The Lies That Bind

34: Godfather Death

She didn't feel the moment he plucked the drive from her fingers—they were numb and anyway, she was too busy staring down the gun's barrel to notice much of anything at all.

When her nerve threatened to break, she sucked down a breath and held it in her chest, and imagined she was standing back in Michaels' office, that very same gun in her hands, the bullet she'd slid from the chamber balanced between her fingers.

"What now?" she asked softly, watching him watch her.

He slipped the flashdrive into his pocket, the other still hanging from his neck. "Idiot girl," he sneered.

Calla closed her eyes. We've come to it at last.

"This is for my son."

When she opened them again, he was grinning at her—a terrible, overstretched smile that pulled his jaw wide, cracking his lips. A ghoul liberated from the grave.

"I must have the whole bird," he breathed, a manic light in his eyes as he pulled the trigger.

Click.

Alive. She was still alive.

Calla released the breath she'd been holding and smiled back at him. "My turn," she crooned, slipping the knife out of her back pocket.

Michaels, that ghastly smile frozen in place, stared at the useless gun in his hand.

Calla grabbed the collar of his coat and slammed the knife home, right between his ribs. "I am Death."

The gun clattered to the floor. Michaels, his fingers slick with his own blood as they wrapped around hers, blanched, his smile slipping at last. "You—"

But whatever he had to say was lost as his knees buckled. Calla yanked the knife free. "That's right," she said. "Calla Parker, motherfucker."

Michaels, kneeling there on the floor at her feet, stared down at his gut, his hands pressed over the wound she'd inflicted, red, red blood spilling between his fingers.

Eyes glazed, he looked up at her.

"And I make all equal," she said quietly. "I told you I would ruin you, Detective."

Something inside her cracked and gave way, like a tremendous sigh expanding her ribs, as the light in his eyes winked out and he toppled over, face-first onto the new carpet.

Blood crawled across the hardwood, seeping into the cracks and the carpet and—oh, what a pity, the Director's hideous upholstered chairs had been splattered all over with it. His wife would be displeased.

His wife will be displeased about a great many things after tonight, she thought, tilting her head to the ceiling. She spread her arms, a beatific smile lighting up her face.

"Calla."

Her smile slipped. Slowly, she let her arms drop, the bloody knife hanging at her side. When she turned her head, Rachel was standing there with her by the fireplace.

At least, it sounded like Rachel. Calla could hardly see her there, her edges flickering like dying firelight. There and then gone.

"What's happened to you, Rach?" she asked wearily. The time to question, to disbelieve what her own eyes were trying to tell her, had passed.

"It's almost over." Rachel's words were as faint and indistinct as she was.

Calla gazed down at the knife in her hand. "Almost," she murmured, bending to wipe what blood remained on Michaels' fancy-shmancy coat.

"Are you sure about this, Calla?"

"To be honest, Rach," she said, pocketing the knife and wrenching free the chain from around Michaels' neck. "I'm not sure about anything anymore."

Retrieving her work bag from the couch, Calla dropped the flashdrive inside and pulled on the pair of latex gloves she'd slipped into the bag's side compartment earlier that morning, before Cooper had woken and stared at her as though she were already a ghost.

Soon enough, she supposed she would be.

Calla readjusted the gloves and crouched to investigate Michaels' many pockets: coat, pants, vest. She found a wallet, which held little interest for her. A pack of gum. Keys. And—ah. Her flashdrive. She reclaimed it with a smile.

"Didn't have that for long, did you?" she asked darkly, shooting his corpse a quick glare.

And then she went for the gun.

Staring at it now, she smiled. There had been a moment, right before Michaels had pulled the trigger, when she'd thought, it didn't work, that bullet is going to fire right into my head and this is all there is.

It had been a gamble. A dangerous, terrible gamble, tampering with the bullets that day in his office, denting the cartridges just enough that she hoped—oh, how she'd hoped—that when the time came the gun would fail, buying her time to stick that knife into Michaels and end what she'd started long ago on Halloween night.

Everything she'd read, every little scrap of research, had claimed that so long as the bullet couldn't fire, the gun couldn't discharge, but—well, one could never be absolutely certain about those things, not when they had a gun in their face and the black abyss yawning before them, promising oblivion.

But here she was. "And there you are," she said, gazing down at Michaels with a contemptuous smirk.

"Calla," Rachel whispered.

She blinked, eyes and nose stinging from the close proximity to the floor, the cleaning supplies she'd used to scrub the place spotless causing her head to spin. Calla straightened and, after her head had cleared, aimed the gun at the opposite wall and fired off two shots, thankful now for the silencer. Satisfied with the work, she placed the gun in Michaels' hand, curling his fingers around the grip.

Two shots. The last act of a dying man.

"Alright," she muttered to herself, stepping over Michaels' body. "Just a few more things..."

Calla knew Rachel had to be with her, watching as she moved about the mortuary, even if Calla herself couldn't see a damn thing—she knew it by the way the cold stole her breath, the surest indicator that somehow, she was not alone.

"You don't have to watch this, Rachel," Calla muttered, slumping against the fireplace to catch her breath.

"I won't leave you."

Her words were punctuated by the promising sound of footsteps. Another figure crossing the front yard, climbing the steps to the mortuary.

Adrenaline propelled Calla away from the fireplace and behind the front door, where she crouched in the shadows. Waiting.

A knock came at the door. And then a tentative voice called, "Hello?"

Cold air hovered against Calla's right side.

The knob turned. Again, that voice: "Hello? Calla?"

Slowly, the door began to open.

And in walked Astrid Baker.