For the Dead Travel Fast

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"Hold this," the man said, pressing Castle's hand to the t-shirt staunching the wound. "And don't move. If you move, I will shoot you."

Castle wasn't sure the highway patrolman—was he a sheriff?—really would shoot him, but he wasn't willing to test that theory, nor was he willing to get on the guy's bad side, now that it looked like real help was available. Real help. He didn't know whether Kate would have allowed for this—was he being monumentally stupid trusting an officer of the law?—but he had no good choices. He'd been watching her skin split and her blood leak out of her, he'd been going at the whole vampire-healing thing half-blind and also half-crazed, wanting much more than he could have.

He stared at her, the unmoving lifelessness sending a creeping dread through his guts, making his stomach churn. The damn smell was stronger now too, and he didn't want to think why. It's taking her over.

Damn, he was thinking it anyway. Could vampires hyperventilate? He was going to pass out from the smell.

"Okay, here we are."

Castle startled roughly, knocking a shoulder against the driver's seat as the highway patrolman opened up the other door. Heart pounding, slick sweat down his back, his head angrily buzzing, Castle could only watch as the man set a case on the floorboard and touched Kate's neck with two fingers.

He growled.

The man gave him a staying look. "Her pulse is strong. What's her name?"

Castle's breath whistled through his teeth.

"I know every instinct in you is clamoring to protect her," the man said quietly, deadly. "But protecting her right now means getting her emergency treatment. Do you understand me."

His fingers twitched with urges he couldn't even name, but the suck and pull of the blood-soaked t-shirt under his hands called him back. "Kate," he answered. "She's Kate. I'm Rick. You?"

"Dave. Deputy Dave, a Horde Peacemaker, at your service."

Part of him buzzed with anxious terror about this man's hands on his wife, while some smaller and colder part of him catalogued every detail for a later chapter, a novel yet to be written (the curse of a writer, always able to distance himself into the observer): Deputy Dave and his mythical Horde, about which Kate had said nothing, the EMT bag Dave unzipped, the white cylindrical canisters with red lettering— "What is that?" he croaked. "What are you giving to her?"

"It's like narcan, but for vampires. Aranesp. It stimulates RBC production."

RBC... red blood cells? Narcan, Castle knew from his time with the NYPD, would revive those with an opioid overdose who would otherwise die. "Is she going to die?" he breathed.

"Not on my watch." He flipped the lids on each, surreal joysticks, and what slid out looked like Epi-pen injectors. But instead of going into her thigh, Deputy Dave put one at her neck and the other straight over her heart. Castle's own beat loudly in his ears, and he almost missed the explanation. "Aranesp here, to kickstart the bone marrow, and Danazol, androgen steroid, used when bone marrow is scarred or under-producing. Has some copper in it for flavor."

"For flavor?" he croaked.

Before he could protest, Deputy Dave hit the pressure triggers on top and Castle could almost feel the hit to her system, the way she jerked and grunted under his hands, as if zapped by an AED.

"Good, that's a good sign. See? She's coming around."

She was, actually, coming around. Twitches that traveled in her thighs and jerked her fingers, made her eyes flutter.

The deputy touched her neck again, her pulse. Castle's hands shook but this time it was because of her restlessness, and the blood under his hands. "Get close, so she knows you're here." A whimper from her that went low and became a growl, more pathetic than frightening, and Deputy Dave removed his hands from her throat and stepped back a good couple feet. "Go on. Give her something familiar to scent."

Castle bent over her, lifted a hand from the wound to her face, hovering without touching because her blood was caked under his fingernails and smeared at his palm. "Kate," he said urgently. "Kate, we're not alone."

She jolted—came up so fast and so hard that her forehead smashed into his cheekbone. He yelped, caught the back of her neck, his other hand pressing in too hard against the wound. She gave a pitiful, agonized noise and gasped against his neck; he felt tears at the hollow of his throat.

"Don't let her drink from you, son."

Kate stiffened. Something rattled in her chest that might have been indignation.

"She won't," Castle said softly. "She refused earlier too."

"Good," Deputy Dan came a bit closer, though Castle could see his hand on the butt of his weapon. "We need to finish first aid, can she do it? Kate, ma'am, we need to garlic the wound, keep it open, so it can heal from the inside out."

He felt her fists in his shirt as she clung to him, but even as she clung, she was nodding, trying to clear her throat to speak.

"Come on, son. Let's prop her up, get some fluids in her. You're going to have to be the one to dress the wound, because her instincts, with you so ripe-smelling, are going to be to go for me."

"I wouldn't do that," Kate rasped.

"I appreciate the sentiment, but your boy is gonna work on you now."

"Writer Man," she whispered, eyes flicking up to his. He knew it was an apology, and likely the only one he'd get right now in front of a stranger.

"Okay, what do I do?" he said, helping Kate ease back against the seat. She looked bad.

"You told me she was shot?"

"We were both shot," Kate gritted out. "At home. His was through-and-through. Two of mine had exit wounds, one didn't. But I needed it open for him anyway."

"That's both true and not true," the man said grimly. "Why have your parents never explained any of this to you?"

"My parents?" she grunted.

The deputy, who had been handing Castle a couple packs of what looked like feminine products, paused. His eyes traced Kate's face a moment, and Castle could swear he was sniffing the air.

He was sniffing the air. He was smelling her out.

But before Castle's raised hackles could penetrate, the deputy said, "Who transitioned you? What son of a bitch transitioned you and never God damn told you anything?"

"He's dead," Kate said flatly.

"He was a cop too," Castle added. Because now, oh yeah, Deputy Dan and his indignation was his fastest friend. "Dave, what it is I need to do here? Alcohol, astringent, antibac? She could use all of it."

Kate hissed something at him, but Dave finally smiled. "Just good clean garlic. Sliced, not crushed. That's the ticket. We have to give Kate's body enough time to reject the bullet naturally, without, you know, bleeding to death. Which yes, is possible, even with vampires. So this is gonna be tricky."

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