Demonhome (Champions of the Dawning Dragons Book 3)

  forgot about that.” Looking down she could see that her right sleeve was soaked with blood. “I’l never get the stain out,” she muttered sourly, trying hard not to think of the person who had given her the shirt.

  There was a first aid kit mixed in with her camping gear, but she knew she didn’t have the strength left to dig it out. She had stuffed a smal mountain of stuff into the pack, and dragging it al out, finding the right bag… “Nah, that’s not gonna happen.”

  Her eyes felt thick and heavy, and when she blinked, her vision grew blurry. It felt as though the lids wanted to stick together. Rubbing at them with the back of her hand, she saw more blood on her skin as she drew her hand away. “Bleeding from the eyes too,” she noted. “How quaint.”

  Maybe it was the grenade, she thought, but somehow she doubted it. I think the shrapnel hit my neck. She focused her magesight there and found more blood, but it seemed to be drying. Either it wasn’t a deep wound, or I’ve run out of blood.

  For some reason the thought comforted her. She tried to reach Matthew’s belt to get his knife so she could cut her sleeve off. The shirt was ruined already, so using the material for a tourniquet was a sound idea. But the world grew dim as she reached for it, and her hands felt cold.

  That’s odd. You’d think it would be warm in the sun… She didn’t finish the thought, as oblivion claimed her awareness and she sank back down into the grass.

  Chapter 23

  Matthew’s head was pounding. Not just the ‘had a few drinks too many’ sort of pounding, but the ‘drank the whole damn keg’ sort of

  pounding. It was something he had rarely experienced, and he didn’t think it was from drinking too much. He was suffering from feedback. The explosion at the end had cracked a shield he was actively reinforcing.

  Desacus! he thought, as he remembered what had happened. Desacus, he thought again, projecting it as a message, though it sent painful knives through his skul.

  There was no response.

  Extending his senses brought more pain. It was an experience akin to waking up with the sun in your face after a long night of drinking. The only thing that made it any better was the fact that there didn’t seem to be any actual light assaulting him. Slowly he cracked his lids open to confirm his suspicion. It was relatively dark, but not entirely. A riot of stars cut across the sky above him in a jagged swathe, bordered by pitch black on either side.

  That seemed odd, but his mind wasn’t ready to deal with figuring it out just yet.

  Despite the pounding in his head, he managed to confirm the rough details of his immediate surroundings. He was lying on a stretch of rough ground with sparse patches of grass around him. Karen’s pack lay on his chest, and close by he could sense her body. In the distance, a towering wal of rock rose toward the sky, which probably explained the darkness on one side of the stars he had seen. If there was a similar stone rise on the other side, it would explain the other patch of darkness.

  I’m in a valley or ravine or something, he noted. A flat expanse of water to one side was probably a river.

  None of it helped him understand where he was or how he had gotten there. Only one person could do that. “Karen,” he said, grateful that at least the sound of his voice wasn’t painful.

  “Karen,” he repeated, since she hadn’t moved or stirred.

  Growing more concerned, he forced himself to sit up. The movement made him want to vomit, but he managed to control his rebelious

  stomach. Several sore spots in his back paid testament to the rocks that had been underneath him.

  Karen’s body lay in an unnatural position, with one leg folded and the other stretched out. The arm nearest him was stretched out as though she had been reaching toward him, but it wasn’t at an angle that could have been comfortable. Even if she had falen asleep she should have shifted her position.

  Something was wrong.

  He felt a sensation of panic as his heart seemed to rise into his throat. Forcing his mind open once more, he searched her body with his

  magesight. Her heart was stil beating, but its pace was rapid and weak.

  What does that mean? he wondered. “The heart tries to make up for lost blood by beating faster,” he remembered his father saying.

  How much had she lost?

  He scanned the rest of her, looking for wounds. A smal cut on the skin of her neck was crusted with dried blood. Her eyes were also scabbed over, which raised more questions, but didn’t seem serious, so he continued.

  Her right arm had the only serious cut. The sleeve was dark and stiff and the wound was stil seeping slowly. The main artery was intact, as wel as the larger veins, but a few smal ones had been cut. The body’s natural constriction and clotting had mostly stopped the flow, but she had probably lost a considerable amount of blood.

  The pain between his eyes grew intense as he reconnected the veins and sealed the skin, but he refused to stop until he had fixed the slash on her forearm as wel as the minor cut to her neck. He examined her eyes, but they seemed to be al right, aside from the blood crusted around them.

  Whatever had happened to them was too smal for him to try to figure out in his current condition. He was liable to do more harm than good.

  She needed water more than anything else. Her body has to replace the lost blood volume.

  First, he straightened her leg and moved her arms into a more comfortable position. With a reminder from the twinges in his own back, he also checked beneath her and removed a few smal rocks. Then he opened the pack and began searching. He wasn’t sure the river water was potable, so he hoped there might be a water bottle inside.

  “What the hel?” he swore, as he began dragging out the colection of miscelaneous items he found inside. One package was so large he could

  barely get it through the opening. Beyond that he found pots and pans, a few bowls, boxes, clothes—an endless plethora of junk. “I know al this wasn’t in there earlier,” he muttered. “What happened while I was out?” he asked the unconscious woman. “It’s like you went to a market and bought everything in sight.”

  Eventualy, he discovered four large plastic jugs filed with water, along with a box-like colection of many clear bottles similarly containing the vital fluid. He removed one of the smal bottles and opened the top. Thankfuly, over the past couple of weeks he had become somewhat familiar with the strange packaging of the new world he was in, otherwise it might have taken him longer.

  Matthew carefuly lifted her head and eased his other arm behind her shoulders so he could lift her into a reclining position. Bracing her upright with his body, he spoke into her ear, “Karen, can you hear me? I need you to wake up for a minute.”

  She groaned.

  He took that as a good sign. “You have to drink for me.”

  Her face scrunched up. “Can’t see.”

  “Your eyes are closed,” he told her. “Don’t bother trying to open them right now. You need to drink.” He pressed the bottle against her lips.

  Karen managed a smal sip before turning her head to the side. “Why’m I in a freezer?”

  “It isn’t a freezer. We’re in a desert—I think. It’s night and the temperature’s dropping, plus you’ve lost some blood. Here, drink some more.”

  She took two more sips and then a large mouthful before choking.

  “Go slowly,” he warned.

  “Grand Canyon,” she muttered.

  “Huh?”

  “Canyon,” she repeated. “Came on a trip, with Dad. God, I’m thirsty.”

  He held the bottle up so she could drink again. He didn’t know where the Grand Canyon was, but he could worry about that later.

  After another swalow, she asked, “Is the water staying in? I’m stil thirsty.”

  He frowned, “Yeah.”

  “It’s probably running out the hole in my neck,” she muttered. “From when they blew me up.”

  “You’re confused,” he said soothingly. “You had a cut, but it’s better now. The water is
going where it should.”

  “Everybody wants me dead,” she mumbled. “I think it’s working.”

  “They’l be disappointed when they find out it didn’t,” he chuckled.

  “Me too,” she sighed.

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Dad, did I tel you? I met a wizard. A real one.”

  She’s definitely delirious , he observed mentaly. “A wizard, huh?”

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “I probably shouldn’t tel you, since you’re dead. You probably see wizards al the time.”

  “Not as many as you might think,” he answered dryly.

  “He’s cute,” she added, “and nice sometimes, but he’s an asshole too.”

  Matt struggled to keep from laughing. Cute huh?

  “I probably shouldn’t have slept with him, ‘cuz where he’s from that means you’re a slut. He didn’t realy want to, but I talked him into it. He doesn’t know how much I actualy like him.

  “I’m a wizard too. A peasant wizard, pizzard for short,” she giggled slightly.

  He stared down at her, his throat constricting, “I’m sure he doesn’t think of you that way.”

  “Dad?”

  Matt blinked to clear his vision, “Yeah?”

  “Wil you tel Aunt Roberta I’m sorry?”

  “No need for that,” he told her, his voice thick. “She understands.”

  “They kiled Annie.”

  “She’s fine, she’s here too,” he managed.

  “Okay,” said Karen, and then her heart stopped. A faint sigh escaped her lips as her head sagged to the side.

  Chapter 24

  A feeling of cold shock passed over Matthew as the woman in his arms died. “No!” he yeled, denying the reality in front of him.

  Franticaly he began running through everything his father had ever taught him about healing, but none of it had covered a situation like this. He knew how to close wounds, fuse bones, and repair blood vessels, but there had been no mention of what to do for a stopped heart.

  But that didn’t mean he was ready to give up.

  Hastily he eased her back down to the ground. For a moment, he started delving into what knowledge the She’Har had possessed, but it was

  so foreign and esoteric he immediately abandoned the attempt. There might be something there, but he would never find it in time, and most of it relied on the ability to spelweave. If he did discover something, he wouldn’t be able to adapt it in time.

  He placed his hand over her chest and reached within her, until his power had wound itself around her heart, and then gently he squeezed. He repeated the process, forcing her heart to beat. Her eyelids fluttered and then her breathing resumed, but as soon as he started to withdraw, her heart went stil. It was working, but her heart wasn’t beating on its own.

  How long can I keep her alive like this? he wondered.

  Minutes passed, and Matthew felt a wind pass through the canyon. Glancing upward he saw the stars shining brightly above, as cold and distant as any possibility of help was. He was completely and utterly alone.

  It wasn’t the sort of solitude he cherished when he was at home, working on one of his projects. It was the desolate isolation a child could feel lost in a crowd, hopelessly searching strangers’ faces for the sight of a parent.

  Gritting his teeth, he pushed the feeling away and kept going. He couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  Maybe there’s something in the pack, he thought suddenly.

  Searching it required him to get up and move away slightly, which made concentrating on her heart a difficult task. “You’re an Ileniel, dammit,”

  he told himself. “You were juggling fruit with your power before you ever learned to dance. You can do this.”

  He focused intently on her heart as he crawled over to the backpack. Opening it, he began dumping everything it contained onto the ground, heedless of the chaos and clutter. Most of it was completely useless to him, but then he spotted a gray box with a red cross across the lid.

  Matthew fumbled with the latch for a few seconds and almost lost track of Karen’s heart, but he managed it after a minute. Inside was a

  colection of plastic and paper-wrapped goods, bandages, gauze, scissors, ointment, and other less recognizable items. None of it would do her any good.

  He fought down a wave of despair and kept going. Amongst the various items of camping gear, he spotted a duffel that held the clothes and

  toiletries she had used while hiking. He upended it on the ground and stared at the useless contents. What am I doing? he thought. I know none of this junk is going to help. I’m just acting the fool.

  Then he noticed a carved wooden box. It held a set of quartz cubes etched with runes. He knew, since he had made it himself. The cubes were designed to create a stasis field, a smaler version of what his father had once done to an entire city. Hope sprang anew in his chest.

  Until reality set in. Using the enchanted stasis cubes would take several minutes and would require al his concentration. He couldn’t use them without letting Karen’s heart stop. He’d just be preserving a corpse if he attempted it.

  Frustration almost made him lose his focus on Karen’s heart. “I’m so close!” he growled to himself. A blinking light caught his attention. A smal black square was the source, one of the items that had falen out of her toiletry bag. Matt bent down and picked it up.

  He had seen enough of the world’s technology to recognize it as an electronic device of some kind. The shiny glass side was probably a screen.

  Next to the flashing green light was a raised rectangle that might be a button. He had a moment’s hesitation; Karen had told him that any of her electronic devices might be tracked by the military. But then again, if this thing already had power, they might already be tracking it.

  The screen lit up as soon as he pressed the button, a message in English displayed there. He couldn’t read it, but the red icon that appeared beneath it seemed to indicate he had done something wrong. He pressed the button again but stil had no luck.

  Just as he was about to give up the screen cleared and a face appeared; Gary, Karen’s virtual father. “Who is this?”

  Startled, Matt lost his link to Karen’s heart. Scrambling, he returned to her side and gently reestablished it. He kept the device with him and laid it on the ground in front of him. “This is Matthew Ileniel. We met before. Don’t you recognize me?”

  “I can’t see you,” said the AGI, “the PM’s camera isn’t activated. Hang on.” After a few seconds, he spoke again, “Now I have a lovely view of nothing. The view is utterly black.” A briliant white light began shining from the upper corner of the device. “Stil nothing. Are you holding the PM in front of you?”

  In point of fact , he wasn’t. Matthew picked it up with one hand and looked directly into the screen.

  “Ah, there you are!” said Gary.

  “Why couldn’t you see me before?” asked Matthew.

  “The camera on these things only points in one direction,” Gary informed him. “It isn’t like an eyebal that can swivel or a head that can turn.

  You take your basic physiology for granted. Devices like this are far more limited.”

  “We’re in trouble,” announced Matthew, anxious to get to the point.

  “You’re lucky I was monitoring her spare PM,” said Gary. “And that I was able to disable its security features. It’s not supposed to be

  accessible to anyone other than her. I almost didn’t activate it, thinking you might be a hostile actor.”

  “She’s dying,” said Matthew, ignoring the AGI’s exposition.

  Gary’s face on the display grew deadly serious, “What’s happened? Never mind. What’s wrong with her?”

  “She was wounded while I was unconscious. We’re in an isolated position, somewhere, but she lost a lot of blood before I woke. She passed

  out, and now her heart has stopped beating on its own.”

  “How long?”

/>   “Ten minutes, maybe.”

  “Then it’s too late,” said Gary sadly.

  Matthew shook his head, “No, I’m making it beat. She’s stil alive, but I can’t keep this up forever.”

  Hope blossomed on the face in the display. “You can do that? Is she stil bleeding?”

  “The bleeding stopped on its own, before I woke up. I closed the wound and she woke up, but her heart was beating rapidly and weakly.

  After she passed out, it stopped. Now I’m stuck keeping her alive, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve searched through al the gear we have. There was a medical kit of some sort, but bandages aren’t going to do any good at this point,” explained Matthew.

  “Show her to me,” said Gary.

  Matt held the rectangle up, pointing the screen toward Karen’s body.

  “Get her feet up,” said the AGI. “Her head and torso need to be the lowest part of her body. Elevate the legs, and it wil help keep more of her blood where it needs to be.”

  Matthew dragged one of the larger bags over with his aythar and put it beneath her knees. “Is this going to make her heart start working

  again?” he questioned.

  “No,” snapped Gary. “But it wil make what you’re doing more effective. Was she sitting up when her heart stopped?”

  Matthew nodded. “I was holding her.”

  “Kiling her is more like it,” observed Gary in a harsh tone. “That made it harder for her heart to keep up and lowered her blood pressure.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Matthew defensively. “I was just trying to get some water into her. I knew if she had lost a lot of blood she would need fluids.”

  “We’re way past that,” Gary replied. “She’s in hypovolemic shock. Worse, actualy, since her heart is no longer pumping on its own. If you

  don’t get her to a hospital she’l be dead soon. She needs intravenous fluids, or even a blood transfusion. How long can you keep doing whatever you’re doing to her heart?”

  Matthew’s aythar reserve was as ful as it could possibly be, thanks to Desacus, but his head was throbbing with pain. “I have feedback