I shrugged. “Maybe you can only knock them out, but I’m, what, three times your body mass? No disrespect, but I gave that gargoyle a pretty good smack.”
She looked at me skeptically. “Well, whatever you did, it saved my life. Probably yours, too.”
Not likely, I thought. I turned away from her, and Bethany gasped in alarm. “Trent, you’re injured!”
The adrenaline from the fight had numbed the pain so much that I’d forgotten about the wounds on my back. So much for getting through the night without ruining another shirt. “I’ll be okay,” I told her. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“It’s not every day someone walks away from a gargoyle attack,” she said. “You should count yourself lucky.”
“I guess so.” I still didn’t fully understand what had happened. Gargoyles, a staff called the Anubis Hand, an amulet named the Breath of Itzamna, a man who just a few minutes before had been a wolf … If the door had opened just then and a magical, telepathic Q’horse had trotted in, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Come on, Thornton,” Bethany whispered.
“What exactly are you expecting to happen here?” I pressed.
She ignored me and continued talking to the dead body. “We need you. You’re the only one who knows where it is now.”
“Where what is?”
Finally, she acknowledged my presence again. She shook her head and said, “A box. It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
Oh God. In all the chaos, I’d forgotten about the box. My stomach dropped. Bethany was one of the squatters Underwood had mentioned. I’d made a serious mistake. I saw that now. I’d gotten carried away in the moment and let my guard down. I never should have told her my name, or found out hers. That was only going to make it harder to do my job.
“Tell me about the box,” I said. She didn’t answer. She kept her eyes on Thornton.
I’d saved her life, only to have to kill her myself. Because she didn’t just know my name, she’d seen my face. She could identify me, trace me right back to Underwood, which was exactly what he didn’t want. I reached behind my back for the gun in my waistband. My mouth went as dry as sand. My heart lurched into my throat. My fingers grazed the gun’s handle. This was important, I told myself. There was too much riding on this.
When the box is in my hands, and the ones you’ve taken it from are dead, then I’ll tell you everything you want to know.
I wrapped my fingers around the grip of the gun. My index finger touched the trigger guard.
“Bethany, where is the box?”
I started to pull the gun free.
Between us, Thornton sat up suddenly, gasping air into his lungs.
Seven
There was no doubt in my mind that Thornton had been dead. Well and truly dead. I’d seen the body with my own eyes, clear as day, and they didn’t come any deader. And yet, one minute he was lying motionless on the floor with his guts practically falling out of his stomach, and the next he was sitting up and hyperventilating like he’d just surfaced from a deep-sea dive.
Startled, I let go of my gun, leaving it tucked in the back of my pants. Adrenaline surged through me, my muscles coiling, ready to spring away if he made any sudden moves. In the back of my mind, I wondered if this was how Bennett had felt when he saw me coming for him after I died.
The thought blossomed into another, more earth-shaking one. Was it possible Thornton was like me?
“Thornton?” Bethany said.
He stared at her, gasping and choking, still trying to catch his breath. “Bethany? What happened to me? I—I can’t breathe.”
“Take it slow,” she said. “Don’t force it. Just stop trying to breathe and you’ll be okay.” She turned to me. “Help me get him up.”
I closed my mouth, suddenly aware that it had been hanging open this whole time. Bethany took one of Thornton’s arms. I reached for the other, then paused. I didn’t want to touch him. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. I had the sudden and inexplicable urge to beat him with a shovel until he stayed down for good.
“Please, I can’t do this alone,” she said.
We didn’t have a lot of time before the gargoyles came back, so I reluctantly took Thornton’s other arm. His skin felt cool and clammy, like a slab of raw meat. I didn’t like it, it didn’t feel right, but I helped him get to his feet. He was heavy, cumbersome, awkward. In that moment, I finally understood the term dead weight.
Thornton wobbled unsteadily on his feet. He tried to walk, but his knees buckled under him and he stumbled. Bethany and I kept him upright. “I can’t feel my legs,” he said.
“Just take it slow,” Bethany repeated.
I glanced at the hole in the warehouse ceiling and wondered just how slow we could really take it. Bethany had said the gargoyles would be back soon, and with help. Where did they fit into all this? Was their attack on Bethany purely random? Somehow I doubted it. It wasn’t like the New York Post was running articles on random gargoyle violence in the daily police blotter. So what had they been doing here?
“Something’s wrong, I—I can’t feel anything.” Thornton looked down at himself and noticed, for the first time, the amulet at his chest. The small red gems at its center pulsed with a subtle, rhythmic glow, almost like a heartbeat. “Is this…?”
“The Breath of Itzamna,” she said.
“Why am I wearing it?” He paused, then looked up at Bethany. “Oh, no. I’m dead? I’m fucking dead?”
“Try to stay calm, Thornton,” she said. “The Breath of Itzamna worked. It brought you back.”
“No, I—I don’t feel right,” he said. “I’m cold. Numb. I can’t even feel my heartbeat. The only time I’m breathing is when I talk.”
“That’s because technically you’re not alive,” she explained. “Just … back.”
I bit back a swell of disappointment. Thornton wasn’t like me any more than Bennett’s fellow soldier Sully was. He was only up and moving because of the amulet. Somehow it had the power to bring him back. An amulet that could reanimate the dead. My brain tried to wrap itself around that but only wound up hurting.
“Christ, I’m a fucking zombie,” Thornton groaned.
“We have to keep moving,” Bethany told him. “Can you walk?”
He took a wobbly step forward. A rope of something thick and gray almost fell out of an open gash in his stomach before he pushed it back in with his hands. “Oh my God, I’m disgusting!”
We helped Thornton toward the door, his feet sliding stiffly along the warehouse floor. “Help me get to my clothes. They’re right outside.” He glanced at Bethany sheepishly. “Sorry about all the man flesh on display. It’s hard to make the change while I’m wearing clothes.”
She grinned at him. “Please, like I’ve never seen you change before? I’m used to you letting it all hang out.”
Thornton groaned. “That’s not a nice thing to say to someone who’s been disemboweled.”
Bethany stopped to pick up the Anubis Hand from the floor. I took the opportunity for one last glance around the room. She’d said Thornton was the only one who knew where the box was, which meant it wasn’t in the warehouse anymore. A moment ago I’d been ready to use my gun to get her talking, but now a new strategy occurred to me. If I stuck with these two, they would lead me to the box. I was sure of it.
We carried Thornton through the door. Outside, the familiar sights and sounds of the West Side Highway had a surprisingly calming effect on me. Maybe the entire world hadn’t been turned on its head after all.