Page 25 of The Death Wish

Pitch brought his flame forth, a heat beneath his skin that made the air beneath the cloak warm, the soil beneath them heated as a warming pan.

‘Better?’ He knew no answer would come. He did not need one. The heat was already there against Silas’s skin.

Pitch nuzzled against Silas’s hair, and breathed in all that made this man what he was. Perhaps there was a chance the ankou knew him here.

Pitch did not intend to sleep again. But then, he’d not intended to spend his night in an open grave. Nor to find it the only place in the world he could imagine being.

At some point, however unlikely, he slept.

Coughing woke him. He struggled to recall where he was; a hard surface beneath his hip, the scent of loam, the warmth of his flame, still bright beneath his skin.

The embrace reminded him.

‘Silas?’

But the ankou remained deathly still.

‘Sorry, did I wake you, Tobias?’

He moved swiftly, but with care not to disturb the immovable ankou, tucking in the cloak about his shoulders so the heat remained caught beneath. He rose, on his knees, to peer over the edge of their shallow pit.

‘Sybilla? What are you doing here?’

The Valkyrie, clad in a thick, black coat with fur at the neck and cuffs, sat upon the ledger of the grave nearest to Silas’s open plot. She rested her back against the headstone: eyes closed, and stroking the white ferret that was curled in her lap.

‘The grim was very insistent I come here. It seemed it was in my best interest not to ignore the furry fellow.’ Her voice was studiously flat, her true feelings about her predicament well hidden. ‘Evidently Silas is not the only one who will benefit from time spent amongst all these dead. So here I am, at the behest of a church grim.’

‘You know it a grim?’

‘I do.’

‘But Silas could not have told you.’

‘He did not need to. I see it for what it is. I see all these souls, for what they are.’

Pitch peered around the yard. A mist hung about some of the headstones, the end of a row hidden in its pallor. ‘I see an empty space.’

‘It is very far from empty, though it does grow quieter as they leave us. You do not feel how they make the air spark?’

He turned back. Sybilla had opened one eye but closed it quickly now.

‘No.’

Her reply was an indecipherable hum.

Pitch took in the terrible scarring left by the halo, and could not shake the guilt that came. If he’d not been so pathetic, ifSeraphiel had not muzzled his flame so extensively, the angel need not have suffered so.

Suffered…and died? She’d gifted him her magick, but he’d not thought that possible without a Death Wish.

Pitch glanced down at Silas. The ankou had been furtive when pressed for details of the Valkyrie’s miraculous survival. And it was indeed that. Miraculous. She had defied death.

It struck him then, with a firm hard blow to his senses.

‘You died. Silas brought you back.’ There was no question in Pitch’s mind. He did not need to see the angel nod her head. But she did so.

‘I was there upon death’s threshold, but Silas would not let me cross over.’ Sybilla’s hand stilled over the snow white pelt. ‘Is this my fault, Tobias? Did my return cost him too much?’

Pitch fingered the material of Silas’s discarded trousers. ‘So far as this fool is concerned, there’s no cost too high for such things. And if anyone can be accused of taxing him beyond his limits, it is me. This fucking quest.’