Page 96 of Desecrated Saints
On his knees at the end of the corridor, Phoenix’s head is lowered, execution style. He dares to lift his eyes to meet mine for a second. Shock and agony race across his heavily beaten face, like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.
“Eight,” Seven thunders.
Tentatively stepping into the firing line, I give Hunter a wide berth. When I get to Seven’s side, I realise who is cradled in Hunter’s arms. Torn apart by violent slashes and numerous deep stab wounds, her eyes are slowly falling shut. They meet mine at the last moment.
“I’m s-s-sorry,” she croaks.
“Alyssa.” Hunter chokes a sob. “Stay with me, my love. Don’t do this. I need you.”
He’s stroking her stained pink hair, their lips almost touching. She tries to cup his cheek and leaves a bright-red swipe on his skin. It’s a devastating sight. Her eyes shut forever as mortality pulls her soul ashore.
“No. Alyssa…”
Seven watches his sister slip away, unable to traverse the distance between them. Not a single emotion crosses his face. The only sign that he feels anything is in his clenched fist.
Hunter’s head lowers once she’s gone. He looks nothing like the formidable pillar of strength I’ve come to fear. In this moment, he’s another broken victim of Incendia.
“Weapons down!”
Metres ahead, the dead-eyed woman offers her ultimatum. The knife in her hand meets Phoenix’s throat, digging in hard enough to break the skin. More blood soaks his pale flesh. I scrape together the courage to meet her stare, searching her face for any hint of recognition.
She doesn’t look like my mother. Her hair is gone, leaving her skull exposed to the world. Gnarly scar tissue warps most of her features, shaded by dark circles, as if she hasn’t slept a single night in her life. While the burns corroborate Lazlo’s story, I can’t find the person I knew in her eyes.
“Who are you?” I shout at the ghost.
In answer, she presses the knife against Phoenix’s throat even harder. He chokes out his terror, a river of tears soaking into the discoloured skin of his face. One slip and he’ll be dead. I think I’ll die with him.
“Weapons down,” she repeats in a dull voice.
Hudson aims straight at her. “After you.”
She pulls the knife from Phoenix’s throat. My relief is quickly extinguished as the sharp tip buries into his left thigh. She stabs him so hard, it reaches all the way to the handle. Phoenix’s raw scream slices through my head like a razor blade to the wrist, right before he slumps.
“You’re going to fucking die for that!”
His attacker simply shrugs. “You didn’t listen.”
Taking another blade from the belt around her nonexistent waist, she rolls up the sleeves of her black shirt, as if preparing to butcher us all. It exposes the translucent skin stretched across her bones, broken by a single swirl of dark, ancient ink. My heart almost breaks free from my ribcage.
What’s this, Mummy? Letters?
A reminder to always love my little miracles, Brooke.
Why would you forget about us?
Sometimes Mummy’s head gets loud, baby. But I’ll always come back to you.
“No. It isn’t true!”
My voice is a lightning strike of disbelief and horror. Hudson tries to say something to me, but it doesn’t break through the haze of memories. Everything else falls into insignificance. Unlike the many months I’ve spent hallucinating my mother, this ghost cannot be returned to my imagination.
Because… she isn’t a ghost at all.
Lazlo was right all along.
I’m staring at Melanie West.
My feet move without being instructed. I dodge Hudson’s hands, stepping further into no man’s land. Neither he nor Seven follow, but they keep their weapons raised. I don’t need a weapon. Bullets and blades won’t protect me from this hellish truth. It’s too late to fight my way out of this.