Chapter Nineteen

B y the time they reached Alex’s flat, it was closer to morning than midnight. Grey-faced, Alex stumbled as they left the lift, catching himself on the door. How much of that was exhaustion, and how much something worse, Josef dared not imagine.

“Come on,” he said, taking Alex by the elbow. “Let’s go inside.”

Glancing both ways down the dark corridor, Alex nodded and went to unlock the front door to his flat. “Christ,” he said, “we stink of ghoul.”

They did. It clogged Josef’s nose so much he could only breathe through his mouth. In horror, he wondered whether the stench was coming from Alex, from the bite on his shoulder.

It was darker inside the flat, the winter sunrise still hours away. Alex moved to a narrow table in the hallway. Gas hissed, and the bright flare of a match bloomed and faded as Alex lit the hall lamp. Then the mellow light grew, chasing away the shadows.

They stared at each other across the hallway. Alex looked ghastly. Josef had seen that grim look before, in the faces of men in the firing line, waiting for the orders to advance. He knew the look of a man waiting for death. And seeing it on Alex’s stoic, stupidly handsome face, turned him sick with dread. And rage. He refused, he absolutely refused, to allow something as stupid as a bite to put an end to this man’s life.

“Come into the bathroom,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“There’s no cleaning this up. A dab of iodine isn’t going to help.”

“It can’t hurt,” Josef said, pushing open the bathroom door. “If nothing else, we can wash the ghoul stink off us.”

Alex hesitated, and then complied, moving as though he wasn’t quite there, as if his mind was already disengaging. That, too, he’d seen at the front. Dead men walking.

The bathroom was dark. Alex said tightly, “There's an electric light switch on the wall, next to the door.”

After a moment of fumbling around for the switch, Josef found it, and glaring electrical light burst into the room, steady and cold. Like a morgue. As he looked about, his eyes strayed to the laundry hamper where Alex had set his Webley while he inspected Josef for bites. It wasn’t there now, of course; Alex was wearing his gun.

And no doubt he was considering using it on himself.

Putting that thought to one side, he turned to Alex. He stood blinking in the brash light which washed out what little colour had been left in his face, leaving him a gruesome grey.

“I hate electric lights,” Josef muttered, shucking off his coat and setting it on the laundry hamper. “I don’t think they’ll catch on.”

Alex stared at him for a moment, as if in incomprehension, and then with a slight shake of his head, he made a soft sound. A laugh. “I thought you were all for progress.”

“I am!” Josef said, helping Alex off with his coat. “I’m in favour of universal adult suffrage, but not these horrible bloody lights.”

Alex winced as Josef eased his overcoat from the shoulder that had been bitten, sucking air through his teeth. Josef grimaced but said nothing. The fabric of Alex’s jacket was torn and bloody, his white shirt crimson.

“This is all going to have to come off,” Josef said.

“There’s no point.” Alex turned his head away from the wound. “Dal’s right. There’s only one way this—”

“Shut up,” Josef snapped. “I don’t want to hear it.”

Alex looked at him. There were words on his lips, but whatever they were, he kept them to himself.

Carefully, Josef unbuttoned Alex’s jacket and eased it off, then his waistcoat and shirt. The wound on his shoulder was becoming more visible with each layer that was stripped away, a clear bite-sized mark, flesh torn and ragged. A deep but not large wound. Already, though, Josef could see the signs of necrosis around its edges. Pursing his lips, he said, “I’m going to use iodine anyway. To prevent other infections. Where is it?”

Alex directed him to a cabinet next to the sink and dropped into the wicker chair Josef had used that first night. Retrieving the iodine and a dressing from Alex’s alarmingly well-stocked medicine cabinet, Josef turned back around.

Alex sat with one elbow braced against his knee, head in his hand. The other arm, the injured one, lay in his lap. The wound looked raw and ugly, midway between his shoulder and neck, but the rest of his body was undamaged. Strong, muscular shoulders, a scattering of dark hair across his chest. Josef felt an instinctive, involuntary stab of attraction, reminded suddenly of last night.

Then, Alex had been so alive, so full of life, but now…

Josef swallowed, and Alex looked up, perhaps conscious of being studied. Smiling, feeling his cheeks heat, Josef nodded towards the medicine cabinet. “You’ve a small pharmacy in there.”

“Necessary, in my line of work.”

“I suppose so. Now, hold still. This will sting.”

Josef was not a trained medic, but he’d helped patch up the walking wounded and knew his way about a bottle of iodine and a field dressing. Jaw clenched, the cords on Alex’s neck stood when Josef started cleaning the wound, and then dressed it, but Alex didn’t make a sound.

Maybe he was right and dressing the wound wouldn’t help, but it made Josef feel better not to have to look at the bloody mess.

“Well done, soldier,” he said, smiling as he patted Alex’s bare shoulder. “Very brave.”

Alex looked up at him. Their eyes met and somehow didn’t let go. Just like Josef’s hand somehow lingered on Alex’s shoulder, the skin feeling smooth and warm beneath Josef’s fingers.

“You should go now,” Alex said softly. “Let me deal with this myself.”

“And you should know me better than that.”

In a shaking voice, Alex said, “I wish… Christ, I wish I had the chance to know you better.”

Josef’s heart twisted, cramping in his chest. “Shut up. You still do.”

“No.” Alex swallowed, his throat working. “No, this is the end for me. I’m—” He cut off abruptly, eyes going very bright. Too bright. He blinked rapidly, but to no avail. Tears slid from the corner of his eyes, clinging to his lashes. “God,” he whispered, “I don’t want to die.”

And how the fuck do you respond to that? Josef’s own eyes filled. “I’m not going to let you die,” he promised. “I’ll chop your fucking arm off and stop the infection that way if I must, but nobody, including you, is putting a bullet in your stupid head. So, you can just forget about that, all right?”

Alex covered Josef’s hand where it still rested on his shoulder, squeezing hard, saying nothing save the silent plea in his eyes: help me .

With no answer to give, Josef didn’t know what else to do but lean down and kiss him. Alex’s lips tasted salty, like tears, but warm and inviting, and after a surprised moment, he surged to his feet, pulling Josef into his arms, fingers tangling in his hair as he kissed him back hungrily. Desperately.

Josef met his hunger and desperation in equal measure.

They were incandescent with life. It flowed between them, from one to the other in streams of fury and desire. Death hovered over them, an angel’s dark wing, but its shadow only stoked their passion; it burned in defiance of death, in defiance of a world that would hate them for loving each other but love them for dying as heroes.

There were no words; what was there to say? There was only mouth against mouth, skin against skin, pricks straining as they drove each other towards a detonation as fierce as a thermite grenade, leaving them in ashes on the bathroom floor, the horror of Alex’s fate no less stark.

Still gasping for breath, somehow both hot and chill, Josef held Alex in his arms. The tiled bathroom floor was cold against his bare back and arse, but he ignored the discomfort as Alex pressed his face into Josef’s shoulder. He made no sound, but Josef could feel him shaking. Perhaps he was sobbing out his fear and rage, the very feelings Josef felt in his own heart.

“I won’t let it happen,” he promised, stroking Alex’s shoulder and back, his eyes fixed on the white ceiling and the too-bright electric light. “I'm going to save you.”

Alex drew in a shivery breath and said, “Why?”

There were many answers he could have given, plenty of glib remarks or half-truths. But now wasn’t the time for that, so he said, “I suppose I want the chance to get to know you, too.”

At that, Alex lifted his head. “Do you?”

Josef made a gesture with one hand, encompassing them both where they lay on the cold bathroom floor. “Apparently.”

And then, like a miracle, a smile touched Alex’s lips—a sad smile, but warm. Real. “I wish—”

“Shh.” Josef touched a finger to Alex’s lips, then brushed his damp cheeks, drying his tears. “We’ve wasted enough time on sentiment.”

Alex’s smile tilted sideways. “If I recall, you started it.”

“Maybe so,” Josef conceded, finding a smile of his own. “But now you need to tell me how I can help you. Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

A long silence followed as Alex disentangled himself from Josef and sat up. The dressing on his shoulder looked brilliant white under the bathroom light. “There are ways…” he said carefully. “That is, I’ve heard of ways to counteract the bite of a ghoul. Certain remedies...”

Josef sat up too, hope tenuous as spiderweb. “What kind of remedies? Medicine? Where do we get it?”

Alex made an equivocating gesture with one hand. “I’m no expert. I’d need help, but defined loosely, yes. Medicine.”

“How loosely?”

“More of a…potion.”

Josef raised his eyebrows. “A magic potion?”

“You could call it that.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Yes,” Alex said with something approaching amusement. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

Josef frowned. “Hold on. If there’s a cure for this, why the fuck weren’t you giving it to the men at the front?”

This time, Alex looked uncomfortable when he met Josef’s eyes. “The Society’s policy is to eliminate the threat rather than attempt a cure that…carries some risks.”

“By ‘eliminate’, you mean kill.”

Without flinching, Alex said, “They believe it’s more effective in controlling the infection.”

“And they make no exceptions,” Josef guessed. “Even for one of their own.”

“Absolutely not.”

“So, if you can’t get help from The Society, who can help us?”

Alex’s expression turned wry, one dark brow lifting. “How do you feel about witches?”