Page 74 of Blood Magic

“Okay,” I told Joe. “That’s enough. Let’s pull them out.”

He tossed the shovel and dropped to his knees, his silver cross swinging over his shirt. I wanted to ask him why he wasn’t terrified. He was a human who, as far as I knew, hadn’t even believed vampires existed a few days ago. Now here he was, in a graveyard in the cold night, digging a couple of injured vampires from their sleeping places.

But in the next second, my gloved hand uncovered Bastien’s burned shoulder, and the second I touched him, even through the thick fabric, a needle of fire drove itself through my wrist. It hurt—badly.

“Shit,” I cried, and yanked my glove off. “Ow.”

Joe stopped scooping the soft dirt from the grave. “What happened?”

“I think something crawled into my glove and bit me.” I shook it and thumped it on the ground, but nothing fell out, and I didn’t see anything scurrying away. The burning stopped, and I shrugged and put my glove back on.

But the instant I touched him, it happened again. I ignored it and continued to dig the dirt from around his body, grim and silent, because suddenly I knew exactly what was causing the burning.

The first time I’d dug Bastien up, he’d bitten my wrist. Just a scrape of his teeth, but enough for him to taste my blood. I’d thought he’d been crazed from his starvation and wanted to get a little of my blood inside him. I wasn’t so sure of that now.

I thought maybe he wanted to get a little of himself inside me.

Why? I couldn’t know. Not then.

If he’d somehow tied me to him with that bite, after the detective was safe, I was going to kill the bastard vampire myself.

Finally, Joe and I sat back and stared down at the uncovered vampires. They lay on their sides, and Bastien was curled around Farrow, half on top of her with his arm around her. He’d attempted to protect her from the sun, but the sun had not cared.

Their flesh was black, mostly, with some raw, bloody parts and the gleam of dull white bone.

Farrow’s screams echoed in my head, and the image of Bastien’s hollow, hopeless eyes would not leave me. I shuddered, then finally, reluctantly, I reached for the blood.

Joe held the syringes and funnel, aiming his light into the grave. “Ready?”

I took a deep breath. No. No fucking way. “Yeah,” I said. I filled both syringes, and without another hesitation, I found pieces of flesh on both of them that looked a little less black, and I shoved the needles into them.

My wrist was throbbing, but I ignored it. I could handle pain. It was the reason for that pain that got to me.

“Nothing happened,” Joe whispered, as though he didn’t want the vampires to hear.

I refilled the syringes and repeated the injections, but there wasn’t so much as a flutter from either vampire. I was going to have to try funneling blood in while they lay on their sides, and that wasn’t going to be easy. I couldn’t move them, though, or they’d fall apart like slow-roasted chicken sliding off the bone.

I shuddered as my stomach rebelled.

“They’re too far gone,” Joe said.

But I wasn’t ready to give up. “I need to get to his mouth. Help me, Joe. Gently.” I was still afraid of causing more damage, but I had no choice.

Joe gave me the funnel and the blood, and I put them on top of the bodies and thanked God for the gloves as I slipped my hand beneath Bastien’s ruined flesh and attempted to turn his face away from Farrow’s head.

“They’re stuck together,” Joe said, and finally, there was some emotion and horror in his voice. They came apart with a crackling but sucking sound, and Joe cradled Bastien’s…face, if that’s what it was, while I opened the blood, slid the funnel between his teeth, which weren’t closed after all, and let the blood pour into his mouth.

“Come on, Bastien,” I said, fiercely. “Come the fuck on.”

My heart was pounding, hard and fast, my wrist, hand, and fingers were on fire, and my head was aching so violently that it was making me sick to my stomach. As nausea rolled through me I swallowed hard and hoped I wouldn’t throw up all over the vampires.

And then, Bastien’s awful face twitched, and a terrible sound slid from his mouth. A moan, sort of, but one like I’d never heard. That moan wrapped around my brain and heart and squeezed, and I screwed my eyes shut and forced myself to stay where I was when I’d never in my life wanted anything more than to throw the blood and funnel, shift into my wolf, and run.

I ground my teeth, my wolf’s rage growing even as my terror and physical pain grew with it, and the thunderous sound of my galloping heart and blood pumping through my veins filled my ears, drowning out that awful, unending moan.

The bag emptied of its blood. “Kait,” Joe yelled. “The other one.”

I grabbed the full bag and held it over the funnel as Joe quickly sliced a hole in the bottom, and it didn’t matter that some of it splashed onto Bastien’s face. It sank into his flesh, into his body, and he began to live—as much as a vampire could live.