Mayme stood staring down at Percival, slack jawed. The man who had plagued her night laid motionless on the floor. The sterile glossy tiles slowly vanished under a spreading pool of blood. It was nothing compared to the abattoir outside, but the white room and artificial candlelight made the sight feel worse. The night’s horrors breached somewhere they should have never touched— or perhaps the only place they should have touched. Mayme couldn’t decide what one it was— what exactly about this situation made her trembling fingers pick at the stitches of her corset or her toes recoil within her boots. Whatever it was, she had no time for it. She pushed away the swelling anxiety in her stomach and took a deep breath that kept hitching on the bile in her throat.

Frankly, the reasoning part of her brain had collapsed. He was not going to give answers in this state, some part of her must have known that, yet she clung to her agreement to help him. Maybe to not watch him die. Maybe in some naive hope he’d wake up and start talking quickly. Maybe she just needed something to keep her from spiraling.

She took a few cautious steps back and picked up one of the candelabras from the front hall, only to hurry back into the medical bay. Her body was running so hot the brass against her palm felt like ice. Now with a light source within the white walls she slammed the door shut and bolted it. Her caution evaporated as her feet moved in a flurry, scurrying to the cabinets. She threw them open with such force the glass panels rattle as they bounced off the wall.

With her candle on the counter just below she threw everything she felt she needed into a hammock she created with her skirt. She was no doctor, she had never dealt with any injury larger than a scraped knee or a nick from a kitchen knife. Honey was used to clean and heal such things quickly, but would that work for a bullet wound— on a human, no less? As horrifying as Percival had made himself, his fragility as a mortal had finally dawned on her.

 Bandages, a bottle of whatever ‘carbolic acid’ was, a medical sewing kit, and some honey for good measure all landed in the scratchy, damp fabric of her skirt. She was about to turn back to the man when something caught her eye— a small wooden box. She unlatched it and there was laid a device she had seen briefly last she was within these walls. Two clunky, metal contraptions with glass windows and a small pole. It was two syringes, but one hosted a funnel at the end and its plunger sat beside it. A blood transfusion kit. The bags of blood she had seen alongside this thing earlier were nowhere to be found, but she threw it into her skirt regardless before she grabbed the candelabra and returned to the unconscious Percival’s side.

With her supplies laid out beside her she set to work taking off Percival's clothes. First the leather glove, the blood and sweat caked within it stuck to his flesh like glue. It made an audible rip-pop when she finally yanked it off. It smelled of dead skin, a stench comparable to urine— pungent and like ammonia. She tossed the glove aside and went to work on the buttons of his jacket. Her hands paused, hovering above him. The fabric only lightly grazed her fingertips when his chest rose, and slipped away entirely as it fell. She wanted to stop him from dying, yes, however she wanted nothing to do with his body. The thought of touching him soured her stomach.

She bit the inside of her cheeks, sucked in a mouthful of the rotten air through clenched teeth, and popped a button open… then another. She just needed his shoulder free, she told herself, but as she opened the jacket she realised it was not going to be so easy. She was going to have to strip his torso completely and she wasn’t even sure she could lift him to do so— unless she cut the clothes from his body instead. She abandoned the buttons to open the sewing kit; there was a pair of scissors in there, tiny ones. They were only meant to snip catgut. Regardless, she took them out and tried to cut at first the jacket, then the shirt under it. The hems broke, the fabric ripped and frayed, but the process was gruelling. She could have gotten up to find more supplies, however the warmth of his spilling blood crawled to her knees. She was running out of time.

She leaned down and took the jacket in her mouth and yanked. It tore along the line the scissors had begun to make on the fabric's groove, the hem around the sleeve cuffs was the only thing to stop it. She did the same with the shirt underneath, it too stopped at the cuffs. Those slipped off like bracelets.

Mayme’s eyes lingered on his wrist. She had expected it would be an ashy grey like his face was, but instead the entirety of his arm was splotched with deep reds and purples. It swelled so horrifically it was a miracle his flesh had not burst through his clothing’s stitches. She willed herself to look over at his half bare chest, following the bruises as they faded into red streaks and burst into a gaping hole. Blood bubbled from the bullet wound like a geyser ready to burst. She popped the cork on the carbolic acid and poured the whole bottle onto the wound. His convulsing muscles made it look as if it were opening and closing like a fish’s mouth, it made her cringe and the lump in her throat bulged.

Something indescribable in her broke at that moment. A white noise overtook her ears. A grey cloud took the sides of her vision.  Her body moved outside her control. Her mind was reeling itself into a peaceful blank.

Her fingers found the sewing kit again, though her eyes glazed over and remained fixated on the bloody hole. She had to bring the needle and catgut into her field of view to thread it. She sutured him up with the same stitch she’d use to hem a skirt. After she finished the needle tinged uselessly to the floor while her mechanical hand slathered the wound with honey. Finally she was able to look away from the bullet wound, but a quick glimpse of his face did not fill her with any confidence; she had failed at being a nurse. His lips were blue and cold, his eyes were sunken, and his breathing was shallow. He had lost a lot of blood.

She swallowed hard as her eyes strayed to the transfusion kit against her will. A syringe with a funnel on the end and a syringe solely for drawing blood. The church woman’s words echoed in her skull: “Our medicines haven’t been all that successful with a pure breed, but that? You see, we won’t even have to dilute her blood!” 

Her blood. Vampiric blood healed her kin quickly enough, and hers was already cut with human blood. Would that make it compatible with him? Could it save him?

She picked up the funnelled syringe and jabbed it into Percival’s arm. She just hoped she was doing it correctly, but she supposed it didn’t matter if she did or didn’t. Either she did this and he could die, or she didn’t and he would die. She picked up the other needle and slid it into the flesh of the nook of her elbow, drawing out a whole vial of her own tainted blood. She removed it from her arm, fed it into the other syringe, took off the funnel, placed the last brassy component of the kit into the open back of the contraption, and plunged her blood into his body.

Mayme pulled let syringes clatter against the ground. She felt so light headed, but she wasn’t sure if that was the blood loss or her senses returning as her adrenaline waned. It was hard to think, her brain felt like it was floating off— like it was barely attached to the rest of her. She crawled away from the scene on her hands and knees, trailing Percival’s fresh blood behind her. She leaned herself against the wall. Her body felt cold and vacant, but the coolness of the wall reminded her she was at least above room temperature.

The ball of bile stuck in her throat threatened to upturn her stomach, preparing to do so with an over abundance of hot saliva pooling under her tongue. Nothing ever came. Her stomach was empty, bar whatever drops of blood Percival had force fed her earlier and whatever stomach acid she had not upchucked earlier than that.

Huh. How funny.

A wary laugh croaked from Mayme’s throat. The favour had been returned. Would he feel as violated as she had? She couldn’t answer that. In time he could, perhaps. His chest still steadily rose and fell. The crimson pool under him stilled and began to congeal at the edges. His face remained grey, and his eyes stayed closed, but he was not dead. He was not awake, either. Her questions had to remain unanswered. At least she didn’t have to watch someone die.

Using the wall to aid her, she climbed to her feet. She had something of a mission before Percival took a turn for the worst. She patted the small of her back to assure herself the gun was still there— it was— then picked up the candelabra and unbolted the door.

A low growl rumbled, breaking the putrid quiet air. Her tongue rolled over her teeth, lingering on her fangs.

Right…

Her stomach was just so empty…

She turned her head to give Percival one last look over.

Mayme didn’t think of herself as an animal, but she was still thankful the iron notes of his blood were mixed with the ever present stench of the incense and dead skin from his arm. It was like having a bakery next to a stream of open sewage on a hot day.  The baking bread would be tempting if not for the putrescence around it. Maybe while she looked for her locked away kin she’d find crackers and wine. She had never attended a church, but she heard some churches had such things for ceremonies. If not, and push came to shove, the blood bags would suffice if she could find them. She didn’t like that idea much either, being half human normal food usually fed her just fine. Still, her growling stomach and half empty veins made demands. This was an unordinary situation, she might have to do some less than desirable things.

At least drinking prebagged blood seemed less beastly than drugging her teeth into a person.

What horrid thoughts. She shook it all from her head, making her world spin momentarily. She had to carry on, she only had until sunrise until the city would undoubtedly awaken and she could not be found in the church when that happened. She might not have gotten answers on who was trapped in the church, but she could not let that stop her.

The door out of the medical bay felt so much heavier than she expected, she had closed it with such ease and opening it again nearly winded her. She stumbled out into the foyer, nearly losing her balance. The hall was just as she left it. Abandoned. The trail of blood between the entrance to the door at the back of the room had seemingly darkened and looked like oil, that was the one difference. The only life in the room was an illusion; shadows danced on the walls and floors around breathing candle flames. Lit incense decorated the dark corners like lightning bugs, their smoke flowed like backwards waterfalls, drowning the space in a stinking, steely-blue haze.

Mayme covered her nose and dragged her feet to each and every stick of incense. She plucked them from their holders and snuffed them out like cigarettes. An arduous task given her state, getting so close to the smells made her light head begin to pound. Yet, she did it. One by one until each backwards waterfall dried up and left behind only the river floating around the roof to slowly dissipate. She had put out the incense for her own comfort, but the dual benefit of it no longer driving thrall away was not lost on her.

”Please, come back to my side,” she whispered towards the ajar front door. There was no response from the other side, besides the gentle whisking of wind that made the incense swirl in the small streak of moonlight. She knew the thrall were gone, but she had still hoped to hear the meaty scampering of obedient feet. It was only her, Elisabeth, the church woman, and whoever the church had kept secret within its walls. Her tired eyes drifted across the trail of blood to the door on the opposite side of the room.

It was time.

Mayme suspected that the door led to the bowels of the cathedral, where her kin would be held. At least that’s what she assumed— where else would a prisoner be held? Even if she was wrong, the church woman went there for a reason. Maybe there was more medical supplies. Maybe that’s where the crackers and wine were hidden. Maybe there were those missing blood bags. Mayme swallowed hard, her free hand drifted to her pistol for comfort. She followed the trail.