“You can be a real asshole sometimes, Blake.”
“If it helps,” I said, my voice still ragged, worse for having shouted, “I’m not really me right now.”
“Is that it? Or is it the opposite? Is this Blake Thorburn with all the flesh and mortal warmth bled away?
She was gone a heartbeat later.
Shaking with exhaustion and anger, I joined Evan in the morgue. Dozens of ghosts, so insubstantial that many didn’t have faces, faded in and out of existence, lighting the otherwise dark room like so many dying candles.
Evan stood by the wall, brighter and clearer than all of the rest put together. I didn’t even need to ask. The connection was clear enough.
I opened the hatch and pulled on the drawer. It took me three good tugs to get it out, and it was on rollers.
“Did you decide, Evan?” I asked. “The answer to my offer.”
“To be your partner?”
“Yeah.”
“Why not that girl?”
“It doesn’t feel right,” I said. “I don’t want to pick her because she’s there. I want to pick someone who feels like they fit.”
Duncan was in the basement, but he didn’t come for me. He went to another room, then stopped.
He couldn’t see me, nor could he see the connection between us.
“What do I do?”
“You only have to agree,” I said. “I… I’ve heard this described as a kind of marriage, which is kind of creepy when I think too hard about it. But I suppose some principles apply. If I had to make vows, if I wanted to extend a promise to you while letting you know what you were in for, I couldn’t say that it’d all be happy, or safe. I could give you a taste of being alive again, but there would be a lot of scary stuff.”
“I’m not a happy person anymore,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe again.”
“I think you could, if you moved on.”
“I can’t do that most of all,” he said. Nonsensical, but I got the gist of it.
“I can say that I’m probably going to go up against some scary things. Things like your wolf. I’m going to try my damndest to stop them. To catch them or kill them. I want to be a force for good in the world, and helping you, stopping the Hyena? That’s the first time I felt like I was doing that.”
“I want to help people too. It’s not so complicated when I think about it. I don’t want people to feel like I did.”
I nodded. “So… as far as vows go… I’m going to say that if you agree, and you don’t have to agree, really, I’m going to try and be the kind of practitioner that you can be proud of helping.”
“I’m supposed to say something too?”
“If you want.”
“I don’t know what to promise. I want to help. I want to stop the bad things, and you’re saying I can help that happen.”
“I can think of a good promise,” I said. “When this is done… when I fail, somewhere along the line, and something stops me instead of me stopping it? When I die and the bond between us is broken? I want you to promise that you’ll say you’re okay. That you did help. That you did what you were supposed to and you can move on.”
I saw him stiffen.
“The promises aren’t supposed to be easy,” I said. “If you really want to stick around, hanging around me might not be the best way to do it.”
“I’ll… I’ll stay. I promise I’ll go when you do.”
I glanced to my right. Rose was there, reflected on the inside of the door. She looked pensive. Not quite like she was reconsidering her former stance, but… pensive.
“He needs to agree to the Other’s oaths,” Rose said. “Then we can do the ritual.”
Duncan was still in the basement.
I saw a man enter the room, indistinct and dark, pick up some things at a table, then stride out. Faceless ghosts watched his every move.
“Can you read?” Rose asked.
Evan nodded.
“You’ll need to read this. I can’t have you repeat after me, or I might bind myself,” she said, holding the book where he could see. “The words will be backwards, but try to hurry.”
“I…”
“Your name.”
“I, Evan, agree… to… be… bound… by… the…”
“Strictures,” Rose said.
“Strictures…”
He continued.
Breathing hard, hurting all over, leaning on the drawer, I stared down at the body that sat between us. The centerpiece for our little ritual here. A portion of my attention rested with our adversary, the remainder was split between Evan’s recitation and trying to figure out what time it was, how much time I had left
Duncan Behaim would get his round three after all.
With luck, he’d also get something of a surprise.
5.04