“Truman is sick,” Raymie announces to no one in particular.
And I recognize that she’s right.
I sit beside him on the bed and when I touch his chest, I can feel his heart slamming under my hand. I hold a cold washcloth against his face and bring him water. He won’t drink it. I want to buy medicine, but I don’t even understand what kind he’d need. I keep thinking this is the most ridiculous thing. I’m sitting in Las Vegas with my disaster of a boy, watching while he burns up on the purple bedspread. I’m trying to act kind and sensible, like a human girl, but I don’t know how to take care of anyone.
From the box, Raymie cranes her head to see up onto the bed. Finally, I pick her up and set her on the blanket beside him. I let her swab him ineptly with the washcloth.
“What makes people sick?” she asks, touching Truman’s bare arm.
“Germs.”
“Did the germs hurt him in his skin?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“This.” When she points, it is vague and clumsy, her fingers twitching as they try to follow his scars. “This hurt.”
“No. That wasn’t germs.”
“Then what?”
I look at Raymie, sitting beside him. Her face is a round moon, fat and white and blank, but sweet. I don’t want to frighten that out of her with the truth about Truman and the razor, how he was done being himself.
“It was something else,” I say. “He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
I put Raymie back in her box. She doesn’t resist, but the look she gives me is dubious, like maybe she doesn’t believe what I’ve told her.
“It’s time to sleep,” I say, “so close your eyes.”
But when I’ve taken off my dress and changed into my sweater, she’s still just sitting there, staring over the edge of the box like a slightly ominous doll. Her gaze is steady, and it’s unnerving to try and sleep with her watching. When she shows no sign of moving, I pick her up, box and all, and shut her in the wardrobe. Then I crawl into bed next to Truman. When I close my eyes, the street roars on and on like water.
THE STRANGER
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I
wake up, and for a second, I can’t think what’s woken me. The room looks strange in the dark, too full of furniture. It would feel claustrophobic if it didn’t feel so cavernous.
I lie on my side, staring numbly at a collection of high-backed wooden benches. They stand in orderly rows, facing the television, and I know this isn’t right but can’t quite remember what’s wrong about it. Our bags are lying on the carpet between them and the bed feels much too big.
When I roll over, Truman is on his side with his face turned toward me, a lighter spot in the dark, and very far away.
Then the panic hits my blood and I am wholly, frantically alert.
There’s a man in the room, a man standing beside the bed. He’s bending over Truman, whispering in his ear with an expression that is almost tender.
When I push myself up on my elbows, the man turns to look at me. The change in his features is chilling. Everything tender and good is gone, replaced by a deep, abiding hatred.
For a moment, he just stands over the bed, staring down at me with bright, crow-black eyes. His eye sockets are deep. His countenance is even and largely unremarkable, but even in the dark, I recognize every line of it. This is the faceless man from Truman’s dream, but no longer faceless. Standing here in our room, he is utterly recognizable—as real as if he just stepped out of one of my mother’s murals, full of righteous fury.
“Azrael,” I whisper, so small it’s barely a sound.
He nods and his smile is mild and appallingly lovely.
Suddenly, I understand that he’s more powerful than anything my mother could ever aspire to, even at her most intrusive. His power is apparent in the way that he’s brought the church with him, filling our room with tasseled hangings and carved pews and the choking smell of incense.
“I saw you,” I tell him in a flat, breathless voice. “I saw what you were doing in the church. My brother—” The word stirs something in me—a kind of panic—and I sit bolt upright, staring around the room, but the table with Obie on it is nowhere to be seen. “Where’s my brother?”
When Azrael laughs, his eyes glitter for an instant, then fade into shadow. “How very clever of you. But don’t get too excited. You’ll never find him, just like Truman will never escape me.”
I press my back against the headboard, clutching the covers to my chest. “Why are you here? How did you get in?”
Azrael gestures to Truman. “He’s burning up. Sleep can make the fabric between places pretty thin at the best of times, but delirium can destroy it completely.”
“But why? Why are you following him?”
Azrael is leaning very close and his voice is low and soothing. “Don’t you worry about that. Just know that I’m doing everything in my power to help Truman. And if you interfere or get in my way, I’ll kill you. It’s nothing personal.”
Suddenly, I feel disoriented, uncertain as to whether I am dreaming. The fact of Azrael standing over me, having a
conversation
with me, is utterly unreal and I need to see him in the light, see the face of the man who has stolen my brother. I lean across Truman and reach for the lamp.
Azrael makes a sharp hissing sound and before I can find the switch, he strides around the end of the bed and grabs me by my ankle.
He jerks me out of bed with a force that makes all the joints in my leg ache. Even as I hit the carpet, he yanks me up again, slamming me into the nearest church pew. It tips and the rest go over like dominos, but Azrael doesn’t let go.
He drags me across the room, pinning me against the wall by the wardrobe. Behind him, the bed looks small and far away, like the room has lost its proper dimensions, stretching and lengthening as the church expands around us.
As I watch, Truman flings one arm out and makes a fretful noise, but doesn’t wake up. I want to cry out, but Azrael’s gaze is paralyzing, boring into me. This is how snakes hypnotize birds. Suddenly, everything seems very quiet.
Azrael leans close, so close I think he might press his cheek to mine. His voice in my ear is kind. “Hold still, my dear. This will only take a second. Then we’ll see what’s under that bloodless skin.”
It is then that I register the knife in his hand. He’s holding it deftly, almost casually. When he moves, it is straight for my throat. I barely have time to fling my hands up.
The blade is long, slashing across my palm. Pain explodes up my arm and the sound I make is high and shrill—the sound of metal on metal. I can’t tell if it’s a shriek or a laugh.
For one dizzying moment, the room rushes in on me in a glittering sea of sparks. Stars are colliding, solar systems imploding. I am consumed by a sensation I didn’t know existed.
Then the pain crests and washes out, leaving me breathless but clear-headed, standing against the wall. I raise my hand and Azrael backs away. In a kind of dull wonder, I see that I’m bleeding. It spreads quickly, filling my cupped palm, and I realize that in a second, it will spill over, drip down onto the floor, unleashing whatever horror sleeps there. Fire, I think with a giddy hysteria. Acid, plague, pestilence. Whatever form it takes, it will mean destruction.
Too late, I make a fist, squeezing my hand closed in a desperate attempt to hold on. The blood oozes out between my fingers anyway.
One drop. Azrael has backed away from me and is standing in the center of the room, arms motionless at his sides.
I slap my hand to my chest, smearing blood across my collarbone, pressing the cut flat against my own skin, but it’s too late. We stand facing each other across the toppled benches, waiting to see it. My mother’s gift to me.
One drop, and time stretches out.
It lands on the carpet, its impact soundless. The seed, planted deep in the scrambled pattern of the carpet. Where it fell, the floor begins to smoke and a girl materializes in front of me, pale and crouching. She’s almost naked, veiled in smoky wisps that move and swirl around her as she straightens. Although her features look like mine, her eyes are steel-gray like my mother’s and her teeth are dull silver, bared like fangs. Then she lunges, knocking over the end table. The lamp crashes to the floor. She scrambles over scattered luggage and carved benches, leaping and clawing her way toward Azrael.
When she rakes at his face, he doesn’t even flinch. He just stares back at her, expression stony, blood running down his cheek.
“Get ready to regret that,” he says, striding toward her, kicking the shattered lamp out of his way.
The girl snarls, showing her teeth like a dog, but he doesn’t hesitate. The knife makes a graceful arc, up and in, flashing brightly one second, sunk deep in her chest the next. He lifts her, skewers her to the hilt, holding her nearly off her feet, then peels her neatly off the blade. She lands on the carpet with a boneless thud, then smokes briefly before collapsing into nothing. Dust and ashes.
“Try it again,” he says to me, over the pile of ashes. He’s smiling now and it’s a bad, festering smile. It makes me think of bodies. Blood is running down his face. It looks black in the dark room. “Think you’re clever? Think you’re so
fierce
? Try it again, because I can do this all night.”
With my hand held to my chest, I step between him and the bed, where Truman lies sleeping. Standing in the sliver of light thrown by the gap in the curtains, I feel disoriented and very small, but I also feel brave. And it is a good feeling.
“Cut me then. I’m not going to let you hurt him.”
Azrael laughs, and it’s the coldest sound I’ve ever heard. “Noble little thing. Your brother would be proud. But then, he always was a hopeless sentimentalist. Pain is necessary, my dear. It’s
good
for you.”
With another icy laugh, he steps sideways into the shadow cast by the wardrobe and is gone as surely as if he’d passed through a door.
I want to go after him, but I only get as far as the ruined lamp before my knees start to tremble. I stumble to the bed and I sink down beside Truman, who’s sitting up now, staring around in panic. I reach across him and turn on the lamp to find the room is in shambles, filled with toppled furniture. In the light, the benches fade like afterimages, then vanish completely.
Truman is sitting with his back pressed against the headboard. His whole body is shaking and I put my arms around him, holding my injured hand away from us. The bleeding has already stopped. The wound is raw, but closing.
“Daphne,” he says in a harsh whisper. “Wake me up. Please, wake me up.” He’s holding onto me now, his fingers deep in the fabric of my sweater. He’s staring at someplace in front of him, trying very hard to breathe.
“How?” I ask. “Aren’t you already awake?”
His eyes are wide and dazed, drifting past me to the little pile of ash on the carpet. “Talk to me.”
But the room is spinning and I don’t know what to say. My hands feel weightless and numb.
His breath is warm against my skin and I hang on tighter because the scene is fading in and out and I’ve started to shake. My whole body is trembling, like I’m coming apart at the joints and after a while, I can’t tell who is holding who. Truman’s arms feel tense and wiry, but safe.
The carpet is chalky and pale where the girl fell. Dusty with a layer of ash.
MARCH 10
1 DAY 0 HOURS 6 MINUTES
T
ruman sat on the edge of the hotel bed. According to the clock on the bedside table, it was just after seven in the morning, which meant nine o’clock at home. It was the latest he’d slept in a long time.
He sat with his hands pressed against his forehead, staring around in disbelief. The carpets and the furniture were all upholstered a deep burgundy, and there was nothing wrong with the actual decorating scheme, as long as you liked velvet. But even with the curtains closed, he could make out the general state of the room. It looked like it had been recently destroyed by one of those guitar bands from the seventies.
Lamps and room service guides and packets of instant coffee were all over the floor. Over by the TV was a mess of broken glass that might have started the night as a hotel ashtray. The throw pillows had all been knocked off the couch and one of the burgundy armchairs was lying on its back.
Beside him, Daphne was still asleep. He was about to wake her up and ask what had happened, but the sight of her face stopped him. Against the white backdrop of the pillowcase, she looked fragile. Her hair was spread out around her, framing her face. When he leaned over her, she burrowed into the covers and smiled slightly, but didn’t wake up. Her eyelashes were dark against her cheeks and suddenly, Truman wanted to kiss her.
The desire was immense and wordless. It filled his chest, making it hard to breathe. She was the one peaceful thing in the whole demolished room and he sat beside her, breathless with how much he wanted to press his mouth against hers.
Then the closet door swung open and Raymie peered out at him from her cardboard box. She was sitting up, holding onto the folding flap. When she leaned her weight against the side of the box, it tipped forward and she flopped out onto the floor. She wriggled around a toppled lamp and began to paddle her way toward him, perilously near to the pile of broken glass.
Truman slid off the bed, careful not to wake Daphne. He picked his way through the chaos and sat down on the carpet, lifting Raymie into his lap. She was very warm and her back felt soft and fuzzy when he rested his palm against it.
“I was tired of being shut in,” she whispered. “Why is the room so messy?”
Truman looked around at the overturned furniture, and didn’t know how to answer. His memory of the night before was fuzzy at best. After Daphne had drawn the door, things had gotten very weird.
The trip through had not been pleasant, and by the time they’d gotten up to the room, he was pretty sure he’d been running a fever. He’d fallen into a bad, restless sleep. Then the shadow man had shown up. Only he wasn’t a shadow anymore—now, he had a face. Truman had woken up to a dark room and a lot of noise, and in the chaos that followed, the only thing he’d been sure of was that the intruder had stuck a knife in Daphne’s chest.