Page 134 of The Death Wish

That thought slipped in like an assassin, quiet and dark. Landing its knife upon him, digging up the ashes of times spent with the ankou.

The Blight sensed his falter, like it was truly blood in the water, and rounded on him. Pummelling him all the harder with its gloom and woe.

Bringing forth a surge of lament.

What if Lucifer double-crossed him once more and reneged–just as Pitch had done–on his promise to protect Silas?

The ankou was left vulnerable. Open to hurt.

Pitch gasped, tripping over a bone large as a stovepipe. Water splashed up into his eyes, stinging like vinegar.

‘I have to go back.’

The certainty overwhelmed him. Sickened him to the very depths of his soul.

He was not Vassago, not Dominion, not the Berserker Prince. He was simply a fool, who had made a terrible mistake to believe in the lies of a mad angel.

The simurgh rose up and scratched at him, right at his heart.

Pitch cried out, stumbling where a dip in the terrain marked a shift from coarse sand to rough chunks of coral the size of loaves of bread. He lost his footing, and his shin found a sharp edge.

A thin trail of dawn-pink fluid stained the pristine water. He stared down at it, dazed, uncertain why he was crouched in warm waters.

‘I have to go back.’

That was all he knew for certain, though thewhereeluded him.

Another jolt came from the simurgh. A vicious slam against his senses, a boiling of his marrow.

‘Fuck.’ He clutched at his belly, trying to calm his scattered thoughts. Trying to move beneath the drenching press of sadness. He was miserable.

Go back.

Go back. Save him from this.

For this was Silas’s lot, this utter despair. Day in, day out.

He shook his head. ‘No…no, that is not it. That’s not how it will be done.’

The cut on his leg stung like a branding iron. His blood ran freely, fanning into the water. He swept his fingers through the mixture, making the blood swirl in pretty patterns that defied the ugliness of this place.

The desperation of this place.

That single word stirred something…a memory, a thought, a message forgotten?

Whichever it was, he knew it. He was desperate.

Desperate for what? Pitch’s hand flew to his belly, where a sharp pain bit at him. A misstep followed, and he was going down again; onto both knees where the reef of bones was ready to stab at his flesh. He sent his hands before him, a terrible mistake for the shards of whittled bone impaled his palms. Pitch stared at the white stalks that protruded from the back of his hands: revulsion, anguish and agony mixing a terrible cocktail inside his head. A cry of woe echoed around him.

But it was not a sound he’d made.

Tearing his hands free released two macabre dribbles of blood, further marring the clarity of the water.

Blood Lake. The single thought pushed itself forward, and he grasped at it, tried to hold it long enough to make sense of what that meant. The stab in his belly repeated. He was shackled by despair. Fuck, he felt atrocious.

He sent a bloodied hand to his back, a point near his hipbone where his flesh seemed to throb with a discomfort even greater than that at his belly.

The angel’s mark.