Incubus Dreams

14

I woke to early morning sunlight. It left me blinking, and only after I could see through the warmdazzle of it, did I wonder, where am I? and why am I on the floor? Why was I naked on the floor? Without turning my head, I saw the chair legs and the little raised area that was my breakfast nook. Okay, I was in the floor of my own kitchen, naked. Why?

I heard the soft sounds of movement before I felt a hand brush mine. It seemed to take a lot of effort to look to my right, down my body, and see Nathaniel lying on the floor, more nude than I was. I still had the remnants of my tuxedo clinging to my legs. The tuxedo made me remember the wedding. I remembered talking to Micah after we got home. I remembered Micah had had to go out and save one of Richard’s wolves. I remembered theardeur rising and that something had gone wrong. I remembered that Damian had been there. He must have woken before we did and dragged himself down to his coffin. Trust the undead to recover quickest.

Someone groaned, and it wasn’t Nathaniel, and it wasn’t me.

I suddenly found I could turn my head, a lot quicker than I had before. Adrenaline will do that to you.

Damian lay on the floor, his upper body bathed in golden morning light, as if his white skin had been dipped in honey. Part of my mind registered the beauty of him, lying there in a pool of bloodred hair and golden light, but most of me was terrified. I was on my knees and grabbing for his leg before my body could argue. Nathaniel was beside me, and we jerked Damian out of the sunlight.

He was awake now; awake and screaming. He was out of the direct sunlight, but the kitchen faced east and north, and the room was bright with early morning light. Damian had backed into the cabinets, pressing his body into them as if he thought he could melt into them, and hide in the dark. I tried to take his arm, to get him to his feet, to get him out of the light, but he fought me. His hands were beating at his skin like someone covered in spiders, trying to bat away their darkest fears, when those fears are crawling on their body. But sunlight isn’t spiders, and you can’t brush it off of you.

I grabbed a flailing wrist and held on. I yelled above the screaming, “Nathaniel, help me!”

Nathaniel fought for a grip on the other arm, and we pulled the vampire out of the light and into the curtained dimness of the living room. He didn’t stop screaming. Even when we put him up against the wall, in the cool near-dark, he still shrieked. The moment we let go of his hands, he started beating at his skin again, as if he were putting out invisible fire.

But it shouldn’t have been invisible flame. I’d seen a vampire burn in sunlight, and they flash burned, hot white flames, like magnesium. There was nothing invisible about it. They burned, and if they didn’t get out of the light, they melted, even bone. It takes a hot fire to melt bone, but vamps in sunlight burn good.

Nathaniel was kneeling, trying to comfort Damian, to hold him, to just get him to stop swatting at things we couldn’t see. I stared down at Damian and tried to think past the fear that was choking me. I was choking on Damian’s terror. I couldn’t think past it. I could barely breathe past it. I threw up shields, put metal in my mind against his fear, and tried to think. I looked down at Damian’s white skin, and there was not a blister, not even a red spot. He wasn’t burned. He wasn’t burning. I didn’t know why not. He should have burst into flames the moment the sunlight touched him, but he hadn’t, and if he hadn’t burned with the sunlight drowning him, then he wasn’t going to burn here, in the dark.

I could hear the phone ringing in the other room, but it was dim over the sound of Damian’s screams. For once I let it ring. If it was the police, they’d call back. If it was a friend, they’d call back. If it was another emergency, it could wait. One disaster at a time.

I knelt in front of him and tried to talk over the awful screaming. “Damian, Damian, you’re safe. You’re okay. You’re not burning.” I put my hands on either side of his face and screamed back at him, “Safe, you’re safe!”

His eyes stayed wide, the pupils like pinpoints. He wasn’t hearing anything. It was like shock, but worse. If it had been an old movie, I’d have slapped him, but I wasn’t sure that would help. What do you do with a hysterical vampire? What do you do with a hysterical anybody?

The front door burst open behind us. My eyes were dazzled by the sunlight that spilled over us. Gregory, one of my leopards, stepped out of that blaze of light. I don’t know what I would have said, because Damian let out a sound that was beyond a scream. It was a sound that should never have come from a human throat. He was up and moving like a white and red blur, darting farther into the house, out of the warm blaze of light.

Nathaniel followed him in that faster-than-the-eye-can-see speed that shapeshifters have, and they’d both turned the corner before I got to it. I expected to see the basement door open, but it wasn’t.

Movement up the stairs caught my eye, and I saw Nathaniel clear the last step and vanish down the hall. In his panic, Damian had run up, not down, up into the part of the house where the vampires rarely went. Up into the part of the house where the drapes were open and the morning light streamed in. Shit.