Page 97 of Malady

I drag my fingers an inch across the flagstone, barely brushing his sleeve.

“...Do it,” I wheeze. The breath rattles dry in my throat. “Iscairn... do it.”

He releases a long, shaky breath. “Thank you.”

“You will not touch her, demon!” Gideon roars, stumbling around Iscairn with the wooden cross raised above his head. “I will not stand by and watch you steal my sister's soul!”

He brings the cross down again, but this time Iscairn catches his wrist.

There is a horrible cracking sound as Gideon's arm is wrenched aside, and my brother is thrown backwards against the crypt wall. Dust spills from between the blocks, and Iscairn holds him there with one outstretched arm, his black hair hanging across his mask as he struggles to keep himself upright.

“Enough,” he rasps. “Your sister has made her choice. You will leave her to it.”

He shoves Gideon away and turns back to me. Smoke still curls from beneath his collar, and his breathing has grown so laboured that he has to pause, one hand braced against the floor, before he can reach for me again.

Only this time, his fingers go to the side of his mask.

I frown.

His trembling hands disappear beneath the fall of his long black hair as he reaches for the leather ties at the back of his head. He struggles with the knots, his fingers slipping badly enough that he has to pause and steady them before trying again. Eventually, the first comes loose, and he works the others free until the mask loosens.

The pale bone lifts from his face, catching briefly in the damp strands clinging to his temples before he pulls it free and lets it fall beside us. It strikes the stone with a hollow clatter, rolling onto its side until the long beak rests against a crack in the floor.

And there he is.

He has a face.

His skin is almost colourless against the long black hair falling around his face, with a smattering of pale scars marking his otherwise handsome features. One runs through the edge of his brow towards his temple, while another follows the sharp curve of his cheek, slightly raised where the flesh has healed. Finer marks trace his jaw and the bridge of his nose, some so faint they almost disappear in the flickering torchlight.

But as my gaze reaches his eyes, my breath catches.

They're black. Entirely black, without so much as a sliver of white around them, like looking into a night sky with no stars. I expected something unusual beneath those amber lenses, but I hadn’t expected to find a man with eyes that look as though somebody forgot to finish making them. And yet, they're beautiful.

“Ophelia,” he whispers. Without the bone between us, his voice is shockingly near, rich and raw. “Are you certain?”

Questions try to form in my mind, but they dissolve before I can grasp them. All that remains is the dark pool of his eyes and the brutal, inescapable truth that my next breath might not come at all.

I have nothing left to barter with. No pride, no shop, no breath.

My chin drops a single fraction against the stone.

Yes.

“Lord, preserve her soul!” Gideon cries from behind him. “Let not the serpent enter her flesh! Let not the wicked one turn her from Thy light!”

Iscairn turns towards Billy Mercer, whose miserable groaning has grown quieter over the last few minutes, and lowers himself beside him, bracing one unsteady hand against the floor while the other settles beneath Billy’s jaw. His black hair falls across his face as he bends closer, and almost at once, a faint blue light begins to spread beneath Billy’s skin.

It starts in his throat, illuminating the swollen flesh from within before creeping upwards into his cheeks. His mouth falls open around a wet, rattling breath, and light gathers behind his teeth before spilling between his lips.

This is nothing like what he did to Alice. Billy's face grows so bright that the veins beneath his skin stand out like dark threads, and for a moment, even the bones of his jaw are visible through the flesh. The light pours steadily from his mouth towards Iscairn, leaving his cheeks hollow and his skin gradually losing its strange glow as the last of it is drawn away.

When it's over, Billy's head lolls against the stone, his mouth still hanging open. The miserable groaning has stopped altogether, and there's nothing left of the light that had been shining through him.

Well. Good riddance again, you miserable sod.

Iscairn draws back with a shudder, his bare hand pressed against the stone while the other clutches at the torn cloth over his chest.

“The soul first,” he murmurs, his brow drawing together. “No. The blood. It gave me the blood before it…” His fingers move against the stone, counting something beneath his breath while he tries again. “The soul must be held until the blood has taken. But it did not…” He shakes his head, his long hair falling across his face. “No, that is not right. I remember the blood. I remember it holding my head, and there was something…” He presses a hand against his brow.