Page 24 of Dead Vengeance

My gaze falls on a hand, flat and lifeless on the floor. My legs carry me faster than I can process what’s happening.

Archer, in a pool of blood that I’m sure was Raul’s, even if he’s standing over my shoulder now, uselessly shifting from foot to foot as I drop to the floor by Archer’s side.

My hand is slow to touch his cheek. I’m terrified of what I might discover. What if I touch him and he’s cold? But even before skin meets skin, I feel the warmth radiating from him. A strange warmth. A tingle almost. And when my palm reaches his face, an odd, pleasant heat thrills through my fingers, all the way up my arm, into my chest, blooming in my own cheek as if he’s just touched me. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever felt. Strange and beautiful, and I don’t want to pull away. But within seconds, a soft groan comes from deep in his throat, and his head turns. For the briefest time, he nestles his cheek into my palm, and a new horror strikes me.

Maybe he thinks I’m his partner, whoever that might be. The person who put that ring on his finger.

Even if it feels like slipping between cold sheets on a frigid winter’s night, I make myself pull my hand away before he can realise—before he can see it’s only me, some random ghost botherer from Ickenham.

But his hand reaches up, closes over mine, presses it back to his cheek, and that heat throbs through me, in my chest, up and down my arm, in my cheek. His eyes open slowly, fixing on me, amber irises dancing as recognition dawns.

I could die.

He could too, clearly, because he wrenches himself up and away, his whole body reeling with a massive gasp. His face turns shakily, eyes flitting around the room, as if he can’t remember where he is.

“Kraa!” shouts that strange raven. The window’s open now, and it’s just perching there on the ledge, watching Archer.

Archer looks at me again, brow drawing tight. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… Am I?” A laugh bubbles up at the ludicrous question. “I’m fine.” Physically, anyway. Out of everyone in this room, I seem to be the least harmed by whatever has happened here today. “Are you all right? We found you on the floor.”

“I’m all right.” His smile is sudden and wide and not even a bit convincing. “Low blood-sugar, probably. I should eat a cookie or something. Tea?”

Tea? What the fuck, tea?

But he’s already making his way to the kitchen, the palm of one hand pressing into his temple, rubbing it like it hurts.

“Mr Gravely, are you—”

“I’ll have a cup,” says Raul, and it’s then I notice that his hands are shaking. He brings them to his upper arms, rubbing them as if he’s cold, warming himself.

“Are you okay?” I ask him again. And get a sneer for my effort. “You should look in the mirror some time,” I chance.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You just…” I catalogue the river system of dried blood all over him. “You have something on your… everything…” I know that’s inviting another unpleasant comment, but I don’t know what else to tell him. “Are you sure you’re feeling—”

“Bathroom’s at the end of the hall,” Archer calls, his back turned to us as he pours boiling water into a mug.

Raul shakes his head at me with something that looks like disgust. But his teeth chatter, like he really is freezing, and he strides off down the hall.

“Do you mind if I close the window?” I ask Archer, feeling the cool autumn breeze seeping in, worried it’s making Raul worse.

“Yeah, of course,” he says, super casually, his face lost behind an open cupboard door. So I turn to the window, laying eyes on that strange raven.

It makes a weird sort of cooing at me. Weird because it seems deliberate, like it’s talking to me. Like it seemed to do when it was outside earlier, hanging around near Archer. “And that’s not a pet?” I call out, approaching the bird, flummoxed that it appears to not be scared at all by my presence.

Archer pokes his head out. “That’s not a pet.”

“All right. It’s… It’s very brave, isn’t it?”

“Kraa!” snaps the raven, and I freeze right there.

“Edgar, be nice!” Archer remonstrates.

“Edgar?” I repeat. The bird coos again, and I take a step closer. “You call it Edgar?”

“I do.”