She looked disturbed by that. Davy snorted to himself as he paused to scan the crowd for Reynold’s. It was a good thing Trudy didn’t know what he’d been doing to her kid recently. She’d really hate him calling her ‘mom’.
There. He caught sight of Reynolds on the stairs, struggling briefly with Greg, who’d realized it was now or never. The huge swags of cloth and bauble garlands that decorated the bannister helped disguise the brief tussle that ended with Greg pale and sweaty as he was shoved up the last few steps.
Davy nudged his new sidekick and pointed in that direction. As they reached the bottom of the stairs a sudden crack of sound cut through the chatter of the party. People glanced around and headed for the doors, peering up at the sky for the smear of colored lights from fireworks.
Of course that’s what they thought it was. When you hear hooves, think horses not zebras. At a party, think fireworks not gunshots.
Unless you had the context to know the gunshot was more likely.
Trudy had been around Fraser long enough to recognise the noise too. She bolted up the stairs, all long legs and heels, before Davy could stop her. As he followed her the the Beyond smeared suddenly into view. Glitchy and staticky as it faded in and out.
He saw a Hound.
The cowed and muzzled dead as they shied back and muttered.
Hill. Davy looked around quickly. Hill had to be close for Davy to peek through the Veil again, but…
It was gone again.
Davy’s tentacles slapped out at whatever he’d just lost sight of. He could feel the agitation feedback down them as tension in his arms and across his spine.
“What?” Trudy asked as she looked back him. She was tense, caught between him and her anxiety about what had happened upstairs. “What is it?”
Davy clenched his jaw and breathed out through his nose.
“Nothing we can do anything about,” he muttered. “Come on, let’s deal with what we can.”
Hill had raised the dead all on his own; Davy just had to hope that he could survive them as well.
Chapter Nineteen
Dec 24, 10.40pm
It was to hardto think while dying.
…blisters popped on the backs of her hands as she fumbled at the window. She was crying, but the heat of the flames dried them on her lashes before they could cool her cheeks. Smokestung her nose and eyes. Every breath made her lungs crackle like bacon…
The Hound yanked Hill’s lead, and that—at least—was something to do that wasn’t…
…the world had narrowed down to the beep of the machines and the strange, forced pressure of air in his lungs. Even the soft murmur of his wife’s voice as she filled him in about people he didn’t know, whose lives he’d forgotten, had fallen silent. Maybe she’d left. He was mostly dead already. He could feel it spread through him like rot despite the machines and the drugs' attempts to ward it off.
He stumbled along behind the big, dog-headed man, vaguely aware that the rest of the pack hung around their heels to watch the woods suspiciously. The thing was…
…earth underfoot instead of stone. It crumbled and he fell. For a second it felt like flight, then he bounced off the first spur and felt his ribs give.
Hill had spent his life working out how to function through things thatfeltlike he was dying. He hadn’t been, but it had felt just as real and overwhelming as the…
…warmth. Softness. Milk. A sound that wasn’t a heartbeat, but felt the same. It had hurt a little, but now it didn’t and…
That one made Hill stagger. It was the firstkinddeath, the first that hadn’t been shackled about with fear and resistance. It felt like he could have sunk into it and given up.
He wasn’t sure, as he went down to his knees on the wet mulch, that he should have fought it. Davy wasn’t here. Fraser’s money or his mom’s connections couldn’t help him. What happened to polters to take them from a danger to useful?
“Up,” the Hound on the other end of the bridle snarled. He twisted it hard and the bit sank sharp, broken molars into Hill’s already ragged tongue.
…she screamed
Hill got his hand under him…
