Year of the Black Rainbow by Claudio Sanchez

Author:Claudio Sanchez
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Evil Ink Comics
Published: 2011-04-13T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Torn to Pieces

“He won?”

They were the first words that Pearl Hohenberger had spoken since the death of her son. They so startled her husband that Leonard, who had been holding a glass of tea and was sipping from it in a vain attempt to steady his jangled nerves, jumped at the sound. It caused the cup to slip off the saucer in his hand and crash to the floor. The brown-tinted liquid puddled and looked to Hohenberger like very thin blood. That was not surprising to him; lately just about everything he looked at reminded him of blood.

Pearl was sitting in a chair in the family room, her hands placed delicately upon her lap. Her skin had regressed from the creamy white of fine bone china to a nearly translucent, ashy shade that further accented the shadows of her bones gently showing beneath. Leonard hadn’t been able to get her to eat anything more substantial than a slice of dry toast since the accident. She had been staring off into the air, and Leonard would not have been able to swear that she was fully cognizant of her whereabouts. Pearl had virtually retreated into herself, as if the world had simply ceased to exist for her.

Now, though, she was staring directly at Leonard, who was busy using a towel to wipe up the spilled tea. It took him a moment to fathom what she was inquiring about, and then he realized that she was actually asking him about something he had said to her earlier that day. He had been talking to her as one would talk to a coma patient, saying the words and hoping that they would penetrate.

He didn’t make any major issue over the fact that this was the first occasion she had found her voice in what seemed to him an interminable amount of time. Instead, speaking as calmly as he could, he said, “Yes. Ryan won.”

“Wilhelm Ryan. That ugly, disgusting mockery of a Mage? The one who—” her voice trailed off. She seemed unable to articulate the rest of what she wanted to say. Instead her body trembled with barely suppressed rage.

“Pearl,” he said. Dropping the sodden towel on the coffee table, he started to reach over to rest his hand on her shoulder.

She brushed it away brusquely without even looking at him. It was purely reflex, and yet he was taken aback by the ferocity of the move. “The one,” and she found her voice again, “who was responsible for the death of my son.”

“Our son, Pearl. He was our son.”

This time her gaze shifted to him and there was such cold anger in it that he couldn’t meet it. “Our son? You let him go off to be killed. What right have you to lay any claim to him?”

“That’s not fair, Pearl.”

“Not fair?”

“Pearl—“

“Not fair? Not fair?!”

She lunged at him then, and her open palm swung toward him. It happened as if she was moving in slow motion, and he had plenty of time to deflect it or dodge it.

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