Page 171

I don’t know which one did it, but McCarthy rears a little. I open my eyes and see Vincent, covered in grime, his skin cut and bleeding from the blowing desert grit. He’s pulled me back into the edge of the circle.

He helps me up and there’s blood on his hands. I turn him around, checking for where he’s hurt.

“It’s not my blood,” he says. “It’s yours.”

I look down at myself.

Yeah, it’s mine all right. My plugged shoulder has opened up, along with a thousand little cuts on my arms and face. Fuck it. I want to tell Vincent it’s all right, that I’ve bled before, but he’s too scared to listen. He’s never had someone else’s blood on his hands before. The poor slob is getting hit with a whole lot of firsts these days, but I can’t exactly buy him a drink and talk it over. McCarthy has surrounded the circle again and we can’t stay like this forever. I manifest my Gladius, figuring that if I sliced off a little piece of his form before, maybe I can take off enough to hurt him. I start back to the edge of the circle when Vincent runs around in front of me.

“You’ll die if he pulls you out there again.”

“Me? I’m fine. I was just playing possum.”

“You’re lying. Help me fight him.”

“How?”

He holds up his bloody hands.

“I can’t do anything. You gave me my heart, but I’m still trapped in this flesh.”

“What do you want me to do about that?”

“Free me from this body. Kill me.”

“How do you know that won’t destroy you?”

“Neither one of us has a choice. You can’t go back out there and I can’t fight him like this. Please. I can’t watch you die and I can’t live like this.”

“This could be a really bad idea.”

“What alternative is there?”

I look up. The sky is bottom-­of-­the-­ocean black. When McCarthy sends out lightning bolts, the thousands of dead in the sky glow like ornaments on a Hellion Christmas tree. Vincent is right. We might be in the land of the dead, but the two of us are still meat. McCarthy can starve us and stomp us if we try to leave.

“What if this doesn’t work?” I say.

“Then no one is worse off than they were before. McCarthy already controls life and death. I’m the only thing that can stop him, but not like this.”

I picture Alice, the girlfriend I came back from Hell to avenge. Cindil, the donut-­shop girl who was murdered to teach me a lesson. Father Traven, who died saving our lives in Kill City. All the ­people who, one way or another, died for me or who I let die. Even Johnny Thunders, the sweetest zombie you could ever hope to meet. I got revenge for some of them and did what I could for the others, but they still went through hell because of me. Am I going to add one more name to the list?

“Stark, we need to act. Don’t die to protect someone who isn’t afraid to die because he is Death. Free me.”

I look at Vincent one last time.

“Vincent, I don’t say this very often, but you’re an okay guy for an angel.”

“Don’t worry about me. We’ll see each other again someday.”

“Not for a while, I hope.”

“So do I.”

Vincent closes his eyes.

I swing high and fast so maybe he won’t feel it, and catch him at the base of the throat. Vincent’s head rolls away across the packed ground. His body falls. There’s no blood. The Gladius cauterized the wound. He’s just in two dead pieces of useless skin. It’s as simple as that. I let the Gladius go out.

The wind pauses for a second, as if McCarthy is trying to figure out what he just saw. When the gusts pick up again, moving even faster and wilder than before, I swear I can hear the fucker laughing over the din.