Heartsong (Green Creek 3)

Livingstone’s mouth opened wide, but no sound came out.

Michelle pulled away, dropping down behind him.

Livingstone took a stumbling step forward.

His tattoos started to flicker.

He gasped as he looked around, confused.

He raised his hand to his neck, fingers bloodied as he pulled them away.

“No,” he whispered. “Not… not like this.”

The marks on his skin began to burst. They twisted angrily on his arms, and his skin started to burn as each symbol flared, the skin blackening.

He raised his bloody hand toward Gavin.

Toward Gordo.

Toward me.

He said, “Please.”

He said, “Please help me.”

He said, “Please don’t let me die.”

And Gordo said, “Fuck you.”

Livingstone fell to his knees in front of us as we pulled ourselves up. He tilted his head toward the sky as I rushed toward Kelly, lifting him up and pulling him close. He wrapped his arms around me.

“Hold on to me,” I whispered.

“Always.”

Robert Livingstone howled toward the morning sun, a song of anguish and rage that rattled my bones. I gritted my teeth against it, and in my head, in the deepest part of me, there was only packpackpack.

The tattoos crawled up Livingstone’s arms, disappearing under his shirt and reappearing on his neck. They rose up his throat to his jaw and into his open mouth. He choked as they forced their way inside. His throat bulged as he swallowed them down.

An unseen shock of magic detonated over us.

Kelly cried out, tensing against me.

I held on as tightly as I could.

Mark’s shift melted away as he collapsed to his hands and knees, panting toward the ground, eyes flicking ice blue, violet, ice blue, violet.

Carter lay on the ground on his back, limbs skittering in the dirt, chin jutting up toward the sky.

And then it was gone.

Robert Livingstone looked old and faded. His skin was sallow. His eyes were closed. He took a breath. And then another. And then another.

He said, “This isn’t the end.”

He fell face-first onto the ground.

His heart stuttered in his chest.