the ravaging storms eating away at their homes. Any life beat no life at all, and I could respect that.
Death ended everything.
I checked the paperwork, wondering how Dr. Dorothy had purchased her contract. The papers stated it could be done, if she paid the full price of her previous contract plus the registration fees to facilitate the sale plus a penalty of half her contract’s value.
If I sold for half a million dollars, I would need a minimum of eight hundred thousand to purchase my contract and sign the documentation to become my owner. Once free, I’d lose all tax benefits. In some cases, I might owe more taxes for the first few years, depending on how many deductions my previous owner had claimed to help cover the cost of my care.
Freed slaves were expected to pay the government back for having given their owners a tax break in the first place.
How despicable. Worse, I could easily believe Americans voted for the measures, refusing to believe they might become a courtesan. How could they, a voting American, possibly be targeted?
I figured too many simply didn’t care as long as it didn’t happen to them.
All I could do was sit, wait, learn what I could, and wonder how I could beat the system—if I could.
I doubted, but I refused to accept defeat, not without a fight.
Fifteen
I appreciated their care for my tail.
Friday, May 22, 2043.
Albany, New York.
The East.
* * *
Not even Dr. Dorothy’s skills as a toxin witch could fully protect me from the realities of a gunshot wound. While she addressed my infections, they lingered with a persistence defying magic and medicine. I blamed a long, hard life plus stress. My doctor blamed stress, malnutrition, and an overly taxed immune system made weaker by the loss of my spleen. She expected I would get sick for longer, take longer to heal, and potentially die younger as a consequence of the wound that would have stolen my life if not for Sandro.
I could live without my spleen, but doing so would have consequences for my health. If I stayed in the East, the consequences would be easier to cope with.
I could help my immune system in certain conditions.
The infection in my arm gave Dr. Dorothy more trouble than my ribs and where my spleen had been removed. It liked attacking the bone, which hampered my ability to heal and ran a higher risk of spreading into my bloodstream. If it spread through my bloodstream, it could kill faster than anybody liked thinking about, especially me.
All in all, had I remained in Asylum, I would’ve lasted no more than three or four days before I’d gone into septic shock induced from the poorly tended wounds and died.
Sepsis sucked, and it could happen to anybody with an infection, although those of us who lived in the Alley saw more than our fair share of it thanks to our hampered ability to receive medical care. Without antibiotics, sepsis progressed, and once it progressed, it liked to kill.
Both Sandro and the mysterious buyer shared credit for pulling me out of that particular fire, although I refused to forget the malicious foundation my gratitude rested upon.
Had a bounty not been set for me, I never would have been shot.
I wondered who had shot me and why. Neither my memories nor my Alley magic offered anything new for me to discover about the cloaked man who’d done his best to rid the Earth of me. After I escaped from Dr. Dorothy’s, I’d make use of my own witch powers and take over managing any infections resulting from my injuries, but until then, I waited.
While Dr. Dorothy lacked my general ability to do a full purge of infections and poisons, she did an admirable job, she cared about doing her work well. I would survive through some additional discomfort. If her latest efforts didn’t kick the infection in the ass, I would.
I needed several hours alone and a knife, but all I’d have to show for my work would be a tiny cut and the evidence of my magic in a cup, which I would dump into the toilet, flush, and pretend had never existed in the first place.
When I’d progressed from flittering around death’s door to healthy enough to walk around without my ribs screaming in protest, the auction house wanted me on the block immediately, had Dr. Dorothy doll me up to their standards, and gave the bidders six hours of warning before the show would