Chapter 17 Survivors
Carl Witherspoon looked on at the burning house shaking his head. He had received the call from the Sterling butler, Charles, and at his insistence had assembled his team and driven up. They must have arrived shortly after John Sterling and Isabelle, but the damage had been done. The house was now engulfed in flames. Several team members had risked their lives following the sound of screams coming from the basement. They had pulled out a badly injured John Sterling along with an unconscious Isabelle. Ian they had discovered in the running car in the driveway, badly beaten and drained dangerously low of blood. All three of them were being loaded into the van and calls were going out to the doctor in the area that was on retainer for this kind of disaster.
The burning cabin lit the area a lurid orange and threw roasting heat out that he could feel standing as far away as he was. It was an odd feeling, the heat on his face on the cold pressing in on his back. Carl felt lucky that several members of the team had accompanied him on his previous visit. They had remembered the floor plan and had had to go through a kitchen window to get to the basement and get the two survivors out.
The van pulled away. Listening to the discussions of his team on his headset, he was proud of his teams functioning smoothness. The long hours of endless practice and training had paid off well. He had hoped that the reports of Finn Sterling and Simon Drake being up here were wrong. No one could survive the conflagration as it was. They had arrived too late to be able to do a thorough search of the interior of the small cabin. It looked like that hope was to be a futile one. One of the cars in the driveway was registered to Simon Drake, and Carl himself had recognized it as the hybrid car that Simon had purchased the year before.
He watched the pale crescent moon begin its rise over the pine trees, hazy in the smoke the fire was producing. Pacing, one of his trademarks, he couldn't hear the crunch of gravel under his feet over the roar of the flames.
"Sir, we have bodies on the south side of the cabin," Tom Jacobs voice, the team leader for this operation, crackled over his headset.
"On my way," he replied. Beckoning to several other members of the team to follow him he trotted around and began to pick his way over the rocks, very aware of the burning building less than fifteen feet away from him.
Not two far away from the corner of the building, lying on the pine needle covered ground, were two more bodies. Cursing, Witherspoon hastened his steps. As the body on top was rolled face up his swearing kicked up a notch. He recognized them, both of them. Stretchers were quickly organized and the medic still with them tried to establish I.V. lines before both were transferred to the second van. Grateful that the doctor was not to far away, Carl Witherspoon and the others quickly vacated the area, taking all four of the vehicles parked in front of the cabin with them. The radio they were monitoring reported that the local fire trucks were on their way. They would be well out of the way before they got there.
Two days later..........
John sat and watched his son sleep. It had been a long time since he had gone for 48 hours without sleep; it was harder than he remembered it being. His stab wound was healing quickly, his burns were another story. Vampires as a whole were fast healers, except when the injuries were caused by sunlight (for new vampires), silver or fire. Injuries caused by these three took almost as long to heal as they would with a human, and they tended to scar very badly. As such, his hands from mid finger to mid bicep were layered with special ointment, special burn gauze and loosely wrapped with white gauze.
Brown eyes fluttered open and closed again as they had several times before. This time they opened again almost immediately. "Dad?"
John smiled for the first time in what seemed forever. He reached out and with the tips of his fingers stroked his son's face. "I love you, Finn."
Finn smiled, and then it faded. His brown eyes filled with tears that spilled down pale cheeks. Fighting the battle and losing it he began to sob uncontrollably.
John reached out and pulled him into an awkward hug, ignoring the pain in his arms. "It's ok," he said over and over. He pulled away and looked Finn straight in the eyes. "He is alive, Simon is alive."
The look of absolute, incredulous joy on Finn's face was a bittersweet reward for John. He was still trying to reconcile his own emotions about Finn's relationship. "You have to be prepared though, son," he tempered. "He was very badly injured and he may not make it. Dr. Castile has him in the equivalent of intensive care. It is bad Finn, very bad."
"Can I see him?" Finn asked still sobbing.
"As soon as the Doctor says that it is ok you are there," John replied. "Right now they are just trying to keep him stable." He took his son's hand in his bandaged ones. "He was the one that pulled you out, I couldn't get to you. Somehow he managed to pull you out from under that beam and pull you up the rubble to the bedroom window." John smiled again, "incase you hadn't noticed you have two broken shins. You need to get yourself well too."
"I can't really feel him. Why can't I feel him?" Finn asked, trying to get control of his emotions. He rubbed shaking hands over his face and pulled his battered body up slightly.
John helped him adjust the pillows as much as he could with his bandaged hands. "He is under heavy sedation, Finn," replied John, sitting back down, "you have to remember too, that there was a large mental shock for him when Pru died, even though he was turned unwillingly." He bit his lip and continued, "There may be some mental damage as well, Finn. Jezi, the healer, says that Pru was not at all careful when she was messing with his head. There may be some large memory gaps, or other problems."
"It doesn't matter," said Finn, "as long as he is alive I can deal with anything."
"I know, son," John soothed, rising to his feet, "I am going to fetch the nurse or she will have my head. I have to check in on Ian as well."
"Ian!? He's ok?"
"He has some injuries but he is considerably better off than you are at the moment. We can discuss that later, and I am sure that he will come to see you when he hears that you were awake." John deliberately left out the emotional damage that he would also have to heal from. Finn could deal with that later, once they found out whether or not Simon would survive.
"I will be back as soon as the nurse is done with you," John promised from the doorway.
"Ok, dad," he said, "Dad?"
John turned back. "Yes?"
"I love you too."
