Lillian hit Cisco's chest three times, four, but that high-pitched alarm sound just kept going. Flatline.
I didn't hear the door open, but Richard came through leaning so heavily on Jamil, one of his bodyguards, that he was being half-carried. Jamil put him by the gurney. Their bodies blocked me from seeing what was happening.
Cherry was swabbing my hand; she had a covered IV needle in her other hand. I looked away. Richard's power ran over my skin like heat. Nathaniel shivered where he held my hand. I glanced at him. His body was covered in goose bumps.
«You feel it?» I asked.
«We all do,» Cherry said, and the needle bit home in my hand. I squeezed Nathaniel's hand hard and kept staring at Richard's broad back.
Micah came to stand at the head of my gurney. He'd wiped most of the blood off, but his eyes held defeat. If I'd had a spare hand I would have offered it. He laid his face against the top of my head. It was the best we could do.
Jamil stumbled away from Richard, leaving him to half-collapse across the gurney. Jamil's body exploded; one second he was tall, dark, handsome, the next he was the black-furred werewolf that had saved my life once. Lillian fell to the floor, her body writhing, twisting. She was suddenly gray-furred. She lay on the floor with her newly ratty face turned up to the gurney. The other doctors and nurses kept their distance. Richard was trying to bring Cisco's beast, trying to help him heal by forcing him to shift. But the alarm was still screaming, still letting us know that Cisco's heart wasn't beating.
Richard clutched at the gurney with one hand and Cisco with the other. His power spread through the room as if someone had forgotten to turn off some invisible hot bath, and it was filling up the room. Micah stood up, put his hand against my head. I felt his power spring to life, felt him throw it around the four of us like a shield, keeping Richard's power out. Most of the time Micah could protect the other wereleopards, but my ties to Richard were too strong. It worked today. Today, Micah held me in the calm of his power along with Nathaniel and Cherry.
Richard screamed, a long, loud, anguished sound. He collapsed to his knees, one hand still clinging to Cisco's arm. The arm flopped limp, dead. Richard's back rippled as if some giant hand were pushing out from the inside. He threw his head back and screamed again, but before the echo had died, the scream turned into a howl. Fur poured over Richard's body. It was as if his human body were ice, melting to reveal fur and muscle. His human form just melted into a wolf the size of a pony. I'd never seen him in full wolf form, only the half-and-half. The wolf threw its head back and howled, long and mournful. It turned a head as big as my entire chest to look at me. The eyes were all wolf, amber and alien, but the look in them was not a wolf's look. It held too much understanding of the loss that lay on the gurney.
One of the other white coats started turning off the machines. The scream of the alarm went silent. Except for the ringing in my one ear the room was deathly quiet. Then everyone began to move. The doctors and nurses started pulling things out of Cisco's body. He lay on his back, eyes closed. I remembered seeing spine in the throat wound; now the bone was covered. He'd been healing, but not fast enough.
Jamil climbed to his furry feet and put a half claw, half hand on the wolf's back. He said in a voice gone to growl, «I'll take us to feed.»
One of the doctors helped Lillian to her feet. She seemed more shaken than Jamil was, but then I'm not sure she'd ever had someone rip her beast from her human form. Jamil had been on the wrong end of Richard's anger more than once. «Come with us, Lillian,» he said, and the wolfish muzzle had trouble with the double L sound.
She nodded and took the hand he offered. The dark-haired man who had turned off the alarm said, «We'll take care of the other patients, Lillian.»
Her own voice sounded high-pitched and nasal. «Thank you, Chris.» The three of them walked out together, leaving the others to begin to clean up.
«Why did he die?» I asked.
«He bled out faster than his body could heal,» Cherry said.
«I've seen you guys heal from worse,» I said.
«You hang around with too many big dogs, Anita,» Cherry said. «We don't all heal like Micah and Richard.» She had the IV on its little metal hat rack. She reached up for the knob that would start the drip.
«Wait, will that put me out?» I asked.
«Yes,» she said.
«Then I need to make some phone calls first.»
«You're not hurting too much yet, then?» She made it half question, half statement.
«No, not yet. It aches, but it doesn't exactly hurt.»
«It will,» she said, «and when it does you'll want the painkillers.»
I nodded, swallowed, nodded again. «I know, but we still have Soledad's masters out there. We need them dead.»
«You aren't slaying any vamps today,» she said.
«I know, but Ted Forrester still can.»
Edward looked at me at the mention of his alter ego. His hand was on Peter's hair, as if he were a much younger boy and Edward had just come in to tuck him in for the night.
«I need you to take over my warrants,» I said.
He nodded. His eyes weren't cold, they were rage-filled. I wasn't used to seeing this much heat from Edward; he was a cold creature, but what blazed in his eyes now was hot enough to burn a hole through me. «How is Peter?» he asked Cherry.
«Now that he's out, we'll sew him up. He should be fine.»
Edward looked at me. «I'll kill the vampires for you.»
«We will kill them for you.» Olaf's voice from the door. He must have arrived in time to hear the last few comments. I hadn't heard him come in; not good. Not good that I hadn't heard Olaf, but not good that it could have been someone else, something else. I trusted Edward to see me safe, but I was usually more help to myself than this. Admittedly, I was having a bad day.
The dull ache in my stomach was beginning to have twinges of something sharp. It was like a promise of what the pain would be in a little while. I looked down my body; I couldn't help it. Cherry blocked my view with her arm, turned my face to her. «Don't look. You'll sleep. The doctor will look at you. You'll wake up better.» She smiled at me; it was a gentle smile, but it left her eyes haunted. When had Cherry gotten that look in her eyes?
Someone found a cell phone. I dialed Zerbrowski directly. The Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, RPIT, was who I should have called, and I should have probably started by talking to Lieutenant Rudolph Storr, but I just wasn't feeling well enough to argue with Dolph about who, and what, was or wasn't a monster. Zerbrowski answered with his usual, «Zerbrowski.»
«It's Anita,» I said.
«Blake, what's shaking?» There was a thread of laughter to his voice, the beginnings of his usual teasing. I didn't have time today.
«I'm about to get sewed back up.»
«What happened?» The teasing note was gone.
I gave him the shortest version I could, and left out lots. But I gave him the important parts; two vamps, maybe with more servants, masquerading as two upstanding vampire citizens to get us to kill the two upstanding citizens. «They must have thought I was close, because they sent one of their animals to kill me.»
«How hurt are you?»
«I'm not hunting any vampires today.»
«What do you need from me?»
«I need you to get cops around the hotel. I need you to make sure these two don't get outside.»
«Shouldn't they be dead to the world, no pun intended?»
«They should, but after what I saw in the servant, I wouldn't bet anyone's life on it. Call in Mobile Reserve; if it goes wrong you'll want the firepower.»
Dr. Chris came to stand over me. He was a little under six feet but seemed taller because he was so thin, one of those men who just couldn't seem to put on muscle mass. I'd have called him willowy if he'd been a girl. He said, «Get off the phone, Anita. I need to look at your wounds.»
«I'm almost done,» I said.
«What?» Zerbrowski said.
«The doc's here. He's wanting me off the phone.»
«Tell me who's going to be processing your warrants and do what the doctor says. You've got to be healed by the time we do the barbecue at my house. I finally got the wife talked into letting you bring both your live-in boyfriends. Don't make me waste all that persuasion.»