What Crawls Below

14 § On the Wagon

Cyrus cursed aloud. Here he had just gotten back, and seemed to be walking the line with whether he was in Acheron's good graces—and now this. He was tempted to stay in bed, leave his unexpected—and unwelcome—guest to give up and leave. Then he imagined what would happen if she didn't leave, and his mentor found her...

Cyrus jumped out of bed.

When he passed Acheron's room, no light emanated from underneath the door. That meant nothing. For all Cyrus knew, the demon was waiting in the darkness, ready to do Lord knows what. He attempted to open the front door without letting the hinges squeak, for as much as that was worth.

Straight from the dreams that plagued Cyrus since childhood, a bloody Tuesday stood on his doorstep. She was silhouetted in the halo of pale light ebbing from the porch lamp; behind her, in stark contrast, darkness.

When she spoke, he expected her voice to quiver. Tuesday bit her lip and seemed to struggle with what to say, but her voice was strong and clear. "I—I didn't know where else to go."

Was she in shock? He couldn't procure any other explanation for her eerie calmness. Normal people weren't unfazed by murder.

They just couldn't be.

Of course, Cyrus mused, that meant the only place she could fathom belonging was with another killer. Neither of them addressed that particular elephant in the room.

Did that mean the score had been erased between them? Why else would she have felt comfortable enough to come to him?

He raked his eyes over the streaks of blood across her nightgown, dried to a rusty color staining the otherwise pristine white cotton. She had thrown a jacket on over it, but it didn't cover everything. With her bare skin exposed to the moonlight, she looked like a ghost. To add to her eerie appearance, Tuesday wasn't projecting her signature brightness—it was like a sheet had been thrown over it. It hadn't been extinguished, but the light that struggled to the surface was weaker.

And, to a small degree, Cyrus took credit for that. He knew the second he laid eyes on Pastor Hale the man was bad news, but it was no coincidence this happened then—after meeting Cyrus, and with how he'd showed up to church that morning. Cyrus had witnessed the whole ordeal, and if the other points were mere coincidence, the fact that Hale had mentioned him was not.

Still, her childlike innocence couldn't have lasted forever, and not everyone would have survived what she did. She'd done what she had to: kill. Maybe they weren't terribly different, after all; Cyrus had no interest in needless suffering. Each kill had a purpose.

"Did you call the police?" Cyrus whispered. There was a double meaning to his words, and he was sure she knew it.

"Why—" She glanced down at herself, at the visible bloodstains, and somehow paled even further. Tuesday shook her head slowly, and visibly swallowed. "Not yet," she replied quietly.

Wordlessly, Cyrus slipped outside and shut the door behind him with care. He sat down on the stoop, staring up at the starless sky, but felt Tuesday's eyes on him. She hesitated, then joined him.

His skin tingled from her proximity. Cyrus twisted his hands together, unsure what to do.

The memories ran through his head again, one in particular sticking out: how Tuesday had stabbed her father with a shard of glass. Cyrus didn't know why, but it wouldn't let go of his attention. It festered in the back of his mind, the idea he had seen something like that before. But where in the hell had that come from?

He was losing his fucking mind.

"Cyrus, I did something really bad," Tuesday whispered, shaking him out of this thoughts. He stiffened, but there was nothing he could really say. He doubted his acting skills, and how the hell could he explain knowing what had happened?