by Amy Fecteau
“You disappoint me.” With an abrupt movement, she released him. She tucked her hands into voluminous pockets of her coat, and regarded him with a flat gaze. “My partner will be displeased, but there is nothing to be done. Enjoy the sunrise, Mr. Taylor.”
“Wait,” said Matheus, cradling his abused wrist to his chest. “You’re just going to leave me here? Isn’t that a needlessly complicated way to kill me? Wouldn’t you like to set up a shark tank or something?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” said Apollonia. “If you survive the day, you will have to explain it to me.”
A chill ran down his spine, not entirely caused by the cold wind blowing across the back of his neck.
“What do you mean, if I survive the day?” he asked. “That’s not possible.”
Apollonia smiled. She snuggled into her coat, turning the collar up against the wind. “Is it? Well, we shall see. I’m told sunlight is one of the more painful ways to expire, but, of course, that is only legend. Ashes don’t offer much in the way of testimonials. But there are rumors, of those that can rise before the sun has set. Intriguing, don’t you think, Mr. Taylor? It raises so many questions.”
Matheus stood rigid, his spine replaced with a spike of ice. Apollonia had Eamon at the very least, probably Gwen and Salvatore as well. Matheus trusted Eamon, but that trust didn’t extend to him protecting Matheus over Gwen and Salvatore. But Apollonia hadn’t found their hideout, which meant Eamon and the others hadn’t broken yet. Not entirely. Matheus found that small comfort. He wondered if Apollonia extracted the information herself, or if she handed that part over to his father. Matheus didn’t know which one he’d prefer. Neither one offered much hope for Gwen and her boys.
“He’ll betray you, you know. My father,” Matheus said. “He hates all of us. Once you’re no longer useful, he’ll turn on you.”
“How sweet.” Apollonia laughed, a polite tinkling more suited for tea party than a murder site. “Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary. I am more than capable of handling my affairs.” She turned, retracing her steps to the tree line. “Good night, Mr. Taylor,” she called, before disappearing into the dark.
The trees creaked as the wind picked up, snow flurries blowing through the clearing. Matheus shivered. He walked back to the post and sat down, drawing his arms inside his sweater. He curled his toes, attempting to tuck his feet into his jeans, but snow coated the denim. Tilting his head back, he counted the stars, bright in the moonless night.
Would Quin come? Matheus closed his eyes, searching for the ethereal thread that connected them. The bond pulsed in his grasp, then slipped away. Again and again, dissolving into mist just as Matheus touched the quivering thread. With a curse, Matheus opened his eyes. His voice sounded muffled amongst the tree and snow. He really hoped Apollonia wasn’t the last person he talked to before he died.
Juliet had found him before. Maybe she’d work her voodoo again, turning up in the nick of time with a blacked-out van and some wool socks. Or maybe she’d decide to spend the night curled up with some single malt scotch and the latest Neiman Marcus catalog. Matheus figured he had a fifty-fifty shot of his rescue making Juliet’s to-do list. Not odds he wanted to gamble with. He wiggled his arms back into the sleeves of his sweater and dug his hands into his pockets. An exhaustive search turned up three pennies, a broken rubber band, a receipt faded into indecipherability, and a small pile of lint. Matheus squinted at the assortment, tilting his head from side to side, but a MacGyver moment failed to strike.
A screech came from between the trees. Matheus jumped, pennies and other debris scattering over the snow. He stared into the darkness, scanning for movement. Probably an owl. Owls screeched, didn’t they? Everything Matheus knew about owls came from the Harry Potter books. The noise came again, louder, closer, sounding unlike any bird Matheus had ever heard. Does New England have mountain lions? He watched a special about them on the Nature Channel once. He tried to remember what mountain lions ate, then gave up. They ate meat. The specific kind didn’t matter. If a hungry mountain lion came along, it wouldn’t see Matheus and think, “Gosh, that’s not an elk. Better move on.” And not just because mountain lions didn’t have the capability of cogitative thought.
His toes felt like tiny blocks of ice. Maybe if he lost them to frostbite, he’d have something to sate the mountain lion. Matheus rubbed his hands over his face. No Quin, and Juliet seemed a losing bet. He’d be amazed if Alistair managed to find him before sunrise. A little over an hour left. Matheus picked up the chain, examining each link. The metal appeared new, shiny and unscratched. Great, he thought. Teach him to pick enemies who knew how to maintain their equipment. He dropped into a linebacker’s crouch, shoving at the post. Not even a wiggle. Matheus aimed a wild kick at the post. The clearing turned upside down; he blinked at the sky. Sitting up, he shook the snow out of his hair. He poked at the snow between his legs and scooped up a handful. A few seconds’ packing, and he had a perfectly formed snowball.
How much sunlight travelled through a layer of snow?
Matheus glanced at the sky. A thin line of pale blue edged the horizon. With frantic energy, he dug. When he cleared an area large enough to lie down in, he used the chain to scratch at the frozen soil. Layer by layer, he scraped away the earth. The hole grew by nanometers.
Overhead, the sky lightened, orange bleeding into the blue. His shoulders ached; his fingers had been rubbed raw. He felt the sunrise pulling at him, tugging him toward unconsciousness. Sitting back on his heels, Matheus wiped the back of hand across his cheek. He had an eight-inch deep gouge, big enough for one person curled into the fetal position.
Would he burst into flames, or roast like a bed of coals, radiating heat until he crumbled to ash?
If he survived this, Matheus made a note to write a pamphlet for future generations. What to Expect When You’re Dead. He had serious issues with the current mentor/student system. Namely, he had questions, and Quin had buggered off to Never-Never Land. On second thought, a pamphlet might not be enough. He’d have to write an entire book, with diagrams and study questions.
Suppressing a hysterical giggle, Matheus crawled into his hole. He blended snow and dirt, packing the gritty mixture over his legs. A deep red, streaked with gold, rose up from the horizon. Matheus worked faster, shoveling snow and earth over his body. He lay back, his cocoon spreading over his chest, his left arm. Last, he covered his face, a fragile shell of snow a hair’s breadth away from fracture. He burrowed his right arm into the leftover snow, hoping he hadn’t left any skin exposed.
The last day he’d spent out in the woods, he’d been underground, a thick layer of earth between him and the sun. But snow didn’t stop light, not without being many feet thick. He remembered the forts he’d built as a child in Germany, the strange blue glow in the frozen tunnels. Had anyone ever measured the amount of sunlight required to turn someone into ash? Surely, there had to be at least one undead scientist. Not everyone had to have Quin’s lack of curiosity.
Matheus closed his eyes, trying to relax. He felt as though someone had plugged him into a light socket, tension sending twitches through his frame. He thought about Alistair, wondered if he’d assume Matheus ran. And Fletcher, would she think he’d abandoned her a second time? He wondered what happened to Quin if he died. Then he didn’t wonder anything at all.
Oh, God
Don’t move him
Oh, God
Is he even alive?
He wasn’t alive before
Oh, God Oh, God
Stop saying that
Where’s the woman
Can he drink
He looks like charred pork
Oh, God
Shut up
He survived
He survived
He survived
Protos
atheus inhaled, the shock of consciousness snapping through his mind. He blinked, eyelashes brushing over fabric. Sitting up, the blanket fell away, tumbling to his waist. The air
smelled damp, thick with mold. He crawled forward, groping over the dirt floor. His fingers landed on an ankle, narrow, covered in coarse hair. Matheus travelled up the leg, to bare hips, the flare of a pelvic bone, the flat abdomen bisected by a rope of a scar tissue. Pausing, he waited for his vision to adjust to the light coming in from around the door, although he didn’t need his eyes to identify the man at his side. He didn’t know a lot of tall, fit men with thick scars across their stomachs.
Quin lay flat on his back, his arms forming an X over his chest. Matheus tried to imagine a creepier position for a person to sleep in, but he came up blank. At least his pose had a certain appropriateness to it. On his left, Alistair curled around a pillow, his knees drawn up, sleeping bag haphazardly thrown over him. He wore a t-shirt, one of Matheus’s, but Quin had opted for all-natural attire. Matheus shook his head. Maybe the polyester suit had finally disintegrated.
His knees wobbled as he stood. He shivered in the damp air. Apparently, he’d also joined the Undead Nudist Club. Matheus frowned. At any other time, waking up naked next to Quin didn’t seem like such a bad thing, but he didn’t remember anything after the Hail Mary pass in the clearing.
He took a few careful steps, trying to feel out his limbs. Nothing seemed out of place; fingers and toes all present and functional. Not that he needed his pinkie toes for much, but he felt better with a complete set. He glanced around for something to wear, but the room didn’t contain much aside from Alistair and Quin. Matheus wrapped the blanket around his waist, and draped the sleeping bag over his shoulders.
He tripped over Freddie on the way out.
“Is he―? Oh.” Freddie rolled onto his back, his mouth opening into an enormous yawn. “Hey.” He stretched, joints popping as he sat up.
“Hey,” said Matheus, feeling slightly underwhelmed by the greeting. He expected a bit of fanfare. Not even, “Hey, you’re not dead!” Just, “Hey.”
Freddie yawned again, scratching at his hair.
Matheus waited.
“Alistair up?” Freddie asked.
“Really?” asked Matheus. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”
Freddie shrugged.
“I almost died.” Matheus snatched at the sleeping bag as it slipped off his shoulders. “Never mind. Just tell me what happened.”
“Things,” said Freddie.
Matheus narrowed his eyes at him. “Who found me?”
“Quin. Alistair. Some others.”
“Okay,” said Matheus, as the sleeping bag made another escape attempt. “I’m going to find pants. Before I come back, could you learn how to speak in complete sentences? Maybe even more than one at a time?”
Freddie stretched again, muscles moving beneath his thin t-shirt. He stood, rising onto his tiptoes, fingertips brushing the ceiling. Matheus watched his shoulders bunch and shift before settling into place, and tried not to consume his own liver in jealousy. Freddie gave him a wolf’s grin, a little too knowing for Matheus’s comfort.
“I’ll come with you,” Freddie said.
“Fine.” Matheus looked away. “Just, you know, talk.”
He started down the hall, the sleeping bag trailing after him like the royal robes of an ancient king. Freddie ambled alongside, retaining that feral quality even in acquiescence. Bianca never struck Matheus that way, but Freddie carried the wilderness with him.
“How long has it been?” Matheus asked.
“Ten days,” said Freddie.
“Are you fucking with me?”
“No.”
“Shit.”
Matheus pushed open the door to the room he usually shared with Alistair. He stopped, mostly because he didn’t have a choice unless he wanted to trample over a complete stranger. Matheus sank into a crouch, examining the man lying across the doorway. He thought he had a good grasp on everyone there. Might not remember all their names, but he had the faces down. He’d never seen the man before. Rising, Matheus looked over the room. He counted six people. He recognized none of them. He turned, raising his eyebrows at Freddie.
“Things have been happening,” Freddie said.
“Pants,” said Matheus. “First, I need pants, then I can deal with everything else. Pants are the basis of civilization. Without pants, there is only chaos.”
“They’re okay,” said Freddie.
Matheus discarded the sleeping bag. With a death grip on his blanket, he wrangled his way across the room. At least no one had moved his pile of clothes. He retrieved a pair of jeans and a sweater. In the square foot of available space, Matheus wiggled into his pants and pulled the sweater over his head. He bit back a moan as the soft fabric slid over his skin. Glancing down, he ran a palm over the sweater, and frowned.
“Where did this come from?” Matheus asked, when he’d reached the hall again. He plucked at the sweater.
“Quin,” said Freddie.
“When? How?”
Freddie shrugged.
Matheus wanted to be upset. He really did. But the sweater fit as though it’d been specially knit for him by angels and fairies. He’d never had a security blanket as a child, but this sweater had a definite shot at the position. He gave Freddie a half-hearted glare, then turned for the living room.
“How long to sunset?” he asked over his shoulder. He tried to ignore the way the sweater caressed him with every movement.
“Half an hour,” said Freddie.
Matheus paused in his borderline pornographic adoration of his sweater. “Are you sure?”
Freddie nodded. He walked past Matheus, and sprawled onto the couch. “Set my watch.” He held up his wrist.
“That’s… surprisingly clever,” said Matheus.
Freddie twisted, looking at him over the arm of the couch. “You don’t think I can be clever?”
“No, that’s not… I mean, yes, of course―”
“I’m not clever,” said Freddie. “Rest of you are dumb.” He settled onto the cushions.
“I do have other things to think about,” said Matheus.
“Like pants.”
“I used to like you,” Matheus said, taking the millimeter of space not occupied by Freddie. “I used to be on your side.”
“Were you?”
Matheus tried another glare. He felt his glaring had sloped off recently. Freddie’s smirk only supported that thought. “Just tell me what happened while I was out.”
“Alistair was pissed,” said Freddie. “You and Quin disappeared, didn’t come back, didn’t call. Quin showed up the next day. He was pissed too. He and Ali… talked.”
Ali. “Talked?”
“Fought.”
“Fought-yelling or fought-tried-rip-off-one-another’s-limbs?” asked Matheus.
“Second one,” said Freddie.
“Just Alistair and Quin?”
“At first.”
Matheus closed his eyes, rubbing his fingers over his forehead. “Who else?”
“Everyone.”
“Oh, Christ.” Matheus’s temples throbbed.
“Nobody died.” Freddie shifted, his shirt riding up his abdomen. He scratched his stomach, giving the ceiling a contemplative look. “Someone lost an eye.”
“Can you just skip ahead, before I burst a blood vessel?” Matheus asked.
Freddie sat up, swinging his feet off the couch. He exhaled, his breath visible in the air. He wore only a t-shirt, but didn’t appear bothered by the cold. Matheus resisted the urge to tell him to put on a sweater. Not his sweater, but a much lesser sweater.
“Fighting stopped,” said Freddie, continuing his trend of clipped sentences, as though he had to pay by the word. “Quin said he was looking for you. Alistair wanted to know why he didn’t…” Freddie waved a hand at Matheus. “Claim thing. They yelled for a while.”
“Quin didn’t know he could find me?” Matheus asked. “He tried calling me before. He must have known.”
“Don’t think he knew his own name,” said Freddie. He paused, staring down at his hands. “Never seen som
eone like that.”
“He did find me, though,” said Matheus.
“Yeah.” Freddie cleared his throat. “Wind blew away some of the snow. Wasn’t much to identify you with. Skin all charred up. Fingers on your right hand crumbled when we lifted you. Ali and Quin spent the night pouring blood down your throat.”
“My fingers fell off? These fingers?” Matheus held up his hand.
Freddie nodded.
Matheus wiggled his fingers. He raised them to his face, examining the wrinkled folds of his knuckles, the short, square nails, and the tiny mole on his pinky. He wondered if he’d be able to pick his hand out of a line-up. How often did people really look at their hands? Matheus doubted he’d be able to describe his from memory, but watching his fingers flex and bend, he knew every crease, every cell had been replicated perfectly.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
“I saw it,” said Freddie.
“I know,” said Matheus. “I just don’t believe it. Can’t believe it.” He rubbed his knuckles over the cushion, the fabric coarse against his skin. “What about―? Shit.”
“Shit?” Freddie asked.
“Where’s your cell phone?”
“Don’t have one.”
“Who doesn’t have a cell phone?”
“Me.”
“I need a phone. I have to call my sister.” Matheus stood up. “She’s probably freaked.”
“Joan’s with her,” said Freddie. His watch beeped. “Sunset.”
“I have to see Fletcher,” said Matheus. He started for the stairs.
Freddie shot up as though an electric current ran through the couch. He darted in front of Matheus, blocking the stairs.
“You can’t,” he said.
“You’re kidding,” said Matheus.
“If I let you leave, Alistair will kill me.” Freddie’s eyes had gone wide.
Matheus blinked. “You’re kidding.” If he hadn’t been so worried about Fletcher, he might have laughed. He wondered when Alistair put Freddie on the leash. Apparently, he’d missed quite a lot over the past week and a half.
“He’ll be pissed,” said Freddie. “And I don’t want to know what Quin would do.”
