Dying Is My Business

but the sight of him upright and functioning came as a relief all the same.

When he saw me, though, it wasn’t relief that showed in his face. It was shock. “What … I thought … how…?” he stammered.

They both stared at me, waiting for an explanation, but I didn’t have one.

“Trent, how did you do it?” Thornton pressed. “You were dead. I saw you die.”

“I don’t know how it happens,” I said. “It just does.”

Thornton’s gaze fixed me with the intensity of a laser sight. A flood of emotions washed across his features—confusion, resentment, anger. Finally, he snapped out of it and stepped aside, revealing a shape down by his feet. “There’s something you should see.”

A skeletal figure sat slumped against the alley wall, papery and withered. Damn. Another one.

“It looks like he’s been dead a long time,” Thornton said.

I squatted down beside the corpse. “No. Only a few minutes.”

“But look at him,” Thornton said.

“Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.” A T-shirt hung loosely off the corpse’s rib cage. I read the words printed in flaming letters on the shirt and realized I’d met this man before. I hadn’t helped him when he’d asked, hadn’t even spoken a word to him, just ran right past him like he didn’t matter. Now he was dead because of me, another innocent bystander, another name to add to the list. The tenth. I didn’t have the list with me, but it didn’t matter. I’d committed it to memory. I didn’t know this man’s name any more than I knew the name of the boy in the crack house, so I mentally added him to my list with the only information I had, the words on his T-shirt.

10. Child of Fire

I looked up at Bethany. “This is where it went. When you deflected it away from you, it found him instead.”

“What found him?” Thornton demanded. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s something inside me that won’t let me stay dead,” I said. “It steals the life from whoever’s close by and gives it to me. That’s what it was trying to do to you, Bethany. You were right, it was trying to kill you.” I stood and looked down at the body again. “Trying to do this to you.”

Bethany stooped down to touch the corpse’s neck, as if she were feeling for a pulse. “Fascinating. Complete energy transference from one body to another. Only, that’s not supposed to happen, ever. It shouldn’t be possible.”

“But the Black Knight does the same thing, doesn’t he? Sucks the life out of his victims?”

“That’s different. The Black Knight can kill with a touch, but he doesn’t absorb his victim’s life force. He doesn’t use it as his own.”

“How do you know?”

She straightened up again. “Because magic is a natural element. There are immutable laws that govern it, just like there are laws that govern physics or chemistry. Certain things just aren’t possible, and in just the past few minutes you’ve already done two of them.”

I looked down at the body again. “That’s why I believed Bennett when he said it was me the shadowborn wanted. Because of what I am.”

She studied my face. “And what are you, Trent?”

“I don’t know.”

She crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow at me. “You answer every question with ‘I don’t know.’ You don’t know who you are, you don’t know what you are, you don’t know how you do the things you do.”

“What do you want me to say?” I snapped. “I could make something up if you want. I’ve made up a hundred stories already trying to explain this to myself, but none of them are the truth. Do you have any idea what it feels like, not knowing what you are? Not even knowing if you’re human?”

“I remember feeling that way quite a bit before I accepted what I am,” Thornton said.

“I still feel that way,” Bethany said. “But there’s a world of difference between my not knowing who my parents are and you not knowing how you’re able to come back from being dead.”

“You said you could help me find out,” I pressed. “Last night you said I could be a mage.”

She shook her head. “I was wrong. You’re not a mage. Mages can’t do what you do. The energy that came out of you … I’ve never felt anything like it before. There’s nothing in any spellbook that can do that. Even the sigil of the phoenix couldn’t protect me.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

She frowned at me. “It means this goes way beyond magic, Trent. This is something entirely new.”

Thornton winced suddenly and doubled over. He put a hand on the alley wall to steady himself. “Guys, something’s wrong,” he said. “I’m getting weaker.”

I helped him upright again. His skin looked waxy, the discoloration darkening to a purplish black. Through the material of Thornton’s shirt, the amulet’s lights pulsed much more dimly than before.

He gripped the lapels of my trench coat until he was steady, but when I let go of him he kept holding on. He pulled me closer. “Trent, you’ve got to help me. However you brought yourself back, you’ve got to do it for me too. Please.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” I said. “I wish it did.”

“You got back up like it was nothing,” Thornton insisted. “Trent, please, I’m begging you.”

He searched my eyes desperately, but there was nothing I could do. “I’m sorry, I can’t. Whatever this thing is inside me, it only takes life. It doesn’t give it.”

He let go and glared at me. “You mean it doesn’t give it to anyone but you.”

“Thornton, that’s not fair. You can see for yourself how it works.” I gestured at the dead body at our feet. “There are others just like him. They’re all dead because of me. I’d give you this power in a heartbeat if I could, just to be rid of it.”

Thornton scowled. “Don’t talk to me about what’s fair. Don’t ever talk to me about what’s fair. You don’t have that right.” He turned to Bethany. “I’m going now, just like I said. I’m going to see Gabrielle before it’s too late. You’re on your own.” And with that, he walked quickly out of the alley, his anger and determination keeping him upright.

Bethany followed after him. “Thornton, wait!”

I hung back, looking down at the dead body slumped against the wall. Who was he, I wondered? Would anyone miss him? Or was he like me, a man with no past, no family, no ties to the world?

I left the alley and hurried to catch up with the others. I reached them just as Bethany was saying, “Thornton, you can’t go back yet. I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

“It’s not up for debate,” he said. He kept walking, barreling past the early morning commuters emptying out of their apartments buildings. “You gave me your word, Bethany. You said I could go back in the morning. Well, it’s fucking morning, so I’m going back.”

At the corner, he stopped, looking like he was about to fall over. He leaned against a lamppost. Above his head, the crosswalk signal changed from the little walking person to the don’t-walk hand.

“Please, Thornton, listen to me,” Bethany insisted.

“Why?”

She gave a frustrated little groan. “Because Trent had a visit from a dead man who was carrying a charm he couldn’t have made himself. You know as well as I do spells don’t cast themselves. Someone turned Bennett into a revenant and gave him the displacer. Someone who wanted Trent out of the way. Someone who knew exactly where to find us.”

“It has to be the same person who sent the shadowborn,” I added. “I think Bennett led them to the safe house.”

“I told you, it’s not Bennett, it’s just his body. A puppet,” she corrected me.

“Okay, so the Black Knight’s still pissed off about last night, big surprise,” Thornton said. “We’ll be safer back at Citadel anyway.”

She shook her head. “The Black Knight is powerful, but he’s not a necromancer. He can’t make revenants from the dead. There’s only a small handful who can do that, and an even smaller number who would dare summon the shadowborn. Don’t you get it? It’s not just the Black Knight who’s after the box anymore. Word must have spread that the box has been found. For all I know, every Infected in the city is coming out of the woodwork trying to find it. That’s why you can’t go back yet. It’s why none of us can. Because even worse than the fact that