Diamonds of the Past

Chapter 4 - Aftermath

Lexi rushed inside the hospital room, the door slowly sliding to a close behind her. She approached the bed and the blonde sitting next to it. "How in hell did this happen?" She almost roared, eyes not leaving Amelia's sleeping form lying on the hospital bed. She looked peaceful, but her neck was bandaged and an IV bag was dripping medicine at a steady rate.

Brown eyes turned to the blonde girl, concern and anger both twisting Lexi's expression as she questioned Cats. "Shh, lower your voice, Lexi. She needs rest to recover." The blonde spoke in hushed tones. Amelia had received a blood transfusion and was being hydrated and sedated at the same time, but the sedatives weren't strong - as the doctor had explained - so the brunette could still wake up from too much noise.

Lexi clenched her teeth and moved across the room to grab a chair. She sat on the opposite side of the hospital bed from where Cats was. Not having had time to change, she was still in her hunting clothes. Of course she had left her weapons at the entrance of the hospital, as was required. With those clothes yet without the weapons she almost felt naked and awkward. Her long, dark brown hair was braided and tied in a bun. Having long hair during a hunt was not practical. She wore no makeup and neither did she need it. Her creole skin, testimony to her father's African descent, was flawless, yet her beautiful features were distorted by a deep frown. "Well?..." She didn't whisper, but kept her voice low and filled with latent anger.

Cats' eyes were big and a light blue in color. Her blond curls messy and her attire equally disheveled. She had been awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call and had thrown something on herself to replace her pajamas and then had rushed over to the hospital without further delay.

"The attacker... it was a vampire." It was stating the obvious because the bandage on her neck pretty much made that glaringly clear. "She lost a lot of blood, but they gave her a transfusion. At least they found her in time..." Cats was holding Amelia's hand as she spoke. Lexi was doing the same on the other side. The blonde rubbed her tired eyes with her free hand, sighed and then looked over at her friend. "I'm afraid that's all I know. It was an anonymous call and she was found in an alley near the hospital. It's lucky she was so close and they gave her the blood transfusion immediately... otherwise... she wouldn't have made it." The last part got out as a choked whisper because those were words Cats didn't dare usher at a normal volume.

Catherine Lambert - or Cats as her friends called her - was a photographer. She had majored in architecture, but found photography to be much more to her liking, although she was a person who switched passions often enough anyway. One other minor detail - Catherine was also a witch. Quite capable according to her aunt, yet it was something that the blonde seemed intent on pushing into the background of her life. Plagued by the usual nightmares, haunted by the Watchers, or the Dayyani - as her aunt called them, Cats liked focusing on everything in her life that was unrelated to magic.

She lost control often when it came to using magic. Angela, her aunt, insisted that it was simply a matter of practicing and learning to control it, but it frightened Cats a lot more than she was saying. It had been that way ever since the signs had started, when she was just a child living next-door to Amelia. The two had befriended when they were both seven years old. Amelia moving to New York had meant a very sweet and long awaited reunion for the two. And then Cats introduced her to Lexi and the three became inseparable. Different characters, passions and even different natures, the three formed a whole.

Cats was the witch - kind, optimistic, forgetful and bubbly. Lexi was a Sharur - confident, strong, protective and short-tempered. Amelia was the human - great with computers and cakes, curious, loyal and smart.

Lexi's jaws clenched and she closed her eyes against the rising anger. She hadn't been there to help her friend. For all the good it did her to be and work as a Sharur, she couldn't save everyone. Besides, the Sharur were severely understaffed for a city as overrun by the supernaturals as New York was.