All Wounds (19 page)

“You ain’t cryin’ no more, are you?”

Rebecca choked on a half-sob, half-giggle and sniffed hard. She wiped her eyes and shook her head as she smiled for him.

“There you go!” Billy said. “No crying. I can’t stand a woman crying.

Let’s get you home, you can patch me up—I’ll even shower if you want me to—and let Syd get some rest. I’ll get us some waffles, and we’ll figure out where those bastards have the punk hid.” Billy looked in the rearview mirror. “Sonofa—”

“Oh, no,” Rebecca groaned and slid down in her seat. “Not again.”

“Tell me abo—” was all he managed to get out before a thud came from above them, the car’s roof crumpling even more between them.

Billy punched the roof hard above his head. “AIN’T YOU DONE

ENOUGH TO ROX FOR ONE DAY?!”

Rebecca just managed slide down in her seat before she was showered with glass. The demon on the roof of the car reached through the shattered windshield and clawed at her.

She screamed and looked up to see the gun in Billy’s hand just as he fired. There was a thud from the hood followed by an outraged howl.

Billy reached across the seat and hauled Rebecca up. She yelped as he pulled her under the crumpled roof across the seat and into his lap before guiding her hands to the steering wheel.

“Take the wheel!”

“I can’t drive!” she protested, though she clung to the hard plastic. She shrieked again as Billy hauled himself out from under her and through the driver’s side window. Rebecca saw a gray-winged form fall in front of the tires and heard a sickening crunch.

Billy slid back in the window and shoved Rebecca out from behind the wheel into the passenger seat as he stomped the gas pedal. The car shot forward. The werewolf looked over at her.

“So, waffles?” Billy asked.

Rebecca just looked at him.

Billy looked in the rearview again. “Damn. Those assholes just don’t know when to give up.”

“Oh, cripes,” Rebecca moaned, and slid into the small space between her seat and the dash on the floor.

She saw the gun Billy had used was wedged near the passenger door.

She reached toward it just as the car was hit hard from behind.

Rebecca couldn’t help but scream again. The gun skittered away from her, back toward the driver’s side.

“SYD!” Billy yelled. “Hang on, Bit! Almost there!” A feeling of weightlessness followed by hard thump beneath her knocked Rebecca onto her behind, and she yelped in pain.

“You okay?” Billy asked. He leaned down and shoved her into the passenger seat, and Rebecca realized it was once again dark outside.

She remembered he’d asked a question and managed a nod before the car was hit again from behind.

“Damn,” Billy growled. “Rotten bastards. SYD!”

There was another loud bang from the back of the car and Rebecca turned around to see the trunk burst from its hinges and fall away from the rear of the car. A blond head emerged.

It didn’t look like the Syd she knew. This creature looked more than dangerous. Fangs bared in a menacing snarl, the Syd-thing brought up what looked like a rifle. Rebecca didn’t realize it was a crossbow until she saw a silver-tipped bolt fly from it and heard a something like a shriek.

“IT TOOK ME SIX MONTHS TO FIND THAT LID!” Billy yelled over his shoulder.

“DRIVE!” Syd shouted back as he reached down and came up with another bolt. He fumbled with it, like he couldn’t get his fingers to obey him and dropped it twice before he managed to get it loaded into the crossbow.

He put the crossbow to his shoulder and pointed it behind them.

It seemed like hours before Billy turned onto her street and even longer before he reached her driveway.

As they passed the fence marking the property, Rebecca felt as though a weight had been lifted from her chest. Billy got out of the car to look behind them.

She heard a howl and a screech of outrage and got out of the car just in time to see the demon chasing them fly off into the dark.

A moan reached her, and she turned to see Syd’s dark eyes roll back as the he dropped the crossbow and swayed forward.

Rebecca ran to the back of the car and peered into the dark hole that had once been Billy’s trunk. “Syd!”

She looked to the werewolf. Billy was covered in blood and a slick black goo that looked like oil, but he was standing. She hated to ask him to help her get Syd into the house and up to the enclave, but she knew she couldn’t move the vampire herself. Who knew how late...early?...it was. It was still dark, but Rebecca looked to the horizon anyway, searching for the tiniest hint of daybreak.

“I’l get him,” Bil y said, saving Rebecca from asking. “Should just stake him though. I mean...look what he did to my car!” Rebecca finally saw what the car looked like. Though it was dark, there was light from the streetlamps and the porch.

The car, besides missing the trunk lid, looked less like a beer can someone had crushed and more like something even a junkyard wouldn’t sell as scrap. The tires, however, were all still fully inflated. Rebecca shook her head and couldn’t help but laugh.

“That’s the spirit, Bit!” Billy said, smiling in approval.

“Thanks,” she said. She gestured to the house. “Come on. Let’s get you guys patched up.”

“What about you?” Billy asked as he pulled the unconscious Syd from the trunk and cradled him in his arms like a rag doll. “You hurt?”

“I don’t think so,” Rebecca said. “I mean, probably, but I don’t think anything is broken. I guess I’ll find out later.”

“I don’t smell a whole lotta blood on you,” Billy muttered as they walked up the porch into the house. “Just your arm a bit, but you done that yourself.”

“Just because someone isn’t bleeding doesn’t mean they aren’t hurt,” Rebecca retorted. “Look at Syd.”

Billy went upstairs ahead of her to the enclave, carrying Syd in silence.

As much as Rebecca didn’t want to think, there were questions that she really wanted answers to.

Had the demons set a trap for them? Where had they taken Ryan?

Were they really after her, not him? Why? How did they know she’d have gone with Syd when he came after Ryan? Or had they planned on taking Syd too? What was going on?

She automatically looked at the clock on the mantle in the living room before she went upstairs. Two in the morning. Wow. No wonder she was tired. They’d left somewhere around six that evening.

Tired and hungry. But was she really hungry? Or was that feeling of starvation coming through from Syd.

Wherever it was from, there wasn’t time for sleep or food. There was a vampire that needed restoration and who knew what else. Rebecca had no idea what the demons had done to...what had Billy called it? Drained? Whatever they’d done to take everything from Syd in the blink of an eye. Syd was a powerful Master vampire. How could they have incapacitated him so fast?

Then there was Billy, who acted like nothing hurt him and that fighting was fun and that waffles could cure everything. Or burgers before a fight, or—

Rebecca all but collided with the big guy as she entered the enclave.

“Thought I’d go grab us a bite,” he said as he backed into the healing space and let her in.

“Is food all you think about?” she asked, and immediately hated herself for sounding grouchy.

Billy didn’t seem to notice her grumpiness and shrugged. “We gotta eat, right? How about Chinese? You like Chinese? I know this all-night Chinese joint—”

“Sure, Billy, whatever,” Rebecca said with a tired sigh. Then she looked hard at him and shook her head. “Let me have a look at you first.”

“I’m all right,” Billy said, shaking his head. “You look after Syd. He’s out while I just have a couple scratches. I’ll patch myself up in the car.” Rebecca started to say something about how someone would definitely notice the condition of the car if not the condition of the driver, but found she just couldn’t think about what people might notice anymore. According to Nana, these Ethereal guys had been around a long time, and if no one had noticed them before, they weren’t going to notice them now. They probably had their ways of keeping themselves hidden anyway, and Billy had said himself that humans weren’t all that great at noticing things right in front of them.

And Chinese did sound really good all of a sudden.

She wondered what her nana had eaten before she went to bed, or even if she had done so. Maybe she and Gretchen had got to catching up and hadn’t eaten anything. Just sat there sipping tea or coffee.

Billy looked like he was waiting for her to say something, and she remembered he’d asked if she liked Chinese.

“Oh, uh...broccoli and beef, and General Tso’s if they have it,” she said, and was rewarded with Billy’s lady-killer grin.

She couldn’t help but smile back. He just had one of those smiles.

“You got it! Broccoli is the best!”

He was down the stairs and out the door before Rebecca could say anything else.

She shook her head again and went into the dark enclave. She’d just lit a candle and shook out the match when she noticed Syd’s dark eyes open and on her.

“Hey, Blondie,” she said in her best version of Nana’s calm, quiet voice.

“You look like crap.”

Syd didn’t reply.

“Blondie? Syd?”

The dark eyes continued their blank stare.

Rebecca almost panicked before she remembered that vampires slept with their eyes open. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. He was all right. Just sleeping. If he’d...died...he wouldn’t be there. He’d have just disappeared. The knowledge of what happened when a vampire died was just...there. There wouldn’t even be a pile of dust to mark his passing. Just empty clothes. Her eyes went to the large signet ring Syd wore on his left hand. It would be left behind, too...if Syd...ceased to exist.

She looked down at her hands. Her left wrist hurt where she’d bit it to get at her blood for Syd. She saw two punctures there and laughed at herself for being surprised. Of course he hadn’t had time to heal them before he took her blood from her neck. She reached up and touched her throat, wincing as her fingers found the ragged wound he’d made. Her hand slid up her neck to her head, and sure enough she could feel a lump swelling there. She’d definitely whacked her head against the crumpled roof when Billy had thrown that demon under the tires. She looked more at herself in the light of the single candle.

Her sweatshirt was torn at the shoulder and at the neck—probably from being grabbed by either Billy, Syd or a demon—and her jeans at the knee.

She had no idea where the jacket she’d been wearing was. Her ponytail had come loose and strands of her hair hung in her face. She didn’t even want to know what that looked like.

She sighed and stood and went to the chest of drawers that held various healing supplies. She found a bandage and a clean cloth and dipped the cloth into the big pot of water left up there.

Rebecca dabbed at her wrist, sponging away the dried blood. She hissed and winced as the movement disturbed the deep wound, and scratched at her neck.

It wasn’t until Syd spoke that she realized her patient was awake and in need.

Let me see that.

Rebecca just looked at Syd, aware he’d spoken to her, even if he hadn’t used his voice. She hesitated a moment, unsure what he was asking for, before she held her wrist out to him.

Not that wound. Your neck.

Rebecca turned her head and brushed her hair back from her neck, showing Syd the wound he’d made.

Let me see it
, she heard again, more insistent this time.

She made no move to do as he said. This wasn’t the Syd she knew. This was a different person—different
creature
—than the warm, comfortable, safe, sometimes ironic and annoying blond guy she’d somehow gotten used to, and she was not only afraid of him, she was alone with him for the first time.

“I’d better go,” Rebecca stammered, and made to stand up.

Syd’s hand clamped over her wrist. “No.”

He said the word aloud, and Rebecca knew how much effort he had to make to voice that single word.

“You’re hurting me,” she said, and hated the quiver fear gave her tone.

She winced and tried to pull away.

You mean I’m scaring you
, he said in her head as he released his hold.

Rebecca heard the loathing in his words in her mind. He was disgusted with himself.

She immediately felt sorry for him, and reached to brush his long blond hair back from his face. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she replied, careful to keep her voice low. “So you’re a little scary. So what? Billy is too, and look what a nice guy he is.”

Syd laughed, though it was bitter. He turned his face away from her.

I told you to leave me.

She reached for his chin and turned his face back to her. He resisted, but was too weak to do so for more than a moment. She looked into his eyes and smiled down at him.

“And I told you I wouldn’t leave without you, so the least you can do is give me the courtesy of not dying, since we worked so hard to save you.

Now come on. Let’s get you some kind of fixed so we can figure out what to do next. The sun is due to rise in a few hours and you’re already weak.”
Are you always this contrary?

Rebecca smiled. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a whole lot of reason to tell anyone what to do before you showed up, so maybe I am. Eat.” She held her wrist out to him. He turned his face away.

“Hey now. What’s the problem?”

Syd looked back at her.
I won’t take anything more from you today. You’ve
been drained enough.

“And you’re the one that said I couldn’t be drained, especially here in my own enclave, so get to it. It’s late and I’m tired.” Syd didn’t look at all happy about his words being used against him, and brought the wrist she offered to his mouth. Rebecca closed her eyes.

It wasn’t nearly as warm or as nice this time as it had been the previous times Syd had taken her blood, nor was it was painful and harsh as it had been when Ryan had done it. There was no nicety in this either—just pure, simple, unadulterated need. Rebecca suddenly felt exactly like the food Syd had said she was, and it made her stomach clench.