Part 10 (1/2)
”Sike-what happened?” I didn't want to see what was under the bandages covering his face. ”And why?”
”Becoming a member of the Sanguine is not without trials.” She continued to paint what was clearly a vampire-blood-based substance onto Gideon's hand, like a salve.
The enormity of his situation settled in. He had no fingers. Lord only knew what the gauze around his face was concealing. ”Who did this?”
”If I knew that, I'd be killing them right now. Anna was asleep when he was damaged, and he did not see his attackers.” Finis.h.i.+ng with his nearest hand, she reached up to unwrap his face. ”He was her first daytimer. Her eyes, her ears,” she said, as his face was uncovered-his eye sockets were empty, hollow, and the sh.e.l.ls of his ears were gone. ”And now he is as helpless as a baby bird.”
”But why?”
”Because she chose him.”
”I thought they revered Anna?”
”Our kind buys reverence with fear.” She loaded up her thumb with the salve again and pressed it into the moist concavity of his eye sockets. I breathed deeply to keep my stomach straight.
”So the Rose Throne isn't all one big happy vampire family?”
”The words happy and family do not belong in the same sentence as vampire.” She traced the outlines of his mutilated ears. ”But this wasn't us. The Rose Throne is pleased about Anna's ascension. This was someone else.”
”Who? And why?”
”I'll be trying to figure that out as soon as I leave here.”
I swallowed. I didn't want to think of myself just now, but-”Whoever did this-could they come for me?”
Sike paused in her ministrations. ”I suspect that this was done for show. Harming a daytimer's much more of an affront than killing a mere human. No offense.”
”None taken,” I said. ”Somehow, your explanation doesn't make me feel any more safe.”
”You don't understand, Edie. Even without your badge, you wouldn't. She can hear him inside her mind, crying.” Sike unwound his other hand and started to treat it. ”Not killing him is worse than death, in this case.”
”Make him into a vampire then-” I prodded. It was what he'd wanted-what all daytimers did.
”With a human, vampire blood can only heal so much. And there are some things that becoming a vampire will not heal. You cannot regrow lost flesh-things lost in life, unhealed, stay gone. Would you want to live forever, like he is now?”
And I remembered Dren, eternally p.i.s.sed at me for the loss of his hand, and his task for me tonight. I shook my head, and she nodded. ”You see my point.”
Sike flipped her compact closed and pocketed it. Then she rewound the gauze around him, still b.l.o.o.d.y from the first time through.
”I can get you clean gauze, at least.”
”It doesn't matter now.” She stood. ”Gideon, follow me.”
Gideon stood and hobbled forward, like a stiff but obedient dog.
”Where will you take him?” I asked her, stepping out of their way.
She smiled cruelly. ”Home.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
Even if I had wanted to eat on my break, I didn't have any time. The rest of Y4's P.M. s.h.i.+ft looked at me like I was some sort of traitor, which I supposed I was now. I put the trank gun away after taking out the darts, tossed Sike's stolen lab coat into my locker, and went to wait for the elevator to head back up to trauma.
The doors opened and I heard steps from Y4 behind me. I hit the elevator's CLOSE b.u.t.ton and held it. I didn't want to hear it from anyone else on my floor. At the last moment, a jacketed hand jabbed between the closing doors, sending them open again.
”Hey-” It was the were from this morning, the one who'd been leaning on my car. He shouldered his way into the elevator. I ran to the rear, putting my back into the corner. ”No-look,” he said, then saw me and stopped where he was. ”This is pretty threatening, isn't it?”
”Yes.” My hands were up, pus.h.i.+ng him away, even though I knew there'd be no way I could win a fight with him. He backed up, keeping his hands spread wide to hold the doors open.
”I'm sorry about this morning,” he said. I stood straighter and put my hands down. ”I just didn't expect for anything to ever happen to my uncle.”
I had no idea if Winter's status had changed-I hadn't looked at any charts on my way out the door. ”I'm afraid I still don't know what you're talking about.”
”I know that you know.” He gave me an exhausted smile. ”Thanks for keeping him alive, last night.”
”You're welcome,” I said, unsure precisely what I was taking credit for when Gina'd done most of the work. He stepped back, then doors of the elevator closed, and the elevator rose up to the ground floor.
How lovely it was to sound honorable when I was 99 percent I sure would be bleeding his uncle tonight.
I would have sat down in the elevator to think, if it didn't stink of were-p.i.s.s from all the visitors that'd marked their territory as they rode up and down. A curl of gauze rode with me, Gideon's, from his exit. It was half covered in blood and stuck to the floor. I'd probably stepped on it on my way inside.
I had no doubt that Dren would make good on his promise to drain Jake if I didn't comply. Vampires were only honor-bound where other vampires were concerned-humans and daytimers were replaceable, as Gideon had found out.
It wasn't the getting blood, so much as the not knowing what it'd be used for. Winter probably had enough blood now to spare-I knew we'd tanked him up with transfusions, ever since he'd been hit. But what would Dren do with the blood once I gave it to him? Dren was a Husker, a kind of vampire bounty hunter, which gave him some mandate to go around messing with people's lives. I spent the duration of the elevator ride up pondering what Winter's blood could possibly mean to him.
In the end, I supposed it didn't matter-because what it meant to me was that Jake would be all right. I'd saved Jake from himself too many times for me to let him down now.
I walked into trauma past the charge nurse's desk.
”You're late,” said the charge nurse. ”Again.”
”Sorry.”
”Just because it's a holiday doesn't mean you can break the rules,” she said. Are you stupid?
”Yeah.”
I made my way back to my a.s.signed room. Luz saw me and glared. I sighed and proceeded to ignore her through my next a.s.sessment of Javier. He'd only lost a quarter of a centimeter of feeling this time. Maybe the swelling in his spine was going down. The dots down his side hadn't always been regular up to this point. Who knew.
I bided my time until s.h.i.+ft change. Luz tried to get the next nurse to let her spend the night, like I thought she would, and was refused, much to both their chagrin: my replacement's, that Luz was still there to ask, and Luz's because she hadn't gotten her way.