The Lazarus Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

its neck.
    "Why, Lucrece?" he says in a mean growl that he can feel as well as hear. Jared closes his eyes, presses his forehead hard against the wall. He marvels that he feels the pressure of the hard wood against his brow. "What have you done to me?"
    "Jared," she says again, repeats his name like something holy. When he opens his eyes, she's rising very slowly to her feet, moving as slowly as a dancer underwater.
    She extends one hand tentatively toward him and he feels his knees begin to buckle, so he grips the wall more tightly.
    "You should have left me dead," he moans, the rage rising from his guts like puke, rage almost smothering his words. He slams his head into the door frame and Lucrece screams.
    "You should have left me dead. I am dead and you should have left me dead." "Jared, I didn't do this," she says. He knows all her courage comes from the fear
    that he might hurt himself again, might damage her precious voodoo prize from the grave, so he smacks his face against the wall. Something cracks and he leaves a dark smear of blood on the white paint.
    "Yes, you did! You and your fucking magic games, Lucrece... you sent that fucking bird to dig me up."
    "Jesus, no, I swear..." She's coming toward him as if her fear doesn't matter, as if there's simply no alternative left for her. Jared almost feels sorry for her, almost ashamed, if there was any way for him to reach those feelings through the suffocating anger. The candlelight glints off the tears running down her cheeks, off her bright, wet eyes. Then he is falling, finally, but he falls very, very slowly. Sinking, so that by the time she crosses the room, he's huddled with his broken nose squashed against the wall, tasting his own blood.
    "God, Jared." Lucrece puts her arms around him, pulls him close to her. He can smell her, tea rose and spice, her clean dress, her sweat, her fear crackling around him like an electric current. She holds him very tightly and when she speaks her voice
    sounds as weak as an old and dying woman's.
    "I've never lied to you, Jared. You know I've never fucking lied to you..."
    "But why, Lucrece? Jesus Christ, why?" Then there's a sudden, stabbing pain between his eyes, a raw and grating sound, and the flesh on Jared's face feels more than alive. It has begun to move and shift, and he thinks of maggots first, that maybe his skull's full of maggots where his brain used to be, and now they're eating their way out through his face. There's an audible pop as skin and bone and cartilage writhe. He sees that Lucrece has covered her mouth with one hand.
    "Oh, Jared," she whispers, her voice swollen with terror and awe. He reaches up, expecting to find a thousand tiny larval bodies spilling from his nostrils, a cold gush of rancid fluid. Instead there's only his nose, his perfect, unbroken nose. Not even a drop of blood, and Jared stares at his fingertips as if they've betrayed him too, as if this is just another lie.
    "What's happening?" she asks, her voice as brittle and jagged as a broken light bulb. He can only answer by pushing her away, shoving her so hard she loses her balance and sprawls over backward as he fights his way back to the solid, incontestable wall.
    The crow is still watching him from the bed. Jared imagines that he can see its hold on him, the shining wire running from its livid breast to his heart, strung like fishing line, the hook buried so deeply inside him he can never dig it out.
    "You, you black motherfucker!" he screams. The bird blinks at him. "You did this, didn't you?" Jared's hands grab frantically at empty air, grappling for a link as intangible and undeniable as memory. "Let me go!" he screams, struggling to his feet. "Send me back where I belong!"
    The crow only caws once, an annoyed, impatient sound, and hops a few inches farther out of his reach.
    "Jared, please, stop." Lucrece is reaching for his ankles, sobbing as he kicks her unwelcome hands away. "Can't you hear what it's telling you? For God's sake,