“Johannes is feared and despised, isn’t he?”
“Johannes is strong enough to have some sway despite the fear and hatred,” Andy replied. “You aren’t. Maggie isn’t. The rules apply to you, but you don’t get to decide what those rules are.”
“Theoretically,” I told him, “I could be in charge of you one day, couldn’t I?”
“No, you’re not going to make it that far,” Andy responded. “Sorry.”
“I’m getting really sick of people telling me I’m going to die,” I said. “That decision’s up to me.”
“I’d put more of the choice in your would-be murderer’s hands,” he said.
“Who? You?”
“It’s very possible.”
“Your sister is the one with the killer instinct,” I said. “The itchy trigger finger, almost eager to shoot someone. She’s the killer, and you’re the bookish guy who keeps her on track and on target, researching the target, right?”
He nodded. Not even an iota of surprise that I might know this.
“And you’re the one who’s afraid, who doesn’t want to hurt a human being. Well fuck that. I have a mother, a father, a little sister. And we’re not close, I admit, but that’s because I’m too fucking human to tolerate the monstrous shit my family was doing to each other. I did okay in school, and had the craziest crush on a girl in grade seven. I dated girls and fumbled my way through it all, and some of it was so fucking poorly handled that I cringe when I think about it, even five years after.”
“You’re trying to humanize yourself.”
“Damn straight!” I said. “I lived on the street for a while, because all of the fighting and conflict over fucking Hillsglade House and the money we’d get from selling it. I didn’t want it then. I don’t want it now. The stress from it ate me up inside.”
“I hear you. We could probably compare histories on that front. Though there weren’t millions of dollars at stake for me.”
He was deflecting, or something. It was eerie, that he was going out of his way to compare us. Was he distracting me after all?
I glanced over my shoulders, checking the darker streets around us.
“Eva’s at home, I promise,” he said. “There’s a chance she followed me, but I’m honestly not trying to set you up to have your throat slit or to get you shot, and neither of us are about to murder someone without the council to cover it up after the fact. I don’t have any other help, no big plots at work. You would probably be able to tell if anyone but me or Eva came.”
“Assuming I believe you.”
“Assuming you believe me, yes.”
I sighed, “Listen, I’m a regular, average guy who loves art but can’t draw, who’s still figuring out how to be a friendly, decent human being, because his parents never bothered to teach him that stuff. That thing you were saying to your sister, not wanting to hurt someone? She told you it was fine because we’re practitioners, we’re not really people, right? Something like that? Well, at this stage, I think I’m still more person than practitioner.”
“I hear you,” Andy said. “Yeah, I even believe you.”
God damn it, I wanted him to argue. At least then I’d feel more right than if he agreed with me. The guy who could potentially come after me with his sister and some plan to execute me shouldn’t be on the same page as me.
It was fully possible that my annoyance and frustration was part of his game plan, but he didn’t seem to have that guile to him.
“I just want to be left alone,” I said. “I want to deal with this, kick Laird in the metaphorical ass until he stops coming after me, get Rose into a position where she’s free, happy and healthy so I can fulfill my oath to her, and handle the crap I’ve got to handle, like a stupid pair of promises I made to a little girl, and a deal I made with someone else. I want it all to stop, because the only thing that’s keeping life from going back to normal is them.”
“I understand,” Andy said. “But it doesn’t work that way. You’re the threat, and you’re an obstacle to this town evolving to a different state and reaching a new kind of stability. I’m the guy who takes care of threats. When and if the order comes down, I’m going to remove you from the picture.”
He said it so easily. Remove me from the picture.
“Without guns or fire or any of that?” I asked. “Because that’s Eva’s job, apparently.”
“I find a little distance helps.”
“Right. When removing me,” I said. “Come on. At least have the balls to say what you mean. You’re talking in this quiet, calm, monotone because you’re trying to detach yourself from this shit.”
“Killing you. Executing you. Putting you down,” he said. His eyes dropped at that last bit, then raised up to meet mine again. “Yeah. I don’t use the guns or knives or any of that, because even when it is a monster? One of the bad ones I shouldn’t be able to sympathize with at all? I can’t help but feel like shit after, and looking in your eyes as I do it makes it ten times worse. The detachment does help me deal with it. Sorry if it’s frustrating.”
“I’d accept your apology, but it’s kind of hard to when we’re talking about me being murdered at your hands.”
“You? If we get that far? If it helps, I’ll feel horrible. I’ll remember all that stuff about you having a crush on some girl and I’ll lose sleep. I’ll remember the look in your eye, I’ll think about how much this all sucks. But I’m still going to do what I need to do.”
“Why? If this is all some big, fucked up situation, why not change it? You aren’t sworn into anything, and the rules don’t bind you.”
“Because I made promises, and even if I’m not in a position to be forsworn, I still can’t break them.”
“Despite the sleepless nights? The fear that eats at you? The fact that you’re killing innocent people?” I asked. My voice was low, and anger was seeping in even when I wasn’t raising my voice. “I have a hard time buying that.”
“Despite all of that.”
“Family, is it?” I asked.
“A little bit of family. Obviously, or I wouldn’t be working with Eva.”
“Because family isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I said. “It isn’t fucking half of what it’s supposed to be. See, there’s a big, big fucking difference between someone being your relative and someone being family.”
“Then I guess I’d say Eva is my relative,” Andy said. “And ‘family’ plays a very small part in this.”
“What’s the rest?” I asked.
“The rest is private. It wouldn’t matter, would it? There’s nothing I could say that would reach you and your specific perspective. Because we come from very different places. Having people you owe everything to, who you could never ever pay back.”
“It sounds a hell of a lot like we come from similar places,” I said.
“These people you owe? Are they dead?” he asked.