Dead Harvest

  I guess the pills did the trick, because that's the last thing I remember – at least until I jerked awake, panicked and sweating. Something had roused me from my slumber, but my brain was fuzzy, dulled from sleep and pills, and I couldn't focus. What was it that I'd heard?

  Nothing, said my pillow. Just forget it and come back to sleep. But that pillow was a liar. I'd heard something – I knew I had. If I could just focus…

  There. Again. A frightened whimper. A muffled thud. The fog lifted – not much, but a little – and I sat upright in bed, sliding the gun out from beneath the pillow as my feet found the floor. The scrap of fabric I'd used to hold in the powdered remains of the catshard protruded comically from the gun barrel, like a kerchief from a magician's sleeve, as though mocking me for putting my faith in so ridiculous a weapon. But it was too late to worry about that now. I crept over to my open bedroom door and peered out into the hall, but it was dark, and there was nothing to see.

  I approached Kate's bedroom, gun held ready. The lights were off, the curtains drawn, but by the faint illumination of the alarm clock, I could tell the bed was empty. I padded barefoot down the hall to the staircase. At the top, I stopped, straining to hear what might be going on below. There, faintly – the whisper of something heavy being dragged across the floor. Something like a body.

  The time for waiting had passed. I bounded down the stairs, two at a time, making for the source of the noise. The problem was, the whole damn place was marble and hardwood, and sounds bounced off the walls like an echo chamber. I ducked into three empty rooms before I was forced to admit I had no idea where the sound had come from. It was then that I heard the voice.

  "Hello, Samuel."

  It echoed through the darkened apartment as if from everywhere, or from nowhere at all. The voice itself was unfamiliar, but there was no mistaking that smug tone, that knowing sneer.

  "Bishop," I said.

  His laughter reverberated off the penthouse walls. "Of course, that's not my name of choice, but for now it should suffice."

  I listened closely to his words, not caring a damn what they meant. No, all I cared about was where he was. The problem was, I still had no idea. If I wanted to find out, I was gonna have to keep him talking.

  "Where's the girl, Bishop?"

  "The child is fine," he replied, "for now."

  I ducked into the living room, where brocaded high-backed chairs and a silken chaise gleamed dully by the city lights that trickled through the half-drawn curtains. But Bishop and Kate were nowhere to be seen. I leaned heavily against the mantel, trying to shake the cobwebs from my drug- and sleep-addled brain. If I couldn't focus, Kate was good as dead.

  Once I gathered my wits, I tried again. "Let her go!" I called. I always wondered why people in the movies always said that; it's not like it ever works. Turns out, it doesn't matter. You say it because it buys you time. You say it because that's all there is to say.

  "I don't think so," he replied, oblivious to my game, or perhaps not caring. "I rather like her where she is."

  Another open door, this one to a darkened office. But they weren't there. I wondered how long it would be before Bishop tired of this game and ended her. I prayed I wouldn't find out.

  I returned to the foyer, and called out to him again. "How did you know where to find us?"

  "It was simple, really. The violent are so predictable, you see – so eager to return to their killing grounds. They always return eventually, desperate to reclaim that thrill, that joy, that ecstatic rush that only comes from taking a life. Tell me, dear, how did it feel when you bled your brother dry? When you snapped your father's bones in two? How did it feel when your mother begged for mercy as you tortured her? She did beg, didn't she? They all do, eventually. Even the biggest and bravest among us cower before the altar of suffering."

  Kate whimpered, but didn't speak. It sounded like Bishop had her gagged. But suddenly, I realized where they were. I should've known from the start. He'd brought her back to where it had all begun. He'd brought her back to make Kate face what she had done. He'd brought her to the kitchen.

  I snuck toward the kitchen hall, my bare feet noiseless against the hardwood floor. Before I began my approach, I ducked my head into a bathroom and shouted, "Don't you talk to her, you son of a bitch!" It was better, after all, if I was something less than expected.

  "Son of a bitch? Oh, no, Samuel – you could not be more wrong. It was God himself that plucked me from this mortal coil, so pleased was he at my cleansing of the unrighteous."

  I paid his words no mind, creeping down the hall toward the kitchen with my finger on the trigger.