The pain was far worse this time, and no one was there to hold him, and there were no stars to look at, either, as life ebbed. He was alone, and then very quickly he was dead, and no one was near with a thurible. Hed promised Karou he would name a safety, but he hadnt. There just hadnt been time.
And now there never would be.
When Karou had felt Ziris soul unskinned, back at the pit, when it had brushed against her senses, she had felt in it a rare puritythe high, surging winds of the Adelphas Mountains; home and it was fitting that that was where he shed the White Wolfs hated body and slipped free of the clashing swords and howling all around him. There was no sound, in this state. Only light.
And Ziris soul was home.
Ladies and gentlemen, said the anchorman from his desk in New York City. His voice was very grave, without a hint of morbid delight. This body was unearthed only yesterday from a mass grave at the edge of the Sahara Desert. It is one of many corpses found, no two alike, and none alive. It is unknown who killed them, though preliminary estimates put the deaths at as recently as three days ago.
More corpses, and of all the many pictures taken at the siteby Elizathis array seemed curated for maximal horror: the most gruesome of the slashed throats, close-ups on the most monstrous jaws, studies of decomposition and curdled faces, eyes collapsing into sockets. Bloated tongues.
In fact, Morgan Toth had forwarded only the grimmest of her shots to the networkdirectly from her e-mail account, of course. There had been a poetry and poignancy in many of her pictures of the dead beasts; dignity. These he had left out.
Leaning against a doorjamb in the museum sublevels now, he observed the reactions of his colleagues with a supercilious smirk. I did this , he thought, enjoying himself immensely. And of course, the best was yet to come. He didnt trust the idiots at the news station to put two and two together regarding the identity of their source, so hed attached a helpful message. That had been the best part, he thought. Giving public voice to Elizas private torment.
Dear Sirs and Madams , he had written, as her.
Oh, Eliza. He was feeling something like tenderness for her. Pity. Really, so much made sense now that he knew who she was. Of course, the only breed of pity Morgan Toth was capable of generating was the sort a cat might feel for the mouse between its paws. Oh, you little thing, you never had a chance. Sometimes cats grow bored, and allow their prey to feeble themselves to safety, but they never do it out of mercy, and Morgan wasnt getting bored anytime soon.
Dear Sirs and Madams , he had typed. You may remember me. Seven years I have been lost, and while on the surface, the path that I have taken in that time may seem surprising, I assure you it has all been part of a greater plan. Gods plan.
Just a couple of days ago she had said to him, with insupportable condescension, There arent many things that people will gladly kill and die for, but this is the big one.
No, Eliza , Morgan thought now. This is the big one. Enjoy.
In the service of His will , he had written to the station, I would gladly kill and die, and so gladly, too, do I defy the efforts of our government and others to conceal from the people the truth of this unholy ignominy.
Ignominy was a good word. Morgan worried that hed made Eliza sound too smart, but consoled himself that it couldnt be helped.
I couldnt sound stupid if I tried.
His colleagues were pressed in so close to the TV screens that he couldnt see the images,
but that was fine. Hed had leisure to study them up close thank you, thank you, Gabriel Edinger, and thank you, naive Eliza, for not passcode-locking your phone and he had no doubt that after today it would be he and not she who would be continuing this momentous work with Dr. Chaudhary. As soon as Elizas name came out, her time would be up.
So get to it , he thought, beginning to lose patience with the broadcast. Enough with the rotting monsters. He knew the rest was just a postscript, that it was the demons that mattered, and as to who had leaked the pictures to the press, the world wouldnt especially care. But Morgan needed the last piece of this puzzle to fall into place, and so when, at last, he heard the famous anchorman say, in a bemused voice, As for the source of these startling images, well, it provides the answer to another mystery many of us had given up hope of ever solving. Its been seven years, but youll remember the story. Youll remember this young woman.
And now Morgan Toth did elbow his way into the throng of scientists. He wasnt going to miss this. There on the TV was the picture that had had its time in the limelight. Seven years ago the story had come and lingered unsolved before finally frittering away into the sad land of cold cases, and Morgan could have kicked himself for not putting two and two together the first moment he met Eliza Jones. But how could he have recognized her as the girl in this picture? It was a terrible shot. Her eyes were downcast, and there was a motion blur, and anyway, hed written her off as dead. They all had.