• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Do I need scrubs?” she said in a voice that was utterly foreign.

Shit, it was so damn girly. Next thing you knew, she was going to start crying at TV ads and doing her nails. And getting a frickin’ pocketbook.

“Yup, I’m going to want you in greens. Follow me.”

When they came back five minutes later, Doc Jane took her over to the sink, handed her a sealed pack with a Betadine sponge inside, and showed her how to get properly cleaned.

“Good job.” The doctor turned off the water by releasing a foot pedal down on the floor. “You won’t need gloves because you’re not going in.”

“You got that right. Tell me, you have a crash cart around, just in case I go over?”

“Right in the corner and I know how to use those paddles.” Doc Jane snapped on blue gloves and went over to John. “You ready? And we’ll be putting you under. Given where the bullet is, I’m going to have to go deep and there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to get you numb enough.”

Gas me, Doc, John signed.

V’s shellan put her hand on his shoulder and stared right into his eyes. “I’m going to fix you, don’t worry.”

Xhex frowned and found herself in awe of the female. To be that sure and certain, given what was at stake, was pretty amazing: If Doc Jane didn’t do her job right, John could be way worse off than he was now. But if she pulled it off, he would be good as new.

This was power, Xhex thought. And the polar opposite of what she did in her profession—a knife in her hand was a very different instrument.

No healing there.

Doc Jane began a running commentary, her voice strong and calm. “In a human hospital, you’d have an anesthesiologist present, but you vampires tend to be very stable under heavy sedation—it flips you into a kind of dormancy. I don’t understand it, but it makes my job easier.”

As she spoke, Ehlena helped John take off both his shirt and the leathers Doc Jane had cut up; then the female spread blue cloths over his nakedness and started an IV.

Xhex tried to stop her eyes from bouncing around and largely failed. There was too much threat in the place, all those scalpels and needles and . . .

“Why?” Xhex asked, forcing herself to respond. “The difference between the species, I mean?”

“Not a clue. You have a six-chambered heart and we have a four. You have two livers, we have one. You don’t get cancer or diabetes.”

“I don’t know much about cancer.”

Doc Jane shook her head. “Would that we could beat that thing in everyone who gets it. Bastard fucking disease it is, I’ll tell you. What happens is a cellular mutation occurs whereby . . .”

The doctor kept talking, but now her hands were moving around on the stainless-steel tables that had been rolled over to John, organizing what she was going to use. When she nodded at Ehlena, the female went to John’s head and covered his face with a clear plastic mask.

Doc Jane went to his IV with a syringe full of something milky. “You ready, John?” When he gave a thumbs-up, she depressed the plunger.

John glanced over to Xhex and winked. And then he was out like a light.

“First thing is disinfection,” Doc Jane said, opening up a packet and taking out a dark brown sponge. “Why don’t you stand opposite from me? This is Betadine, the same stuff we washed our hands with, just not in a soap form.”

As the doctor scrubbed around the bullet wound in wide streaks, leaving John’s skin tinged reddish brown, Xhex walked around his feet in a daze.

Actually, this was a better position. She was right next to an orange bio-hazard bin—so if she needed to throw up, she was good to go.

“The reason the bullet has to be removed is because it’s going to cause trouble over time. If he were a less active guy, I might leave it in. But I think being extra-conservative in a soldier is best. Plus you guys heal so fast.” Doc Jane discarded the sponge in Xhex’s bin. “Based on my experience with you, any injury to the bone will regenerate by tomorrow night.”

Xhex wondered if the doctor or the nurse was aware that the floor underneath all of their feet was moving