He let go of my left wrist. I went for his face with my freed hand, but before I reached him he slammed his right shoulder into my damaged one. The sensation was, for several seconds, literally blinding. My knees buckled, but Tom’s grip kept me from falling.

The chain must have showed a little inside my shirt collar. He hooked a finger in it and flipped it to the outside. The glass bead glittered between us in the crazy light, and he caught it. As soon as he did he knew it was important, by the way I behaved.

It was like Beano all over again: slapping me against the wall, twining fingers through the cord — no, chain — around my neck. But this couldn’t be Beano’s. No miasma of incense. Gunpowder stink, and the smell of blood, which at Beano’s had come later. Oh, santos, Sparrow, keep your mind on it, don’t pass out now. I blinked, trying to clear the smudginess from everything.

“Voodoo shit,” Tom spat out. He fingered the glass bead. “Was this supposed to fool me? Figured you were gonna stick a few pins in me? Shit.” He yanked, and the chain cut into the back of my neck and broke. The bead slid off and dropped to the floor. He moved his foot, moved it back, and I saw the scattering of bright dust in the mottled light through the windows. Something ran from the corner of my eye to my jaw. It might have been sweat.

“All right, now,” he breathed. “Let’s party.” And he began again.

Water action. Filthy liquid filling me up slowly, dissolving me, toxins rushing into my mouth, my nostrils, my ears, filming my eyes, devouring the connections between me and my senses. He’d taken control of my gag reflex already, or I would have obeyed it.

Only twenty-four hours before, my friends had acted out the gathering-together of a tangle of energy, the naming of it: Sparrow. Now Tom O’Bedlam consumed it, strained its juices between his teeth, picked the meat out of it with delicate, epicurean delight. Mick and Frances had told me that the host personality could be starved or smothered gradually, or killed outright. They didn’t tell me it could be eaten.

I couldn’t feel anything. I could still hear: thunder, rain driving against the window, the two of us panting in unison. I could see; he hadn’t taken the optic nerves yet, or the muscles that moved my eyes. Over Tom’s shoulder I had a view of Frances, her head turned against the door frame, her face drawn in loosely with pain. But only loosely, as if it was a leftover expression, as if what had caused it was gone or nearly so.

Maybe she would find that white, flat place. Once Tom was done with my battered body, maybe I would, too.

There was a roaring in my ears, growing steadily. It was in the room, too; the window glass was rattling.