“Maybe,” I granted. “Still, I wonder–”
But it didn’t matter what I wondered. Lilith was gone.
I stayed a while at Danny’s grave, and said a prayer for his demolished soul. I wondered what it was like to cease to be, and then I pondered what a foolish thought that was —for who could ever know? My heart ached at the thought that I’d misjudged him —at the thought that he’d simply been victim to his heart in death as he’d been in life. And unbidden, my thoughts turned to Ana —so beautiful, so fierce —who to her last was still that frightened, feral child we’d thought we’d rescued, and never truly had.
I thought of Gio, then, as well, who —after two nights spent shaking in his hospital bed, had at last opened his eyes. I thought of Theresa, who’d never left his side a moment —repaying him in kind for his time spent at her bedside so many years ago. She and I had wrestled him into a cop car amidst the chaos at Ana’s cursed building, and disappeared in the confusion —me wearing the body of a cop, the Jonathan Gray left dead for the forensics guys to find. I figured any manhunt would end once they ID’d the body, and then Theresa and Gio were free to disappear. Maybe Gio had a week before hell caught up with him. Maybe he had a decade. And who knows? Maybe they never would. Apparently, he wouldn’t be the first to beat the odds.
Once I’d taken my leave of Theresa and Gio, I’d set out on a long walk, eventually burying the Varela soul in a sun-choked patch of grass outside a liquor store. Then I plopped myself on a bench across the street and sipped Maker’s from a paper bag until my Deliverants arrived to spirit him away. No doubt I drew my share of looks, getting good and sloshed inside my hijacked uniformed policeman, but no one dared challenge me, and I wasn’t going anywhere until I knew for sure the Varela job was behind me. I’d never seen Deliverants abscond with a soul be fore; they arrived in dribs and drabs, eventually swarming the lawn and digging free their package by burrowing beneath it and pushing it skyward. Then they lined up single file and passed it gingerly from back to back until it disappeared from sight. It was morbid and oddly touching, an otherworldly funeral procession. Those who walked past it didn’t seem to notice —though somehow, not a one of them crunched a Deliverant underfoot, nor did they stand in the dark procession’s path. Perhaps the living are more aware of the magic that surrounds them than they’re given credit for.
Tires splashing through a puddle shook me from my reverie, and brought me back to Ilford —to Danny’s grave. I turned around to find a massive, dove-gray Bentley parked behind me on the cemetery drive. Somehow, despite its opulence, it didn’t seem out of place among the graves beneath the stone-gray sky.
The driver’s side door opened. Out of it stepped a man. Bald and broad-shouldered, he had a lantern jaw and a nose that looked like it’d taken a punch or twenty in its time. He wore a starched white shirt, a suit of black, and black leather gloves to match. A pewter cravat hung around his neck, and a matching scarf was draped across his shoulders. He looked at me in this borrowed frame —a rail-thin teenaged boy who’d been struck down by an aneurysm just last night —and said, in an accent that suggested Welsh, “Sam Thornton?”
An icy finger of fear ran down my spine. “Never heard of him,” I said, in my best attempt at East End cockney.
“Your accent is bloody rubbish,” he said. “And anyway, you’re him.”
“OK, I’m him,” I said glibly, as though the fact he knew who I was didn’t terrify me. “And you are?”
“Just the hired help. The boss would like to meet with you.”
“Who, exactly, is the boss?”
“That’s really for the boss to say.”
“So I’m to come with you right now?”
“That’s right.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
The big man shrugged. “Find out.”
I thought about it. Decided not to.
“No,” I said. “I’ll come.”
The big man nodded once. If I had to guess, I’d say I disappointed him.
He opened the Bentley’s rear door. “One condition,” I said to him.
“What’s that?”
“You got any change?”
The big man cocked his head at me quizzically, and then rummaged through his pockets. I held out my palm, and he dropped three pound coins into my hand. I took two, and handed one back. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll only be a second.”
I trotted back to Danny’s grave and placed the coins atop his headstone.
Then I climbed into the waiting Bentley, and, doors locking, it pulled out of the graveyard, headed toward God knows where.
Acknowledgments
It takes a great deal of work to turn a humble manuscript into a finished, polished novel, and though I’d love nothing more to bask in all the credit, it’s hardly mine alone in which to bask. To that end, I extend my deepest gratitude to my agent, Jennifer Jackson, and to the crack Angry Robot team of Marc Gascoigne, Lee Harris, and Darren Turpin, as well as honorary Robot John Tintera. And though I’ll never turn away a compliment for my lovely, lovely covers, it’s worth noting said compliments should rightly be directed to Marco once more, and to the fine folks at Amazing 15 Design.
Thanks to my parents for their love and support, and to my sister Anna, for occasionally distracting them so I can get some writing done. Thanks also to my in-laws (father, mother, sisters, and brothers), for putting the lie to the stereotype and championing me at every turn. My extended family deserves thanks, too, both for their great generosity of spirit and because I suspect they may well comprise the majority of my readership.
I’ve been fortunate in my writing career to cross paths with more wonderful people than I could possibly list here. However, I would like to single out a few of them for providing me support along the way (with sincere apologies to anyone I’ve missed): John Anealio, Jedidiah Ayres, Patrick Shawn Bagley, Eric Beetner, Frank Bill, Nigel Bird, Stephen Blackmoore, Judy Bobalik, Chris Bowe and the fine folks at Longfellow Books, Paul D. Brazill, Maurice Broaddus, R. Thomas Brown, Bill Cameron, Rodney Carlstrom, Kristin Centorcelli, Joelle Charbonneau, Sean Chercover, David Cranmer and cohorts at Beat to a Pulp, the Cressey family, my fellow Criminal Minds bloggers, Laura K. Curtis, Hilary Davidson, Tony DiMarco, Barna Donovan, Neliza Drew, Jacques Filippi, the whole Founding Fields crew, Renee Fountain, Kent Gowran, Janet Hutchings, Sally Janin, Naomi Johnson, Suzanne Johnson, Jon and Ruth Jordan, John Kenyon, Chris La Tray, Jennifer Lawrence, Brian Lindenmuth and the fantastic folks at Spinetingler, Sophie Littlefield, Jennifer MacRostie, Dan Malmon, Matthew McBride, Erin Mitchell, Scott Montgomery, Joe Myers, Stuart Neville, Lauren O’Brien, Sabrina Ogden, Dan O’Shea, Miranda Parker, Lou Pendergrast, Ron Earl Phillips, Kathleen Pigeon, James W. Powell, Keith Rawson, Kieran Shea, Julia Spencer-Fleming (and her husband Ross), Julie Summerell, Brian Vander Ark, Jeff VanderMeer, Meineke van der Salm, Steve Weddle, Chuck Wendig, Elizabeth A. White, and Shaun Young.
And, as ever, thanks to my lovely wife Katrina: my copilot, my ideal reader, my best friend. A good spouse will pretend not to notice their partner is making it up as they go; only the best of them encourage it.
About the Author
Chris F. Holm was born in Syracuse, New York, the grandson of a cop with a penchant for crime fiction. He wrote his first story at the age of six. It got him sent to the principal’s office. Since then, his work has fared better, appearing in such publications as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Needle Magazine, Beat to a Pulp, and Thuglit.