The Dead Man: Ring of Knives

He heard her gasp as he went to work, felt her fingers clutch his hair, tasted her salty acquiescence. She opened beneath his insistent touch like the night-blooming flowers of the pond, and her scent mingled with theirs until it overpowered him. She let out a small, familiar cry as he drew her into his mouth. Like sucking on an orchid, he thought for the thousandth time.

When she released, he drank her like he always did, until he had drained away her fear, her anxiety, and her will to do anything other than stroke his head and whisper, 'I love you, Matt . . . I love you so much.'

He nodded wordlessly, wrapping his arms around her, knowing it was the truth, knowing that he felt the same way and that nothing that was to come would ever change that.

RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK

Matt came crashing back to the reality of the padded table, the blinding fluorescents, the ache in his jaw, the fire in his veins.

And the smell of singed hair and urine.

'Well, look at that,' Hirotachi croaked. 'Looks like someone messed himself real bad. Do we need a dia-dee, Matthew?'

Matt glanced down and saw that his jeans were stained at the crotch. He couldn't have cared less. The shock treatment had recovered a memory he'd nearly forgotten—recovered it so completely, in such perfect detail, that he couldn't get his mind around the fact that it was gone, that she was gone, and that he was here in this godforsaken hell with this witch, instead of being on a bridge, in the moonlight, with—.

Hirotachi flipped the switch on and off quickly.

Matt grunted, went rigid as lightning coursed through his veins, then collapsed, gasping, in a pool of sweat.

Hirotachi cackled. 'God, but I used to love seeing 'em stiffen up like that,' she said. 'Those were the days.'

Matt turned his head to see Maloria looking at him wide-eyed. She looked down immediately.

'I think he had enough a' that,' Maloria said softly, keeping her eyes on the floor.

'Oh, you do, do ya? Shows what you know, you fat black bitch.'

Maloria's eyes flashed up, hot with defiance.

Hirotachi peeled back her lips to reveal a row of small, nicotine-yellow nubs. 'Problem?'

Maloria looked down again, lips clamped shut, muscle twitching at her jaw.

'Shoe's on the other foot when the night shift's here, ain't it?'

'Just sayin', what you're doin' is like to kill him. Then he can't be took to the Ring at all, and who'll be in trouble then?'

Ring? Matt thought. What in hell's the Ring?

'Don't you worry your fat head about that. He's still got plenty of spunk left in him. See?'

And she flipped the switch again.

RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK

Again they stood together, Matt and Janey, staring at moonlight on water.

Only this time, there was no warm spring air, no band playing in the distance, no scent of lotus. Instead, the breeze was the dry by-product of the hospital's industrial air-circulation system, and the only scent was the chemical tang of lemon-scented disinfectant.

He had woken up at two a.m. to find that she'd left the room. When he stepped out, he'd found her standing in the hallway in front of a window overlooking a landscaped industrial park between the hospital and its parking structure. Snow covered the neatly spaced prairie grasses that bordered a small, frozen pond.

He put a hand on her shoulder blade.

'Hey, you.'

She didn't startle. Just leaned back a little in that way he'd always found so assuring.

He cleared his throat. 'Want to take a walk? I know a vending machine around the corner where we can score Funyuns for a song.'

She shook her head.

He let it go. Stopped trying to be clever. Gently stroked the back of her neck.

'It's so beautiful,' she said, staring out the window.

'Yeah.' He looked at the snow-covered industrial park doubtfully, wondering if he was seeing what she was. 'You mean the snow?'

'All of it,' she said. 'All of it.' And began to cry.

He put his arms around her, placed his cheek against hers, and held her as she shook silently. Behind them, an orderly rattled past with a trayful of meds. Ignored the weeping couple. Nothing he hadn't seen before.

They stood there a long time, cheek to cheek, staring out at the frozen pond, the parking structure, the cold eye of the moon.

He was just about to suggest that they go back and try to sleep again when she cleared her throat and shook her head. 'I just can't believe it. It doesn't make sense.'

'What?' Although he knew.

'I just can't believe that, at some point—some point soon—I'll be gone. That I won't just be asleep, or unconscious—I won't be. I know it's true, but I just can't . . . get my head around it.'

'It's not true,' he said fiercely.

'Hon . . .' She touched his cheek. 'It is.'

'No, it isn't. No matter what happens to your body, you'll live on.'

'Where?' She gave a weak, knowing smile. 'You mean, like, heaven?' Neither one of them was religious, or ever had been.

'No, not heaven,' he said. 'You'll be with me.' He knew what he meant. But could he say it in a way that would make her understand? He had to. 'You'll be with me, Janey. You will. In my heart. I'll take you with me wherever I go. What I see, you'll see. What I do, you'll do. I'll never let you go. Never.' He hugged her fiercely. 'You've got to believe me. You've got to.'

'I do, Matt.' She touched his face with her fingertips. His eyes were too blurred with tears to see her expression. But the words she said were enough, and she said them again, taking him back to the time he'd first stood with her in front of hundreds of friends and family, in heart-pounding terror and elation, and heard her say that life-changing phrase: 'I do, Matt—I do.'

RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK

'Whoo! Now, that was a doozy!' Hirotachi crowed, her froggish face stretched upwards in grotesque delight.

Matt collapsed back onto the table. Sweat soaked his shirt. Every cell in his body felt scorched. Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes, pooling in his ears.

'You definitely gonna kill him, you keep that shit up.' Maloria had backed against a wall, her lower lip protruding as she said it.

'Nahhhh,' Hirotachi purred, drawing it out, 'you'd be amazed at how much a grown buck like this can take. What's he had, two sessions? Can't do crap with two. But three . . . three's the charm.'

She flipped the switch.

RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK

Darkness.