Thema and Kojo were vamped-out. Awake. In daylight. On top of Eli. His bandages had been ripped off. Vampires cut their arms, bleeding on wound.
Jane woke. Peered through eyes, watching as vampires bled into Eli mouth. I/we watched. Beast shoved down on pain. Jane did not know how bad we were injured. Yet. But it had to be bad.
CHAPTER 12
Kindness Is Hard. Being Mercy Blade Is Hard.
Bruiser stood on the table, overseeing the EMTs and paramedics on the team that composed medical protocol.
Eli’s arms were outstretched. IVs were being inserted by medics, with human donors of O-negative blood type ready and waiting to provide person-to-person transfusions from prescreened donors. It was a transfusion like in the eighteen hundreds. Worrisome. But... necessary.
The witches were on the table in a circle around Eli, hands linked. Magic covered the trio in the narrow center circle. Eli. Thema. Kojo.
Molly shoved her child into the tight space, landing her in Thema’s lap. Moll took her place in the rudimentary circle. The Everharts’ magic grew.
“IV in right arm,” someone said. “Ringer’s lactate infusing.”
“IV in left arm. Beginning transfusion,” another said.
The Everhart magic flared like the sun. Someone cursed. Everyone, even the humans, looked away from the brightness of the power.
The electronics overhead smoked; an acrid stink of heated metal and melting plastic filled the room. Alexswore and powered down fast. Someone opened the door to the hall and people left. Fans came on, pulling the smoke out of the room. “Jane. Let’s go,” Alex said. Then he swore again and knelt in front of us. One hand reached out, stopped, and dropped to his side. “You’re as bad as my brother.” Louder he called, “Bruiser, we need a stretcher for Jane. She’s burned.”
Pain hit.
Holy crap.
I/we whimpered. I/we had never been burned on our face and belly before.
“Send Kojo and Thema as soon as Eli is stable,” Bruiser demanded.
This sucks,I thought.
Beast lost kits to fire once. Found bodies later. One kit survived. Burned. Beast dropped it over cliff. Beast was Mercy Blade to Beast’s kit.
Suddenly we were in my soul home and I was pretty sure I had passed out in real life. Wearing my male warrior clothing, I was sitting cross-legged, elbows on knees. Beast lay across from me, a well-contained fire between us, her eyes reflecting the flames. “You had to kill your own kit?” My whispers echoed through the tall-roofed cave.
Did not have vampires to heal with blood. Did not have doctors or witches. Did not have grown-up Jane to know how to save kit. Kit was in pain. Would not live.
Beast’s ear tabs flicked. Her tail tip moved slightly, barely visible in the flame light. She thought to me,Before Jane, when kits would not live, Beast shoved kits out of den to die. Was mountain lion way. After wesa came, Beast learned was kinder to drop kit from great height. Mercy. Was way of Jane. Like way of Gee DiMercy.
Holy crap.
Jane taught Beast kindness. Kindness is hard. Being Mercy Blade is hard. Being Dark Queen is hard. Being I/we of Beast and Jane is hard.
The smell of vamp blood drew us back. I got a good look at Beast’s body. Pelt gone, weeping blisters. Places where the blisters had ruptured already. Underlying tissue was seared. Not third degree that I could see, but bad.
The pain was beyond anything I/we had ever known. We snapped and snarled. Beast shoved me down, into the quiet and the dark.
***
“Jane? Jane, you with us?” The voice was shrill, a sharp, piercing pain in my ears and brain. “Beast?”
“Janie, you in there?” The echo was a bass drum beating on my ears. I mewled.
I opened my eyes and the agony shoved deeper. Alex and Bruiser were with me. I/we were lying in a bathtub filled with cold water, ice cubes floating around us. I nodded, the movement feeling like I had been burned again. The pain was in our face, paws, and our belly. I lowered our muzzle and mouth into the water, up to our nostrils. Water filled our mouth. Our lips were burned away. Even our gums were burned. The cold water eased the pain and took away some of the heat. Our feet were blistered. Second-degree burns that would heal with a shift. But we could see the burned patches on our snout. Raw witch magic had burned deep. That had never happened before. We were in dangerous shape.
“The witches tried to help, but there was too much residual magic in your body. It just made it worse. And you snapped at the Mithrans who tried to assist. Can you shift?” Bruiser asked.
