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Grieve motioned for Chatter to go help him, while Fearless scouted the room and then ducked out. I could hear him going up the stairs—faintly but enough to tell me he was making sure we weren’t going to be ambushed.
Rhiannon knelt beside me as I frantically ripped open Kaylin’s blood-soaked shirt. His chest was unharmed, but he’d been stabbed several times in the side, and he’d lost a lot of blood by the looks of the pool of it drying around him.
“Kaylin!” I screamed at him, trying to jog his demon awake. His night-veil demon was strong, and maybe it could help me revive him. I began compressions on his chest, counting to thirty before I cupped his face and gave him mouth-to-mouth. Then back to compressions.
“He’s still bleeding out!” Rhiannon turned to Grieve. “Give me your shirt! Now!”
As Grieve stripped off his shirt and handed it to her, I thanked whatever power it was that manifested his clothing as real and not just illusion.
Rhiannon rolled it into a ball and, maneuvering around me, pressed it against Kaylin’s side, trying to stanch the blood. Grieve began to remove the duct tape around Luna’s and Peyton’s wrists. He gently tried to remove it from their mouths, but it was stuck firm, and finally, frustrated, Peyton shoved his hand away and yanked it off her face. Luna did the same. Both of them gave little screams as the adhesive ripped, leaving abrasions on their skin.
I was still trying to revive Kaylin. He wasn’t coming around.
Luna crawled over to my side. “I can help.”
I shifted to allow her room, and she took his head and placed it in her lap. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but somehow she found her voice and began to hum. The melody was haunting and made the hairs on my arms stand up. As she grew louder, the weaving sounds became words and she was suddenly singing.
“Heal…” Her voice stretched out into one long, sonorous note.
Hear me, dark-souled demon of mine,
Hearken to my song.
Come back from the night-bound shrine,
Come back into your body, strong.
I search you out, seeking across time,
I call you back with song and rhyme.
I call your soul, I call your breath,
I call you back from the door to death.
Obey me now, walker of the dreams,
It is not the time for you to leave.
Kaylin jerked under my hands—I’d been continuing the compressions. A moment later, he shook his head and weakly opened his eyes. Rhiannon removed the cloth—the bleeding had stopped.
“Kaylin, can you hear me?” I leaned down, looking into his face. His eyes were dark, flashing with red, and I could feel his demon close to the surface. We’d had words when his demon first awoke in his soul. In fact, we’d had a knock-down, drag-out fight.
“We hear you, woman.”
So it was the demon. “Is Kaylin…is he with you?”
“Yes, but he’s too weak to speak. His body has lost a lot of blood and needs attention. I cannot bring him back further from the veil until he’s attended to. Even then, he will need a great deal of recuperation.” The demon closed his eyes and Kaylin fell into a deep sleep, his breathing shallow.
“We need to take him back to the Barrow.” I looked up at Luna. “What happened? Are you and Peyton all right?” I’d been so focused on keeping Kaylin alive that I’d forgotten to ask how they were.
“We weren’t hurt. Kaylin tried to protect us, but…they were too strong.”
“Shadow Hunters?” But I didn’t think so. If it had been the Vampiric Fae, they wouldn’t have stopped until all three of them were dead.
“No. I think…day-runners.”
Leo. Or Geoffrey. It had to be one of them or both. “Did they say anything?”
