Anita Blake

It's one of those blows that you simply don't get up from immediately. The impact with the wall jars Damian enough that he doesn't stand, but slides down the wall to the floor in a heap.

The instinct is to rise and attack again -- and instinct is all that rules Damian at the moment -- but it takes time, and that gives the others in the room time to react and anticipate.

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anita_blake

Anita rolls to her feet and takes the moment's pause to assess the situation. She'd thrown Damian clear of everyone else in the room, but unfortunately, that put him closest to the open front door. She hopes that the vampire's instinct to avoid the sun would negate that as an escape option, but hope and $3.95 will buy you a latte.

She starts edging her way around the room toward the door, ready to cut off that avenue of motion should Damian manage to overcome that instinct. She doesn't know why Damian isn't burning in the sun, let alone awake this early in the day, but she does know that the last thing they needed was a revenant vampire marauding in the middle of the day. That would lead to an order of execution being issued, and then Anita would have to kill Damian. That's simply unacceptable to her.

She's almost at the door, reaching out to slam it when the hair on the back of her neck stands up and she realizes that Damian is looking right at her.

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There is that moment of stillness from Damian once again, the calm before the storm.

From his crouched position next to the wall, he charges once again. The terror that the sunlight inspires in him only adds to the madness, oddly negating the need to get out of the bright rays and into some dark, safe haven.

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Richard was moving almost as soon as Damian moved, but he wasn't close enough to get between Damian and Anita. Instead he chose to crash into the vampire, taking them both down to the floor trying to pin him.

Edited Date: 2009-10-04 08:09 pm (UTC)

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anita_blake

She hears Richard scream and rushes over to them. Damian's mouth is buried in Richard's chest -- the werewolf hadn't managed to isolate Damian's head when he'd tackled, and was paying the price.

Anita kneels down beside them and reaches in for Damian's jaw, trying to pry the fangs loose from Richard's skin.

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Richard should know better. Theoretically at least. But between everything happening and the pain he doesn't think, just reacts. He counters Damian's bite by wrapping his hand in the vampires hair and pulling him off. He uses a a good amount of his strength to do it too, leaving a how in his upper chest near his shoulder, not just in the shirt but in his flesh and muscle too.

The most imediate show that it was a stupid thing to do is that the arm pinning Damian's shoulder goes limp and he's now struggling to hold the vampire away from him just by that red hair.

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anita_blake

Anita quickly pushes down on Damian's shoulder. Between that and Richard's grip on Damian's hair, they're able to hold Damian at bay, even if they can't pin him to the floor completely.

She finally hits upon a better idea. "I'm going to put an arm around his neck and control his head," she explains to Richard, moving quickly behind the vampire. She looks down at Richard's hand on the back of Damian's head and remembers for the first time that she's still naked, and that if she does this, it'll put Richard's hand right between her breasts. It's not as embarrassing a thought as it might once have been, but it still takes an effort not to blush.

Anita takes a deep breath and moves quickly, because if Damian sensed her arm before it was fully around his neck, there was no way Richard could move fast enough to stop the vampire from biting down. Her arm slides across Richard's blood on Damian's throat, but before she can get it into position, she gasps as she feels Jean-Claude waking.

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His eyes snap open, and he sucks in a deep breath of air as life returns to his cold body. It's earlier than it should be, he realizes even before reaching over to Asher's body beside him and finding it still lifeless and stiff. There's a brief moment of confusion at that until he recalls that when Asher had returned to the Circus, he'd helped Jean-Claude return Byron to his room to recover and then had curled up beside Jean-Claude for the day.

He feels the surge of power in his head from Anita and frowns. What have you done, ma petite? he asks her, mostly rhetorically. The events of the previous night are still fresh in his mind, and even he isn't entirely certain what they mean.

Edited Date: 2009-10-04 08:48 pm (UTC)

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Spitting out flesh and blood, Damian twists in Richard's grasp as much as possible and lunges at Anita again. He doesn't really see hands moving or feel the pain at his scalp from where his hair is pulled in order to keep him from sinking his teeth into Anita. All he feels is the blind urge to attack, even as Anita and Richard both manage to grip him at hair and neck.

Mouth wide and fangs straining, he tries to bite but makes no effort at finding the weak points in his opponents.

From:

anita_blake

Anita knows inside Damian's head is no rational thought. There is nothing human in Damian's mind, nothing vampire, either. She's not even sure 'animal' could be applied to him. Anita struggles with Richard to keep Damian from hurting anyone else -- and it isn't just Richard and her, but Gregory and Nathaniel and anyone else should Damian get out.

If this were two hundred, three hundred years ago, Anita knows exactly what words she would have chosen. Demon. Possessed. Damned.

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Damned is precisely what he will be if you cannot save him, Jean-Claude tells her. He knows she's distracted by fighting with Damian; he's opened his awareness of her enough to sense what's going on. But he feels this was an important thing to point out.

From:

anita_blake

Anita finally gets her arm completely around Damian's throat and braced against her other arm. She feels Richard letting go of Damian's hair by the way his hand slides out from between her breasts.

The instant Richard lets go, though, Damian springs to his feet, picking Anita up and carrying her along as he pins Richard to the floor. She has neither the weight nor the leverage in this position to do much of anything except possibly break Damian's neck. She's hesitant to do that because she's not entirely certain he could heal that level of damage, or, for that matter, survive it. Decapitation would kill just about any vampire out there; would breaking the spinal cord at the neck count?

Richard has his good arm against Damian's chest, but it's already beginning to shake and buckle. Anita looks around and finds Nathaniel and Gregory at the foot of the stairs. "Nathaniel!" she yells, and the leopard rushes to her side, pulling on Damian's arm.

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It's a distraction that draws Damian's attention, and ta-da! He has a new target. His earlier injuries have healed and his speed is restored. One second he is struggling atop Richard, and the next he has Nathaniel on the floor. The only thing that keeps him from ripping into the wereleopard is a shift of Anita's weight that staggers him enough for Nathaniel to get his arms up and a leg between them.

There is a snarl and more struggling, blood spraying from his ravenous mouth.

From:

nathaniel_kitten

Nathaniel stares up at Damian with wide eyes, at the bloody, dangerous mouth that he's kissed so often. There's nothing there when he pokes the connection between them that even feels like Damian, and that's confirmed at he stares into the vampire's eyes.

His arms and leg strain to keep Damian off him, to keep those deadly teeth from his throat. "Damian," he all but whimpers, already aching and tired and ready to be done with this.

From:

anita_blake

This was getting downright ridiculous.

Hanging onto Damian, Anita just feels this wash of hopelessness. What the hell was she supposed to do? Riding the vampires back as Damian tries to kill their people wasn't changing anything, but Anita herself is low on ideas. She makes a mental note to teach Nathaniel how to fight, though she's glad between the two of them, they can keep Damian off the wereleopard.

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The bond between you and Damian is damaged, ma petite. You must repair it if you are to calm him.

Jean-Claude opens the marks as wide as he can, letting both Anita and Richard have what strength they can draw from them. It is all he can do at the moment, given that the sun is still hours from setting.

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Richard's movements are a little stiff, a little slow from the pain and the loss of one arm. Though Jean-Claude's offered strength helps to as he moves to wrap his good arm around Damian's waist, helping Anita to pull him off of Nathaniel. He's not liking the no use of one arm, not that it seems to be so much harder to pin Damian than it should be.

From:

anita_blake

With both Nathaniel and Richard sitting on Damian, Anita wraps her arms around his throat again, curling her body around his neck to provide extra weight to control his head. Without the others there, Damian could simply have sat up and taken her with him, but three against one was finally enough to give them some control.

"What do you mean, I've damaged the bond?" she asks Jean-Claude aloud, earning her a quizzical look from Nathaniel.

You are shielding against him, Jean-Claude replies in her head. Why is that?

"He woke up in the sunlight, and it terrified him. Nathaniel and I could both feel it, and it was choking us."

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Jean-Claude lays back onto the bed, conserving his energy as much as he can so that those who need it more right now can have it. Still, his fingers brush across Asher's back, idly tracing along the muscles as he thinks. If he concentrates, he can also feel the itching in the back of his mind that represents a knot of mindless fear. Knowing that Nathaniel felt it as well clears up a great deal.

Ah, he answers. I think I begin to understand what has happened to us all. Not how or why, mind you, but what.

From:

anita_blake

"Ahead of you on that one," Anita says through gritted teeth. Damian bucks before she can continue, and it's only because of the other two men slamming him back down that she doesn't go flying. The breath gets knocked out of her, though, so she thinks the other half of her reply. They're part of our triumvirate now.

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"I heard that," Richard murmured with breathless exertion as he puts all his strength and effort to helping keep Damian pinned. There's a note just under the exertion, faint and barely there. Color him not the happiest by the little turn of events.

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