But I could go back. I could do what Jestine did, and die with Thomas and Carmel and Gideon there. The room would still have the warmth of lit candles. My head half turns, thinking of it. If I turn just an inch more, I’ll be able to see Thomas, see the whole room, and if I press until the glass shatters I’ll be back there.
“Cassio, get out!”
Anna, I can’t breathe. She’s still fighting, one-armed, refusing to fall. How many ghosts did I cut loose in those seconds? Three? Maybe five? Was one of them my dad? I couldn’t tell. I wonder how much it counts, that I did my best. I wonder if he knows that I’m here.
CAS!
My body jerks. I felt that one. Right between my eyes: Thomas’s voice firing across my synapses.
Come back! You’ve got to come back! There isn’t blood left in you. Your heart is slowing! The blood is slowing! We’re stopping it, do you hear me? I’m stopping it!
There’s no blood left in me. Funny, Thomas. Because there’s a hell of a lot of it still pumping into my lungs. Gallons of it, filling me like a sinking ship. Except that … there isn’t. Not really. And I’m lucid, despite not having taken a decent breath for what seems like an hour.
I look at Anna, using her broken arm now like she doesn’t care if it tears off completely. Because she doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters, not the ragged remains of my shoulder, or my crushed chest. The Obeahman kicks one of Anna’s legs sideways at the knee and she tumbles.
I push myself up onto my elbows and spit blood onto the stone. The pain is dulled, still strong but no longer intense. It feels … inconsequential. I bend my knees, get my legs under me, and stand up. When I look down at my good arm, I smile. Did you see that, Dad? The athame never left my fist.
The Obeahman sees me rise, but I barely notice. I’m too busy watching the ghosts try to break free of his body, tracking their movements to see where they emerge the most. The vibrations of the knife are singing up through my wrist. Get in. Get out. Cut.
When I dive forward he’s unprepared. The first cut catches a ghost trailing out of his left leg. I kick out and put him on one knee, then get to my feet and cut across his bent back, severing another spirit before jumping away. Two more twist and spin out of his chest, and he screams, music in my ears. A four-jointed arm swings for my head; I duck and cut down beneath his ribs, then once more behind his head. No time to think, no time to look. Just get them out. Set them free.
Two more. Then one more. My dad’s voice is in my ear. Every piece of advice he ever gave me flashes through my mind and makes me faster, makes me better. This is what I was meant to do, what I’ve waited for, trained for.
“It doesn’t feel like I thought it would,” I say, wondering if he can hear me, if he’ll know what I mean. It doesn’t feel like I thought it would. I thought there would be rage. But there’s only elation. He and Anna are with me. The blade flashes and the Obeahman can’t stop us. Every time a ghost flies the Obeahman gets angrier, more frustrated. He tries to plug the hole in his chest, pressing his fingers down into the wound. The ghosts only tear it wider.
Anna fights with me, pulling him to the ground. I cut and count and watch them fly. The last of them leave him in a storm; they erupt from his chest, forcing the wound wide. He lays on the stone, split nearly in half, empty of everything but himself.
It all happened so fast. My eyes scan the blankness that should be sky, but there’s no one there. My dad’s not there. I missed him, in the middle of all of it. All that remains is the son of a bitch who took him away in the first place.
I step forward and kneel. Then, without really knowing why, I drag the athame across the stitches of his eyes.
The lids snap open. His eyes are still in there, but they’re rotten and black. The irises have turned an unnatural yellow, almost iridescent, a snake’s eyes. They swivel toward me and fix me with a look of disbelief.
“Go to wherever your Hell is,” I say. “You should have gone there ten years ago.”
“Cas,” Anna says, and takes my hand. We stand up and back away. The Obeahman watches, his pupils maddening pinpoints against the yellow iris. The wound in his chest is no longer growing larger, but the edges are drying out, and as we stand, the dryness spreads, turning his flesh and clothing to an ashy brown before caving in. I look into his eyes until the decay takes them over. For a second he lies there like a cement statue against the rock, and then he collapses, and the pieces of him scatter in all directions, until they disappear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I never saw my dad.