Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse #4)(42)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Her legs were broken, and maybe one arm.

"Go get my car," I told Eric, in the kind of voice that has to be obeyed.

I tossed him my keys, and he took to the air again. In one available corner of my brain, I hoped that he remembered how to drive. I’d noted that though he’d forgotten his personal history, his modern skills were apparently intact.

I was trying not to think about the poor injured girl right in front of me. The wolves circled and paced, whining. Then the big black one raised his head to the dark sky and howled again. This was a signal to all the others, who did the same thing. I glanced back to be sure that Dean was keeping away, since he was the outsider. I wasn’t sure how much human personality was left after these two-natured people transformed, and I didn’t want anything to happen to him. He was sitting on the small porch, out of the way, his eyes fixed on me.

I was the only creature with opposable thumbs on the scene, and I was suddenly aware that that gave me a lot of responsibility.

First thing to check? Breathing. Yes, she was! She had a pulse. I was no paramedic, but it didn’t seem like a normal pulse to me – which would be no wonder. Her skin felt hot, maybe from the changeover back to human. I didn’t see a terrifying amount of fresh blood, so I hoped that no major arteries had been ruptured.

I slid a hand beneath the girl’s head, very carefully, and touched the dusty dark hair, trying to see if her scalp was lacerated. No.

Sometime during the process of this examination, I began shaking all over. Her injuries were really frightening. Everything I could see of her looked beaten, battered, broken. Her eyes opened. She shuddered. Blankets – she’d need to be kept warm. I glanced around. All the wolves were still wolves.

"It would be great if one or two of you could change back," I told them. "I have to get her to a hospital in my car, and she needs blankets from inside this house."

One of the wolves, a silvery gray, rolled onto its side – okay, male wolf – and I heard the same gloppy noise again. A haze wrapped around the writhing figure, and when it dispersed, Colonel Flood was curled up in place of the wolf. Of course, he was naked, too, but I chose to rise above my natural embarrassment. He had to lie still for at least a minute or two, and it was o

bviously a great effort for him to sit up.

He crawled over to the injured girl. "Maria-Star," he said hoarsely. He bent to smell her, which looked very weird when he was in human form. He whined in distress.

He turned his head to look at me. He said, "Where?" and I understood he meant the blankets.

"Go in the house, go up the stairs. There’s a bedroom at the head of the stairs. There’s a blanket chest at the foot of the bed. Get two blankets out of there."

He staggered to his feet, apparently having to deal with some disorientation from his rapid change, before he began striding toward the house.

The girl – Maria-Star – followed him with her eyes.

"Can you talk?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, barely audibly.

"Where does it hurt worst?"

"I think my hips and legs are broken," she said. "The car hit me."

"Did it throw you up in the air?"

"Yes."

"The wheels didn’t pass over you?"

She shuddered. "No, it was the impact that hurt me."

"What’s your full name? Maria-Star what?" I’d need to know for the hospital. She might not be conscious by then.

"Cooper," she whispered.

By then, I could hear a car coming up Bill’s drive.

The colonel, moving more smoothly now, sped out of the house with the blankets, and all the wolves and the one human instantly arrayed themselves around me and their wounded pack member. The car was obviously a threat until they learned likewise. I admired the colonel. It took quite a man to face an approaching enemy stark naked.

The new arrival was Eric, in my old car. He pulled up to Maria-Star and me with considerable panache and squealing brakes. The wolves circled restlessly, their glowing yellow eyes fixed on the driver’s door. Calvin Norris’s eyes had looked quite different; fleetingly, I wondered why.

"It’s my car; it’s okay," I said, when one of the Weres began growling. Several pairs of eyes turned to fix on me consideringly. Did I look suspicious, or tasty?

As I finished wrapping Maria-Star in the blankets, I wondered which one of the wolves was Alcide. I suspected he was the largest, darkest one, the one that just that moment turned to look me in the eyes. Yes, Alcide. This was the wolf I’d seen at Club Dead a few weeks ago, when Alcide had been my date on a night that had ended catastrophically – for me and a few other people.

I tried to smile at him, but my face was stiff with cold and shock.

Eric leaped out of the driver’s seat, leaving the car running. He opened the back door. "I’ll put her in," he called, and the wolves began barking. They didn’t want their pack sister handled by a vampire, and they didn’t want Eric to be anywhere close to Maria-Star.

Colonel Flood said, "I’ll lift her." Eric looked at the older man’s slight physique and lifted a doubtful eyebrow, but had the sense to stand aside. I’d wrapped the girl as well as I could without jarring her, but the colonel knew this was going to hurt her even worse. At the last minute, he hesitated.

"Maybe we should call the ambulance," he muttered.

"And explain this how?" I asked. "A bunch of wolves and a naked guy, and her being up here next to a private home where the owner’s absent? I don’t think so!"

"Of course." He nodded, accepting the inevitable. Without even a hitch in his breathing, he stood with the bundle that was the girl and went to the car. Eric did run to the other side, open that door, and reach in to help pull her farther onto the backseat. The colonel permitted that. The girl shrieked once, and I scrambled behind the wheel as fast as I could. Eric got in the passenger side, and I said, "You can’t go."

"Why not?" He sounded amazed and affronted.

"I’ll have twice the explaining to do if I have a vampire with me!" It took most people a few minutes to decide Eric was dead, but of course they would figure it out eventually. Eric stubbornly stayed put. "And everyone’s seeing your face on the damn posters," I said, working to keep my voice reasonable but urgent. "I live among pretty good people, but there’s no one in this parish who couldn’t use that much money."

He got out, not happily, and I yelled, "Turn off the lights and relock the house, okay?"

"Meet us at the bar when you have word about Maria-Star!" Colonel Flood yelled back. "We’ve got to get our cars and clothes out of the cemetery." Okay, that explained the glimpse I’d caught on the way over.