My vision wavered again. A little more intensely.
Not all of it was me disconnecting from reality, giving up my very being to work against an effect.
The connection had altered.
“Blake.”
I couldn’t focus enough to look.
“Blake,” Rose said.
“Glad to have you back,” I said.
“Oh- oh wow. You’re bleeding… in a jail cell? What happened, Blake? Did the Sphinx-”
“Rose,” I said. “You missed…”
I swayed, very nearly losing my balance. Odd, when I was sitting cross legged. A hard position to lose one’s balance in.
“You need to staunch those wounds,” Rose said.
“I need no such thing,” I said. I sounded drunk. I hadn’t given that much blood.
I mean, yeah, the cell looked like a murder scene… I smiled at that image. Duncan’s face when he looked in and saw.
“You need to stop the bleeding,” Rose said.
“Nope,” I said. “Nope. Need to keep giving. Take all you can.”
“Blake?”
“If I… if I happen to be incapacitated… There’s two bound, gotta get the abstract demon. Kid named… named Evan.”
“Stop the bleeding!”
Rose’s scream somehow got attention. Or it was coincidence. The girl behind me turned, and she screamed. She screamed a lot.
“Ghost named Evan,” I said. “Good kid. He’ll help.”
“I can’t do anything without you, Blake!”
“You’re going to have to do something,” I mumbled. “I’m going to be less useful here.”
I looked down.
Probably enough.
I fumbled for the mattress, tried to stand, and failed. I managed to find my feet the second time, and leaned over, pressing my arms down with my body weight.
“He wants to trap Blake Thorburn? I… give of myself until Blake Thorburn almost isn’t there,” I said. “Evan. Evan Matthieu. Come.”
No response. No connection.
“Call him,” I said.
Someone came to the cell and threw the door open. An officer. “Medic!”
I dragged the toe of my sock against the blood that pooled on the floor, drawing a line.
Breaking the connection.
When I staggered out, he didn’t notice me.
“Blake-”
“Call Evan.”
“Evan… Evan? Ev-”
The ghost appeared.
“You’ve lost your mind,” Rose said.
I lurched. “Rose, meet Evan. Evan, Rose.”
“Hi,” Evan said, “The monsters got you.”
“I got me,” I mumbled. “Show me the way. And hurry. Only get one chance, like this.”
5.03
Who was Blake Thorburn?
Who was I, in the grand scheme of it all? What did I amount to? When I bled the essence of Blake Thorburn onto the concrete floor of a jail cell, what was I giving up?
Presence. I couldn’t communicate effectively with Evan. The loss of presence was part of the aim, though. To put myself in a situation where maybe I could slip the metaphorical noose.
Strength. I couldn’t stand straight. Kind of a problem when I needed to be running. I didn’t have balance. When I pushed on a door to let myself into the next section of the building, I found it hard to do. Hard to say how much was blood loss, how much was a loss of personal power, and how much was my disconnection from reality.
My awareness of the world was fuzzier. Flickers appeared and lingered at my peripheral vision, like radio static, rain, or falling leaves. I was hearing phantom sounds, only to realize they were real sounds, badly filtered. I couldn’t pick out what I was supposed to hear and the background noise of the police station.
My thoughts, too, were fuzzier, disconnected from events. Which was why, really, I was dwelling on what was happening to me more than on my surroundings.
“-Have to go that way,” Evan said. He said it to Rose.
“Okay,” Rose said, before glancing at me.
She was clear enough. So was Evan.
They were easy to focus on.
We headed down the hallway to the stairs. I missed the first step and came down hard on the next.
Feathers rose into the air, touched with blood.
I looked down for the source of the feathers, and I saw my tattoos. Three of the birds were beheaded or partially beheaded, the cuts intersecting their faces and necks, the other parts of their bodies already gone. The blood that still bled out from the wound was thicker around the stumps, and the matted blood where I’d pressed my arms against the mattress to staunch the flow was caked around their bodies more than anywhere else.
Huh.
“Blake,” Rose shouted, from somewhere far away. “Pay attention!”
I’d stopped. I looked around for her. I wasn’t carrying a mirror, and if I had been, it would have been confiscated along with my various tools.