Deep Shadow

VI

Looking death in the face has a way of sobering one up, make them think of all the things in life they’d never get a chance to do, but always wanted to. I’d never ride a horse, never get to see the Mainland again, never be able to prove all those people who thought that “skinny orphan” would make it less than a few days wrong. I hadn’t even realized I had hidden desires until I was standing in the presence of my own fate.

I wasn’t about to go down without a fight. I raised the gun, as I’d been taught to do, and pulled the trigger once, twice, three times. The bullets struck the figure in the chest. Each time he flinched, but he didn’t fall. Instead he looked down, then back up at me. His shoulders shook, a hideous moan came from underneath his mask, and it took me a second to realize he was laughing.

“That you think I would come unprepared is a little insulting,” he said. His voice reminded me of the creak of old wood, fragile and worn. “I must say, I judged you differently.”

“Maybe you would’ve been less so if I’d shot you in the face, but you see, normal people die from getting a bullet to the chest.”

“Most people, perhaps. But most people don’t wear artillery-proof vests.”

I lowered the handgun to my side. “Artillery, like missiles? So if I dropped a bomb on your head, would your vest protect you from that too?”

“You use sarcasm as a weapon, but it does little to wound the impervious.”

“And you use morals to justify your killings, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that it’s still murder.”

He laughed again, brushing aside his cloak to reveal a cane. The way he leaned against it, staggering, told me he had an injury. Or at least was pretending he had one. The cane was polished, well constructed. Something that had to be at least decently expensive. Then again, everything was expensive to a beggar and a thief.

“Do you think that showing me your weakness is going me make me less aggressive towards you? Because if that’s the case, then you really misjudged me.”

He walked forward, almost gliding, sending the fog swirling away in snake-like tendrils. My fingers curled tighter around the gun. Get closer, I dare you. “I reveal nothing. You merely think you’re interpreting something that isn’t there. If I walk with a limp, it’s because I have to, not because I choose to.”

“Just like you kill because you have to, not because you choose to? You’re really helping your cause.”

He stopped advancing, raising his palms in an innocent shrug. “Those people are sinners, full of evil and corruption. It’s my duty to stop them.”

“To kill them, no need to be coy. But do the means justify the ends? What “sins” could be so damnable that you think they must die to be erased?”

He took another unsteady step towards me. His sigh was muffled by his mask. “This world is full of drunken, murderous beasts. My only purpose in life is to purge them out, send them into Hell where they belong. A thief, for example, may steal a tiny loaf of bread which he thinks the merchant won’t miss, but that could be the extra euro that merchant needs to pay his rent. Suddenly he’s out on the streets, family and children starving, wasting away in the filth, begging for a loaf of bread of his own. All because some cowardly reprobate couldn’t hold a job or a penny to his name.”

“Wow. You read way too far into things,” I said. “Please don’t tell me you actually kill people for stupid stuff like that.”

“They must be stopped, Ms. Grey. For every one miscreant spawns another two with their evil ways. Eventually the world will be overrun.” He took his cane in his hands and pulled it apart, unsheathing a blade. “I must kill you, Desdemona. Before you too bring ruin upon this world.”