The Harlequin

chapter twenty-four

I WOKE GASPING in a room that was too bright, too white. There was something in my arm that hurt when I tried to move it. I couldn't think where I was, couldn't think about anything but the smell and taste and feel of Belle Morte. I woke crying her name, or trying to. My voice was a harsh croak of sound.

Cherry's face appeared beside the bed. Her ultrashort blond hair and overly dark Goth makeup couldn't quite hide the fact that she was pretty. She was also a registered nurse, though she had lost her job at the local hospital when they found out she was a wereleopard. «Anita, oh my God, oh my God.»

I tried to say her name, and couldn't make words.

«Don't try to talk. I'll send for the doctor.» She got me water and one of those bendy straws, and let me take a minute sip. I heard a door open and close, running feet getting farther away. Who had she sent for the doctor?

Cherry's eyes were shiny, and only after her eyeliner began to run in black tears down the pale makeup did I realize she was crying. «They say it's waterproof, but they so lie.» She let me have another sip of water.

I managed to croak, «Why does my throat hurt?»

«I…«She looked solemn again. «We had to intubate Richard.»

«Intubate?» I made it a question.

«Put a tube down his throat. A machine is doing his breathing for him.»

«Shit,» I whispered.

She wiped at the black tears again, smearing them worse. «But you're awake, you're all right.» She nodded, over and over, as if that would make it more true. I was almost sure that away from me, her leopard queen, she was more controlled as a nurse, but she sure did cry easily for a medical professional.

There were soft footfalls, and Doctor Lillian was at my bedside. Her graying hair was in a careless knot at the back of her neck, with strands of hair flying about her slender face. Her pale eyes smiled along with her lips. Relief was plain on her face for a moment.

«Did you slap me?» I asked.

«I didn't think you'd remember that.»

«You did slap me, didn't you?»

«It was a close thing, Anita. We almost lost you all.»

«Cherry says Richard is hooked up to machines, that he's not breathing on his own.»

«That's right.»

«Shouldn't he have healed by now?»

«It's only the night of the same day, Anita. You haven't been out that long.»

«It feels longer.»

She smiled. «I'm sure it does. I think now that we've got his body breathing, he will heal, but if we hadn't been able to keep his heart and lungs going…»

«You're worried.»

«His heart stopped, Anita. If he were human I'd be worried about brain damage from lack of oxygen.»

«But he's not human,» I said.

«No, but he is very hurt. He should heal perfectly, but in truth, I've never seen a lycanthrope come back from an injury this severe. His heart was pierced by a silver bullet. It was a killing shot.»

«But he's not dead,» I said.

«No, he's not.»

I looked up at her. «Jesus, you don't give good medical blank face either.»

«Jean-Claude is in a sort of coma. Asher tells me that it is a type of hibernation while he heals himself, but truthfully, vampire medicine is confusing. They're dead, so how unhealthy can they be? We hooked him up to brainwave monitors, and that's letting us know he's still in there.»

«But if you didn't have the monitors?» I asked.

«I'd think he was dead,» she said.

«We're not dead.»

She smiled. «No, you're not. Nathaniel has been eating for five, and he's still lost two pounds in less than a day. Damian has taken more blood than any vampire should be able to hold, and still he feeds. Asher says they are helping fuel the three of you.»

I nodded, remembering what Belle had said. «He's right.» I thought about letting my thoughts of Nathaniel and Damian find them for me, let me see them. But I was afraid I'd mess it up. Afraid that somehow I'd cut off the energy they were feeding us, or take too much. Apparently it was working, and I was simply grateful that it was working the way it was supposed to. Belle had said that I'd learned from Jean-Claude how to do it, but she was wrong. I think Jean-Claude had done it for us before he passed out, because I had no idea how it was working. I very carefully didn't make my shields between me and the boys any stronger, or weaker. I just tried to maintain. It was working; don't fuck with it.

«The vampires are worried that if the lesser vamps go to sleep for the day, Jean-Claude is so injured that he won't have enough energy to wake them again.»

I nodded and swallowed past a sore throat that wasn't my sore throat, but it felt like it. Like I was trying to swallow past something huge and hard, and plastic. «Richard is awake enough to feel the tube in his throat, because I can feel it.»

«I don't know if that's good news or bad, Anita. It will be a while before his body catches up with the machines, I think.»

«We need Jean-Claude awake before dawn, awake enough so he doesn't drain the little vamps to death,» I said.

She looked at me very seriously. «That is what the vampires have been discussing.»

I felt vampires. I felt them outside the door. I heard voices arguing, men arguing. I said, «Tell the guards to let Asher and the others in.»

She looked a question at me, but went to the door. But seeing who came through the door first made me smile, and somehow I felt it would all work out. We would be safe, because Edward was here.