“May he bring you peace.”
00:04:47:19
He was too weak to walk, so I carried him up the narrow slope of the dragon’s throat, cradling him like a baby, past the glittering teeth of its mouth, into the upper chamber, the cave of skulls, where Vosch was waiting. When he saw us emerge from the cleft in the rock, he pulled his gun and pointed it at my face.
“No,” Jourdain gasped. “Put it away.”
Vosch lowered his gun.
“He’s going to be all right,” I said. I didn’t know if Vosch believed me: Jourdain was covered head to foot in blood. I lowered him to the floor and leaned him against the wall opposite the skulls. I sank to the floor on the other side of the chamber and rested against the rock shelf, the circle of grinning skulls over my head.
Vosch looked at me. He looked at Jourdain.
“Alfred has taught me mercy,” Jourdain said. “Does that not beg mercy?” He smiled. “He has offered me forgiveness. Does that not beg forgiveness?” The smile traveled from Vosch to me. Vosch smiled too. I was surrounded by grins.
Jourdain’s. Vosch’s. The skulls’.
Jourdain said, “Put away the gun, Vosch . . .”
Grinning.
“It should not be quick.”
Vosch got it right away. Too bad I didn’t. He was on me in two long strides. I looked for the gun in his right hand. I should have looked at his left, because that’s the hand that held the two-foot-long, dragon-headed black dagger.
He slammed it into the same spot I stabbed Jourdain, only my rib didn’t deflect the blow. The blade slid straight into the center of my chest.
Vosch. Jourdain. The skulls.
Grinning.
00:04:34:19
Their faces swam in and out of focus in the torchlight, and their voices seemed far away beneath the wailing of the wind and the rattling of blood in my chest.
“He’s dead already,” Weasel said. “Look at his eyes. They don’t blink.”
“No, he’s alive,” Vosch said. “I hear him breathing.”
“Hey, Kropp,” Flat-Face II said, poking me in the ribs. “You alive?”
Light and shadow dueled across their faces. They reminded me of fun house m
asks or those carnival sideshow creatures leering at you through yellowed glass.
“Call him, Alfred,” Vosch said. “Call down the Archangel! You are his beloved—surely he’ll save you. He will bear you up in his hands lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
“He won’t come,” Weasel predicted. “Kropp’s pissed him off.”
“No,” Flat-Face II said. “He won’t come because he don’t care.”
Weasel touched my side and squinted at his bloody fingertips, turning them in the golden light.
“Gave him this, though,” he said, and he stuck his fingers into his mouth, tasting my blood. Vosch told him to cut it out. “Can’t hurt,” Weasel said. “I got a bad ticker. You know, the kid’s kinda like a vampire, only the opposite.”
“You’re both wrong,” Vosch said. “He won’t come because he doesn’t exist.”
“Well, I’m not saying whether he does or doesn’t,” Flat-Face II said. “But you can’t just say there’s nothing, Vosch.”