46. Blood For Blood #2
Jem’s smile is pure vengeance. “Bet you didn’t think I’d find friends even more powerful than you, did you?” His spare hand stretches out towards me. “Liam, hand me that stake.”
I search around in the direction he indicates, eyes lighting on a rusted piece of metal stuck into the ground that I hadn’t even noticed before.
There is no hesitation. I rip it out of the grass, half horrified, half fascinated, and hand it over. He twists it in his mortal hands, then presses it against the thin flesh of Marsden’s neck.
“Clothes!” he calls out.
“Naturally,” says Simon. With the swish of his hand, the threads of Marsden’s clothes disintegrate, blowing away on an unnatural breeze.
Jem moves instantly. He rips a line from Marsden’s chin all the way down, splitting his skin in half, tearing flaps wide open along his hips and collarbones.
The screams are loud enough to wake all of London, or raise any of the few dead who aren’t already standing here watching on as if this is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened in this graveyard. And perhaps it is.
“You fucked with the wrong god, Marsden,” Jem breathes through gritted teeth, ripping the point of the stake down his leg.
A deep, disembodied laugh fills the air. I look around for Tezcatlipoca. He must have chosen to stay invisible for a while, but he’s definitely very close.
“When he says he wants blood,” says Jem, tearing a seam down the other leg, “he wants blood.”
Blood is what he gets. It sprays everywhere. I have never seen a single more horrifying sight in all my life. Jem’s flaying him alive, quickly but carefully, taking his skin off in a way that looks practised.
“Liam,” Jem calls, that same kindness in his voice that he’s always kept for me, so at odds with his actions. “You’re going to want to put your hand over his heart right now.”
I stare down at the bloody and exposed ribcage in front of me. “My hand? On that?”
“It’s what Archer always does,” Simon agrees. “You’re going to transfer the life force from one body to the other.”
“I’m going to…” I stare down at the bloody mess, brain stumbling to keep up.
Life force. Right. That’s what Archer would do. Because he’s a necromancer.
Because I’m… a necromancer!
I’m totally a necromancer now, and I can do this.
I scramble to take my place between the bodies, one lifeless and so beloved by every person here, the other broken and bloody and screaming at the fate he brought on himself.
This is what I must do. I told Tezcatlipoca I would brave any consequence, and he’s given me this gift, so I will.
My hand finds Archer’s stilled heart with the ease of a lover, like coming home to a sanctuary.
My other hand is slower to the chest of Marsden, repulsed, but I force it.
Just before it touches down, Jem scoops my fingers up, his own slippery with blood.
“It’s going to hurt, but you can do this. If anyone can, it’s you.”
The way he looks at me, it’s like I’m blasted back ten years, sitting in his room, listening to music, him giving me questionable life advice, but always the best big brother.
He’s back. Archer gave me that. Archer was willing to die for that. And I’ll be damned if I let a man like Marsden take his precious life.
I slam my hand down on the ribcage. The second I make contact, pain sears through my flesh like it’s blistering, boiling off. Marsden’s still screaming, his body shaking all over, and as Jem moves his gory work to Marsden’s arms, I wonder how much longer he can last.
I have to do this. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I have to do this.
I try my best to shut out the blood and horror and screams, force my hand to stay hard against the searing heat of the still-beating heart, imagining his energy racing through me, spilling into Archer’s body.
Then something shifts inside me. Something clicks. An urge, all natural, like breathing. Like magic, of the darkest and most painful kind, a strange and beautiful and ferocious energy shoots through my arm, through my chest, and down my other arm.
It’s working.
Images come to life in my mind’s eye, blood seeping up from the grass and the ground, dripping back into the wound in Archer’s body. The flesh healing itself, the bones the bullet snapped apart cracking to life. I hear them. Viscerally. Above the screams, I hear the sound of Archer’s body healing.
Marsden convulses, then goes still. But the pain hasn’t stopped.
It thrills through me, on and on until finally it weakens in that one hand, finishing the journey up my arm.
Life energy. The last of it. Marsden’s dead now.
Whatever’s left of him speeds up my arm, through my chest, then boom!
Archer’s heart slams to life beneath my palm.
Two hands dig into my shoulders and I’m thrown back, but Jem catches me, braces me as my eyes fling open just in time to see it: Archer’s first breath—a deep, gasping breath that shakes his entire body.
He’s alive.
He’s alive!
“Archer? Are you okay? Archer!” I throw myself on him, hands grasping all over him, desperate to hear a word from him, desperate to know this really worked, that he’s whole again, that he’s come back to me.
He doesn’t speak. Only slips his arms around me and pulls me to his chest, fingers deep in my hair, holding me to the bloody shirt that bears the mark of the bullet that killed him. He kisses my head, his tears mingling with mine, his hands shaking.
Finally, I hear him ask, “Did you do this?” But when I look up, his eyes are locked onto Jem.
Jem laughs and shakes his head. Archer’s gaze moves first to Simon, then Fabian, then Edgar, who flaps down and lands on Marsden’s bloody, fleshless corpse.
“Holy fuck!” Archer shouts, flinging us both back from the mess of bloody pulp in his urgency to get away from it.
“I didn’t do that!” I blurt out. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t… flay people. That wasn’t me.”
“What?” he rasps. “Why would I think that was you?” Again he surveys the corpse, looking like he might be sick. “Who the hell flayed him?”
“Well…” It doesn’t look good either way, so I may as well come out with it.
“Jem did it,” I admit. Archer’s eyes grow even wider, as if he’s just discovered we’re in a Stephen King novel gone wrong, so I rush to add, “But Marsden was very evil. More evil than we even realised. And Tezcatlipoca demanded a sacrifice—”
“A sacrifice?” he whispers. “Tezcatlipoca was here?”
“Yeah. In order to bring you back, he wanted a sacrifice.” He stares at me a long moment. “Because Marsden killed you.”
Archer’s hand falls on his chest. He looks down to see the damage to his clothes, pressed against the firm and unblemished skin beneath.
“I felt it,” he says. “I felt when I died. When he shot me. But then I felt…” He knows. I can see right there in the mixture of terror and adoration in his eyes, fixed on mine, that he knows. “I felt you. It was you, wasn’t it?”
I nod, tears spilling over. “That was me. He gifted me… um… what you have. I can see them now.” I look around at the ghosts still watching us, still providing their mumbled commentary. “I see them all. Just like you do.”
“Honey, no.” His hand falls on my cheek, his head shaking, a great sadness, the pain and fear so clear in every expression. “Not for me. No, not for me.”
I wrap my fingers around the neckline of his bloody shirt.
“I would do anything for you. I’ve fallen for you, Archer.
And now I’d do anything.” I wrench him in, kiss him.
His arms enfold me. He kisses me back, and I’m exactly where I belong.
I know I am. I don’t care about the future, or about the difficulties I’m yet to face. This is right. This is… fate.
“Hmmmm?” The sound is deep and warm and unmistakably familiar. It breaks our embrace, and we both freeze when we register the sight before us.
Tezcatlipoca, parading around the graveyard, wearing Marsden’s skin, looking very pleased with himself.
Jem claps his hands, laughing. “You look incredible.”
“Thank you,” says Tezcatlipoca. “It’s been a while since I’ve had one of these.”
He does a little twirl, and both Archer and I turn to look at Jem. He gives a small raise of his shoulder. “He’s very fashion conscious, actually. In his own way.”
Clearly we’re both having trouble finding words, but I get there first with, “How… How can you know that? Why is he… What are you two?”
“Aw, Tez? He’s… I met him on the other side, a few months back, and we just got to talking. One thing led to another…” He grins over at Tezcatlipoca, who grins back at him. “We’re friends now. But… good friends.”
Tezcatlipoca chuckles, and so does Jem, and there’s a distinct bashfulness about him.
What the fuck?
“You and… Tezcatlipoca?” I vaguely manage.
“Early days yet,” he mumbles, but the heat doesn’t fade from his cheeks in the least.
“All right,” I breathe, trying to get my thoughts straight and not at all dwell on whether my own brother died, then slept with a god who then, in a roundabout way, brought him back to life.
That’s even weirder than me falling for a necromancer.
I think… What the fuck is going on with my family?
“So… you just happened to make friends with a god, ‘good’ friends, and so he… orchestrated all this?”
“Pretty much.” Jem shrugs so casually it’s warping my brain.
“We were chatting one day, and I said I wished I could get in touch with you. That whole time, I had no idea it was possible. Then Tez just made it happen. You went to the shop that day, so he dropped that ExorSquad flyer right in front of you. I never thought it would work, but…” He sends Tez another smile, which is greeted by an even wider one.
“You went for that job, just like he said you would. He made sure your boss was looking at Archer’s file right before you walked in.
Had it fall straight out of the drawer in front of him, just like the flyer, so it was fresh in his mind when he hired you. ”