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“You all right?” Prieto touched my shoulder, but I couldn’t respond. I panted for breath, and there were tears shimmering in my eyes. Bright, harsh tears that bent the light and broke it into twisting black shadows. Death was coming.
Death was here. I was losing him, and I didn’t know why, or how, or how to stop it.
I heard an engine roaring, and looked up to see a car round the corner and pull into the parking area, skidding and sliding in a greasy veil of smoke. My car. A shadow behind the wheel. Before the momentum was burned away, the driver’s side door snapped open, and a body tumbled out in a loose-limbed heap.
Andy.
He rolled over on his back, gasping, arching in the struggle to resist the touch of the darkness that was welling up inside. I could feel it drenching his cells, drowning the life out of him.
I wasn’t even aware of falling on my knees beside him on the cracked surface, but the touch of his skin was the most real thing in the world to me. “Andy—Andy, no…”
He grabbed for my hand and squeezed it tight. His eyes were wide and blank with concentration. I could see that the whites of his eyes were coloring over with blackness. Death was coming, and coming fast.
“Found the resurrection witch. He’s dead,” he gasped out. “Holly, Holly, I damn sure didn’t mean for this to happen. I never meant to cause suffering. You believe that?”
“I do,” I said. It was hard for me to see his expression now, through the bright veil of my tears. “You made the shells. You didn’t know what they’d be used for.”
“Should have,” he whispered. “Should have fucking well known. I killed that witch, but he gave up his black-hearted son of a bitch boss first. Gave him up and he’s here, Holly, he’s right here with you, and I had to make it back to you, I had to…”
I didn’t know what that meant. I looked over my shoulder; Prieto stood nearby, watching us with a confused expression. His cell phone was in his hand, but I could see that he didn’t know who he could call for help. Not for this. “He dying?” Prieto asked.
I was afraid to tell him, but there was no doubt of it, not now. I could sense the relentless tide of it growing inside him. “No, Andy, stay with me,” I begged. “God, please, stay with me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I doubted you…”
“Holly, listen,” he said. His voice was faint, but there was a note of urgency in it, a raw edge of insistence. “He’s right here.”
Prieto. No. I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t, but I turned to look at him. He frowned back. He hadn’t heard what Andy had said. “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would he call us in, why would he if he knew—”
“Not him!” Andy forced the words out, and squeezed my hands so hard I felt bones shift. “Other one.”
The blue car.
Greg.
I didn’t register the sound of the gunshot immediately; it took a long, confused second to penetrate as anything but a sharp, alien noise. By then Prieto was falling, the cell phone dropping to shatter on the pavement before he did. Half of his face was gone in a red ruin of bone and blood and brain, and, for a numbed instant, I thought his head had actually exploded in some kind of freak accident …
And then I realized that someone had shot him, as a bullet ricocheted off the door of the car and dug a raw gouge in the pavement not a foot away from me.
I screamed and ducked. Andy tried get up, to put himself in front of me because that was who he was, what he had always been.
I’d given up on him. I’d let myself doubt, and doubt had set him adrift just when he needed me most. And still he’d fought his way back out of the dark to come here. To warn me.
I wrenched open the back door of my car, and there, in the back floorboards, were two bags. Andy’s, and mine. I threw myself inside and grabbed both. I thumped Andy’s down on the pavement next to him.
He didn’t reach for it. In fact, he didn’t move at all. I still felt the connection between us, but it was pulling at me like a razor-sharp hook in flesh, and I was gasping from the agony of it. Death was dragging him away, and he was fighting it with every single ounce of magic and courage he possessed.
I didn’t dare try to get to him, there wasn’t time. Instead, I dumped the contents of my own bag on the floorboards.
The gun tumbled out, solid and reassuring, and I got it up and aimed just as a shadow stepped in front of the driver’s side door.
Greg. So damn normal. I’d spent an entire evening sitting in a car with him, laughing at his jokes, sharing chips and ranch dip and discussing the merits of the original Star Trek with the follow-ons. I’d liked that Greg, but now, as I saw his face, I realized that the man I’d gotten to know had been a ghost. A mask.
What was behind it was something not really human—full of cruel anticipation and dark pleasure and a particularly soulless kind of glee that held no hint of joy.
He pointed his weapon straight at me and smiled. “Drop it,” he said. “I already killed Prieto, and this guy’s gone, too.” He nudged Andy with his foot, and Andy’s head lolled bonelessly. He was pale and lifeless as a rubber doll. His eyes were open, but blank as glass. “Drop it.”
I squeezed the trigger, but he was faster. My shot went wide. His hit my shoulder and slammed me back against the upholstery in a bright red spray of blood. It must have hurt, but my brain skipped a beat, then it was just numb, as if I’d been asleep on that side of my body for too long. Shock, clamping down to preserve my life.
I’d dropped the gun. I bent forward to try to pick it up, but he grabbed my foot and dragged me out, flailing, leaving a thick wet trail of crimson behind. He kept dragging, past Prieto’s corpse, onto the grass. I tried to get up when he released his hold, but he put a knee in the center of my chest as he put his gun away and drew a knife. “Never shot a woman before,” he said. “It’s not as much fun as I’d hoped. You d
