without realizing it. The smell was stronger here, unpleasant, but fading. When the skin and wounds were completely cleaned, the flesh was whole, and bright red blood welled into the slashes.
Cherry flashed the room a smile so warm and bright that you had to smile back. "He's going to be all right." She sounded surprised, and I wondered how close it had been.
Someone drew a hissing breath. I turned to the sound. Damian was backing up. He was staring at his hands. That pale, milky skin was turning dark, a blackness flowing under the skin. The flesh of his hands began to peel back while we watched.
14
"Shit," I said.
Damian held his hands out to me like a child that had burned its hand. I didn't know which was worse, the terror in his face or the almost resigned look in his eyes.
I shook my head. "No," I said, but my voice was soft. "No," I said it again, louder, stronger.
"You cannot stop it," Asher said.
Damian stared at the darkening flesh of his hands, soft horror on his face. "Help me," he said, and he looked to me.
I stared down at him and didn't have the faintest idea how to save him. "What can we do?" I said.
"I know you are accustomed to riding in on your white steed and saving the day, Anita, but some battles cannot be won," Asher said.
Damian had gone to his knees staring at his hands. He ripped his shirt off in pieces, leaving remnants of the sleeves on his arms. The rotting flesh was halfway to his elbows. A fingernail split and fell to the floor with a burst of something dark and noisome. The smell was back, sweet and sickly.
"I healed Damian once of a facial cut," I said.
Damian made a sound between a laugh and something more bitter. "I didn't nick myself shaving, Anita." He shifted his gaze from the peeling flesh of his hands to me. "Even you can't heal this."
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