Page 20 of Heart, Haunt, Havoc
“Yes?”
“Your blood wasn’t—”
“No,Jesus Christ, c’mon,” Bishop yowled. They tried to swat him, but Colin recoiled against the passenger’s door. “You think I’d performbloodmagic with him? Really?Seriously?Do you honestly believe I’d…” They stopped, lips parted, tongue pressed to the roof of their mouth, and went still. Their throat clenched around a slow swallow, and their eyes flicked back and forth, glancing from Colin to the windshield. When they spoke, their voice hardly surfaced. “Why’re you asking?”
“Did he drink your blood?” Colin asked.
“Tell me why.”
“Did he?”
“Colin!”
He grunted, annoyed, and gestured to the house with a flat palm. “If he consumed your blood in a ritualistic or performative sense then he could very well be using you as a link to this plane. You’d be like his personal ley line, funneling earth-based energy into the spiritual realm, allowing him to live in both spaces.”
Bishop thinned their lips into a pale line. Their eyes softened, falling to Colin’s lap. They stared through him, lost in thought, absently touching the crease of their hip. A minute went by, then two, before they scoffed. Swiped at their glassy eyes and shifted their jaw back and forth, working through anger or hurt or a combination of both.
“Bishop,” Colin tested, turning in his seat to face them. “What happened?”
They didn’t move or breathe or blink. They shrank, almost, and Colin remembered seeing them for the first time, thinkinglike a rabbit.He touched the top of their wrist, but when their lips wobbled open, no sound followed. Another strained moment passed, then Bishop made a defeated noise, grasped Colin’s hands, and brought his palms to their face.
Colin braced for another brutal extraction, but this time Bishop welcomed him. Opened easily and allowed him to look at the memory cycling behind their eyes. Skin against skin. Bishop’s soft, cooed whimpers, their knuckles buckled in white sheets, breathless and panting, arching against the fingernails sinking into their hip. Colin followed Bishop’s memory, lived through the moment they’d looked down at Lincoln’s coy smile, and felt his tongue on their hip, lapping at the blood beading in the groove he’d raked across their flesh. Colin shied away, exiting Bishop’s mind as gently as he could.
“Oh,” Colin whispered. He leaned across the empty center seat, still clutching Bishop’s face, and followed their cheekbones with his thumbs. “When—”
“Right before the… the inception, integration,whatever…” They opened and closed their mouth. Their pupils ate the color in their eyes. “Do you think—”
“Yes, he absolutely did it on purpose.”
Bishop winced, and Colin wished he would’ve lied.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be.”
They didn’t pull away. Just stayed still, one hand wrapped around Colin’s wrist, the other braced on the center seat. “What does it make me if I miss him?” they asked.
“Human,” Colin said.
They breathed a little easier. “What now?”
“Plan B,” he mumbled, and reminded himself to look away from Bishop’s lips. “Have you ever heard of the Lazarus effect?”
“Isn’t it a movie?”
“A stupid movie, yes. But it’s a technique, too.”
Bishop released his wrist and sat back, easing out of his tender hold. “Explain.”
“The Book of John recounts a man—Lazarus of Bethany—who had fallen ill and died—”
“Oh my God, Colin. I’m Mexican,” they blurted, gesturing wildly to themself. “I’m half-Catholic by design. Skip the goddamn gospel. What’s the technique?”
Colin narrowed his eyes. “I can’t exorcise an entire house, especially when Marchosias has thrown open the door for lesser demons and peculiarities. But I could properly exorcise a smaller vessel.”
“Smaller?”
“Body-sized.”
