No no no—
I thrust all my energy into my arms, but I can only manage a limp, ineffectual brush of my fingers against the man’s wrists. The drug made me helpless, and all I can do is scream inside my head, shrieking mutely against the vivid, intimate reality of my own death.
I’m engulfed by my killer’s ominous presence as he bows over me, his broad back shielding the audience from what he’s about to do.
His hand appears in front of my face. Slender masculine fingers wrapped around a knife, an ancient-looking silver weaponwith runes on it. My brain fixates on the thumbnail—pale pink, well-manicured. A flex of his thin wrist and the knife dips out of my sight.
Fire burns across my throat. Panic—hot liquid spilling out of me, spilling down my esophagus. Flames roaring through my neck, my head, lungs spasming, heart flying into an arrhythmic panic, throbbing loud, loud, louder, then stuttering as I choke, gargle, collapse to the ground.
I can smell the wet grass, the stony earth. A wisp of fog breathes wetly against my cheek. The voices falter, but they keep singing, slow and determined.Are you washed in the blood…
I think I hear a sob… I think it’s my dad.
I can heal faster than humans, and for half a second, I claw at that hope. But it’s a false one. I don’t heal fast enough to stop my life from leaking out.
Images flash through my mind—not pictures from my life but from the lives of all the people I’ve mourned. Because that has been my existence, bemoaning the absence of others. I’ve never had the chance to trulylivemyself. My life has always been about everyone else. And now it’s over. I’m done.
The injustice of that hurts worse than my family’s betrayal.
Something tingles on my hip, barely noticeable amid the pain and the quivering spasms of my dying brain.
And then a shift—the world slants, tipping me off its edge, out of my empty body.
A sickening drop into the dark.
I am floating, voiceless and sightless, in the great Nothing beyond the border of life.
I know that Iam. I know that Heathcliffis, that he exists still, somewhere, forever beyond my bodiless reach. And that knowledge is agony worse than the bite of any blade.
21
Heathcliff
I rise from the floor, my knees wet with blood and my hands trembling.
“Rockford was a longtime client of yours, wasn’t he?” I ask Hindley. “You guys were friends?”
Hindley doesn’t answer. Instead he walks over to the bar cart and grabs a decanter of whiskey, yanks out the stopper, and pours himself a glass.
“Never mind,” I mutter. “Just thought you might have some idea who would murder him.”
Except murder is too tame a word. This guy was butchered.
When Hindley and I got here, to a suburb just outside Augusta, Georgia, we had to force our way into the house. No one had found the body yet. The stench was goddamn awful, and there were actual chunks of him missing. This guy’s gonna have to rip out his carpet, throw out his furniture, and repaint his walls when he comes to, which should happen in just a few minutes.
I haven’t had such a tough job resurrecting someone since Ian.
Ian, the shapeshifter, the trickster. Found dead on Lockwoodisland, inside that revenant mansion, why, why? I’m missing something. Can’t quite grasp it.
The carpet squelches under my boot as I step backward, reeling from a sudden wave of weakness. At the same moment my eyes land on a small glob of squishy red flesh, just beneath the edge of the sofa.
Aw, fuck—
I run for the kitchen and vomit into the sink. My whole body is shaking, worn-out from pouring so much energy from myself into this guy just to bring him back. I’m gonna need a couple days to recover from this one.
Turning on the faucet, I rinse the sick down the drain. I wash my hands, my face, my goddamn neck and arms, every bit of exposed skin. I want a shower, but I gotta watch the guy and make sure he wakes up okay.
I stagger back to the living room and drop into a chair. Hindley passes me a glass of whiskey and I drink. I need it.
