“Fought your way back from someplace ugly,” he said. “Brought the ugly with you, if you don’t mind my putting it that way?”
“Something like that,” I said. “What’s her name?”
“Funny thing,” the mumbling guy said. “She hasn’t said.”
“Ha ha,” I said, humorless.
But he smiled a little. “She’s only my friend, you don’t need many names when you have only one person to talk to. You need other things, though. I had to ask around some to get details on her type.”
“Bogeymen,” I said.
“Yes. Bogeymen. Wherever you came from, the place probably has a hold on you. It’ll take either of you back if it gets the chance, you know.”
“I had that impression,” I said.
“She didn’t do so well at first. Too reckless, hard to rein in for Ottawa’s Lord, Toronto kicked her out.”
“How do you know that, if she can’t talk?”
“I wound up looking for answers after we crossed paths, because she really wasn’t doing well, found out some things about her. Did some traveling. We got to talking, so to speak, and here we are, a few years in, a few years wiser.”
“Scaring people,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Killing the occasional one if we can get away with it, just to drive a point home.”
Killing. He said it so matter-of-factly.
“You don’t approve?” he asked.
“I’m not big on the killing thing,” I said.
“You’ve never killed?”
I thought of Laird, bleeding out.
“I’ve killed,” I said, I left it at that.
The faceless woman moved her hand, the orange light at the end of the cigarette tracing a line across my field of view. Almost a wave.
“She wants details.”
My gut reaction was to say no.
But they’d find out all the same, if they kept an ear out.
“Laird. Self defense, in large part.”
“Ah. That was you.”
“That was me,” I said.
Apparently satisfied, the faceless woman resumed her old position, leaning against a wall, cigarette held up, between two fingers, one boot tapping on the ground.
“I’m not a big fan of murder myself, but when Death comes calling, as he might do for me, or when the world wants to swallow you up and digest you, as it might be in your case, sometimes you’ll do what you have to. Get the power you need to stay here, clock the hours you need to clock, do your part to keep the universe running.”
Clock my hours. I’d left the Drains, but I’d brought the drains with me.
I frowned. Rather than argue the point, I tried a different tack. “Slim pickings here, even if I did want to kill someone.”
“Like I said, it won’t be for long. It makes for a pretty tableau, doesn’t it? The practitioners fight, and a man is left ruined, bloody, broken or powerless, utterly alone. Then figures step out of the shadows, and the practitioner realizes that they’re facing down the likes of you, or me, or my friend there.”
I could imagine it.
Problem was, I could very well imagine it being Alexis, Tiff, or Ty.
My mind ticked over possibilities.
Rather than let the silence hang for a half-second longer, I opened my mouth, a half-formed argument in my head.
“You’ve done me a favor here, sharing this info on bogeymen, being friendly,” I said, speaking slower so I might have more time to think. “Can I share a tidbit of info, as thanks?”
“Wouldn’t object,” he said.
The faceless woman had stopped moving. Those smears where her eyes and mouth should be, they moved like ink in water, as if promising to reveal some detail if I stared long enough.
I turned my head away. The benefit of knowing that not all knowledge was good knowledge to have.
“Hillsglade House, you know it?”
“Sure,” he said.
“They’ve got a demon there. Summoned on the top floor.”
“The Thorburns have a reputation,” he said.
“Well, this is the reason for that reputation. It’s bound, but it might not stay that way.” I paused, and paused longer, as I realized there wasn’t a graceful way to say the next part. “I would advise keeping your distance from that place and the people there.”
“A tidbit of knowledge,” he said. “Well, I’ll gratefully accept it.”
I nodded.
He smiled, “You’re so transparent. How ironic, for a man that dwells in mirrors.”
I didn’t feel fear in any natural way, no more than I did joy or anger. Less so than anger, even. I’d conquered one of the metaphorical demons that had haunted me, and by recognizing my past for the false thing it was, I’d given fear far less of a hold on me.
But that simple sentence did unnerve me some. I felt a swell of deep concern in my chest.
When I didn’t answer, he relented, saying, “Don’t worry. If you want to murder them yourself, I won’t stand in your way.”
“That’s not what I-” I said, stopping myself.
“Not what you meant? You don’t want to kill them? None of them?”
“I don’t. But-” I thought of Rose. “If I had to, I would like to think I wouldn’t hesitate.”
“Ah, well, it’s your business all the same. The man I came back to murder was dead by the time I clawed my way out of my grave. I wouldn’t do you the same disservice by interfering.”
If my brain was a book, I would have spent the next several seconds flipping pages, trying to find that section where the bit on revenants pointed to subtypes. Varieties.
Most had a mission. When the mission was done, the revenant ceased to be. He hadn’t. A mother might return from the dead to rescue her daughter and trap the kidnapper in her stead. A murder victim would murder the murderers, a man might return to maintain his business for one or two more nights, so his legacy would be sure to keep running.
He didn’t have a mission. There was a bug in the system that had brought him back.
I’d forgotten to respond, and now that I had a sense of who and what he might be, I was sort of stuck.
“How did you manage to stay?” I asked.
“Like I said, you’ve got to find power where you can get it.”
“You also said you weren’t that keen on killing.”
“I did. The trick is to realize your strengths. We’re newcomers. The Solomon whatsit doesn’t apply. We have access to anyone we want to go after, innocent or otherwise, see?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Far more,” he said. “Far, far more. Usual protections might not apply, but the universe will protect innocents in a roundabout way.
“Something like that,” I said.
“You can make power by leaving an impact. By giving us attention, giving us time and effort, giving us a moment’s thought, they’re still giving us something. There’s power to be had in that. Take that power. Thrive. Get even the ones who know about us, when they think they’re safe. Innocents have some protections, the universe will contrive to shield them, but if you can leave a lasting mark, that’s worth a fair bit.”
I thought of the bogeymen I’d read about. The monsters. Was there a method to the madness?
By creating fear, they left a lasting impression. Pain, of course, but also fostering doubts. A glimpse of a faceless woman, not enough to make them certain, but to leave them thinking about that one night for years or decades to come. Maybe committing the occasional murder, to remind the universe that they were present, and they had no intention to go elsewhere. Fewer things made an impact so much as removing one individual from the ranks of the living.