Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [143]
I picked a wound in his arm that seemed to be bleeding more than the rest, pressed a rag against it, and started trying to tie it in place. His arm was so limp that I had to trap his lower arm between my knees to get the knot tight enough to put pressure. But not too tight. I couldn’t remember, could lycanthropes suffer from getting their circulation cut off? I mean, if you could grow back a limb, then would too tight a bandage hurt you? I treated him like he was human, because I didn’t know. It had never come up.
It was when I was tying a wound on his thigh that I saw the first burn marks. Tiny, roundish burn marks on his thigh. More of them on the hip, and finally most of them on the groin. How had I missed these? They were smaller, less obvious than the bloody wounds, I guess. I knew I was in shock. I knew that. Shock softens things. It helps you see things in pieces sometimes; a little horror here, a little more when your mind thinks you can handle it. Shock, if you don’t go too far, helps you cope. I knew what had caused him to scream now. Burns didn’t heal on a lycanthrope like everything else. Burns had to heal human-slow.
I found more of the little burns all over the front of his body. The back of his body was untouched because he’d been tied on his back. To bind the wounds on his chest, I had to lift him, and he was still just dead weight. I should have seen the wounds beginning to heal by now. They looked the same. I knew in reason that he’d healed from the first moment I’d seen him. I knew that the shift to wolf form had helped him heal, because he wasn’t bleeding as badly as that carpet…but he wasn’t healing as fast as I was used to seeing lycanthropes heal. I didn’t know if Jason was simply a slow healer, or if there had been that much damage, or if the vampires had done something to the wounds to make them worse.
When I’d bound all the wounds I could figure out how to bind, I lay down beside Jason, with me propped up on the pillows, and rolled him against my body. I held him against me, and I prayed, prayed with that energy that true tragedy gives you. The loudest prayers must be when you hold someone you love and feel him go cold.
I knew warmth was important to healing lycanthropes. Cold was bad, that much I knew. My body heat was all I could think of. I got the gun out of my belt and laid it on the pillow beside me. I’d done everything I could think of; now we waited for help to arrive. Waited and prayed.
Jason didn’t feel like Jason in my arms. The washrags and sheet strips were rough and ruined the smooth feel of his body. My clothes were drying to my skin sticky with his blood. I should have taken them off before I lay down, so that Jason could be closer to my skin, but it had seemed to take so much effort to get him against me. I lay there, too tired, too shocky to move.
Why? Why had they tortured him? Why had they taken us? I remembered the man yelling, “Where’s Lorna?” We didn’t know anyone named Lorna, or I didn’t. Who the hell was she? I was betting that this had nothing to do with Jason, and everything to do with the Summerlands. Had Jason taken another beating for Keith Summerland? Was it that simple, or was something else going on that I didn’t know anything about? In that moment, holding Jason, feeling his blood drying my clothes to my skin, I was willing to believe there were lots of things I didn’t know.
I heard the door open. The outside door, because I heard the screen hit. Whoever it was, hesitated in the hallway. They’d seen the body. If it was the rescue crew they’d have called out.
I picked up the gun. The safety was already off, a round already chambered. I’d done that before I laid the gun down beside me. If anyone came through that door before the EMTs, they would not be my friend.
I sighted at the doorway and let out my breath. I let my body go quiet, and the gun was the focus of all that quiet. If Jason had moved in that moment I’d probably have screamed.
A man’s voice called from down the hallway. “I hear your heartbeats. I smell his blood. I see my