I shoved past him to the Jeep and leaned inside. A gasp escaped my lips when I saw Christian in the reclined seat on the far side. His lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling, his black Henley ripped open and his chest smeared in blood.
Wyatt twisted around from the front passenger seat. “You should have seen him earlier with the stake in his chest.Holy Toledo. Was that a sight.”
I climbed in and put my fingers to his neck. His pulse was sluggish. “What’s wrong with him?”
Viktor got in and started up the engine. “Close the door, Raven. We must go.”
Shepherd opened up the back, and when I looked over the seat, I watched them drag out a body and load it into the van.
After Claude drove off with the bodies, Shepherd squeezed into the back and shut the door. “What happened?”
“We found his body,” Wyatt replied.
Shepherd cut him a sharp look while he checked Christian’s vitals.
Wyatt peered over his shoulder. “He was staked right in the candle section of Chelsea’s. They sell all that fancy stuff for weddings and—”
“Jesus fuck. Button it up and tell me what happened.” Shepherd found a flashlight in the back and shined it in Christian’s eyes.
Wyatt’s gaze lingered on me for an uncomfortable moment. “He retraced his steps and led us to his body.”
I shook my head. “What do you mean, he led you? Is he dead or not?”
“Sort of. Usually when people stake a Vampire, they don’t go for the heart. Nobody has the balls since there’s a lot of bone to get through. It’s easier to impale them elsewhere. Heart staking was a common practice in olden times. Humans and even other Breeds didn’t necessarily know all the ways to kill them, so they just assumed if the heart stopped, they couldn’t come back. In those days, they used heavy-duty stakes and pounded them in with mallets. You know, I once knew this guy—”
Shepherd shined the light in Wyatt’s eyes, temporarily blinding him.
“History is there to teach us,” Wyatt grumbled. “Fine. When a stake goes through a beating heart, it stops. Occasionally the spirit will jump out of the body since they’re in a deathlike state. Technically they’re alive. Just because the heart stops doesn’t mean you die. That’s one way Gravewalkers used to find Vampires in graveyards who were buried alive. Sometimes we sense them, and other times we see their lingering spirits who point the way. I guess because they’re not all the way dead, they don’t get the option of going to the next stop.”
“But you pulled out the wood.”
“True. His spirit jumped back in his body when his heart started up, and not a minute too soon. That man’s ghost is the thing of nightmares.”
Shepherd turned off the light. “Why isn’t he waking up? Did Niko try healing to see if that works?”
“What if I give him my blood?” I suggested.
Wyatt shuddered. “Don’t feed the animals. Won’t help. The wood was old and frayed apart. I had to pull splinters from his chest, and we think he’s got a splinter in his heart. That’s the only reason I can think of that he hasn’t snapped out of it.”
Shepherd draped his arm over the seat. “That would explain his irregular heartbeat. Now what?”
“You operate,” Viktor stated as fact.
Shepherd barked out a laugh. “You’re kidding, right? I can patch people up and put in a line, but I don’t know anything about surgery.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Viktor said. “Whatever you do, he will heal from. You will need to crack him open and look at his heart and insides.”
Wyatt faced front in his seat. “That’s a therapy session I ain’t got time for.”
“Call a Relic!” Shepherd fired back. “This is out of my wheelhouse.”
“We do not have a trusted Relic, and you know this. No one with these skills can help on short notice.”
I held Christian’s hand, uncertain if he could hear us. Maybe he could feel my touch. “Then do it. He might be suffering if that thing is in his heart. Knock him out with as many drugs as you can.”
Shepherd rubbed his face. “I don’t have anesthesia. Besides that, we can’t knock him out.”
“Why not?”
