We need to behead that vamp.
Deep inside, we growled. The reverberation sounded though the room. I/we forced ourself to our feet and shoved our shoulders back, head high. Padded through the blood and gore to the body pinned upright on the wall, pulling my vamp-killer.
I reached him and he blinked at me. Once. Twice.Focused on me. His mouth moved. He couldn’t talk because his lungs and throat were pierced with blades, and he couldn’t draw breath.
I turned so I was facing a camera. My image was front and center on the big screen. I was dripping blood. My pelt stood on end. My eyes glowed. My fangs were longer than most vamps. I was as scary as I had ever been. “There will be no more parley. I challenge the enemy who has been pulling strings. I challenge the vampire Mainet Pellissier. Not to Sangre Duello. But to war. I will kill your vampires and destroy any humans who remain sworn to you. I will take your head as I took the heads of the Sons of Darkness. I will feed your head to an angel of the light and your dead body to the sun. Come for me. I will be ready.”
I turned and managed not to fall down. I braced my feet and secured the balance of my body. I swung the blade back. Forward. And I took the head of Shaun MacLaughlinn. Bending, I picked up the severed head from the floor and held it in front of me. Darkness spun around me and white pinpoints of light fell in front of my vision like snow.
Bruiser, equally as blood soaked as me, stepped to my side. “Behold,” he said to the cameras. “The enemy of the Dark Queen.”
“Bruiser,” I whispered as all energy left my body. I wavered.
“Cut the feed,” Bruiser said. “We are done.”
And the darkness took me.
***
I woke in a strange bed. It still smelled of factory and outgassing, the scents almost hidden by the smell of my blood. So much blood. I was freezing to death, teeth chattering, muscles shuddering. Glorious heat of an electric blanket had been wrapped around me. On either side of me, I smelled vamps—Kojo on one side of me, Thema on the other. Leo’s scent was fainter but close by, parchment and pepper. Florence was near my feet. Bruisers’ scent came from near my head where he slid my loose crown away. He gently peeled a wad of matted hair off my forehead. Pulled it back behind my ear. Started on another batch. It wasn’t necessary. He just needed to be touching me. For a while I just breathed, knowing I hadn’t done enough of that lately.
My heart was beating too fast, fluttery, a little weak. I needed to shift into Beast to heal. I hadn’t. I tightened one fist, feeling the knobby knuckles. That was the arm I had cut. Yeah. Still half-form-ish. When I released my fist, I felt blood and gauze crackle. But there was no pain. It was healing without shifting. Full of vamp blood.
I managed to get my mouth open. It was so dry my teeth felt like they were wrapped in the bloody gauze, and my tongue felt like a strip of jerky. On the second try, I managed to say, “Eli?”
Bruiser said, “He’s in surgery at Tulane. Two Mithrans are standing by to donate blood should it become necessary. Should the change into Mithran need to be finished, Koun is also there. Eli is as safe as we could make him.”
“Finished?” I whispered.
“Eli was halfway to Mithran when his human heart began to beat,” Thema said from behind me. “It will take little to bring him over.”
I thought about that. Decided it was the best that could be done. “The Glob?”
“Koun was delivered a bloody stone from the surgical suite,” Bruiser said. “The surgeon said it bit him when he touched it. Koun said he will bring it before dawn.”
“Okay. I’m going back to sleep,” I whispered.
“And when you wake again, you will shower off the stench of rotting blood,” Thema ordered. “You are disgusting.”
“Whatever,” I breathed. And slept. My last thought was the feel of my heart beating. A little out of sync. As if I heard an echo beating in the background.
CHAPTER 20
Undead Life Sucks
Fall in New Orleans meant that the weather had changed. Again. It was now mideighties, humid, and it was raining, a steady downpour that left puddles everywhere.
Eli and I were sitting on the back porch, alone for the first time, in the old squeaky metal chairs, our feet up on an ottoman from inside the house. We were wrapped in blankets we didn’t really need but that were soft and comfy. We had downed two pots of tea, neither of us discussing that Eli was drinking tea and not coffee. By choice. We had chatted a bit about the weather. Mostly we were contemplating being alive, watching the rain fall, not talking much, but knowing we had a lot of ground to cover.
Eli had been home for less than twenty-four hours. His leg was bandaged and swollen. He had things poking up through the bandages. Metal things holding his femur together. There were more metal things inside. He would forever set off metal detectors. He had spent four days in the hospital. He had been given eight units of human blood-bank blood. He had drunk from more than a dozen vampswhile in the hospital, several worried vamps lining up each night to donate. Florence had made regular trips to feed him her blood.
Liz had flown to NOLA for five days, bringing healing charms and other Everhart magics. She would be back, also worried about her former Ranger.
I had a feeling that Liz wasn’t the only Everhart who would descend on NOLA with the intent to protect Eli and probably tear me a new one at the same time.
Alex delivered a third pot of tea. He was checking on us every fifteen minutes, hovering, even though he could see us from his table-desk. There was good reason for the concern. Even with vamp blood, Eli had nearly not made it.
The doctors had told Eli that with a lot of therapy, he would eventually walk. That he’d limp for the rest of his life. Probably hurt for the rest of this life. That he’d never run again. Eli had raised his eyebrows at the docs and requested to be released. Eli knew about rehab. He also knew about the healing power of vamp blood. He and Florence had come up with a dosage and rotation for vamps that would keep him from being blood-bound or changed. But he’d had so much it was likely he was something other than blood-servant strong, something other than Onorio, but maybe close.
