The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) by Jon Land

nest of shrubbery. The night was warm and breezeless, a blessing for the necessity of maintaining their body temperatures at levels required for survival. There was also a half moon, which would aid her significantly in her work.
    She removed a leather pouch strapped to her belt and then yanked the belt free of her pant loops. Resting the pouch on a rock beside her, she tied the belt around the boy’s thigh above the wound to form a makeshift tourniquet. Almost instantly the flow of blood was stanched. Hedda then opened her pouch to reveal various swabs, suturing equipment, and a number of painkillers and sedatives. The small penlight tucked against the pouch’s bottom was a hundred candlepower strong in an adjustable beam. Hedda wiped an alcohol-rich towelette across her hands to clean them as best she could. Her right hand closed on the penlight, and she checked the boy’s vital signs. The pulse was slow but active. His skin was horribly pale. If she wasn’t too late, it was very close.
    The bullet had entered his thigh on the outside eight inches above the kneecap and exited midway on the leg’s front. That meant two areas to be sutured instead of one, but at least no bullet to remove. A fair exchange. Hedda cleansed the wound and readied her suturing needle. She did not want to risk giving the boy a sedative in his weakened condition. If he showed signs of coming awake, she would have no choice, but until then she would rely on his unconscious state to be her anesthesia. Exhausted, she completed the suturing job through sheer force of will. She dressed and wrapped the leg. Already Christopher’s color was coming back. He moaned softly. Hedda stroked the boy’s forehead.
    Abruptly something made her yank her hand away. The memory of another boy had stirred somewhere within her again. Another boy who had been shot, another boy whose blood had touched her. It came with fleeting impact like a late night dream recalled suddenly in the middle of the next day.
    Thump!
    A bullet shredding skull, spewing brains and bones from its path. The memory faded, replaced again by thoughts of her grandfather. She had helped him with the cows; milking them, tending them. The farm was far from town and secluded, leaving the animals as her closest friends. There was a horse only she could ride, a blind dog sleeping his old age away at the foot of her bed. She’d let it crawl under the covers with her at night. In the morning she liked to watch her grandfather shave. Sometimes he would scrape a hand layered with green, sweet-smelling after-shave across her face.
    Hedda turned back to the matter at hand. She had to move while the night was her ally. Steal a boat or commandeer a plane to take her to one of the many friendly sites she had developed over the years. But to get anywhere at the outset, she would have to walk and carry the boy, slowing her to an unacceptable degree. A vehicle, then, she needed a vehicle… .
    She carried the boy in her arms as gingerly as she could. He stirred a few times, and Hedda flirted with the notion of giving him a sedative to keep him from coming round. Her path through the woods had brought her within view of the road, and she sat back to wait. It was five minutes before the car pulled over to the side. Three figures emerged from it and fanned out through the brush.
    A fresh jet of adrenaline surged through Hedda at the sight of her pursuers. The fools were too well dressed for this sort of work. Even more stupidly, the routes they chose took them out of eye contact with each other. Their search was perfunctory, motions gone through and no more. They probably thought she was dead. Hedda gazed back toward the car. She could reach it and be gone from here before any of them was the wiser. But the theft of the car would be reported minutes later, and Librarian would respond accordingly. She would have gained nothing.
    The men had to die. It was as simple as that. Not for herself—for Christopher Hanley,