Part 22 (2/2)
”Easy,” Faith said. ”You've got to ground, Miranda, and reinforce your s.h.i.+elds. You're freaking out the mortals.”
Miranda looked up and saw that the human staff members, every one, had huge frightened eyes, and some were shaking from the carryover of her fear.
”They can't do their jobs like that,” Faith pointed out. ”Pull it back in.”
Miranda nodded. She forced herself to let go of David's hand for a minute and breathe deeply, seeking the place of silence and stillness she had fought so hard to create inside herself. With each breath she intensified her s.h.i.+elds until she was so strongly walled off from the others that she could barely feel the air on her skin.
The staff's relief was obvious. They sighed, blinked, and did a little deep breathing of their own-chances were they had no idea where their sudden anxiety had come from.
On the other side of the bed, Mo hooked up the IV and switched it on.
Miranda watched the infused blood traveling through the tube into David's wrist. She could hardly breathe as she waited for it to take effect.
When it did, everyone knew.
The Prime's body stiffened, and he gasped. He squeezed Miranda's hand so hard it nearly broke her fingers. A soft sound of surprise and pain escaped his lips, and sweat broke out all over his body; then, like magic, it seemed to pa.s.s, and he breathed out.
She almost believed for a moment that it had been that easy.
A minute later, he cried out again, and spasms began to rock through him so powerfully she heard something in his body snap.
Wave after wave of seizures. .h.i.t him, and Miranda could feel the pain, even through her s.h.i.+elds: great hands crus.h.i.+ng his skull, needles jabbing, claws ripping out his insides. The light in his Signet was fading in and out, as if it had a short in its wires.
Miranda heard screaming. She didn't understand at first where it was coming from, as no one else seemed to notice it, but then she knew: It was inside his mind, and inside hers.
One of the nurses made a mewling noise, and Miranda's head jerked up in time to see what might be the oddest thing she'd seen so far in her life: Lightweight objects all over the room were floating. A syringe, a pen, several medical tools whose purpose Miranda couldn't divine, and even the intern's necktie were suspended a few inches in midair.
”Oxygen mask, please,” Mo said, totally calm. Miranda didn't know if he'd seen this before, but if he was worried it didn't show. He fitted the mask onto David's face and flipped a switch in the wall. David's breathing deepened somewhat and it seemed to calm him a little; a few seconds later there was an a.s.sortment of clattering noises as all the levitating items fell back down.
The screaming in Miranda's head went on and on, silent but deafening, and she clung to his hand, afraid to get any closer. His skin had a sick, yellowish pallor now, and another spasm arched his back. Finally Miranda couldn't take it anymore. She buried her head in her free arm and shut her eyes tight.
She heard Mo saying something about liver damage and jaundice. The nurses were talking, too, reading out numbers to each other and asking the intern for various things. But all Miranda really knew was the screaming, with its answering echo in her heart, and it felt like it went on forever.
Then, finally, something indefinable began to ease. The spasms became less frequent and less hard. His pulse began to even out.
Miranda raised her eyes hesitantly and saw that the color of his skin was returning to something like normal. He was still even paler than a vampire was supposed to be, but the yellow tinge was gone. She could hear him breathing more deeply.
”All right,” Mo said. ”We are on the downhill run. Nurse Jackie, administer a liter of lactated Ringer's solution, please.” To Miranda's questioning look, he replied, ”To restore the electrolytes. The poison will be out of his system soon, but it's left his body chemistry in a state of chaos. Anything we can do to bring order will help him recover much more quickly and help your energy repair the cellular damage. The less power you use, the more he'll have available.”
She nodded. When she spoke she sounded as if she'd been screaming for hours, though she hadn't made a sound aloud. ”Can I do it now?”
Mo checked the monitors, then said, ”By all means.”
Miranda lurched to her feet and put both her hands on David's chest. He was cold . . . much too cold, though his skin was damp with sweat. It barely felt like there was any life left in him. She had never really worked with their Signet-born healing abilities herself; David had used them on her, but she hadn't needed to try them on him. She had thought he was indestructible.
She reached into herself and found the bond between them, then started to push as much power into him as she could-but then she remembered the way Deven had healed Kat, slowly and gently, and tried to do the same, controlling the flow of energy so that it moved into the Prime gradually as a stream instead of a roaring tsunami. She allowed her awareness to sync up more with his, pus.h.i.+ng aside the barriers she'd kept between them for the last three weeks so she could see if it was working.
It was. She could feel damaged organs and tissues regenerating, scarred veins smoothing out, and, most important, the blood that had erupted in his skull being reabsorbed, returning to balance. Mo had been right-doing this before the poison was out would have been futile, because every time she healed him the poison would just undo her efforts until it had run its course. There was no way to know yet how long that would have taken, but she knew it would have been much longer than an hour.
When she felt that a tentative equilibrium had been reached, she withdrew, not wanting to overwhelm his system with too much energy.
To her relief he looked a hundred times better. Mo removed the oxygen mask. ”I would say we have succeeded,” the medic said, satisfied. ”We have blood samples for basic toxicology-the Hausmann has the equipment for a narrow range of tests, so we can run them before the samples die. I already sent a courier with additional samples to Hunter Development; perhaps they can get something from them if they hurry.”
”So we don't know what it was,” Faith said. She was standing nearby with her arms crossed, her face lined with worry.
”Not yet. Once he is awake I will ask him about his symptoms, and that will tell us much about the culprit.”
”I think the odds are pretty good we're dealing with our a.s.sa.s.sin,” Faith added. ”But I don't really understand why suddenly she'd be using poison.”
Miranda was staring at David's drawn, exhausted face. ”To hurt me,” she said. ”She couldn't just kill him without killing me, too, but she could hurt him.”
”Going after a Prime is pretty b.a.l.l.sy,” Faith observed. ”And stupid. She's going to regret it.”
Miranda gave a choked half laugh. ”Not if we never catch her.”
It was midafternoon when David woke, more exhausted than he could remember feeling in a century but otherwise comfortable. The absence of pain was such a stark contrast to the hour before he had pa.s.sed out that he was confused for a minute, feeling out along his body without recognizing the sensations of warmth, softness, and relaxation.
There was something nearby that gave off a lot of heat and was also making a rhythmic sound, like a drum . . . it was comforting, and he lay there listening to it for a long time before he tried opening his eyes.
The first thing he saw was red hair.
”Hey,” she said softly.
She looked about as tired as he felt, and he sensed she hadn't slept at all. She was stretched out beside him in the bed, propped up on one elbow, watching him wake.
She was in bed. Their bed. Next to him.
His heart did a cartwheel.
”Hey,” he answered back. His voice was like sandpaper in his throat. ”How long was I out?”
”It's Tuesday afternoon.”
He would have expressed shock, but he could barely move. ”So, most of a day. You . . . haven't been here the whole time, have you?”
Miranda shrugged. ”Most of it. I did the patrol meetings and stuff at dawn but then I came back here.” She reached over and straightened out the comforter. ”Can I get you anything?”
”No . . . you're enough.”
A smile, tentative but genuine. She left her hand on his chest, right over his heart, and said, ”You scared the h.e.l.l out of me.”
”I'm sorry.”
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