Laurell Hamilton - 16 Blood Noir

Think, Anita, think, damn it! I had to get the bleeding stopped, but there were so many wounds. How do you put pressure on someones entire body? God.

I was remembering Cisco dying. Hed been a wererat and hed bled to death with a team of doctors around him. But theyd tried to make him shift form. If you could get a lycanthrope to shift form, it healed them a little.

I put my hand back on his chest. His heart was faltering. No, no. I said, Jason, Jason, fight, Im here. Help me.

I wanted him to open his eyes, anything, but he just lay there, and his heart wasnt right. The rhythm was too slow. Shit.

I did the only thing I could think of, with his heart dying under my hand. I called my wolf. There was no running up the long corridor inside me, or trees; there was just an image in my head behind my eyes of the white and dark of her fur. I let that image fill me; in that moment if truly becoming a wolf would have saved him, Id have done it. In that moment, I accepted what I was, and what was in me; there was no fighting now, only a desperate need. I shoved my wolf into him as Id done with tiger and Crispin, as Id done with so many others. I shoved my beast down my hand and into that slowing heart. I willed him to change, and knew that if it didnt work, nothing was going to. If he was too hurt to shift, then he was

For the first time, there was no pain to giving my beast, because I wasnt fighting it. There was warmth and power, and a feeling of something pulled out of me, like an extra body part that I hadnt known I had, and suddenly it was there and I could feel it and use it, and it was gone again. It pushed into Jason, and I could feel it, going deep inside him. I could feel that part of me seeking a matching part of him. I found his beast, and what had been gentle and loving was suddenly explosive. I needed him to change now. The beasts seemed to sense my urgency, or maybe his wolf didnt want to die either.

Jasons body jerked under my hand. He gave a sound, a cry, and fur flowed under my hand. His body shrank and re-formed. Once, feeling Richard shift and change against my body had frightened me to death; now it was the most wonderful thing in the world. It had worked. I kept my hand on him while the power of it danced across my skin like the kiss of something electric and alive.

When it was done, a gray wolf lay on its side, panting. The heart under my hand now was thick and steady. He opened wolf eyes the color of new spring leaves. For a moment he saw me, and he gave me that look that no real wolf will ever give, and then the eyes fluttered shut, and the body under my hand began to flow and move again. His human body flowed up and around the wolf, and I was left with my hand on Jasons side.

I put a hand on the middle of his chest, and his heartbeat was there, thick and steady. His skin was still cool to the touch, but his heart felt better. I wiped my hand on my jeans, trying to get the blood and wet goo off of it. I put my hand back on his neck. I searched for his pulse, and found it this time.

His naked body was free of blood, so that it looked like hed just been laid down in the middle of the carnage. Now the wounds that hadnt healed were clear on his skin. He was covered in knife cuts like evil red mouths; from shoulders nearly to ankles he was covered in wounds. They began to bleed again as I watched. Id bought us some time, but this wasnt going to heal by magic; we needed doctors.

I picked up the gun from the floor and reached for the cell phone.

I DIALED 911. A womans voice said, Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?

Anita Blake, Federal Marshal. I gave my ID number, then said, Female, five-foot-three, long black hair, T-shirt, jeans. Two down. Officer-involved shooting. Partner wounded. Technically, Jason wasnt my partner, but he was mine, and theyd come faster for a wounded cop than a civilian. Id sort it out later, after we survived.

Address.

Shit, I dont know. I got up and looked out a window. There was nothing but trees. They drugged us and we woke up here. I dont know where here is, cant you trace me by the phone?

Is there a landline?

I looked around the room. I dont see one.

Try another room.

I dont want to leave him alone.

We need a location to send help, Marshal.

She was right, but I hated leaving him like that. I touched his hair, laid my cheek against his, and whispered, Dont die on me. I walked back down the hallway past the bodies and tried the first door. It was a bedroom. No phone. The second door I tried was a kitchen, and there was a phone on the wall. I see a phone, let me see if its working. I had to put my gun down to pick up the second phone. Ive got a dial tone.

Call us back on that line, and well be able to trace it to you.

Okay. I clicked the cell phone shut, and dialed 911 again. It was a different womans voice, and I told an even shorter version.

We have your location, Marshal, help is on the way.

How long?

Youre pretty isolated. Well try to get a chopper up, but theres no place close to you to land it.

Okay. Well wait.

I can stay on the line with you if you want, she said.

No, I need to try to stop the bleeding on my friend, and I need my hands for that. Thanks though. I hung up before she could say anything else. I clicked the safety on the gun and tucked it down the front of my belt. Id bring Jason in here. I wasnt sure how to stop the bleeding from so many wounds, but I knew keeping him warm was better.

Help was coming. We just had to hold on until they got here.

I knelt beside him. His hair was strangely clean, except where the side of his face had been on the blood. He looked like Jason again, instead of so much meat. I swallowed past something that tasted like tears. Id cry later when he was safe. No time now. I rolled him into my arms, and he felt like dead weight. The heart was going and the pulse was moving, but there is a difference in bodies. Even unconscious, a body doesnt roll like this. Just the way he felt in my arms scared the hell out of me. He rolled, and flopped, like he was already dead. His skin was too cold to the touch. I had to get the bleeding stopped. I had to.

It wasnt weight, but sheer awkwardness that made me put him in a firemans carry across my shoulders. Blood trickled down my body from him. Shit. I tried to think of other things. I was glad that of all the men in my life, it was one my size. There probably wasnt twenty pounds difference in our weight. I could carry him. Not forever, but down the hall. I carried him past the body of the vampire who had tortured him. My only regret in that moment was that I couldnt kill him again.

I laid Jason down on the bed. He lay so still, so horribly still. I folded the coverlet around him, hoping to keep him warmer, and then I went in search of a first-aid kit, something, anything. Id have traded my skills at killing for a little more first-aid training right then.

I knew what was in the bathroom, so I checked the kitchen first. There were towels, but no way to bind them in place. Maybe I could cut up a sheet to use as strips?

I got all the small towels and washrags that the kitchen had and carried them back to the bedroom. The only thing that showed above the coverlet was Jasons hair, so yellow, so vibrant, but he hadnt moved. I wanted him to move, so badly.

I put the rags down on the unused side of the bed and searched for sheets. They were in the closet. I had to go back to the kitchen to fetch a clean, sharp knife to cut the sheet up. I was glad the vampire hadnt used all the knives in the kitchen, because I didnt want to touch the bloody ones in the living room. It felt somehow like they were cursed. Not for real, but unclean, maybe.

I cut the sheet into strips, and then I had to uncover him and start looking at the wounds. They had bled into the coverlet, but no wound seemed worse than the others. It was like any one cut would have been fairly minor, maybe a few stitches. It was the culmination of all of them together that had nearly bled him to death.