“Vic—”
Victor didn’t hesitate. He fired three times into Eli’s chest, mimicking the pattern of the scars on his own body, the way he had imagined he would for the last ten years.
And it felt good. He had been worried that after so much waiting and so much wanting the actuality of shooting Eli wouldn’t live up to the dream, but it did. The air buzzed around them and Eli groaned and braced himself against the chair as the pain multiplied.
“It’s why I let you stay,” said Victor. “Why I liked you. All that charm outside, all that evil inside. There was a monster under there, long before you died.”
“I’m not a monster,” growled Eli as he dug one of the bullets out of his shoulder, and dropped the bloodied metal to the floor. “I am God’s—” But Victor was already there, burying a switchblade in Eli’s chest. He punctured a lung, he could tell by the gasp. Victor’s mouth twitched, face patient but knuckles white around the blade’s grip.
“Enough,” said Victor. Behind his eyes, the dial turned up. Eli screamed. “You aren’t some avenging angel, Eli,” he said. “You’re not blessed, or divine, or burdened. You’re a science experiment.”
Victor pulled the knife out. Eli went down on one knee.
“You don’t understand,” gasped Eli. “No one understands.”
“When no one understands, that’s usually a good sign that you’re wrong.”
Eli struggled up to his knees, reaching for the makeshift table as his skin knit together.
Victor’s gaze shifted to it, taking in the row of knives. Just like that day. “How nostalgic of you.” He put a foot on the table and knocked it over, sending the weapons scattering across the concrete. The dog’s body, he noticed, was gone.
“You can’t kill me, Victor,” said Eli. “You know that.”
Victor’s smile widened as he buried his knife between Eli’s ribs.
“I know,” he said loudly. He had to speak up over the screams. “But you’ll have to indulge me. I’ve waited so long to try.”
*
A breath later, Dominic reappeared, half carrying half dragging a very large, very dead dog. He sank to the dirt lot beside its body, breathing heavily. Sydney hurried over, thanked him, and then asked him to get out of her way. Dominic sagged back, and watched as she ran a soothing hand over the dog’s side, brushing the wound lightly. Her palm came away dark red, and she frowned.
“I told you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Shhh,” she said, and pressed her hands, fingers splayed, against the dog’s chest. She drew in a shaky breath as the cold flooded up her arms.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on, Dol.”
But nothing happened. Her heart sank. Sydney Clarke gave second chances. But the dog had already had his. She’d fixed him once, but she didn’t know if she could do it again. She pressed down harder, and felt the cold leeching something from her.
The dog still lay dead and stiff as the planks in the construction lot.
She shivered and knew it shouldn’t be this hard as she reached not with her hands but something else, as if she could find a spark of heat within and take hold. She reached past the fur and skin and stiffness as her hands hurt and her lungs tightened and still she kept reaching.
And then she felt it, and took hold, and between one moment and the next, the dog’s body softened, slackened. Its limbs twitched and its chest rose once, paused, fell, and a moment later rose again, before the beast stretched, and sat up.
Dominic scrambled to his feet. “Dios mío,” he whispered, crossing himself.
Sydney sat, gasping for breath, and rested her head against Dol’s muzzle. “Good dog.”
*
VICTOR smiled. He was having a fabulous time killing Eli. Every time he thought his friend had given up, he pulled himself back together, and gave Victor the chance to try again. He wished it could go on awhile longer, but at least he was quite certain, as Eli’s body buckled in pain, that he had his full attention. Eli gasped, and staggered to his feet, nearly slipping on the blood.
The floor was slick with it. Most of it was Eli’s, Victor knew. But not all.
Blood ran down one of Victor’s arms and over his stomach, both shallow cuts made by a wicked-looking kitchen knife Eli had managed to recover from the floor the last time Victor shot him. The guns were both empty now, and the two men stood bleeding, across from one another, each armed—Eli with a serrated knife, and Victor with a switchblade.
“This is a waste,” said Eli, adjusting his grip. “You can’t win.”