Note: Now we're getting somewhere :-)
"Oh my God, oh my God, he's going to die, Erin, he's going to die!" Brigid screamed.
"No he's not. Take a deep breath for me and run get some towels. It's all going to be fine." Erin looked at her sister calmly and firmly gave instructions. This is what she did for a living: stay calm and rational handling emergency situations.
"Okay, okay." Brigid said running from the kitchen pounding upstairs.
Erin looked down at the man who had come crashing through their back patio into the kitchen. He was growling and grimacing in pain from a severe wound on his right lower abdominal side where Erin's hands were covering to help staunch the flow of blood until Brigid returned with the towels. The man tried to squirm away from her but she held on and talked to him stern but calm.
"Sir, you're going to be just fine. I'm going to help you but I need you to cooperate with me. Sir, stop moving." Erin commanded.
The man stopped moving and gritted his teeth finally opening his eyes to look at her. He was breathing hard and fast from his nose. She knew who he was and had had a flash dream of this moment. She couldn't take him to the hospital, she was going to have to take care of him here. Whether or not that worked she didn't know.
"My name is Erin and I'm an ICU nurse. I'm going to-"
"No hospitals!" the man growled interrupting her.
"I know that." Erin said keeping direct eye contact. "That's why I'm going to have to take care of you here so I need your complete cooperation in order to do so. Do you understand?"
The man furrowed his eyebrows and gave a small nod as Brigid came rushing back in with every kind of towel.
"Okay, I got towels! What do we do?"
"Brigid, I'm going to need you to fold the towels and compress here on the wound hard. Can you do that for me?"
Brigid looked terrified but she did exactly as she was told trying to remain calm.
"Hold it here. Good." Erin slipped her hands out from under the towel, quickly folding a larger towel to place under the man's brightly orange head.
"I'm going to get my kit." Erin jumped up and ran into the laundry room pulling down her large emergency kit and was back on the floor with them in an instant.
She opened the kit and pulled out a pair of sterile gloves snapping them on pulling out a bottle of morphine and a syringe. "Sir, I'm going to give you an injection. Do you have any known drug allergies?" She looked into his eyes which narrowed. He gave a growl. "I'll take that as a no. You're going to feel a small prick. Here we go." Erin stuck him in his arm. She had filled the syringe to its maximum. She knew even this amount might not have any effect on him but she prayed it would.
She laid the syringe back into the kit and pulled out some suture and needle. The blood wasn't seeping through the towels as much as before but she could see the man's eyes were beginning to go in-and-out of focus.
"Blood." He panted. "I..need...blood..."
"What does he mean blood? I'm calling for an ambulance." Brigid said shakily.
"No, Brigid. It's okay. I know what he means. He can't be taken to a hospital. He isn't quite...human." Erin said firmly. "Keep the compression, Brigid."
Brigid looked at her her mouth open and head shaking.
"Brigid, focus for me." Erin peered into the man's face looking into his eyes as they fluttered. "Sir. Sir, focus on the sound of my voice. I'm going to give you some blood now. I need you to stay with me and listen to my voice." The man's eyes fluttered open and were forced to focus on Erin's face. He looked confused. "Good. Stay with me."
Erin reached into her kit and pulled out a scalpel, rolled one of her gloves down a bit, and made an incision on her inner forearm.
"Erin, what the hell are you doing?!" Brigid shrieked trying to wrestle the scalpel from her.
Erin tossed it back into the kit before propping the man's head up gently and bringing the wound to his mouth. His eyes widened in a sort of surprise before they took on a hungry animal look as he clamped his mouth down on the wound and began sucking.
"ERIN, STOP!" Brigid pulled Erin's arm away causing the man to moan in protest and wrenched Erin's arm back from Brigid and placing his mouth over the wound again.
Erin was breathing through her nose harder but remained calm. "Remember when I said the purple man, the vampaneze, started drinking my blood?"
Brigid interrupted her. "This guy isn't purple!" She yelled angrily.
"Mmf..." Erin gave a small sound of pain. "No, he's not. He's a vampire."
Brigid stared letting her hands loosen from the towels.
"Keep the compression, Brigid." Erin was starting to feel light-headed and slightly nauseous. She needed him to quit. She placed her free hand onto his forehead and pressed down while also signaling him to release her arm.
"Sir, I'm going to need you to stop now. Let go and rest your head back down for me." Erin commanded.
The man's eyes snapped open no longer hazy and completely aware. He looked at her directly before removing her arm from his mouth.
"Thank you. Now I'm going to stitch your wound. The bleeding has slowed. I can give you more morphine if you need it. It's a deep gash but I can take care of it. Do you understand?" Erin asked not breaking their gaze.
The man narrowed his eyes and pushed himself up into a sitting position, his back against a cabinet. He tore the towels away making Brigid scream in surprise as he lifted the blood soaked part of his shirt revealing the wound and began dribbling spit onto it eventually sealing it to where it simply looked like a long angry-red scabbed over cut. He leaned his head back against the cabinet and breathed in and out a few times before finally looking at the girls in front of him. The youngest stared hysterically and the older was putting ointment on the cut she had made for him and wrapping it in gauze with tape. He made out the reddened skin around the cut where he had had his lips and fed. He could tell she was slightly woozy but was forcing herself to stay focused. He looked them over once more before trying to stand up. The younger girl scooted away still wide-eyed and unsure. The other one stood to help him up. He had to lean against the counter for support. The wound still hurt and he knew it would take a couple of days for it to heal completely. He'd have to lay low for a while in his condition until he was healed and then get back to tracking Murlough. However, it seemed it would be easy enough considering these two were very important victims to the rampaging vampaneze and he was not going to give them up. Larten had been watching their house particularly and knew their whereabouts as much as possible. Murlough had killed two victims in a neighboring town but had sneaked back into this territory where Larten had confronted him on the edge of town the night before and then the surprise attack that had just happened. He had maimed Murlough just as crucially so Larten knew he would also be laying low and hopefully Larten would catch him before Murlough made his move.
Larten looked at his surroundings and the women in front of him unsure of what to say. What he had in courtesy he lacked in subtlety.
"I thank you, ladies, for your assistance. Truly I owe you both my life and you have my forever gratitude however, I must be going." Larten bowed his head slightly and gently keeping a hand to his wound tried to walk out in a dignified manner even though he could feel pain radiating inside from his wound. He tried to keep his face poised but he grimaced and had to stop, leaning a hand onto the door frame until the pain passed.
"Actually, you're not going anywhere." He heard said behind him.
He turned his head to the side, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. "What?"
The woman came over to him and put a firm hand onto his arm and looked at him directly. "You don't leave. I take care of you here. Come on. You need to lay down, not walk around aggravating your wound." She went to pull him away from the door frame but he remained solid and unmoving.
"You have helped me enough. I do not require your hospitality any further. Thank you." He said severely, his eyes slightly narrowing.
"No, you do stay." The girl said behind him brightly, a total 180 turn from her prior demeanor. "This is one of your equations' conclusion. Our house is your house." The girl said as she went to help try and budge him from the doorframe.
Larten looked aghast. What was all this and why was it happening to him? The girl smiled up at him and grabbed his arm that was against the door frame. She was just a few inches shorter than him and kept trying to wiggle his arm free. The other one tugged on his other arm again. "You're tired. At least rest here for the rest of the night and day. How does that sound?"
Larten appeared in deep thought before giving a small nod. "Yes, that is the sensible thing to do."
"Sensibility. One of the finest traits she has." The girl said jokingly putting his now loose arm around her shoulders, Erin doing the same with the other.
Larten was lead up a set of stairs and into a bedroom. There was a large inviting bed and before he could help himself he let out a sigh of relief. He was tired and he was starting to feel grumpy about it. They both sat him on the bed. The younger one went to pull off his sandals while the other went to remove his cloak and jacket. Larten shot up.
"I do not require help undressing, ladies." Larten said embarrassed.
"Okay. We'll leave you be. Sit down." The woman gently pressed on his shoulders confirming that he should, indeed, sit down. "You undress and we'll get some extra blankets to cover over the window's curtains so it will be perfectly dark in here while you sleep. Be right back."
The two exited the room closing the door behind them. Larten glanced around the room. This had to be the woman's room. Elegant, minimalistic, and complimentary. And this must be her bed that he shifted uncomfortably on. He exhaled slowly and began removing his sandals, cloak, and inner jacket. He would not be removing his blood stained shirt until he knew he would not be interrupted by either of the females. It just wasn't quite proper in the situation he was in. He heard feet coming up the stairs and a knock on the door.
Larten cleared his throat. "Come in."
The door opened and the two girls came in going directly to the window talking only to each other.
"I think if we can put this over this..." The younger one said.
"No, no, that'll make it fall. We'll just have to use these thick, old, dusty ones. Here, I'll slide the bar down and take these curtains down and then you help me put the other drapes on. They will definitely keep the light out. Grab the chair from my desk."
The younger one pulled the chair over to the window and the woman stood on it bringing the rod down and sliding the breezy curtains off. "Okay, now help me slide these on. I think the rod is a little too thick but we can still inch them on." It took them a few minutes to get the long, heavy drapes on and it took both of them to spread them out enough and to overlap so that no light whasoever could possibly peek through. The woman grunted as she lifted the heavy bar up and set it in place. She stepped down off the chair looking the drapes over for any cracks.
"Do you see anything, Brigid?" She asked the younger one.
"No, I don't see anything that could show through. They're wider than your regular ones so this should do." The younger one, Brigid, turned to him. "Is this good enough?"
Larten looked at them still in utter disbelief, which he hoped he was hiding well enough, said, "Yes. They will work just fine."
"Sorry they're so dusty." The woman said returning her chair to her small wooden desk.
"They will work. You could not have had better drapes. I thank you."
"Ugh, you're too formal, stop." Brigid exclaimed.
"Quit, Brigid." The woman pushed the younger one out before entering the bathroom and running the faucet. She came out with a tall glass of water and set it on the bedstand. "If you need anything during the night, wait, I mean day, just knock on the door and I'll come up and see what you need, okay? Or yell. Doesn't matter." The woman smiled at him. "I am very relieved you didn't die on my kitchen floor."
Larten gave an almost imperceptible smile. "I am as well." He cleared his throat again. "It is really not necessary that I take your room. I can always sleep elsewhere." He felt himself blush.
"Elsewhere? Elsewhere where? This is the sensible choice, no? Matter solved. Now please rest or I'm going to worry." She walked to the door, opened it and turned back to him. "Remember, if you need anything I'll be right there."
"Thank you, Miss..."
"Erin. Get some rest, Larten." And with that she closed the door and he heard her descend the stairs. He slowly unbuttoned and removed his shirt. He looked down at his wound and felt it pull as he laid down. How did she know his name? How did she know to give him blood? How could she let a perfectly strange man, a vampire no less, sleep in her own bed? It was all so peculiar from seeing her at the show those few months ago, barely rescuing her from certain death, to now being in her bed. Larten's breathing slowed as he felt his body relax into the soft bed and he drifted off into a deep sleep.