Scar Night Page 0,59

grabbed his arm, and glared at him. She whispered, “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

“Like burning hair, or—”

More knocking. “Will you let me in, please?”

Rosemary turned back to the door. “Jocelyn, what’s wrong? You sound different.”

“Of course I sound different. I’m terrified.”

The voice did not sound terrified at all, but what did Doctor Salt know? Women were entirely unfathomable at the best of times, scared women more so. He shrugged off his wife’s arm and moved again towards the door.

Rosemary Salt grabbed his sleeve and yanked him round to face her. Her eyes, bulging with silent protest, held his own while she spoke. “Why are you here, Jocelyn? You know what night it is.”

“It’s Patrick, he’s suffered a fit.”

Doctor Salt reached for the door but his wife stopped him again. She mouthed the words We can’t be sure .

“Sod you,” the doctor said. “I’m not leaving her out there a second longer.” He shoved his wife aside, snapped back the bolt, and threw open the door.

* * * *

This was going to hurt. Dying always hurt. She never got used to it. She had ratcheted the chain taut, then locked it. The excess swung through a dim beam of starlight, creaking under the hook in the rafters. She had bound the doctor’s mouth and hands, manacled his feet, and hung him upside down so that his head brushed the floorboards. His breath hissed through the corners of his mouth. His eyes were wild, bare chest wax-white and heaving, face bruised and swollen with blood and streaked with his tears. He twisted his feet against the manacles, dragged his shoulders up from the floor, then collapsed once more, his body swinging in and out of shadow.

Carnival would abandon the attic after it was done. The smell would bring Spine, and the blood would bring demons. She’d take the hook, ratchet, and manacles to another dark, derelict place, but she’d leave the blood-soaked chains. Deepgate had no shortage of chains.

She steadied him and scraped a pan across the floorboards, edging it under his torso. Her stomach was a fist. She looked at him for as long as she could bear.

His eyes flicked to the knife in her hand and away, silently screaming. The air through his nose came in quick, insistent rushes. She could have removed the gag: now he would do nothing but fight for breath.

She grabbed his wrist and felt him spasm. His bladder relaxed and urine ran down his chest and over his chin, and pattered into the pan. Carnival ignored it, knelt, cut once. Blood welled. He trembled as she brought her lips close to his skin.

Delicious warmth filled the attic. The chains creaked gently back and forward as she drank. Back and forth, slower, slower.

Carnival gradually relaxed. The ache of hunger melted away.

Darkness slid in thickly and filled the attic. It soaked into wood, into flesh and blood. Above her, the chain settled to silence. The man was still now. Only Carnival’s throat moved.

When she was sated, she stood up and looked down at the dead man’s wrist. She had bitten it more than she’d meant to, torn the skin badly around the original cut. She let his arm fall loose, scattering stars of blood across the floor.

Carnival wiped her mouth, and lifted her knife again. Blood dripped from the tip.

She waited, trembling.

And then she died.

And was reborn.

Pain ripped through her, so intense it seemed to scour her soul. She fell forward, gasping, onto her hands and knees, her own blood screaming in her ears. Her stomach buckled and heaved. She clenched her jaw and forced herself upright.

Her head felt light. For a long moment Carnival didn’t know where or who she was, and then she saw the blood and remembered.

What have I done?

A different kind of pain then consumed her, one that clawed her from the inside, like the talons of an animal trying to break free. She wheeled round, took a few steps forward, then turned back, not knowing where to go. Her fingers made vague shapes over her chest.

Blood everywhere. Blood on her hands, on her clothes.

What have I done?

She hesitated, turned away, turned back. A wave of sickness rose within her.

She looked down at her thigh and stabbed the knife in deep. She felt it glance off her femur. Blood spewed over her leg. The pain was frightening, exquisite. She savoured it, clung to it, twisted the knife and opened the wound further. Fresh pain blossomed; she closed her eyes and drew a long, shuddering