Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [183]
“Richard, make the zombie stop feeding on me.”
“I don’t know how,” and he was gone, crashing through the trees, but it wasn’t friendly now, or joyous.
The zombie bit me, hard, and damn it, it hurt. “Requiem, get him off of me.”
The vampire moved around so he could touch the zombie’s face and hands, but nothing holds on like a zombie. I’d had to help clean up other people’s zombies that had gone wrong, and sometimes you had to cut them apart a finger at a time to get them to let go of someone. Human teeth could still bite deep enough to sever a vein or artery. I wanted him off of me.
Requiem tried to pry him off, but he finally looked up at me. “I can pull him apart in pieces, but I cannot pull him off of you.”
I looked at the very bodyguarding werewolf and called him over. He came, face serious, hands behind his back, as if he didn’t exactly trust himself not to touch me again. Did I smell of wolf and forest, or was it the fresh blood? Don’t ask unless you want to know. I didn’t want to know.
The zombie plunged his tongue into the wound, as if he were trying to get the blood to flow faster. It hurt, and it surprised me, and I screamed, a little scream, but enough that one of the lawyers called, “Are you alright, Ms. Blake?”
“Fine,” I called back, “fine.” Mustn’t let the clients know that the zombie you raised for them is beginning to eat you. Fuck!
Using every ounce of strength he had, Graham was able to pry one finger off of my wrist, but he had to hold on to that finger, or it curled right back into place. “He shouldn’t be this strong.”
“You’ve never tried to fight zombies, have you?” I said.
He gave me wide eyes. “If they’re this strong, I don’t want to.”
“They’re not just strong, they don’t feel pain.”
“Anita, I can tear his fingers off,” Requiem said, “or break his jaw, but other than those extremities, I have no other suggestions.”
The bad part was, neither did I. The zombie bit me harder, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he hit something major. He was digging his teeth in deeper by the tiniest of increments, but eventually it was going to get bad, and I was no longer sure what would happen if a gush of fresh blood hit its mouth. I’d seen what flesh-eating zombies could do to people. I wasn’t exactly human, but I wouldn’t grow back a hand if you ripped it off.
We could burn him up, but he wouldn’t let go, and I’d burn with him. Shit.
Richard was sitting in a clearing under a tangle of naked limbs. “I have to shut the link between us, Anita. I have to. I can’t separate myself from the zombie. I keep feeling what he’s doing. Keep wanting him to find more blood.” He cradled his face in his hands, and he’d lost his shirt somewhere, so that his back was bowed and naked as the trees overhead. “I’m sorry, Anita, I tried, I really tried.”
“It’s okay, Richard, we’ll do what we can from here. Go take care of yourself.”
He looked up, and there were tears shining in the starlight. “I’m supposed to take care of you.”
“It’s a partnerhsip, Richard, we’re supposed to take turns helping each other.”
He shook his head. “I fucked this up, Anita, I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him say fuck when he wasn’t referring to sex.
“Go, Richard, go back to your folks’ house. They’ll be worried.”
The zombie bit hard enough that I screamed, and Richard was suddenly gone. He cut the tie so abruptly that it staggered me, and only Requiem’s and Graham’s hands kept me from falling.
“Anita!” Graham said, and he lost his grip on the zombie, trying to keep me standing. But the hands on my wrists eased.
I looked down at the kneeling zombie, and the eyes were filling up. There was personality there, someone home. I’d been stupid. Richard had