Page 16 of Heart, Haunt, Havoc
“You were distracted.”
He watched their lashes flick, studied the concentration tightening their face, and said, “Yes, I was.”
Bishop dabbed salve onto his throat until the burn was completely covered. They framed the underside of Colin’s jaw with their thumbs, closed their eyes, and mouthed words he didn’t recognize. Gusty whispers danced on their lips. Gentle purrs and warm vowels floated into the air between the two of them, and Colin felt his wound begin to stitch and shut, pull and strengthen.
“It’s not much, but it’ll help,” Bishop murmured, and opened their eyes, staring at Colin with gorgeous feline orbs. “Better?”
“Much,” Colin said.
“Do you have a plan yet?”
“Are you telling me the entire truth yet?”
Bishop flicked their eyes around Colin’s face, pupils shrinking and turning spherical, color darkening to forest-brown. “Yeah.” They cleared their throat. “I’ve told you everything.”
“You haven’t,” he said, and pushed away from the table. He plucked two frosty beers from the fridge and knocked a chilled bottle against Bishop’s hand. “Let’s go outside.”
“Outside?There’s a storm happening.Like, immediately,right now.”
“Rather endure the snow than deal with…” He circled his hand in the air. “Your murderous house.”
Colin toed on his Oxfords and trudged onto the porch, leaving shoeprints in the snow gathering on the walkway. He slipped into his car—a jet-black Subaru with California plates—and tipped the bottle against his mouth. The distinct, fizzy taste reminded him that it was hardly past morning. Bishop plopped into the passenger’s seat and shut the door, bundled in a throw blanket they’d taken from the couch on their way out. They turned toward Colin, half-swaddled, clutching their beer, and huffed.
“How, exactly, did you kill Lincoln?” Colin asked. “Assuming youdidkill him.”
Bishop drained half their beer in one go. “I stabbed him through the heart with a kitchen knife,” they said, voice rasped by the alcohol. “He was attempting to summon Marchosias in our bedroom. I was supposed to help him. He…” They paused, glancing at the house as snow settled on the windshield. “He wanted me to cut him at a specific moment. Just enough to spill his blood onto a burning candle. I didn’t… I didn’t know what to do, so I just did what he asked and hoped it wouldn’t work.”
“And?”
“And Marchosias answered his call.” They sipped their beer again.
Colin noticed the way their shoulders rounded toward their ears, how they guarded themself, withdrawing into the seat like a child. He inhaled a long, deep breath and licked his lips. “There’s another way for me to get the information I need. It’ll be quicker, but it won’t be pleasant.”
“Extraction,” Bishop said, morosely.
“You’ve done your research.”
“I’ve seen my fair share of backyard exorcisms, Colin. I know what they entail.”
“Extraction isn’t always exorcism.”
“Yanking my memories out into the open is a close enough comparison,” they snapped, and finished their beer. “You said it’ll be quick?”
“If you let me in, yes.”
They wrinkled their nose. “Where…?”
“Here is fine. Turn toward me, please,” Colin said. He shifted in the driver’s seat and opened his hands, cupping Bishop’s warm jaw. He curved his thumbs in front of their ears, latched his fingers around their skull. “Relax, all right?”
“Easier said than done.”
Carefully, Colin worked his thumbs along their temples, angling their face toward him. “Breathe. Think back to that moment.”
Bishop met his gaze. They stared, unblinking, breathing deeply, before they finally closed their eyes and allowed Colin to sink into their mind. Power met and mingled. Bishop’s wild, unruly magic shrank from Colin’s manufactured sainthood, but he chased them into the shadowy recesses of their mind and latched onto their memories.
Candlelight flickered in his peripheral. He saw what Bishop had seen, felt what Bishop had felt—smooth, bare chest; legs straddling their lap; sleek pillar candle splattered with blood; half-filled goblet on the nightstand brimming red; Lincoln’s voice, hitched and furious, calling for Marchosias. Panic shot through him, rippling outward from Bishop’s memory, and Colin witnessed the moment Lincoln changed. Turned. Became a vessel for something worse. Lincoln tore the flesh from his face, clawing at his skin until it split, broke, came away like putty, and revealed the wolfish horror beneath. Bishop plunged the blade into Lincoln’s chest. Their voice fluttered softly, the same way it had in the hall when they’d been sleepwalking,I’m sorry.
Everything muddied after that. Bishop’s memories ran into each other, some new, some old. Lincoln kissing them on the mouth, breathing hard, moving like rough seas. Porcelain laughter. Champagne flutes clinking. Bishop holding onto Colin’s face the night before, panting against his lips. Months ago, staring up at Lincoln’s canine head, tracing the scar on his chest with two fingers, and the hot breach as his body pushed into theirs. A slick, black-handled kitchen knife dropping with a mutedthudonto ruined bedsheets—
