The door of the shed swung open. The sound reached her an instant later, like an echo.
It was her father.
It was her father.
He was skinnier than she remembered, and she didn’t recognize his tattered clothes. But she knew the goofy way he walked—the way his head bobbed, the way his lanky arms swung at his sides.
He carried a fishing pole.
She watched as he loped around, his eyes cast downward to inspect the frozen lake. It took her a moment to understand—to see what he saw—and then the bird in her throat let out a screech so sudden and alien that it shocked even her. X clasped her hand.
Her father turned and saw them.
There were a dozen holes in the ice.
nineteen
X watched as Zoe hiked down the hill. Her arms were crossed tightly around her chest. She was staring straight at her father, refusing to let him look away.
X heard noises behind him in the woods. Something was crunching through the snow. He assumed it was an animal and did not turn. He would not take his eyes off Zoe.
The Trembling made it almost unbearable for X to be so close to his prey. His fever burned beneath his skin. His hands had a will of their own, and began to shake at his sides. They were desperate to act—to kill—even if X was repulsed by the thought.
He reminded himself that killing this one last soul would set him free. But freedom was too strange and vast an idea to hold for more than an instant, and it was followed by a crushing guilt. Why must being with Zoe come at another soul’s expense—and why must that soul be her father? The lords had made even freedom seem a sin. He told himself not to think of his bounty as Zoe’s father, but rather as a faceless, nameless creature to be disposed of: a 16th skull to hang around his neck, no different from the 15 others.
A branch snapped behind him. It was a tiny sound but X was so agitated it assaulted his ears. Still, he refused to turn.
Zoe was halfway down the hill now, halfway to her father.
Before X met her, he’d wrenched souls from the Overworld without so much complaining from his conscience. He used to tell himself that he hated it, but, when the time came, he always managed to summon up enough fury to strike his target down. He wondered if he’d been such a fierce bounty hunter because he had the blood of a lord in his veins—or because he’d never lived a true life and never known the value of a soul.
The noises returned. It was not an animal behind him. He knew that now. It was a human being.
A hiker, perhaps, or a hunter.
X could hear the man’s breath.
He could not have someone stumbling on the scene about to unfold. He forced himself to look away from Zoe. He spun back to the trees. He saw a flash of gold through the parted branches of a fir.
Aggravated by the interruption, X stalked back down the path, the trees exploding with snow as he pushed past them. He would terrify whoever it was and send him running. It wouldn’t be difficult. He knew how grim and malevolent he must look with his wild eyes and his hair trailing him, ragged as fire.
The glint of gold was maybe 200 feet back, still hidden by trees. X bore down on the intruder. Whoever it was would surely turn and flee before he’d even reached him.
But something strange happened. Rather than retreating, the figure moved toward him, scudding through the snow.
X himself was being hunted.
Ripper appeared suddenly, breathless and fierce and firing words.
“The lords are coming,” she said. “I am here to warn you.”
X was so shocked to see her that he could not speak. Ripper waited a moment, then continued, her voice rising.
“Struck dumb, are you?” she said. “You must do what you were sent to do. You have dallied too long with your lover. The thing that needs stiffening is your spine! Do you not know how the lords watch you? Do you not know how your insolence makes them seethe? I am ignorant of their plan, but they will surely unleash hell if you betray them again.”
She fell silent, finally. She wore only black boots and her golden dress, which looked like a Christmas ornament against the snow. Her old bounty hunter tattoos peeked out from beneath her lacy sleeves.
“How did you come to be here?” said X.
“That is what you would ask me?” said Ripper angrily. “You have a friend in Regent, and I have a friend in that repulsive Russian. If you must know, I had to promise him a kiss, which I may never forgive you for. I have not kissed anyone for a hundred and eighty-four years, and I had hoped for a grander prize.”
She took X’s arm.
She turned him back toward Zoe’s father.
“Come,” she said. “Let us find that soul that needs taking. I will crush the man’s throat myself if you cannot.”
“I will do what is required,” he said. “But you must return to the Lowlands before your absence is discovered.”
“I will not,” she said. “Not until this thing is done.”
“I insist, Ripper,” he said. “You have endangered yourself enough on my behalf.”
“And I have done it gladly, foolish boy,” she said. “I am to rot for eternity, in any case. I should be glad to think back on the one or two occasions I tried to be kind.”
X accepted this, gratefully. Though the Trembling still pulsed through him, he felt stronger with Ripper by his side.
They walked through the dwindling trees, Ripper’s eyes darting around with fascination. She took in the enormous pines, the streaks of sky, the snowflakes that drifted down like motes of dust. She had collected her last soul many years ago. She hadn’t been in the Overworld for decades.