Amelia Atwater-Rhodes - Demon in My View

She felt weak from fatigue. Her clothing was soaking wet from when she had accidentally fallen in the river, and her heart was beating twice as fast as normal. Her face was stained with worried tears as she chanted and held her left hand, palm down, over Jessica's heart, channeling much-needed energy into the dying girl. Her other hand was constantly moving—soothing Jessica's brow, holding her hand, or drawing power from the earth.

Jessica's heart had been beating evenly for several minutes, but now it skipped once and Caryn gasped in pain, her chant stopping.

"I can't do this." Fresh tears rolled down her face.

"Should I get Hasana?" Aubrey suggested. "Maybe she — "

"She won't," Caryn interrupted, remembering her mother's anger when Jessica had left the house the day before. "She hates your kind and calls Jessica a traitor to the human race. Monica would have helped; she could have done it. But I just can't. I can't save her, and I could kill myself trying."

"Is there anyone else?" Aubrey asked, sounding frantic.

"Vida would kill her," Caryn answered, "and Light's dead." She cast Aubrey a sharp glance, knowing that his kind had murdered Lila, the last in the Light line. "All the others are too weak. Whoever did this broke one of her ribs, and now there's blood in one of her lungs; she's going to start drowning in it soon. Besides that, she's just about drained. It's amazing I can even keep her heart beating at all. Plus, she's got at least a dozen other injuries … I don't know of anything in science or magic that can heal her."

Caryn looked beseechingly at Aubrey, hoping he knew something she did not.

He knew nothing she wanted to hear. "I can kill — I can't heal," he sighed.

"I've been channeling my own … I don't know what to call it… life into her, but if I keep doing it we're both going to die. No witch short of an Arun could survive this, and they're part vampire …"

Caryn trailed off, defeated.

"I could."

She looked at Aubrey blankly for a moment after he spoke those words.

"Unless Fala decided to tear her heart out, her injuries are really rather insignificant to my kind," he clarified.

Finally Caryn understood. She had channeled from other witches in the past. If she could take energy from a vampire and give it to Jessica… would that heal her?

It might.

"I could kill you accidentally," she warned him.

"I've lived a long time."

"This is very definitely going to get me disowned," she muttered, hoping her mother would find some way to forgive her. "I need you on my right," she told Aubrey.

After he had shifted position, Caryn placed her right hand just above Jessica's heart, one of the three strongest energy centers. For healing, the heart center was best.

There were no words to accurately describe what she did next. Her own energy centers were open, forming a path from Aubrey to Jessica, and now as she tapped into Aubrey's —

She gasped as the power flowed through her. That was all it could possibly be called. Not life, not chi as Hasana called it or simply energy as Monica had taught her, but pure, unrestricted power. No wonder his mind was so strong …

Caryn forced herself to control the power, which required all her years of practice, and then focused on channeling it into Jessica.

Jessica's own aura was strong, and Caryn wasn't surprised to note vampiric traces in it. She directed Aubrey's power to the areas of Jessica's injuries, where the girl's aura was weakest.

First she focused on the crack in Jessica's skull. It knitted itself together within seconds, and the blood that had pooled inside was reabsorbed into the veins as they repaired themselves.

The lung came next. The organ collapsed into itself and then regrew—small like a child's at first, but quickly expanding to full size. The rib mended in moments.

The rest of Jessica's body healed just as quickly, simply from the overflow of power. Caryn was grateful, since she was becoming sleepy. How could she be so exhausted with all this power running through her?

She was trying very hard not to think about what this process was going to do to her. She knew only one story that involved channeling the vampiric aura: Midnight Smoke, mother of Ardiente Arun, had drawn the vampiric aura into herself to save a human from becoming one of them. Since then, all Midnight's ancestors had carried a vampiric taint. Ardiente and Midnight had split from the line they had been born in and become the first in the Arun line. Caryn was descended from their relations, who had continued the Smoke line.

Caryn was feeling light-headed. There was nothing more she could do for Jessica; if this wasn't enough, then nothing would have worked. She quickly closed off Aubrey's power centers, then her own, aware that if she passed out before doing so she would probably kill all three of them.

With her eyes closed, she focused on Jessica yet again, trying to ascertain what still needed to be done.

While most of her body had healed, Jessica was still all too human. The newly healed areas needed the support of more blood than she had. Fala had taken too much.

"We should get her to a hospital, or she's still going to die," Caryn said, her voice uneven. "She needs blood."

For a moment Aubrey looked up, and his black eyes held no warmth as they focused on Caryn and then fell to her throat. She could see the effort as he turned his head away.

He was no longer the perfect, drop-dead-gorgeous immortal he had been. He was paler than ever, and his eyes were unfocused. He looked as if he had been drained as surely as Jessica had. Of course, when it came to his kind, power and blood were often all but interchangeable.

Caryn lay down as another wave of fatigue washed over her, and watched silently as Aubrey tried to rouse Jessica.

Jessica could barely breathe past the pain in her chest. Every muscle in her body had cramped, and she was shivering with cold.

Jessica! She recognized Aubrey's voice in her mind, though she had never heard him sound so distraught.

Slowly she dragged herself into the waking world.

No, not dead …I wouldn't hurt so much if I was dead, she thought absently. It was difficult to form a coherent sentence.

Aubrey pulled her attention back to him. Not dead yet, he said quickly, bluntly. But you will be soon if we don't do something. He paused, shaking her a bit to keep her attention from drifting away.

Careful. I'm not sure that arm is still fully attached, she answered, her wry humor returning to her.

I can bring you to a hospital, and they can give you blood. There's probably still time, he told her. Or if you want it — I know you said before that you did — I can give you mine.

If she'd had the breath to do so, she would have laughed.

Did she want to be a vampire? To stay in New Mayhem, in the community that had been her life for years; to be with Aubrey, the only one she'd ever felt completely at ease with; to never be prey again?

Then there was also the bonus of immortality, and the tempting idea of pummeling Fala into a bloody smear on the wall.

You need to ask? she finally said, and heard Aubrey sigh with relief.

Of course, she would be the first of his line— her line, she amended, realizing she'd soon be a part of it—to have been asked. They had been changed for various reasons — on a whim, out of spite or hatred or love. But not one of them had had a choice in the matter.

Jessica smiled wryly as she realized the favor that Fala had unintentionally given. Jessica had fought for her life when Fala had taken her blood, and now had free choice as Aubrey offered his.