Sylar- The Demon Watchmaker Of Queens (4/4)
Even with the story provided by Sylar, Micah thought it would be harder to enter the Haitian´s asylum, but the man seemed to be used to visits of apprentices he had never seem.
“We have a very important client” the boy had told him “who needs it with a certain urgency. So, I know it´s late, but could I please take a look at the girls?”
“Of course, my boy. What color of hair do you need?”
“Blonde”.
He followed the Haitian through tortuous corridors full of doors behind which screams echoed. He had heard rumors about the place being a façade created by Bob to get rid of “inconvenient” people with powers, but had never believed it until now. God, how could that fiend have done that to her? He had raised her!
“We keep the blondes here” said the Haitian after a horrible quarter of hour. Micah saw his love at once. She was frightened, of course, but seemed ok. With a quick look, he told her to pretend they didn´t know each other, and studied the girls with a serious expression. At last, he pointed at her. “That´s exactly what I need”.
“Very well” said his host, taking a pair of scissors and rudely grabbing her hair. “Where do you want me to cut?”.
With a quick gesture, Micah pushed her to himself. Surprised, the tall man tried to push her back, but the boy got a gun from his pocket and pointed at him. Some girls screamed, but not Molly.
“Are you going to shoot me, boy?” said the Haitian, hardly suppressing a smile. “Go on. Do it.”
“You´ve hurt a lot of people, you and your boss” Micah tried to sound threatening.
“Than go on. Do it”.
The seconds ran. Nothing happened, and the Haitian started laughing.
“You don´t have the courage. I could take that gun out of your hand without any trouble, erase all your memory, lock you away and phone Bob to ask how to punish your girlfriend. In fact I think I…”
BANG
The big, dark body fell on the floor, one bullet deep on the brain. Silence reined as every eye on the room turned to the young couple.
Micah was staring at the body in shock. But Molly, still holding the gun she had taken from his hand, had a new coldness on her eyes. One that yelled at the world that she was finally free, that she had done something for herself for the first time, and had triumphed. If Bob entered the room at that moment, he would most certainly run away. No one would dare to mistreat her again.
“Let´s go” she told Micah, and her trembling voice was the only sign that the act had, after all, affected her. “And you…” she added to her former cell mates, “set the other free and run away from this place before… before he founds out what happened”.
Micah took her to Sylar´s shop, but he and Maya were nowhere to be seen. Micah gave her some of his clothes and cut her hair, so she´d be disguised as a young boy.
“They´ll be here at any moment to take care of you. ” he said. “I´ll find a carriage, my love. Wait here.”
“Micah!” she called after him.
“Yes?”
“About the Haitian…” she finally started to collapse. “I hope it doesn´t change anything… I…”
“I know, my dear. You did what was right. I should have done it and sheltered you from it. But I…”
“You´re not a murderer.”
“Don´t talk like this. I´ll go get a carriage. We´ll go away, forget everything…”
“And live happily ever after, with all nightmares behind?”
“Yes”
“Micah, they´ll never disappear”.
He said nothing, just gave her a tender kiss and left for the carriage. She sat down to wait for his friend, but suddenly heard a known voice downstairs. The second voice she most hated in the world. Desperate, she entered a big empty chest at a corner of the room.
“Sylar, we have a problem.”
“What´s wrong?” he asked, an eyebrow rising. Maya had been so happy since Peter´s murder that he´d thought she´d never worry about anything in the world again. Something serious had happened.
“It´s Lyle. He… He discovered.”
“WHAT? Lyle? I… I´d never think he had the brains for it. No one would. Where´s he? What did you do?”
“I… Well, he only discovered about you. Since he doesn’t have a clue about me or the pies, I locked him on the basement”
“Good girl. Let´s go, I´ll solve…” the sentence was interrupted by the doorbell. Nervously, Maya opened the door.
“Hi Miss Herrera. Mr. Sylar.” Said Thompson, entering with a smile. “I´m sorry to bother, but the neighbors have been complaining about the smell of your oven´s smoke, miss Herrera, and I was asked to come check for any problem.”
“Oh…” she hesitated. “Well… Of course, Mr. Thompson. But I´m afraid this is a bad time. I´m finishing the pies for this afternoon, the kitchen is a mess…”
“But you can clean it up really quick, can´t you?” asked Sylar. He sounded very gentile to the exterior observer, but it was impossible to anyone who knew him to miss the tone of subtle threat, the eager of a hunter for his prey. “Meanwhile, sir, I just remembered. That magnificent watch of yours… I didn´t have the chance to examine it. Why don´t we take a look at it while Miss Herrera finishes her work?”
“Sounds wonderful”.
The two of them went upstairs. Sylar locked the door.
“Why…” started Thompson, but the sentence turned into a scream. Sylar cut his head slowly, savoring each second, as he knew the monster had savored tricking his poor Mohinder, sending him to the most horrible face on Earth…
Lyle heard the doorbell, concluded Maya would be busy with the visitor and, since she wouldn´t be back soon, he might as well eat a couple of pies to pass the time. Halfway through the second, though, he felt something hard on his mouth and spilt.
It was a finger.
His whole being was invaded by terror. No. No, it couldn´t be… She wouldn´t… But she made them… memories of all the pies he had eaten on that house ran by his head and he felt sicker than he knew it was possible for a person to feel. But before he had the time even to throw up, a square of ceiling opened and something fell from Sylar´s shop. A dead body. Thompson. Before even noticing, Lyle was repeatedly punching the heavy door and yelling “let me out! LET ME OUT!”
Sylar smiled after getting rid of the body, and began to go downstairs to talk to Maya about the boy, but got interrupted. A beggar man with the whole face covered by a coat had entered the room, calling Thompson.
“He´s not here” Sylar informed, coldly.
“I saw him enter. Are you in there still, Thompson? Thompson!”
The poor creature was clearly mad.
“Go away!”
“Evil is here, sir! It´s her! She´s the Devil´s wife! Beware, sir… Wait… Don´t I know you?”
“Mr. Sylar” came a voice from outside.
“It´s Bob” said Sylar, suddenly nervous. What a day! He wondered why Micah hadn´t showed up, he would really like to take a look at Molly, even if she didn´t know him anymore. But getting ready of both of the monsters who had stolen all he loved was enough to make the day. The only problem was this pathetic insane beggar. He had no choice. Hastily, he ran his finger through the man´s forehead and threw the body to the kitchen. Right in time. On the next second, Bob was entering the room, extremely agitated.
“Where is her, Mr. Sylar? Where´s Molly?!?”
“She´s downstairs with my neighbor, Miss Herrera. Please, sir, don´t be too hard on her. She realizes she acted badly, and only speaks of you!”
“Really?”
“Yes. She longs for forgiveness.”
“She´ll have it. Will she be here soon?”
“Of course”
“Thanks, my friend”
Bob looked at himself at the mirror and started to arrange his suit.
“It´s good to know that we can be fellows, Mr. Sylar.”
“Yes” he hissed. “With fellow taste in men, at least.”
“What?”
Sylar approached his most wanted prey, the responsible for the destruction of his family, with a venomous expression.
“The years have no doubt changed me, sir. I don´t suppose the face of a watchmaker, the face of a prisoner, is worth remembering.”
“Gabriel Gray… GABRIEL GRAY!”
The shock and fear on Bob´s face remained on his bleeding body as he reached the floor. A giant weigh left Sylar´s chest. If he had to die at this precise second, he´d die happy. Vengeance had been fulfilled. Justice had been done.
And at that moment, when everything seemed as perfect as it could ever be again, he heard a noise inside the chest that had once hidden Petrelli´s body. Alarmed, he opened it and found inside a young and pretty boy.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?!?” he asked in fury, pulling him out and preparing to take off his life. He knew too much. He had to die. But something stopped him. For some very weird reason, he could not bring himself to hurt this sobbing stranger. The seconds passed…
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” came Maya´s voice from the basement. He hesitated, then murmured to the boy:
“you´ve never been here. You´ve never seen me.” And hurried off.
After the mysterious killer who Micah had claimed to be a friend of his left, Molly fell on the floor, frightened, and started to cry. Than, once she could no longer hear any sigh of that man, she ran to the street. Micah was just arriving with the carriage. She threw herself at his arms, and they went as far away as they could from New York.
Sylar arrived at the basement to find a breathless Maya.
“What happened? Why did you scream?”
“Bob. He was still alive and grabbed my dress. But it´s okay, he died now.”
“Good. And the boy?”
“Disappeared. He must have run through the sewers.”
“Damn it. Ok, we´ll take care of him later. Right now, we have to get rid of these” he pointed at the three bodies on the floor. “Hurry, open the oven.”
“That´s okay, I can do it by myself.” She sounded strangely nervous. Could it all be because of Lyle?
“We´ll go quicker together.” He said, as she reluctantly opened the oven´s door. Sylar moved to the closest body, the one of the crazy beggar.
“Don´t touch him!” shrieked Maya.
“What´s the matter with you, woman?!? It´s just a luna…” he stopped dead when the coat fell revealing the man´s face.
Mohinder.
“No” muttered Sylar, staring at the inanimate sienna corpse, beaten by the years, but still beautiful. Mohinder. His Mohinder. “NOOOOOOOOOOOO! What have I done?!?” His head fell over his love´s chest and he started to sob loud, tears running wild through his face. “ ‘ Don´t I know you?’, he said. WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?”
Than he left the body at the floor and turned to Maya, all sanity gone from his features, his eyes exactly those of a wild animal.
“YOU! YOU KNEW HE WAS ALIVE! YOU LIED TO ME FROM THE MOMENT…”
“I was only thinking of you!”
“Mohinder…”
“Mohinder… A crazy creature begging shillings on the street. How could I let you…”
“YOU LIED TO ME!”
“NO! No, I did not! I said he drank curare, and he did! Never said he´d died, no, I didn´t. It only drove him mad. And I only did this because I LOVE YOU!”
He turned his back to her, and silence reigned for a few seconds, than he looked at her again, seeming much calmer.
“Miss Herrera. What a charming notion, so peculiar, and yet appropriate as always.” He passed one arm through her waist, grabbed her hand and started waltzing. “Miss Herrera…”
She had a wild smile on her face “Can we get married now?”
“Of course. You were so clever. And life is for the living, my dear. So let´s just keep living it…”
“Living it…” they said together.
“Really LIVING IT!” with that, he threw her inside the oven and locked the door. Maya´s screams of pain was she was burned alive seemed to fill the entire universe for a few seconds, than abruptly ended.
Trembling, Sylar collapsed on the floor, dragged himself to Mohinder´s body and buried the face on his dead love´s chest, crying desperately.
“There was a watchmaker and his husband” he sang between sobs. “Who was his reason and his life. And he was beautiful… And he was a prosperous scientist. And the watchmaker was… naïve”.
Rising a little the head, he stared at the handsome features, and ran his fingers around them. What had he done?!? It was all his fault, not only that evil cut through Mohinder´s forehead, but everything. He had believed the Devil´s wife. And even 6 years ago, perhaps he could have done something more to protect Mohinder. If not, of what use were all those stupid powers? Why would he want to be a god if in the end he couldn´t have the one thing that mattered? Mohinder… Mohinder...
Suddenly, his eyes met a dirty jacket Lyle had abandoned and something echoed on his brain. Something that wasn´t sadness or despair.
“Gentlemen, you´re about to see something that will rise the deeeead- literally!”
“Oh.” He exclaimed. “Oh, please. Please don´t be too late”. Faster than he ever knew a man could move, Sylar ran upstairs and returned with two syringes and one little tube. Desperate, he took out a sample of Mohinder´s blood, one of his own, mixed them and injected it on the dark arm.
“Please. Please”
And slowly, very slowly, Mohinder´s chest started moving up and down. After a couple of minutes, the eyes opened, painfully, like they had never been open before. And a weak whisper left his lips.
“Gabriel?”
“Yes” said Sylar, smiling of pure happiness for the first time in six years. “Yes! Oh, Mohinder, you´re fine!” Tears of joy fell on the geneticist´s face. “You´re fine!”
“I don´t think I am.” he whispered again. “I feel awful. Like… Like if I haven´t eat for days. What happened?”
“You were ill” said Sylar, softly. “You were very ill, but you´re fine now. You only need to rest. I´ll take care of you now, I promise.”
“What are you talking about? You always take care of me”
“I´ll start taking much better care. Oh, God, I thought I´d lost you”
Alarm appeared on Mohinder´s eyes.
“Was I that bad?”
“Shhhh. I shouldn´t have said that. Don´t worry. Everything is fine. Try to sleep.” He ran his fingers once again by his husband´s face. “Just try to sleep.”
“Where´s Molly?”
“Molly… Isn´t home, darling. She… She has found a boyfriend. They went out”
“She´s too young to have a boyfri…” Mohinder started to complain, but fell asleep on the middle of the sentence. Before taking him to bed, Sylar held him for a long time. At last, he was home.
EPILOGUE
“Mom, Dad, we need to talk”
“Sure, Claire-bear, what´s going on?”
“It´s… It´s Lyle. He came back and… He is not well. Something terrible must have happened to him, he´s mad! Keeps muttering some nonsense about a witch who cooked Peter into pies.”
“Oh my God!” exclaimed Sandra. “Poor thing, I wonder what could have happened. I´ll talk to him at once…” the phone rang, and she answered it. “Sandra Bennet. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, you don´t have Mr. Muggle´s favorite shampoo?!?” On the next minute, she was at the car, driving to what would soon be a very unfortunate pet shop.
“Dad…” started Claire.
“I know, honey. It would be an easy problem if the Haitian was alive. But now he´ll just call attention to us. I don´t know what to do”
They both were quite for a moment, then the teenager smiled.
“You know what? I think we´re overreacting. It´s Lyle, after all. It´s not like anyone is going to pay attention to what he says.”