Sasha was at Hunter’s side, but her focus was divided. “Can we get Dr. Williams in here to assist with a transfusion, maybe get a saline drip to get some more fluids back into Hunter’s body?”
Winters and Bradley lifted Clarissa’s limp body and Silver Hawk came over to place his hands on either side of her head. As soon as she was situated, Winters was on the phone getting a support team of medical personnel in that had worked with PCU during battle conditions before, including Dr. Williams.
“In the shadow lands,” Silver Hawk said quietly, causing everyone to look at him, “there is a thin veil between that safe passage and demon doors. This is why alpha warriors wear the protective amulets that always guide them into the right passageways within the shadows, lest they accidentally fall through the wrong portal into ultimate darkness. The caster of the dark magick ripped the veil, which should never be, and got through to the shadow lands. I saw pure evil in us attacking our men.”
Bradley stroked Clarissa’s hair away from her clammy forehead. “They had to have used spells from the Pseudo-monarchia Daemonum to call demons to attach to the sigils they’d already attached to everyone’s etheric bodies… Madame Cottrell said there was a backlash. I should have known…”
“We were prepared for the backlash,” Hunter murmured drowsily. “Sylphs… air elementals, attacked us at the attic sites. We were ready enough.”
“Lie back and rest,” Sasha said, slowly removing the duct tape from his arm. “That little bastard, Kiagehul, reinforced the spell when we lay siege to the baron’s lair. He knew we were coming for him, so he was trying to make it near impossible for us to break our bondage. You couldn’t have known about that, Bradley. It was all going down in real time.”
“Regardless… now she’s caught in a dark consciousness trap,” Bradley said, his voice strained.
Doc listened to her heart, checked her vitals, and removed the blood pressure cuff. “Her blood pressure is rising at the same time as her pulse is erratic.”
Bradley kissed her forehead. “My concern is that she could have a heart attack or a stroke… or that if her mind has been attacked, an embolism could be forming on her brain.” He looked up at Silver Hawk and Doc, his eyes pleading. “When demons attack the human physical body, they manifest illnesses that mask what it really is. Help her… please.”
“My Shadow Wolf healing is for natural injuries-like the one Hunter has sustained. The physical body is relatively easy to fix, because it dwells in the realm of the natural and the body will fight to help you help it. But a spiritual injury…” he said, allowing his words to trail off with a weary sigh. “This requires prayer and the intervention of the Great Spirit. I can only try.”
“Then please try,” Bradley said, his voice quavering.
“I think we need to move her to a room, get her connected to monitors while Silver Hawk works,” Doc said as Dr. Williams entered the room with support personnel. “Silver Hawk and I will stay with her, and if her physical levels drop, we can do everything in our combined power to keep her heart beating and her breathing… especially if vital organs begin to suffer.”
“That young woman sounds like she needs a CAT scan and an MRI, then to be located in ICU,” Dr. Williams said, looking around, confused.
“She does, but your staff is going to have to allow the shaman to be with her at all times, as well as me and her teammate, Bradley.” Doc exchanged a look with Dr. Williams that said, remember-we’ve been through something like this before at Tulane together.
Dr. Williams nodded. “What about this patient?” he said, referring to Hunter and then frowning. “Tell me that’s not duct tape over a gunshot wound!”
“Okay, so I won’t tell you that,” Hunter said, sounding worn out. “But that’s all they had at the auto body shop’s front counter at the time.”
“A bed, a drip, a transfusion from me, a steak, and a few hours of shut-eye, and this man is good,” Sasha said calmly. “But if you can spare a private room, that may reduce the strain on your PR Department.”
Dr. Williams walked to the door. “Consider it done in the name of homeland security for active military personnel… But anything beyond that, I don’t wanna know.”
CHAPTER 23
“I’m sorry about Clarissa,” Hunter said, looking across to Sasha’s bed from his. A double IV drip hung above his; one ruby-hued and filled with Sasha’s blood, the other clear, to restore potassium and other vital fluids and minerals he’d lost.
“Yeah, me, too,” she said in a distant murmur. “I feel so helpless just lying here.”
“Believe me,” he said, locking his gaze with hers, “I know that feeling well. But the doctor said for you to just give it forty-five minutes so you don’t overexert yourself and pass out-which could be very bad, depending on where that is.”
“I know, I know.” She looked down. “How’s the arm?”
“Better after your healing.”
She smiled a sad smile and tried to make a joke. “Beats duct tape, I guess.”
There was nothing to say to her that would change the facts. He watched Sasha slip back into her own morose thoughts, helpless to fix the condition that had plunged her there. One of her team members was critically injured. There was no way to make that be all right. Even retribution was a hollow win, when the only thing she wanted was for that person to be okay. He understood that, had lived through crises of this type himself.
He just wished he could have done for Sasha’s spirit what she’d just done to his arm, place his hands over the site of the injury… her heart… and allow the heat to transfer from his palms into that delicate organ… siphoning out pain, knitting back torn tissue and muscle. Closing up the hole left in it from the damage, until all that remained was a super ficial scar. If he had the power to heal the mind and spirit like that, he would. But even Silver Hawk, the wisest shaman of the clan, acknowledged such limitations.
Hunter let out a long sigh that he hadn’t meant to release. Sasha looked at him.
“You okay?” she asked, eyes worried.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not, because you’re not. Clarissa is a decent soul. This never should have happened to her.”
“I know,” Sasha said, leaning up on one elbow. “This kicks my ass that some little… hob goblin thing could cause so much pain to so many people.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and hugged herself. “Bradley will just positively fold if something happens to her… and the rest of us…”
“Sasha… what if…” Hunter’s voice trailed off as he stared out toward the window, sitting up.
“Talk to me.” Sasha came and sat on the edge of his bed.
“There are three of us-three strong alphas. Me, you, Silver Hawk. Just like the attics required three sets of bad symbols to be placed in order to affect an entire fortress, what if three powerful prayers said in the shadow lands, where the terror for Clarissa became real, were said in a shaman’s white-light circle of truth?”
Sasha was on her feet. He reached to yank out his IVs and she held his arm. “Bring it with you; we need you strong.”
“The Vampires have told you what?” Queen Blatand shouted, swishing her ice-blue satin gown out of her way as she paced from her ornate ice throne to her visioning table.
Small icicles chimed against the diamonds and pearls that crusted her train, and her clear, ice stiletto heels made a harsh sound against the opaque ice floor. Her servants bowed obsequiously, fearing the queen’s notable wrath. Her fingertips were pale blue beneath her alabaster skin, threatening an icy jolt at any moment. She set the palest of blue eyes on the clear, lake-like surface of the table and spread her fingertips against it, summoning quick, spider-vein cracks to form as the table misted over. When she wiped her hand across it, the table instantly cleared so that she could begin to see events unfolding.