one old bookshop [20/??? artefacts collected]
As the dust settled on a stack of yellowed magazines I remembered why I had learned to love the silence. Silence was all I had left now. Silence and books that were never bought, a telephone that never rang
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I was plumb-tired of hoping, and full of so much Hellfire I could've torn the guy's head off at the neck with my bare hands.
He wasn't lying about loyalties; I'd follow my friends to the edge of the goddamn map if they'd let me. I'd die for 'em, but I wouldn't die by 'em, and giving Clarence the third degree wasn't getting me anywhere.
The dust cleared.
But now I had him cornered, and he knew it. Turns out the only real friend I had was my gun.
I cocked my friend.
My friend was an eloquent speaker, and he made two profound arguments: one in the door next to Clarence's head, shattering a splintered hole through the heavy wood, and the second in the bastard's shoulder. At this range, I wouldn't have been surprised if it went straight through.
Nothing like a little lead poisoning to put a damper on your day.
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But that was only half the story.
The other half hit my shoulder like a hot iron. It went clean through flesh, bones and time to a moment when I was still on his side. I was cheering and grinning, because now Dean had him. Shattering their good arm like that would do a number on anyone. Poor sucker.
Seconds later that grin was a grimace and reality had me back, at gunpoint at that. I bit my tongue, knowing the choice insults on it had too good a chance to turn into a pained groan. And I'd be damned if I just handed that treat to him on a silver plate.
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I gripped the fella's arm with my right mitt, digging a thumb into the bloody hole and catching Clarence around his neck and up under his chin with my left.
"Y'know," I started with a pretty fine humor, twisting my finger in the wound. "I didn't wanna hafta wreck the rest of you. But if you sit tight a spell then this won't be near as bad as it could be."
Because believe me, I'd entertained some notions.
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There it was, the scream so loud it even surprised myself. A tune like a sweet victory song for the bastard, no doubt.
A better man might've admired Dean's style, even said he'd earn that reward.
Me? I calmly steered off the high road and spat into the SOB's eye.
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"Watch it, buddy," I snarled, "Or I'll give you another hole to breathe through."
An empty threat compared to what I had in mind.
Clambering over Clarence and forcing his head down, my fingers wrapped around his pipes, I abandoned his shoulder in favor of a blade - a little shiv heavy with memories. He knew what it was.
He was the one who gave it to me.
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No matter, I figured. Some details were not important enough for any devil to pick as a hiding spot.
I reached up with the hand I could still move and wrapped my fingers around his arm. Only somewhere along the way did I forget what I'd meant to accomplish. My strength, I noticed, was flowing fast and red across the floor, mocking my earlier vows of tenacity.
It was then that I truly felt how our genre played us like a fiddle sometimes. How else could my inner monologue sport all those fancy details when in truth neither my mind nor my tongue had any inclination of forming even the most basic of words?
"Dhh... nnn..."
When I saw the knife I smiled. We'd always been artists, if given the right tools. Looking back I thanked my mind's haze for obscuring the identity of his next canvas at that moment.
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"Hold still," I heard myself say, but there was a disconnect between my voice and my brain. I knew what I was doing, and I knew that I wanted it - more than anything. The scent of blood was thick in the air, made me feel gowed-up like a dope fiend on the big high.
Before I could think, I smiled back and slid the shiv into his left eye with the precision of a master surgeon. Easy flesh that gave and popped in an instant. A simple twitch of the knife was enough pull the bloody mass up and out, and I jerked it from his skull like I was plucking a ripe apple off a tree.
Payback was a bitch, and I enjoyed fucking her.
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I thought the bullet wound was bad, that red-hot paralysing pain Dean's fingers pushed through my veins like hot irons. That was before my eye saw its last ever close-up, the shine of the sharp metal tip.
I thought of Hyde Park in winter, a blanket of snow and the dark city at night.
I thought of nothing whatsoever.
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I still hadn't won.
The whole gist behind revenge wasn't just the violence - it was making somebody else feel your pain. If I couldn't do that with one measly turncoat, then I came out with nothing. But I was mulling too much. I got what I came for.
I wiped the knife off on Clarence's shirt before putting it away, and then leaned down to to smack his cheek.
"Hey. Iago. Shake a leg."
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Back in the days I'd never passed the bottle around before taking a sip or a dozen and I'd sampled plenty of my wares quite generously. But none of that compared, nothing I remembered then or would ever remember felt quite like that briefest of moments after I came to and before I noticed what was missing.
The pain.
Like ripples from a stone in water I felt it coursing through my body, returning in shivers and growing like a noise coming in from the distance. Sirens and bells and screams, all approaching faster and louder and heavier until I thought I'd burst with it.
But even then it only came out a hoarse whine before my pale lips fell shut again.
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