by Rebecca Hall
“Ow,” he said again, Miriama’s book had almost taken out his eye. Dust rained from the ceiling and the ominous creaks and groans suggested that a lot more than dust would be falling on him really soon. The ground heaved and Mitch barely maintained the presence of mind to roll under the desk and huddle there, his bag awkwardly tangled around him.
A few people tried to run for it, probably the international students who had never had an earthquake drill, but most of the class was huddled under the desks like him. He could hear someone crying.
More dust fell from the ceiling and he coughed. Next to him he could hear Miriama doing the same. Stationery tumbled past them and then a piece of plaster-board and what looked like a chunk of the ceiling panels.
“Are you ok?” he choked out.
Miriama nodded. “You?”
“Yeah, fucking angels.”
“They’re causing this?” The ground lurched violently and Mitch heard something crash. “Think we can huddle a bit closer? My ass is a little exposed.”
“Sure,” Mitch backed up as much as he could while staying under the desk. He could heal himself if he was injured, Miriama couldn’t. He inhaled more dust and coughed, it had to be almost over didn’t it? If it kept going much longer then the ceiling would come down on them. Mitch tried to remember what was on the next level and prayed it wasn’t something heavy.
There was another crash, louder this time, and his classmates screamed. Mitch winced, the sound grating across his nerves. No wonder his brother was claustrophobic.
“No,” he yelled, seeing a couple of his classmates break and try to run. One managed to stagger through the door, the other got clobbered by a hunk of ceiling and fell. He didn’t get up again and even through the dust Mitch could see the blood pooling around his head. He swallowed. Hopefully he was just unconscious, but that wouldn’t help much if something else landed on him.
Mitch bit his lip, not even noticing the sting of pain as his fangs tore through his skin. He could use magic to enhance his speed and strength, pass it off as adrenaline. Once he made it into the aisle he’d have a relatively clear path…
A pipe burst, slicking the floor with a layer of water. He could still do it, enhanced reflexes, better balance. He tried to ignore the fact that he’d always been terrible at sports because he overthought them. He wasn’t over thinking this. It had been a couple of seconds at most.
Before he could think any further he was off, slipping and sliding across the floor, using desks and fractured walls to keep his balance, and keeping a wary eye on the ceiling. He skidded to a halt by the guy who had tried to escape and dragged him under a desk just as there was another crash.
He hauled the unconscious guy under the desk and looked around wildly, panicked screams echoing in his ears. One of the desks had been partially crushed. Blood was streaming from a gash in one girl’s head while another was desperately trying to free her leg.
There was an alarming creak and Mitch poked his head out from under the desk to peer up at the ceiling. Somehow he didn’t think the floor above was feather storage, he didn’t recall seeing pillow stuffing on the course list. He flinched back under cover when there was another crash and then he heard Miriama scream.
“Miriama?” he yelled, straining to see through the dust. “Miriama?” She didn’t reply.
The shaking stopped though the creaks and groans didn’t. Dust still fell from the ceiling, turning to mud in the spreading pool by the burst pipe. He heard a whimper of pain as the girl whose leg had been trapped freed herself and began to hobble out, moving far faster than Mitch thought possible with that kind of injury, even though she had help. Others were simply running for the doors but a couple were heading towards him.
“Get him out,” Mitch rasped. He coughed and staggered back to Miriama, his feet slipping on the floor and his ankle threatening to twist on the rubble.
“Miriama?” Mitch said. He thought that he could move the rubble pinning her to the ground, he was less sure that doing so was a good idea. Of course, leaving her trapped was probably a worse option than whatever risk moving that rubble and getting her out posed.
He grabbed her wrist and tried to feel her pulse but his own hand was shaking too much for him to feel anything. He sharpened his hearing instead and leaned down, holding his own breath until he heard hers. He gasped in relief and smelled blood though none had seeped out where he could see it yet. He gulped; vampire or not blood had never been his forte and he had no idea how badly she was hurt.
Except he could. He wasn’t a huge fan of x-ray vision, it was hell on his eyes, but he could do it. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to calm himself, trying to see outside the visible spectrum. The world shifted, becoming dark and shadowy, his gaze drifted along Miriama and under the rubble and his concentration shattered. He wasn’t sure how bad the damage was but he was sure that her spine wasn’t supposed to look like that. He really wasn’t supposed to move her either but as if to highlight how dangerous leaving her might be another panel fell from the ceiling. He’d just have to keep her as still as possible. At least she was unconscious.
He scrabbled at the rubble, pushing and pulling at the larger pieces and tossing the smaller ones aside, the whole time hoping that they weren’t the only thing keeping her from bleeding out. He thought morbidly of the empty blood bags he still carried, grit his fangs and continued working. The building creaked and Mitch worked a little faster. He might be able to do something about the bleeding, he couldn’t do anything about a building squashing them like bugs.
Soon his hands began to slip. He grimaced and dried them on his pants, leaving them smeared with dust and blood. It was a lot of blood. He heaved another piece of ceiling aside and paused. The next piece was thrust into her back. He gulped, no way was he moving that. She probably would bleed out then and god only knew what it would do to her back.
“Fuck,” Mitch breathed, “fuck, fuck, fuck.” He knew what all the first aid courses said about not moving people with injuries like that, hell he knew what they said about making sure that you were safe first, but this was different. Cryomancy didn’t lend itself to treating life threatening injuries either. Somehow he didn’t think that giving Miriama frostbite would help.
There had to be some way of immobilising it. He dragged off his coat and then hesitated, certain that he’d move the shard of wood no matter how careful he was to hold it in place. Magic then? Nikola could fix an item’s relative location in space. If he could hold the spar of wood in that exact position relative to her body…
He wasn’t even sure it would work for him but he had to try. He focused on holding everything in place and then awkwardly wrapped his jacket around her, gingerly working around the piece of wood. It didn’t move, either because of his caution or because the magic really was working. At the very least it might slow the bleeding.
He tossed aside the final pieces of rubble pinning her to the floor and eased her into his arms. It was awkward carrying her face down but he wasn’t about to risk turning her over. He’d just have to manage. He watched the floor carefully, not quite daring to split his attention enough to give himself supernatural reflexes and balance. More supernatural anyway, vampires did a lot of self-manipulation sub-consciously and he was no exception.
“This would be a lot easier if vampire blood really did heal injuries,” Mitch muttered as he navigated the debris. “I’d just bite my wrist and we’d both walk out of here. Too bad we’d need a unicorn for that and the bloody things are poisonous. There’s a reason why they say that those who slay a unicorn are cursed you know.” She probably didn’t but she was unconscious anyway so he figured it didn’t matter. Unicorn blood wasn’t much of a magical cure-all anyway, it only worked when it was given willingly and unicorns weren’t known for sharing. He kept up his monologue as he picked his way to the door and stepped over it. It had been half torn off its hinges by the quake and the fleeing students had done the rest.
Something colla
psed behind him and he risked walking a little faster. The floor was dry out here and while the lights were gone, daylight streamed in through the windows. The ground shivered and Mitch’s walk began to approximate a jog. He hadn’t gone through all this effort just to be stuck inside during an aftershock, he just hoped that it was enough.
Shaken
“Finally,” Amelie said. “I was beginning to worry.”
Mitch blinked and looked around, trying to work out where her voice was coming from, and finally spotted her in the kitchen. The house was still standing so that was a plus but he could see faint indents in the carpet where Amelie hadn’t put the furniture back in exactly the right spot.
“Mitch?” Amelie was standing right in front of him. “Is that blood?” she pointed to his shirt. “Are you ok? Were you hurt?”
Mitch picked at his shirt listlessly, he’d left his jacket somewhere, and now his shirt was covered in blood.
“Are you injured?” Amelie asked. She reached for his shirt and he flinched, falling back over the arm of the couch.
“I… I’m fine,” he mumbled, struggling to refocus on reality. Amelie nodded and disappeared. Mitch stayed flopped over the couch. He was probably supposed to be doing something but he couldn’t think of what it was. This week’s maths assignment? No, class had ended before it was handed out.
Voices swum into hearing but they were distant, the words garbled.
“Mitchell?”
Someone took his hand and he was pulled to his feet and through a cavernous room. The part of him that was still aware noted that it was bigger than any of the rooms in the house but it was replaced by a smaller one and that thought dismissed as unimportant.
“Mitchell?” Another voice said. This one was crystal clear and he struggled to focus. He was somewhere else now, somewhere familiar. “Come on Mitchell.” A new hand took his and like the room it was familiar.
He was towed into another room and then into a box and then cold water pelted him.
Mitch coughed and spluttered. He brushed the water out of his eyes and blinked. Blood and dirt were running off him and his clothes were sticking to his body but that wasn’t what caught his attention. Their flat might have been nice but it didn’t come with silver bathroom fixtures.
“I thought that might wake you up a little,” Nikola said. He smiled at Mitch from the other side of the shower door and Mitch gave him a trembling smile in return. He was in Faerie. He was with Nikola again. He was safe.
“There’s soap,” Nikola said, pointing. “Shampoo, a brush… you can turn the water up a little as well if you want. I’m going to get you some clothes.”
Mitch nodded and reached for the soap before remembering that he was still fully clothed. He slipped out of his shirt and then struggled out of his jeans, almost slipping twice and knocking his elbow on the wall. He turned the water up and tried to wash away the dirt that was ground into his skin and through his hair.
“I’ve got clothes and a towel,” Nikola said, setting both on the bathroom counter.
“You could have knocked,” Mitch said. He was nicely hidden by the thick steam and Nikola wasn’t looking but he still couldn’t help feeling self-conscious.
“That only works when the other party is in a fit state to respond,” Nikola replied. “And it is my bathroom.”
“As long as those aren’t your clothes,” Mitch said.
Nikola laughed. “They’re yours. Get dressed and we can have a proper conversation.” He left and Mitch turned the tap off and shuffled over to the fluffy green towel Nikola had left for him. A set of perfectly fitting pyjamas sat under them. Mitch wasn’t sure how the Seelie Court had got a hold of his measurements but when he’d visited over the holidays he’d found a walk-in wardrobe full of perfectly fitting clothes. It had spared him the necessity of doing laundry but he was reasonably sure that he now had more clothes in Faerie than he did in his floordrobe.
“Here,” Nikola said, offering him a bloodbag when he shuffled out of the bathroom. Mitch bit into it reflexively and drained it, feeling a little more alert with every suck. As soon as it was empty it vanished.
“Better?” Nikola asked.
“Yes.” Mitch pulled him into a tight hug and clung to him for a minute before letting go. Nikola leaned against him for a moment before towing him across the hardwood floors to a silken rug and a jumble of large pillows and cushions that was best described as a nest.
“What happened?” Nikola asked, curling up on the cushions. Mitch tried to do the same but he’d never understood how Nikola made it look so easy and comfortable. He shuffled over to Nikola instead and put an arm around him. That was much more comfortable.
“There was an earthquake and…” He’d staggered outside to find a make-shift triage being operated by med students out of a couple of ambulances. They were already running low on supplies and they weren’t expecting more. The hospital was trying to evacuate patients from the damaged wings while the remainder struggled to cope with the influx of new patients. The roads that hadn’t been damaged were gridlocked and though the hospital was only a block away it might as well have been on the moon for all the good it did them.
A fifth year student had been the first to spot him. She’d led them to one of the ambulances where Mitch had carefully set Miriama down on a blanket covered picnic table. She’d used proper bandages to fix the piece of wood in place and done a quick exam and Mitch had tried not to see the way her expression darkened. He already knew it was bad, he hadn’t needed someone else to tell him. Somehow hearing her say it had been worse.
Perhaps they’d be able to repair the damage, perhaps she wouldn’t be paralysed. But Mitch hadn’t missed the desperation in the student’s voice or Miriama’s failure to react when her reflexes were tested. Maybe if they could get her straight into surgery… but they couldn’t.
A few brave idiots risked going inside the physio building to get more supplies and everyone was too grateful for the straps and bandages to comment. Mitch had watched as too few people with too few supplies tried to impose order until the med student told him that he should go home, clean up, take care of himself and, probably, just get the hell out of the way though she hadn’t said the latter.
Off campus they didn’t even have the med students. The earthquake had struck at 8:41. The roads were crowded, the shops were opening and in the offices the first pot of coffee for the day was being made. The lecture theatres were crowded with the first of the day’s classes while the second made their way in.
There was glass strewn everywhere along with bits of masonry and corrugated iron. Water was seeping through a road that had been rent and torn, trees had fallen and everywhere people were screaming, yelling for help that couldn’t make it to them in the chaos.
And he was shaking and shivering, clinging to Nikola as his best friend murmured reassurances. Mitch hugged him tightly and squeezed his eyes shut.
“You did everything you could Mitch,” Nikola said. If he found Mitch’s crushing embrace uncomfortable he didn’t show it.
“I…” Mitch struggled to gather himself and eased his hold on Nikola. “I know.”
“Good.” Nikola stretched and settled more comfortably against Mitch’s shoulder.
“How did I get to Faerie?” Mitch said, the fact that he was with Nikola in his room finally registering.
“Amelie called Gawain,” Nikola said.
“And then he dragged you out of bed to make me feel better,” Mitch said. The room was dark, the night sky clearly visible through the vast nothingness where a normal building would have had walls and windows. Fluffball was asleep on the rumpled four poster bed and, Mitch belatedly realised, Nikola’s hair was mussed and his breath lightly scented with toothpaste.
Nikola smiled. “You just had a building fall on you and you’re worried about disturbing my sleep?”
“You need your sleep,” Mitch replied, running a hand through Nikola’s hair.
“And you need to relax,” Nik
ola said, raising one hand to cover a yawn.
“I’m glad you weren’t there.”
“So am I.” Nikola yawned again, his eyes closing.
“You have a bed over there you know,” Mitch said. It was barely midday for him but it was the middle of the night for Nikola and he was vaguely aware of the fact that Nikola had been yawning while he told his story.
“But you’re not,” Nikola mumbled, “and you need the company more than I need the sleep.”
“So you thought you’d compromise and sleep on me instead?”
“I like sleeping on you.”
“I don’t have any blankets.”
“Goodnight Mitchell.” Nikola snuggled a little closer and Mitch sighed.
“Goodnight Nikola.”
#
Mitch awoke to find Gawain standing over them. He smiled and raised a finger to his lips.
“He was supposed to meet me for breakfast twenty minutes ago,” Gawain said. He crouched by Nikola’s side and gently brushed his hair from his face to reveal flushed cheeks. Mitch frowned and instinctively reached for his magic, using it to check Nikola’s temperature.
“It’s just a light fever,” Gawain said. “He’s been having lessons with Titania.” He sighed, “I’ve been working on his brain as well, these impressions aren’t good for him.”
“And then I dragged him out of bed,” Mitch said. It was morning now though Nikola seemed undisturbed by the light.
“I let you,” Gawain retorted. He smiled, “You should study diagnostic magic, you seem to have the basics down.”
Mitch nodded, he’d never be able to heal but it would stop Nikola saying ‘I’m fine’ when asked how he was.
“Mmmm,” Nikola blinked open sleep encrusted eyes. “Morning Mitch.”
“Morning,” Mitch replied. He glanced at his watch and suppressed a groan, he hadn’t meant to nap through the middle of the day even if it had been night in Faerie.
Fluffball whined, held securely in Gawain’s arms.
“Mmm,” Nikola blinked and yawned. “Gawain? I’m sorry, I–”
