tight before heading upstairs to inject himself with a lethal amount of opiates.
He was beautiful in death. It was true what people said. Sometimes people really do look like they’re only sleeping. Marc had taken care to leave a gorgeous corpse. This was good, because I wasn’t going to let him stay dead for long.
Oh, and the letter. He left that behind, too. But I wasn’t letting anybody see that. Not for a while, at least.
It seemed to take a long, long time to reach the wine cell. Tina and Sinclair had silently followed me. When I got there and shot the first of the bolts, they both automatically stepped forward to help me.
“No.”
“What?” Tina was startled out of her usual deference. I think my tone surprised her.
“No. I’m doing this. Me. By myself. You two are not invited. I’m opening this door and going in. Then you’ll close it and lock it. When I knock, open it back up and let me out.”
Sinclair looked as distressed as I’d seen him. “Elizabeth, do not be silly, we can’t—”
“I’m not asking, Sinclair. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a discussion. Now. Unless you want a shit day to turn apocalyptic, do what I tell you.”
They did what I told them.
Good thing, too.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“Oh, you’re here!” The Marc Thing was very pleased, if the futile wriggling against the tape was an indication. “Finally! Ready to kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, goody, goody, goody! I’ve been waiting soooo—” He cut himself off and peered at me. “You aren’t being a meanie, are you? You’re not teasing? You’ll do it?”
“I’m not being a meanie. I’ll absolutely kill you.”
“Hooray!”
“I just want to know why.” I crossed the room so I could get a better look at his face. His eyes. “Why did you come? Was it just to talk yourself into killing yourself? Was it so Ancient Me wouldn’t get her hooks into you?”
“You want to know why.” He seemed to ponder this for a moment, then brightened. He looked a little like his old self, and those moments, they were actually the worst. When I could see the man he had been. God, he was damaged, so damaged. But yeah, the worst was when he almost looked like my Marc. When he looked like my friend. “Because you don’t know why! Right? You don’t! I’m here so I won’t be here and you don’t know!”
I squatted in front of him. Any other time I’d be yanking on my hair trying to puzzle this out, but I was frozen inside right now. Dead, almost. I felt like I could outwait anything, even the ravings of a crazy dead guy. “Right. I don’t know. So tell me. I bet the devil fixed it so you could follow us back. Maybe you were supposed to kill me, too? Or as many of us as you could?
“See, it occurred to me that we didn’t have to stay in hell more than a few minutes. It occurred to me that maybe Satan was stalling. To give you time to work on Marc. To give you time to set up his suicide. And maybe my murder?”
“Your murder? Who’d murder you?”
“You want a list?”
“You couldn’t murder you, so you didn’t murder you.” Patience was one thing, but this was starting to make me want to find a razor and trim his ears right off his skull. “Can you try to tell me in a way that isn’t completely crazy? If it’s at all possible?”
“The devil won’t ever kill you. And her daughter won’t, either. They can’t. But you can kill you. It was you, Betsy-Wetsy.”
“You mean it was my fault because in hell I—”
He whipped his head back and forth so fast his features were a frightening blur for half a second. It was such an unnatural way for a human body to move, it was shocking to watch. I almost fell backward onto the chilly cement. Then he seemed to catch hold of himself.
“You did it. You sent me back, Betsy.”
I was glad I hadn’t fallen, because I wouldn’t have been able to get up after hearing that. “Ancient Me sent you back?”
“She didn’t remember and she asked and when I didn’t remember she sent me back. You did things and said things. In the future. You did things and the other you, the old you, the bad bad you, she didn’t remember those things happening. She saw a chance to save him. Them,” he added, like that would clarify the