But I don’t think I’m going to get to.
The curve of his blade is so perfect for harvesting.
It travels flat and smooth, a little sharper and it would be slicing through the dust in the air as it comes for my neck.
And I see that I am on a stain in the concrete, a shape I remember, left there when I laid Daniel on this spot and watched him die. I remember Daniel. How he liked to tease me with hints. Suggestions that I was supposed to replace him. Never taken seriously. I remember him telling me the Wraith was something Enclave summoned from someplace else. Remember the old man of the sewers, the old man whose real name is Joseph. Remember how Daniel only called me by the name I was first born with, Simon. Remember old crazy Joseph of the sewers telling Simon that he’d seen a Wraith summoned. Saying that the Wraith was what we become. Remember seeing that blackness in his eyes. Swimming under the surface. I remember dying in that long-ago basement. Dying because I’d been without blood too long. Because my supply had been stolen. But not dead long. Coming back, Vyrus bringing me back, emptying me out to live, forcing me to live, just long enough to get it the blood it needed to live. Remember being on the verge of dying, Vyrus dying too, and the Wraith. Freezing a man through. Cold like space. At the end. And Daniel saying they summoned the Wraith. And Daniel, I get this idea of him in my old apartment, stealing the last of my blood. I get an idea of Daniel, for years, trailing me, walking in my steps and in my scent, erasing traces of himself. I see Daniel, telling me again, they summoned the Wraith. Telling me again that he starved me, to watch me die, to see if I could survive it, and telling me he sent the Wraith to save me. And I get this idea of myself in that basement, cold like dead, black-eyed, doing something inhuman. Something that wouldn’t have been the strangest thing I’ve ever done.
I see the Wraith.
And.
I’m.
There.
World breaks around me, scrambles, reassembles, and I’m back in the school basement. Holes leaking blood. Naked Doctor Horde about to shoot me. Black at the edge of my vision. Vibrating, writhing, black. And bits of it break off and drift over my eyes.
And I see Amanda in the corner. She’s going to die if I die.
And I think of Evie. She doesn’t know who I am.
And I don’t want to die.
So I do.
Something.
My fingers curl, corkscrew, twist into Horde’s skin, bloodless, piercing, and frost creeps over him and the room pulses with every heartbeat, black, white, black, white, and the black retreats and I close my hands and they are empty fists and my eyes clear and Horde is dead and there is nothing in this world that could have killed a man like that.
The Wraith.
I see the Wraith.
And I see myself.
And the blade is closer.
My hands are on the Count’s stomach.
I feel the dark before I see it. And then it’s in my eyes. Filling my eyes. And I know how to do this. How to become this.
Even if I don’t understand what it is.
Black comes down and the first bullet goes in his back and comes out his chest, opening a blossom of bone cartilage and blood and he starts to turn but a garden of similar flowers bloom there and the scythe shaves some of my scalp as it veers upward and he is thrown into me and I can almost see through the gaping hole that was his chest, right through to Evie, holding the gun that he threw away, pulling the trigger until there’s no point in it anymore.
Black floats away. My thoughts clear.
– That’s my girl.
The Count spins from me, screwing himself into the ground, screams rising and falling like a dying rabbit singing scales, one word over and over.
– Kiiilll, kiiiillll, kiiilll, kiiiiiiiiilllll!
But no one does.
– Tell you, buddy.
I feel the hot wind as he comes out of the sewer cap.
– Tell you, looks to me like something is being decided here.
Enclave are shifting.
He comes into view.
– Kind of a power struggle, looks like to me.
The smell of him is freezing everything. Enclave going still.
Mad old man, a ripple on the air, his words a shiver.
– Remember me?
He moves and everyone moves now, around him, creating distance.
They remember. The Enclave killer. They remember.
He paws the floor with his feet, digging in.
– What’s lacking here these days.
His hands flash open and closed.
– Is a little discipline.
Which he starts to dispense.
And I have just enough in me to roll my head to the side so I don’t have to see it.
All I can see now is Evie, walking to me, one hand alongside her face, shielding her eyes from what the old man is doing.
She kneels next to me, shakes her head.
– I hate fights, Joe.
I’d tell her she shouldn’t have fallen for a fighter.
I’d tell her it’s only because I love her that I make such a mess.
But she’s got her mouth on mine, and I want that to last as long as it will, this kiss, here in the slaughterhouse, I want it to last till I die.
I dream a green and pink egg. It cracks, black ink leaks. Something is writhing inside, forcing its way out.
Amanda looks up from her microscope.
– Once it’s out, you can’t put it back in.
I look at the egg in my hand, the black dripping into my palm, the thing inside pushing the halves of the shell apart.
Terry spins the hand crank on his mimeo machine, turning out handbills for a protest.
– Let it, I don’t know, let it out, but make sure you keep a handle on it, let it out when its energy is aligned with your own desires.
I’m holding the egg in both hands, black dribbling onto the floor, a few fragments of shell falling away.
Predo sits at his desk, flipping through a file marked TOP SECRET.
– Close that thing up, Pitt. You are not suited to making decisions of this scope.
I’m cradling the egg in both arms, knees bent under the weight, rocked from side to side as whatever’s inside thrashes about.
Hurley pats the end of an ax handle into his palm.
– Step on da damn ting dere, Joe. Best not ta take any chances wit it.
It’s on the floor and I’m balancing it, keeping it from rolling over on top of me, a flood of black running off it and pooling over my shoes.
Percy takes a drag from his Pall Mall.
– That’s a problem you got there. Thinkin’ on that one, gonna give your head a hurtin’. Askin’ me, I say use it, before it use you.
I’m backing away from the egg, watching the shell shatter.
The Count looks up from the miniskirted teenager he’s making out with.
– Yo and just fuck it or whatever. What be will be will be.
The shell is breaking open, it’s coming out.
Daniel studies the sun through an open window.
– Simon.
I run to him.
– Daniel, what the hell is that?
The shell crumbles to the floor and a worm, glossy in the black blood of its birth, bursts out, its own tail in its mouth.
Daniel glances at it, shrugs, returns his attention to the sun.
– Got me. I’ve never seen such a thing.
– But you know everything.
He shakes his head.
– I fake a good game, Simon, but I’m just making it up as I go along.
It eats itself and grows and eats itself and grows and I back into a corner and someone puts a hand on my shoulder and I turn and look at Evie.
I shake my head.
– Baby, you’re not dead.
She nods.
– OK, well, neither are you.
Which is news.
I wake up with blood in my mouth.
I swallow and lick my lips.
– More.
Evie pushes the cup against my mouth and I drink the rest and lick the inside clean and nod and suck it from my teeth.