“You know what you hold?”
The wheel turned and the door opened, just a crack.
“I know,” she said. Holding the spear, knowing what it was…it didn’t matter.
“You would have such power…”
“And would you have me wield it?” Ank asked her brother.
“I would rather we die right here, right now,” said the child.
“Right answer.” Ank smiled. With the blade of the spear that had pierced the Nazarene planted in the crack between door and floor, Ank heaved with all her might…what little it took.
Power flooded her and the vault door didn’t just open, but flew from its heavy hinges. Maybe three tons of metal crashed from the opening and fell with a massive crash against the floor of an old, old tunnel.
Something inhuman squealed outside, in the dark of the caves they found themselves in. Ank thought about checking who it was that made such a noise, but the squeal was followed by scampering feet that sent shivers along her spine.
She was curious, but getting out was more important right now than anything else. At least the creature was running away.
“I know what it is. What you and I could be, holding this. But this isn’t for us.”
Ank placed the spear back within the broken vault, with reverence.
“This is,” said Ank.
She took up the only thing she wanted to take from the vault. A cane. A simple cane, twisted, cut once from a long-dead tree.
On the knob at the end of the unassuming cane was cut a simple design.
The child understood. Ank felt his pleasure within her mind.
“Can you take me home?” she asked. “Do you have that kind of power?”
“Yes,” said the child and Ank stood in her own home for the first time in nearly five months, without even blinking her eyes.
58
Time had passed, since Ank had been in the book. She didn’t understand how the passage of time had worked in the book, but it was slower, for sure. Within less than a heartbeat, she stood in her kitchen, and it was freezing where it had been stifling with heat when she’d left.
Dust upon every surface. The stink of rotten food and men…the men she couldn’t look away from, but did, because she wasn’t just Ank, she was Holland’s child.
She looked everywhere around her, and let her senses wander through the house.
No presence, she felt. It was safe enough…but for the collapsing circle of power there before her, at her kitchen table.
With the book’s power inside her, she could discern the patterns in the air, a complex, imperfect spell that held the awful tableau in stasis…but imperfect, yes, because decay had been allowed into that circle.
A moment in time, preserved, but imperfectly. Whether through carelessness or design, Ank was unsure.
Even magic could not stave off decay and rot.
Time stood still in Ank and Holland’s kitchen, but time took its toll, too. It always did, and even a man of power such as Solomon could not stop it altogether.
Of course this was his work. Who else in the world had the strength to do this?
In the center of the room, near enough, a silver bullet hung suspended in the air.
Ank saw the story in the tableau before her. Smoke from her father’s gun had shifted a little. The bullet was the center of the spell. Farther from the spell, the effects were weaker. Only slightly, maybe, but enough, given five months.
A black-hair gorilla of a man sat across from Holland. Once, no doubt, powerful and strong. Yet decay could not be denied. His clothes hung from his frame, atrophied.
And Holland…
Ank cried as she looked. He, too, had withered. Flesh hung from his face, his old jacket hung on his frame, too. Loose, like the black-haired man’s clothes.
Holland had more to lose.
“Oh, Holland…”
The bullet didn’t matter. Five months the two men had sat, forgotten, within the sphere of Solomon’s power.
Of course, he was dead. She hoped he hadn’t suffered.
“Holland…Dad…”
She didn’t have the words. The child in her mind felt her anguish as keenly as if it were his own, and stayed silent.
You can mourn later. Now?
Solomon. The author of this and other horrors. Time to die, fucker. Time to die.
Ank made her heart cold, her will strong.
“Let them go,” she said, and the child that had once been a book made it happen.
Sound returned so suddenly that Ank jumped, even though she’d expected it.
Movement returned along with the sound. Blood. Dead black-haired man, brains across the kitchen.
Ank turned away and put her head in her hands, let the tears come.
She stayed that way for a time, there, in her blood-soaked kitchen. Ank cried her heart out. She sobbed, her heart breaking with each tear.
She was sobbing so hard she didn’t hear the sudden gasp of air, the gag. She heard his first words, though.
“Been coloring yourself in again?”
She turned, eyes wide, joy, and leapt on her father, rocking the chair he sat on and making his air rush out.
“Steady…hurts…”
“I…thought you were dead! Thought you were dead!”
“I will be, you don’t put some clothes on.”
Ank laughed and held on tight.
“Can’t let go…” She laughed and cried and held on with all her strength, no matter how bad he stank, no matter the dead man in the kitchen. She was blind to everything but Holland.
Her father.
“I thought you were dead…”
“Ank…Ank…” He said it over and over again.
“You’re not dead,” she said, and then she was sobbing again, breaking her heart all over, because as she’d been reborn, so had her hope.
Ready to kill, ready to die, now all she wanted was his arms around her. Warmth and peace and love.
When he could finally move, he stroked her hair and pulled her into his chest. He was weak…so weak.
But her father’s arms were around her, and Ank realized that maybe she wasn’t all grown and ready to go just yet.
“Thought I could handle it,” she whispered, his arms around her.
He nodded, his neck hurting like a bastard as he did so.
He noticed that the daft purple in her hair was gone, leaving her true color behind.
Ank’s hair was pure white, like bleached bone.
“Go slow, Ank…until it’s time to…not go slow.”
59
Holland left the kitchen to Ank. She was in better shape than him. A lot better. Her time in the book didn’t seem to have done her much harm…apart from the new ink.
And her black eyes. Like pits…
He tried not to dwell, but instead struggled to move, to get up from the bed he sat on, preparing himself for what he knew what going to be a cold and awful shower.
He really didn’t want to find out what he looked like under his dusted jacket, under all the clothing that had damn near grown into him.
But he couldn’t sit still any longer. He was cold to the bone, smelled rotten. The mouthful of food in his mouth when time had stopped had, in fact, rotted.
Going to take some time. Going to take a long, long time. And maybe not for the worst…least not all of it. Could stand to lose some fat…do a bit of exercise. Maybe.
If you’re going to live…
One thing at a time, Holland counseled himself, though the way he felt right now, he wasn’t entirely sure some kind of permanent damage hadn’t been done.
Come on…man up.
With weak, painful legs, Holland stood. He hobbled into the bathroom that joined his room.
He stared in the mirror for a time. Eventually looked away, because he looked like a corpse, a dead man walking. Dust and what seemed to be a spider nest in the crown of his hair. Flaccid and pale face, rancid teeth, jowls hanging loose. He looked like a
Halloween mask.
Fuck.
Suddenly, he wretched and some horrible, thin, black liquid bubbled up from his guts and into the sink.
It reeked, like sewage.
Might just be, he thought, when he’d stopped and rinsed the sick, wiped the tears from his eyes. He always cried when he puked.
But he felt a little better…a little cleaner, inside, at least.
He brushed his teeth five times in the shower, and dry-heaved twice when he got his brush right to the back of his tongue. The shower was freezing cold, as he’d suspected. Not like no-hot-water cold. Like the middle-of-winter cold.
The cold was what Holland needed, scouring him, waking him, like hot water wouldn’t have.
He sluiced off dead skin and hair, cut his nails, all in the shower. Loose folds of flesh hung from his jaw, his chest, arms, gut. His legs looked normal. When he washed, the cold water and soap only managed a thin lather, but he had a loofah, some kind of long yellow sea sponge, that was coarse enough to do the job.
Holland wondered what the time under the spell had done to his insides, if his outsides looked like this.
He left the stubble on his cheeks. He wasn’t sure his skin was up to a razor.
He finished, finally, after an hour or more, and looked again into the mirror.
“Hi,” he said to himself. “Holland.”
He nodded to his reflection, then turned away. As he did so, he wondered if he might be a little crazier than he’d been before. But he was thinking, too, because that was part of Holland’s core. He wasn’t a creature of flesh. Wasn’t a killer who was simply good with a gun. The hand was led by the mind, always.
In his bedroom, he noted the ice on the window panes, then got dressed in the warmest clothes he had. No suit, because he didn’t have an employer, and they wouldn’t fit. He’d look like even more of a shambles if he tried. He put on a pair of jeans he hadn’t worn for maybe twelve years, and still had to cinch his belt in tight. A shirt, and a thick sweater with suede patches on the shoulders and the elbows. He didn’t own a scarf, or a hat, but he did find a large jacket, a kind of green color that bordered on olive. It had a ton of pockets.
He came into the kitchen to find Carter’s corpse gone, the kitchen tidy, and a note on the table.
In the shower. Try not to shoot people in our kitchen anymore, OK?
;)
Love you, Ank. x
60
Ank scrubbed every damned thing in the kitchen with all the cleaning products she could find, except whiskey. She figured that might be important for other, more medicinal purposes.
It was cold, but the work kept her warm, except when she dragged the dead guy out onto the deserted sand beside their home and dumped him there. Only then did she realize it wasn’t just a little cold, but actually freezing. It was the middle of winter, right slap in the heart of it.
Eventually, after taking out the last of the pieces, the bloodied rags, the chips of bone, and dumping them into the bins at the side of the house, she returned and stood for a moment in the kitchen, surveying her handiwork.
Apart from the lingering smells, lurking under the scent of cleaning fluids, the place would serve.
“Thank you,” said a voice behind her.
She yelped, like a little girl, and turned, ready to fight. The book, the soul, within suddenly blazed with power, shocked as her.
For an instant, she and the book nearly did fight…Ank didn’t know what that would have entailed, but she didn’t fancy the kitchen’s chances.
Steady, she told the child within, as she realized the man who spoke wasn’t there. Not really. He was dead…he was her first spirit.
“You know you’re not wearing any clothes, right?”
She crossed her hands over her chest, but stood proud enough. She wasn’t ashamed to be naked, and the cheeky fucker could stare all he wanted.
Feelings, thoughts, responses, all roiled within. But above all, she was just happy. Her first dead person…
This is what I am, she thought. I’m becoming…me.
Even though she’d just been dumping a body, had blood under her fingernails, and was in her kitchen with a dead man, she couldn’t help but smile.
What the hell do I say to a dead guy? Same as normal conversations? Love and light, go with God?
Why not ask him? said the book. He probably knows more about being dead than you, right?
Ank nodded. The child was right, of course.
Take it easy, she told herself. Go…slow.
“Why are you here?”
To his credit, the ghost didn’t stare at her body, but met her eye. Ank didn’t know if ghosts could get horny, but this one only seemed interested in saying his peace.
“I was in him,” said the ghost, shrugging. He looked around middle-age. Slight build, thick in the face, with bright and curious eyes, even now, in death. “Guess I just wanted to say thank you…you know?”
“You were in…the dead guy? You’re his soul?”
“No, no,” said the man, like Ank had just slapped him. “He killed me. He…tore me to bits. Devoured me…my…soul. You…Ank Holland…you set me free.”
Ank wasn’t entirely sure how to respond, or where to go…but the guy seemed sincere…and…how does he know me?
“You are, I think, welcome…but you know me?”
“Got a message,” said the dead guy, nodding. “Been waiting here a while…I didn’t mean to make you jump…but got a message…if you want it.”
“What? Who from?”
“Don’t know…just…dead people know stuff, okay?”
Do dead people lie, too? She didn’t say that, though. She was trying to be polite, not be hard on the man…he was dead, wasn’t he?
Wish I knew what the fuck I was doing, she thought.
“Okay,” she said. “Shoot.”
“Leave Jane to Holland. That’s it. Sounds like good advice to me. Jane got me in this shit. She’s not right in the head.”
Ank felt like she were swimming and the water under her had suddenly turned to a whirlpool. Felt like she was about to be sucked down, the water crashing over her head.
“You worked for Jane?”
“I got the book for her…guess you can figure out who got the book from me, eh?”
Ank nodded.
“Where?” she asked.
“The book?”
Ank nodded again.
“I was a librarian,” said the guy. He laughed, but not a happy kind of laugh. “Just a librarian. Nothing like the guy who killed me, or Holland…or you. Jane used to pay me for things…things that were thought lost, things of interest…”
“The book just turned up?”
The guy nodded. Shrugged. “Some things don’t mean to stay lost, I suppose.”
Ank thought of a thousand questions, but the guy’s time was up, she could see that. He was fading as they spoke.
When he was nearly translucent, he asked, “The book…it’s in you?”
“Yes,” said Ank, wondering if she should do something, like, help him pass on, through, over…under…
Then he took the air from her lungs with a simple, smiling statement.
“She’ll be proud…” he said, and before she could catch her breath, reach out, try to hold on, the man was gone.
Ank stayed for a minute more, thinking. Then she went and took a cold shower. To her, it seemed to steam from her hot skin as the ghost’s words burned inside.
“She’ll be proud…”
Jane’d be proud? No…Jane, proud? No…that wasn’t right, never would be. Who? Someone else?
But who? Why? Proud of what? This black ink I can’t wash off?
The simple fact was that Ank didn’t know anyone else. So she showered, dressed. When she found Holland again, she determined to put it aside. Sometimes it’s the only thing you can do to keep your mind going in a straight line, and she sensed they had a long way to go. Sometimes their road would be straight, other times it would
wind, but she knew one thing for sure; Jane and a dark man named Solomon would be there, waiting, when they came to the end.
61
Holland paced the kitchen for a time, unwilling to sit just yet, while he waited for his daughter.
When Ank finally returned, she, too, was dressed for winter.
“You‘ve shrunk,” said Ank, grinning.
“You’ve grown. You look good, honey. Good. Best thing I ever saw.”
“You crying?”
“Might be.”
“Well, man up,” said Ank, and winked, but she wiped her eyes, too.
“Yeah,” said Holland. “I will. Tomorrow.”
He hadn’t smoked for around five months, but he reached for the cigarettes on the table and put one between his lips. Even unlit, the cigarette smelled awful. But it was the best he was going to get. He figured he could give up, right there. Quit, be a little healthier, maybe live a little longer.
But then he ticked off the things he’d noticed since waking, and lit the cigarette. He smoked it until he enjoyed it.
“Ank,” he said.
“Dad?”
He smiled. “Sit. We’ve got to talk.”
“What’s next, then?” she said, knowing it wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.
“You don’t need me to teach you. Not anymore. But…I think…think of this as a kind of final. Your exam. Tell me what I’m thinking. Tell me what you noticed.”
“Got a few things of my own to share, too, Holland,” she said.
“Ink? Hair? Dead guy in the kitchen?”
“Shit, Holland, can’t you let me shine just once?”
She was right. Sometimes he forgot she was just a kid…mostly just a kid.
“Sorry, Ank. You’re right. I’m an ass, always was. I’m sorry. And thank you. You want to shine, but you do, every single day. You know that? You just kicked ass and saved my life. But medal later,” he said, softening this with a smile. “Humor me for now, Ank. Humor me. Okay?”
“What’s going on?”
“Humor me.”
Master of Blood and Bone Page 11
