The Vampire And The Highland Empath (12 page)

The boy’s face crumbled. His shoulders sagged. “There’s no bullets anyway.” He rubbed his wet nose across his dirty sleeve. “Can you…can you…I need help. The house, our house, it fell on us. My sister…” he wailed.

Edeen and Roque looked at each other, then back to the boy. Roque nodded. “Show us where.”

They hurried through the dark streets. Entire lines of houses, or possibly a long keep were damaged. Walls shattered, the masonry collapsed into rooms. Farther away, a spire tower was on fire. They passed a woman in her nightclothes, shouting for her husband to get up. He lay at her feet, his neck at an impossible angle, eyes open to the smoke-choked sky.

Looking away, Edeen hurried after Roque and the boy, watching her footing through the debris and broken glass as she had no shoes.

Roque strode ahead, shoulders thrown forward in grim determination.

They came to another row of houses, half-fallen in. The glass from all the windows had scattered and stuck into walls and furniture.

The boy started climbing beneath a titled piece of wall, but Roque pulled him back. “Whoa, whoa, little man.”

“But she’s in there somewhere. We were sleeping.” Tears streaked through the dirty blood on his cheeks. “I have to find her.”

“And we will.” Roque got on a knee to get face-to-face with the boy. “The more people go in there, the more chance of things falling on her. I know right where she is. I can feel her.” Roque smiled, purposely revealing the long pointed tips of two of his teeth.

The child’s head canted, his brows pushing together. “You’re a…a vampire?”

Roque nodded.

“Not supposed to talk to them.” The boy frowned. “You can hear her heart beating? So she’s alive?”

“She’s alive,” Roque assured. “And I can get her.”

Thank you, mister. Thank you.” His chin quivered and he swayed like the relief took away the last reserve he’d been clinging to.

Roque caught him by the arms. “What’s your sister’s name?”

“Margaret.”

“All right. Stay here and I’ll get her.” With that, Roque ducked through the broken wall.

Edeen came to the boy, resting her arm across his bony shoulders. He surprised her by leaning in close as they listened to rubble scraping and being thrown aside, craning their necks at every glimpse of movement inside.

“What’s your name?” Edeen asked quietly.

The boy sniffled. “Thomas.”

“Thomas, where’s yer parents?”

“My dad mans the radar aerial at the gun site across the river. “My mam…” His eyes got a hollow look to them. “Her room was over there.” He pointed to a sunken pile of rubble. “It’s gone.”

Edeen squeezed his shaking shoulder.

Black fabric covered the windows of a house across the street, which had taken no damage at all.

“Edeen,” Roque called out. “I need your help.”

“Stay here,” she told Thomas. “If anyone comes by, ask them for help.” Without question, she crawled into what looked like the aftermath of a hurricane.

Large pieces of wall and roof had collapsed inward. Pieces of glass were embedded in everything. Roque had made good progress in clearing most of the debris from around a young woman, though a large slab slanted across her legs while smaller chunks were sliding in around her.

Roque had his back against what looked like a large boulder, but must be a piece of wall or ceiling, his legs braced, features pinched with effort. Edeen followed the boulder’s intended path and swallowed. He was the only thing keeping it from crushing the girl.

“I shifted the wrong piece, and…” he gave a slight shrug.

No need for further explanation. Edeen hiked the tight wet skirt up to climb carefully over slabs and broken furniture to get to the young woman. She was awake, her eyes overly bright and glassy in the dirt-caked face.

Edeen smiled for her. “Margaret, don’t worry. We’ll have ye free in a moment.” She started scooping chunks of wall and fist-sized rocks away.

“But that stone will cr-crush…”

“Nay, Margaret. Not while he holds it. Roque will not let harm come to ye. He promised yer brother.”

“Thomas? He’s okay?”

“He’s fine. Worried for you so ye must be brave.”

Margaret nodded and Edeen pulled more dirt and stones away, freeing the lass’s upper body. The girl’s arm moved, a good token, though the other one remained still and lifeless.

“What of my mam?”

Edeen stilled, but recovered her composure, testing a piece of splintered wood to see if it would make anything fall before removing it. “I do not know.”

Tears slid down Margaret’s face and into her hair, leaving streaks along her dirty face.

Edeen stopped digging to take her hand. “Are ye in pain?” Of course she was. She glanced back at Roque still pressed against the boulder. His limbs shook. Sweat ran along his hairline. He’d already been exhausted. It seemed hopeless, yet looking at Roque, at the force of his spirit, she knew they could do this.

Giving up on Margaret was not a consideration.

“My legs hurt. Really awful.”

Edeen rubbed her wrist, feeling helpless and overwhelmed. She did not have the strength to lift the slab off of Margaret and trying to dig beneath made it sink and shift. “That’s well, Margaret. Pain is sometimes good to let ye know everything still works. ‘Tis what my brothers say.”

“You have brothers?”

“Aye. Three and not a pound of sense between them.” A swift ache flooded her chest. She wished they were here. Together her brothers would lift the debris and save the lass. Then Charity would heal her. Unshed tears blurred Edeen’s vision.

Margaret’s fingers curled around hers. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

“Nay, Margaret, I will not let ye.”

The lass smiled at that and nodded.

“Edeen,” Roque’s voice strained with effort.

She looked up and found several men crawling beneath the partially fallen wall.

Not men. Gremlins. She blinked, having never seen the thin creatures even in her own time. They wore black iron helmets with bands of gold that bent their pointed ears downward and she’d never been happier to see anyone in her life.

“Lad said you could use a hand in here.”

Nodding like a drunkard, Edeen nearly sagged with relief.

The lead gremlin took his helmet off and placed it on Margaret’s head. Though thin and fragile seeming, the gremlins were strong. In no time they had the boulder secured with rope and Margaret freed and her and her brother whisked away, hopefully to some kind of Healer Sorceress.

Outside the destroyed house, Edeen sank down on, she wasn’t sure what it was, a broken chair? She was exhausted, her limbs shaky and weak.

Roque lowered beside her, and rested his head in his hands. She felt low tremors run through him.

The bowed legs of a gremlin stood before them. Roque looked up. “Thank you for coming.”

The gremlin nodded. The pink tinge of his skin looked grayer beneath the dusting of grime.

“Vampire, we could use your help.”

Though weary, Roque stood. “Let’s go.” He took Edeen’s hand and drew her to her feet. “I need a safe place for her.”

“My safe place is with you.”

Roque stared at her as though he had something of great import to tell her, but instead he shook his head, and said, “You’re worn-out.”

“As are you.”

A sad smile touched his mouth and he ran his knuckles along her cheek, before nodding.

They spent the entire day moving from house to house, Roque identifying heartbeats buried in rubble, and then the gremlins pulled survivors out.

They worked tirelessly.

Creatures of dark magic, Edeen thought. Vampires and gremlins, yet she could see no darkness in them. Nay, she witnessed nobility shored by compassion and heart.

Everything she thought she knew about magic and their dark and light properties was crushed beneath the seeking hands of a few gremlins.

They worked late into the day, taking small breaks where sandwiches and warm tea were offered from the back of a lorry to all the rescue workers.

Edeen helped as best she could, mainly soothing victims through use of her errant gift, guiding their memories to happier times. Though her gift was sporadic, she still remained a calming influence and the gremlins quickly learned to bring her in to help immediately, while Roque sometimes went on ahead to find the next heartbeat.

She met him on the street, walking toward her, a young girl in his arms. Something had changed.

The gremlins with him walked with a slower gait, less urgent, weariness bowing their shoulders.

Edeen hurried toward them, heedless of the cuts on her feet. “The child?”

“She’s alive,” Roque said, not meeting her gaze.
 

She looked to one of the gremlins.

Frowning, he slid his helmet off his bald head. “There were two pulses when we began.”

The press of tears burned behind Edeen’s eyes and in her throat. Even with all they’d saved, losing one… She shook her head.

“We’ve searched all the houses,” the gremlin said. “We need to get this one to the Infirmary.”

Roque’s gaze lifted. “I’d like to take her.”

The gremlin nodded. “I’ll show you the way.”

Chapter Fifteen

The Royal Infirmary was a bustle of activity. It reminded Edeen of the activity within their keep after a long hunt. Women and men in white clothing or faded green uniforms directed injured to different areas of the building or loved ones to where they could wait for news. No body stood still. All looked tired and bewildered.

Seeing the child in Roque’s arms, a woman in a white dress and a crisp hat sliding off dark hair rushed over, calling out to two men in uniforms to bring over a little padded cart on wheels.

When the girl had been settled, Edeen looked up at the woman and gasped. “Charity.”

The woman blinked at her as she tiredly pushed back loose strands off her hair that had come out of her bun. She looked so much like Charity, Edeen was stunned into silence.

“We’ll take good care of her. Is she yours?”

Edeen didn’t answer. The events of the day and now this were wearing on her.

“No,” Roque filled in. “We found her in a fallen house. Her mother was dead beside her.”

The woman blanched but quickly recovered, steeling her spine and nodded. Her gaze lowered to Edeen’s bare feet.

“Come with me. There’s a bit of a loll. Let me see what you’ve done to yourself.”

Roque followed her gaze down and it seemed as though the life the past hours had sucked from him flooded back. “My gods. Edeen, I didn’t think…”

She took his hand. “’Tis only cuts and bruising. There were more urgent concerns.”

Roque’s frown suggested he wasn’t going to take her absolution so easily.

“Come,” the woman beckoned, but before Edeen could take one step, Roque swept her up into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should have realized.”

Nay, he was definitely not going to let it go. “What is this place? A convent?”

“A con--?” He looked around at all the women scurrying about in the same white dresses and crisp headwear and smiled. ‘Twas good to see and filled her with a different kind of warmth than what his dragon fire provided.

“This is a place of healing. Those women are all nurses.” His forehead drew tight. “The doctors, I guess, are all occupied.”

The
nurse
took them to a small cluttered room with a desk of metal where Roque settled her into a wooden slatted chair. The nurse got right to business, kneeling and taking Edeen’s foot in her palms. Her manner was so like Charity’s, Edeen stared at the top of her head.

The nurse swabbed the worst of the cuts with puffed linen and some substance that stung, yet Edeen felt the trace stirrings of a healing, though the nurse acted as though naught was happening.