Page 87 of The Undead

“Becky, he killed your mother,” I whispered. William smiled.

“None of that, now,” he chided me, and slapped me full strength. The impact snapped my head to the side, but it didn’t hurt—not compared to the wood. “I need to hang on to you, Michael. It isn’t time to be killing you just yet. I got a use for you.”

He looked at Foster again, and with that clown’s smile still painted to his face he hoisted me up to my feet. He carried me over to a wall, a blank flaking expanse of plaster that was damp with mildew. Slammed me hard against it.

William’s pale moon-eyes stared at me from the distance of only inches, motionless and dead in a face the color of chalk. His other hand reached out and touched my mouth, traced my lips with chill. I opened them to scream.

His fingers moved, invading my mouth and fastening around my tongue. I gagged, but I froze. William’s lips slowly twisted upward into an expression I didn’t want to identify as a smile.

“No sound,” he murmured, and his fingers pressed crushingly against my tongue. “I’m not quite ready for you to scream yet. Do you understand, pretty Michael?”

I didn’t move. He cocked his head to the side, still smiling.

“Adam does have the most foolish ideas. I wonder what he’d think if he could hear you scream? Would he coming running to your rescue, boy? Do you want to find out?” William dug his nails into my tongue. I trembled, but I knew enough to know a sound would just trigger him to more pain. “For a boy who claims he don’t care much for men, he picks the prettiest ones.”

He held me a few more seconds and then let go. There was no change in his expression, nothing to indicate whether he felt anger or elation. If he felt anything at all. For all I knew, William’s emotions were so alien that I’d better understand the spider he resembled.

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered. His smile faded, leaving his face as dead as his eyes.

“Nothing personal, Michael-come-lately. Until he dies, Adam’s still mine. I’ll keep comin’ until he loses everything. I’ve put Sylvia in the ground, and all her kin, everything he loves. When he’s all alone, he’s mine. I’m not interested in you—or your Maggie—or anything but my Adam. You’re just things I take away from him.” William’s eyes unfocused briefly, shining with a distant vision. “It’s the highest hunt, you know. Hunting your own.”

When his eyes focused on me again, I saw that spider-glow in his eyes, the cool dispassionate need. It wasn’t blood-need; I understood that now. It was something older, darker, more twisted. His hand tightened on mine, and I felt his strength. My body was newer to the change, not so old and well-developed. A bone shattered. Another. I screamed, but it was a soft and airless sound.

William slowly let go of me and stepped back.

“Do you want to see a trick?” he asked me, voice just a little thick. “No? It’s a real good one. Miss Rebecca, if you please.”

He didn’t speak very loudly at all, but I heard the faint echo of human heartbeat coming at his call, machine-gun fast. Foster’s moon-pale face loomed over his shoulder; her tongue nervously licked her thin lips in a constant circle. She had something hugged against her body, something I couldn’t clearly see. William moved like a flicker of light, pinning me between his body and the wall, arms outstretched to cover mine, cheek pressed against me. He turned his head and looked at me from a lover’s distance, and bared his teeth. I felt the tremors surge through him, sexual in their intensity, and tried to push him away. It was like pushing against a mountain.

William’s fingers slid over mine and spread to bare my palms. He didn’t look away from me.

“Now,” he murmured, and Foster fumbled with something behind him. “Now, like I told you. Now!”

She pulled a long needle-pointed piece of wood out of her jacket. She guided the point between William’s fingers and pressed it against my palm.

“Now,” William breathed, and his lips were so close they brushed mine. I shuddered and tried to draw away. There was no place to go, just flaking hard wall behind me and William’s cold corruption in front. Oh God, God help me …

Foster hammered the wooden stake home with one blow. It punched through skin and muscle and shoved bones apart in its impalement. In the frozen second of astonishment, and before the pain hit, I felt William convulse against me, feeding on the destruction. After that I had no space in my head left for anything but white fire and agony, and primitive terror.

Through the haze I felt the pressure of another stake against my left hand. I twisted against William, fought him with every instinct that remained in me. William held me, and the stake held me, as Foster’s hammer pounded down and the needlepoint surged inward and grated on bone, then parted the skin on the back of my hand with a wet popping sound. The next blow drove the bloody wood into the wall, pinning me there.

William touched my lips with his, a sexless benediction, and stepped away. The pain had robbed me of most of my night vision, so I only saw him as a chalky shape in the darkness, and Foster as a glowing hot ember that burned with blood and life. The wood throbbed like a living creature m my palms, eating.

I hung there, crucified.

William very slowly eased himself down on his knees in front of me and clasped his hands in front of him. He stared at me without any expression at all.

“No,” Foster whispered suddenly. Her voice was weird and distorted to my ears, guttural. She sounded as if she’d grown a second set of teeth and another thick tongue. “No, it’s blasphemy—”

“Our Father, Who art in heaven—” William said. Funny how his voice was perfectly dear.

“No!” A horrified shout.

“—hallowed be Thy name.”

Foster backed away, dropping the hammer with a choked sound of distress. His hand flashed out and took hers; without even using any of the strength of his body, William forced her down to her knees next to him. I could hear the pounding of her heart in the night, tripping and stumbling under the load of stress. She stank of sweat, decay, and fear. Rancid, but human—so very human—

The wood in my hands seemed to catch fire. I felt the flames spread up my wrists and up my forearms. I could actually feel every cell as it burned, every hair crisping in the heat. The night seemed to stink of my own cremation. My vision, however limited, told me that it was all illusion, my skin was as whole as ever, but that didn’t stop the agony. I wasburning.Reality meant nothing.

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