“If he’s still in there, I’ll track him down. But if he escaped to the surface already…”
Tsetse nodded: “I’ll find him. He’s bound to show up somewhere.”
“…Right,” Corpse Eater hesitantly agreed, looking into distance.
Billy the Man-Eater took his AK-47 off his shoulder and silently handed it to Corpse Eater, but the boy refused: “I won’t hold it in my hands ever again. Keep it. You might still need it. The war is still not over.”
The war. It seemed so feeble, so distant to Tsetse at that moment. Over the past couple of days it had lost its thundering presence. It wasn’t looming over him with all of its dangers and responsibilities. After what he’d been through they seemed almost like a menial task.
“Go east,” Corpse Eater interrupted his train of thought. “Find some commune where you can be safe. And forget any of this ever happened. Forget the war, forget what you’ve done, and, most importantly, forget the Underworld. Never mention it again to any living soul. If anyone—even you—try to access it again… I’ll be guarding it,” the boy ominously finished.
“And Tsetse?” Corpse Eater turned toward the eldest boy. “Forget the General.”
“What?” Tsetse was taken aback. In his surprise he even shattered his mask of indifference and lifted an eyebrow.
“Forget the General” Corpse Eater repeated. “Forget what he’s done. I know you’ll try to find him, but trust me—it’s best to forget him.”
“Aren’t you going to kill him if you find him down there?” Tsetse wondered, slightly annoyed by Corpse Eater’s hypocrisy. “Why do you tell me to—”
“If I find him down there, he’s in my domain. And I’ve got nothing to lose,” Corpse Eater patiently explained. “But I know you’ll never rest if you don’t make sure that he’s dead. Forget it. Don’t let him control you. Don’t let him turn out to be right. Vengeance is not all there is.”
His eyes were radiating with calm authority. He was sure of what he was saying. Tsetse wanted to object, to protest, to tell Corpse Eater his reasons—but he could see how important it was to the boy.
So he said nothing. He simply nodded in agreement.
“Very well,” Corpse Eater said, taking a step back—into the shadows. Step after step, he was walking into the abyss, with his eyes turned toward the sunshine, until only his voice remained.
“Remember,” it said. “Do not tell a soul!”
And just like that, he was gone. Leaving Tsetse with two boys, an old man… and his thoughts.
“Tsetse, what do we do now?” Exterminator asked him.
Tsetse thought for a moment.
“We need to find a place to live,” he answered.
Chapter 20
The priest had finished his service and was wishing his congregation to have a good night. Mothers were carrying their children, bringing them closer to him so that he could cross them and kiss them on the forehead, and men were waiting in a line to shake the man’s hand and pat him on the back.
Twenty years after the end of the civil war, he was trying to make it right. The things that he’d seen in the Underworld made him sure that there were indeed some higher powers—and he needed to make sure that during his life on Earth he’d atone for the many sins he had committed.
He navigated the narrow dirty streets to his house. At night, some of them could be dangerous, but none of the thieves or drug addicts looking for a fresh fix would dare to touch the man of the god—especially him. Though the days when he shed blood were a thing of the past and he did his best to keep them a secret, he carefully made sure that some rumors from that time lingered around. Nothing too precise, of course, but he found that a good rumor was supposed to be like that.
“He killed my ma. He killed my pa. I’ll vote for him,” said the old political billboard above the road. Years had drained almost all colors from it, but the smile of the man on it was still white. The billboard had endured for eighteen years and gone through the second civil war, but it stood on. The priest had suggested many times in the past that it be taken down, but people refused. To them, it was part of their history and they wanted to remember it. So the man who had gone on to become the president of the state continued to tease the priest every evening with its bloodthirsty smile, the smile of a man who had decided that he had nothing to hide. The man who, instead of choosing to hide, decided to own what he’d done.
Even though he had always told his congregation that nothing good would come from hate and revenge, in his heart of hearts the priest was drowning in hatred.
“Good evening to you, Father!” he heard the neighbor greet him. “How was the service?” he wondered.
“Splendid, as always” The man smiled.
“Good to hear!” The man beamed back. One of his front teeth was missing. “If you don’t mind, could you—”
“Come to the church tomorrow and we’ll discuss that,” the priest reassured the man, walking off toward his home.
He opened the door to his house and slipped in, finally letting out a heavy sigh and sliding down the door.
He spent about a minute leaning against it, his head in his hands, before he finally stood up and headed for the kitchen. Suddenly he froze.
He hadn’t been on the battlefield for twenty years, but he could tell that, even in the darkness of his home, he wasn’t alone.
Someone was sitting on the chair near the furthest wall. The dim light of rare streetlights outside wasn’t bright enough to pierce through the old drapes on his window and confirm his suspicion, but he didn’t need to. He was sure of that.
“General?” a soft voice asked him.
The priest remained stoic on the outside, but his heartbeat skyrocketed. He didn’t recognize the stranger’s voice. But more importantly, the man was sure that there was no one left alive who knew his biggest secret. The truth about who he had been in the past.
No doubt the stranger knew what he’d done, then. He probably had come to kill him. The General had feared that moment for twenty years, but when it finally came… he felt tranquility.
It was foolish of him to think that he could bury his past. It was useless to deny it—the mere suspicion was enough to mark him dead. At least he’d have a warrior’s death.
He took a deep breath, and replied: “Yes.”
The person lifted his hand and pointed toward the lamp: “Go ahead. Turn on the light. I’d like to talk face-to-face. No use hiding in the shadows.”
Intrigued, the priest headed for the lamp and turned it on. The stranger turned out to be a black man in his thirties. A nice business suit—not like anything the General or anyone in his neighborhood could afford. Confident posture. At first the priest didn’t recognize him, but when their eyes met the realization struck him—there was only one person whom he had seen wear that somber and indifferent look.
Tsetse.
Back in the day, the General liked the look in the boy’s eyes. He found it fascinating how the kid wouldn’t flinch no matter what. It was why he had made him captain in the first place. Not only because he knew that no one would dare to cross someone with eyes like those, but because he was partly curious: how far could he push the boy before the kid would break? How heinous and outlandish would his orders have to get before the boy would start showing something other than indifference? Was there something alive inside of him, or was he just a machine by then, completely desensitized to everything around him?
And now those were looking at him again. It was as if the General had found an old photo album—those eyes were staring at him from a point in time that came and went twenty years ago.