Cravings (9 page)

Nathaniel was half crouched, his hand reaching out to me, as if I'd been the
one who pulled away. His eyes were closed, his face screwed tight with pain.
Damian knelt, pale face empty; if I hadn't been able to feel his pain I wouldn't
have known that his blood was turning to ice.

Nathaniel's hand touched mine, like a child groping in the dark, but the
moment his fingers brushed me, the burning began to fade. I gripped his hand,
and it didn't hurt anymore. It was still hot, but it was the beating pulse of
life, as if the heat of a summer's day filled us.

The other half of my body was still so cold it burned. I took Damian's hand,
and the moment we touched that, too, ceased to hurt. The magic, for lack of a
better term, flowed through me; the chill of the grave, and the heat of the
living, and I knelt in the middle like something caught between life and death.
I was a necromancer; I was caught between life and death, always.

I remembered death. The smell of my mother's perfume, Hypnotique, the taste
of her lipstick as she kissed me good-bye, the sweet powdery scent of her skin.
I remembered the feel of smooth wood under small hands, my mother's coffin; the
clove scent of carnations from the grave blanket. There was a bloodstain on the
car seat, and an oval of cracks in the windshield. I laid a tiny hand on that
dried blood, and remembered the nightmares afterward, where the blood was always
wet, and the car was dark, and I could hear my mother screaming. The blood had
been dry by the time I saw it. She had died without me ever saying good-bye, and
I had not heard her screams. She'd died almost instantly, and probably hadn't
screamed at all.

I remembered the feel of the couch, rough and nobbly, and it smelled musty,
because after Mommy went away nothing got cleaned. In that moment I knew it
wasn't my memory. My father's German mother had moved in and kept everything
spotless. But I was still small and hugging the side of that musty couch, in a
room I'd never known, where the only light was the flicking of the television
screen. There was a man, a huge dark shadow of a man, and he was beating a boy,
beating him with the buckle end of a belt. He kept saying, "Scream for me, you
little bastard. Scream for me."

Blood spurted from the boy's back, and I screamed. I screamed for him,
because Nicholas would never scream. I screamed for him and the beating stopped.

I remembered the feel of Nicholas spooning the back of my body, stroking my
hair. "If anything happens to me. Promise me, you'll run away."

"Nicholas…"

"Promise me, Nathaniel, promise me."

"I promise, Nicky."

Sleep, and the only safety I ever knew, because if Nicholas watched over me,
the man couldn't hurt me. Nicholas wouldn't let him.

The images broke then, shattering like a mirror that had been hit; glimpses.
The man looming up and up; the first blow, falling to the carpet, blood on the
carpet, my blood.

Nicholas in the doorway with a baseball bat. The bat hitting the man. The man
silhouetted against the light from that damned television, the bat in his hands.
Blood spraying the screen. Nicholas screaming, "Run, Nathaniel, run!" Running.
Running through the yards. A dog on a chain, barking, snarling. Running.
Running. Falling down beside a stream, coughing blood. Darkness I remembered.
And try as I might, chaos was all I could see. A man's throat exploding in a
bright gush of blood; the feel of my blade hacking so deep that it numbed my
arm; the force of running headlong into someone else's shield with my own; being
forced back down narrow stone steps; and over all that was a fierce joy, an
utter contentment; battle was what we lived for, everything else was just biding
time. Familiar faces swam into view, blue eyes, green, blond and red-haired, all
like me. The feel of a ship under me, and a gray sea, running white with the
wind. A dark castle on a lonely shore. There had been fighting there, I knew
that, but that was not the memory I got. What I saw was a narrow, stone
stairway, that wound up and up into a dark tower. Torchlight flickered on those
stairs, and there was a shadow. We ran from that shadow, because terror rode
before it. The gate crashed down, trapped against it, we turned and made our
stand. The crushing fear, until you could not breathe. Many dropped their
weapons and simply went mad, at the touch of it.

The shadow stepped out into the starlight, and it was a woman. A woman with
skin white as bone, lips red as blood, and hair like golden spiderwebs. Terrible
she was, and beautiful, though it was a beauty that would make men weep, rather
than smile.

But she smiled, that first curve of those red, red lips, that first glimpse
of teeth that no mortal mouth would hold. Confusion, then the feel of small
white hands like white steel, and her eyes, her eyes like gray flames, as if
ashes could burn. The images jumped, and Damian was lying in a bed, with that
terrible beauty riding him. His body was filling up, about to spill over and
into her; riding the edge of pleasure, when she changed it, with a flex of her
will, as a flex of her thighs could give pleasure; a thought and he was drowning
in fear. A fear so great and so awful that it shriveled him, tore him back from
pleasure, threw him close to madness. Then it would pull back like the ocean
pulling away from the shore, and she would begin again. Over and over, over and
over; pleasure, terror, pleasure and terror, until he begged her to kill him.
When he begged she would let him finish, let him ride pleasure to its
conclusion, but only if he begged.

A voice broke through the memories, shattered it. "Anita, Anita!"

I blinked and I was still kneeling between Nathaniel and Damian. It was
Damian who had called my name. "No more," he said.

Nathaniel was crying, and shaking his head. "Please, Anita, no more."

"Why are you blaming me for the tour down bad memory lane?"

"Because you're the master," Damian said.

"So it's my fault we're reliving the worst events of our lives?" I searched
his face, while I kept a tight grip on his hand. It wasn't erotic anymore, it
was more like their hands were safety lines.

"You are the master," Damian repeated.

"Maybe it's over, whatever it was, maybe it's finished." He gave me a look
that was so like one of Jean-Claude's that it was unnerving. "What's with the
look?" I asked.

"I can still feel it," Nathaniel said, and his voice was hushed, thick with
fear.

"If you would stop arguing, and start paying attention to what's happening,
you'd feel it, too," Damian said, and he wasn't talking to Nathaniel.

I shut my mouth, it was the best I could do for not arguing, but even silence
was enough. Into that brief silence I felt power like something large had pushed
against a door in my head. A door that would not hold for long.

"How did you break us free of it this much?"

"I'm not a master, but I am over a thousand years old. I've learned some
skills over the years, just to stay sane."

"Alright, Mr. Smartie-Vampire, what's happening to us?"

He squeezed my hand, and something in his eyes said plainly that he didn't
want to say it out loud. I realized that I couldn't feel his emotions.

"You're shielding us all, aren't you?"

He nodded. "But it won't hold."

"What is it? What's happening to us? Why are we sharing memories?"

"It's a mark."

I frowned at him. "What?" Marks were metaphysical connections. I shared them
with both Jean-Claude and Richard.

"I don't know what number, but it's a mark. It's not the first, maybe not
even the second. Maybe the third? I've never had a human servant, or an animal
to call. I've never been part of a triumvirate. You have, so you tell me."

"Us," Nathaniel said, in that breathy, scared voice.

I looked into those wide lavender eyes. He was waiting for me to make this
better. The problem was, I didn't know how. I didn't know how it had begun, so
how could I end it? I turned away from the utter trust in his face, because I
couldn't think looking into his eyes. I tried to think back to the third mark.
There had been a sharing of memories, but it had been benign. Glimpses of
Jean-Claude feeding on perfumed wrists, sex with women wearing way too many
undergarments; Richard running in wolf form in the forest, the rich world of
scent that he had in that form. They had all been sensual, but safe memories. It
had never occurred to me to ask either of them what memories they'd gotten from
me. I probably didn't want to know.

"Third mark, I think. Though with Jean-Claude in charge it was just flashes
of memory; mostly sensual, nothing too serious. Why are we trapped in therapy
hell?"

"What did you think of just before the memories began?" Damian asked.

"Death," I said, "I was thinking about death, I don't know why."

"Then think of something else, quickly." His voice held a hint of panic, and
I could feel why. I could feel that door in my head beginning to bow outward as
if it were melting. I knew when it went, that we better have a plan.

"I didn't try to mark anybody," I said.

"Do you know how to stop it?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Then think of something else, something better."

"Think happy thoughts," Nathaniel said.

I gave him a look. "Who do I look like—Peter Pan?"

"What?" Damian asked.

"Yes, I mean no, but think," Nathaniel said. "Think happy thoughts. Think
like you need to fly. I survived what happened after… after Nicholas died. But I
do not want to live through it twice. Please, Anita, think happy thoughts."

"Why don't one of you think happy thoughts?" I asked.

"Because you're the master, not us," Damian said. "Your mind, your attitudes,
your desires, are what will rule how this goes, not ours. But for God's sake,
stop thinking about the worst things that ever happened to you, because I don't
want to see the worst that I remember. Nathaniel's right, think happy thoughts."

"Happy thoughts," Nathaniel said, and he wrapped both his hands around one of
mine. "Please, Anita, happy thoughts."

"I am fresh out of pixie dust," I said.

"Pixie dust?" Damian said, but he shook his head. "I don't know what you are
talking about. Just think of something pleasant, happy, anything, anything at
all."

I tried to think happy. I thought about my dog, Jenny, who had died when I
was fourteen, and crawled out of the grave a week after she died. Crawled out of
the grave and into bed with me. I remembered the weight of her, the smell of
fresh turned earth, and ripe flesh.

"No!" Damian screamed. He jerked me to face him, his eyes wild. "No, I will
not see what comes next in my story. I will not!" He grabbed my upper arms and
turned me to face him, shaking me. Nathaniel wrapped himself around my waist,
huddling around my body. Damian said, "Don't you have any good memories?"

It was like one of those games where they tell you not to think of something
or to think of something. I was supposed to think of good things, and for the
life of me, everything ended badly. My mother had been wonderful, but she'd
died. I'd loved my dog, but she'd died. I'd loved Richard, but he'd dumped me. I
thought I'd loved someone once in college, but he'd dumped me. I thought about
the feel of Micah's body, but I was waiting for him to dump me, too. Nathaniel
hugged me tighter, his face buried against my back. "Please, Anita, please,
happy thoughts, fly for me, Anita, please, God, fly for me."

I touched his arm, his hand, and thought of the vanilla scent of his hair.
Thought of his face alive and listening as Micah read to us. I still thought
Micah would go from Prince Charming to the Big Bad Wolf (no anthropomorphic bias
intended), but Nathaniel would never dump me. There were moments when the
thought of having Nathaniel with me forever panicked the hell out of me, but I
forced that worry down. Pushed it away. I concentrated on the feel of him, and
as if he felt my thoughts, he began to relax against me. He came to his knees
behind me, his arms still around my waist, spooning our bodies together. He
leaned his face over my shoulder, and I caught the sweet scent of his skin. I
had my happy thought. I wouldn't fly because Nathaniel had asked me to, I would
fly because of Nathaniel.

I laid a kiss against his cheek, and he wound himself around the back of my
body, rubbing his cheek against the side of my face, my neck.

Damian still held my arms in his hands, but loosely now. He stared down at
both of us. "I take it you found a happy thought?"

I breathed in that clean vanilla scent and
gazed
up at Damian.
"Yes." My voice was already thick with the scent of skin and the sensation of
Nathaniel's body against mine. I thought, it's like he's a living comfort
object, like a teddy bear or a penguin, but even as I thought that, I knew it
was only partial truth. My stuffed toy penguin, Sigmund, had never kissed my
neck, and never would. It was one of Sigmund's charms. He didn't make many
demands on me.

That door in my mind was melting, like a block of ice left in the sun. Panic
fluttered in my chest, and I knew that panic would be a bad emotion to take
behind that melting door. I pulled Damian down to us, and whispered, "Kiss me."

His lips touched mine, and the door vanished. But we didn't get memories this
time, we got the ardeur. For the first time, I embraced it, called it pet names,
and did the metaphysical equivalent of saying, Come and get me. Come and get us.

I'd never embraced the ardeur before. I'd been overwhelmed by it, conquered
by it, given in to it, but never lowered my flag and surrended to it, not
without at least a fight. Jean-Claude had told me that if I could only stop
fighting it wouldn't be so terrible. That once a little control was gained, you
needed to "make friends" with the power. I'd given him a look, and he'd dropped
the subject, but he was right, and he was wrong. For him I think it would have
been a seduction, but it was me, and the fact that I could still think while it
was happening was a problem more than a blessing.