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“You’ll have to get in line.” Esta sucked air through her gritted teeth as she tried to pull away from him to stand up.
He didn’t let her go. Couldn’t. Not when his sleep-muddled brain still hadn’t quite accepted that she wasn’t dead, wasn’t gone.
“Who?” Everett asked, frowning as he watched Harte help Esta to her feet.
“Nibsy Lorcan.” They said it together, because they both knew what the wounds on Esta’s arm meant. They both knew who was to blame.
“The Professor?” Everett asked, frowning. “What does he have to do with anything?”
“He’s the one who did this,” Esta told Everett.
The other boy frowned. “How? He’s trapped behind the Brink.”
On her feet now, Esta winced as she looked over the bloodied mess of her arm. “That never stopped him from touching me before.”
Her face was too pale, and Harte wanted to punch something. But he knew that wouldn’t help anything—not yet at least. First he had to take care of Esta. “Could you go get some cool water? A clean towel or some gauze?”
“Alcohol if you can find any,” Esta added, wincing. “I don’t need this getting infected.”
While Everett disappeared into the cavernous depths of the warehouse, Harte guided Esta into the warmly lit room. “What the hell did he do to you?”
“I think it’s a burn,” she told him through gritted teeth. “It feels like my skin’s still on fire.”
She was probably right. The skin on her forearm was raw and angry, puckered and bleeding. There were already welts forming, but the damage wasn’t haphazard. Even with the ragged, swollen flesh, anyone could see the marks were purposeful. It looked like she’d been branded by some invisible iron. The smell of it—burned flesh, her flesh—was strong enough to make Harte’s stomach turn.
“It’s another message,” she told him. “But I don’t know what it—”
She gasped again, and Harte looked down to see her skin opening again. It looked like an invisible scalpel was slicing through her in thin, neat lines, just below the burn. A second later Harte realized what was happening. They were letters. The bastard was carving letters into her.
C-L-A
There was no way for him to stop what was happening. All Harte could do was cradle her arm, impotent with rage, as blood welled and dripped from Esta’s wrist and the lurid letters continued to appear.
V-I-S
“Key,” she whispered, her voice unsteady as she spoke in short, staccato breaths. “It means key. In Latin. It’s just like before.”
“It’s nothing like before,” Harte snapped, anger lashing through his tone so sharply that Esta flinched. He forced himself to calm his voice. He was still furious but not at her. He was angry that Nibsy had touched her again and that he couldn’t do anything to stop it. “Last time, you woke up and discovered a scar that was already healed over. That’s not what this is.”
“No,” she admitted. “But I think the difference is that this just happened.”
“Clearly,” Harte said, frowning.
Esta shook her head. “Last time, the scar appeared because he did something to the girl in the past. It was 1904 when that scar appeared, but he could have cut her—me—anytime after we left the city in 1902. Only the effects of it would have appeared. But I think these new marks are still bleeding because this literally just happened. It is happening. Here and now, in 1920.”
Harte’s mouth pressed together. It made sense, but the violence of it? “He’s turned into a fucking butcher.”
“He always has been,” Esta said softly.
She was right. Nibsy had left a trail of broken lives in his wake.
“But why this? Why now?” Harte asked.
“Because he knows we’re here. What happened back in Chicago has to be all over the news by now. This,” she said, holding up her still-bloodied arm, “is his way of letting us know he hasn’t given up. That he won’t give up.”
Everett had returned with a pitcher of water and some rags that looked nearly clean. “I found—” He stopped short, his face draining of color when he saw the newest injury—and the blood. “Oh god…”
“I’m fine,” Esta said automatically.
