I knew whose blood the vampire in the hallway had been covered in. Did I feel bad about killing them? No. I walked down the hallway, keeping near one wall, gun ready in case there were more of them. I was searching for vampires with that part of me that likes the dead. Years ago Id watched my mentor Manny Rodriguez be able to sense vampires in a house. He was always right. It had seemed like magic back then; now I sent my necromancy out through the house and couldnt sense any more of them. Unless they were really, really good, better than me, Id killed the only two vamps in the house. The real danger now was human servants; I couldnt sense humans the way I could vamps.
The end of the hallway just had an opening into a larger room. What I could see looked like everyones living room: couch, television, floor lamp. I came out of the opening with my back pressed against the wall. I knew the corner nearest me was clear, and I put that at my back while I used the gun to sweep the room.
There was something in the middle of the room, in front of the couch, not quite to the love seat against the other wall. Something that lay in a pool of blood that had changed the gray carpet to black. My mind would not see everything about what lay on the floor. My mind refused to see it, I think. I let my mind play its tricks, because I knew what I was trying not to see. It was Jason. It had to be Jason.
One of the hardest things Id done in years was sweeping that room, and not rushing to Jasons side once I saw him. I forced myself to see every corner, including the corners at the ceiling. Id seen vampires fly; hovering near the ceiling was nothing. I forced myself not to look at Jason until I was sure the room was clear. Only then did I let myself go forward. Only then did I let myself make the noise that had been caught in my throat. I didnt scream, honest. It was worse than a scream. It was that sound you make when the worst has happened and no word ever invented will say your pain. The Irish called it keening.
I knew it was Jason on the floor because of his size and the little bit of his hair that wasnt blood-soaked, but those were the only clues the vampires had left. The carpet squished under my knees as I dropped beside him. The room smelled like raw hamburger, and the carpet was a sea of blackness.
I think I went a little crazy for a few minutes. I dropped the extra magazine and the gun into the blood-soaked carpet so I could undo his hands. I fixated on undoing the bonds. If I could just get him free, it would be better. If I could just get him free. Theyd used flex-cuffs and hinge cuffs through a metal loop that theyd drilled into the floor. I needed a knife and a key. I looked up and found knives lined up on the end table by the couch. Lined up on a towel, like some kind of macabre surgery. There was a wallet, a ring of keys, and a cell phone near the lamp, as if the vampire had emptied his pockets before starting the torture. It was so terribly organized. Hed done this before. I got a knife that was less bloody, and the keys. The flex-cuffs cut easily, but I couldnt find the right key. I had to force myself to slow down, to stop fumbling.
I got his hands free, finally. I crawled down to his feet, because they were bound the same way. It was only after I got him free that I even thought I was doing this in the wrong order. But I had to undo the chains, I had to. Jason hadnt moved, at all. He was free of the restraints, but he
I reached for his neck. I prayed, Please, God, let me find a pulse. Please, oh, please.
His skin was cool to the touch. Not good. I couldnt find a pulse. My pulse seemed to speed up like it would beat for both of us. I put my hand on his chest, and there, I could feel his heart. I didnt know if I couldnt find his neck pulse because I was bad at it, or if hed lost that pulse. If the latter, then that was bad. I couldnt seem to think.
Think, Anita, think, damn it! I had to get the bleeding stopped, but there were so many wounds. How do you put pressure on someones entire body? God.
I was remembering Cisco dying. Hed been a wererat and hed bled to death with a team of doctors around him. But theyd tried to make him shift form. If you could get a lycanthrope to shift form, it healed them a little.
I put my hand back on his chest. His heart was faltering. No, no. I said, Jason, Jason, fight, Im here. Help me.
I wanted him to open his eyes, anything, but he just lay there, and his heart wasnt right. The rhythm was too slow. Shit.
I did the only thing I could think of, with his heart dying under my hand. I called my wolf. There was no running up the long corridor inside me, or trees; there was just an image in my head behind my eyes of the white and dark of her fur. I let that image fill me; in that moment if truly becoming a wolf would have saved him, Id have done it. In that moment, I accepted what I was, and what was in me; there was no fighting now, only a desperate need. I shoved my wolf into him as Id done with tiger and Crispin, as Id done with so many others. I shoved my beast down my hand and into that slowing heart. I willed him to change, and knew that if it didnt work, nothing was going to. If he was too hurt to shift, then he was
For the first time, there was no pain to giving my beast, because I wasnt fighting it. There was warmth and power, and a feeling of something pulled out of me, like an extra body part that I hadnt known I had, and suddenly it was there and I could feel it and use it, and it was gone again. It pushed into Jason, and I could feel it, going deep inside him. I could feel that part of me seeking a matching part of him. I found his beast, and what had been gentle and loving was suddenly explosive. I needed him to change now. The beasts seemed to sense my urgency, or maybe his wolf didnt want to die either.
Jasons body jerked under my hand. He gave a sound, a cry, and fur flowed under my hand. His body shrank and re-formed. Once, feeling Richard shift and change against my body had frightened me to death; now it was the most wonderful thing in the world. It had worked. I kept my hand on him while the power of it danced across my skin like the kiss of something electric and alive.
When it was done, a gray wolf lay on its side, panting. The heart under my hand now was thick and steady. He opened wolf eyes the color of new spring leaves. For a moment he saw me, and he gave me that look that no real wolf will ever give, and then the eyes fluttered shut, and the body under my hand began to flow and move again. His human body flowed up and around the wolf, and I was left with my hand on Jasons side.
I put a hand on the middle of his chest, and his heartbeat was there, thick and steady. His skin was still cool to the touch, but his heart felt better. I wiped my hand on my jeans, trying to get the blood and wet goo off of it. I put my hand back on his neck. I searched for his pulse, and found it this time.
His naked body was free of blood, so that it looked like hed just been laid down in the middle of the carnage. Now the wounds that hadnt healed were clear on his skin. He was covered in knife cuts like evil red mouths; from shoulders nearly to ankles he was covered in wounds. They began to bleed again as I watched. Id bought us some time, but this wasnt going to heal by magic; we needed doctors.
I picked up the gun from the floor and reached for the cell phone.
54
I DIALED 911. A womans voice said, Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?
Anita Blake, Federal Marshal. I gave my ID number, then said, Female, five-foot-three, long black hair, T-shirt, jeans. Two down. Officer-involved shooting. Partner wounded. Technically, Jason wasnt my partner, but he was mine, and theyd come faster for a wounded cop than a civilian. Id sort it out later, after we survived.
Address.
Shit, I dont know. I got up and looked out a window. There was nothing but trees. They drugged us and we woke up here. I dont know where here is, cant you trace me by the phone?
Is there a landline?
I looked around the room. I dont see one.
Try another room.
I dont want to leave him alone.
We need a location to send help, Marshal.
She was right, but I hated leaving him like that. I touched his hair, laid my cheek against his, and whispered, Dont die on me. I walked back down the hallway past the bodies and tried the first door. It was a bedroom. No
phone. The second door I tried was a kitchen, and there was a phone on the wall. I see a phone, let me see if its working. I had to put my gun down to pick up the second phone. Ive got a dial tone.
Call us back on that line, and well be able to trace it to you.
Okay. I clicked the cell phone shut, and dialed 911 again. It was a different womans voice, and I told an even shorter version.
We have your location, Marshal, help is on the way.
How long?
Youre pretty isolated. Well try to get a chopper up, but theres no place close to you to land it.
Okay. Well wait.
I can stay on the line with you if you want, she said.
No, I need to try to stop the bleeding on my friend, and I need my hands for that. Thanks though. I hung up before she could say anything else. I clicked the safety on the gun and tucked it down the front of my belt. Id bring Jason in here. I wasnt sure how to stop the bleeding from so many wounds, but I knew keeping him warm was better.
Help was coming. We just had to hold on until they got here.
I knelt beside him. His hair was strangely clean, except where the side of his face had been on the blood. He looked like Jason again, instead of so much meat. I swallowed past something that tasted like tears. Id cry later when he was safe. No time now. I rolled him into my arms, and he felt like dead weight. The heart was going and the pulse was moving, but there is a difference in bodies. Even unconscious, a body doesnt roll like this. Just the way he felt in my arms scared the hell out of me. He rolled, and flopped, like he was already dead. His skin was too cold to the touch. I had to get the bleeding stopped. I had to.
It wasnt weight, but sheer awkwardness that made me put him in a firemans carry across my shoulders. Blood trickled down my body from him. Shit. I tried to think of other things. I was glad that of all the men in my life, it was one my size. There probably wasnt twenty pounds difference in our weight. I could carry him. Not forever, but down the hall. I carried him past the body of the vampire who had tortured him. My only regret in that moment was that I couldnt kill him again.
I laid Jason down on the bed. He lay so still, so horribly still. I folded the coverlet around him, hoping to keep him warmer, and then I went in search of a first-aid kit, something, anything. Id have traded my skills at killing for a little more first-aid training right then.
I knew what was in the bathroom, so I checked the kitchen first. There were towels, but no way to bind them in place. Maybe I could cut up a sheet to use as strips?
I got all the small towels and washrags that the kitchen had and carried them back to the bedroom. The only thing that showed above the coverlet was Jasons hair, so yellow, so vibrant, but he hadnt moved. I wanted him to move, so badly.
I put the rags down on the unused side of the bed and searched for sheets. They were in the closet. I had to go back to the kitchen to fetch a clean, sharp knife to cut the sheet up. I was glad the vampire hadnt used all the knives in the kitchen, because I didnt want to touch the bloody ones in the living room. It felt somehow like they were cursed. Not for real, but unclean, maybe.
I cut the sheet into strips, and then I had to uncover him and start looking at the wounds. They had bled into the coverlet, but no wound seemed worse than the others. It was like any one cut would have been fairly minor, maybe a few stitches. It was the culmination of all of them together that had nearly bled him to death.
I picked a wound in his arm that seemed to be bleeding more than the rest, pressed a rag against it, and started trying to tie it in place. His arm was so limp that I had to trap his lower arm between my knees to get the knot tight enough to put pressure. But not too tight. I couldnt remember, could lycanthropes suffer from getting their circulation cut off? I mean, if you could grow back a limb, then would too tight a bandage hurt you? I treated him like he was human, because I didnt know. It had never come up.
It was when I was tying a wound on his thigh that I saw the first burn marks. Tiny, roundish burn marks on his thigh. More of them on the hip, and finally most of them on the groin. How had I missed these? They were smaller, less obvious than the bloody wounds, I guess. I knew I was in shock. I knew that. Shock softens things. It helps you see things in pieces sometimes; a little horror here, a little more when your mind thinks you can handle it. Shock, if you dont go too far, helps you cope. I knew what had caused him to scream now. Burns didnt heal on a lycanthrope like everything else. Burns had to heal human-slow.
I found more of the little burns all over the front of his body. The back of his body was untouched because hed been tied on his back. To bind the wounds on his chest, I had to lift him, and he was still just dead weight. I should have seen the wounds beginning to heal by now. They looked the same. I knew in reason that hed healed from the first moment Id seen him. I knew that the shift to wolf form had helped him heal, because he wasnt bleeding as badly as that carpetbut he wasnt healing as fast as I was used to seeing lycanthropes heal. I didnt know if Jason was simply a slow healer, or if there had been that much damage, or if the vampires had done something to the wounds to make them worse.
When Id bound all the wounds I could figure out how to bind, I lay down beside Jason, with me propped up on the pillows, and rolled him against my body. I held him against me, and I prayed, prayed with that energy that true tragedy gives you. The loudest prayers must be when you hold someone you love and feel him go cold.
I knew warmth was important to healing lycanthropes. Cold was bad, that much I knew. My body heat was all I could think of. I got the gun out of my belt and laid it on the pillow beside me. Id done everything I could think of; now we waited for help to arrive. Waited and prayed.
Jason didnt feel like Jason in my arms. The washrags and sheet strips were rough and ruined the smooth feel of his body. My clothes were drying to my skin sticky with his blood. I should have taken them off before I lay down, so that Jason could be closer to my skin, but it had seemed to take so much effort to get him against me. I lay there, too tired, too shocky to move.
Why? Why had they tortured him? Why had they taken us? I remembered the man yelling, Wheres Lorna? We didnt know anyone named Lorna, or I didnt. Who the hell was she? I was betting that this had nothing to do with Jason, and everything to do with the Summerlands. Had Jason taken another beating for Keith Summerland? Was it that simple, or was something else going on that I didnt know anything about? In that moment, holding Jason, feeling his blood drying my clothes to my skin, I was willing to believe there were lots of things I didnt know.
I heard the door open. The outside door, because I heard the screen hit. Whoever it was, hesitated in the hallway. Theyd seen the body. If it was the rescue crew theyd have called out.
I picked up the gun. The safety was already off, a round already chambered. Id done that before I laid the gun down beside me. If anyone came through that door before the EMTs, they would not be my friend.
I sighted at the doorway and let out my breath. I let my body go quiet, and the gun was the focus of all that quiet. If Jason had moved in that moment Id probably have screamed.
A mans voice called from down the hallway. I hear your heartbeats. I smell his blood. I see my men are dead, so I assume you have at least one of their guns. Mr. Summerland, I didnt think you had it in you to be this dangerous.
I didnt say anything. If I was quiet enough, he might come closer for a look. If he came close enough Id shoot him.
Mr. Summerland, why dont you answer me? If you would simply tell us where Lorna is, then we would let you go. We have no wish to harm the son of a governor.
He was lying.
Mr. Summerland, he said again, are you in there? Why dont you answer me?
I could smell dawn on the air. Not here yet, but close. I wanted to know if this was a vampire, but if I used my necromancy to sense him, hed know what I was. I think they had thought I was just another of Keith Summerlands women. Its why they had left me in the bathroom, with no guard. Its why this one was assuming that Ke
ith Summerland had gotten away somehow and killed the two vampires. This guy was assuming that because I was a woman I wasnt dangerous. Was it time to let the last man standing know that hed made a mistake?
Mr. Summerland? His voice sounded a little closer. Did I wait for him to maybe get close enough for a shot, or did I try to get some answers?
Dawn was so close. If he was a vampire hed been running out of moonlight, literally. If he was human it didnt matter. I decided to try for information.
Why would you think Lorna would be with him?
Oh, the girl. He sounded genuinely surprised.
Yeah, I said, the girl.
Do you know where Lorna is? he asked, and there was a hopeful lilt to his voice.
After what you did to my boyfriend and me, I dont think I want to answer any of your questions.
We were harsh, and I am sorry for that. Genuinely sorry.
Liar, I said.
What is your name? he asked.
You first, I said.
They call me George.
I want to know your name, not what they call you.
He laughed then, and he was good. It was a nice laugh, as if he werent standing in a hallway staring at the dead bodies of men hed hired to kidnap and torture us. Of course, maybe he was just a charming sociopath. In that case the laugh was real. When you have no empathy for anyone else, other people dead or hurt dont mean anything to you.
Edmond, my name is Edmond. What is your name?
I decided to try lying. Katerine. It was my middle name.
Now whos lying? he said, and he made it sound playful.
Fine. Anita, my names Anita.
Anita, now that is a lovely name.
What happens if you dont find Lorna? I asked.
He was quiet for a second or two, then said, Her husband will not be pleased.
So, you find her and youre going to force her to go back to him?
16 Blood Noir ab-16 Page 32