they hurried back to the house.
As soon as she could she threw some light onto them. “Put him down right here,” she said, pointing to the floor. The couch would only get in her way, and she was fairly certain he was beyond complaining about creature comforts. The Gargoyle female knelt down and laid her burden out on the floor. Marissa leaned over the man and drew in a breath of shock. He was caked in dried blood. So much so that it couldn’t possibly be all his own. There couldn’t be any way he would be alive if it were his own blood loss. Unless of course he was like these other supernatural beings. God only knew what it was they were capable of. A part of her was fretting about leaving Jackson out there on his own, as if her watching him from afar in the trees could provide him with some sort of strength or a moral compass.
So she did her best to discard her concerns about Jackson and focused on her patient.
“God, it’s been a few years since medical school,” she muttered. “I need to wash away some of this blood. I can’t see a damn thing.” She looked up at the imposing figure of the female Gargoyle. She was in human form, but her skin was a dark gray sheet of stone and she had no doubt it felt like it as well. She didn’t look like rough stone as she might have expected. In actuality it was more the smooth glassiness of highly polished marble. “Can you … I’m sorry your name is …?”
“Diahmond, please,” she said. And for some reason it surprised her to hear such a normal woman’s voice coming from what was clearly such an extraordinary woman.
“Diahmond, can you bring me a lot of water and find some towels?”
“Yes, of course.”
“This man needs a trauma room. You need to call 911 for me as well,” she said as she gingerly tried to inspect the man for the source of the bleeding.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do that. We must keep a very low profile here,” she said by way of an apology when Marissa narrowed her eyes on her.
“I don’t give a damn about your profile! This man needs help and I intend to see that he gets it.”
“He needs a healer,” Diahmond said just as stubbornly. “You will have to suffice until one can be brought here.”
Marissa realized they were just wasting time arguing, so she nodded stiffly to the Gargoyle. Diahmond went quickly into the rear reaches of the house.
“Don’t worry, my friend,” she said in a whisper as she gingerly brushed at the blood scabbed thick over his eyes. “I will see to it you get the help you need.”
She didn’t expect a reply because he was completely limp with unconsciousness. He had black hair, she believed, but that was the only discernable trait. He was in a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else so he was cold to the touch. It was still too early in the spring for the nights to be anything close to warm. Diahmond returned quickly with a tub of water and some towels of varying sizes.
“We have to find his injuries so we can stop the bleeding.” She didn’t state the obvious, which was that they were looking at a catastrophic loss of blood. Much in the same way Jackson had assumed Leo Alvarez was dead by sheer volume of—
Marissa felt a cold finger of ice running down her spine. She took her towel to the man’s face, wiping frantically to be able to distinguish—
“Leo!” Jackson slammed into the house and, seeing them on the floor, he hurried over to them and dropped to his knees. “Diahmond, we need a healer here ASAP.”
“Already taken care of. I called Nané, but it will be several hours before she can get here.”
“He won’t last that long,” Marissa said harshly. “Why won’t you just take him to a hospital? Jackson, come on! I know how much he means to you!” It was evident in the way Jackson had reached to grip Leo’s hand, the fear that was in his eyes that he, too, thought he might lose his friend.
“I want to … but we could never explain this and it would bring undue attention on us,” Jackson hissed at her. “Don’t think I’m not doing all I can! Nané can save him; modern medicine cannot. Look at him and tell me honestly if you think