Volume X: The Industry of Chemical Artistry - or - The Age of Rockism

15. A Moment, If I May?

           I wondered for a while if my writings could be used as incriminating evidence, if my art would lend any clue to my darker desires. Some nights, I was secure in my safety, others my eyes would cover the walls for hours analyzing the most damning of my pieces. I didn’t go as far as harming any of them just yet, but the potential was there. I needed to make sure my motives were clear, lest I be discovered. I didn’t want anyone corrupting my greater goal with some subliminal message, some meaning besides which I intended.

            I decided to write things down as lucidly as I could from my own mind’s perspective, though it might seem a bit vague to the passerby. The best way to keep a secret between three people is if two of them are dead? Though death seemed a bit of an extreme stance on things, the point was there. The other voices of reason needed to be silenced at the source, and I would maintain control at all times. My words would be logical at best to me; my closest associates perhaps, but that would be stretching it. I had high expectations for my new mission, and a sudden urgency to get things underway.

            Days were bleeding together as I kept myself locked away in my quarters, content in my solitude as I derived new methods for my madness. I almost didn’t hear the steps echoing in the empty apartment, the scrape of the chair as it slid across the floor. Looking up abruptly from my paper, I found a face I had heard much about, though never witnessed myself.

            “Miss Ransom, I presume?” I extended one hand immediately, in an abrupt and very necessary gesture of friendliness. She shook it, betraying nothing with her reaction. She had prepared for all manner of comebacks on my behalf, everything from fear to rage, and she would take everything in stride.

            She nodded slowly, clearing her throat. “Only if you are Mister Edward Dorrance. Your friends, or acquaintances rather, call you Hyde. Your parents, the Doctors Dorrance, recently passed, correct?”

            I nodded a bit too excitedly, shuffling my papers into an orderly pile and stuffing them under one of my sketchbooks. I started to rise from my chair, but halfway to my feet I found myself with no plan besides that motion. She stayed where she was, comfortable in my chaos, completely at ease with my restlessness. I shook my head just as randomly and returned to my seat across from her, realizing there was no need for me to go anywhere. If she’d wanted to hurt me, she would have by now, so there was no use hoping to find an implement of protection. And getting up to find one, with her hawkish eyes watching, wouldn’t have gotten me much further.

            “I’d like to speak to you briefly, about the unfortunate business of your parents’ deaths, if you don’t mind. Not that you have much choice, Mister Dorrance.”

            I smiled slowly, realizing her game was simple. She thought she had control. She assumed I was afraid of her, or respected her, that I would feed her whatever answers she required for one of these two reasons. But no, my reactions to her were based on something altogether different. Allow me to explain.

            Miss Dacien Ransom was a long time patient of my parents, and one with which they were continuously frustrated. She only allowed out certain parts of her character, so you never knew if what she said was the whole truth, or some minute fraction of something bigger. All the same, they kept allowing her to return, almost challenged by her mystery. Little by little they made some semblance of progress, and then they’d be pushed back all the same. Until there was a landslide one day - Dacien had admitted to murder. She had given my parents the weapon she’d used to kill a very important community member long ago.

            Angyl Hunter.

            I recognized the name, though I had no face to put with the equation. She had murdered a number of people herself in her time, the memories frozen in black and white for all to see. Dacien had shot her, ridding the community of the murderer’s rage, and thus performed a great public service. However, the law is still the law, and her guilt was genuine. She confessed her crime to my family, pleading that they keep the wretched gun safe, lest it remind her of the deed itself. Doctors are sworn by confidentiality, so they were powerless to announce Dacien’s crime to any authority. Theoretically anyway. Doctors will commonly forfeit their patient’s rights in respect of those of the victim, thinking that their betrayal is an even more worthwhile public service. My parents disagreed.