the streets they don’t go down at night. Sometimes it’s right under your nose, and if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’re not going to see it.”
I kept looking at the drinkers. A few must have felt my eyes on them because they turned in my direction. But it wasn’t me they were looking at, I realized quickly. It was Thornton. They leaned toward each other, murmuring something under the jukebox music and glaring at him with the intensity of a hawk hunting a mouse.
Thornton, oblivious to the men staring at him, kept talking. “Trust me, it’s better this way. If people knew the truth about what’s really out there, they’d go looking for it and get themselves killed. Or worse.”
I turned back to him. “Worse? What would be worse?”
He ignored my question. “It’s not safe out there, and it’s getting worse by the day. There are forces at work that are supposed to keep everything in balance, but I’ll be damned if they’re doing their job anymore. Sure, once upon a time everything was supposedly in perfect balance, the light and the dark. Then the Shift happened, and everything went to hell.”
“The Shift?”
“Something happened that tipped the balance. The darkness got stronger, and the light got weaker. Over time, magic grew darker and darker. You can’t carry it inside you anymore the way magicians used to. If magic gets inside you it infects you, corrupts you, turns you dark. It changes you into something
“Like the Anubis Hand,” I said.
Thornton tapped a finger against the amulet on his chest. “And this.”
I thought of the energy that had come out of my hands, and all the times I’d woken up from being dead. Did I have magic inside me? Was that what gave me these abilities? If I did, would it corrupt me, turn me into something wrong?
Had it already?
“There are hundreds of the Infected out there,” Thornton continued. “They’ve either embraced the darkness inside them or been subsumed by it, and their numbers are growing every day. The things that thrive in the dark have crept into the abandoned and forgotten places of the world and spread like a disease. It’s an avalanche, growing stronger from its own momentum. I don’t even know if it can be stopped anymore, or if things can be put back to rights. We do what we can. We secure magical artifacts before they can do any harm or fall into the wrong hands, but we keep our heads down. We don’t draw attention to ourselves, and we don’t take anyone on outright.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a lighter and a pack of Marlboro reds. He stuck a cigarette between his lips and lit it. “Maybe you think we’re cowards, but it’s the only way we can survive when we’re this outnumbered.”
“I don’t think you’re cowards,” I said. “But I think you’re a fool if you think you can change the world. It is what it is. It’s never going to change.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He took a drag off his cigarette. He couldn’t taste it any more than he could the Guinness, but it seemed to calm him. He let the smoke out in a long, leisurely exhalation, a gray cloud that swirled up toward the light fixture above the table. More smoke wafted out from between the buttons of his shirt, exiting his body through the deep gashes in his torso. I decided it was better not to mention it to him.
“Oi, you can’t smoke in here!” the bartender shouted over the music. “Take it outside!”
The men at the bar who’d stared at Thornton earlier turned to glare at him again. A grizzled old man in a porkpie hat added, “You shouldn’t smoke anyway. Bloody things’ll kill you.”
“Too late for that,” Thornton muttered. He dropped the cigarette into his beer, where it sizzled out.
I watched Thornton closely. “Are you scared?” I asked.
“Scared of what?”
“Dying.”
“Nah, dying’s easy,” he said. “Comedy is hard.”
“I’m serious.”
His gaze was steady as it met mine. “I’m already dead, Trent. What’s there to be scared of?”
I shrugged. “What comes after.”
“Ah.” He thought about it a moment, then said, “You know, I’ve seen filthy, abandoned subway platforms turned into beautiful, ornate goblin temples. I’ve seen creatures that live at the bottom of the Central Park Reservoir that would make you scream in terror if you caught even a glimpse of them, only they’re the most peaceful beings I’ve ever met. They spend all day preparing elaborate meals of algae and phytoplankton, and then at night they put on puppet shows for their young. The universe never stops surprising us, Trent. Nothing is ever what it seems. The way I figure it, death is no different. It’s just another kind of existence, another plane of reality.”
It sounded nice, and I hoped he was right. I didn’t tell him that my own experiences with death were very different. I never saw another plane of existence. I never saw anything at all.
“It’s not what comes next that scares me, Trent,” Thornton continued. “What scares me is leaving Gabrielle. I can’t even imagine not having her by my side. It’s funny, all the little things in a relationship that can bug you, like your girlfriend’s mad that you left hair in the shower drain, or you’re mad that she turned off the cable box when you wanted to DVR your favorite show, and then suddenly…” He paused a moment, staring at the soggy cigarette floating in his Guinness. “Suddenly there’s an expiration date, and you realize how much time you wasted on stuff that doesn’t matter. You realize love is a lot bigger and a lot more important than you ever thought it was.”
I was going to have to take his word on that, though I often wondered if there was someone I’d loved, or who’d loved me, before my past was stripped away. My guess was no. If someone loved me, wouldn’t they try to find me?
“Thornton!” Bethany shouted over the music. She held the phone out for him. Thornton leapt out of the booth and took it from her. He put the phone to his ear and leaned against the wall with his back to the bar. I couldn’t see his expression, but I could guess what it was.
The bartender, Porkpie Hat, and the rest of the men at the bar watched Thornton at the public phone. They glared at him and muttered to each other. They looked nervous, on edge.
Bethany came to the booth and sat in Thornton’s seat. She scowled at the pint glass with the cigarette in it and pushed it away. “Ugh, what have you two been doing?”
“So what’s the plan?” I asked.
“Just like I said, it’s not safe to meet up with Isaac yet, not with the gargoyles still out there. We can’t risk leading them right to him. But he told me about a safe house that’s just a few blocks from here. We’re supposed to meet a woman there named Ingrid Bannion. Isaac is calling her now to let her know we’re coming. We’ll stay at the safe house until the sun’s up. The gargoyles won’t risk being out in the daylight, it hurts them too much.”
“But you said it doesn’t kill them?”
“Not much does.” She leaned closer, her hair falling over her eyes in a way that made her look a lot younger than she was. “I told Isaac about what happened with the Anubis Hand, and what you did to the Black Knight. He’s very interested in meeting you.”
“Who
“He’s the man we work for.”
I nodded. I’d thought as much. “The one who sends you out to secure magical artifacts before any of the Infected get them.”
She arched an eyebrow at me in surprise, the corners of her lips curling up in a half-smile. “I see you and Thornton have been talking. Good. I bet Isaac could use someone like you.”
I liked the fact that I’d impressed her. I liked even more that I’d made her smile.
I pushed the thought away. It was dangerous to get attached. I knew that. What was I, some goddamn amateur?
“Right now Isaac, Gabrielle, and Philip are back at Citadel, tracking the gargoyles’ movements,” she said. “They can keep the gargoyles occupied with some spells to misdirect them, but until the sun is up he wants us to wait it out somewhere safe. That’s the best he can do for us.”
Citadel. She’d mentioned that name before, back in the Explorer. Isaac’s base of operations. I still didn’t
