Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred by Lynn Viehl

to measure how much blood he’d lost or how long he’d been in shock.
    Under her arm, Samuel’s chest fell and didn’t rise again.
    “Sam.” She couldn’t find a pulse anymore, and tilted his head back, putting her ear down by his nose and mouth to listen and feel for a breath that never came. She opened his mouth to check his airway and found two fresh puncture wounds in his upper palate. She ignored them as she tipped his head back, pinched his nostrils shut, sealed her lips over his, and forced her breath into his lungs.
    He didn’t start breathing.
    Charlie centered her hands on his chest and began compressions, counting under her breath until she reached thirty before giving him another breath. The muddy gray of his skin made her swear as she began the second set of compressions.
    “Come on, Sam,” she told him as she worked his chest. “You’re not dying on me, not here. Are you listening?”
    His body heaved under her hands as violent tremors racked his limbs. Just as quickly he fell still and coughed several times before he began breathing on his own. His features remained ashen in color, and against her skin she could feel his body temperature dropping.
    Charlie kept her fingers pressed against his throat; feeling his sluggish pulse throb dully, she watched a little color return to his face. “Okay, Sam, that’s better. You just keep those lungs working.” She glanced down at the wound in his side to check the bleeding, which had slowed dramatically.
    She didn’t know whether he’d had a seizure or a stroke, but she couldn’t be concerned with that now. The wound probably wasn’t going to kill him, but the blood loss would.
    She used the belt from the other robe to bind her makeshift bandage in place, and then ran across the glass floor to the arched open doorway opposite the exterior glass wall. She hurried out into a corridor filled with doors.
    Judging by the vast interior dimensions and artful decor, they’d been brought to someone’s private mansion. As she hurried down the hall she began jerking open doors and glancing inside, but found the other rooms just as empty.
    “Is anyone here? I have a wounded man who needs a doctor,” she called out several times, but the only thing that answered her was the echo of her own voice. At the end of the hall she opened the last door and then stopped, aghast to see that the interior had been outfitted to serve as a medical treatment room. Someone had installed an exam table, lab equipment, and glass-fronted cabinets filled with supplies. Her own carry-in bag sat on a rolling cart next to the table.
    Charlie went to the refrigerated storage unit and opened the door. Inside were several vials of insulin, antibiotics, and other perishable drugs, along with enough units of blood to stock a small blood bank.
    Sam’s desperate need for a transfusion made her reach for the blood. The packaging looked unfamiliar, and none of the units had been labeled or typed, although different symbols had been drawn in black marker on each of the bags. She had no way to tell what sort of blood it was, nor the time to test it to see whether it was safe.
    There was only one thing she could do.
    She replaced the bag in the storage unit and slammed the door shut, turning to the cabinets to pull what she needed. After she stuffed the supplies in her bag she grabbed it and ran back down the hall.
    “Sam,” she said as she pulled on a pair of gloves and began to set up. “Can you hear me? I need you to wake up now. I’m going to take care of you, but I have to know what happened.”
    She had to repeat herself several times before he stirred, and then at last his eyes opened. “Charlotte.” His voice barely registered above a whisper, and he grimaced as if it hurt to speak. “Safe?”
    “For now,” she lied. “Do you remember how you got this wound in your side? Did someone stab you?”
    He shook his head. “Accident. In Denver. Weeks ago.” His eyelids began to droop.