“So you know he was my half brother . . .” Delaney choked on those words. That label, in connection with her, disgusted her on so many levels she could yark over it.
Marcella squeezed Delaney’s forearm. “I do—they always say you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your family. Vincent lived up to that. I also know that he had a contract with Satan, originating with his father—this contract his father, Richard, signed was handed down to him—sort of an all-in-the-family deal. It had details, stipulations of which I’m still not entirely clear. The only thing I do know for sure is this—the heart that beats in Clyde’s body, wherever the frig his body is, was Vincent’s.”
Confirmation her suspicions had been correct. Delaney’s nod was curt. “It’s what we figured. What I figured, anyway. I’m betting it’s at Lang Memorial Hospital. We haven’t checked yet, and it’s too much to go into now, but that’s where Clyde had the heart transplant to begin with. I bet his body’s there.”
Marcella cupped Delaney’s chin with cool fingers. “Wherever it is, D, we have to find it in order to set Clyde free. His soul’s in limbo. How he got to Hell leaves me beyond mind-fucked now that I know the kind of person he was. I only know he has to be cut from the ties that bind him here on Earth in order for him to find any peace and free himself of Satan. Maybe the paperwork got screwed up or maybe it’s because Clyde had Vincent’s heart, and a person’s heart, according to some tales of old, is the essence of your being. If that’s the case, essentially, because Vincent’s heart is still beating, his soul hasn’t been collected. If that’s the case, then you beat Satan by donating that prick’s heart—big—and I’m pretty damned sure he didn’t much like that. Basically, you stole from him. I still don’t get what went wrong with Clyde’s soul, but something did, and we have to make it right. That means we have to find Clyde’s body.”
Terror, real and like a living entity, gripped Delaney’s insides, finally having confirmation of the suspicion she’d shared with Clyde earlier. “I knew it.” She glanced up at Clyde, whose lips were compressed into a thin line. “I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing by donating Vincent’s organs and now . . .”
“You didn’t know, D. How could you possibly know the extent of that kind of evil or that it would ever harm an innocent soul like Clyde? Now, no time for regrets, chica,” Marcella said, grazing Delaney’s cheek with her thumb.
However, Delaney couldn’t hear Marcella—she couldn’t hear anything about freeing anyone. Free Willy, for fuck’s sake, but leave Clyde alone. Clyde was alive, God damn it. Alive. He didn’t need to be freed. She looked up at Clyde. “But wait, your neighbor’s maid said you were alive. In a hospital. Why do we have to free anything if Clyde’s still alive?”
Marcella’s face expressed a million different things in one glance. “That’s true, D. He is technically still alive.” She grabbed at Delaney’s hand, crushing it in her cooler one. “But it’s only his body, honey. He’s not really there, and that’s because his soul is here, with us.”
Delaney couldn’t connect the dots. She gave both Clyde and Marcella a blank stare.
“I’m probably on life support,” Clyde said, making the statement with such cold indifference, Delaney shivered, clinging to Marcella’s hand. “And I had no will—no one to sign a DNR. It explains why there was no obituary for me. I’m lingering and probably pretty hacked up while I do it after what we saw at my house today.”
No. No. That couldn’t be true. No. “But the spirits said coma—they said you were in a coma—not on life fucking support!”
Clyde knelt in front of her, placing his big hands on her knees. “Listen to me, Delaney. You said yourself they get confused. Maybe they were confused, but if it’s like Marcella said, that has to be what’s keeping my heart, Vincent’s, whoever’s heart, beating.”