“But—”
“If you don’t care about yourself or your friend in the other painting,” Alan said, “then at least think of Rolanda.”
“She is nice,” Cosette said, wavering.
“Do you want her to be hurt, when you could have saved her?”
Cosette looked from Alan to Isabelle. Her gaze focused on the utility knife in Isabelle’s hand, the shining length of razor-sharp blade that protruded from one end. Cosette put a hand to her chest, palm flat between her small breasts, and a look of sadness came over her. Alan couldn’t tell if it was for Isabelle, or for herself; for the red crow that Isabelle would be loosing, or for the one she herself didn’t have. Then she blinked out of existence, leaving behind her only the sound of displaced air that rushed to fil the spot where she’d been standing.
Beside him, Marisa shivered and took his hand. Alan knew just how she was feeling. It was one thing to talk about magic being real, but something entirely unsettling about experiencing it firsthand.
“I’m sorry you have to be here to see this,” Isabelle said.
Alan watched her stand up and back away from them.
“We won’t let you die,” he said. “If you cut yourself, I’ll stanch the wound.” He stood up himself:
“Hell, I’ll make you cut me first.”
“Don’t make this harder than it is. It’s already taking all the courage I’ve got.”
“What would Kathy think?” Alan tried.
“I don’t care!” Isabelle cried. The flatness left her voice and Alan could hear the utter despair that was driving her. “We always thought she was so brave and true, that she was so strong. Well, we were wrong, weren’t we? Maybe we could have saved her, if we’d known, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not doing this for Kathy. I’m not doing this because I want to. I’m doing this because it’s the only way I can stop Rushkin from hurting my friends. I won’t make more numena for him, but I won’t let him take away anything else I love.”
“And when he finds someone else to make numena for him?” Alan asked. “What changes?”
Isabelle shook her head. “Do you think he’d be risking what he is, if he could find someone else? His last student killed herself because she realized the truth: that’s the only way to get out of his clutches. I don’t think there is anybody else. And even if there is, I doubt he’s strong enough to live through the time it’d take to train them.”
“Unless he feeds on whatever numena of yours that are still around. Paddyjack and Cosette. The painting of Annie Nin that I’ve got. The reading woman at the Foundation.”
Isabelle nodded. “I guess it’ll have to be up to you to protect them,” she said, lifting the blade of the utility knife to her throat.
Marisa turned her face away, unable to look. At her side, Alan made an inarticulate sound and lunged forward. He knew he couldn’t possibly reach her in time, but he had to try.
IX
A few rooms away, Rushkin sat on his pallet, back against the wall, oblivious of the drama taking place in the makeshift studio down the hall. He still held the knife he’d used to destroy The Spirit Is Strong, gently thumbing its edge as he looked across the room. Finally consuming the obstinate John Sweetgrass had been far less satisfying than he’d imagined it would be. He was stronger now, much stronger than he’d been for weeks, but the gnawing hunger continued to eat away inside him, unappeasable.
He remembered when Bitterweed had first brought the painting to him, how angry he’d been at the numena’s stupidity until he’d felt the unmistakable aura of the otherworld rising up from under the paint Barbara Nichols had used to cover Isabelle’s original painting. He’d picked away at a corner of the canvas, working at the dried oil paint with his thumbnail. The garish top layer had come off in small flakes under his effort, revealing the richer tones of Isabelle’s oils hidden under it.
That had been clever of Sweetgrass, but not clever enough. Did Sweetgrass think that he hadn’t kept tabs on him, that he hadn’t been aware of the friendship that had developed between Isabelle’s first fully-realized numena and his own erstwhile student? Who better to guard the painting for Sweetgrass than lovely Barbara with her quick tongue and a temper to match Rushkin’s own? Rushkin hadn’t expected The Spirit Is Strong to be hidden under another painting, but that had been the only surprise.
That, he amended, and the singular lack of substance he’d acquired upon consuming the numena.
Perhaps it had something to do with Barbara’s having covered Isabelle’s original under her own work.
The additional layer of paint could well have worked subtle changes in the properties of the original.
Although Barbara hadn’t stayed with him long enough to fully learn the craft of bringing numena across, there were still traces of enchantment in her work—enough to create some slight imbalance.
A pity about Barbara, he thought. She’d been so promising. Much more talented than poor Giselle.
Perhaps more talented than Isabelle as well, though it was hard to tell. She hadn’t been with him long enough. She’d certainly been more volatile. Not at all like poor innocent and trusting Isabelle. He smiled, thinking of Isabelle. Even now, even after all that he’d done to her, she couldn’t sift fact from fiction. As though she would ever have set the fire that consumed her farmhouse and all her numena. As if it could have been any other hand but his own that had struck the match, just as he’d had to do a few years later in Paris with Giselle’s studio.
Rushkin held up his hand and studied the way light played along the edge of the knife he held. He regarded it for a long moment, then leaned over the side of the pallet and tossed the knife on the floor where it landed beside Bitterweed and Scara’s gateway paintings.
A shame you couldn’t feed on your own, he thought. It would make life so much simpler.
He stretched out on the pallet and put his hands behind his head. Staring up at the cracked and water-stained ceiling, he tried to ignore the hungry gnawing in his belly by imagining how Isabelle would finish the painting he’d glimpsed on her easel. It was such an interesting choice of a palette. He could almost taste the sweet angel it would bring across from the Garden of the Muses.
Poor Isabelle. She imagined her subject as an angel of vengeance, a stern-faced, winged Amazon who would leap the bridge between the worlds, redressing wrongs with the edge of her bright sword.
But numena were really only sustenance, nothing more. In this he hadn’t lied: it took a piece of the soul of their maker to make numena equal to humans and who would be fool enough to do such a thing? Let the creatures run one’s errands. Let them remain food. Anything else led only to needless complications.
That was something that Isabelle hadn’t stayed with him long enough to learn. Undoubtedly it had been for the best. Had she stayed, she would have continued to grow stronger and one day she might have tried to wrest control from him—as he had wrested control in his time.
His smile deepened and a dreamy look came over his features. Now, that had been a bloody night.
He had bathed in the hot crimson gushing from the man’s throat, astonished at how much blood one human body held. He’d been so strong in those days—even without the sustenance stolen from another’s numena.
He would be that strong again.
X
A sudden relief flooded Rolanda when she realized that the rapping she heard was coming from inside the storeroom where she’d locked away the paintings for safekeeping. Not bothering to put the baseball bat down, she hurried to the door, disengaged the lock with the key from her pocket and flung the door open.
“Cosette,” she cried. “God, am I happy to ...”