Page 9 of Seph

“There is no better way to atone for one’s past than by creating a peaceful future.”

Whatever else they were going to say was forestalled by the distant wail of a siren.

“Thank God,” Crow picked her up and passed her to Genesis, who looked like he wanted to put her right back down. “Hold her! Minegold and I don’t have any body heat. She’ll go into hypothermia or shock or something.”

Thick, bat-like wings wrapped around Emily, and she immediately began to shudder as the meager warmth hit her muscles. “Iamin shock.” Her voice sounded far away. She knew the symptoms and signs. Blood loss. Trauma. Head injury. Cold.

“Put this over her.” Simeon Crow was suddenly in front of her, tearing off his big leather coat and draping it over her when the gargoyle lifted one wing.

“Tilt her head back and her feet up if you can, Genesis. Pull the blood to the vital organs!” Mr. Minegold instructed, voice sharp with urgency.

Emily felt shivers course through her as her body began to warm. Or maybe they were the shivers of someone bleeding out.

The gargoyle was running now. “I’m taking her toward the ambulance!” he shouted.

Lights hurt her eyes. Red and white strobing lights against the blinding snow. Doors opened in a few seconds, and the world changed. Her head filled with calm, collected voices, and her body landed on a stretcher. Simeon Crow was crawling in the back with her, holding her hand without question when one of the paramedics instructed him to.

Their eyes met, and then his fled from hers. He kept a grip on her hand but stared at the paramedics as they moved around in the back of the ambulance as it began to creep along the treacherous road.

Emily said nothing as they wrapped her in some sort of foil blanket that made her feel like a baked potato.What the hell is happening?

“Don’t worry, miss. You’re definitely banged up, but you’re going to make it.”

“Hospital here is top-notch,” Simeon muttered.

“And I think you’ll be staying there for quite a while!” One paramedic grinned at her, trying to be reassuring. “It’s a good thing those guys found you, especially in this storm. Emily? Look at me?” Another bright light in her eyes. The paramedic put his little flashlight away after checking her pupils, his smile more relaxed now. “You’ll be okay.”

Emily nodded, but “okay” was not in her vocabulary. She might never be okay again.

When her car flipped, so had her world.

Did monsters actually save my life?

Wait. Why?

Could the Van Helsing Code be wrong? Are there afewgood monsters in this world after all?

Chapter Four

Emily put down her book, a battered paperback bodice-ripper from the hospital’s supply of donated literature. The print was too difficult for her to read right now, anyway. The red digital numbers under the silent television flipped from 4:59 to 5:00.

If her nurses were correct, Simeon Crow would be here within sixty seconds. He came every day at five and stayed until visiting hours ended at seven. She hadn’t known that the first three days of her stay in Pine Ridge’s small but very efficient hospital. Today, she’d been awake for longer periods of time, and two of the nurses informed her that she had an “admirer” who watched over her during evening visiting hours.

There were three bouquets of flowers in her room.

Had Simeon brought those?

She turned to look at each bouquet more closely, and pain raced through her, head to toe. She had asked them to take her off of the pain medicine this morning. They advised against it, but she was firm. Her father would never have allowed her to take a painkiller. Pain was for the weak. Van Helsings didn’t need to be coddled.

Her father would have given her the silent treatment for weeks, maybe months, for crashing the car when she was so close to the town where her quarry lay. Then for her to be “rescued” by the notorious Simeon Crow? That was dumb luck, and a skilled hunter never, ever trusts to luck.

Her father would have preferred her to be killed rather than rescued by a vampire. To him, that was at least honorable.

He’s gone. He can’t be mad at you anymore. Calm down.

A gentle tap on the door made her jump, and the pain walloped her. This was worse than when she’d been kicked out of the window. At least then she’d hit an awning on her way down.

“They said you were awake.” Crow poked his head in, flowers outstretched as if warding off evil, reminding Emily of the way she carried her cross in front of her when entering a vampire-infested area.

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