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As soon as he’s far enough away, I leap forward, clamp my hand over the second man’s mouth, and drag him backward, against my chest. When his hand moves, mine darts to his hip faster and seizes the gun he was going for.

I throw it with all my might into the bushes, still gripping his face so tightly I can feel his teeth through his cheeks.

He’s trying to scream through my palm, so I wrap my other arm around his throat and squeeze.

His hands are flailing, elbows jabbing, trying everything he can to damage me. I’m unmovable. A fucking rock.

Within three minutes of losing his air supply, he softens and goes lax. I wait another count of ten to be sure he’s really gone.

The first guy is coming back. He sees me there in the shadows and apparently thinks I’m his buddy because he says, “Saw a truck parked a ways down the road. Think we should check it out?”

I greet him with a thunderous punch to the face. It’s a weaker blow than I could usually manage, but it does the trick. Throws him off-kilter long enough for me to punch him again. But my foot slips on the slick grass, and I go down to one knee.

He pulls a gun. Desperately, I grab his wrist, wrenching, twisting—he drops the gun with a shout of pain, and I use his arm to pull myself up.

A blow to his stomach and he doubles, but then he’s back up and smashing a fist against my cheekbone.

I grab his shoulder, sidestep, use it for leverage while I stomp on the back of his calf at an angle, right below the knee.

Saw the move on TV, and it fucking works—there’s a crack of bone, a sharp give of the leg.

He screams in agony. When he goes down, I kick his head as hard as I can for good measure, and judging by the resulting crunch, he won’t be getting up again.

Tremors run through my body, and I brace myself against a tree.

I killed both of them.

It’s for Cathy. For Cathy, I’d do anything. Carve out my heart. Soak my damn soul in blood—

A gunshot rings out, and I crouch, hunkering behind the tree. The last two guys must have heard their buddy scream. They know I’m here.

Waves of drowsiness and weakness are rolling over me. My body telling me it’s about time to get some rest. But I gotta finish this. I’ve got to get her back.

I left my phone in the truck, so I don’t have any light, but I root around in the grass where I think the second gun fell. My fingers brush wet metal, and I pick up the weapon, checking to make sure the safety’s off.

For once, I’m grateful to Hindley. His constant need to compete with me for Buckland’s approval drove both of us to be better marksmen. Since I never go hunting, I thought those hours of target practice in all weather conditions were wasted, but it looks like I’m about to reap the reward.

I do a sidelong half crawl, half crouch through the bushes, quiet as I can, until I’ve gained some distance from the two bodies. I’m right on the edge of the graveyard now; I can see the dark pillars of Old Sheldon Church.

Something moves near one of the arches.

I squint through the rain, silently cursing the low visibility.

There it is again. Someone peeking out from his cover, growing bolder with every passing second.

I aim for the edge of that arch, and I wait.

When he appears again, I pull the trigger.

Head shot. His neck jerks, and he falls backward.

Swiftly I move through the trees, bent over, grateful for a rustling gust of wind that covers my steps.

A few minutes pass—and then a figure goes streaking past my hiding spot, running full tilt for the road. The fourth guard. He knows his buddies are gone, and he’s done playing watchdog. He’s hightailing it outta here, to wherever they parked their vehicle.

But I can’t let him leave. He might call whoever set this up and warn them that I’m here for Cathy.

I try to run after him, but my balance is shit, so I plant my feet, narrow my eyes, and shoot twice. Three times. Four, and he falls, right at the edge of the road.

My heart is pounding and my lungs feel thick. Breathing heavily, I walk up to the wounded guy, grab his arms, and drag him into some bushes. Then I crouch and rub the gun around in some wet leaves and dirt to get rid of any fingerprints.

The guy I shot is moaning, fumbling for his pocket. Probably try to get his phone.

I could just take the phone, smash it on the road, then knock him out. Or I could hold his head just right and snap his neck.

This guy participated in Rockford’s murder. He’s been hired by whoever killed Cathy. Which means he’s guilty as sin.

I kneel. Brace his skull between my hands. Look down into his eyes.

“Where is she?” I demand through the cold rain streaming down my face.

“She?” He coughs, spits blood.

“Don’t play dumb. The woman who was killed tonight. The one whose body you were sent here to guard. Where the fuck is she? Tell me, and I’ll let you live.”

“The crypt.” He lifts a shaking finger and points. “The big one, on the right. Please…”

One, two, three… snap.

I bow over him for a second, a silent confession of what I’ve done. Owning it.

Then I drag myself upright again and stumble toward the crypt. It’s an old one, a huge rectangular stone box with a cracked slab of stone as the lid.

There’s a smear of blood glistening on the underside of the granite edge, where the rain can’t reach.

Cathy.

She’s in there. My girl is in there, and I have to get her out.

I ram both palms against the stone cover of the crypt and shove.

My boots slip on the muddy ground, and I nearly fall. I take a second to find my footing, renew my grip, and brace myself.

Then I roar, my whole body straining with effort, and the stone grinds grudgingly across the mouth of the crypt, inch by inch, until it tips and slides to the ground with a dull boom. Rain shatters into the tomb.

There she is. There she fucking is. They left her here—they left her in the dark, in this grave.

Hoarse sobs crack from my lungs as I reach in and drag her out.

She’s already soaked to the skin, her white dress a transparent film over her body.

She’s thinner than the last time I saw her—frail and brittle in my arms. Her head lolls back on her delicate neck, exposing the ugly wound across her throat.

She’s bloodlessly white, her eyes closed, her lungs still, and her heart silent.

“Damn it, Cathy,” I whisper. I gather her into my lap, sink my fingers into her wet, dark hair, and pull her head against my shoulder.

I need to resurrect her here. That’s one of the rules—the corpse must be kept as close to the location of death as possible. Otherwise, it’s almost impossible to find the soul.

Blinking through the rain, I scan our gloomy surroundings.

I don’t see anyone else watching, but that’s not to say someone won’t show up, especially if the gunshots were overheard and reported.

I’ll be in a sort of trance during the resurrection.

I won’t be able to respond to any danger around us, and I won’t know how much damage I’m doing to myself until the job is done.

I’m weak. Drained low. I probably won’t survive this. Thing is, I don’t much care, as long as Cathy lives.

There’s no way around it—I gotta do this now.

I lay Cathy down in the grass and adjust her limbs so she looks like she’s resting.

Lifting my right wrist, I bite down until blood oozes from the torn skin.

With my fingertips I paint the blood over the tattoo on the left side of my abdomen.

Then, with a silent apology, I pull up the filmy skirt of her dress and paint more of my blood over the tattoo on her hip.

The rain is still coming down, but the blood soaks into the tattoos faster than the drops can wash it away. Cathy’s tattoo lights up, a red glow seeping through every inked line. Mine comes to life too, red and raging.

Kneeling beside her, I slam one palm over my tattoo and the other over hers. I scan the church grounds one more time, peering through gray rain at the gravestones, the brick pillars, the trees. There’s no sign of anyone.

Good enough. Let’s do this.

Shoulders bent, head bowed, blood still running warm from my wrist, I press harder against both our tattoos, and I close my eyes.

“Mors aperit ianuam.”

My mind slips into the Vague, punching through the veil between life and death, pressing deeper.

The dark shimmers here—a sort of black iridescence, a lightless rainbow.

Like being inside a prism of smoked glass or the most twisted mirror maze, where you can actually walk upside down or phase through the mirrors.

That’s the best I’ve ever been able to describe it.

A necromancer like me can walk, or imagine that he’s walking, across the slanted panes of glass, tilting with the angles of the maze.

I visualize the line that connects me to Cathy, and it appears in my hand. Ahead of me, it seems to bend jaggedly upward, then disappear into a glassy surface.

It hasn’t been long. Couple hours. She can’t have gone far.

“Cathy!” I shout into the Vague. My voice has some traveling power here, but it’s a matter of luck whether it bounces off the correct surfaces and heads in the right direction.

My shout comes back to me in a mocking whisper right by my shoulder. “Cathy.”

As I climb toward the spot where the line bends, I see something shift in one of the iridescent panes to my right. It’s quick, but I catch a glimpse. Faceless, slick as oil, with spindly legs and arms. A sluagh, a creature that preys on the souls of the dead—or the living.

Shit, I’ve barely stepped into the Vague and there’s already a sluagh on my tail.

I climb, planting my bare feet carefully on the tilted glass, following the line. “Cathy!”

“ I can be Cathy ,” echoes the faceless figure behind me. “I can be Cathy, Cathy, Cathy.”

It repeats her name over and over, a dirge from its mouthless, oval head.