Sacrifice Island (17 page)

Something watched from the shadows. Drawn by voices, Virginia emerged from her basement nest and followed the ghost hunters. She clung to cool, moist patches of darkness. She watched them at her red stream. The woman stared at the red water, the man held his head in his hands. She calculated. Take them now, risk being drawn out into the sun? Or wait. Terry promised to bring them to her. Promised to end this ridiculousness. What if she waited and they got on a boat and left again?

The bright sun bled her strength, but she crept closer. Hungry. She wanted to taste them. Something about the woman intoxicated her. The man would go first, and she would take her time with the woman.

24

Alex struggled to think of a way to get them off this island before nightfall. Jemma listened to the shadows, pointing, and frowning, unable to spot whatever she thought she heard. As the day advanced, the shadows stretched. She carried her sharpened bamboo spear. He didn’t remember what she’d called it. He had no intention of being here when night fell.

“I’m going after Karen and her boat.”

“It’s not safe,” Jemma said. “Stay here. Better to fight with Virginia than Karen.”

That was bullshit. He’d much rather tussle with flesh and blood than a creature he didn’t realize existed until the day before.

“She’s already terrified of you. I think you can distract her while I get her gun away.”

“I’m tired of distracting people.”

“You’re really good at it.” Everyone always underestimated Jemma. Most of all, Jemma.

She frowned, but stood up, holding tight to her stick. Out in the sunlight, her skin seemed to glow. She wasn’t hugging herself or covering herself quite so much. She’d get a sunburn if she stayed out on the beach for long. They’d need to do something for the ride to Puerto, assuming he could commandeer the boat.

Alex followed her, wondering what she would do. For years she’d seemed so predictable, but this danger awakened a new desperation in her. It excited him.

Jemma marched out on the beach. “How much longer do we have to sit around here and wait?” she demanded.

Karen sat up from where she’d been relaxing in the sand, cool in the shadow of one of the overhanging cliffs. “Nightfall.”

“And you’re just babysitting us?”

“Only until Terry arrives.”

Karen started to back away from Jemma. Jemma held out her hands, sort of resembling a movie zombie. If vampires were real, were zombies real, too?

“Get away from me,” Karen barked, and pulled out the gun. Jemma paused, but Alex went in for the kill. As he sprinted across the sand, he hoped he wouldn’t have to kill her. He’d tackle her, take her down, get the keys…he remembered her underneath him the night before and wished it wasn’t happening like this.

The echo of the gunshot ricocheted off the tall cliffs, thundering long after the damage was done. Birds took flight from the trees.

Alex’s first thought was panic: Karen shot Jemma. Then he found himself falling forward, his legs all tangled and clumsy, unwilling to work. He landed with a mouthful of sand, and the impact brought out a pain in his gut.

It took a moment for it all to add up. He nearly spat out a laugh when he realized she’d shot
him
.

At least Jemma was okay
. Better than okay. She came to him and hovered over him; she started to reach for him, then pulled back. He rolled himself onto his side and flopped onto his back. Hot, blinding pain radiated from his stomach, yet there a distance opened between him and the pain. A distance between him and everything. It was kind of nice, cottony and stuffed tight in the warm, sunny afternoon. His eyes slid closed, and he heard Jemma call his name. He forced them open and saw her lean over him.

“Don’t go,” she said.

“Maybe I’ll stay with you. When I’m a ghost.” He was dying. He didn’t see any reason to fight it. It simply was. When he saw the blood in the sand, it made sense.

“Push on it,” Jemma said. “I don’t have anything to…”

Without a hint of resentment, Alex wondered if she had been dressed like normal if her long skirts could have saved him by making a compress. He’d never know.

“I love you,” he told her.

“I love you, too.” She wiped away tears with the heels of her hands.

“No, Jemma, I’m in love with you. My heart beats for you.” It sounded so corny. He smiled. Poor heart, running out of things to pump.

“Kiss me,” he said.

“I can’t!” She gaped down at him, beautiful even under the layer of tanning lotion.

“It’ll be okay, I promise.” And it would be. He knew how her terrible gift worked. When she touched someone, pain traveled from the person with the most pain to the person with the least. And Jemma was always in pain. Right now, the cottony stuffing feeling kept his at bay. If he got a kiss, he’d never have another bad thought.

“I promise,” he said again. “Please?”

“What if it—”

He cut her off.

“Please?”

He knew she worried; she’d be all fucked up and in agony if she received the pain of a gunshot wound. But she wouldn’t. He knew it. He’d make her feel fantastic.

The gauze thickened. All the edges of the world were soft, cushioned. He couldn’t feel anything now. The sound of the water on the beach became muffled, the sand under him felt like a featherbed. Everything was white and getting whiter. Was this the light everyone talked about? Would he finally see a ghost?

“Hurry.”

She sobbed over him, and he wanted to apologize for hurting her. She leaned in.

Their lips touched. For a half second it was perfect. He kept his smile as the agony hit him full on. But he’d been ready for it. And it didn’t matter, because it pushed him over the edge, gave him the gentle nudge from life into death.

25

“Alex?” Jemma cried his name over and over. She felt the moment his spirit left him. Selfishly, she wanted him to stay near her, to keep watch over her as he’d done in life. She didn’t want him moving on to “a better place” if it meant losing him.

She hated that his kiss made her feel better, alive and sharp. Dumping the pain twice in one day made her feel like a person again. More than she had in years, since this all began. A fitting end for this phase of her life.

She turned to Karen.

“You did this to him.”

Karen pointed the gun at Jemma. Her hands shook. The stark sunlight bleached her face white.

The sound of a boat took their attention. The
Baby Roxanne
, carrying Terry and the despicable Mr. Lucky. Relief washed over Karen’s face, and Jemma took the opportunity to rush forward, heft her
bagacay
, and thrust it through Karen’s chest.

She dropped in a heap in front of Jemma.

Jemma stood like a caged animal, holding her sharpened stick. Blood, darker than Jemma expected, coated it.

She wouldn’t give up without a fight. She needed to find Virginia. She resisted the urge to kick Karen’s slumped, traitorous body, for it wouldn’t do anything except facilitate a transfer of pain. Jemma felt good right now; Alex’s final gift served her well.

She turned and darted into the jungle.

Cool shadows wrapped around her partially clad body like a lover’s embrace. She welcomed it.

She needed a plan. Think. Think. Tears sprang to her eyes. She’d kept Alex at her fingertips for years so she wouldn’t have to come up with plans…she tossed out ideas, he crafted them into things. Like her book. If she lived, the book couldn’t be completed without his help. She couldn’t save herself. She was doomed to repeat history, strapped bare to a table, unable to do anything but die without outside assistance. Without Alex’s assistance. Which is why her plan made sense, now more than ever.

She knew he loved her. She’d always known. It brought a hot shame to her face (more than the sunburn), a deep gnawing shame that was a part of her ever-present pain. She was sorry, but she didn’t know how she could have loved him back without touching him.

“You’re crying.”

Jemma jumped, a girlish, embarrassing squeal eked from her lips.

Something spoke from the spaces between the wide jungle leaves. A lizard skittered away. Jemma realized the afternoon had fallen silent, no birds chirped overhead.

“Are you the ghost hunter?” it asked.

Not anymore, Jemma thought. I am nothing. Nothing without my friend who picked me up and made me a person. But not for long.

“Yes,” she said.

A throaty chuckle.

“You’re never going to leave this island.”

“I know,” Jemma said.

“Come here, girl.”

Gladly.

Jemma walked toward the sound of the voice, pushing palm fronds out of her way.

On the bank of the red stream, Virginia appeared like a Cheshire cat: grin first. The rest of her faded into existence before Jemma’s eyes. Beautiful, long auburn hair, dressed in a plain brown dress that would have looked at home on a World War Two wife. Her eyes weren’t right, though. They were a predatory yellow, and they were hungry. “Virginia,” Jemma said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

She laughed, and her smile wasn’t right either. The skin around it seemed too elastic, the teeth too sharp. Jemma supposed it would have to be. Somewhere inside this creature huddled a black chick. A tiny, baby chicken. An undead, eternal thing that provided all the power.

Jemma hefted the
bagacay
.

“What do you intend to do with that?” Virginia asked.

“I want to be you.”

Virginia laughed again, a nasty, hollow sound.

“I want to be the next
Aswang
of Sacrifice Island.”

“You don’t.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t imagine the loneliness.”

Now it was Jemma’s turn to laugh.

“I can,” she said. “I got married in college.” Jemma sat on a rock, feeling the mossy stone on her bare legs. The red stream babbled happily in the background. “To a man I loved. He loved me, too, but he wasn’t well. He was paranoid. He thought I had demons in me. Maybe I did.”

Virginia folded in on herself, settling in to hear Jemma’s story.

“He used to hit me and call me a temptress. He tried to fornicate the demon out of me. That didn’t work either. Finally he tied me to a table in our basement. He thought he could bleed the demon out if he cut my throat. I touched—kicked him—and all the pain he’d caused me exploded out of me and into him. And it killed him. I lay tied to the table for four days before Alex found me.” Alex. He was gone. What would she do without Alex? “Ever since then, I’ve not been able to touch another soul without transferring my pain to them, or taking their pain into me.” Jemma didn’t back down from Virginia’s yellow eyes. “So you tell me about loneliness. I lived among them, never able to interact or be one with them. Living on a quiet island feels like heaven.”

“You take pain?”

“Or I give it.”

“Touch me.”

“Are you miserable?”

“Very,” said Virginia. “Perhaps you can take it from me.”

“All right.”

Virginia reached out her hand. A perfectly regular hand. Or so it seemed at first. But, like a Magic Eye, the longer Jemma looked, the more she could tell it wasn’t right. The nails were too thick and too yellow. The texture of the skin more resembled scales than anything human.

Jemma clamped on to the creature’s hot, dry wrist.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then Jemma took the
bagacay
and speared Virginia through the chest.