Bitten 2 (40 page)

“I figured it was just some weird vamp thing, like my reaction to the venom.”

Making another small noise in the back of her throat she pulled a penlight from the pocket of her lab coat to shine a beam of light on the wound.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

POKING AND PRODDING me until I felt like a high school lab experiment, Alyssa declared the slowed healing of the vamp bite a mystery.

“I don’t know why it’s not healing like it should,” she said with an irritated sigh as she tucked the penlight back into her pocket and reached for a stack of fresh gauze pads. “All I can tell you is to keep an eye on it, and if it starts to look weird in any way come back and see right away.”

“Aye, aye Cap’n,” I said, earning a derisive snort.

“Who am I kidding?” she asked. “You wouldn’t know how to do what you’re told if your life depended on it.”

“Hey! I resemble that remark.”

“That’s the problem,” Alyssa muttered, though she tempered her words with an affectionate smile. “Why don’t you make yourself useful while I clean up and go grab us some dinner from downstairs? I keep the cash box stashed behind the paper towels on the rack over there.”

“No worries, dinner’s on Cordova,” I said, digging a crumpled wad of cash out of my jacket pocket.

* * *

I was licking an errant drop of hot mustard from my thumb when the sound of screeching tires brought my head up from the take-out container balanced on my knees.

“What the hell?” I asked, glancing towards Alyssa who wore a look of dread.

My expression shifted to match hers at the panicked voices drifting up the stairs, accompanied by the coppery scent of blood under laid by the smell of freshly cut grass I’d come to associate with Dermot. A moment later the owner of the louder voice staggered through the doorway in a blood stained dark green jumpsuit, and I was prompted to do a double-take. He could have been Dermot’s older brother, so strong was the resemblance between them. A thickly muscled arm was wrapped around a battered mess I was pretty sure was Dermot beneath all the blood and bruises, but from the sheer amount of blood covering the front of the leprechaun’s overalls I wondered if he was even still alive.

“Quick, put him over here,” Alyssa directed, pointing to the exam table as she dumped the rest of her dinner in a nearby trashcan.

“What happened?” I asked, dancing back as Dermot’s limp body was hoisted onto the table.

“What does it look like, you ruddy fool?” Dermot’s doppelganger asked, his voice deeper and rougher than the unconscious leprechaun’s. “He was attacked.”

Chastised, I shrank back against the wall of cabinets to stay out of the way as Alyssa went to work. The succubus it seemed, had other ideas.

“Riley, grab some gloves and give me a hand.”

“W-what can I do?” I asked, moving forward in jerking steps. I was desperate to help, but reluctant to get in the way.

“Apply pressure here,” she said, pointing to a spot buried beneath the almost black fabric of Dermot’s overalls as she thrust a wad of gauze at me.

Not waiting for me to approach, she tore away the sodden fabric, leaving it to hang in bloody ribbons over the edge of the table. I almost gagged on the bile that rose in the back of my throat and felt my eyes burn with unshed tears as I gazed at the exposed wounds. The attack that had infected me with the lycanthropy virus had granted me the rare opportunity to know what it looks like when your insides are on the outside, but even the wounds I had suffered seemed insignificant compared to the brutality that had been dealt to Dermot.

I wasn’t sure I would’ve recognized him if not for the thick thatch of bright red hair, looking all the brighter against the pale skin of his face. One bright blue eye fluttered intermittently while the other was swollen entirely shut. Where his skin wasn’t deathly pale, it was marked by black and purple bruises and dark smears of blood, some of it dried and some of it still oozing from numerous cuts and scrapes.

“Dermot?”

He didn’t stir at the sound of my voice, and I was almost glad he wasn’t conscious enough to answer me because it also meant he wasn’t aware of the agony his body must have been in. In some way I was grateful that my lack of medical knowledge made it impossible to know what I was looking at. I didn’t want to know what the glimpses of grey and white beneath the sea of red were.

“How... how is he still alive?” I heard someone ask in a hoarse whisper only to realize a second later that it was me.

“Through a wish and a prayer,” Alyssa replied, her voice suspiciously thick too. “Now, quick, press here,” she instructed, grabbing my hand and directing it to an oozing wound.

Choking back my desire to scream, I obeyed, grimacing at the sickening feel of things sliding wet and viscous beneath my fingers. It was a feeling I recalled all too well, and it took every ounce of my self-control to keep the sudden flare of panic at bay.

Not now,
I told myself.
You can fall apart later, but right now Dermot needs you to keep it together.

Smothering my panic, I grit my teeth to keep my sobs at bay, and narrowed my focus down to obeying Alyssa’s terse commands.

* * *

“Damn you to hell, you stubborn bastard!” Alyssa snarled as she tossed another handful of sodden gauze at her feet where it landed with a sickening splat. Almost as pale as her patient, she was in a state of dishevelment I’d never seen before. Frizzy wisps of fiery red hair were sticking up in a dozen different directions making her look as though she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket. Her lips were compressed into a pale, thin line and trembled as though she were on the edge of tears.

I felt the impact of blood splattering my jeans as little more than afterthought as I swiped at the trickle of sweat sliding down from my temple with my arm. In just a few minutes, Alyssa’s typically quiet and orderly clinic looked as though it had been transformed into the triage unit in a war zone. At its epicenter stood the pale-faced succubus and I, hunched over Dermot’s prone body as we worked hurriedly to staunch the flow of blood. The problem was that there didn’t seem to be a way to stop the bleeding, his entire abdomen was a ruin of torn flesh and exposed innards. Despite my lack of medical knowledge, I was fairly certain that if the blood loss didn’t kill him, infection likely would. Still, I applied pressure where I was directed, refusing to acknowledge the resigned voice in the back of my mind that told me it was a futile effort. I wouldn’t give up until Alyssa did, and from the crazed look in her violet eyes, she wasn’t done fighting yet.

“Alastair, go downstairs to the kitchen and fetch me a large pot of boiling water,” Alyssa commanded without looking up from where her hands worked to clamp off a severed blood vessel steadily oozing.

For a second the older man looked like he wouldn’t move from where he stood near the doorway, his face made all the more pale by the bright red hair spilling over his forehead from beneath his baseball cap.

“Now!” Alyssa snapped, and with a jolt he lurched into motion. Giving a short, sharp nod, he spun and bolted out of the door.

“What’s the water for?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she replied, meeting my gaze across Dermot’s wide barrel chest. “I just need him out of the room; he won’t want to see this.”

I didn’t get the chance to ask what before she pushed her small, delicately boned hands into the open cavity of Dermot’s abdomen, the wet sound of her fingers moving through things unseen making the room wobble.

“Don’t you dare pass out on me, Riley. I need you to hold him down. He’s not going to like this.”

I wanted to snap that I doubted anyone would like the feel of her hands immersed in their guts, but kept my mouth shut and instead swallowed my bile and nodded numbly. My hands shook when I settled them on his shoulders, his skin cool and clammy beneath my fingers, but no one else cared.

Removing her hands, now appearing to be wearing a pair of crimson gloves, she spread her fingers over Dermot’s chest, hovering just beyond touching the curls of his chest hair, made all the redder by the blood that had stiffened it into a thick pelt, and muttered something under her breath. I didn’t catch the words she whispered, but I felt the power of them when the air thickened, pressing against me until I was forced to wiggle my jaw to pop my ears.

“Alright, hold him down, and no matter what happens don’t let go until I say.”

Nothing happened at first, but then I didn’t know what was supposed to be happening. I waited, anxiously listening for each strained breath of the unconscious leprechaun. Gradually I became aware of a building energy in the air; at first it was little more than a faint crackle of static electricity that buzzed in the frizzy curls resting on my shoulders, but slowly it grew until every inch of my skin tingled and itched as if I was standing beneath a power line.

It was akin to the sensation I felt whenever Holbrook and I touched, yet the flavor of it was entirely different. Holbrook’s energy tasted of damp earth and green things, while the energy that fluttered against my skin now was full of something soft and ethereal like the teasing touch of a lover. I recognized the familiar sensual caress of Alyssa’s succubus energy, but there was something else interwoven with the energy that flooded the air. After a moment I identified it as the feeling of warm sunlight I had experienced during my bizarre dream after the vamp attack.

The tingling sensation increased until I felt as if an army of biting ants were crawling over every inch of my skin, driving me to distraction. And then the feeling was gone, leaving me adrift in a vacuum of sensation. Time stood still for a single crystalline moment, weightless and without meaning, before the world exploded around us in a soundless eruption of energy.

Dermot arched up off the exam table with a loud cry, his bruised and swollen face scrunched up into a mask of agony as he thrashed. The suddenness of his movement dislodged my grip, and glancing up I saw Alyssa struggling to keep her hands on him. Recovering quickly, I clamped my hands on his shoulders, forcing him back down to the table, though it took far more effort than I would have anticipated. Injured as he was, he was still strong as an ox.

I lost track of time as we stood cocooned in silence. Only the sweat on my brow and the stiffness in my shoulders hinted at the time that had passed when Alyssa finally gave a slow nod and signaled for me to step back. Dermot remained motionless on the exam table, but it was easy to see the transformation in him. His skin was still marked with deep bruises and cuts, but where his abdomen had once been a gaping bloody maw, it was now the smooth pink skin of a newborn.

“How did...” I started to ask as I turned wide eyes on Alyssa, the words dying in my throat at the sight of her. Her skin was a sickly shade of grey that appeared to hang off her bones and dark circles surrounded her eyes that held only a fraction of their usual brightness. She looked as though she had aged twenty years in the blink of an eye. Reaching out a hand towards her, I let my fingers hover just above her skin, afraid to touch her and cause her to crumble to dust.

Darting around the exam table, I reached her just before she collapsed to the floor. I was surprised by how light she felt in my arms and was reminded of an injured bird I’d found as a kid. It had been almost weightless in my hands, its tiny body cold and stiff, already too far gone to be saved. I was reassured by the warmth in her skin when her head rested against the side of my neck, but didn’t like the way she hung limp in my arms.

My relief was a tangible, living thing when she came to, and I eased her down into the chair I’d occupied earlier. Her face was still sallow and drawn, but she was gradually regaining some of the clarity in her gaze.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll... be fine,” she reassured me, patting my hand where it rested on her shoulder. She didn’t look much better than Dermot, who now lay still and breathing evenly on the exam table, but I was too shaken by the events of the last few minutes to argue with her. Nodding, I slumped down onto the floor beside her chair, content to simply feel the solidness of her legs against my shoulder.

“I fetched the water like ye asked,” Alastair said as he staggered into the room with a massive metal pot of steaming water. I thought he might drop it in shock when he took in the sight of Dermot lying still and Alyssa and me sagging against one another in exhaustion. “Is he...” he faltered, his voice growing even thicker with emotion until his words were almost unintelligible.

Alyssa didn’t respond at first, her gaze fixed on some distant point far away, but then she blinked once, twice, and took a long, shuddering breath. Her eyes held the faintest spark of their usual light when they rose to meet Alastair’s, and I could all but feel the exhaustion radiating from her.

“He’s just resting.”

“So he’ll be all right?” Alastair asked, his voice a strained mix of hope and fear.

Raising a hand to cover her mouth as she yawned, she nodded. “He’ll be fine.”

I felt a degree of tightness leave my shoulders at her words and realized that I’d been waiting for her confirmation that we’d saved him before allowing myself to relax. Bolstered by my newfound hope of Dermot’s survival I asked, “What just happened?”