Dying Is My Business

only I didn’t know which side of it I wanted to be on.

Once you’ve taken the box from them, kill them. No survivors.

I could feel the heft of the gun in the pocket of my leather jacket. My blood felt like ice water.

I turned away from the phone and everything it was making me think about, and let my eyes wander over the framed photographs that hung in clusters on the wall. A lifetime’s worth of memories were on display, each photograph hanging so close to the next that there was hardly any bare space between them. I looked at the closest one, a snapshot of Morbius and Ingrid standing in front of the Statue of Liberty. His arm was around her shoulder. They were smiling so wide it was like they didn’t have a care in the world. I noticed dozens more photos of the two of them, and suddenly I understood the root of her anger, why she was so eager to see the Black Knight dead. The Black Knight hadn’t just killed her colleague; he’d killed the man she loved. It wasn’t that she hadn’t had time to start a family, it was that she’d never stopped mourning.

Ingrid opened one of the doors along the wall, revealing a small bedroom. “Thornton, I think you’ll be comfortable here. This bed is nice and soft.”

Thornton walked stiffly past me to the doorway, trailing his foul odor. He bumped clumsily into the door frame, then leaned casually against it like he’d meant to do that. He stuck his head into the room and gave it a quick, dismissive look. “I’m not tired,” he said. “There are other things I’d rather be doing right now than sleeping.”

“You need to rest, Thornton,” Bethany told him. “You’ve been though a lot today. Your body is still adjusting.”

“There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep,” he said.

“You have to try, for your own sake,” she said. “The more active you are, the more energy the amulet expends. If you don’t rest, it’ll burn out even faster.”

Thornton sighed and crossed his arms. The green patches of skin around the protruding bones of his wrists looked darker now, fading toward an ugly purple. “Fine. Just promise me we’re out of here at the crack of dawn. I mean it, Bethany. I’m not hanging around. The minute, the second the sun is up and the gargoyles hightail it back home, I’m on my way back to Gabrielle, with or without you.”

“That’s the plan,” Bethany said. “Now get some rest. I just need to talk to Trent, and then I’m turning in, too.”

Thornton turned to enter his room, wobbling momentarily on his feet. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was drunk. “If you two are going to make out all night, try to keep it down.”

“Bite me, werewolf,” Bethany said.

Thornton slammed the door in her face.

“Poor thing,” Ingrid said. “He may not feel pain, but he’s hurting inside.”

Bethany didn’t answer. Her face was long and weary, the face of someone whose decisions were weighing on her.

Ingrid continued the tour, opening the bedroom next to Thornton’s for Bethany. For me she opened the door across the hall. “This was Morbius’s room,” she told me.

I was surprised Ingrid and Morbius hadn’t shared a bedroom. I thought they’d been lovers. Maybe they never got the chance. I saw regret etch itself deeper into the lines of Ingrid’s face as she took in the room. I got the feeling she stood in this doorway a lot and reminisced.

She came back to herself, and looked at me. “You’re about Morbius’s size, give or take. There should be something in the closet that’ll fit you if you want to change out of those clothes.” She turned to Bethany and sized up her diminutive frame. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I have anything that will fit you.”

Bethany shrugged. “You and every clothing store in New York. Trust me, I’m used to it. I’ll be okay with what I’ve got.”

Ingrid bid us good night and disappeared into her bedroom at the end of the hall. I went into my room. It was bigger than the other two, with a queen-sized bed against one wall, a small desk and chair, a love seat, and in front of the curtained window a tall dresser topped with more photos of the Five-Pointed Star. I wondered if Ingrid had kept this room exactly as it was when Morbius died.

Bethany followed me inside. I heard her quietly close the door behind her. I didn’t turn around.

“It’s not going to work,” I said.

“What’s not going to work?” she asked.

I draped my ruined leather coat over the desk chair and sat down on the love seat, facing her. She stayed standing in front of the door.

“Whatever spell Gabrielle comes up with,” I said. “It won’t work, will it? I saw it in your face as soon as Thornton mentioned she was trying to find a way to help him. He saw it, too, I think, but he doesn’t want to hear it. He wants to believe there’s a way to keep the amulet going indefinitely.”

She nodded, her face clouding. “There’s a good reason the Breath of Itzamna isn’t permanent. I’m sure you’ve noticed how bad Thornton’s muscle functions are now, the discoloration of his skin, the smell.”

“The smell is hard to miss,” I said.

“His body is decomposing at an accelerated rate. It’s a side effect of the amulet. His body will keep decomposing faster and faster as long as the amulet is functioning.” Her eyes wavered and broke contact with mine. “I had to do it. I had to bring him back. But there’s no magic in the world that can bring the dead back to life. Not fully, not the way you and I are alive.”

Her words struck me with an unexpected force. After everything I’d learned tonight about magic, I was convinced my ability to come back from the dead was magical in nature—a spell some magician had put on me, or a spell of my own that I no longer remembered. But if Bethany was right, then even now, even in a world where magic existed, I was no closer to the truth than I’d been yesterday, or the day before that, or any of the days since I’d woken up in front of that brick wall.

“There’s nothing?” I pressed.

She shook her head sadly. “There are some things even magic can’t do. But trust me, it’s better this way. Even if Gabrielle could find a way to keep the amulet functioning, Thornton’s body is still dead. It’ll keep decaying. He would be stuck in a rotting shell until there’s nothing left but dust. That’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy. No, for Thornton’s sake, the best thing we can do is just let it run its course.”

“So you lied to him,” I said. She stayed quiet. “You told him he could go back to Gabrielle in the morning, but that’s not your plan at all, is it? You still need him to get the box.”

She looked away, refusing to meet my eye. “I don’t like it any more than you do. He’s my friend. But when things go wrong, someone has to keep a clear head. Someone has to keep their eyes on the goal so things don’t get worse.”

“And that would be you,” I said. “Even if it means letting your friend die.”

She glared at me, her face setting hard as stone. “You need to wrap your head around this, Trent. Thornton is already dead. There’s nothing anyone can do for him now. Not me, not you, not Gabrielle. Dead is dead, and no one can change that.”

But someone had changed it. I’d come back from the dead more than once, and fully back, not trapped inside a rotting corpse like Thornton was. I just wished I knew how or why. If I did, I could help him.

I caught myself. Help him? Wouldn’t it be easier to let him die? That way, his blood wouldn’t be on my hands when the time came.

Bethany sighed. “Let’s just drop it, okay? This isn’t what I came here to talk about.”

“So what did you come here to talk about?”

She looked at me like I ought to know. Suddenly I wasn’t happy to be alone with her. I felt like she could see right through me. At that moment I was very glad to be sitting on the love seat, because it was about as far from those probing eyes as I could get without actually leaving the room.

Finally, she crossed her arms over her bulky cargo vest. “I think I’ve been more than patient with you, Trent. I figured you would tell us the truth when you were ready, but I don’t think we can afford to wait anymore.”

I looked up at her sharply. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s obvious you haven’t been honest with us,” she said. “It’s time to come clean.”

My heart thumped like a tin drum in my chest. How much had she figured out? I glanced at the closed door