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“What dreams?” Rookwood asked, but he knew. The same dreams that rocketed around inside his skull every time he settled down on his cot. The red-tinted, hot, squirming little dreams that filled his mouth with saliva and the fresh copper tang, instead of the pale, dead substitute he held the Thirst off with.
God, yes, he knew. Did she want the bad news now or later?
Later, Rook. After she’s paid you.
She shook her head. “If you’re going to treat me like I’m stupid—”
His entire mouth ached, and the crackling in his jaw was clearly audible. He leaned forward into the desk lamp’s glow, knowing it would etch the shadows on his face even deeper. It would gleam along the lines of the sharpening, lengthening canines and fill his eyes with a flat, reflective shine. He hadn’t had his daily dose, and she smelled good—except for the edge of burning to the scent of woman, perfume, and red salt copper.
The edge of burning that tainted his own smell.
His lips peeled back from his teeth. She choked on whatever she’d intended to say next. Under the splash of car tires outside was a nervous, high thudding; it was her pulse tearing through the air of the room and touching his sensitive eardrums.
His mouth ached fiercely as he pulled the Thirst back, the rope he held it on fraying as the sun slipped away over the horizon. His canines retracted, too, his jaw crackling once again. When he was sure he wouldn’t cut his tongue on the sharp edges, he spoke. “The dreams don’t ever stop. But if my . . .” The words stuck in his throat. “If my treatment is successful, they won’t get any worse—and neither will you. That I can promise you, Mrs. King.”
Her rib cage almost fluttered with sharp, sipping breaths. The sweat along the curves of her throat stood out in diamond drops. Her shirt was now damp, and the fresh wave of clove-tinted scent about knocked him sideways.
He’d always wondered what would happen if someone with his particular problem came along. It would be a key to the bigger problem, of course. But he’d wondered what the Thirst might do.
“Am I going to look like . . . that?” She stared at him as though he’d just done something obscene.
Well, he just had. Hadn’t he?
“I don’t know.” He pressed his fingertips together. His mouth didn’t want to work right, wanted to slur the words around as if he were drunk. The Thirst pressed its sharp prickles against the inside of his throat. Soon it would spread over his whole body, and only the red stuff would make it retreat. “But I’ll give you some advice. Get some raw meat from the supermarket and suck on it. The bloodier the better, or tell your butcher you want blood for blood pudding. It’s the only thing that kills that feeling in your throat, and it quiets the dreams down, at least for a while. And that’s all you’re getting for free, Mrs. King.”
Yeah, he was a son of a bitch. But he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.
Shady Hope Cemetery and Remembrance Home wasn’t hallowed ground, for all they buried people here and spoke empty words over them. Hallowed ground would have made the dead sleep a little more quietly.
As it was, anything could rise from these graves. In the last six months, Rookwood had gained a thorough education in just how weird and fluid the borders between life and undeath were and an even more thorough education in how someone who didn’t mind a little weirdness could possibly make a living around the edges.
But this was the prize. This was the thing he’d been waiting for since that night of blood and screaming and Chisholm’s fangs in his throat.
As soon as he stepped on the grounds he smelled it, the dry burning rat-fur reek of particular contamination. He’d grown used to the varied and insanely ugly smells drifting across his nasal receptors at the slightest provocation, ever since he’d fought off—
Don’t think about that. You’re on a job, you’ve taken the nice lady’s money, let’s get this dog-and-pony show started.
Caution was called for. It could be a trap.
He stayed where he was, boots planted solidly on wet concrete. Behind him, the yellow-painted bar that was supposed to keep out cars and people rattled in the rain-soaked wind. His sweatshirt jacket was already soaked through.
The cold meant nothing. He was used to it. He still ran at a perfect 98.6, but external changes in temperature had ceased to matter as the Thirst got stronger. Tiny increments of burning inched through him every day, nibbling at the edges of his sanity.
That was another mental road he didn’t want to go down. Instead, he decided the cemetery was safe enough and got to work.
Amelia’s hand-drawn map was exact, committed to memory, and destroyed. He’d also spent a little time looking at satellite photos of the cemetery’s green mournfulness. It would have given him the shivers to s
ee how anyone with a laptop and a connection could cruise the city, but the things no satellite photo would show were still safe.
Like the thing he was hunting. Or the things that had made the widow’s dearly beloved into a monster.
The grave was right where she’d said it would be. He read the name in the wet, dim glimmer, a nice white marble headstone. The widow certainly hadn’t skimped.
Rookwood stood a good three or four feet away from where the corpse’s feet would rest and sniffed deeply at the wet air.
The smell was fading. Mr. King was out visiting. When he came back home, he’d find a surprise.
A faint smile clung to Rookwood’s face, his flesh stiff against the bones. He took the last few steps forward, set the edge of the shovel against the wet turf, and began to dig.
