Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #21)

CLAUDIA CAME FROM one entrance and Domino came from the other. He ran a hand through his short black-and-white curls and asked, "What happened?"

I was straddling Nicky's body, pumping on his chest, trying to get his heart to beat. I said, "I don't know."

Claudia used her cell phone to call for the doctor on call. She turned off the water as Domino checked Nicky's neck for a pulse. "Shit," he said.

"I know," I said, and I was on the verge of tears. I screamed his name, and rose up above his body, hands wrapped together to make one bigger fist, and pounded down on that big barrel of a chest. "Breathe, damn you, breathe!"

If it had been any of the other people that I was metaphysically connected to, I could have shared energy with him, but he was my Bride, which meant the energy only went one way. I could draw off him, but I couldn't give him energy automatically. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

I opened my link with Jean-Claude. I got a confused glimpse of him and Asher on the bed. He was stroking Asher's hair, cuddling after the sex. I opened myself wide, and I asked wordlessly, letting him feel what was happening, so there wasn't any need to use words. I asked for help, I asked for ideas, I screamed in my mind, "Nicky!"

Jean-Claude rose up in my mind, leaving the bed and Asher lying on his stomach behind him, to sit up, and look at me. "Ma petite..."

"Help him!"

Claudia said, "We're trying."

I didn't waste time telling her that I wasn't talking to her. Domino was one of my tigers to call; he knew what I was doing, because he could feel it. He knelt by Nicky's head and put his hands on the other man's shoulders.

Jean-Claude gave me memories of Belle Morte straddling a man's body. She damn near glowed with energy, her skin not vampire pale, but almost human-flushed. The vampire under her was paler than death. I knew that Jean-Claude and Asher were seeing her kill one of her Brides.

I knew that they were coming this way, but it didn't matter. Jean-Claude didn't have any idea how to help Nicky.

The medics were here. Domino helped lift me off Nicky, and then helped them move him out of the showers and into the locker room. I followed them, but had to stay in the doorway to the showers, because there wasn't room for more people in the locker room. They laid him on a pad by the bench where we'd made love. The second doctor had the paddles of the defibrillator ready and charged. One of our nurses, who had patched me up before for minor stuff, started putting pads and leads on his chest.

The doc with the paddles called, "Ready!"

Everyone called, "Clear!"

Nicky's body twitched with the charge. The nurse checked for his pulse. The doctor was already charging the paddles again. The male doctor said, "Again."

She hit him again with a stronger jolt. I could smell a little whiff of burning flesh.

"Again!"

I huddled in the doorway and prayed, "Please, God, please save him. Don't let him die, please! Please!"

Nicky gave a huge, gasping breath. His eye opened wide, face frightened, like he'd woken from a nightmare to find it was real. He flailed out at the doctors, knocking one into the wall, but it was as if he had no strength to fight.

I pushed through to him. "Nicky, Nicky, it's me."

He saw me, and I watched the comprehension fill his face. His expression got less frantic, and he tried to reach for my hand, but I had to finish the gesture and take his in mine. He couldn't even wrap his fingers completely around my smaller hand, as if even that were too much. I cradled his big hand in both of mine, and held it against my chest, over my bare breasts.

The doctor was kneeling on the other side of him, listening to his heart with a stethoscope. He seemed to like what he was hearing. "It's slow, but steady; what happened to him?"

I shook my head, and realized tears were sliding down my cheeks. It was more like I was leaking than crying, as if it would happen totally without me. "I don't know. We were having sex, and then he just collapsed. His heart stopped and I couldn't get it started again."

"How do you feel?" the doctor was asking Nicky, but if he heard the doctor it didn't show. Nicky just kept looking at me as if I were the only real thing in the room.

"Nicky," I said, "can you hear me?"

He swallowed as if something hurt, and whispered, "Yes."

"The doctor asked, how do you feel?"

He frowned and looked around as if just now seeing the other people; again, as if I were the only solid thing in the room to him. He wasn't well yet; whatever had happened hadn't been instantly fixed.

"Ask him how he feels," the doctor said.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

He frowned harder. "Bad, weak."

I leaned over and kissed his fingers where they were still too limp in my hand. He gave me a small smile.

"What's the last he remembers?" the doctor asked.

I repeated the question.

"Sex, amazing sex," and this time his smile was wider and happier, but he still looked confused, as if something hurt, or was still not right.

I smiled back at him. "It was a-fucking-mazing sex," I said.

That made him grin, and it was mild compared to his usual, but it was a step in the right direction. Just seeing the grin helped ease a tightness in my chest that I hadn't realized was there.

Jean-Claude came into the room as far as the crowd of medics and guards would let him. I knew he was there before I looked up and saw him with my eyes. His face was beautiful and unreadable, but I knew the set of his shoulders, that particular stillness to his face - he knew something about what had happened to Nicky, and he was afraid I wouldn't like it.

The doctor said, "Can he stand, or do we need a stretcher?"

Nicky said he could stand, but Domino and I had to catch him as his knees buckled. If he'd had a belt to hold on to, it would have been easier to hold him up, but he was still naked. Domino had to take most of his weight, and I struggled to keep up my side. I was just too damn short. Claudia came in on the other side of him, and I let her take my place. She didn't have any problem helping Domino keep Nicky up and moving out of the locker room. I started to follow, but Jean-Claude was standing against the wall just outside. He was wearing the bottoms of silk pajamas in a sky blue that almost matched Asher's eyes. I wondered if Asher was wearing the top part of the jammies. Jean-Claude's curls still had that tousled just-been-fucked look.

"You know something," I said, and I couldn't keep it from sounding accusatory.

"I do," he said, voice as neutral as his face.

"Talk," I said.

"Not here, ma petite."

"Where?" I said, and again I knew it sounded angry.

"Asher's room or ours."

"Why Asher's room?" I asked.

"Because I am a fool." It was Asher. He'd been standing in the shadows at the end of the corridor. Either he'd been so still I hadn't seen him, or I was so upset about Nicky that I wasn't noticing things, like vampires standing in the shadows. Good thing I wasn't at work.

"If you want an argument about the fool thing, I'm not in the mood," I said. I crossed my arms under my breasts and realized I was still nude. I'd sort of forgotten. I had a moment of thinking about being embarrassed about it, and then thought, Screw it. Nicky had almost died, and the two vampires knew something about what had gone wrong with the ardeur, because that had been what happened. I thought I had the ardeur all controlled, and now I'd almost killed Nicky by accident. Fuck.

Asher stepped more into the light, his hair a mass of gold that seemed to gather the light to it as he moved closer. He was wearing a robe I'd seen on him before. It was gold threaded with blue and silver embroidery heavy across almost every piece of cloth. Only the edging of pale fur was free of decoration, though I guess the fur was decoration, so did you decorate the decoration? Even as I thought it, it made no sense. My mouth was healed completely; physically I felt energized and almost humming with power. Mentally I was somewhere between angry, depressed, and lost. What the hell had happened between Nicky and me? What had I done wrong?

"Let me get my weapons and something to put on, and then either room. I just want to know what is making you both act like little boys who got caught." Neither of them argued about me calling them little boys who had got caught; it was not a good sign. It meant that there was something for at least one of them to feel guilty about.