His eyes widened as Justice shoved to his feet. He was still torturing his blood—that was obvious. But somehow, Justice was fighting through it. He held the knife in his hand.
“You can’t,” Jagger said.
Justice smiled, baring his teeth. His stomach was leaking even more blood than mine.
“I know,” he agreed. Then he spun around in a wild circle and, blurring his form, he flung the knife. It hit Jagger in the shoulder, just above the rocklike space where a heart would be if he had one.
I fell to my knees, gripping my shoulder.
The meat of it was torn with agony.
He hadn’t aimed! He hadn’t aimed at all! He was beating Jagger’s will by having no will at all.
Griff saw my agony and raced at Justice, trying to stop him, but Jagger threw him back.
“Fight me then,” Jagger said tauntingly, giving Justice permission to fight.
Winnie hovered at the edge of the black cloud. She tossed Justice another knife. He caught it and lunged at Jagger.
Swipe after swipe, cut after cut. I felt every single one. So did Justice. The more he cut Jagger, the more Justice bled.
Soon, I lay curled on the ground. A pool of blood soaked into the concrete. The horror’s dark reaches swarmed around me, tasting and sniffing. It was waiting for just the right moment to move in and swallow us all.
“If you kill him,” I called, my tongue thick, “we all die.”
“Good,” Justice snarled.
“But he won’t. He never dies.”
“I won’t,” Jagger boasted.
Justice smiled, looking into Jagger’s cold eyes. “Lie. I see your depravity. You are lie.” He swung his knife, arching it toward Jagger’s throat. It caught the soft gray flesh and tore across it.
Justice and Jagger fell at the same moment.
I was already on the ground.
My neck burned. I gasped for air. It leaked free before it could reach my lungs.
Across the dark, I heard a jackaltooth howl.
Griff screamed. It was the horrifying shriek of the Jersey Devil.
Justice stared at me, his cheek cushioned on the concrete. His face was turned toward me, and although one eye was swollen shut, I could read the emotion in him perfectly.
It’s me. I’m still me.
My lungs screamed for air. Even though I gasped, nothing reached them.
The wind shrieked, rushing in a tornado around us.
Jagger laughed, pushing himself upright.
He’d already healed.
He was stone, not man.
I blinked, keeping ahold of Justice’s pained gaze.
