“I hear you, Jean-Claude.” Her voice sounded rough, as if the time in the coffin had damaged it.
“Come, Jason, we need to warm this one.” Jason got to his feet like an obedient puppy, still bleeding, still happy.
Jean-Claude paused in the doorway looking, not at me, but at Asher. “I must take this one to the bath, or all the work will be undone. But Damian is a revenant now.”
Asher raised a hand, which had been hidden along his body. He had a gun, a .10-millimeter Browning, the big brother of my own gun. “I will do what needs doing.”
“We are not going to kill Damian,” I said.
Jean-Claude looked at me, then at Micah, and Nathaniel, and Gil, and the other wereleopards, and even the bodyguards. His gaze seemed to take everyone in, then he looked at me again. “I ask again, ma petite, who will you sacrifice for your high ideals?”
“You think he can’t be saved, don’t you?”
“I know that once the madness takes a vampire, even the master who bore him cannot always bring him back to his senses.”
“Is there anything I can do that might bring him back to himself?”
“Let him feed, try to see he does not kill that which he eats, and hope when he tastes your blood, he regains his senses. If your blood does not sate him, then Asher will try to feed him. If that fails . . .” He gave that shrug that meant everything and nothing; even holding Gretchen it looked graceful.
“I don’t want him to die because of me.”
“If he dies, ma petite, it will be because he tried to kill someone in this room.” With that he walked out, Jason trailing behind.
I think, perhaps, I’d used up Jean-Claude’s patience with me, or maybe seeing what he’d done to Gretchen had bothered him that much. Whatever the cause, he left me in the room with everyone looking to me as to how to proceed. And I didn’t have a clue. Who was I willing to put next to the coffin? Who was I willing to risk?
56
THE ANSWER , OF course, was no one, but we finally decided who got to be the first victim. I was pretty useless for the discussion, because I would have put myself first in line. Never ask of anyone what you’re not willing to do yourself. But Asher pointed out that I couldn’t be the first feed if I had any chance of being Damian’s master. So they decided among themselves, and it was Zane left standing next to the coffin.
Everybody but me that had a gun had it out with a round chambered. I needed my hands free to offer up a body part to get gnawed on. Come to think of it, I didn’t much like that job description either. But it wasn’t watching Zane’s pale back as he unfastened the chain that bothered me, it was watching Cherry’s face as she watched him do it. That much fear for someone’s safety, that much importance attached to one other being meant that it was love for her, too. They loved each other, and he was about to cry, cry for help, and loose the carrion birds to feed, and feed, and feed.
The lid of the coffin was only half raised when Zane jerked forward and pale hands showed around him, holding him. Blood sprayed the white satin of the coffin, spattered over Zane’s shoulders, and the only thing we could see of Damian was pale hands and arms latched around Zane’s back. There was no shot to take.
Someone was screaming. I think it was Cherry. I had my gun out, but there was no way to fire without killing Zane first. Micah and Merle were at the coffin, trying to pry Zane free. Zane fell back, his throat a gaping wound, and something that was all bloody fangs and wild red hair grabbed Merle and folded around him, tearing at the big man’s throat. The wererats and Asher were standing back, waiting for a clear shot, but there wasn’t going to be one, not before someone else died.
I pushed forward, trying to shove Micah out of the way while I pressed the gun to Damian’s face, but Micah was trying to pry the vampire off of Merle, and in the struggle I couldn’t get my gun steady. The barrel slipped in the blood against Damian’s skin, and suddenly green eyes turned to me, and there was nothing in them but hunger. Damian was already dead. I just hadn’t pulled the trigger yet.
Then he was on me, faster than anything I’d ever seen. I was pressed back against the satin of the coffin, my hips and legs sticking out. He didn’t go for my neck; he buried his fangs in my upper chest. I screamed past the pain and pressed the barrel of the Browning against his temple. Asher was yelling, “Don’t fire, you’ll hit Anita!”
I screamed again and had to adjust the angle of the gun, because if I’d pulled the trigger, the bullet would have gone through his head into my chest. I moved the gun a fraction while he savaged me. My finger curled on the trigger when he raised his green eyes to me. I watched his eyes fill up with knowledge, intelligence—with him. He raised his mouth back from my chest. He looked scared. “Anita, what’s happening?” He seemed to see my bloody chest for the first time, and his eyes went wide. “What’s happening to me?”
The moment he spoke, the moment there was something in him besides monster, I felt the connection between us click into place, like a perfectly tuned string on a harp. The power flowed between us like warm water, filling him up, filling me up, and I drew him down to me, my blood still on his lips.
I heard Asher saying, “Stay back, it’s alright, let her finish.”
I whispered as I drew Damian down to me, “Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, breath to breath, my heart to yours.”
And just before our lips met and his fate was sealed, he whispered, “Yes, oh, yes.”
57
I WAS SHOULDER -DEEP in water so hot it made my skin pink. I was so hot I was almost ill, because I was still fully dressed, including all my guns. Damian leaned up against the front of my body, my arms wrapped around him, holding him close. His body folded in against mine, his arms holding mine across his bare chest.
How did I end up being guardian of the bathtub for Damian once we reached my house? He’d gone into convulsions, and only my touch had calmed him. We’d gotten him to my house with Nathaniel riding in the back, cradling Damian. They’d filled the bathtub with hot, hot water, and I’d left Asher in charge of Damian’s care. I’d done my part, I’d brought him back to himself. I had a bandage over my left breast to prove that I’d donated my piece of flesh and blood for the night. Zane and Merle were on their way to the lycanthrope hospital, with Micah and Cherry to oversee them. Everyone else had trooped back to my house, and everything had seemed fine, until screams from the bathroom brought me running.
Damian had been beating himself against the floor, convulsing like he’d tear himself apart, vomiting blood on the tile. Asher and Nathaniel had been fighting to hold him down, to keep him from hurting himself, but they couldn’t hold him. I knelt to help, and the moment I touched him, he quieted. I’d withdrawn my hand, and his body had bucked again, hands scrambling at the slick tile. I’d touched his shoulder, and he calmed. We’d tried letting him take blood from Caleb, but the moment I stopped touching him, his body rejected the blood, and everything else. The last time I’d stopped touching him, Damian had simply gone quiet, and I had felt him beginning to fade, to die.
We’d dragged Damian into the steaming bath water, and I’d held him. He had recovered, but only with me holding him while my clothes stuck to my body.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
Asher had answered, “I’ve only seen this reaction between master and servant.”
“I’m Damian’s master, so what? It shouldn’t cause this, should it?”
“No, ma cherie, not merely master, but master vampire and human servant.”
“Damian is not my master,” I said.
“Damian is no one’s master,” Asher said quietly, gazing down at us from the edge of the tub. He was sitting in a pool of the blood that had poured out of Damian.
“What are you saying, Asher?”
“You have made him your servant.”
“He can’t be a human servant, he’s a vampire,” I said.
“I did not say human servant, ma cherie.”
“Then what are you
talking about?”
“A . . . vampire servant for a master necromancer, I think.”
“You think?” I made it a question.
“We are dealing with things of legend, ma cherie, things that should not be possible. I am having to . . . guess at this.”
“Guess?” I said.
He sighed. “If I said that I knew for certain what has happened, it would be a lie. I would never lie to you on purpose.”
I had protested, demanded, but nothing I could do or say made it untrue. I had a vampire servant, and that was impossible. But impossible or not, Damian lay against my body, clinging to me, like I was the last hope he had.
Asher glided back into the bathroom, wearing a beach towel wrapped around him. The towel was big enough to cover him from armpits to mid-calf, effectively hiding his body. Hiding the scars. “My clothes are covered in blood. I hope you do not mind.”
I hated wearing bloody clothes myself, so, “Fine, glad you found a towel you liked.”
He glanced down at the colorful towel. “I do not fit in your robe.”
I was sorry Asher felt like he had to hide himself away, but I had other things to worry about. “I think if I don’t get cooler soon I’m either going to throw up or pass out.”
He knelt by the tub, smoothing the long towel under his knees in a gesture that you don’t see much in men. He touched my face lightly. “You are flushed.” He touched Damian. “His skin is still cooler than it should be.” He frowned. “You need to take off some of your clothing, especially the jeans, I would think.”
Normally, I go to great lengths not to be unclothed in front of all the boys, but tonight I was willing to strip down a little. “How do I undress and still hold him?”
“I believe that one of us could hold him against you while you disrobed.”
“You really think that he’ll go into convulsions again?”
“You could release him, and we could find out,” Asher said, voice soft.
I shook my head. “I’m tired of cleaning up blood. Just help me hold him.”
Asher’s eyes went a little wide. “I will call Nathaniel.”
The heat had gone to my head in a pounding headache. “Just jump in, Asher, I promise not to peek.”
He curled beside the tub, tucking every piece of him he could underneath the towel. “If I dropped this towel to the floor, would you really not look?”
His question stopped me. I opened my mouth, closed it, and tried to think through the heat, the headache, the growing nausea, and finally just said the truth. “I wouldn’t mean to look, but no, you’re right. If you’re naked I’m going to look. I don’t think I could stop myself.”
“Like a car accident, you cannot turn away,” he said.
I looked up then and found he’d turned away, hiding his face with that fall of golden hair. Damn it, I didn’t have time to hold everybody’s hand. “Asher, please, I didn’t mean that.”
He wouldn’t look at me. I extracted one arm from Damian, who moved around the remaining arm like a child settling in his sleep around his favorite Teddy bear. I grabbed Asher’s arm through the towel. “Yes, I’d look just for sheer curiosity’s sake, how could I help it? You’ve teased and taunted about how bad your injuries are. You’ve set it up so that I’ll have to look, have to see.”
He was looking at me now, those pale eyes, empty, hidden from me.
I dug my fingers into his arm, trying to grip him through the towel, and finding mostly cloth. “But if you don’t know by now that I just want to see you nude, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
His face told me nothing, that blank politeness that both he and Jean-Claude could pull off when they wanted to. “Now help me get some of these clothes off before I melt.”
He gave a low chuckling laugh that danced over my skin and brought my pulse to my throat. I was too hot to have goosebumps. “You offering to disrobe without any magic to push you, I believe that is a first.”
I had to laugh, because he was right. But the laugh forced me to close my eyes, because it felt like the pulsing of the headache was going to shove my eyeballs out of their sockets. I let go of his arm and pressed my hand to my forehead to try and keep my head from falling into pieces. “Please, Asher, I am going to be sick.”
I heard the water splashing, felt it push against me as someone climbed into the tub. I opened my eyes slowly, trying to hold the headache inside and found Nathaniel kneeling in the water. His hair was still bound in a loose braid that trailed behind him, curling through the water like something separate and alive. The swirling braid brought my gaze low on his body, and I had a peripheral sense that Nathaniel wasn’t getting any clothes wet whatsoever, but I didn’t care. The headache had reached a point where I was afraid I was going to start throwing up if I didn’t get cooler.
He answered my question without me asking it. “Asher wants Damian to try to take blood again, see if it will stay down.”
Asher was still perched on the edge of the tub wrapped in the towel. “Damian must be able to keep down blood, or he will perish. I believe that if you stay in constant contact with him that he will be able to keep a feeding down.”
“If I have to stay in constant contact then I have to get cooler first.”
“Nathaniel will help you,” he said.
I glanced up at Asher, and even in the dim glow of a night light, it hurt my head. “Fine.”
Damian made small protesting movements as Nathaniel tried to take some of his weight off of me. We finally leaned him up against the edge of the tub with Asher supporting some of his weight, but letting him keep my arm pressed to his chest. Nathaniel undid my belt and helped me slip the shoulder holster off one arm, but I needed the other arm free to slip it out of the other strap. Damian fought us, slowly, stubbornly, as if he were sleepwalking. But he was a vampire; he could have torn his way through the wall of my bathroom with his bare hands. If he didn’t want to let go of my arm, we couldn’t make him, not unless we were willing to break his fingers one at a time, and we weren’t willing to do that.
“What do we do?” Nathaniel asked.
“I have to get out of this heat,” I said. “Can we like run cold water in the tub, or something?”
“No,” Asher said, “we must keep him as warm as possible, until after he has retained some of the blood. We don’t dare allow him to be chilled.”
“Then get these clothes off me.”
I felt rather than saw the two of them exchange glances. “How do you want me to do it?” Nathaniel asked.
I leaned my head forward, resting against the top of Damian’s wet hair. His skin was the coldest thing in the tub. I was so hot I was about to be sick, yet Damian’s skin was still cool to the touch. The headache overwhelmed me and spilled out my mouth. I did my best to crawl out on the edge of the tub before I vomited. Damian had managed to miss the water every time he threw up; at least I could do the same. But he clung to me, and only Asher’s hand on my arm kept me high enough from the water to keep it clean.
My head was screaming, the pain so strong that it impacted my vision in explosions of color. Asher got me a cool cloth and wiped my mouth. He laid another cool cloth across my forehead. Then Nathaniel gripped the back of my shirt and ripped. He tore it off of me in pieces. Asher draped a wet towel over my shoulders that was so cold it made me whisper, “Shit.”
Asher and Nathaniel took my weight and Damian’s and moved us back to the far edge of the tub, as Gil came in and started cleaning up the mess. Gil had cleaned up a lot of messes tonight, and he’d never bitched, not once. He did a double take at the pieces of my shirt floating in the water, but never commented aloud. He made a good flunkie. Did what he was told and didn’t ask questions.
Nathaniel tried to tear my jeans off the way he’d done the shirt. He managed to rip the top, but Damian’s weight kept pushing me under the water, and he couldn’t get the leverage he needed. Asher fastened the towel as securely as he could and climbed gingerly into the water.
He knelt and slid his arms around Damian and me and lifted, standing, holding us both upright. I was still touching bottom, but he was still holding both our weights, because my legs still weren’t working quite right. He held us both effortlessly.
Nathaniel put a hand on either side of the rip he’d made in my jeans and pulled. The heavy wet cloth came apart under his hands with a sound like tearing flesh, but heavier—a wet, harsh sound. The force of it jerked my body, and only Asher’s strength kept me standing.
I felt the air on my bare skin and realized that in ripping away the jeans he’d taken my undies with them, but I didn’t care. The air on my skin was still suffocatingly hot. I couldn’t breathe. The last thing I remember thinking was, I’m going to pass out, then nothing.
58
I WOKE LYING on the edge of the tub with only one arm in the water with Damian. Cold towels covered me from head to foot. The one on my face lifted, and I saw that Nathaniel was in the water, holding Damian upright. I blinked up through a strand of wet hair and found Asher spreading a fresh cold towel against my face. He left enough of my face uncovered so I could look at him, sideways.
“How are you feeling?”
I had to think about that. “Better.” He replaced the towels down the length of my body, and I realized I was completely nude. I shivered with the cold cloth and didn’t care about anything except that I was finally cool. “How long was I out?”
“Not long,” Asher said, smoothing the towel so that it molded to my legs.
I looked at Nathaniel, kneeling in the tub, pinning Damian to the edge, so the vampire could hold on to me. “I’ve never seen a shapeshifter pass out from heat exhaustion before,” he said.
“A first time for everything,” I said.
Damian turned his head slowly to look at me. His eyes were clear, bright, alive again. His eyes were the color of emeralds, and it wasn’t caused by vampire powers, it was his natural eye color, as if his mother had fooled around with a cat to get him here. People just didn’t have that color of eyes.
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 253
