Dead Harvest

  "Kate, listen to me. He was going to kill you. Worse, even – he was going to take your soul. Do you even understand what that means? An eternity of torment, and not just for you. If he had taken you, he'd have opened the floodgates. We're talking a full-scale war between heaven and hell. You think Pinch would have wanted that?"

  "Don't you stand there and tell me what he would have wanted." Tears spilled down her face, a twisted mask of pain and grief. "He was a kid, Sam. He was a kid, and you killed him. You're no better than the rest of them. A monster."

  I hung my head, squeezing shut my eyes so that I wouldn't have to see the blood that clung stickily to my hands. "I did what I had to do."

  "Yeah, well, you won't have to do it anymore. I don't care what happens to me – we're through. I won't be a party to any more bloodshed. You'll just have to find another life to ruin."

  Just then, a low, wet gurgle sounded in the darkness. It was accompanied by a hitching, labored breathing, arrhythmic and faint.

  Anders.

  I left Kate where she sat, wheeling toward the source of the noise. I didn't have long; in moments, the horrid sound of Anders' labored breathing was replaced by an even more terrible silence.

  Anders lay on the ground where I had left him. His eyes were clenched, his pain evident. The blade lay beside him in the grass, slick with blood. One blooddrenched hand lay beside it in the grass, and his sleeve was slick and dark as well. It looked to me like he'd removed the blade himself. I wished to God he hadn't. The blade would have slowed the bleeding, maybe bought us a few minutes, but now that he'd removed it, there was nothing left to stanch the flow. Anders was running out of time.

  "Kate!" I called, but she didn't answer. "Kate, I need your help!"

  Still nothing.

  "Damn it, Kate – you can hate me later. Right now, I need you over here, or Anders is going to die!"

  There was a rustling in the darkness, and Kate appeared beside me. She said nothing. She didn't have to. The anger in her eyes said it all. It seemed she'd hate me now, whether she chose to help or not. So long as we didn't lose another life tonight, I figured I could live with that.

  I grabbed her hand and pressed it tight to the wound in Anders' side. Kate recoiled slightly from my touch, but when I let her go, her hand stayed. "I need you to put pressure on the wound – more than you think you need, OK?"

  "He's not breathing."

  "I had noticed," I said. What I was going to do about that, though, I had no idea. I hovered over Anders' still form, unsure. I mean, I'd seen it done before – in a movie or two – but the whole CPR thing was a little after my time. Honestly, I'm usually more concerned with halting breath than with restoring it.

  "Switch with me," Kate said.

  "What?" I looked at her, confused.

  "Oh, for God's sake, switch with me!" She released the wound and grabbed my hands, shoving them in place. "You always gotta be the hero, don't you?" She pressed her mouth to Anders' and exhaled twice. Then she placed her palms against his breastbone and pressed downward in a steady rhythm. I just watched in amazement.

  "I took a babysitting course, a few years back," she said, and then once more blew breath into Anders' mouth. "CPR was a requirement. Of course, that doesn't mean I know what I'm doing."

  "You're doing fine," I said. In truth, I had no damn idea, but I hoped to God that I was right.

  Again Kate pressed her lips to his. This time, when she released him, Anders sputtered and coughed, blood spraying red across his teeth and lips. The breathing was a good sign. The blood was not. Kate might have bought us a little time, but this kid was gonna need a doctor if he was gonna live.

  "That… wasn't…Pinch," Anders said, his voice a brittle whisper, his eyes clenched shut against the pain.

  "No," I said, "it wasn't."

  "Then who?" he asked, between panting, labored breaths.

  "A Collector, like me. They call him Bishop."

  "I saw… I mean, I knew that something was different… that he'd changed somehow. I just figured it was the… the ritual. I should have said something. I should have tried to stop him…"

  I took his hand in mine. "You did fine, kid. Now, though, I need you to save your strength – we're gonna get you some help. Just relax, and try not to speak."

  "But Kate… is she OK?"

  I looked her in the eye. Truth was, she looked anything but. "Yeah, kid – Kate's OK."

  "Good," Anders said, and then promptly lost consciousness.

  Kate checked his neck for a pulse. "Still beating, she said, "for now, at least. You think he's going to make it?"

  "No," I said, "but if he's gonna have a shot, we have to move now."

"So," Kate said, the brittle, frost-laden grass crunching beneath her feet, "you knew that guy?"