The Girls He Adored

78

Naked, Irene scrambled up the rocky slope on the far side of the swimming hole. She could hear Maxwell splashing behind her. The muddy bank was slippery, the littoral rocks slimy. As she reached for an overhanging willow branch, her feet went out from under her and she fell face forward onto the steepest part of the bank. He splashed out of the water and grabbed her by the ankle. She kicked free and scrabbled for purchase with her fingers, then scrambled the rest of the way up the bank on her hands and knees.

She reached the top of the slope, looked around wildly. All the same, every direction. Skinny white-barked trees, sunlight slanting crazily. Before she could decide which way to run, he was on top of her, his weight crushing the breath from her. She squirmed around onto her back. He inched forward until he was sitting on her chest, with his knees pinning her shoulders. His lower lip was split, but his grin, though bloody, was joyful; in his upraised hand, a jagged rock, poised to strike.

“We-we had a contract,” was all she could think of to say. She was mesmerized by the blood dripping down his chin and onto his hairless chest. It occurred to her that if he leaned forward, it would be dripping directly onto her face. Somehow that bothered her more than the rock in his upraised hand.

“The fuck you talkin' about?” He blinked slowly, like a crocodile, then turned his head to the side and spat out a mouthful of blood. “ I never signed no fuckin' contract.”

It was not Max's voice. Nor Christopher, nor Useless, nor Lee, nor Alicea. But she'd heard it before. When? Where? Then it came to her. This was the alter who'd killed the highway patrolman-this was Kinch. I'm dead.

Are not.

Prompted again by that tiny inner voice, Irene extended her life, at least for the time being, with a simple question. “Who are you?” she called loudly. “What is your name?”

Before Kinch could answer, his eyes rolled up and to the right, his eyelids fluttered, and Max found himself back in the body. He lowered the rock, rubbed it against his thigh to ground himself, then tossed it away. Because whatever else Max may have been- certainly a Cluster B sociopath, possibly a demon born of a demon, if you believe in that sort of thing-he wasn't the type to waste a perfectly good strawberry blond by bashing her brains out before her hair had been harvested at least once. If Kinch had had his way, Max knew, there'd have been hell to pay with Miss Miller.