Blood regeneration

She lay limp and still. There were small cuts and bruises all over her. Her leather pants had hundreds of little holes in them - the shards of bone from the exploding vampire skull, I guessed. Her spine was bent and twisted. I couldn't tell how bad it was. I mean . . . Susan had always been fairly limber, and I had more reason to know than most. With her entire body limp like that, it was hard to say.
She was breathing, and her tattoos were still there, now bright scarlet. Her pulse was far too slow, and I wasn't sure it was steady. I leaned down and peeled back one eyelid.
Her eyes were black, all the way through.
I licked my lips. The tattoos were a warning indicator the Fellowship used. As Susan's vampire nature gained more influence over her actions, the tattoos appeared, solid black at first, but lightening to bright red as the vampire within gained more control. Susan wasn't conscious, but if she had been, she would have been insane with bloodlust. She'd nearly killed me the last time it had happened.
It was sort of what had started this whole mess, in fact.
Her body was covered in injuries of various sizes, and I thought I knew what was happening. It was instinctively drawing upon the vampire portion of her nature to restore her damaged flesh - but as she had not provided that nature with sustenance, it could offer her only limited assistance.
She needed blood.
But if she got it, woke up, and decided that she just had to have more . . . yikes.
Her breathing kept slowing. It caught for a moment, and I nearly panicked.
Then I shook my head, took my penknife from my duster's pocket, and opened a cut in my left palm, in an area where the old burn scars were thickest, and which still didn't have a lot of sensitivity.
I cupped my hand while I bled into my palm. Then, very carefully, I reached down and tipped my palm to carefully spill a few drops into Susan's mouth.
You would have thought I'd just run a current of electricity through her body. She quivered, went rigid, and then arched her back into a bow. Strange popping sounds came from her spine. Her empty black eyes opened and she gasped, then stared blindly, trying to find my hand again with her mouth, the way a suckling baby finds its meals. I held my hand over her mouth and let the blood trickle in slowly.
She surged in languid motion beneath my hand, savoring the blood as if it were chocolate, a massage, good sex, and a new car all rolled into one. Two minutes of slow, dreamy, arching motion later, her eyes suddenly focused on me and then narrowed. She snatched at my arm with her hands - and I drove my right fist into her face.
I didn't pull the punch, either. If her darker nature was allowed to continue, it would destroy her, killing me as a by-product of the process. Her head snapped back against the ground, and she blinked her eyes, stunned.
I stood up, took a few steps back, and stuffed my injured hand into my pocket. I was tired, and feeling shocky. My whole arm felt cold. I didn't stop falling back until I was sure I could shield in time to hold her off if she came at me.
I recognized it when Susan checked back in. Her breathing slowed, becoming controlled and steady. It took her four or five minutes of focus to push her darker self away from control, but eventually she did. She sat up slowly. She licked at her bloodstained lips and shuddered in slow ecstasy for a second before dashing her sleeve across her mouth and forcing herself to her feet. She looked around wildly, a terrible dread in her eyes - until she spotted me.
She stared at me for a moment, and then closed her eyes. She whispered, "Thank God."
I nodded to her and beckoned for her to stand at my side.


Changes Chapter 37, Page 389-391