Chapter Ten #2
Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, came striding down her little hallway, the size of his shoulders and reach of his height making her residence seem the size of a thimble.
He had a hard-sided black bag with him, and even though he was the least likely to take emotions into account, he did pause to put his hand on her shoulder as he came up to her.
It was his version of a reassuring hug.
And then he was by L.W.’s side and taking off his Boston Red Sox hat. “Hey, son, you mind if I check your heart and blood pressure.”
L.W. nodded. Shook his head. “Sure…I mean, okay.”
“That’s good. You’re a good—” As V’s voice broke, he knelt down on the floor. “You’re a good male.”
Putting his bag beside him, he split the handles to reveal a variety of medical equipment inside, all of which she’d no doubt seen before, none of which she recognized.
When he took out a cuff and a stethoscope, she told herself that they were going to help, even though that wasn’t true.
No one whose heart stopped was ever magically revived just by that little silver disk getting put on their chest.
Salima was the only thing that was going to—
The residence’s main door opened again. What came down the hallway next was six feet tall, willowy as a sapling, with black hair that fell to her hips.
Salima was a Chosen, one of the Scribe Virgin’s sacred females who had served for eons up in the Sanctuary.
With blood that was as pure as Wrath’s had been, what was in her veins was L.W. ’s best shot at surviving.
Only shot, really.
“My Queen,” the Chosen said as she bowed deeply.
Ordinarily, the female wore jeans and t-shirts in the summer, like everybody else.
For this duty, she was dressed in white robing that fell from her straight shoulders down to her white satin slippers.
Her hair was tied back, in the event L.W.
needed to take her throat, and the sleeves of her ceremonial dress only came down to her elbows.
“Thank you,” Beth whispered.
Her heart was beating so hard, she could hear it throughout the room. Could anybody else hear it? Surely, everybody in Caldwell could—
“Hi, friend.”
The female voice next to her brought her head around.
It was Doc Jane, and what a relief to see the familiar scrubs, the short blond hair, those forest green eyes that were both compassionate and business-like at the same time.
The Brotherhood’s ghostly trauma surgeon was carrying a big black duffel on her shoulder, her corporeal body leaning to the opposite side to haul the weight.
“Hi,” Beth said with defeat.
“We’re going to take really good care of him.” The female rubbed Beth’s arm. “Try not to worry.”
They were nice words, fine advice, the right thing spoken at the right time. But it didn’t mean a damn thing, and they both knew this. Doc Jane was more than a clinician, though. She was, in fact, more than even a friend.
She and V and Salima—and everybody else in this facility—were family.
“I…know you will. Thank you.”
What the fuck was she saying? Shaking her head, she backed up to give everybody some space, and the corner across the room from the bed stopped her, the juncture of the walls the closest thing to a supportive hug she was going to get.
Things happened so fast: L.W.’s vitals getting checked, Doc Jane murmuring to the Chosen, some IV bags being set up on a portable rack—and fast was good. Time was of the essence. The sooner he got blood of the opposite sex into him, the better chance he—
“My Lord,” Salima said in the Old Language to L.W., “it is my honor to be of service unto you at this hour of your transition. May Lassiter hold you in His palm and see you through, such that you may carry forth your bloodline and lead us as is your birthright.”
Beth’s translation was rusty, and she probably filled in more than she understood, but that didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered. Damn it, she couldn’t think straight.
She should probably go over to her son—did he want her to be closer?
Probably not. Did she care? No—but she didn’t want to be in the way.
Meanwhile, L.W. had obviously scented the female.
He started rocking back and forth on the bed, his head thrashing on the pillow, his skinny legs churning so that the covers bunched up, mountains of white froth as if ocean waves were cresting around him and trying to drown him.
And then there was an interminable pause, as if Salima were giving him a chance to respond, and when he didn’t, she lowered herself onto her knees beside him.
No! That was the word on the tip of Beth’s tongue. No! No, I’m not ready, he’s not ready, we’re not ready—
The Chosen closed her eyes and murmured a prayer. Then she bit her own wrist, and the instant the blood started to flow, L.W.’s head snapped around and his stare locked on the red trail that snaked down from the pair of puncture wounds.
For no good reason, Beth remembered the tattoos that had run up both of Wrath’s arms, and pictured the symbols that proclaimed his royal lineage. It was as the lines appeared in her mind’s eye that her son, the one born of her body, conceived from the great Blind King, took the Chosen’s wrist.
The tears came the moment the seal was made, and L.W. started drinking.
As she brushed at her face, she thought of his birth.
So much blood then, bringing him into the world.
What had they called it…she couldn’t remember now.
Placenta-something. She’d almost died, and only a hysterectomy had saved her life.
No more young for her, but Wrath hadn’t cared.
He hadn’t even cared about L.W. in the moment.
When it had counted, when her life had been on the line…
she had been the only thing he’d worried about.
He had been all for her.
“Why aren’t you here,” she whispered as she scrubbed her cheeks again.
Over on the bed, the medical professionals were flanking him as Salima kept her wrist against L.W.’s mouth. He coughed a couple of times before he really got into the drinking, and Beth told herself that surely with all this help—
The groan started low, but it didn’t stay that way. As the sound he was making grew louder and louder, L.W. began trembling, and then he went totally stiff.
“Keep drinking,” V ordered. “We need you to just—”
The convulsions were like a violent quaking that racked her son’s fragile body, and for however long Beth lived, she knew she would never forget the sound of that little bed’s headboard banging on the wall as the spasms all but vibrated L.W.
up off the mattress. And that was only the start of it.
The seizures became so violent that V had to jump up on top of him and grab the sides of L.W.
’s face, just so that he could keep drinking.
Salima’s wrist got torn apart.
And this was just the beginning.
Even with everything Vishous was doing to try to hold things steady, the gnawing of her skin was terrible, her blood covering the lower half of L.W.
’s face and staining the bedsheets. At some point, the pillow was thrown aside, and then Doc Jane was locking onto the Chosen’s elbow to try to keep Salima’s forearm still attached.
As Beth watched it all, she had to cover her mouth with both hands or she was going to scream.
She’d been through her own transition, but it had been nothing like this…
violence. The air crackled with tangible energy, the light overhead and the one out in the hall dimming and coming back on, only to flicker unreliably.
The sense that the boundary between life and death had thinned to barely a veil made her cold, even though the temperature in the room had soared—
Crack.
As the sound of a lightning strike made her ears sting, L.W. screamed and blood went everywhere. Beth lunged forward on a stupid instinct and then caught herself. Underneath V’s hulking body, her son’s right foot changed position, and not because he’d rolled his ankle.
His right thigh was growing, the leg extending down the bed.
And then he screamed again as something else snapped out of alignment, out of joint, out of place.
All she could do was stand there in the corner, holding back her own wailing as tears flowed down her face.
There was no stopping this, no way to medicate this away because fate had taken the wheel.
The outcome was already written somewhere, already determined, because free will didn’t mean shit and destiny was an avalanche that there was no reversing.
All she could do was pray to Lassiter.
And even that was bullshit because he wasn’t going to intervene. He couldn’t.
At some point, Beth ended up at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped together over her thundering heart, her mouth blabbering as she begged for mercy to no one and nothing in particular, her eyes squeezing shut on the flow of tears.
As piece by piece, her son broke apart.