“I killed her,” said Zukunft. “We argued. I pushed her through a mirror. Shards of glass fell, one slipped between her ribs. She took hours to die and I sat with her, holding her hand.”
She shook, uncontrolled sobs racking her thin frame, pressing herself into Bedeckt’s chest as if he could somehow make everything better. He raised his half-hand, stopped short of touching her. He didn’t want to die. He knew the Afterdeath , understood the grim helplessness of what awaited. There was no redemption there. Not for him, not for anyone. Those souls earned their fate. They weren’t the kind of people who suddenly turned their lives around and became good. And what came after? Bloody battles were even more common in the Afterdeath, with none of the decent souls around to forestall the madness. Still, he hesitated to offer comfort. What are you afraid of, old man? You’re dying. You know you are.
Bedeckt held her tight, ignoring the agony in his guts.
His friends. “The farmhouse,” he said.
“We have to go,” Zukunft said, voice muffled. “Your friends will be there. Your answers.”
Answers. Morgen. “Something bad happens there,” said Bedeckt, not quite asking.
“My sister wants me to go.”
“But we don’t have to. We’ll go somewhere else.”
“She showed me the future.”
“Damn it, girl.” How could he make her understand? “You’re Geisteskranken. You’re delusional. Your sister is dead and gone, you’re imagining all of this.”
“My imagining it makes it true.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “But if she means you harm, we have to ignore her. She can’t force us—”
“Your friends will die there if we don’t go.”
Abandoning friends isn’t on the list. To hells with them.
Bedeckt remembered the night he and Stehlen shared in that dark alley, the drunken rutting. He remembered her face, that moment in the Afterdeath of unexpected softness, when he returned to her that motley collection of scarves. He remembered how Morgen once said Wichtig looked to Bedeckt as a father, desperate for encouragement or a kind word. Bedeckt had laughed and mocked the boy god’s naivety.
“I don’t have friends,” he said.
Zukunft kissed him on the cheek and stood. “I’m going.”
“Why?”
“I killed her. I deserve whatever happens.”
“It will be better if I’m there?”
“I don’t know,” said Zukunft. Her eyes said, not for you.
Fate was horse shite. Anyone who thought they knew the future was mad.
Bedeckt stared up at this beautiful and deranged girl. Every part of him wanted to close his eyes and sleep. Lay here on this tavern floor until he awoke somewhere else. He felt old, more ancient than mountains.
She killed her little sister. So what? It was an accident. Guilt plagued her, broke her mind, drove her mad. Just another damned Geisteskranken.
“Help me up,” he said.
Bedeckt leaned heavily against the bar. A tankard, emptied and refilled three times, sat half full within reach of his half hand. He’d sent Zukunft to the stables in search of leather and straps with which to bind his belly. If he wrapped his gut tight enough, perhaps he might manage to stay upright and in the saddle long enough to—
Long enough to what? Die?
The tavern door swung open and Zukunft strode in dragging behind her a tangle of leather straps stolen from gods knew how many saddles. It must have been raining hard, as once again her shirt and skirt were soaked through and clinging to every curve. Bedeckt felt bad enough he didn’t care and had no trouble ignoring her.
Hefting the straps, she dropped them atop the bar. Like her, they were sodden.
“Old men hate the rain,” Bedeckt said.
“Old men hate everything.”
He couldn’t argue.
Ducking behind the bar, she returned with several more bar rags and another bottle of alcohol he didn’t recognize. Laying the rags—which looked worse than the last lot—flat, she poured the booze over them.
“That would have done more good in my gut,” said Bedeckt.
She patted his belly. “I think there’s enough in there. Lift your shirt.”
Bedeckt obeyed, lifting both the shirt and the torn chain armour beneath. Her eyes widened as she examined the hashed crisscross of pale scars sheathing his torso. She reached out a finger to touch a particularly large scar running from his left nipple down past the belt of his pants. She pressed, feeling the ridges of hard muscle beneath the fat of his belly.
“I bet you used to be something,” she said, not at all talking to him.
“Something.” He grunted. “I am what I have always been.”
“You must have been amazing when you were my age,” she said in wonder, gaze roving his body as if drinking him in.
“Amazingly stupid,” said Bedeckt, uncomfortable.
She ran soft fingers across his chest. “Is there any part of you that hasn’t been cut?” She looked up at him, lifting an eyebrow, and he became aware of how close she was. He felt her warmth, smelled her sweat. “Maybe I should look you over, find out for myself.”
Bedeckt’s face flushed hot. What the hells? How did she do that to him?
“The straps,” he said.