Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"You're a necromancer and my master; shouldn't you know something?"

I felt that little spurt of anger but pushed it down, because he was right. "Yeah, I should, but I don't. I'm sorry for that."

He got some Kleenex from his desk drawer and started dabbing at the bloody sweat. The tissues came away soaked. "I woke from the nightmares like this today, Anita, drenched in blood. I ruined the sheets and Cardinale just lay there in the bloody bed like the corpse she was."

I stared at him, because I'd never heard a vampire describe another vampire like that before. "Damian . . ." I reached out to touch him, comfort him, but stopped myself before I finished the gesture; shaking hands had been exciting enough.

"Whatever is wrong with me is getting worse, Anita." He threw the bloody Kleenex in the small office wastebasket.

"We'll talk to Jean-Claude first."

"And if he doesn't know what's wrong with me, what's second?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," I said.

"If Jean-Claude doesn't have an answer for this, Anita, then you and Nathaniel and I have to make our metaphysics work better."

"Even if it costs you Cardinale?"

He stripped off his coat and held it out by two fingers away from his body. Blood was still beading on the skin between his shoulder blades. Shouldn't it have soaked into the coat? He turned around and fresh blood was sweating onto his chest and forehead.

"Cardinale said she'd rather I keep having nightmares than have me sleep with someone else." He wiped at the fresh blood with more Kleenex, until it was all a bloody mess. "I can feel it dripping down my back," he said with distaste.

"It is, but I'm afraid to touch you again after the handshake," I said.

"Nothing personal, but I don't want to bleed more," he said.

"Maybe Jean-Claude can help us figure out why my touch made you do this," I said.

"The next time we touch he should be in the room."

"And Nathaniel," I said.

"And maybe some security guards," Damian said, as he threw more bloody tissues into the trash can.

"Why security?" I asked.

"The last time things went wrong with me, Anita, I killed innocent humans, just slaughtered them. I don't remember doing it, but I believe that I did. I was worse than a freshly risen vampire, more like one of the revenants that never regains its mind."

"You didn't have any of these symptoms before last time, did you?"

"No, no nightmares, no bloody sweats, no power jumps, just out of my head with bloodlust."

"That was different, then, Damian."

"Was it?"

"You said it yourself: The symptoms are different."

"I suppose."

"You just went crazy that time, Damian."

"No, I didn't just go crazy, Anita. You had cut me off from my connection to you and instead of dying finally and completely, I was old enough, or powerful enough, to go crazy."

"Damian . . ."

"I know you haven't cut me off from your power as my master this time, Anita, but you've still distanced yourself from me."

"Because you and Cardinale asked me to."

"We did, but I didn't understand how much I would miss interacting with you and Nathaniel."

"We were never that close, the three of us."

"No, but I feel the lack of you both, somehow."

Since Nathaniel had said almost the same thing about Damian a few months back, I wasn't sure what to say; I didn't seem to miss Damian as much as my other fiance did. "I did what you asked, Damian."

"Maybe I'm unasking," he said.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means that I'm lonely."

"You live and work with Cardinale, and you're in love with her."

"I know that."

I wanted to ask, Then how can you be lonely? But I wasn't sure how to say it. He said it for me. "I thought being in love meant you'd never be lonely again, that it would be like coming home in every sense of the word."

"It is like that," I said, and couldn't help but smile as I said it.

He shook his head. "That smile on your face, that's what I wanted to feel, but it's not like that with Cardinale, not anymore."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said, "The bleeding has almost stopped."

"Oh good, I've stopped sweating blood for the second time today." He threw the last of the bloody Kleenex in the small trash can and turned to me with angry eyes. "Jean-Claude told me if I went mad again he might have to kill me."

"I remember," I said.

"You can't let me hurt innocent people again, Anita."

"I know," I said.

"I told Cardinale about the last time something went wrong with me, and I honestly think she'd prefer me dead than with someone else. How can that be love, Anita? How can she prefer me insane and having to be killed like an animal to me sleeping with other people?"

Again, I had no good answer, so I said nothing. I rarely got in trouble saying nothing.

"Answer me, Anita. How is that love?"

Of course, not everyone will let you say nothing; sometimes they demand more than that, even when there's nothing good to say. "I don't know, Damian."

"You don't know, or you know that isn't love--it's obsession?"

"Since I'm the other woman as far as Cardinale is concerned, I'd rather not comment."

"She-Who-Made-Me didn't understand love, but she understood being obsessed with someone. She'd find someone among the prisoners or the would-be treasure

seekers who would come to the castle; like ordering pizza, the food comes to you." He laughed, but it was a bad sound, the kind of laughter that made you cringe or want to cry. "She'd pick one special person to tease and torment and maybe fuck. Sometimes they thought she loved them, but it was the kind of obsession that scientists feel for insects, so beautiful until you kill it, stuff it, and put a pin through it."

I fought not to point out that insects aren't stuffed, and not to ask if She-Who-Made-Him actually stuffed or pinned her victims. Neither comment would help the pain in his eyes, so I let them both go. I can be taught.

"You can't equate Cardinale with her," I said, finally.

"Why not? Maybe after so many centuries with She-Who-Made-Me, obsession is all I understand? What if that's what I saw in Cardinale? What if years of being tormented have made me mistake someone who wants to possess me for someone who wants to love me?"

"I don't even know what to say to that, Damian, except it's probably above my pay grade on the therapy scale and it sounds like a question for a real therapist."

He nodded. "Maybe it is."

"When do you get off work tonight?" I asked.

"Two hours before dawn."

"You and Cardinale live at the Circus, so you'll be heading that way anyway. We'll see you an hour before dawn."

"That won't give us much time."

"I'll fill Jean-Claude and Nathaniel in on everything, so we'll have less to explain."

"An hour is still not much time to solve the unsolvable," he said.

"Jean-Claude doesn't have to die at dawn, if I'm touching him, and you aren't dying at dawn. That gives us more time," I said.

He seemed to think about that, then nodded, putting his coat over the back of his chair so his hands were free. He stood there bare from the waist up, except for the blood that was beginning to dry on his back. "A bright side to this cursed sleep, then," he said.

"Most vampires are a little afraid of that moment when they die each day," I said.

"I think a part of me would be relieved to finally die for real."

"Are you thinking suicidal thoughts?" I asked, because you have to ask, or you won't know.

"No, I was raised to believe a death in battle meant a good afterlife, and I was fighting when She-Who-Made-Me took my life."

"You mean Valhalla and all that."

He grinned. "Yes, Valhalla and all that."

"So you count that moment as your death, and wouldn't count dying as a vampire now?" I asked, because it was me and I wanted to know.