I dropped to my knees in front of him, reaching out to touch his hands. Damian jerked away. "Don't touch me!"
I put my hands over his hands. The skin felt almost hot to the touch, as if the corruption were cooking him from the inside out. The skin was soft as if, if I pressed too hard the skin would give way like a rotted spot in an apple.
My throat was tight. "Damian, I'm ... sorry." Dear God, it was an inadequate word. A thousand years of "life" and he'd given it up for me. He would never have taken such a risk if I had not asked. It was my fault.
The look in his eyes was grateful, and pain-filled. He pulled his hands gently out from under mine. Careful not to press too hard against my hands. I think we were both afraid my fingers would sink through his skin and into the flesh inside.
His face twisted in pain, and a small sound escaped his lips. I remembered Nathaniel's cries of how it had hurt.
The ends of his fingers burst like overripe fruit, spilling something black and greenish onto the floor. It spattered my arm. The smell was growing in sickening waves.
I didn't swipe at the drops on my arm but I wanted to. I wanted to slap at them like a spider, shrieking. My voice held some of the strain I was trying to keep off my face. "I've got to at least try to heal you."
"How?" Asher asked. "How do, even you, begin to heal this?"
Damian made a low whimpering sound. His body shuddered, face ducking, neck twisting, and finally he screamed. Wordless, hopeless.
"How?" Asher asked again.
"I don't know," and I was screaming, too.
"Only his original master, the one who saved him from the grave, would have any chance of healing him."
I looked at Asher. "I called Damian from his coffin once. It was accidental, but he answered to my call. I kept his ... soul, whatever, from fleeing his body once. We are bound together, a little."
"How did you call him from his grave?" Asher asked.
"Necromancy," I said, "I am a necromancer, Asher."
"I know nothing of necromancy," he said.
The smell swelled stronger. I breathed through my mouth, but that just put the odor on the back of my tongue. I was almost afraid to look at Damian. I turned slowly like a character in a horror movie, where you just know the monster is right behind you, and you delay looking because you know it will blast your sanity forever. But some things are worse than any nightmare. The rot had moved past his elbows. Naked bone showed through the back of his hand. The smell had driven all but the three of us back. I stayed kneeling in the rotting fluid of Damian's body. Asher stayed close, but only I was still within touching distance.
"If I were his master, what would I do?"
"You would drink his blood, take the corruption into yourself as we did for Nathaniel."
"I didn't think vamps fed on each other."
"Not for food," Asher said, "but there are many reasons to share blood. Food is only one of them."
I stared at Damian, watching the blackness spread under his skin like ink. I could actually see it swimming underneath his flesh. "I can't drink the corruption away," I said.
"But I could," Damian's voice came breathy with pain.
"No!" Asher said. He took a threatening step towards us. I could feel his power flaring out from him like a whip.
Damian flinched, but looked up at the other vampire. He held his hands out to Asher, pleading.
"What is going on?" I asked, looking from one to the other of them.
Asher shook his head, face angry, but otherwise unreadable. I watched his features smooth and grow blank. He was hiding something.
"No," I said, getting to my feet. "No, you tell me what Damian meant." Neither spoke.
"Tell me!" I screamed it into Asher's calm face.
He just stared at me, face as closed and impassive as a doll's.
"Dammit, one of you tell me what Damian meant. How could he drink away his own corruption?"
"If ... " Damian started.
"No," Asher said, pointing a finger at him.
"You are not my master," Damian said. "I must answer."
"Shut up, Asher," I said. "Shut the fuck up and let him talk."
"Would you have her risk all for you?" Asher asked.
"It does not have to be her. Only someone with more than human blood," Damian said.
"Tell me," I said, "now."
Damian spoke in a rushed whisper, voice edged with pain. "If I drank blood from one powerful ... enough. I might be able ... " He shuddered, struggling, then continued in a voice that was weaker than just a moment before. "Might be able to take in enough power to ... cure myself."
"But if the one he takes blood from is not strong enough mystically to take the corruption into himself, then they will die as Damian is dying now," Asher said.
"I'm sorry," Jason said, "but count me out."
"Me, too," Zane said.
Jamil was across the room hugging his arms. He just shook his head.
Cherry knelt by the bed. She said nothing, eyes huge, face terrified.
I finally turned back to Asher "It has to be me. I can't ask anyone else to take the risk."
Asher grabbed the back of my hair in a movement so fast I hadn't seen it coming. He twisted my face back to look at Damian. "Is this how you want to die, Anita? Is it? Is it!"
I spoke through gritted teeth. "Let go of me, Asher. Now!"
He released me slowly. "Don't do this, Anita. Please, don't. The risk is too great."
"He's right," Damian's voice came in a bare whisper, so low I was surprised I could hear it at all. "You could cure me but kill ... yourself."
The rot had spread up his arms and was gliding like some malignant force underneath his collarbones. His chest was like glowing ivory, and I could feel his heart thudding in his chest. I could feel it like a second heartbeat in my own head. A vampire's heart didn't always beat, but it was beating now.
I was so scared I could taste something flat and metallic in my mouth. My fingertips tingled with the desire to run. I couldn't stay in this room and watch Damian melt down into a stinking puddle, but part of my brain was screaming at me to run. Run somewhere far away where I wouldn't have to watch and I certainly wouldn't have to let those rotting hands touch me.
I shook my head. I stared at Damian, not at the rotting flesh, but at his face, his eyes. I stared into those shining green eyes like bits of emerald fire. It was ironic that as parts of him corrupted and slothed away, that what was left had become its most beautiful. His skin was polished ivory with a depth of light like some white jewel. His hair seemed to glow like spun rubies, and those eyes, those emerald eyes ... I stared at him, made myself see him.
I swept my hair to one side, exposing my neck. "Do it." I dropped my hand, and the hair moved back to hide my neck.
"Anita," he said.
"Do it, Damian, do it. Now, please, before I lose my nerve."
He crawled to me. He swept the hair aside with a hand gone blackened flesh and bone. He left a trail of something heavy and thick on my shoulder. I could feel that thickness sliding down my shirt like a snail. I concentrated on the soft glow of his skin, the imperfect slope of his nose where someone centuries ago had broken that perfect profile.
But it wasn't enough. I turned my head to one side so he wouldn't have to touch me more than necessary. I saw his head tense for the strike and I closed my eyes. It was sharp like needles and it didn't get better. Damian wasn't strong enough to roll me with his eyes. There would be no magic to take away the pain.
His mouth locked against the wound and he began to feed. I thought I'd have to try and force my power into him or lower my shields and let him inside my power, let him drink it away. But moments after his teeth pierced my skin, something flared between us. Power, bond, magic. It raised every hair on my body.