Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 9)

41

THE FIRST HINT I had that I wasn't dead was pain. The second was light. My chest was burning. I jerked back to consciousness, gasping for air, trying to pull the burning things off of me. I blinked up into a burning white light, then voices.

"Hold her down!"

Weight on my arms and legs, hands holding me down. I tried to struggle, but couldn't feel my body enough to be sure I was moving at all.

"BP sixty over eighty and dropping fast."

I saw shapes, blurred with light moving around me. A sharp jab in my arm, a needle. A man's face swam into view, blond, wire-framed glasses. His face slid back out of sight into a white-rimmed fog.

Gray spots slid like greasy streamers across my vision, and I felt myself sinking backwards, downwards, outwards.

A man's voice, "We're losing her!"

Darkness rolled over me taking the pain, and the light. A woman's voice floated through the dark, "Let me try." Then silence in the dark. There was no alien voice this time. There was nothing but the floating dark and me. Then there was just the dark.