With a lurch, I tumble back into myself, and I drop Cathy’s soul into her body.
Air like knives, sharp with cold, stabbing my skin. But the rain has stopped.
Mud cakes my knees, layered over Rockford’s blood. I’m shivering, weakness hollowing out my limbs. I’m unnaturally strong, but two resurrections in a row has destroyed me.
At least the dragging weight on my spirit is gone. Maybe I imagined it. And if not, I’m too exhausted to worry about what it was, or what it means.
My overtaxed body pitches forward, nearly collapsing on top of Cathy—but I manage to haul myself upright, keeping my palms on both tattoos. I have to heal that slash across Cathy’s throat. A small wound, thankfully—it closes in a few seconds, taking the last wisp of my energy.
Cathy’s lashes blink apart, and she stares up at me wonderingly. “Heathcliff?”
“Princess,” I rasp.
“You brought me back.” She sits up, touching her throat. “You…fixed me. You’re a…”
“Necromancer.” The word feels heavy on my tongue.
“Thank fuck,” she breathes, and I can’t help smiling. “They sacrificed me, Heathcliff,” she exclaims, betrayal and fear in her eyes. “They took away my phone and poisoned me, and then the church sacrificed me so my blood would seal the god away forever.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I mutter. “Sacrifice always strengthens the gods. If the Lockwoods ever got through the barrier, that’s where they planned to start—lots of blood sacrifices.”
“Well…that’s what Edgar said. That my death would lock the god away for good. It was horrible.” She blinks, gives a broken sob, and brushes away the tears flooding her eyes. But more tears are spilling out, and she sobs again. “I’m—I’m so upset about it, but it’s not just that. It’s…something else… Oh god, it’s…god, I keep hearing your name in my head, and it makes me want to cry…” Her gaze flashes up to mine, realization fracturing her eyes. “Heathcliff Lockwood, you fucking idiot. You’re dying.”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she says savagely. “I’m a banshee. Iknow. How could you do this to yourself? Howcouldyou? I hate you! I fucking hate you!”
She grips the slick fabric of my shirt, hauls me close, claws me to herself. Her thin fingers arch against my back, nails digging into my flesh as if she could keep me here by sheer force of will. We’re shivering, dripping, wrapped together in a mess of slick, cold limbs and chattering teeth.
I want to kiss her, but my body is too heavy for me to hold up anymore. I’m sinking, slipping from her arms, collapsing to the ground beside her.
“You moron,” she gasps between sobs. “You wretched, wretched man. You killed yourself saving me. Don’t you realize how fucking stupid that is?”
“I’m so…fucking…stupid,” I agree. My eyes are closing. I wish they wouldn’t. I want to see her. “You’ll be all right,” I manage.
“I willnot. Don’t you do this, Heathcliff. Don’t you give me everything like some—damn—movie—hero!” She’s pounding my chest in sync with her words. “I won’t let you.” Her voice cracks. “I fucking love you.”
At first I think those words will be the last thing I hear. But as my mind dissolves, I hear one more sound.
A wild, primal wail of grief soaring from Cathy’s throat into the night.
22
Cathy
I scream.
I scream until the trees around the clearing groan with the force of my voice. I scream until Old Sheldon Church quakes. I howl my grief to the sky like some monster of the old world, like a demented herald of death.
I can’t stop shrieking, crying, sobbing. Can’t save him. I know he’s still breathing, but he’s slipping away so fast. I’ll feel it when he goes.
I’m already getting flashes of his life…the scenes, the names, and the emotions, all in one overwhelming torrent. His adoptive father, Buckland, grinning and ruffling his hair. Fights with his brother, Hindley, and some Lockwood cousins. When they were younger, the cousins teamed up with Hindley to torture Heathcliff, yet as adults, Hindley expected Heathcliff to take his side in disputes. And through it all, Heathcliff rarely used his supernatural strength. Rough as he seems, he’s gentle at heart. Not a fighter unless he has to be. Unless something he values deeply is at stake. I see him fighting four men in the graveyard so he could reach my body. Killing every one of them.
More flashes of his life, each one a split second, but they’re all imprinted in glaring high-definition in my brain. Resurrections that caused him horrible agony because he had to complete them in tandem with Hindley. Resurrections he completed in secret, so he could earn the money to take me away from here. One resurrection that disturbed him deeply—a body burnt beyond recognition—and I don’t see the face because the memories move on, to a day decades ago when a very small Heathcliff resurrected a dog that had been smashed by a car. I see Buckland Lockwood approaching him, bending down: “Come with me.” And Heathcliff did. Back still further—glimpses of a past his conscious mind doesn’t remember. A woman stirring sauce. Several men clustered together, voices raised in argument. A dim, shabby room, where Heathcliff lay on a thin blanket while a woman cradled his head in her lap, singing softly in Italian. Her name floats just out of my reach. Heathcliff doesn’t know it, not even in the distant recesses of his mind—she was simplyMammato him.
A long, keening sob issues from my throat as I bow over him. My fingers flutter over his mouth, trying to feel his breath.
I’ve grieved so many times, as deeply as if the grief were mine. But this grief has sharper edges. It lacerates my heart and lungs with every inhale, every sob.
