Artie had come in several hours later and checked Devon out, mostly looking through her chart and listening to her heart and her breathing through a stethoscope. Artie sat and was briefed by Myka, nodding in places through her narration.

It seemed Devon's arm got slashed with the scalpel, and then Preston got Devon in the chest, pushing the scalpel to the hilt. Myka suspected that Preston got Devon in the heart, which accounted for all the blood that was in the warehouse, but aside from barely-healed superficial scars between her breasts and on her arm, it seemed that girl-Devon had healed up pretty quickly.

Artie then reported what happened to the two warehouse men.

One of them had a deformity in his right thighbone, some weird osteoporosis condition that made the bones of his left leg too thin to support his weight. When the man put his weight on it, the thighbone snapped and punctured the femoral artery. The man died from massive internal bleeding.

The other man died from a large brain hemorrhage - the left side of his skull seeming to have shrunk and squeezed the brain on that side.

"The coroner couldn't understand how that could happen," Artie said, "but those were his initial findings. Although, I think I know what happened. Take a look at this."

Artie pulled out some of the coroner's photographs from his bag and showed it to Pete and Myka.

The first six pictures showed a pair of legs, except that instead of a matching pair of thick, hairy men's legs, the pictures showed a mismatched pair - the left leg looked like a sexy, clean-shaven woman's leg from the hip down.

Myka looked at Artie. "Devon said one of the men got stabbed in the thigh." Artie nodded at that.

The other pictures were horrible. They were pictures of a man's head - the face contorted in a grimace of pain that death couldn't wipe away. Pete and Myka couldn't help wonder what the person was thinking and feeling at the moment of death. Myka hoped that it wasn't too painful in the end, but judging by the face, she was almost sure it must have been.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The left side of the man's face seemed smaller. But more than that, it was as if it were actually two halves of two different heads stuck together, neither in the correct scale for the other, one side much smaller than the other, angry, wrinkled red skin marking the juncture between the two halves.

To Pete and Myka, the smaller side seemed to be a distinctly female face. Pete thought the open brown eye on that side could only be that of a woman's. In fact, it reminded him a little of Myka's own eyes.

"The scalpel," Artie said, "apparently changes men into women, and vice versa. Which seems to be logical, given its origin and history."

"But, Artie," Pete said, "it only does it in pieces, or does it imperfectly, which results in extreme deformity and painful death." He held up the pictures of the half woman-half man face.

"Yeah," Myka said, "the nurse in the clinic also said the other dead people had extreme deformities, too."

"Except Devon," Artie said.

They all looked at the sleeping blonde. "What's different?" Artie wondered aloud. "What's different with Devon's case, that allowed the transformation to be completed and keep him alive?"

"Her," Myka said.

Artie nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah... Her..."

After a while, Pete sat up in his chair. "I have an idea," he said.

The other two turned to him. Pete recalled Devon's whispered words. "Maybe Devon wanted the change to happen and the others didn't..."

"You mean, Devon wanted to be a woman?" Myka said. "Where'd you get that crazy idea?"

"From me," Devon said from the bed.

The three whirled around and saw that the new girl was awake and sitting up. The transfusion and the intravenous fluids seemed to have helped and put color in her cheeks. Pete couldn't help but think that Devon, as a girl, was gorgeous. Double-oh Hottie didn't have anything on Devon.

Devon confirmed what Pete said, and explained a little bit. It was obviously difficult for her, but she continued. As she did, Devon felt something like a dam give way, and the years of suppressed emotion, sadness and frustration poured out. Myka went and gave the crying girl a hug.

"Devon," Artie said, after Devon was through explaining. "I don't care about that. All I want to know is that you're okay and you can get back to work."

Mutely, Devon nodded, smiled and sniffed back some tears.

"Thanks, Artie," Devon said, not letting Myka go. Pete smiled gently and gave her a wink.

Devon smiled shyly at him.