skin. He ran out into the night.
The streets of Saltrock seemed to have become wider, the buildings along them taller. Everything appeared skewed and out of proportion. Flick didn’t know this place. It scared him. He ran round in tight circles, afraid of whatever might lurk behind him. He needed to put his back against something solid and crouch there until dawn.
The Nayati loomed black and sinister against the stars, a haunted place. A ghost was coming out of it, a ghost haloed in light. Flick stumbled to a halt on the dusty road. He felt dizzy and the buildings swayed around him. ‘Cal!’ he said. He wanted to shout, but it came out as a whisper. He couldn’t shout, mustn’t. Had Cal been to the Nayati to pray? Like Flick, he was naked from the waist up. But for his bright hair, he looked like he’d been tarred.
Flick walked towards him slowly. Cal had come to a halt and was staring ahead of him, his gaze unfocussed. His face was a warrior’s face, smeared with fierce gouts of darkness. Light was starting to fill the sky, an unhealthy light. Perhaps it wasn’t the dawn at all, but the end of the world.
Flick reached out and touched Cal’s chest. The skin was icy cold, and stickily wet.
‘What have you done?’ Flick said.
Cal did not look at him. ‘Go home,’ he said. ‘You’re dreaming. Go home.’
‘Cal…’
‘I’m not here. I never was.’
Cal brushed past him and began to walk towards Seel’s house. Flick went after him, grabbed his shoulder. ‘You’re drenched in blood,’ he said. ‘What happened?’
Cal glanced at him then. ‘He came back, that’s all. You want to see? Go look. I’ve left an offering in the temple.’
He took Flick’s hand and pressed something into it. ‘Here. This is yours.’ It was the kitchen knife. Flick dropped it at once. It lay shining in the dirt, brilliantly silver and brilliantly red. Impossible in this light, yet there it was. When Flick managed to tear his gaze away from it, he was alone.
His mind was in turmoil. Part of him was already running back to Seel, waking him, dragging him from his bed to discover whatever terrible thing awaited them in the Nayati. But his body wouldn’t comply with this image. It just stood there, paralysed. Even when Flick heard the galloping hooves leave the town, he could not move.
When the roosters began to crow, he picked up the knife and went back to the house. He washed the blade in the gushing water at the sink, retching, swallowing bile. He dried the knife carefully and replaced it in the block. With a wet cloth, he wiped away a bloody hand-print from the back door. He ignored the rest. Then he went up the stairs, not looking down at what he might be treading in. He crawled into Seel’s bed. And slept.
Seel woke him late. Presumably, Seel had slept deep and long too. ‘Flick, get up, there’s a problem,’ he said.
‘What?’ For a moment Flick couldn’t remember what had happened during the night. He thought he’d had a bad dream of some kind.
‘Cal’s room. It looks like an abattoir and he’s not in it.’
Flick could feel the colour drain from his face, which Seel would think was only natural under the circumstances.
‘We’d better organise a search,’ Seel said. ‘It’s possible… it’s possible he might have cut his wrists or something, although that’s not what I’d have ever expected of him.’ Seel’s expression was remarkably calm, but he kept swallowing hard. His olive skin looked sallow and damp.
Flick got out of bed.
‘There’s blood in the corridor, on the stairs, everywhere,’ Seel said. ‘You run over to Colt’s and Orien’s.’ He shook his head. ‘Fuck, what the hell has he done?’
Flick couldn’t speak. When Seel left the room, he went to the bathroom and washed his feet, without looking at the colour of the water that spiralled down the plug hole. Then, he returned to the bedroom and stripped down the bed. He didn’t look at the sheets, at the marks that might stain them where his feet had lain. He dressed himself with care and brushed out his hair, then plaited it slowly. Seel’s head reappeared round the bedroom door. ‘Get a move on! Flick! Snap out of it! We have to deal with this.’
Flick nodded and followed Seel to the stairs. He faltered at the top, seeing the glutinous trail of red that led to the bottom.
‘Don’t look at it,’ Seel said.