Chapter Twenty-Two
Devlin ran outside and crossed the street to where Cora had been stationed. At first, he didn’t see her, but then he saw boots sticking out from under some bushes. He rushed over to her and knelt down by her head. He couldn’t see any visible wounds but that didn’t mean she wasn’t hurt. He’d just reached out to check for a pulse and heard the sound of footsteps heading his way coming fast. He already had his gun drawn but pointed it in the direction of the noise. As soon as he saw who it was, he lowered his weapon and turned his attention back to the hunter on the ground.
“Oh my God! Is she all right?” Eva asked, kneeling on the other side of Cora and shining a flashlight over her.
He placed two fingers at her neck and felt a slight pulse. “She’s alive.”
“Let’s get her into the house and see the extent of her injuries.”
He bent down and picked her up. Her sword was next to her and Eva picked that up along with the gun that had fallen to the ground.
When they got inside, Eva pushed the throw pillows off the couch and he placed Cora on it. Eva turned on a couple of candles so the room was illuminated enough for him to see the dark stain on his gray t-shirt. “She’s bleeding.”
“Her side, I think,” Eva said as she sat down to examine Cora.
She was right, he could see it now, the slash in her side.
“I think it’s a clean cut, not too deep. But she’s losing blood. We need to try to stop it. Can we get her to your doctor friend?” Eva asked
He shook his head. “Too far away. We’re going to have to try to stop the bleeding or slow it down ourselves. Can you grab your first-aid kit?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks.”
She got up and left the room heading toward the kitchen.
He turned Cora on her side so she wouldn’t put any pressure on her wound. He raised her shirt to get a better look at the slash. Eva came back with a gas lamp on, even though he could see pretty well he knew Eva couldn’t.
“Let me get some clean water to wash off the blood so we can get a better look at that cut,” Eva said.
He opened up the kit and began laying out the things he thought they’d need. Eva came back and cleaned as much of the blood as she could while he pushed at the sides to try to stem the blood flow. He wasn’t sure how well it worked. As soon as she cleared an area, it would just turn red again.
Finally, Eva took out some powder and sprinkled it over the wound.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“A little concoction from one of my aunts for deep cuts. It should help to coagulate the blood, so it should at least slow the bleeding. Push the sides closed for me while I put some of these bandages on it to try to hold it together. Then we can wrap this dressing around it to try to get it to close and stop bleeding for now.”
“She needs stitches.”
“Yeah. But if we can stop the blood or slow it down, it might buy us some time to get her to help.”
They worked together and did what they could. Cora never regained consciousness. They did manage to slow the bleeding down but her pulse remained weak. Devlin walked over to the window and looked out into the deserted street as he texted Tony to get there right now, and a few others about Cora and to come to Eva’s house when they were done tonight. Anyone who needed a place to stay would be staying here. He let Tony know he was moving the hunter base to Eva’s house and the one next door until this damn place was back under control. For however long that would be.
But Devlin’s gut told him the world as they knew it would never be the same again. What happened was just the beginning and while he and Eva might have stopped part of it, he couldn’t shake the feeling more was still to come.
The text hadn’t gone through, he resent it. Having no choice, they got Cora settled in his Jeep that Cora had picked up where they’d left it only two days ago.
“Let me drive,” Eva said. “You get in the back with her and keep pressure on her side to try to hold her steady to prevent her from bleeding too much.”
He did and checked his phone. Cora needed help now—they couldn’t wait. This time his message said delivered but he didn’t get a response. Eva started the car and they drove off. They were stopped about a mile from her house by the National Guard, there was a hunter among the Guard unit. Devlin spoke to him and he took Cora from them. They had a full medical unit stationed a couple of blocks over.
“Take good care of her, Bubby,” Devlin said.
“And let us know what the doctor says,” Eva added.
“I will and happy hunting. Now get out of here.”
They’d gotten lucky running into the Guard unit and in this atmosphere, a civilian with a knife wound would garner no questions. But there were others who might have insisted they accompany them to shelters. They didn’t have to be told twice. Devlin took Eva’s hand and they returned to the Jeep, heading toward LA or as close to it as they could get, where the worst of the fires and destruction where.
“Do you really think we’re going to find Michael in all of this mess?” she asked.
“We have no choice but to try.”
Eva insisted on driving, since she claimed to know the area better than he did and the GPS came and went. It took them most of the night to navigate the roads but finally, Devlin had enough and after one of their stops, he got into the driver’s seat and held out his hand for the key. She gave it to him without a fight. Lord knows, that’s all they’d been doing all night. They already fought off two soulless, but mostly they were fighting off humans. They did manage to help even more people. But the farther they ventured toward the city, the fewer people they encountered. The area had been evacuated. They’d gone as far as they could. The heat was unbearable. No one would be able to get any closer to that mess. Who would want to?
“I don’t think Michael is anywhere near here,” Eva told him.
“Yeah, I think you’re right. No humans. Let’s go back to where there’re more people around. Maybe we can catch a soulless and convince him to tell us what he knows about Michael’s whereabouts.”
“You mean torture him or her?” Eva asked turning to frown at him.
“If we have to. Look, even you have to admit, the soulless we’ve run into tonight would have killed people if we hadn’t been there to stop them. Lord alone knows how many already died at their hands tonight. It’s like a frigging smorgasbord for soulless out there.”
Eva sighed. This was something they may never completely agree on. Could she accept their differences? She believed soulless were like everyone else, they made choices, some did more harm than others, some did that harm deliberately. Michael had proved by leaving the Chronicle with her that he wasn’t looking to harm her or anyone else. He did just enough to survive. The files she had on him told her as much. He wasn’t the only one. So did the soulless they’d encountered so far have to be killed? Since they found them either with their fangs already in someone’s neck draining them dry or trying to kill a human, she couldn’t argue his point.
He took her into his arms. “Look, I won’t torture anyone, if we find one willing to talk to us, we’ll try talking. Just asking questions.”
“Okay.” She kissed him. Perhaps he was softening toward her way of thinking. She hoped so.
They decided to head back toward her place, it would take them until morning to traverse the roads anyway. They passed pockets of people mostly on foot, but they didn’t run across any more soulless for the night. Just people trying to get as far away from the fires as possible.
By the time they pulled into her driveway, there were two SUVs parked in front of her house. “Hunters?” she asked glancing at him.
“Yes, I guess Tony or one of the others did get my text after all.”
As soon as they stepped out of the car, they heard gravel being moved behind them. Spinning around, both had their guns out but it was only one of the men she recognized from the rooftop yesterday. Was it only yesterday? How many days since the earthquake, how many days since all hell had broken loose? She’d lost track. It seemed like forever and it would take years to rebuild. She prayed this was as bad as things would get, that what Devlin did by redirecting the pressure on the fault lines helped.
“Hey, glad to see you all made it back,” the man approached wearing one of those industrial face masks and fist bumped Devlin. He waved at Eva. The air was still packed with ash.
“We haven’t had a chance to meet yesterday,” Eva said holding out her hand. “I’m Evangeline or Eva.”
He pulled off his mask and took her hand. “Good to meet you, I’m Elles.”
“Are the others inside?” Devlin asked.
“Yeah, Tony and about four of the guys are here, Jason might get here later and he’ll bring his sister with him. One of the guy’s is from Samuel’s group. The others are still spread throughout the areas that got hit the hardest but some folks don’t want to leave, so they’re sticking in those areas. We’re spread thin man, and some lost their homes.”
“How many?” Devlin asked.
“So far six are displaced, myself included, about a dozen have moved in with hunters whose homes are still standing. Paulie and Cora are going to be okay.”
“Thank God!” Eva stated.
“The house on the right is empty. Eva owns the property and we think the tenants vacated the place. So send anyone needing a place there. We’re going to make it our temporary HQ. We should also have the house on the left if we need it in a day or so. If there are people there we have to get them out.”
“Shouldn’t be that hard convincing folks to leave the area. This area is under a voluntary evacuation and most of the area west of here is mandatory. The air is foul and getting worse; we’ve got no electricity, we have water but you gotta boil it. Good thing you have a gas stove,” Elles added.
“Yes, that does help. I’ll talk to the tenants next door in the morning,” Eva told him.
“I hope you don’t mind, but we came in through the window in the back but we fixed it right up for you, so no one’s coming in that way again. We also laid down some blessed metal along the windows and doors. The guy Samuel sent out told us that one of the Chroniclers in New York has been experimenting and that seems to bar the younger soulless from crossing thresholds.”
“Thank you for patching up my window. And that’s interesting about the metal,” Eva said.
“Did you know about this?” Devlin asked.
She shook her head. “No, but we thought some kind of holy water or blessing was used on the cuffs that held Thalya when she’d been taken prisoner by Abel. I knew Aunt Wilhelmina had been experimenting. I guess she finally figured something out she forgot to mention.”
“Well, phone service has been hit or miss,” Elles added. “Even calls out of state, at least on our cells. None of the landlines we’ve found so far work at all.”
“Not surprising,” Devlin said. “Everything otherwise okay out here?”
“Yeah, it’s been pretty quiet.”
“You out here alone?”
“No. Tony spoke to Cora, she told him how she got jumped. So we’re working in pairs.” He turned back toward the way he’d come from and waved his arm. A dark head popped up and a hand waved back. “John is with me.”
“Good, stay alert. I think the same bastard tried to get to Eva twice now. He comes around here a third time, I want him captured. I have questions for him.”
“You got it. By the way.” He pointed to something clipped to his belt. “We got walkie talkies to communicate. We don’t have many of them and they’re short ranged but Tony has one inside to check on us out here too.”
“Perfect.” Devlin took her hand.
Eva smiled, pleased he was being so demonstrative in front of one of his men.
“Stay alert,” Devlin said. “When do you get relieved?”
“Not till dawn, so about an hour.”
Devlin fist bumped him again, and they moved toward her front door.
She turned the knob, not bothering with her key. It opened at her touch. She grinned, these people were certainly making themselves comfortable in her home. But she couldn’t complain, at least she had a home, she remembered what Elles had said, some had lost theirs. They weren’t the only ones and besides, they were also keeping her safe and protecting the Chronicles.
They paused in the small entryway, the first thing that greeted her was the spicy aroma of chili cooking, her stomach growled. Then she spied three men sleeping on the floor of her living room in sleeping bags, there were several backpacks stacked in one corner. They heard voices in the kitchen and Devlin led them that way.
They found Tony sitting at the kitchen counter with another man. They had two pots sitting on the stove. One man was stirring the pot and whatever was inside it seemed to be the source of the delicious aroma. Her stomach growled in reaction. How could she get mad at that? She hadn’t had a hot meal since this entire mess began. “I forgive you all for coming into my kitchen and taking over, if you tell me that food is ready and fix me a bowl immediately.”
Tony grinned. “It is. Where are your bowls?”
“You mean you didn’t go through my cabinets?”
He shook his head. “Only the drawer for a stirring spoon, and pots, Mario here didn’t bring those but he had everything else.”
“I’ll get it,” she said and smiled at Mario. “Hi, I’m Evangeline.”
“Mario.”
“No, you sit down,” Devlin said, placing his hands on her shoulders and guiding her to the stool next to Tony. “I’ll get it.”
“The cabinet to the right of the sink,” she told him.
Devlin got down four bowls and handed them one at a time to Mario who dished out a thick meaty bowl of dark thick chili. The second pot had cornbread, Mario cut off a piece and placed it on top of the bowl. Devlin put the first one in front of Eva, the next in front of Tony. He placed one empty bowl on the counter next to Mario and held out his own bowl for the man to fill. There were only three stools in the kitchen and he took the third one next to Eva. Tony had pulled out a few spoons and set them down on the counter.
Eva grabbed a spoon and filled it up with the goodness in front of her. The steam rising thick and fast off the top told her it was very hot. She blew on it for a bit to try to cool it down, but her stomach kept growling in a rush to be fed. Good thing her eyes were in control as they told her the chili was still a bit too hot to go down well. She continued to blow on it but paused to take a bite of cornbread, which didn’t seem as hot. “Damn this is good,” she told Mario. He smiled at her.
When Devlin got up, she glanced over at him. He bent down and opened what she noticed was a cooler. He took out a couple of beers. Tony already had one. He opened them both and handed her one.
“Thanks, just what I needed.” Eva took a long sip then blew on the chili again. She couldn’t wait anymore, she gingerly clamped her mouth around her spoon. After she swallowed she said, “Hmmm, this is delicious. Hits the spot.”