Free Bloodeye by Craig Saunders

couldn’t see into them. They weren’t windows into his soul, apertures through which he could see the beast inside.
    He could feel him again. Brother Shadow.
    Got to shine a light in there. Got to bring him out. Bring him out to see him, see his true form—not the shadow of him, not the wan pale shade of him, but the demon himself.
    “Got to get him out,” said Keane to himself.
    Teresa was silent, for a moment, until Keane opened the cupboard above the sink. His reflection was replaced with toothbrush and paste, aftershave, shaving foam, deodorant, and a razor.
    Keane took the razor.
    Keane…no. Don’t do this. It’s not you! Brother Shadow is not you…don’t…
    “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right.”
    Just got to get him out. Get the fucker out.
    Keane put the razor on the linoleum floor and stamped down on it, hard, with the heel of his shit-stained work boots.
    The plastic shattered. He pulled one of the four blades from the mess on the floor and looked and the metal glinting in the light pouring through the small bathroom window’s frosted glass.
    Baby, don’t. Crying, now.
    I’m not killing myself, he told her.
    “Just taking a look. One way or the other…”
    Keane shrugged.
    “He’s been hiding long enough.”
    And he began to cut.

 
     
     
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    The first cut was ragged because he was frowning, because it hurt. It wasn’t quite ideal. Not like the Eye of Horus, but something far simpler and purer. A line above, the ragged first cut. He quit frowning and made the smoother cut below, ignoring the blood. Finally, the blood pouring freely, the harder cuts in the middle for the iris.
    Finished, he dropped the blade into the red sink with his shaking hand. Blood ran down his nose in rivulets to splash into the sink.
    And he looked into the mirror again. Stared hard and a crazed man stared back at him. But he couldn’t see into his soul. There was nothing there. Just a crazy man, spewing bright red blood on his own face, a lunatic who’d cut an eye on his own forehead with a razor, thinking he could see demons in his soul.
    He closed his eyes against anger so deep it hurt.
    “Oh,” he said, then, “Oh God…”
    Because with his eyes closed, the blood eye opened and a world of shadows was his to see.

 
     
     
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    And, at last, he could see her again. Teresa. She stood at his shoulder, real as she’d been alive.
    He turned away from the sight of her in the mirror. Mortal eyes closed and his blood eye open, he saw her as she couldn’t show herself in the darkness of the attic.
    She bore the scars, still, she’d suffered in death, though she stood unaided. She was entirely naked.
    Keane could barely look on her, though. It took all his will not to open his eyes and send her spirit away.
    Teeth marks where chunks of her legs had been chewed on, deep gouges where Brother Shadow had gouged and torn at her…all while he’d been unconscious, while she’d slept.
    He’d promised she wouldn’t feel a thing.
    Teresa bore his scrutiny with patience.
    “It was my fault.”
    She nodded. Shrugged.
    “Doesn’t matter now. I’m dead, Keane. I’m not coming back. Neither are you. You know that, right? You come to this side, there’s no going back. You’re in the underworld, baby.”
    “Is that what this is? Is this what I see?”
    She nodded again. “This is where death abides. In the shadows of the living.”
    “Baby, I’m so sorry.”
    “You didn’t do it, honey. You brought him. He’s in you, but he’s not you.”
    “My shadow brother.”
    “Brother Shadow.”
    “He’s death.”
    Teresa nodded one last time, kissed him on the cheek. He saw her shift to move in with his blood eye, and felt her cold, dead lips on his bristled, tanned jaw.
    “He’s your death, Keane. Own it. You can’t win otherwise.”
    “I can’t beat him. He’s made of shadow…I tried. Twice.” He didn’t ask if she remembered. It would