Silver Nitrate(112)

The light of the projectors kept hitting the wall, an eye that remained eternally open and blind, but now a shadow passed before it, as if the lens was fogged, and in the bits of crystal on the ground Montserrat recognized a familiar reflection.

A hand closed around her neck.



* * *



—

The bowl with the blood had been overturned in the commotion, and the runes had been painted over red. Tristán let out a loud groan. He needed to draw all six again.

“Fuck me,” he whispered. “Abel, we’re doing this together, buddy,” he said, clutching the stick. The piercing needle in the back of his skull seemed to radiate down his column, as if a muscle had been pinched.

Your blood, came the muffled reply.

“What?” Tristán asked, outraged.

Your blood. Sacrifice.

He remembered José López with his leeches. “Mother fucker,” he said.

Sure. Okay. He’d use his own blood. Six runes. It couldn’t take that much blood, would it? He dropped the stick and held up his hand, slicing across his palm with the knife. The sting of the cut made him squeeze his eyes shut, but then he knelt and began scribbling with the knife on the floor.

“Abel,” he said. “First one.”

There came no reply. That static inside his skull had returned. He felt tired, weaker, and his stomach was in knots.

“Abel, you have to guide my hand, please.”

God, he was scared. He was scared and nervous and could hardly think, never mind speak to ghosts. He wasn’t sure how to go about this, and any second now he would piss his pants.

There was no sound, not a whisper from Abel. Nothing. He raised his head and saw that Clarimonde remained on the ground, but Montserrat kept walking back, as if retreating from something. He thought he saw a figure, dim, more a faint vapor than the pillar of smoke that had manifested before, but coalescing again, in front of her. It was becoming solid.

Ewers was in the room.

“I command you to show me the runes,” Tristán said, resolutely, despite his nerves, despite the fear, because there was no time to waste and Montserrat needed him.

He slammed the knife down and his hand scribbled quickly, possessed, moved not by him but by Abel. Air, earth, water, life, the opener. He said each rune out loud, rubbed his hand against the blade, smearing it with more blood, and kept going. One by one. Vegvísir. The final one. He drew it and felt like heaving.

Tristán raised his head, looked at Montserrat again. The vague outline of smoke that had stood before her now was a real and solid shape. At least it was, for a moment, as it seemed to flicker, like an image that was out of focus. That gray shape had shoved Montserrat against a wall.

“Ah…it’s the end of the film,” Tristán said, looking down at the runes. “It’s the end of the film, go away, Ewers. Cease to be.”

Nothing. The shape was still before Montserrat. The room sizzled with a dark and terrible force.

“Fuck! It’s not working, Abel!”

Your rune.

“I drew the runes! I drew the runes!” Tristán yelled, pointing at the floor.

Abel did not say anything else. There was a garbled sound, then silence, and Tristán was definitely going to vomit. More than that, he was going to pass out. Three more seconds and he’d be out cold. He felt utterly drained.

Helpless, he raised his head and stared in Montserrat’s direction.

“Momo!” he screamed, and it wasn’t fair because he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t understand anything about runes. She was the one who knew. Willpower and you make them your own and he couldn’t do a thing without Montserrat.

“Draw our runes!” she yelled.

He stared at her in confusion, and then he knew. He remembered. Determined, focused, he began tracing a line.



* * *



—

Power. That was what Montserrat felt as icy, strong fingers wrapped around her neck. She didn’t see Ewers at first, then he was smoke, then he was ash, his hand still tight around her neck as he kept pressing her back, making her retreat, one step at a time. His hold was not so tight that she could not breathe, but it still hurt, and she could feel the terrible strength in him.

“I warned you. One way or another,” he said. He was silver and black-blue smoke, he was ash that was reshaped into sinews.

He was real. But he shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t. They had not finished the spell. Yet he flickered into existence before her wide eyes. She stepped backward.

“How?” she asked.

“You gave me a voice. You drew my runes. You even joined the audience in watching me,” he said, his mouth curling in glee, ash and smoke somehow able to smile. “You made me real.”

She shook her head.

“Say it now, say I’m alive, and you’ll follow me into the night.”

“You can’t—”

“No, you can’t. Those are my runes, this is my magic, this is my power. Give in. Say it.”

“You’re choking—”

She tried to shove him away, but his grip on her throat grew more vicious. She squeezed her eyes shut. He released his hold on her, instead sliding his hands down her shoulders and holding her in place like that.

“Better?” he asked, almost innocently. She coughed and opened her eyes, shocked to see he was indeed alive.