TWENTY-NINE
A scream tore from my throat, and I flung myself forward. Chessie caught me and held me back. ‘No!’ she snapped. ‘No, Meggie, we need an expert.’
Some part of me agreed. The rest didn’t give a fig. I wrenched myself out of her grip and ran to the edge of the bloody sign soaking into the carpet. My uncle was still bleeding, not fast, but steadily. He would bleed out. And he was still talking.
I leaned closer, as close as I dared to the edge of the sign. Every indication was that he had drawn it, himself. Perhaps that was the intention. I had not failed to notice that Imelda was gone.
‘The blood is the life,’ he whispered. ‘I know who you are, and you shall not prevail. The blood is the life. I know who you are, and you shall not prevail. The blood is the life.’
Perhaps he h
