Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [70]
We spilled back into the now, into the floor of my bathroom, into Richard’s hand on my arm. I started to look into his face, but Damian came to his knees, as if he would run toward something I couldn’t see. I wrapped my hands around his waist and chest. Nathaniel had a death grip on Damian’s arm. We held him, as if he could still run to Perrin’s fire and destroy himself. He was still screaming, “Nemhain, Nemhain, curse you!” He collapsed so suddenly that I’d have fallen back into the glass doors of the shower if Richard hadn’t caught me with a hand across my back. Nathaniel caught Damian around one shoulder, slowing his fall. Damian was still talking in a voice that was more sob than whisper, “Curse you, Nemhain, curse you.” He curled into a ball in my lap, pushing me hard into the curve of Richard’s arm. Nathaniel stroked Damian’s hair, over and over, the way you’d comfort a child.
He was still muttering her name, and literally cursing her, when the world suddenly drowned in fear. It was as if terror could become air and you had to breathe it in or you would die, but breathing it in was dying, too. It was all death. All fear. It roared through my head, thoughtless, formless, fear so pure that it stopped my heartbeat for a second, a hesitation, as if my heart would simply stop from fear. Dying of fright wasn’t just a saying. There was a breathless moment where I waited for my heart to decide whether it would beat again, or whether silence was better, anything to escape. Anything.
The support of Richard’s arm vanished, and I was left with the cold press of glass behind me, as if he’d closed the door to support me, so he wouldn’t have to touch me anymore.
My breath came out in a rattle, and my heart leaped in my chest, and hurt as if it had bruised itself against my body. My chest hurt, my throat hurt, and still the air was fear made real. Every breath seemed to draw her in deeper. Because it was a her. It was Nemhain, Moroven, Damian’s maker, and Perrin’s. It wasn’t just a superstition that you did not speak her name. Her name had conjured her power, brought us to her attention. I expected a voice to match the terror, but there was silence, a silence so loud that all I could hear was the beating of the blood in my veins. My heart thundering inside my body. Then I heard another heartbeat, faster, more frightened even than mine. How could he live so afraid?
I turned my head slowly, because I couldn’t do anything else. I made myself turn through the fear and look at Nathaniel. His eyes were so wide they flashed white, and he was gulping at the air as if he was having trouble breathing it down. As if he would choke on the fear.
Damian lay like the dead in my lap. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t breathing. There was no heartbeat to hear. The thought came, She’s taken what she gave him, but on the heels of that thought came another. He’s mine. I make his heart beat. I make the blood move in his veins. He’s mine. Not yours. Not anymore. Mine.
Nathaniel’s fingers dug into my arm, and he was gasping as if some invisible hand were choking off his air. I didn’t think that was really happening, but he was choking on the fear. Choking on her power. I met his terrified gaze and tried to say his name, tried to say anything, but no sound came out. I tried to call power, anything, but I couldn’t think. Fear had stolen my thoughts, my logic, my power. No, no, some small part of me knew that wasn’t true. She was just another vampire. Just another vampire. I was a necromancer. She could not do this to me. Part of me believed that, but most of me was fighting too hard to breathe to think at all.
If I’d had air enough, I’d have screamed. Not my fear, but my frustration. I didn’t know how to fight this. She wasn’t trying to mark any of us