Quint was suddenly justthere, in front of me, two short blades up, two throwing knives clenched in her front teeth. She was tiny. So tiny.
I got my blade free.
Quint ducked, rolled, took out Dovic’s legs. Knocking into him. He began a flip, which slowed, slowed,slowedas battlefield time took over. His swords swooped down toward me.
Eli bowled me over. Drawing up into a ball. Pushing off the floor with his left foot, that leg behind him stretched out.
Quint stabbed up into Dovic’s crotch. Into the small join between Dyneema and plasticized armor. Into hisgroin. Dovic screamed the ululation of a vamp in mortal peril. He was still falling.
Dovic’s longsword cut down, slicing into a seam in Eli’s armor, into his thigh. The blade stopped. I heard/felt the blade hit Eli’s femur. Blood spurted. Our momentum pulled the flesh and bone free of the blade with an audiblecrack. The sword ripped out. Folding back armor, muscle, and tendons in startling scarlet. Almost as an afterthought, blood pulsed out.
We rolled into the kitchen. Battle erupted behind us.
Before we even came to a stop, I was ripping open Eli’s medical pouches and pockets and pulling out supplies. I remembered bits from my medical training.Don’t use a tourniquet on a limb that you hope to save.
Except in arterial damage cases.
Blood spurted, spurted, spurted.
Around me and behind me, battle had broken out. Screams, the clash of swords, gunshots. Quint and Thema stood over Eli and me, weapons slashing and firing. Kojo covered us from the other side and shot a vamp who tried to get to us there. Raising his sword, he beheaded the vamp. Dovic’s head dropped to the floor, followed by his body.
I shut down. No emotion. I gripped the fabric of Eli’s armor, tearing it down his leg. Exposing the avulsion. The position of the sword strike started just below his butt, a lateral cut that had impacted the bone, fractured it, then slid down, separating the muscle from the bone, cutting/tearing tendons, muscles, veins, and arteries. Deadly. In seconds, not minutes.
Beast shoved power in to me. My knobby hands were strong as I strapped a tourniquet on Eli’s upper thigh at the groin. Yanked it tight.
Littermate, Beast whispered. In addition to the strength, she poured speed into me.
Florence landed beside me. She ripped the flesh of her own arm and her blood poured over Eli’s wound. Infermieri blood. “Close the wound,” she demanded, her words sharp as glass.
Drenched in the blood of my adopted brother, I slapped the muscle back into place over the fractured bone. Beganwrapping rolled gauze around and around. It wasn’t enough. Blood still poured through. He was dying. Florence cut her wrist again and held it over Eli’s mouth. He swallowed twice. His mouth went slack.
I couldn’t save him.
Sabina could. Sabina was dead.
Bethany could save him. Bethany was dead.
Leo.... He had said he would come if I called, but I didn’t have a number for him. But I had other things.
I pulled a small blade and sliced a cut along the side of my forehead, just above my right temple. Not too deep, but enough to make a big freaking damn mess, my blood pouring overle breloque. With my other hand, I wiped Eli’s blood onto the crown. In my pocket, the Glob heated and burned, a frigid burn like dry ice applied to my flesh. I wrapped my mind and my will into the Glob. Intole breloque.The magic of the Dark Queen was crystalline and bright. With it, I saw all the tiny pockets of time-no-time and space-no-space where the Glob stored all the energies it took when it ripped magic out of the world. All the stored energies I might ever need were contained and stored in the Glob. I let my own crystalline might touch three of the small pockets, emptying them all into the power that was mine. Pouring magic and power into me.Into me.With my bright power, I shaped that magic.
I melded it together into a strong net of power that glowed so bright it ached. And it showed everything I was and everything I ever could be. I shoved healing into my brother. But my power was made for war. Nothing happened.
Twisting my power again, I raised my head and screamed, “Leo! Come to me!”
Nothing happened. I applied pressure with my big knobby hands, laying my body across the horrific wound. “Leo!” I screamed.
Nothingnothingnothing.
Except Eli dying. I tried the healing again. And again. “Eli. Come on Eli,” Tears and snot ran down my face.
Florence forced her blood down Eli’s throat, massaging to trigger him to swallow.
Time and space shivered. Gray and green and red-hot power burst out in front of me. A split like the center of the rift I had fallen into once. I nearly drew back.
Brute wavered into the split in time and space and stepped aside. A hand was on his head.
Beside the white werewolf, Leo appeared.
