As if to punish himself, he flicked on the light.

He saw everything in a single glimpse and staggered back against the doorjamb, sliding down the wall to the floor. His breath came in gasps.

None of the crime scene photos he'd studied over the years had prepared him for this, for the impact of it. She lay in a glistening pool of blood, her stomach splayed open. Bloody handprints streaked the duvet and the wall behind the bed.

Gore dripped from the thing Barclay had hung in place of the New York City skyline print, a fleshy red thing he first mistook for a ram's head painted red but realized with dawning horror was Tish's reproductive system, her uterus and fallopian tubes nailed to the chipped plaster.

And despite the repellent sight of Barclay's macabre work of art, Martin's gaze kept returning to Tish's bare throat, so constricted the ligature marks were nearly black. The bow she'd worn, the bow Barclay had choked the life out of her with, was now tied neatly in her hair.

A belated Christmas gift from the Witch Hunter for his closest friend in the outside world.

"Martin?"

Lumsden's voice seemed to come from very far away, even though the detective had already stepped into the unit.

Pulled from his stupor, Martin realized he was still gripping the pistol. He laid it on the carpet between his feet, vaguely aware of how easily this scene could be misinterpreted in an instant of confusion.

Maybe I should pick it up. Let them shoot me. I deserve it, don't I, Ma?

Thinking about his mother again, about Ruby. Talking to her in his mind, on the verge of delirium. He couldn't remember the last time he'd done that, probably not since he was very young, in the few years after they took her away.

Hard soles tromped up the hall, stopping at the door. "Martin, Jesus..." Lumsden's voice. "Is that—?"

"My God," a woman hoarsely whispered. Lumsden's partner, Detective Kline.

One of them gagged.

Lumsden grabbed Martin under the arm and hauled him to his feet. He looked down at the gun on the floor, gave Martin a look of disappointment. "You should've listened to me."

"What does it matter? She's dead. She's dead because of me."

"It's not your fault. Come on. We'll need to take your statement."

As Lumsden dragged him from the room, he looked back once more at the grisly tableau and spotted it at once, what he kept looking back for.

Her necklace, the ankh. It was missing.

Barclay had taken it.

6

Fright and Flight

"SO HE WAS leaving you messages, and you didn't think to tell anyone."

Lumsden and his partner eyeballed him, the three of them sitting in a brightly lit interrogation room in the Bowery 9^th Precinct. It was the same way they'd treated him after the incident with the Mirror Man. Like he was the lead suspect in a murder investigation.

"You knew he was gonna come after me." He was exasperated and dead tired. It took all of his energy to argue. "What fucking difference would it have made?"