Wyatt frowned. “Should we be moving her? I mean, we had to get her out from under the vehicle, but they say you shouldn’t move—Hey!” Wyatt protested when G.G. suddenly bent and scooped Elspeth out of his arms.
Leaping to his feet, Wyatt stepped in front of the big man, about to demand he put her back down until the EMTs arrived and could examine her. Elspeth might have a broken back or something else that movement could worsen.
“Sofia,” G.G. said, and Wyatt suddenly found himself stepping aside and letting the huge man by. He didn’t want to, or he hadn’t. Now he was a little muddled as to what he did want, but he was following G.G. through the gathered crowd to the entrance of The Night Club like a puppy following its owner. Again he was feeling like a passenger in his own body, as if it were under someone else’s control.
“Get the door,” G.G. ordered.
Wyatt didn’t hesitate. He opened the door for the larger man to carry Elspeth in and then continued to follow him. He expected G.G. to carry her to the nearest booth or table and lay her there so that they could see if there was anything they could do while they waited for the ambulance. Instead, he headed for the hallway at the back of the bar, and Wyatt followed silently.
“Door,” G.G. said a moment later as he paused in front of one that said Employees Only.
Wyatt moved around him to push through the door and then held it open for the big man to enter. They were in a midsized kitchen full of stainless steel. It wasn’t as large as he would have expected in an establishment of this size, but Wyatt supposed most people came for the power drinks. That thought was supported by the fact that the actual cooking area was small with a range, an oven, a microwave, and a long metal prep table. The rest of the room appeared to be taken up with huge industrial-size refrigerators.
G.G. carried Elspeth to the stainless steel prep table and laid her gently on it. The moment he moved away, Wyatt stepped up to look her over. His heart sank as he got a good view of her under the bright lights of the kitchen. Elspeth really did look as if she’d been chewed up by the car and the road. There didn’t appear to be a part of her that had got away unscathed. Her clothing was torn, as was the skin under it, nearly everywhere.
“Step aside.”
Wyatt glanced around at that order. G.G. was back and was carrying half a dozen bags of what looked like blood.
“What—?” Wyatt began with bewilderment as he was nudged out of the way.
G.G. set the bags on the table next to Elspeth, but then turned to peer at him solemnly. “What you’re about to see is going to freak you out. Do not panic. Everything is fine. You are in no danger. Elspeth’s a lovely woman, and I’ll explain everything, but I need to see to her first. All right?”
Wyatt’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead, but he nodded once.
G.G. hesitated briefly, his expression suggesting he wasn’t entirely convinced Wyatt would remain calm, but then he sighed and turned to Elspeth. Wyatt immediately moved closer to the table again and leaned over Elspeth’s legs to see what G.G. was doing.
At first the big man didn’t do anything but pick up one of the bags and hold it over her face. After a moment, he clucked with agitation and muttered, “She’s unconscious. I need to get her to—”
Leaving the comment unfinished, he set the bag back on the table, and then turned to retrieve the smallest knife from a collection in a holder on the wall.
“What are you going to do with that?” Wyatt asked when G.G. turned back with the wickedly sharp-looking paring knife.
G.G. didn’t respond. He simply held his hand over Elspeth’s face and sliced the end of one finger with the knife so the blood quickly bubbled to the surface.
While Wyatt gaped at him, G.G. set the knife aside, and then shifted the bleeding finger back and forth in front of Elspeth’s nose a couple times. After the third pass, her mouth opened slightly on a soft moan and they were able to see her upper canines shift and slide out of her jaw, looking remarkably like fangs.
Wyatt was still struggling to accept what he’d just seen when G.G. suddenly picked up one of the bags of blood he’d collected and slapped it to her mouth. The big man waited a moment and then sighed with relief when it stuck and turned to peer at Wyatt, his eyes narrowing warily.
“How are you doing?” he asked after a pause. “Feeling a little panicky, maybe? Ready to stab me and run screaming from the room?”
“Stab you?” Wyatt asked with surprise, shocked out of his silence at the suggestion.
“Well, you’re gripping that knife pretty tightly, and looking like you might want to stab someone,” he pointed out dryly.
Wyatt glanced down and stared with confusion at the paring knife in his hand. He must have picked it up after G.G. set it down, though he didn’t recall doing it. He was, however, gripping it like he was ready to use it, he noted. Wyatt raised his hand to set it on the table, but then hesitated, reluctant to release it. He’d been trained to respond automatically to combat situations, and the adrenaline shooting through his body was suggesting this was just such a situation.
“Hang on to the knife if it makes you feel better,” G.G. suggested. “Just don’t stab me with it. I don’t mean you any harm, and I am mortal. It would be a shame for you to go to jail. On top of that, I don’t particularly want to die.”
“You’re mortal?” Wyatt snatched at the words.
“Born and bred, just like you,” G.G. assured him solemnly, and then smiled wryly and added, “My piercings and tattoos should tell you that. The holes would seal up and the tattoos would slough off like a bad tan if I were immortal.”
“Immortal?” Wyatt glanced to Elspeth. “Is that what she is? Immortal, not a . . . vampire?” He winced even as he asked the question. What he was seeing now suggested vampire, but that was so ridiculous. There was no such thing as vampires. Right?
“Not a vampire,” G.G. assured him solemnly. “Vampires are dead and cursed. Elspeth is immortal born, an entirely different beast.”
“Immortal born,” Wyatt murmured, noting that the bag at her mouth was quickly shrinking as if the blood was being syphoned from it. When G.G. grunted in the affirmative, he asked, “So her mother’s one too? That’s why Martine looks so young?”
“Yes,” G.G. agreed. “They don’t age past about twenty-five or thirty. That’s when a human is at their peak condition. Fully grown and fully developed. After that it’s all downhill. For mortals anyway.”
“Is she human?” he asked at once.
“Oh, yes,” G.G. assured him as he removed the now empty blood bag from Elspeth’s mouth.
“How is she doing?”
Both men glanced toward the door at that question. It was the woman who had approached them outside. G.G. had called her Sofia.
“Good, I think,” G.G. said, tossing aside the empty bag of blood he’d just removed and reaching for a fresh one. “Did you take care of everything out front?”
“Yes. The ambulance arrived just as I finished with the driver and witnesses. It’s all handled,” she announced and joined them at the table, but frowned when she saw Elspeth. “Why haven’t you tied her down?”
“Tied her down?” G.G. and Wyatt asked together.
“Yes. Once she starts to heal, she’ll—Shit!” They all jumped back in surprise when Elspeth suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and sat up on the prep table, her arms pinwheeling, and then she released a long, drawn-out, pain-filled shriek and started to claw at her mutilated face. It was like she was trying to tear away the abraded and cut skin, Wyatt thought as Sofia leapt forward to catch at Elspeth’s hands and try to prevent her harming herself further.
“Help me!” Sofia snapped as she struggled with Elspeth.
Wyatt and G.G. hurried forward, but Elspeth was incredibly strong. She was also writhing and thrashing violently about, arms and legs flailing, body twisting. Even with the three of them, they couldn’t hold her down or stop her struggles. They were all three just half lying on her, doing their best to hold her still, and then Sofia, who had been trying to restrain Elspeth’s hands, suddenly went flying. Wyatt had just registered that when the giant man followed Sofia, soaring through the air to crash against the front of one of the refrigerators with a thud before dropping to the ground with a groan. The next thing Wyatt knew, Elspeth had launched herself at him.