——– ——————–
Many hours later . . .
——– ——————–
Shane was standing anxiously on his golf course as the helicopter he had sent to retrieve Shamira slowly began to land on the green. The entire house that was still present in Atlanta was outside waiting, with Clara standing so close that the chopper’s turbulence was threatening to knock her off her feet. Even the Representative and her entourage were out. It was unusual for this many vampires to be awake during the daytime, and it was clear that the Representative was incredibly uncomfortable. But no one was going to miss this.
When Renata had called, she had sounded so angry, and she had warned Shane that Shamira was in worse shape than anything she had ever seen. Tabitha, one of Shane’s newest converts and his new household medic, had gotten her miniature operating room ready, and was in constant contact with Renata. She had to push past Clara when the chopper landed in order to help Renata get Shamira’s stretcher unloaded.
Clara watched helplessly as Tabitha moved the cover away from Shamira’s face, and she saw the medic make a face like she wanted to throw up. Tabitha’s reactions were still very human. Clara moved forward, but the medic covered Shamira’s face again. Tabitha shook her head and pushed the gurney towards the house. When Clara approached —
“Don’t,” Tabitha whispered. “For her sake and yours, just . . . just don’t.”
Clara followed, never moving more than a few feet away. The not-knowing was killing her. How bad could it be? Shane had moved up close to Tabitha and they exchanged a look.
“Anything you need,” he said. “No price tags, no reservations.”
“I . . . I don’t know . . . thank you sir,” Tabitha replied.
They moved Shamira into the OR and Tabitha gently moved Shamira onto a sterilized table. She looked around. “I need everyone to clear out so that I can work and see what I’m dealing with.”
“I’m not leaving,” Shane replied. “Everyone else –”
“Don’t you dare ask me to leave,” Clara said, her voice as cold as an Alaskan December.
Shane was going to object, but the Representative put a hand on his shoulder. “Let her stay,” the older vampire murmured. “I will stay as well. Everyone else may wait outside,” she said, glancing around the room.
Renata’s eyes were red from all the crying she had done, and obviously did not want to go. The Representative put a finger under her chin. “You have done more than anyone could ask. She may yet be saved because of you. Now go tend to your own wounds and that young were you helped escape.”
Renata nodded and reluctantly left with the rest of those present. Tabitha grabbed she sheet covering Shamira and then looked at the remaining onlookers. With a heavy heart, she pulled the sheet away.
Clara gasped. Shane ground his teeth together so hard one of them chipped, and the Representative went . . . cold. So cold that Tabitha could feel it in her bones. She began a slow, methodical examination of Shamira, who moaned in pain even while unconscious. She pulled out a handheld voice recorder and started the rattling of injuries, and that took a while. She rolled Shamira over and immediately noticed the massive scarring near her lower spine.
“What’s that?” Clara asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Tabitha replied. She moved Shamira to the x-ray machine, snapping shots of her entire body. When the shots were developed, she put them up on the light boards and started to stare.
“What’s the diagnosis?” Shane asked, his voice dripping with a rage that Tabitha had never known from him. She had been his donor long before she had become his daughter, and now . . . this was a side of Shane that scared her.
“Everything is broken,” she replied, trying to keep her voice even. “She’s got half a dozen bullets still inside her, and who know what that silver poisoning has done to her. I count eighteen breaks, at least as many fractures, plus intensive scarring and . . . and this,” she said, pointing to the shot of Shamira’s back. “She’s got something embedded in her spine. I know vampires can heal a lot, but this . . . I don’t know. Whoever did this didn’t just want to hurt her. He wanted to break her.”
“You can fix her, right?” Clara whined. “You’ve got to. Why aren’t you fixing her?” She was beginning to become frantic, and the Representative moved behind her and embraced her with abnormally powerful arms.
“Let Tabitha work.”
Shane nodded. “What do you need?”
“I . . . the wounds are all cauterized. I’m guessing silver. All of her wounds look like they tried to heal around what was done, so –” She stopped.
“What?” Shane asked.
“In order to put things back in the right places, I . . . I have to break them all again. Rip open every scab, break every bone. Everything that this guy did, I have to do over. And I need to get that blockage out of her spine.”
“She won’t . . . she doesn’t have to be awake, does she?”
“I don’t think so,” Tabitha replied. “But there is no anesthesia that works on vampires, or at least none that I ever saw in the literature. Someone has to knock her out or maybe put her to sleep with magic. And we need to get started soon.”
“Clara, can you put her to sleep?”
“No,” the Native American beauty replied. “That’s outside my realm of power. Lillian might.”
“I’ll get her,” Shane said, quickly looking out into the hall. Everyone was still waiting. He brought his necromancer in, and Lillian reminded everyone that she was still human by throwing up into the sink when she saw Shamira.
“Sweet lady of Death, how –”
“You have powers that affect the dead,” Shane said. “Can’t you keep her unconscious while Tabitha works?” He explained what Tabitha was going to have to do, and watched as the redhead’s face contorted in horror.
“I think I can help.” Then she threw up again. The Representative went over and held her hair, handing her a towel when the necromancer had regained control of herself and splashed water on her face. “But it will only do so much. I mean, that much pain . . . she’s going to keep coming out of it. I can try and keep her out, but I won’t be able to do much else for the pain.”
‘She doesn’t deserve more pain,’ Clara thought. As Lillian tried to explain the mystical dynamics of keeping a tortured vampire with as much power as Shamira had unconscious for that long, Clara began to chant softly, placing her hand on her lover’s ruined face. She could not put Shamira under, but she might be able to help with the pain.
“Clara, what the hell are you doing?” Lillian asked. “It’s too much –”
“Clara, what are you doing?” Shane asked.
Clara kept chanting. It was a simple spell to cast. The aftereffects however —
“Shane, stop her!” Lillian shouted, beginning to panic. But by the time Shane moved, it was too late.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Lillian whispered. She looked at Shane. “Shamanic magic is about balance. Causes and effects.”
“What did you do?” Shane looked angry but also scared. He knew how Clara felt about this woman.
Clara just closed her eyes and took Shamira’s hand.
Lillian placed a hand on the shaman’s shoulder. “In order for a Shaman to take away pain, they have to be willing to share it.”
“What else was I supposed to do?” Clara whispered. “Whatever she went through . . . I can’t let her go through that again.”
Tabitha shook her head. “Shane . . . I have to start working.”
Shane quickly walked over and grabbed Clara while the Representative held Shamira down.
“Everyone ready?” When everyone who could nodded, Tabitha started reconstructing Shamira from the ankles up, and the room quickly filled with the groans of one vampire and the sympathetic screams of another.
———– —————–
Some time later . . .
———– —————–
Shamira felt like she’d been trampled by a heard of bulls when she finally regained consciousness. It hurt to move, breathe, or even think. The memories . . . the god-awful memories . . . they came back in a wave, along with an intense, smothering fear. She remembered the twenty-four hours of hell she had experienced at the hands of that elf. She remembered drinking his foul blood after disemboweling him. She remembered a young were in chains, and then . . . she remembered fire. Then Renata. In the back of her mind, she had heard a sweet, beautiful voice, and then that voice had cried out in horrible, horrible agony.
It took an act of sheer will to open her eyes, finding herself in a dark room. Had Jonas found her? No, Renata had. Her eyes adjusted, and she found herself in a pitch-black room that would have challenged the senses of even the most perceptive vampire, but her Shadow Sight went right through it all.
‘Some kind of medical facility,’ she thought. She glanced to one side and saw the outline of medical equipment, but everything was covered in towels, blocking all light. ‘Darkness to help me heal?’ Another memory came to her, more painful than the rest. Had she healed? She tried to raise one leg . . . nothing. She reached down and while her hand made contact with flesh, that flesh felt nothing in return. Shamira was grabbing her own leg. She was still very much paralyzed. Shamira began to weep. She wanted to scream, but her throat was dry, and there was something that was keeping her mouth closed. She reached up to feel some kind of metal contraption that seemed to be holding her jaw in place.
‘What the fuck am I?’ she thought, the mental anguish returning. She remembered what she had looked like when Daniel had finished with her. ‘Why didn’t they just let me die there?’ she thought. She wanted to end it. She didn’t want to see herself like that. She didn’t want to be some helpless monster kept around for the sake of pity. She extended her hand and made the claws form around her fingers again. ‘I won’t live like that.’ She wanted to plunge them into her own chest and —
“Shamira?” came a soft voice from off to her side.
The muscular but crippled vampire turned her head, pain shooting through her neck. Clara was lying on a gurney right next to her, looking gaunt and pained and . . . ‘She’s still so damn beautiful.’ That beauty hurt Shamira as much as anything else that had been done. How could Clara ever want to look at her again? How could any of them?