Page 83 of A Resistance of Witches
“I do,” Henry said, still staring into the darkness.
“Have at it, then.”
Henry nodded again, his eyes still trained on the woods. Rebecca wondered if it was the book making him act this way, and the thought of it filled her with the kind of terror that caused animals to chew off their own limbs.
There was a moment of quiet, and then Henry spoke.
“I see you.” He stared, unblinking, at a fixed point in the darkness. “What’s your name?”
Pierre took a step forward. “What did he say?”
Rebecca stared between the trees, straining her eyes to see what Henry saw, but there was nothing. “I don’t know.”
Henry smiled, and the sight of it was so unnerving Rebecca found herself backing away from him. “Hannah. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Henry.” A pause. “Can you help us?”
“What the hell is this?” Pierre stepped closer. “Is he having a fit?”
Rebecca reached out and touched Henry’s shoulder. “Henry?”
He nodded once. “That’s fine. Thank you.”
What came next happened very quickly. There was a shifting in the darkness, a flutter of movement in the moonlight. Rebecca felt something move past her, close enough to make her yelp and shrink from the unseen thing. And then she heard a sound, one she had heard before, too distinctive to be mistaken for anything other than what it was—a long, hissing expulsion of air, the kind you sometimes hear from the newly dead.
She looked at Pierre. He was on his feet, but his posture looked strange, twisted and unnatural. His mouth hung open, his face frozen in an empty mask. He’d gone pale, so pale he seemed to reflect the moonlight, and as Rebecca got to her feet, she saw that his eyes were all wrong—they had gone milky white, like two pearls. The gun lay forgotten at his feet.
Henry was standing now, too, watching Pierre. After a moment, the death rattle fell silent, and Pierre turned his clouded eyes on Henry. Rebecca thought she would scream looking into those blank, unseeing eyes.
“Henry.”Rebecca’s voice was a strangled whisper. “Henry, we have to go. We have to gonow.”
Henry cocked his head to one side. “It’s okay. She won’t hurt us.”
He approached Pierre slowly, as if approaching an animal in the wild. Pierre’s blind eyes followed him as he moved, making Rebecca’s skin crawl.
“Thank you, Hannah,” he whispered.
Pierre blinked.
“I’d like to do something for you in return. How can I help you?”
Pierre spoke, but the voice that came out of him didn’t sound human. It sounded like radio static, howling wind, clattering stones, and death, death most of all.
“My boy,” Pierre said. And then nothing.
“Your son?” Henry took a step closer. “You had to leave him. You want to make sure he’s okay.”
Pierre nodded. Henry stepped closer still, so close that Rebecca wanted to shriek, to warn him tostay away from that thing, but he didn’t seem afraid. Pierre opened his mouth, and the voice was there again, empty and terrifying, but if there were words, Rebecca couldn’t make them out. She backed away, watching Henry and the thing that was no longer Pierre, her body quaking beyond her control. After a moment, Henry stepped away.
“I will,” he said. “I promise.”
Pierre stared and said nothing.
Henry knelt and picked up the gun. He looked at Rebecca.
“We should go.”
Rebecca understood, but could not force her feet to move.
He held out his hand. “It’s okay.”
