Dying Is My Business Read online

  I took off my coat and inspected the damage. The leather on the back was ruined, shredded beyond repair. It was a shame, I liked that coat, though by now I knew better than to get attached to anything I wore. I hung it over the back of one of the upholstered chairs, and sat down. The chair’s high back rubbed against me, irritating the scratches on my back. I winced and leaned forward to take pressure off the wounds.

  Bethany and Thornton sat on the couch, facing me. In the bright lights of the living room, the wound on her leg looked terrible, even through the hole in her jeans. Thornton’s skin was definitely turning from gray to a pale shade of green, especially around his eyes, his mouth, and the scar on his cheek. The three of us looked like we’d been to Hell and back. Maybe minus the back part.

  “You’re sure we’ll be safe here?” I asked Bethany.

  She nodded. “The ward around this house will keep anyone from finding it.”

  “I didn’t even see this place until…” I paused, unsure how to describe what I saw. “Is that what a ward does?”

  “It’s a spell that hides things,” Bethany said. “But it can’t hide what you’ve already seen, or what you already know is there. That’s why none of us saw the house until Ingrid showed us where it was.”

  I nodded. I was starting to understand, albeit just barely. “So if the Black Knight saw it, too…”

  “He didn’t,” she assured me. “He was already gone.”

  I hoped she was right about that. Ward or no, I’d feel safer if we had a cache of weapons, at least.

  “I don’t like just sitting here,” Thornton said. He rubbed his hands along his thighs restlessly. “I should be with Gabrielle.”

  “You’ll be with her soon,” Bethany said.

  “Right, once the sun comes up,” he said. He glanced at the clock. “That’ll be in, what, four hours? That’s four hours we’re wasting here. Four hours I could be spending with her, either looking for a spell to keep this amulet from shutting itself off or … or saying goodbye.”

  “If Gabrielle and Isaac both think it’s best that we stay here, that’s good enough for me,” Bethany said. “It should be good enough for you, too.”

  Thornton turned away from her and gnawed at his thumbnail. The nail fell off. He watched it tumble into his lap, and said, “I just don’t want to waste any time.”

  Bethany didn’t answer. For what felt like a very long time, none of us spoke. The air prickled with tension. I glanced at the staircase and wondered when Ingrid was going to come back. Finally, Bethany said, “I’m sorry, Thornton. If I’d known about this place, we could have come here sooner. Maybe even avoided the warehouse altogether. Then things might have been different.”

  Thornton shook his head. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I’ve been acting like an asshole because I don’t know how to cope with this. You can stop beating yourself up, Bethany. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Isaac put me in charge of this mission, remember? That means I’m responsible for everything that happens, including what happened to you. It’s as much my fault as anyone else’s.”

  He tapped the amulet under his shirt. “You’re also the one who gave me my second chance. Don’t forget that.”

  The steps creaked as Ingrid came back upstairs. She was carrying a silver tray laden with a ceramic teapot, four teacups, a heaping plate of cookies, and a first-aid kit. She set it down on the coffee table. “I thought you might be hungry. If you don’t mind my saying so, you all look a little worse for wear, so I brought bandages, rubbing alcohol, and a needle and thread if anyone needs stitching up. I’m not a doctor, but I know a thing or two about fixing people up after they get into scrapes.”

  “Thanks,” Bethany said. “I think we can use a little of everything.”

  The cookies on the table made my mouth water. I took one off the plate and bit into it, tasting oatmeal and cinnamon. It was good, really good. I finished it quickly, grabbed a handful more, and began stuffing them in my mouth.

  Thornton stared at me. “My God, were you raised by wolves? Because I was, and even they didn’t eat like that.”

  I looked up at him, crumbs dropping from my lips, my mouth too full to answer.

  Ingrid laughed. “Leave him be, he’s hungry.” She picked up the first-aid kit and opened the lid. “So, which one of you poor, battered souls wants to be first?”

  Thornton needed her attention the most. Even if he wasn’t in danger of dying from his wounds, being dead already, his shirt could only do so much to hold his insides in place. He needed to be stitched up. Thornton struggled to remove his shirt. His arms worked stiffly, especially the broken one he’d hastily reset at the bar, but he refused Bethany’s help. Once his shirt was off, he lay back on the couch and put his hands over his wounds as if he were ashamed of them. His skin had turned a sickly gray all over. An angry purple bruise painted his side where the blood had first settled when he died. Bethany got up from the couch to give him room to stretch out.

  “Let me see,” Ingrid said, gently taking Thornton’s wrists. He resisted for a moment, then allowed her to move his arms away from his wounds. They resembled deep black chasms in his torso, rimmed with a coppery crust where the blood had dried, and tinged with green along their edges. The Breath of Itzamna remained spiked into the center of his chest, pulsing with its artificial heartbeat.

  Ingrid touched the amulet gingerly with her white-gloved hand. Thornton explained, “It’s what brought me back. After I died.”

  She nodded as if it were no more unusual than a scar or tattoo. Thornton’s eyes filled with gratitude that she wasn’t making a big deal out of it. She took a set of reading glasses from the coffee table, put them on, and took a closer look at his wounds. “This isn’t so bad,” she lied. “Nothing a little needle and thread can’t fix. I’ll have you right as rain in no time.”

  Thornton beamed at her. “I think I love you, Ingrid Bannion.”

  “Handsomer men than you have told me that. You’ll have to try harder.” She retrieved a needle and a spool of black thread from the first-aid kit.

  Thornton looked at her white glove. “What happened to your hand?”

  Ingrid blanched. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry, I can still stitch with the best of them.”

  Thornton sat up a little. “I’m sure you can, but unless the single-glove look is suddenly all the rage, I’m guessing it’s not nothing.”

  Ingrid sighed. She put the needle and thread down, her face reddening with embarrassment. “It was a long time ago. I was young and brash. I thought I could just take in a little magic and it wouldn’t affect me. I was wrong.”

  “Is that how you’re able to read auras?” Bethany asked.

  “No,” Ingrid said. “That’s something I was born with. What I took into me, and still carry inside me, is the fire magic you saw outside. It was a mistake I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life. Like I said, I was young. I thought it would be different for me. I thought I was invulnerable, the way the young always think they’re invulnerable.” She looked at the glove. “Turns out I wasn’t anything but a fool.”

  “May I see it?” Thornton asked.

  She shook her head vehemently. “Trust me, it’s better if you don’t.”

  “Ingrid,” he said, flashing a charming smile. “I’m sure you’ve played this game before with lots of lucky guys. I showed you mine. Now you show me yours.”

  “Thornton, please, just leave it alone,” she said.

  “You’re worried I’ll judge you,” Thornton said. “I won’t. You can trust me on that.”

  Ingrid looked at him a long time, then finally nodded. “Just remember, it’s not as bad as it looks, and it doesn’t hurt. It’s under control.”

  She unrolled the white glove slowly, grimacing as she pulled it up from her elbow to her fingers. Finally, she pulled it free. The extent of what the infection had done to her hand and forearm was astonishing. Aside from the five fingerlike appendages at the end, the misshapen, squamo
us limb didn’t look like anything human.

  Twelve

  “It doesn’t look so bad,” Thornton said.

  Ingrid smiled warmly. She pulled the long white glove back over her arm. “You’re a bad liar, Thornton, but a good man. I bet your aura was a beautiful color. Probably a bright royal blue.” She put her hand in her lap, as if to hide it. “You know how it is when you carry magic inside you. This is what it did to me. Morbius managed to contain the infection before it got worse, and before it could corrupt my mind, but the damage had already been done.”

  “Who is Morbius?” Bethany asked. “The name sounds familiar.”

  “A powerful mage, and a dear friend,” Ingrid said. “He’s the one who put the ward around this house. He’s no longer with us.” For a moment she was quiet, lost in her own memories. I got the sense that she’d seen more and experienced more than anyone I knew, and not all of it was good.

  “I want to show you something, Ingrid,” Thornton said. He began unbuckling his leather bracelet. His stiff fingers made it difficult.

  “Do you need help?” Ingrid asked. She reached for the bracelet.

  Just as he’d done with me, Thornton jerked his arm away from her. “Don’t. Sorry, I don’t mean any offense, but I don’t let anyone touch this bracelet.”

  “It must be very important to you,” Ingrid said.

  Thornton managed to unbuckle the clasp and remove the bracelet. There, on the inside of his wrist, was a patch of skin that was marbled and glassy like an opal. He tapped it with a fingernail. It made the same sound as tapping a stone. “Once upon a time, I was young and foolish, too. Back then I had trouble accepting what I was, and like a fool I thought magic could cure me. It didn’t. It didn’t do anything but infect me, though it was several years before any symptoms manifested. Isaac contained it before it spread, but it left me with this souvenir.” He buckled the bracelet around his wrist again. “See, Ingrid? If I judged you, I’d only be judging myself, too.”

  Ingrid looked at him a long moment. “I think I love you back, Thornton Redler.”

  She stitched him up as best she could, a job made easier by the fact that he couldn’t feel any pain. While she worked, Bethany took a handful of bandages from the first-aid kit and came over to me. “Take off your shirt,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “That gargoyle got your back pretty good,” she said. “We should take care of it before it gets worse.”

  “I’m fine. Really.” I gestured at her injured leg. “You should probably tend to that knee instead.”

  “It can wait,” she insisted. “I’m serious, Trent. Between getting mauled by a gargoyle and being in a car crash, you’re not fine. That’s the adrenaline talking. After everything that’s happened, your wounds might be a lot worse than you think they are. So, the shirt.”

  She was determined, which meant nothing I said was going to change her mind. I knew that much about her already. There was no way to explain to her that no matter how bad my wounds were they weren’t life threatening, not to me; no way to explain that the thing inside me always brought me back from the dead fully healed, which included wounds both old and new. I wondered sometimes what would happen if I lost an eye or a hand, if they would grow back too, but it wasn’t something I ever hoped to put to the test.

  “Have it your way,” I said, “but I’m telling you I’m okay.” I unbuttoned my shirt, pulled it off, and tossed it on the carpet. I turned my chair around and leaned forward with my back exposed. “You should save the bandages for yourself. You’ll just be wasting them on me.”

  “You don’t have a very high opinion of yourself, do you?” Bethany asked. She circled around behind me, and a moment later I felt her unusually warm hands on my back as she inspected my wounds. Her touch on my bare skin made me uneasy. I felt vulnerable, like I’d left myself open to a knife between the ribs. I was pretty sure Bethany wasn’t the knifing type, but after a year among the criminals of Brooklyn, old habits were hard to shake.

  Her hands felt good on me. Too good. I didn’t like that, either.

  “You’re tense,” she said.

  I grunted in reply, which only proved her right.

  “Looks like the gargoyle didn’t cut you too deep. The bleeding’s not too bad,” Bethany said. “You got lucky. One good swipe from a gargoyle can cut clean through bone. About an inch to the right and an ounce more force and it would have severed your spinal column.”

  “Told you I was fine,” I said.

  “You’ve been mauled by a gargoyle,” she said. “I think we have different definitions of fine.”

  “I’ve had worse.”

  “Funny, you don’t have any scars to show for it.”

  Of course I didn’t. “They’re on the inside,” I quipped.

  “I’m going to have to clean out your wounds.” Bethany retrieved a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a few cotton balls from the first-aid kit. “This might sting a bit.”

  “I think I’ll be okay.”

  “Your tough-guy act isn’t as convincing as you think it is.” She dabbed an alcohol-soaked cotton ball against my back. I bucked in the chair, loudly sucking air through my teeth. “See? Not so convincing.”

  “It was just cold,” I insisted, clenching my jaw as the burning alcohol cleansed my wounds.

  Ingrid laughed. “I never thought I’d say it, but I kind of miss this. Being part of a team, I mean, like you three and Isaac.”

  “We’re not exactly a team,” Bethany said. “We’re more like freelancers. Isaac hires us when he needs us to secure an artifact.”

  “It’s a living,” Thornton said. “When Isaac found me and offered me a job, I jumped at it. I was at a low point in my life, probably the lowest I’ve ever been. I felt like I had nothing to live for back then. Now I do.” He looked down at the amulet on his chest. “How’s that for irony?”

  Ingrid tsked and shook her head as she continued her stitch work. “Freelancers. It was different back in my day. We were together all the time. We would eat together, drink together, and on occasion we even lived together, right here in this house. It was a bond that lasted a lifetime.”

  “Who’s we?” Thornton asked.

  “There were five of us back then, fighting the good fight,” she said. “We called ourselves the Five-Pointed Star.”

  Bethany froze in the middle of attaching a self-adhesive bandage to my back. “Wait, you were part of the Five-Pointed Star?”

  “Oh yes,” Ingrid said with a grin. “You wouldn’t think it to look at me now, but I could mix it up in my day.”

  “I thought I recognized the name Morbius,” Bethany said. “He was the Five-Pointed Star’s leader, wasn’t he? I’ve heard stories about them—about you, the things you did back in the day. You were legendary.”

  Ingrid blushed and shook her head. “Sometimes I forget four decades have passed since Morbius brought us together. Time has a way of sneaking up on you. The others are all gone now. I’m the only one left to remember it all, and there’s so much to remember. Fighting trolls under the Kosciusko Bridge. Vampires in the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Sirens off the coast of Coney Island…”

  As she spoke, I noticed a framed photograph on the end table near my chair. I picked it up for a closer look. Five people stood in the same room we were in now, three men and two women. This was the Five-Pointed Star, I realized. I almost didn’t recognize the woman on the far right in the batik-print caftan dress until I noticed the white glove on her left hand. Ingrid, some forty years younger. She’d been strikingly beautiful back then, with long, chestnut-brown hair parted in the middle, and sharp, chiseled features that hadn’t yet softened with age. The other woman in the photo wore a long, black, wool knit dress, a small star tattoo at the center of her forehead peeking out from beneath her black bangs. Her skin was as red as brick, and her eyes burned yellow like two miniature suns. Two men stood side by side between the women, both with long stringy gray hair, lengthy knotted beards, and ma
tching dark blue robes embroidered with strange gold symbols. They looked like twin wizards right out of a storybook; all they were missing were big pointed caps on their heads. And standing at the center of the group was the man I figured had to be Morbius, their leader. He stood tall in a wide-lapelled herringbone jacket, black iridescent necktie, and bell-bottomed trousers. His arms were crossed in front of his chest. His square, lightly stubbled jaw jutted forward as if he were daring the world to take a swing.

  They were freaks, just like me, each with their own strange abilities. But more than that, they’d found a place where they belonged. With each other.

  I put the picture back on the end table. It was a lot to take in at once. The world was nothing like I’d imagined all those times I lay awake in my room in the fallout shelter. It was so much bigger. Worlds within worlds, just like Elena De Voe had written in The Ragana’s Revenge. There was so much I didn’t know, so much more I needed to learn. The weight of it felt staggering.

  “Back then, you couldn’t walk two feet in Bushwick without tripping over a portal to some other dimension,” Ingrid was saying. “That was how Maalrok, the war god of the Pharrenim, found his way into our world. Oh, he was a nasty one, let me tell you. Half man, half lizard, ten feet tall with six arms.” She gestured at the glass case over the mantelpiece, where the six antique swords were displayed. “Those were his. I kept them as a souvenir. Of course, we never could have stopped him and closed off the portal to his world without the help of a talented young man from the neighborhood by the name of Isaac Keene.”

  “So that’s how you know Isaac,” Bethany said. “He talks about the Five-Pointed Star a lot. They were his inspiration.”

  Ingrid nodded, but the smile faded from her face. “I remember the way he looked at us that day. His eyes were so wide. There was such innocence in them. Such wonder.”

  Bethany dabbed an alcohol-soaked cotton ball on a small cut on my forehead, but I waved her away. “I’m fine, really. You’ve done enough.”

  “Suit yourself. You can put your shirt back on.” She sat down on a nearby chair and began cleaning her wounded knee through the hole in her jeans leg.