Where Dark Things Wait: Night Creatures Book One

Chapter Three - Sins of the Fathers

"It's definitely a collapsed lung. It doesn't hurt?" Doctor Pullman asked, his stethoscope still pressed to her chest "You should be in agony."

"I was. Before. It was excruciating. Now... I can't feel it. What does that mean?" Kalyna asked, because a deep and dreadful thought had entered her head. "Did the blood do something to me? I've tracked vamps for long enough to know how they turn people. It takes their blood. But I thought it took biting too... their venom."

"It does," the re-haired doctor assured her. "Vampire blood alone can't turn a human. I have my theories, but I think we should do something about your lungs first, yes? The x-rays show no breaks - not now - though I suspect they would have done before you turned Dun into a chew toy. The problem is you still have air trapped between your lungs and chest wall. The right side will probably fix itself. It already sounds better than it did. Your body is healing itself remarkably well. The left side, though... I want to get the trapped air out, just in case you use up whatever you took from Eorl's blood before it resolves."

"And that means putting a needle in my chest, right? I watched House and Grey's Anatomy..." she noted, not thrilled by the idea but also more concerned about the self-healing lung than she was by the one that needed help. Needing medical help made her human... but spontaneous recovery from a life-threatening injury... that felt all to vampire.

"It does, but that's better that suffocating yourself, yes?" Pullman said, then offered her an oxygen mask and several sheets taken from a roll of paper towel. "You need to put this on, after you remove your jacket and t-shirt. We need plenty of oxygen getting into your lungs. While you're undressing, I'll get what I need for the procedure. You can cover yourself with this paper sheet for modesty."

After issuing his instructions the doctor pulled the curtain around Kalyna's bed bay. Wherever they'd brought her, it wasn't a police station. It had a whole hospital wing, with a doctor, and nurses, and wheeled hospital beds with crisp white sheets. Most of the beds were vacant, but one or two had occupants sporting various injuries; burns on their cheeks, or arms in plaster casts. Yet the hospital wing made up only a small part of the facility, which already seemed like a warren of concrete tunnels, even though Kalyna had seen only a small part of it.

On her way to the medical Suite, she'd passed corridors which led off from the main thoroughfare, signposted with things like 'Training Suite', 'Briefing Rooms', 'Barracks', and 'Armoury'. It had the feel of a military base or bunker rather than a police station, especially as there seemed to be more below ground than above it. Whatever the place was, the 'Special Branch' didn't cover it. In fact, she suspected the law enforcement veneer only went skin deep; a mask, or a way to infiltrate, but not the whole story.

No one had explained what they wanted with her, but they'd removed the remnants of the handcuffs and hadn't bothered to replace them. Yes, two men in fatigues stood at the doors of the hospital wing - clearly there to prevent any escape attempts - but they were far less intrusive than she would have expected had her original arresting officers taken her in. It didn't feel like she was under arrest at all.

While that might have eased some apprehension, whoever held her clearly had no problem employing vampires, witches, and probably other unsavoury things. As she'd spent the last five years hunting down bloodsuckers, and taking out several other creatures along the way, that didn't exactly fill her with confidence. But if this was about revenge, why put so much work into keeping her alive?

Pushing that thought aside, she focussed on her immediate problem. She remembered the burn of her lungs, which still weren't expanding as they should, and while they hadn't yet started to hurt again, she felt sure they would if given enough time. So, after shrugging off her leather jacket, she peeled off her t-shirt, then lay back on the bed, covering her chest with the paper roll. She placed the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, and tried not to fret about... everything. She couldn't solve anything until the doctor fixed her.