people sort this out. But he couldn’t just abandon everything. Not yet. Not until he knew for sure that there was someone out there who could stop her. So Sanguine put down the beer he’d barely touched, and went to investigate the scream.
He pushed open the door to the spare room. It hit something on the other side, something that rolled, then came to a lazy stop as the door swung wider. A head. Male. Sanguine didn’t recognise the face. Nor did he recognise the other faces he saw in the room, twisted as they were in frozen snapshots of terror. How many were in here was impossible to judge. Body parts were grouped in piles, with the heads in the near corner. The floorboards were red and sodden. Blood splattered the walls and dripped from the ceiling. In the centre of the room crouched Darquesse, her fingers digging into what remained of a torso. She’d woken up from her hibernation, and she’d woken up curious. She looked up at him, her face calm.
Sanguine had no problems with taking a human life. He didn’t even have a problem with taking an innocent life, provided he was paid for it or had sufficient personal reasons. He was a killer. When he slept, his victims didn’t haunt his dreams, and so he was a good killer. All these things he recognised and acknowledged when he said, with some horror, “What have you done?”
Darquesse dug her fingers in a little more. The blood didn’t show on her shadowskin. “I’m investigating,” she said.
Words, he felt, needed to be chosen with care. “Who were they?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The people … the bodies.”
Darquesse stood. “Their names, you mean? I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I think that one’s name is Daisy, because it says Daisy on her badge. She works in a supermarket.”
“I see. And why did you kill Daisy?”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t kill her? Then who did all this?”
Darquesse looked around, then back at him. “I did.”
“Then you did kill her.”
“No. Well, I stopped her heart beating and her brain functioning, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“But I didn’t kill her. She’s still here. They’re all still here, Billy-Ray. I wouldn’t just kill them. How cruel would that be?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’d be pretty cruel, all right. So when you say they’re still here, what exactly are you talking about?”
Darquesse fluttered her fingers. “They’re still here. Around us.”
“You mean like ghosts?”
“In a way,” Darquesse said, smiling. “I mean their energy. Can’t you feel it?”
“Have to be honest with you, Darquesse, I cannot feel that. That must be one of your special abilities, because to me, it looks like you just killed a whole bunch of people for no reason.”
“Oh,” said Darquesse. “That’s so sad.”
“It’s a little depressing, yeah. So is that what you’re investigating, this energy?”
“I’m seeing how it works.”
“Found out much?”
“A fair bit. I might need to talk to some experts, though. Maybe scientists. I need to know how things work before I can play with them, you know?”
“That makes sense,” said Sanguine carefully.
“You know what’d be handy? Remnants. Lots of them. They take over the experts, the experts tell me what I want to know. Doesn’t that sound handy?”
“Uh, it sounds more trouble than it’s worth …”
“Nonsense,” said Darquesse. “The Remnants are lovely. Aren’t you engaged to one, after all?”
“Tanith’s a special case, though. And how are you even gonna find them? The Receptacle has been hidden away—”
“No it hasn’t,” Darquesse said happily. “There were plans to relocate it. Great plans. Plans that got sidetracked. Forgotten about. Quietly abandoned. The Receptacle is still in the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks, guarded by a few sorcerers and a squad of Cleavers. No problem.”
“You really think this is a good idea? Last time those Remnants were loose, you killed a whole bunch of them. Remnants have long memories.”
“You don’t think they’ll like me?” Darquesse asked, and frowned. “Maybe we should ask Tanith.”
She walked out and Sanguine hesitated, then followed. They found Tanith in the kitchen, sipping from a mug of coffee.
“I’m going to set the Remnants free,” Darquesse said. “What do you think about that?”
Tanith paused, then took another sip and shrugged. “Don’t really care one way or the other, to be honest. Some of them will be happy to see you. Some won’t.”
“Want to come with me? Say hi?”
“Sure,” said Tanith. “Let me drink this and I’ll meet you on the roof.”
Darquesse grinned, went to the window and flew out.
Tanith watched Sanguine for a moment. “You look like you have something to say.”
He kept his voice low. “You know she killed some people just to look at their energy, whatever the hell that means? She’s killing people, but not seeing it like killing people. Tanith, that ain’t safe. She’s tipping over the edge.”
“Of what? Sanity? Billy-Ray, what does sanity mean to someone like her? How does it apply?”
“She could kill us just as easily as anyone else.”
“No,” Tanith said. “She won’t kill us. Not till right before the end.”
“She can do no wrong in your eyes, can she?”
“Actually,” said Tanith, “she’s doing plenty wrong. She’s wasting time, for a start. I mean, what’s the problem? She has enough power to turn the world into a blackened, charred husk.”
“Is that what you want?”
“You know that’s what I want.”
“I know that’s what you wanted,” said Sanguine. “But that was before you talked to that guy who’d learned to control the Remnant inside him.”
“His name is Moribund. And he doesn’t control the Remnant, OK? How many times do I have to say it? After a few days, the Remnant stops being a separate entity.”
“OK, sorry, but my point remains. He said you didn’t have to be this way. He said you could rebuild your conscience
