My left shoulder felt like pure pluperfect hell. Even the analgesic salve Jocasta had slathered on didn't take away all the pain, and the flesh seemed to have swollen up around the dressing she'd attached. The wound itself burned, the familiar pain of lacerated flesh, but deeper in the shoulder was a dull throbbing that seemed synchronized with my heartbeat. When we'd got back to Rodney's apartment, the sensation had been isolated in the shoulder. But now pain and weakness seemed to be spreading down the left arm.