The hospital, located beneath New York City’s bustling streets and hidden by sorcery right under the clueless humans’ noses, was his baby. More than that, it was his promise to demonkind—whether they lived in the bowels of the earth or above ground with the humans—that they would be treated without discrimination, that their race was not forsaken by all.
The sliding ER doors whooshed open, and Skulk’s paramedic partner, a werewolf who hated everyone and everything, wheeled in a bloodied Cruentus demon that had been securely strapped to the stretcher. Eidolon and Shade fell into step with Luc, and though they both topped six feet three, the were’s extra three inches and thick build dwarfed them.
“Cruentus,” Luc growled, because he never made any other noises even while in human form, as he was now. “Found unconscious. Open tib-fib fracture to the right leg. Crush wound to the back of the skull. Both injuries are sealing. Nonsealing deep lacerations to the abdomen and throat.”
Eidolon raised an eyebrow at that last. Only gold or magically enhanced weapons could have caused nonsealing wounds. All other injuries closed up on their own as the Cruentus regenerated.
“Who summoned help?”
“Some vamp found them. The Cruentus and—” he cocked one long-nailed thumb back toward the ambulance, where Skulk had rolled out the secondary stretcher “—that.”
Eidolon halted in his tracks, Shade with him. For a moment, they both stared at the unconscious humanoid female. One of the medics had cut away her red leather clothes that lay like flayed flesh beneath her. She now wore only restraints, matching black panties and bra, and a variety of weapons sheaths around her ankles and forearms.
A chill went up his double-jointed spine, and fuck no, this would not happen. “You brought an Aegis slayer into my ER? What in all that’s unholy were you thinking?”
Skulk huffed, looked up at him with flashing gunmetal eyes that matched her ashen skin and hair. “What else was I supposed to do with her? Her partner is rat chow.”
“The Cruentus took out an Aegi?” Shade asked, and when his sister nodded, he raked his gaze over the injured human. Average humans posed little threat to demons, but those who belonged to The Aegis, a warrior guild sworn to slay them, weren’t average. “Never thought I’d thank a Cruentus. You should have turned this one into rat chow too.”
“Her injuries might do the job for us.” Skulk rattled off the list of wounds, all of which were serious, but the worst, the punctured lung, had the potential to kill the fastest. Skulk had performed a needle decompression, and for now, the slayer was stable, her color good. “And,” she added, “her aura is weak, thin. She hasn’t been well for a long time.”
Paige drifted toward them, her hazel eyes gleaming with something close to awe. “Never seen a Buffy before. Not a live one, anyway.”
“I have. Several.” Wraith’s gravelly voice came from somewhere behind Eidolon. “But they didn’t stay alive for long.” Wraith, nearly identical to his brothers except for his blue eyes and shoulder-length, bleached blond hair, took control of the stretcher. “I’ll take her outside and dispose of her.”
Dispose of her. It was the right thing to do. After all, it was what The Aegis had done to their brother, Roag, a loss Eidolon still felt like a hole in the soul. “No,” he said, grinding his teeth at his own decision. “Wait.”
As tempting as it was to let Wraith have his way, only three types of beings could be turned away at UG, according to the charter he himself drafted, and Aegis butchers weren’t among those listed, an oversight he intended to correct. Granted, as the equivalent to a human hospital’s chief of staff, he had the final say, could send the woman to her death, but they’d just been handed a rare opportunity. His personal feelings about slayers would have to be put aside.
“Take her to ER one.”
“E,” Shade said in a voice that had gone low with disapproval, “catch and release in this case is a bad idea. What if it’s a trap? What if she’s wearing some sort of tracking device?”
Wraith looked around as though he expected Aegis slayers—“Guardians,” they called themselves—to pop in from nowhere.
“We’re protected by the Haven spell.”
“Only if they attack from the inside. If they find out where we are, they could go Bin Laden on the building.”
“We’ll fix her and worry about the rest later.” Eidolon wheeled the human into the prepared room, both paranoid brothers and Paige on his heels. “We have an opportunity to learn about them. The knowledge we could gain outweighs the dangers.”
He removed the restraints and lifted her left hand. The silver and black ring on her pinky finger looked innocent enough, but when he removed it, the Aegis shield engraved on the inside of the band confirmed her identity and sent a chill through his heart. If the rumors were true, any jewelry bearing the shield was imbued with powers that bestowed slayers with night vision, resistance to certain spells, the ability to see through invisibility mantles, and gods knew what else.