Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [48]
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 triumverate. 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 that when it went, 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