“Constable!” someone called from the street, as if on cue. “I think you’d better come and hear this,” and to Lenoir’s tremendous relief, Crears turned and headed down the alley.
Seizing upon the opportunity, Lenoir looked up at the watchman. “Go with him.” The watchman frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but seeing Lenoir’s expression, he thought better of it and obeyed.
Lenoir reached for the corpse’s leg, but then he hesitated, his hand trembling as it hovered over the body. The trouser leg was torn in three places, leaving ribbons of cloth than ran more or less from the ankle to the knee. Steeling himself, Lenoir pushed it aside to expose the flesh.
The puncture marks were deep and angled, as though a great fanged beast had seized the limb in its jaws and tried to drag its victim away. Yet there was no blood—at least not fresh. The scratches that led into the puncture marks should have been livid and red, but instead they were a deep blue against flesh the color of slate. The capillaries were visible, a delicate inky web that crawled over the exposed part of the leg. It looked as though the blood was frozen beneath the skin, and suddenly Lenoir felt frozen too. The dread that had been leaking out of his stomach had seeped through his entire body; he was numb with it.
One of the corpse’s arms was now draped over its chest, having shifted position when Lenoir rolled the body onto its back. He saw that the fingertips were torn and bloodied, and he glanced instinctively at the flagstones near the head. He could picture it all so vividly: the man clawing at the stones in a vain attempt to drag himself away from his attacker, his leg clasped in the deadly embrace of the scourge. Lenoir’s chest tightened as he imagined the man’s panic, his inability to understand how all the strength had suddenly fled from his limbs. Lenoir’s own arms felt leaden, and the metallic taste of fear was in his mouth. His gaze fell to the corpse’s eyes, wide and staring at the sky. He saw himself reflected there, a pale face in a golden mirror. The sight transfixed him. It was as though he watched himself through the dead man’s eyes. He looked like a man marked for death. And so you are. Death has found you. It sees you. It will have you at last.
It felt like a dream, slow and surreal, so when Lenoir turned and saw the absinthe eyes glinting from the branching alleyway, he thought it was all in his mind. But then the dead flesh on his arm suddenly began to burn as though blood flowed through it for the first time in a decade, and Lenoir knew instantly that he did not dream.
The green-eyed man was there.
The spirit did not move at first. He merely regarded Lenoir silently, his pale face impassive. Lenoir did not move either, frozen in place by a terror more paralyzing than any he had ever felt. He was like a startled rabbit, hoping to go unnoticed, not daring to flee lest he provoke the predator. Perhaps the spirit would not recognize him; perhaps it had been too long, and there had been too many others marked for death for his face still to be familiar.
An eternity passed, a stretch of such profound stillness that time itself seemed to have stopped flowing. Lenoir held his breath until he felt his lungs must burst. When he could stand it no longer, he hauled himself up and tried to run.
He had not even got to his feet when the leather tongues of the scourge struck out, glancing off his boot and sending him tumbling to the flagstones. Lenoir braced himself for the killing blow that must surely follow—but it did not come. Instead the spirit approached, head tilted, curious. Like a cat toying with unfamiliar prey, the spirit had only used enough force to subdue his victim so that he might consider it more carefully. He seemed unresolved, as though he could not decide whether to attack—and for a brief, wonderful moment, Lenoir experienced a rush of hope.
But then the absinthe eyes narrowed a fraction. It was barely perceptible, yet it was the most expressive Lenoir had ever seen that face, and like a dam bursting, his breast flooded with fresh panic. The spirit knew him.
Again Lenoir scrambled to his feet, his gaze locked on the sunlit street ahead. But the spirit anticipated him; the scourge snapped around the corner, aimed for his head. Lenoir ducked, the cursed weapon missing him so narrowly that his hair was ruffled. When the whip struck the wall, the masonry was blasted apart as though hit by cannon fire. It was impossible that stone should yield to leather, but Lenoir had no time to ponder it; he pushed off the ground with all fours and sprinted in the opposite direction along the alley—away from the scourge, but also from the safety of the sunlight.
The part of Lenoir’s brain that was still capable of rational thought told him that it was pointless, that he could never outrun the green-eyed man. He had aged ten years since last he had fled this hunter, a decade of growing tired, of putting on weight. The spirit, however, had not changed, remaining eternally young—as though youth was a concept that mattered to the supernatural. The green-eyed man would never run out of breath; his limbs would never tire. Lenoir could hear his attacker giving chase, and he almost wanted to give up, to give himself over to the judgment he knew he deserved. But the instinct for survival was too powerful, and he ran with all the strength he had.
He reached the far end of the alley and shot a fleeting glance in either direction. He almost sobbed in despair at what he found: another alleyway ran perpendicular, the length of it cast in shadow by the looming buildings. Both directions led to still more alleyways—not to the street, not to the sunlight. Lenoir had the fleeting impression of a rat in a maze finding only dead ends, but for him the dead ends would be literal. After a moment’s hesitation, he lunged to the right, for the way seemed slightly shorter. He only realized how close the green-eyed man was when he heard the wall blast apart behind him. A stone glanced off the back of his skull. His vision flashed and he staggered forward, but he kept his feet and continued to run. He had to reach the sunlight. He was not even sure whether that would be enough to save him, but he had always believed that it had been the sunrise that delivered him from the green-eyed man ten years ago, and it was the only hope he had.
Pausing to wield the scourge had cost the spirit time, but he was closing in again. Lenoir did not dare look back. He kept pounding forward in spite of his lungs, in spite of his legs, in spite of his brain. He made it almost to the next T-intersection when someone came around the corner ahead of him, a man carrying firewood over his shoulder. Lenoir saw him in time to twist out of the way, nearly blundering into the wall in front of him before banking left and making for the street. A crash sounded behind him, followed by a string of oaths, and he knew the green-eyed man had collided with the villager. Some part of his mind registered that the spirit must be solid after all. Another, more basic, part of his mind told him that the collision would cost the spirit another few precious seconds. Perhaps it would be enough.
The street was just ahead. The sunshine that spilled across its flagstones looked to Lenoir like the very rays of Heaven. He could not move fast enough; he felt as though he were running through some sort of invisible, viscous fluid that impeded his movements, making his limbs maddeningly slow. He strained against it, pushing forward as every joint ached with the effort.
If he had not seen the sunlight ahead, had he not been so close to it, he would never have fought back when the scourge tripped him up again. He would have resigned himself to the inevitable, allowed the life to be sapped from him with only a twinge of regret. But the sun-drenched street gave him hope, and when the cobbled stone beneath his feet exploded and he was pitched onto his face, he wanted only to survive. He scrabbled forward on his knees and elbows like some wriggling lizard trying to escape a hawk. His upper body was in the street when he felt the flare of pain in his ankle. He was jerked backward, but he grabbed the corner of the nearest building just in time to prevent himself being pulled all the way into the alley. He braced his elbows against the side of the building, straining to keep the upper half of his body in the street. He could feel the barbs tugging and tearing at his flesh as the whip was drawn back like a fishing pole with a catch on the line. He hauled himself forward with all his might, but already he could feel his strength flagging. The burning chill began to seep out of his ankle. His veins bristled with frost, and a wave of nausea washed over him, though whether from pure terror or the sensation of his flesh dying he could not tell. An image flashed, unbidden, in his mind: the corpse lying in the alley nearby, his lower leg shredded, his fingertips torn and bloodied from his vain attempt to drag himself forward . . .