delivers Bonea

I realized my cheek was back against the floor a moment later, and dully noted that my eyes had stopped working at some point. They were open, but they weren’t showing me any images. Maybe that’s what they meant by the phrase “lazy eye.” Hah. I’m hysterical when I’m dying.
I heard a sound then—a distant howl of northern wind, rapidly growing louder in pitch and volume.
“Easy, Harry,” said Uriel’s voice in the blackness. “Molly’s here. Easy.”
And then I went away.

Skin Game Chapter 50, Page 429


I woke up in bed. There was a colorful cartoon pony on the ceiling above me.
My body ached. I mean it ached to no end. Just breathing felt like a motion that stretched sore muscles. I was hideously thirsty and ravenous, and considering the complaints from my bladder, I’d been down for a while.
I looked around without moving my head. I was in Maggie’s room. Judging from the amber sunshine coming in through the window and covering one wall, it was evening. I wondered if it was the same day. Maggie’s raised bed towered over me, and I realized that I was on a mattress laid on the floor of her room. Something heavy was on one of my feet, and it had gone to sleep. I moved my head enough to see what it was, and wished I hadn’t done that. My skull pounded like a little man was slamming it with a hammer.
I winced and focused my eyes through the discomfort. Mouse slept on the floor beside the bed, and his massive chin rested on my ankle. His ears were twitching, though his eyes were closed, his breathing steady.
“Hey,” I croaked. “Gonna lose my foot, you keep that up. Fall right off.”
Mouse snorted and lifted his head. He blinked blearily for a second, as any reasonable person does upon waking, and then dropped his mouth open in a doggy grin. His tail started wagging, and he rose so that he could walk to my head and start giving me slobbery dog kisses while making little happy sounds.
“Ack!” I said. I waved my hands without any real enthusiasm, and settled for scratching him under the chin and behind the ears while he greeted me. “Easy there, superdog,” I said. “I think I exfoliated a couple of licks ago.”
Mouse made a happy chuffing sound, tail still wagging. Then he turned and padded out of the bedroom.
A moment later, he returned, and Molly followed him in.
She made an impression walking into the room. I was used to Molly in old jeans and sandals and a faded T-shirt. Now she wore slacks and a deep blue blouse that looked like they’d been hand-tailored to fit. Her hair, which I had seen in every improbable shade and configuration imaginable, was now long and straight and the color of moonlight on corn silk. She still looked a shade too angular and thin. Her eyes had been haunted and strained the last time I’d seen her in the flesh. Now they had a few added wrinkles at the corners, maybe, and a gravity I hadn’t seen in them before—but they were steady and calm.
Without a word, she knelt down beside me and gave me a hard hug around the neck.
“Ack,” I said again, but I was smiling. Again. It made all the muscles in my body twinge, but I moved one arm and patted her hair. “Hey, grasshopper.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. Her arms tightened a little. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“Hey, it all worked out,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“Of course you’re okay,” she said, and despite the bravado in her words, I thought she might have been sniffling. “I was the one working on you.”
“Look,” I said. “The parasite. It isn’t some kind of hostile entity—”
She nodded, her hair rubbing against mine. “I know. I know. The guy in black told me all about it while I was in there.”
“Is the spirit all right?” I asked.
She released me from her hug/choke hold and nodded at me, smiling, her eyes suspiciously wet. “Of course, the first thing you want to know is if someone else is all right.” She reached across me and picked up something from the floor near my head, where I hadn’t been able to see. It was the wooden skull I’d carved for Bob.
“It was a tough delivery,” Molly said. “She’s very tired.”
I grunted, lifted my hand, and took the wooden skull in my fingers.
Immediately, tiny flickers of greenish light appeared in the eye sockets, and the little spirit made a soft, confused sound.
“Shhh,” I said. “It’s me. Get some rest. We’ll talk later.”
“Oh,” said the little spirit. “Hi. Good.” And the flickers of light vanished again with a small, weary pop.
“You know,” Molly said, smiling, “it’s traditional to have a home of your own if you’re going to keep adopting strays.”
I tucked the wooden skull into the crook of my arm and said, “Home is where, when you go there and tell people to get out, they have to leave.”
She grinned, smoothed some hair back from my forehead, and said, “I’m glad to see that you’re feeling more like yourself.

Skin Game Chapter 51, Page 431-432