regained flesh the howls had intensified, and even now I could feel the ill wind of their approach. If the church didn't stop them, I didn't know what would. There would be silver somewhere in this church, but I really doubted we'd have the time to find it.
I forced myself to roll over onto my stomach, then closed my eyes again, breathing deep and trying to ease the quivering. When it finally began to ease, I looked around.
The church was small and sparse, with old wooden benches for seating and little in the way of decoration other than the beautiful, stained-glass windows. The fading sunlight filtered through the glass, filling the barren interior with rainbows and warmth. The place was still, with nothing to break the silence other than our uneven breathing. This church might still be in use, but there was no priest here at the moment. I wondered whether it would make a difference to the hellhounds or not.
I guess we'd find out soon enough.
I gathered my strength and forced myself upright. If death was my fate, then I'd damn well meet it on two feet, not four.
Tao stared up at me from his prone position. His face was ashen, his clothes little more than a mess of barely-held-together threads, and the bits of flesh that were exposed were covered in a cobwebby sheen of fiber.
"Don't ever do that again," he said. "Not even to save my life."