“What’s the combination?”
“Four oh eight one. Is the vamp neutralized?”
“For the moment, yes.” I pressed the code in and an alarm sounded as the little light flicked from red to green. I twisted the handle and pulled the door open. “Why didn’t he attack you rather than Benny?”
“Because I’m mind-blind, and Benny’s not.” He pushed to his feet and stood there, wobbling for a bit. “How is Benny?
“I’m afraid I busted his nose and probably some teeth.” I paused for breath. Damn, my chest felt like it was getting heavier. Fear swelled but I pushed it down. I would not die. Not like this. “He shot me with silver and I really didn’t have the time for finesse.”
He glanced at me sharply and I saw his gaze widen fractionally. “We’d better call you a doctor.”
“Call them if you want, but I can’t wait for them to arrive. I’m extremely sensitive to silver, and my leg is already numb. We need to get this bullet out now.”
“Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand across his face, then walked—a little unsteadily—forward. “There’s a first aid kit in the reception area. We’ll need that.”
He wrapped an arm around my waist and half guided, half carried me back down the corridor—though I wasn’t entirely sure who was supporting whom.
His nostrils flared as he passed the vamp’s cell. “I smell blood.”
“As I said, I didn’t have the time for finesse.” I shrugged, and the movement sent pain rippling. “A vamp with two bullet wounds isn’t going to be capable of attacking anyone telepathically for a while.”
Harris grunted. It wasn’t a happy-sounding grunt, but he didn’t actually say anything. Maybe even he could see that tough situations called for tough measures.
Even if they were against police rules.
But then, I wasn’t police. I was Directorate. The damn vamp was lucky he wasn’t dead. I might not want to kill, but all bets were off when the bastards attacked me.
We went through the barred gateway. He paused, briefly releasing me to close the door and punch in a code, then we staggered forward again. Harris guided me through the door then around to the left, behind the reception desk. Benny was where I’d left him.
“How did you manage to get locked in the cell?” I said, as Harris kicked out a chair then dropped me into it.
“I had no idea the vamp was even awake until Benny attacked me. It was lucky that I saw him move at the last moment, because the wrench smashed down the side of my face instead of the top of my skull.” He retrieved a large first aid kit from underneath the desk and opened it up. “I saw stars, but I had enough sense left to kick his feet out from underneath him and run for the cells.”
I grabbed my wounded leg with both hands and hauled it up onto another chair. The damn thing felt like so much dead flesh and, deep in my stomach, the fear of losing the use of my limb gnawed. But I guess I was lucky it was my leg rather than my shoulder. I’d been shot far too many times in that region now, as the numbness and sensitivity in my fingertips indicated. I might have died instantly, rather than merely suffering.
Harris pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, then grabbed a pair of needle-fine scissors. “Why didn’t he simply punch in the code and open the door?”
“Because I have an override locking code that no one else knows. I used it on both the vamp’s cell and my own.”
He began slicing away the material from the wound. Despite the fact he was being careful, the sharp point of the scissors dug into my flesh several times. Luckily, I felt the movement, not the pain. My flesh was too numb to feel anything right now.
“How did you lock the door from the inside the cell?” The keypad was nowhere near the food tray opening, and unless he was Mr. Elastic, there was no way known he would have been able to reach it.
“There’s a time delay on it. You have one minute to close the door before it locks.” He dropped the scissors on the chair next to my foot then reached for the long tweezers. His gaze met mine. “This will probably burn like a bitch.”
“The wound is numb, so it won’t really matter.” But my fingers tightened reflexively around the arms of the chair.
“Numb?” His expression deepened to worry. “That happened fast.”
“As I said, I’m extremely sensitive.”
He grunted and carefully pressed open the sides of the wound with his free hand. Blood poured out over his fingertips and started dripping on the floor. Thanks to the numbness it didn’t actually hurt, but something inside of me trembled anyway.
“I can’t see a goddamn thing through the blood,” he muttered.
He carefully pressed the tweezers into the wound anyway, driving them down into my flesh.
“You’re going to have to tell me when I hit the bullet.”
He dug deeper and hit it. Only gently, but it felt like he was driving a red-hot poker deeper into my flesh. I just about jumped through the roof, and sweat popped out across my forehead as my breathing became short, sharp gasps.
So much for the wound being numb.
“Meaning I’ve hit it,” he commented. “Hang on hard to something and try not to move.”
If I gripped the arms of the chair any tighter, I’d fucking shatter them. And the damn things were metal.
The bullet moved again. Heat flashed, white hot, through my muscles and nausea rose thick and fast. I swallowed heavily and closed my eyes, hoping that not watching would make me less aware.
It didn’t.
I felt every inch of the bullet’s journey upward. Felt it when his grip slipped and the bullet fell back into my flesh. Sweat dripped from my forehead and ran in rivers down my back, and bile rose so fast it took all of my control not to vomit on his shoes.
Then the heat was gone and Harris was holding up the tweezers with the bloody bullet clamped firmly between its jaws.
“Done,” he said. “But you need to change to stop the bleeding.”
“Thanks.” I rolled out of the chair and reached for the shifting magic, instinctively calling to my wolf rather than the seagull.
There was no hesitation, no pain, this time. Just a surge of power that swept through my body, numbing and reshaping my body, until what stood there was wolf rather than human. I stayed in her form for several seconds, simply enjoying the feel of her, then, somewhat reluctantly, shifted back. The wound was nowhere near healed, but at least the bleeding had stopped.
Harris closed the first aid kit then put the bloody tweezers and scissors into a plastic bag. “What now?”
“Well, the vamp has proven capable of getting past the nanowire and controlling Benny, so our first order of business is to get him contained. And Evin’s waiting outside in the car for an all-clear, so we need to bring him in.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why is he outside?”
“Because I knew something was wrong the minute we pulled up. I’m used to dealing with vamps. He’s not.” I shrugged. “I was simply keeping him safe.”
“Given the vamp is injured but telepathically unrestrained, how safe would it be to bring him within range?”
“With the silver out of my leg, I’ll be able to protect him.”
I said it with more assurance than I felt, but Harris didn’t seem to notice. He pushed away from the bench and moved toward the front door.
“I thought you suspected him of being a fake brother and connected to the evil plot surrounding you?”
“He is a fake, but he’s not willingly connected to the machinations.”
“Meaning you’ve unraveled more clues?”
“I certainly have.” And some of them he wasn’t going to like.
He opened the front door and waved Evin in, then walked across to Benny and squatted down beside him. He pressed his fingers against the side of his neck, then gave a slight nod. “His pulse is steady, but his nose will be mighty sore when he wakes.”