Envious Of Fire (Kissing With Teeth #2)

14. Dark Blood.

—?—

Tristan sits on the counter in the vacant operating room, one knee hugged to his chest, his other leg dangling. The air is as crisp and biting as the winter, and a putrid odor cuts through it all, despite the nurses’ efforts to suppress it with ventilation and incense. For the last hour, Tristan has sat in here alone, the others sent away, as he stares distantly at the iced corpse in the middle of the room. Brock Hastings, as dead as can be, in a bin of ice, only his face, chest, and the tips of his toes sticking out.

His dick, too.

It’s the night of the full moon. Mance gave his signal, and Tristan returned it with his own, and now he waits in this room for a ritual—or magical medical procedure?—to begin, a ritual Tristan holds no hope in his heart of actually working.

“He’s still not here?” comes Raya, appearing at the door.

Tristan yawns for an answer.

Raya enters the room, then reconsiders her decision after picking up the putrid odor, shielding her nose. “Of course he’d be late,” she mutters behind her hand. “Rude prick.”

Next to the bin of ice that contains the beloved corpse is a long metal table, upon which is arranged every last item Mance allegedly requires like scalpels for surgery: tall, neatly-stacked towers of forty-four books—four stacks of eleven each, to be precise—that each are forty-four years old and contain a “B” in the title, two large severed bat wings from the precise variety of bat Mance specified, and a box of hair the same color as Brock’s gathered off the cold, sterile floor of a morgue. A gallon of goat blood in a steel bucket. Upon a tray, pieces of bark from an oak tree struck by lightning less than seven days prior to being collected and that has not been urinated on by a dog—how George confirmed that, Tristan can only be amused to guess. A jar containing black salt. A heavy chunk of obsidian roughly the size of a human head. Leaning against the table on the floor is the final “ingredient” and allegedly the last one found: a mirror taken off one of the walls in Brock’s father’s suite at the Scarlet Sands Hotel it was Markadian’s goons. Got me because of an ancient agreement I knew nothin’ ‘bout that they had with the witches to secure peace. Markadian, this man I once called a brother, he sat at the head of a trial they held to determine how wicked I’d been. Would you believe it, Markadian looked me in the eye, declared me guilty, and right there in his court, all the power in his hands, he sentenced me to live out my days in his supernatural prison. What I did to bring back my family … that was more hideous to them than that bloodthirsty Feral on the loose they were too fuckin’ lazy to handle in the first place.”

Tristan stares down at the sad box of hair in his hands. Not to interrupt, but why am I holding this?

“Because it means somethin’ to you. This Brock fella, you had a connection to him, didn’t you? I need that energy in this room. You don’t wanna open Death’s door without a tether of some kind, an emotional tether. You can call for one spirit and a whole lotta other bad can answer … Never quite know what’s listenin’. Keep lookin’ at that hair, keep feelin’ things.”

Is … that why you’re telling me your story? To set an atmosphere in this room? … with my … sentimental energy …?

“No, I’m tellin’ you my story so you understand that that boring box you’ve got is more than just a boring box .” He lifts his eyes, scowling. “So you understand my price for doin’ what I’m doin’. Hand that fuckin’ box to fuckin’ Markadian, it’s all I ask.”

Tristan was already betting on the gift proving dangerous to Markadian, but now that it’s been made certain, the weight of his responsibility to deliver it has increased exponentially.

It also hits Tristan as uncharacteristic that Mance is using emotion to appeal to him, sharing his story, his grief, his rage.

He can’t help but wonder if he knows Mance at all.

Mance takes hold of the bat wing, runs a hand over it, his greyish fingertips dancing gently over the leathery texture. “I’m thinkin’ it’s about time you get your sweet butt outta this room before the fucked-up shit happens. And about time to eat that last bead anyway, ain’t it?”

Tristan nods distractedly. Of course, yes, it is time for my last hourly snack . He steps away, taking care not to disturb the ring of black salt, then heads to the door. He stops. What happened at the trial? Were you not sent to his … supernatural prison?

“Did what I do best,” answers Mance, lifting his free hand to wiggle his fingers. “Gave ‘em a pretty show. A little fire … a little pizazz … poof! … the magician disappears.”

Impressive , admits Tristan, to escape both a death sentence and a life sentence … and to still have evaded capture by Lord Markadian all these years . He never found you again?

“Got my ways. Like your kind, I work best in the shadows.”

Tristan lifts his eyebrows. And what of the Feral that hunted you and your family? What came of them?

Mance’s eyes darken. “Nothing at all.”

Tristan blinks. Do you mean to say they’re … still out there … ?

Mance runs his hand over the bat wing once again, as if petting it, his grey-tipped fingers curling into a fist. “Better get on outta here while you still can.”

Tristan needs no further warning. Good luck , he says, feels silly, then sets the box of hair on a nearby counter and departs.

When the door shuts, he feels instantly warmer. Though at one point curiosity had filled him about Mance’s process, he realizes he is no longer interested in the least about how the necromancer will go about reanimating a days-old corpse, nor does he even wish to imagine what is about to take place in that room. He sits with Mance’s story in his heart as he walks down the hall, slowly at first, then picking up pace. He passes by two nurses and a doctor, all three of whom stop to bow to him— As you were , he says distractedly—and continues hurrying on down the hall until he finds a door, peels it open, and slips inside.

A sense of safety and comfort washes over Tristan at once, hiding now in the darkness of a supply closet, apparently not the one in which Raya said she’d be. He moves through the cramped room, shelves of gauze, cotton swabs, and all sorts of hospital supplies surrounding him. He reaches the wall, leans against it, then lifts his wrist, peering at the remaining bead.

The final one.

Tristan feels vastly different approaching the biting of this bead than he has with all the others. There is no flippantness in him in this moment. No dismissal of fear. His mouth tightens with uncertainty, his breathing changed. Even the room feels cold and writhing, like a stomach ready to eject something it doesn’t like. He presses the bead to his lips, then stops, unable to bite, reconsidering everything he’s doing.

He had such brazen confidence last night. Confidence this afternoon when he prepared to leave for this fateful night. Is it Mance’s story that fills him now with such unease? His teeth don’t even feel willing to cooperate in biting this final bead.

Remember what you do this for , he coaches himself.

Then he calmly closes his eyes. Thinks of a face. A name.

He parts his teeth, brings the bead in, hesitates.

Then bites.

Bitterness washes over his tongue. His body feels as if it wishes to reject this vile midnight snack with every mashing of his teeth. He chews anyway. As he swallows, he fights back a gag reflex, presses a fist to his lips to keep it in.

Suddenly he gasps for air, eyes wide. He can’t breathe. All he knows is confusion until he remembers the last step. Tristan thrusts a hand into his pocket, pulls out the dagger he brought from the House. He fumbles with it, dropping the blade with a loud clang, and then goes Tristan, falling to his knees as he gags for air, blindly grasping at the floor for the dagger, eyes clouding over, all the shadows in the room rushing inward.

His fingers close around the handle of the dagger. He lifts it and, after half a second’s hesitation, strikes his own palm.

At once, the shadows pull away from his eyes, air returns to his lungs, and he feels great relief. That relief is short-lived when he sees a fluid the consistency of black, murky oil pooling in his palm instead of blood. It is painful, stinging as it emerges.

Only now does Tristan realize he forgot a container.

While his palm continues to bleed black, held upward so as not to spill any, Tristan drops the knife and scrambles to the shelves. Items go flying left and right until he finds an oblong, finger’s length of glass—a test tube. Cupping his bleeding hand as best as he can, he directs the dark fluid toward the top of the glass, letting it seep in. He’s reminded of maple syrup pouring over pancakes, equally sickened and fascinated as the tube fills.

The bleeding abruptly stops. Did it all come out? Tristan tilts his hand, wiggles his fingers, curious if even just another drop is left inside. Hoping he’s done it correctly, Tristan sifts through the items on the shelf, finds a stopper, and plugs the end of the filled tube. His hand continues to sting as he gazes at the fluid in the glass, wondering what it actually is. Some kind of infection? Magical pus? A liquid form of the beads he ate? Did the last one make it out of his palm, too? How would that be possible? Is there some kind of dark energy still in his body?

Then comes a scream, distant and echoing. Tristan turns at once, tube in hand. Did he imagine it?

Another scream.

Tristan flies from the closet. The hall is empty. He hurries toward the room with Mance and Brock, the tube of dark blood pressed to his chest, his sliced palm still smarting.

He slows when he finds the door ajar. On the floor, smears of blood form a disconcerting red trail from the room leading down the hall.

Tristan stops at the door, glances inside. The bin of ice is spilled over, chunks of bark and blood splashed across the floor. Books and pages everywhere. The ring of black salt, broken. Blood dripping off the ceiling and the edges of the counter, where the box of hair remains, comically untouched.

Mance is gone.

Brock, too.

The sound of distant, anguished wailing is heard. Tristan follows the red trail on the floor with wide-eyed fascination, leading further down the hall. He passes a bulletin board partly ripped off the wall, hanging on by a single nail, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. He passes a turned-over cart of supplies, scattered over the trail of blood Tristan follows, which leads him around the corner to the front of the reception desk.

The end of the trail branches off. At the end of one branch is the top half of a nurse’s body, ripped unevenly at the waist, insides splayed from her abdomen like spaghetti, her legs on the other side of the hall. Another branch of blood leads to the front desk itself, where a male nurse sits on the floor in front of it with an expression of abject horror frozen on his lifeless face, blood pouring out of a giant hole in his chest, which appears to have been entirely gutted, as empty as a cabinet, ribcage visible.

On the floor with her back against the wall some distance away, Raya, the source of the anguished sobs. She clutches her bloodied side where half of her left arm is missing, kicking away from the scene with whatever energy remains in her exhausted body, trying to get up, trying to run, failing at both.

And in front of her, at the end of the last branch of the trail of carnage, the broad-shouldered back of a naked man kneeling on the floor, blood dripping from his tangled hair.

Without Tristan even taking another step, the man turns, sensing him.

Brock.

His face like a rabid animal’s, maddened, bathed in blood completely, even his eyes, only a fraction of his whites visible. Flesh and blood hang from his parted lips, revealing a mouth of shattered teeth, some missing. Raya’s severed forearm dangles from his grip like a dog’s bone.

Tristan stares back at him, paralyzed.

Brock is calm at once, as if the sight of Tristan has brought something back to him. His face twists. Tears well in his eyes. “Tristan?” he mumbles through a mouthful of flesh and blood. He forgets the forearm in his grasp, letting it drop to the floor, forgotten. “T-Tristan …?” He rises to his feet, slips on blood, drops back to his knees. “Can you …” He falls forward, props himself up, starts crawling through the gore on his hands and knees. “Can you … help me find my … m-my …”

Brock inches closer and closer, creeping his way down the hall while Raya moans and wails, still kicking away. He reaches Tristan, clings to his boots, bloodying them, lifts his beautiful, horrifying face, blood dripping. “Can you … h-help me …?”

Tristan quickly runs his fingers over Brock’s face. Eyes roll back. He collapses to the floor. After a moment’s shock, Tristan kneels down, gently cradles Brock in his arms just as he had so long ago in the hallway of a Texas high school, surrounded by a nightmare of his doing, Raya’s tormented weeping in his ears.