Dying Is My Business Read online

  I bent to pick my shirt up off the floor, half expecting the pain in my back to flare up. It didn’t. Bethany had fixed me up like an expert. Somehow that didn’t surprise me. She struck me as the kind of person who strived to be an expert at everything.

  “After Morbius died, Isaac wanted to take his place on the team,” Ingrid continued. “I wouldn’t let him. It was too dangerous. You don’t need me to tell you what it’s like out there, and it’s only getting worse, not better. I told him the best thing he could do was keep his head down and not draw attention to himself. I made him promise—no, I made him swear to leave it alone, but it wasn’t easy. Morbius had filled that boy’s head with the same grandiose nonsense he put in mine back when he first asked me to join his grand experiment. Morbius believed that burying your head in the sand wasn’t the answer. It didn’t make you any safer. He said there comes a time when you have to take a stand, even if no one stands with you. He knew damn well there was no safe way to fight the darkness that’s spreading through the world, but he was convinced it had to be done no matter what the risk. And it cost him his life.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  She frowned, her lips pressed tight. “The Black Knight happened. With a touch, he sucked the life right out of Morbius. That’s all it took, just one touch. It was so fast, it was horrible. After Morbius died, we couldn’t go on without him. He was the glue that held us together, he and his dream of a better world. The darkness was too strong for us to fight. If it could kill Morbius, it could kill anyone.” She looked down at her hands. “I didn’t want that to happen to Isaac, so I told him to do exactly what Morbius said not to. I told him to hide.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bethany said.

  Ingrid took a deep breath, collecting herself. “It was a long time ago. But now it seems the Black Knight is after you, and I can guess why. Isaac told me what you found. I’m begging you to be careful. I don’t know what happened just now, why the Black Knight flew off like that, but we got lucky. He’ll keep coming for you. I wish I knew how to stop him, but don’t I think he can be stopped.”

  “Trent did a pretty good job of it earlier tonight when he kicked the Black Knight’s ass,” Thornton said.

  “What?” Ingrid looked at me, surprised. “You fought the Black Knight and survived?”

  I took another cookie off the plate and bit smugly into it. “I didn’t just survive, I sent him packing.”

  Ingrid’s mouth fell open. Unexpectedly, her face reddened with anger. “You should have killed him when you had the chance.”

  There was so much fury in her voice, a fury that had built up for decades, that my smugness wilted. She peppered me with question after question about my encounter with the Black Knight. I told her everything I knew. When I was finished, she nodded to herself like something finally made sense. “You’re the reason he backed off outside. You hurt him once. He doesn’t know what else you’re capable of.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said.

  “But you hurt him,” Ingrid repeated. “He may find you unpredictable, but he’ll be back. You can count on it. You’ve got his attention now. You’re going to need help, and I think I have just the thing.” She walked over to the bookshelves and started scanning the spines, tapping her finger against her chin. “Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of information available about the Black Knight. No one knows where he came from or the extent of his powers. Just about all anyone knows is that he’s the king of the gargoyles, though he wasn’t their first king, and he’s not a gargoyle himself.”

  So that was why the Anubis Hand hadn’t worked on him, I thought. It only worked on gargoyles. Good to know. “So what is he then?” I asked.

  Ingrid ran her finger along the hardcovers crammed into the shelves. “Good question. I’ve been researching the Black Knight for years, ever since he killed Morbius. I tried to find out anything I could—where he came from, what he is, if he has a base of operations, any weaknesses or vulnerabilities, anything—but I hit dead end after dead end. And then I found something interesting in Bankoff’s annotated Libri Arcanum. A connection I hadn’t noticed before. Ah, here it is.” She pulled a thick, hide-bound tome off the shelf, put her reading glasses on again, and flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. “There’s a story of an alchemist who came to the New World from Europe in the middle of the seventeenth century. His name and likeness have been lost to time, but he’s widely considered to be the first known European magician to come over. Supposedly, he lived for a few months in a Dutch trading settlement called Fort Verhulst on the southern tip of Manhattan. Then one day, for reasons unknown, he ventured out into the wilderness and was never seen again. Everyone figured he was either killed by the Lenape Indians who lived in the area and weren’t exactly friendly with the Dutch, or that he died from starvation or exposure.” She flipped ahead again, moving whole chunks of pages until she stopped near the end of the book. “Now, listen to this. The first known sighting of the Black Knight was in the mid-seventeenth century, shortly after Minuit bought the island of Manhattan from the Lenape Indians. That was around the same time that Stryge, the first king of the gargoyles, died. No one knows where the Black Knight came from or how he became the gargoyles’ king, but here’s where things get really interesting. The very first sighting of the Black Knight was at Fort Verhulst, the same settlement the alchemist used to live in.”

  “What happened?” Bethany asked.

  “He came with gargoyles. They killed fourteen people that night. Fourteen seemingly random people—shopkeepers, traders, trappers, farmers, a bartender. The strange thing is that according to firsthand accounts, the gargoyles left Fort Verhulst long before sunrise, and they left the rest of the settlers alive.” She looked up from the book, peering at us over the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. “You know how bloodthirsty gargoyles are. They revel in violence and carnage. For them to leave the other settlers alive, to show that kind of restraint, just doesn’t make sense. So it got me thinking. If this was the same settlement the alchemist lived in, maybe the victims weren’t chosen at random. Maybe they had a connection after all, one no one thought to look into.”

  “The alchemist himself,” Bethany said.

  Ingrid nodded. “Precisely. Look at the timeline. The alchemist disappears from Fort Verhulst. Not long after, the Black Knight makes his first appearance at the same fort, and orders the gargoyles to kill fourteen specific people. It can’t just be a coincidence. I think the alchemist and the Black Knight are the same person.”

  “But that would make him over four hundred years old,” I said.

  “Obviously he’s not human anymore,” Ingrid explained. “But what if he was once? And what if the first thing he did after becoming the … the thing he is now was to eliminate everyone in the settlement who knew his true identity?”

  “But why bother?” I asked. “What would be the point? They already thought he was dead and probably would have gone on thinking it.”

  “Exactly. Why bother? Unless those fourteen people knew something about him that he didn’t want them knowing. Something that was dangerous to him, that would leave him vulnerable.”

  “But even if that’s the case, everyone who knew the Black Knight’s secret died four hundred years ago,” Bethany said.

  Ingrid closed the book. “True. It’s just a theory I’m working on. I hadn’t given it much weight before because I assumed, as everyone did, that the Black Knight was simply invulnerable. But then Trent came along, and now more than ever I’m convinced.”

  “Convinced of what?” I asked.

  She leveled her gaze at me. “If we discover what the Black Knight’s secret is, we can kill the son of a bitch.”

  Thirteen

  As the clock ticked toward 2:30 a.m., Ingrid led us upstairs, to the top floor of the safe house. There, we found a long hallway lined with doors, two on each side and two in the far wall.

  “I’ve got plenty of room for all
of you,” she said. “There are more bedrooms up here than I know what to do with.”

  “You live alone?” Bethany asked. She was walking better, no longer favoring her right leg now that her knee was bandaged and wrapped tight with gauze. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of Thornton, who was supporting himself against the roof access ladder in the corner of the landing. I’d assumed he would walk better now that he’d been stitched up and didn’t have to worry about his insides spilling out, but instead his movements had become even stiffer than before. The greenish discoloration of his skin had spread, and he’d started to give off a pungent, sickly sweet odor. I’d been around enough dead bodies to recognize the smell.

  “I’ve got the whole place to myself, I have for years,” Ingrid was saying. “I suppose if I had one regret about my time with the Five-Pointed Star, it’s that I never had time for anything else. After Morbius died and the team broke up, I kept the house. I thought I’d just live a quiet, normal life like everyone else, but by then it was too late to start a family.”

  She pointed to one of the doors at the end of the hall and told us it was the bathroom, but I wasn’t listening anymore. An old-fashioned black Bakelite telephone sat atop a small round table against the wall. As soon as I saw it, I thought of Underwood. Since I hadn’t come straight back with the box, he would be waiting for my call.

  A thousand-pound weight pressed on my shoulders. The truth was, I liked Bethany, Thornton, and Ingrid. They were good people. They didn’t slap my cheek and call me a dog the way Underwood did. They hadn’t tried to kill me or lie to me. They welcomed me, took me in, fed me, and tended to my wounds. They treated me as an equal, as a friend.

  But Underwood was waiting, and so were the answers he’d promised. I felt like I was standing on thin ice, only I didn’t know which side of it I wanted to be on.

  Once you’ve taken the box from them, kill them. No survivors.

  I could feel the heft of the gun in the pocket of my leather jacket. My blood felt like ice water.

  I turned away from the phone and everything it was making me think about, and let my eyes wander over the framed photographs that hung in clusters on the wall. A lifetime’s worth of memories were on display, each photograph hanging so close to the next that there was hardly any bare space between them. I looked at the closest one, a snapshot of Morbius and Ingrid standing in front of the Statue of Liberty. His arm was around her shoulder. They were smiling so wide it was like they didn’t have a care in the world. I noticed dozens more photos of the two of them, and suddenly I understood the root of her anger, why she was so eager to see the Black Knight dead. The Black Knight hadn’t just killed her colleague; he’d killed the man she loved. It wasn’t that she hadn’t had time to start a family, it was that she’d never stopped mourning.

  Ingrid opened one of the doors along the wall, revealing a small bedroom. “Thornton, I think you’ll be comfortable here. This bed is nice and soft.”

  Thornton walked stiffly past me to the doorway, trailing his foul odor. He bumped clumsily into the door frame, then leaned casually against it like he’d meant to do that. He stuck his head into the room and gave it a quick, dismissive look. “I’m not tired,” he said. “There are other things I’d rather be doing right now than sleeping.”

  “You need to rest, Thornton,” Bethany told him. “You’ve been though a lot today. Your body is still adjusting.”

  “There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep,” he said.

  “You have to try, for your own sake,” she said. “The more active you are, the more energy the amulet expends. If you don’t rest, it’ll burn out even faster.”

  Thornton sighed and crossed his arms. The green patches of skin around the protruding bones of his wrists looked darker now, fading toward an ugly purple. “Fine. Just promise me we’re out of here at the crack of dawn. I mean it, Bethany. I’m not hanging around. The minute, the second the sun is up and the gargoyles hightail it back home, I’m on my way back to Gabrielle, with or without you.”

  “That’s the plan,” Bethany said. “Now get some rest. I just need to talk to Trent, and then I’m turning in, too.”

  Thornton turned to enter his room, wobbling momentarily on his feet. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was drunk. “If you two are going to make out all night, try to keep it down.”

  “Bite me, werewolf,” Bethany said.

  Thornton slammed the door in her face.

  “Poor thing,” Ingrid said. “He may not feel pain, but he’s hurting inside.”

  Bethany didn’t answer. Her face was long and weary, the face of someone whose decisions were weighing on her.

  Ingrid continued the tour, opening the bedroom next to Thornton’s for Bethany. For me she opened the door across the hall. “This was Morbius’s room,” she told me.

  I was surprised Ingrid and Morbius hadn’t shared a bedroom. I thought they’d been lovers. Maybe they never got the chance. I saw regret etch itself deeper into the lines of Ingrid’s face as she took in the room. I got the feeling she stood in this doorway a lot and reminisced.

  She came back to herself, and looked at me. “You’re about Morbius’s size, give or take. There should be something in the closet that’ll fit you if you want to change out of those clothes.” She turned to Bethany and sized up her diminutive frame. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I have anything that will fit you.”

  Bethany shrugged. “You and every clothing store in New York. Trust me, I’m used to it. I’ll be okay with what I’ve got.”

  Ingrid bid us good night and disappeared into her bedroom at the end of the hall. I went into my room. It was bigger than the other two, with a queen-sized bed against one wall, a small desk and chair, a love seat, and in front of the curtained window a tall dresser topped with more photos of the Five-Pointed Star. I wondered if Ingrid had kept this room exactly as it was when Morbius died.

  Bethany followed me inside. I heard her quietly close the door behind her. I didn’t turn around.

  “It’s not going to work,” I said.

  “What’s not going to work?” she asked.

  I draped my ruined leather coat over the desk chair and sat down on the love seat, facing her. She stayed standing in front of the door.

  “Whatever spell Gabrielle comes up with,” I said. “It won’t work, will it? I saw it in your face as soon as Thornton mentioned she was trying to find a way to help him. He saw it, too, I think, but he doesn’t want to hear it. He wants to believe there’s a way to keep the amulet going indefinitely.”

  She nodded, her face clouding. “There’s a good reason the Breath of Itzamna isn’t permanent. I’m sure you’ve noticed how bad Thornton’s muscle functions are now, the discoloration of his skin, the smell.”

  “The smell is hard to miss,” I said.

  “His body is decomposing at an accelerated rate. It’s a side effect of the amulet. His body will keep decomposing faster and faster as long as the amulet is functioning.” Her eyes wavered and broke contact with mine. “I had to do it. I had to bring him back. But there’s no magic in the world that can bring the dead back to life. Not fully, not the way you and I are alive.”

  Her words struck me with an unexpected force. After everything I’d learned tonight about magic, I was convinced my ability to come back from the dead was magical in nature—a spell some magician had put on me, or a spell of my own that I no longer remembered. But if Bethany was right, then even now, even in a world where magic existed, I was no closer to the truth than I’d been yesterday, or the day before that, or any of the days since I’d woken up in front of that brick wall.

  “There’s nothing?” I pressed.

  She shook her head sadly. “There are some things even magic can’t do. But trust me, it’s better this way. Even if Gabrielle could find a way to keep the amulet functioning, Thornton’s body is still dead. It’ll keep decaying. He would be stuck in a rotting shell until there’s nothing left but dust. That’s n
ot something I would wish on my worst enemy. No, for Thornton’s sake, the best thing we can do is just let it run its course.”

  “So you lied to him,” I said. She stayed quiet. “You told him he could go back to Gabrielle in the morning, but that’s not your plan at all, is it? You still need him to get the box.”

  She looked away, refusing to meet my eye. “I don’t like it any more than you do. He’s my friend. But when things go wrong, someone has to keep a clear head. Someone has to keep their eyes on the goal so things don’t get worse.”

  “And that would be you,” I said. “Even if it means letting your friend die.”

  She glared at me, her face setting hard as stone. “You need to wrap your head around this, Trent. Thornton is already dead. There’s nothing anyone can do for him now. Not me, not you, not Gabrielle. Dead is dead, and no one can change that.”

  But someone had changed it. I’d come back from the dead more than once, and fully back, not trapped inside a rotting corpse like Thornton was. I just wished I knew how or why. If I did, I could help him.

  I caught myself. Help him? Wouldn’t it be easier to let him die? That way, his blood wouldn’t be on my hands when the time came.

  Bethany sighed. “Let’s just drop it, okay? This isn’t what I came here to talk about.”

  “So what did you come here to talk about?”

  She looked at me like I ought to know. Suddenly I wasn’t happy to be alone with her. I felt like she could see right through me. At that moment I was very glad to be sitting on the love seat, because it was about as far from those probing eyes as I could get without actually leaving the room.

  Finally, she crossed her arms over her bulky cargo vest. “I think I’ve been more than patient with you, Trent. I figured you would tell us the truth when you were ready, but I don’t think we can afford to wait anymore.”

  I looked up at her sharply. “What are you talking about?”