Chapter 109
After the initial silence wore off, the sounds of groaning and cries for help began to fill his ears, and Jamie realized there were more wounded and dying Hunters than he’d initially recognized. Shouts from up the stairs drew his attention, and he ran back the way he’d come to find a Hunter with a broken leg bleeding out in one of the bedrooms.
For the next hour or so, he worked as tirelessly as he could to make sure anyone who needed immediate attention received it. He only used his special abilities a few times, in hopes that saving his powers for the worst cases or giving just a little to more people would keep him from draining himself. He saw a few other Healers sprawled out on the floor or draped across beds who had given all they had, and he was glad it was them and not him.
As he finished up with the last Hunter upstairs, Van approached him, meeting him halfway down the hallway. “Your powers are amazing,” she said, her accent thick. “I think Nella will be all right, thanks to you.”
He assumed that was the woman who had lost her arm. “I’m just thankful you were able to get him, and I was around to witness it,” he replied.
She nodded, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips. “There are a few Hunters in the basement who might need our attention, but can you take a look at the Guardian Dracula threw into the fireplace mantel first? He hasn’t moved since he was tossed over there, and I want to make sure he’s all right. If it hadn’t been for him, Dracula would’ve escaped.”
“Oh?” Jamie asked, following her as she headed back down the stairs.
“Yes, he closed the doors just in time and prevented Dracula from getting away from Claude and I.”
“I’m happy to take a look,” Jamie replied as their heavy boots echoed down the stairs.
“Your sister is quite capable as well,” Van said as they passed Margie downstairs. She was tending to an injured Hunter. She couldn’t heal, but she could bandage.
“Yes, she is,” Jamie agreed, “though I’m surprised she claimed me.”
Van laughed. “She didn’t. I know more than you might think.”
She took a few steps across the room, and Jamie saw exactly who she was talking about. A laugh bubbled up in his throat, and he had to stop himself from sounding very rude or immature. Van turned and looked at him. “Why is an injured Guardian funny?” she asked, a dark eyebrow raised.
“Because… I know him,” Jamie said, controlling his laughter. “And I’m not surprised at all he threw himself between Dracula and an escape, but it is kind of funny to see him sprawled out on the floor.”
Van stared at the doctor for a moment. “You will help him, yes?”
“Yes,” Jamie assured her. “I will help him.”
She nodded and headed off back toward the interior of the castle, and Jamie approached his sleeping friend.
Aaron was lying on the floor beneath a massive fireplace, his head cradled in the lap of a fairly attractive blonde woman. “Hit his head, did he?” Jamie asked her.
“Yes,” she replied, clearly concerned. “I’ve been trying to wake him, but….”
“He’ll be fine,” Jamie assured her, reaching into his pocket for his gloves. He was willing to help the man who’d killed Jack the Ripper, but there was no sense using his powers to do so. He reached into his bag and pulled out some smelling salts. A few seconds later, Aaron sputtered back to life. “Aaron?” Jamie called “Open your eyes.”
The Guardian blinked a few times and then made a groaning noise like his head hurt.
The woman who was holding his head said, “Stay still,” and he looked up at her, a questioning expression on his face.
“He’s all right,” Jamie assured her “I’m sure he has a concussion, but he’ll recover.”
“A conc—what?” the blonde asked, not pulling her eyes away from the face of the handsome man she was clearly very worried about.
“A concussion. It just means his brain moved around a bit inside of his skull.” Jamie still wasn’t sure she had any idea what he was talking about.
She made a funny face and then said, “Oh, well, I guess that’s one way to verify he has one.”
After a long night, Jamie couldn’t help but laugh. “Ha, ha, good one.” Maybe he hadn’t given the woman enough credit.
Without even opening his eyes, Aaron mumbled, “Stop making jokes at my expense, woman voice.”
“Aaron, it’s me, Catherine,” she called. “Are you all right? Do you want to try to sit up?”
He seemed to want to try, so Jamie took one shoulder, Catherine the other, and in a few moments, he was sitting up, though Jamie noticed his pupils were still dilated.
“How are you feeling?” Jamie asked, staring into his eyes for a moment.
“Okay,” Aaron muttered.
“I didn’t do anything to heal you, just assessed the damage. Do you think I need to do anything else?” He pulled up one eyelid and stared into his eye for a second.
“No,” Aaron replied. It was weak, but Jamie knew he’d be fine. There may still be Hunters who could use his help.
“All right then. I’m off,” he said. “Let me know if he needs anything,” he added to Catherine as he hurried off, headed toward the basement. He hadn’t checked the lower levels to see if there were Hunters who needed his attention.
For the most part, he was fairly certain they had things under control, which was a testament to his team. He hurried down a concrete stairwell, saw a few Healers working diligently, and both gave him signals that they were all right, so he headed further down.
When he’d originally been asked to serve as the Leader of the Healers, the thought Jordan had a screw loose, but when he saw how cohesively his team worked, how many more Healers there were now than there had been a year ago, and how much better they were at their jobs, he felt as if he had truly made a difference. It was all he could do to keep Kit’s words from filling his mind, the idea that he would never be a leader had been planted there by her, but as Jamie went about assessing the rest of his team, he realized she was wrong. And if she’d been wrong about that, perhaps she’d been wrong about other things, too. Perhaps he really was worthy of love, worthy of finding someone who could live the rest of her life with him, regardless of whether or not she would live eternally as he would.
There wasn’t too much time to ponder these ideas as he found another Hunter in need of attention and went about helping a Healer cauterize yet another severed arm, but one thing was for sure, he was ready to move on and put Kit and his old ideas of himself in the past.
