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 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.