Vampire Food 08: He Smelled Like Peach Pie (22 page)

“No, I don’t.” Shanagar got up and walked down the highway, leaving Rory alone with Em’s body.

Salt slid down beside Rory. “Where the fuck is he going?”

“I have no fucking idea. Help me heal her.”

Salt stared at Em. “Where do I start?”

“Just pick a place.”

Salt crawled around to her leg and bit his hand, dripping blood into the more serious-looking holes. Mia was there a second later, kneeling at Em’s side to try and repair some of the gashes over her rib cage. Russell sat down at her head, slicing into his hand to drop blood into Em’s mouth. It was a joint effort by all of them to save Em’s life, even though she should already have died. Rory could only hope that it was enough. They all had to be careful, because there were no humans around to take food from if they gave Em too much.

Rory gave Em a once–over. She was basically back in one piece, but was still covered with a myriad of slashes that were stark white, indicating that her body didn’t have enough fluid in it to bleed. She was, however, clinging to life and that was a good thing. He sat back on his heels, his head lolling slightly. He couldn’t do anymore. Her body was metabolizing and using the life fluid as fast as it could run from his flesh.

Mia was lying on the ground with her head on Salt’s leg. Salt was sitting up, but was leaning to the side with his outstretched arm to the ground to keep his balance. Russell sat cross-legged at Em’s head, his bloody hand resting in his lap.

If there were more vampires to heal her, it would probably greatly improve her chances, but the only other one was Shanagar and the man had disappeared.

What kind of man was Shanagar that he professed to love Em, but would walk away and leave her dying? The rest of them had gathered around to try and keep Em alive. They sat now, three vampires who could barely stay upright. They had nothing to feed upon to renew their strength, yet they have given every possible drop of life fluid to Em. Russell had given his blood, and Rory could only hope that he knew his body well enough to have stopped before endangering his own life.

Rory stroked her soggy hair, accidentally hitting Russell in the process. Russell opened his eyes. “How is she?”

“Alive. I don’t know for how long, but I can’t do anymore. It sucks because if she dies, I will die with her, but if I die trying to save her, she will want to die with me.”

“I know she would.” He gestured to Mia and Salt with his head. “Are they okay?”

“I think so, Salt.”

Salt opened one eye. “Are you talking about us? Yeah, we’re fine. Very hungry, but fine.”

Rory pushed himself to his feet, staggering as he wavered badly trying to walk. He sat back down. “I need to rest a bit before I go look to see if there is anything alive around here to steal some blood from. Fuck. How the hell did she end up in the water?”

“I have no idea. Last I knew she was sleeping under the sun cloth with Shanagar. What the hell happened?” asked Russell.

“I don’t know. Mia said that something was wrong and when I came out to look, I found Em in the water with two alligators tearing her apart. I can’t imagine how she fell in or why she didn’t fight back.”

Russell gestured to the road with his head and Rory turned to see what he was looking at. Shanagar was leading a large herd of small dear toward them. He reminded Rory of the pied piper and his sheep. “Well, he didn’t bother to hang around and help Em, but at least he found us something to eat.”

Mia lifted her head and sniffed. “What is that? It smells warm and so alive.”

“They are deer, Mia. Smaller than the ones you grew up eating, but there are a bunch of them.”

She gave Rory a smile and used her arm to push herself slowly upward. Shanagar walked over and the deer moved around him and then stood to either side of them. Rory simply had to get back to his feet to feed. He sank his teeth into the deer’s throat, reminding himself that there was no need to take too much. All he had to do was to move on to another one. He fed from four of them and then turned his sites on Shanagar. “Thank you for the meal, but Em needed you and you left her. I thought you loved her.”

“I do love her. That is why I left.”

“How do you figure that leaving her to die is professing your love?”

“Why do you hate me so much, Rory? Your hate has blinded you to the obvious in this situation. Let it go and open your fucking eyes. Or more aptly, open your nose.”

Rory frowned. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he could no longer smell Em. He had been sitting right beside her. Rory turned and knelt down, putting his nose directly to her skin. The scent was still there, but it was so faint that he really had to get right down to her body to smell it. Sitting back on his heels, he grimaced. He had been wrong about Shanagar
again
. When the alligators had drained Em, it had diluted Shanagar’s fluid down to almost nothing. When and if she healed completely, the scent might be gone all together. If Shanagar had helped to heal her, his scent would be reintroduced into her body.

Shoving his hands into his hair to brush it back, Rory got back to his feet. He wanted to return to helping Em, but he owed Shanagar a man-to-man apology. He walked up to him. It still bothered him to have to look upward into Shanagar’s face, but he did it anyway. Rory held out his hand in a gesture of friendship. “I am very sorry for what I just said. I was so bent on putting Em back together that I didn’t even think about the smell. I keep misjudging you because I’m jealous. I love Em more than life itself and it was killing me to be away from her. I guess that I need to remind myself that she is an excellent judge of character and considering how much she likes you, I need to make an attempt to do the same.”

Shanagar took his hand and shook it. “Those are very noble words considering the situation. I completely understand your anger. I have experienced boughs of it myself recently. I do love her, but I have already been informed that I have no place in her life unless her current mates want me there. I can’t imagine what she will do with four men in her life, two of which are pigheaded as hell.”

That was the truth. Rory chuckled despite his desire not to. “I think we should call a truce. She will never forgive us if we go after each other’s heads. Let’s get Em sealed up and get some blood into her. If she makes it through this, then we will have to figure out what to do next. Deal?”

Shanagar nodded. “Deal.”

Rory turned to go back to Em, but then stopped and looked back at Shanagar. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I know how much she loves you and Salt. I was a good distraction while she was awake, but seeing tears running down her face while she was sleeping was evidence of how much she missed you.”

With a nod, Rory returned to Em’s side.

It took them a good portion of the night to close up all the wounds, as Em teetered on the brink of death. Even though her body was back in one piece, they still had to figure out how to get blood into her to replace her life fluid. Without it, she probably wouldn’t live until the next sunset.

It was Shanagar that came up with an answer. He walked among the deer, finding the weakest one. It was an older buck that was limping badly. Its leg had recently been torn open and Shanagar said that a small infection had already begun to fester in the wound. It wasn’t bad enough to taint the creature’s blood yet, but it probably wouldn’t be alive much longer once it completely set in. He brought the creature forward and then with a deep gaze of his eyes, sent the deer into a half sleep. It wavered on its feet and then lay down, putting its head peacefully to the ground.

Shanagar went into the toolbox for the helicopter. There was a cloth that he used to wipe out a large funnel that was meant to put oil into the gearbox. Rory watched him and when Shanagar returned to hand him the funnel, Rory knew it was a gesture of peace. He placed the small end of the funnel between Em’s lips and the large end to the side of the creature’s neck. Rory bit deeply into the vein, pulling back so that the blood ran down the animal’s coat and into the funnel. With each beat of the deer’s heart, the blood pumped red and thick down to the narrow stem. It drained into Em’s throat, giving her the much-needed elixir of vampire life.

Slowly the heartbeat came to a stop, ceasing as the life force within the body winked out. Rory felt bad for killing such a majestic animal, but it needed to be done. They had already fed from each creature once and to try and take just a little bit from each one for Em would have been impossible.

Russell was up a moment later, and he dragged the deer back away from them and began to butcher it. Russell needed the fresh meat as badly as Em needed blood. It would help his body recover faster.

Shanagar sat down at her feet and began to rub her lower legs. “We need to encourage the fluid into her limbs by rubbing them. It might help.”

Salt nodded and slid closer, rubbing her stomach and hips. Rory however was looking at Mia. The girl was crying, pink tears streaming down her cheeks. “What’s wrong, Mia?”

“I know why she did this.”

“What?”

“Em. I woke up a little while after the sun went down. I knew what had to happen to fix her. I went to her tell her and found her sitting at the side of the water. She pointed out the alligators to me and we were watching them when I told her. She thanked me and said to go wait in the helicopter. She said to give her ten or fifteen minutes and then wake you up. I never imagined that she was going to jump in the water.”

“So you told her that she needed to be almost completely drained of blood to get rid of Shanagar’s smell?”

Mia nodded and then shook her head. “Not exactly. I just told her that Shanagar’s blood could be diluted so the smell would fade. I figured that she would wait until we got back to the caves and…I don’t know…cut her wrists or something.”

“That wouldn’t have worked, Mia. Firstly, she would have passed out far before her body was drained. Her flesh would have also healed too quickly for her accomplish that much fluid loss. Em had to do something this dramatic to make sure that there was so little of my life fluid in her body that her normal cells would overwhelm it.”

“I didn’t know that, Shanagar. How did she know?”

“I don’t know if she did, but I’m sure she could reason out the basics. She accomplished her goal, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but now she might die.”

“I guess that was a chance that she was willing to take to be back with Rory and Salt. Would you make the same sacrifice, Mia? Would you chance surrendering yourself to death to be with the men you loved?”

It was a question that Mia obviously didn’t have an answer for. She had never loved anyone that much. As they waited, Rory suddenly understood that it was just as detrimental for Mia to be with them, as it was for them to be with her. She could never love them as Em did and Mia would never experience that kind of complete love with Salt and Rory in her life.

“I don’t know,” whispered Mia.

It was an honest answer, she didn’t know and Rory wasn’t even sure if she could understand. He understood completely what Em had done to be with them again. It was a selfless act that might give her what she wanted, as long as she lived through it.

Rory could only imagine what kind of pain she had been in before she finally passed out. Had unconsciousness set in before or after the alligator had torn her arm off?

Em moaned and opened her eyes. She felt as if she had been hit by a truck. Four sets of eyes were staring at her, their faces set in equal measures of intense concern. “Wow. Want to back off a bit and give a girl some space?”

None of them moved. “Guess not.”

Rory stroked back her hair. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

“What the hell do you expect when you jump into a canal with two oversized alligators in it?”

“I did what?”

Rory frowned. “You did jump in, didn’t you?”

Em squinted, the light was hurting her eyes. She remembered Mia’s proverbial warning and seeing the two alligators in the water. She had stood up, her foot was caught and when she had tried to pull it free, she had lost her balance and fallen. Had she unconsciously done it on purpose? Em had no idea. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

Em tried to lift her arm to push back her bangs. They were aggravating her because they felt heavy and were sticking to her forehead. Her arm came up a bit and then dropped back onto the bed. What the hell was wrong with her arm? Her head was killing her and she was so hungry. “I don’t fucking know!”

Shanagar gave her a smile. “Calm down a bit and tell us what happened. What do you remember?”

“Two bulls in a china shop,” she muttered absently. Both her bulls were present and accou…Rory was sitting beside her and so was Salt. Had the stink gone away? Mia had said that her blood needed to be changed and Em had been wondering if they could rig up some kind of dialysis machine that could remove her life fluid and replace it with human blood. “I don’t remember much. My foot was caught on something and when I tried to dislodge it, I lost my balance. I think I fell in the water and hit my head on something. I don’t know if I did it on purpose or not. What the hell happened?”

“The alligators attacked you. By the time that Shanagar and I got to you, you were in really bad shape.” He rubbed his nail down the inside of her arm. “Can you feel that?”