Tarrin spent a few hours tracking down the widely scattered wild cats, but none of them were suitable. The cat had to be black, and had to be large enough to pass for him. He found nine cats during those hours of slinking through alleys and winding streets, avoiding the humans and Wikuni, and none of them were the right coloration. He worked his way back towards the docks, finding another scent in a filthy garbage-strewn alleyway that had human scents in it as well. A relatively fresh scent. Looking up, Tarrin realized that the smell, masked by the stench of the refuse, was strong enough to put the owner of it in the alley. There was also a strong smell of blood. He hadn't seen any humans when he came in, and there wasn't a blood trail to justify the strong smell. But there was alot of blood near the alley's end, even spattered on the walls. Whatever had happened had happened here, and that there was no blood trail leaving said to him that the victim had to still be here.
It took only a moment to find the source of that smell, and the discovery filled him with a near rage. It was coming from a very young woman, barely more than a girl, who had been thrown into a pile of reeking garbage. She had been beaten so severely that he couldn't make out any facial features, and was still literally pouring blood from many savage lacerations and slash marks, saturating the garbage upon which she had been cast. Someone had literally tortured the young woman, whose clothes marked her has a prostitute, then left her for dead. Tarrin changed form and gently lifted her out of the pile, then set her on the dirty cobblestones of the alley's paved floor. She was still alive, but that would only be for a moment longer. She was nearly gone. Tarrin instinctively reached out and touched the Weave, and placed a paw on her bare, slashed belly. She had nearly been disemboweled by a knife. She was injured both inside and outside, broken bones, cuts, abrasions, bruises to her internal organs, one of her eyes punctured by the point of a knife. That someone would willingly inflict such ghastly injuries to a defenseless woman and leave her alive, letting her suffer until time took her from the world, seemed monstrous. Utterly monstrous. There was more, lower down, an anomoly in her body's chemistry-
She was pregnant! She was with child, and many of the injuries centered around her stomach. Had the attacker known she was bearing life? If so, had the attacker specifically focused on killing the unborn?
High Sorcery would not be held back this time, but it didn't matter. Tarrin's fury gave him an icy control that knuckled the awesome might of High Sorcery under, and without thinking about it, he managed to control that power that had always overwhelmed him before. Tarrin's paws limned over with the ghostly radiance that marked the use of High Sorcery, and he wove together those flows of water, earth, and Divine power that made up a healing spell, then released it into her. The girl's back arched severely as the intense cold sensation froze over the pain, but her slashes and lacerations stopped bleeding and began to seal over. Hidden injuries also healed over at an astonishing rate. Her eyes filled back in and repaired themselves, and her broken nose took on the shape it had originally held. Bone marrow was magically incited to produce the essential elements that made up blood, and broken bones quickly and seamlessly set themselves and fused. After the healing was done, Tarrin wove together a pure weave of Divine energy and released it into her, letting the power of the Weave itself infuse the girl to replace the vital energy she had lost in the healing. She would still feel exhausted, but it would be more of a feeling of exertion than the usual feeling that someone had sucked all her blood out through her nose that accompanied normal Healing. She was pregnant, and if he didn't replenish the energy she had lost, her unborn would suffer because of it.
Her eyes fluttered open as Tarrin pulled his paw away. They were beautiful eyes, blue as the sea, and they were well matched to her blond, honey-colored hair. That anyone would try to kill such a pretty young girl itself was criminal. She looked a bit confused, staring up at him blearily, then she coughed a few times to clear some blood from her lungs. "Who did this?" Tarrin asked in a quiet tone full of promised vengeance.
She looked at him, her eyes clearing. "My, my, shado," she said in a heavily accented voice. "My agent."
"Agent?"
"He who arranges my customers, yes."
"Where is he?"
"What will you do?" she asked after a moment.
"What he did to you," he replied in a tone of utter emotionlessness.
That made her eyes harden slightly. "Go out and turn left. Two streets down, in the Laughing Mermaid inn," she said. "Make him hurt."
"He'll hurt," Tarrin said in an ugly tone, flexing his claws menacingly. He leaned down and sniffed delicately at her neck and shoulder. His scent was still on her from his contact, and it sealed the man's doom. That scent was blazed into his memory, and there was nowhere in Dayise where he would be safe from Tarrin's avenging fury.
It didn't take him long to reach the Laughing Mermaid. It was a rangy, run-down place that catered to sailors and the prostitutes that served them. The place had no door, just two shutter-like wooden panels hanging in the doorframe. He pushed them open and stepped into the inn, his sharp eyes taking in all of the patrons in the large common room in a single glance. Most were armed, and many of them had the look and bearing of men used to having the floor rock underneath them. But one stood out, because his hair was wet. It would need to be wet, because with as much blood as the girl lost, some of it had to get on her attacker. Tarrin moved directly towards the man, who was sitting at a table in the back of the inn, attended by four young women who were dressed as prostitutes. Tarrin knocked one drunken man out of his way as he moved directly towards the man, inciting a loud protest in a slurring voice. But he paid it no heed. He reached the table and stood there for a second, giving the ladies a chance to get out of the way. The man noticed him and looked up, his face serene and a smile gracing his features. "Well, you're an interesting Wikuni. Have a taste for human girls?"
Tarrin put his paws on the table and leaned forward, just close enough to get a very good whiff of the man's scent. It was him. And the smell of the girl's blood was still all over him.
"You didn't clean off all the blood," Tarrin told him in an icy tone.
That serene smile dropped, then turned into a mask of terror when Tarrin's eyes exploded into the green radiance that clearly marked his rage. It would be the last thing the man would ever see. The girls shrieked in terror when Tarrin's paw lashed out and hit the man square in the face, palm first, the padded palm breaking his nose and his claws punching through both eyes. Tarrin's claws hooked into the sockets, and he dragged the man back across the table by that grisly clawhold, as the man shrieked in agony and grabbed his wrist with both hands. Tarrin picked him completely up off the table by that grip, then slammed him down into it with enough force to shatter the table and drive the man to the floor. Blood erupted from his mouth and sprayed on Tarrin's palm, when wood shard penetrated deeply into his body, stunning him enough for Tarrin to let go, then hold out a single finger with claw extended, a claw sharper than any knife. He slashed the man five times, in the exact places where he had slashed the girl, then backhanded him to break his left cheekbone. Claws punched into flesh as Tarrin picked him up off the broken table, then he turned and whipped him back down, letting him smash into the reed-strewn floor with enough force to break bones and split the wood beneath him.