He then drew the cut slowly, mercilessly, with surgical patience — from the middle of the forehead, straight down between the eyebrows, slicing the bridge of the nose in a perfect line.
The razor edge parted skin drawing the face tightness apart, then face fat, then muscle with almost no resistance, but the cold was a thousand times worse than the cut.
It was absence given teeth — freezing every nerve it touched into brittle glass, turning fresh blood to black slush the instant it welled up, burning the raw meat from the inside with star-death chill that made the tissue die and blacken in its wake.
Blood gushed in thick, steaming sheets, pouring down Anderson's temples in rivers, flooding his eyes, flooding his open, screaming mouth.
The wound was so deep the white of skull flashed in the violet light before it filled again with crimson.
