ReVamped (20 page)

Then I was jostled from behind. Then pushed, my feet actually skidding forward toward the stairs. Raspy’s feet got tangled with mine and we both went down, me falling on top of him like an inhuman shield as the kids trampled over us, stampeding more like cattle than sheep, crushing my vertebrae.

For a minute or more all I knew was pain, and when it finally ended, I couldn’t have moved if I’d been goosed. But the kids were up and out of danger. At least—

• • •

A pair of hands grabbed me by the shoulders and I didn’t even have enough left in me to panic. Gently, they turned me over, cuddling me into a body. I blinked slowly to clear the haze from my eyes and met Bobby’s baby blues.

I had to wet my mouth to speak. “You’re alive,” I said. It wasn’t much more than a breath, really, hardly an actual sound.

“In a manner of speaking anyway. Are you okay?” He stroked the hair away from my face, so, so gently.

I coughed, and it
killed
. “I think my back is broken.” But I didn’t want to dwell on that or the worry that it was too much to heal and that I might come out looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I looked around, but my head didn’t want to turn. Just my eyes moved. Rasputin was still right there, a hand’s breath from me, only my hands weren’t working. He wasn’t moving, which was really strange, since my body should have sheltered him from the worst.

“Is he … faking?” I asked Bobby.

He shifted minutely, as careful as possible not to hurt me as he reached for Raspy, but still, I heard bones grind together in my back and a wave of nausea washed over me. He poked the Mad Monk, and his body rocked just enough to give us a glimpse of the stake I’d yanked from my leg and thrust aside—it was now buried in Raspy’s back. What were the odds? Poetic justice that I’d actually beaten him with his own weapons. Byron would like that.

“Leave me here,” I ordered Bobby. “Lock down the baddies, see to the others. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You need blood.”

“After,” I said. My eyes wanted to close, but I didn’t dare let them until Bobby did what I said. Otherwise, I was afraid he wouldn’t leave my side.

I waited until he gently laid me back on the floor and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

He got those crappy zip-tie cuffs off the fallen strike team, and I passed out in relief.

18

It was really, really short-lived relief. Pain shocked me awake. Someone was trying to twist me like taffy.

My eyes shot open and I stared into the dark brown eyes of a man in face paint—the stealth kind of paint, I guessed, because it sure didn’t do a thing for him otherwise.

“I’ve got you,” Bobby said. I turned to look into his much nicer baby blues, which, weirdly, glistened with a single red tear on the verge of spilling over. “Just squeeze my hand when it hurts. Blade says he’s got to straighten you out or you’ll heal wrong.”

Like Alistaire healed
, I thought, just as—Blade?—gave another twist and all I could think of was
Holy Freakin’ Mother of God make it STOP!

When I could speak again, I sought out those brown eyes. “I hate you,” I said.

“I can live with that,” Blade answered. He had almost a bluesy voice, the kind that sounded like it was just about to give out. Rough, like a hundred miles of bad road, and low like low-rise jeans. If he hadn’t just tortured me, it might have given me a little thrill.

Blade, as good as his name, pulled out a knife, did a little flip thing with his wrist to free the blade and cut himself where the sleeve of his shirt had been pulled back above his gloves.

“Here,” he said, holding his welling wrist to my mouth, “drink this, you’ll heal faster. An ambulance has been called for people bitten by the bleeders … er, other vampires … and those run over in the stampede.”

“But everyone will be okay, right?” I asked, my eyes riveted on that blood. Raspy and I had been the only ones in the way of the rushing kids. Hopefully we’d gotten the worst of it.

“Blood loss, maybe some concussions and broken ribs, legs … mostly from my team fighting back when the kids were ordered to attack us. But we were as careful as we could be. They’ll heal.”

I’d almost forgotten what my question was as I watched his blood, dripping, some of it already lost. Like the mind, a terrible thing to waste. I licked my lips, and he helped me raise my head enough to drink.

Bobby looked away.

The blood—warm and wonderful—flowed into my mouth, and I sucked greedily. I could almost feel my insides knitting themselves together. Strength was returning, and I was beginning to feel almost normal again when Blade pulled away.

He checked his watch, black like the rest of his outfit. “We’re out of time. Estimated EMT response to this site is ten minutes. We’ve already burned five. We’ve got to get the gang out of here before the police arrive, or before the EMTs show up to look for a pulse.”

“Do you need help?” Bobby asked.

“You just take care of the girl. Get her on her feet. You two are going to have to stay here to spin the tale. New drug on the market … hallucinations … kids thinking they’re vampires … mass hysteria.” He shrugged, “It’s worked before.”

Bobby gave him a nod and turned back to me. Already I felt like even if I couldn’t leap buildings in a single bound, at least I could enter them under my own steam. I tried to sit up, but Bobby wouldn’t let me.

“Not yet. Give it time.”

I gave him a sour face, but did as he said.

“Sid and Maya?” I asked.

“Vamps drained them, but not to death. Some nice bloody steak and a few days’ rest, and they’ll be good as new. They managed to round up the kids as they stormed out.”

“So we won?” I asked.

“We did.”

I smiled, and Bobby smiled back. For a really awesome moment, the room, the strike team and their walking wounded, ceased to exist. Bobby’s gaze held a promise of what was to come later … much later, when my back was all healed and I’d bathed, showered, spritzed, and moisturized. It was a shame I had to ruin the moment … for now, anyway.

“You think you can handle spinning the tale on your own?”

He blinked, and his smile faded away. “Yeah, but why?”

“I have a promise to keep.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“I’m not sure it can.” Who was I to say how much time Bram had? Or how much time
I
had before Maya and Sid whisked us away to another mission. I might even have to sneak out all stealthy-like.

“You need back-up?” he asked.

“Nope, I’m good. Besides, we’ve got everyone.”

“Except Alistaire.”

“Assuming Raspy left him alive.”

“Just be careful. I’ll be listening for you.”

I creaked as I stood up, like an old lady, but at least everything was working. Bobby didn’t look at me like I was an old lady, though, and I stepped into his arms before I left, tilted his head to just the right angle and pressed my lips to his. I had to stand on tiptoes to do it, but he was worth it. Bobby’s lips were firm and wonderful. They opened under mine, and his tongue slipped out to tease me. My heart wanted to start just so it could pound, but I broke away before the police and paramedics could arrive and mess with my plans.

“That’s only a taste,” I teased.

“Good.”

I took the stairs two at a time and left the house the way I’d come in. The lawn was a confusion of kids, still under the influence of the gas but now following Sid and Maya’s lead. Both of them looked shaky and as drained as I knew them to be, but they were tough. They were holding their own.

I stayed as far away from them as possible and kept to the shadows. They’d hear my car starting up, but there was nothing I could do about that. I doubted they were up for a high-speed chase, even if they wanted that kind of attention.

I’d paid attention coming in, and once I hit a main road, I knew my way to the hospital. Once there, I knew the way to Bram’s room. I just had to wait for the reception lady to be distracted and take the elevators up.

It was after visiting hours, but I was lucky. At this time of night there was only a skeleton crew on, with the expectation that most of the patients would be sleeping or, in Bram’s case, even further indisposed.

The nurse’s station was deserted as I came off the elevator, and I slipped into Bram’s room without incident.

There he was—machines beeping and booping. He looked smaller than when I’d last seen him, like he’d sunk into the bed. His perfect head seemed sound, and I wanted to stroke it, to see those dark chocolate eyes with those ridiculously long lashes open. And there was only one way short of a miracle to manage that.

I thought about blood … Ulric’s, actually, since I could still remember the rush of it. No thin stream like Blade had offered me, but a raging river. My teeth descended, and I nicked myself in the wrist. I used my other hand to open Bram’s mouth. It was heartbreakingly easy—his muscles offered no resistance at all. I dripped my blood into his open mouth, enough to fill a small juice glass. I didn’t want him to drown in it, but I was afraid that was exactly what would happen. He wasn’t swallowing, and if he breathed it in … I tried something I’d seen once on some animal show with people fostering baby animals. I closed his mouth and stroked his throat to encourage him to swallow.

“Come on, come on, come on,” I said under my breath.

Beneath my hand, his Adam’s apple bobbed, and I let my breath out in a sigh of relief. He’d taken the blood. Now it was a waiting game to see how he’d respond.

My wrist was already healing so I didn’t need to wrap it, which was good, because even though this was a hospital, they didn’t exactly have gauze lying around like tissues. I spotted a chair deep in the shadows of the room, lit only by a faint light in the headboard of the bed, and settled in to watch.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the door to the room opened and closed. I had to will myself to stay still, hoping the nurse coming to take his pulse or whatever didn’t notice me there.

I wasn’t prepared for Ulric and the others.

“I knew you couldn’t stay away,” Ulric said, but his smirk was tired; his heart wasn’t in it.

“That’s right,” I answered. “It’s all about you.”

“Oh sure,” Lily said. “Give him a swelled head and then leave us.” She looked away. “That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it?”

“How did you—? Why aren’t you with the others?” I asked.

“Ulric snapped out of the trance or whatever before anyone else,” Gavin supplied.

“Maybe because of your warning,” Ulric said, his dark eyes all intense in the low light.

“Or maybe because of his hard head,” Gavin cut in. “Anyway, he got to us too, once we were out of that house, and explained on the way over … more or less. Now here we are.”

“I knew you’d come,” Ulric said.

“How is he?” Byron asked.

We all looked at Bram, and I swore I saw his eyelids flutter. And then … no doubt about it, his hand twitched.

Lily ran to his bed and I wanted to do the same, but if he was waking up, the machines would alert the staff pretty soon and we’d have company.

“We’d all better get out of here,” I said, surprised to hear my voice crack just a bit. “It’s after hours, and someone’s going to come by to check on him in just a bit. You don’t want to get caught.”

“We’re not leaving,” Lily said, steel in her voice. “We’re going to be right here when he wakes up.”

“He won’t be—?” Gavin started and stopped, unwilling to finish.

I looked back at Bram, and at Lily stroking his cheek. “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know if he’ll have a sensitivity to sunlight for a while, or any weird cravings, but no, he won’t be … like me.”

“Thank you,” Ulric said. “For … everything.”

Bram’s beautiful eyes opened slowly, and I so wanted to stay. I’d never gotten the chance to know him, and I already knew the others enough to miss them. They all were instantly at his bedside. As much as I wanted to be there too, my place was elsewhere. I slunk silently to the door, wary of good-byes, and had nearly closed it behind me before it was caught.

I turned. Ulric held the door in his hand, staring at me with his heart shining in his eyes. “We ever going to see you again?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

“You never know,” I answered.

And I disappeared into the night. Another name, another mission. At least I’d always have Bobby … or else. Even the Feds weren’t ready for the diva-storm I would unleash if they ever tried to keep
us
apart.

The End.