Page 26 of Even Vampires Bleed
I have no doubt it saw blood at the time it was built—French kings were rarely very merciful—but this is recent and pungent.
It makes me want to vomit.
I follow the voices up on the first floor—and the footprints—and face a group of five warriors all around one door.
They are whispering and I can’t hear what they’re saying, but the tone is one that doesn’t give me high hope for what—or who—they’re talking about.
No one seems to want to cross the threshold of that door. As if whatever is going on inside could attack them or infect them.
I know what is inside. I know who is inside.
“Let me see him.”
My voice is barely above a whisper, but they all hear me perfectly.
Anna moves aside, but stops me when I join them at the threshold.
“Cass, you don’t want to see him like this,” she tells me, and I can hear in her voice that it’s painful for her to tell me that, but I don’t care.
“Is he alive?”
I strain my ear for a heartbeat, focusing on anyone other than the five heartbeats right next to me.
“Yes, but…” she starts, but at the same time I hear a very faint heartbeat on the other side.
“It’s my dad we’re talking about,” I say, and I don’t know how my voice doesn’t waver with the fear that is shaking me from the inside.
“I know, but he wouldn’t want you to see him like this,” she tells me. Two of the guys that are still at the door nod in agreement with Anna.
“He’s not here to tell me that,” I say with as much strength as I can muster. “He’s there on the other side of that door, and there is nothing or no one that will prevent me from seeing him.”
She must see the resolve in my eyes because she removes her hand. The men at the door part to let me through.
I choke on my breath.
She was right.
I’m not ready.
I almost vomit in my mouth at the sight.
My dad is laid on an operating table that looks right out of a horror movie.
His ankles and wrists are tightened to the table with metal bands and there are leather-like bands anchored to the table at hip, forehead, and throat level.
His body is not moving, but I can see his eyes erratically sliding under his eyelids. But that’s not what made me hold my breath when I entered.
There are tubes everywhere. Every blood vessel has a needle in it, with fluids of various colors moving through them, and his torso and head are open.
The room isn’t aseptic—it’s just a normal room—and yet it’s been used as if they were in a sterilized environment.
The skin of my father’s torso is open and held by clamps on the sides. I canseehis heart slowly beating. There are pieces of what look like organs on the side table, as if my dad has been cut open just for the sake of seeing how fast his organs would grow back.
The tubes and the open chest could actually be okay. We heal fast. He might have to sleep for a while to regenerate, but he’ll survive that.
But I slowly walk to the side and look at what is going on with his head.
Like the torso, it’s open. I can see my dad’s brain.
