Disenchantment 49

*****

 

 

 

 

Malbourne wasn’t sure how long he stood by himself, surrounded by the snakes, or black, snake-like creatures. If he had to guess, he might have assumed it was maybe two hours or so. Finally he saw the two men approaching him. As they got closer he realized the two were Phileus and Hornblende. He could have done without Hornblende, but the fool, Phileus was putty in his hands.

 

“Where are the others?” he asked, feigning concern.

 

“They won’t be coming,” said Hornblende.

 

“Why? What happened?” Nicastro had been a minor inconvenience, so that was just fine, but getting rid of Benson was a godsend, another loose end tied up and he didn’t have to do anything about it. It could only have been better if Hornblende also hadn’t returned. He never liked the cop.

 

“This place happened, is what,” said Hornblende. As the two men got closer the snakes began to dissipate, writhing their ways back into the darkness from whence they came, then not returning.

 

It was almost over. He saw a clear way out of this now. Soon, he would be home, and he could probably talk Phileus out of some more money. The lawyer didn’t initially notice the guarded, different behavior of the two men, not that it would have made much of a difference with Hornblende, who usually acted suspicious of everyone.

 

“Those two Mexicans cowardly ran away and left me here. We never should have dealt with them. I’m so glad to see the both of you back here.”

 

The men were soon upon him. Hornblende and Phileus separated with Phileus going toward him and the fire and Hornblende walking around behind him. It was then that he noticed something off about Phileus. There was something in his eyes, a fire that seemed to burn just below the surface.

 

“You don’t seem too upset about your friend, Floyd Benson,” said Hornblende from behind him.

 

“What happened exactly?” Malbourne was suddenly getting nervous. There was an edge in Hornblende’s voice, an accusatory roughness. Phileus was not smiling and didn’t look at all happy to be reunited.

 

“We got to meet Hades,” said Phileus.

 

“Yes, your friend Benson apparently owed him a price for something he had done, so Hades collected.” Hornblende’s voice came from behind him. It was unnerving to be looking at an angry Phileus and hearing an angry Hornblende.

 

“I’m glad you made it back. Any luck with your wife? Did we get what we came for? What happened to Nicastro?”

 

“You really wouldn’t want to be seeing Nicastro after what you did to his son.” There was no compassion, but a seething animosity in Hornblende’s voice, highly audible.

 

Malbourne turned to look back at Hornblende, it was impossible to keep his eyes on both of the men at the same time. “What do you mean? If Benson said anything about me, you know you can’t trust that degenerate. Anything out of his mouth would be pure slander.”

 

“We know, Blake. We know what you’ve been up to.” His eyes turned back to Phileus. “I imagine Hornblende might have some questions for you. Maybe you will be wanting to give him names of some other people that were involved.”

 

A dread came over the attorney. It seemed like they did know something. “This is all just a misunderstanding. You can’t prove anything. This is not an admission of guilt, but you know I have the right to remain silent. Also, there is no police station left. Look, let’s get out of here, go somewhere normal, have a talk about things.”

 

“I don’t think that’s going to happen“ said Hornblende.

 

“Wait, no,” said Phileus. “Don’t do it.”

 

Malbourne was slightly confused as he wasn’t about to do anything. Then he realized that Phileus was talking to Hornblende, not himself.

 

The crack of the gunshot was loud in the eerie quiet.

 

There was brief second of pain, before nothing. Malbourne was still trying to understand what was happening. He noticed Phileus had blood spatter on his face, and for a short period of time he thought the cop had shot him. There also seemed to be some bone fragments and... brain matter. But no, he was still breathing, eyes still focused, a look of horror plainly evident on his face. Whose blood? Then of course, it hit him. That was his own blood on Phileus’s face.

 

“What did you do that for?” asked Phileus.

 

Malbourne looked down to see his own corpse lying on the ground, a massive hole in the back of his head, the bullet having brutally ripped out about a third of his brain and a good section of his skull.

 

“I didn’t like him breathing the same air as me,” said Hornblende.

 

“You bastards. You’ll rot in fucking jail. I’ll sue you for every fucking penny you’ve got.”

 

The two men seemed to ignore him, but Malbourne knew better. He was dead. They couldn’t hear him.

 

He heard a loud shrieking in the distance and looked to see a huge creature erupt from the ground. It seemed like a golden snake, with the head of a dragon. It circled in the air a few times then began flying toward him, teeth gnashing and red eyes gleaming with a pure fire of hatred.

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

 

 

Hornblende wasn’t about to let another child predator go. That was not the first time he had taken the law into his own hands, abused his power, disregarded the legal system that he had sworn to uphold. Phileus had been right when he told Thanatos that he cared about justice as it was absolutely true. He cared much more about justice than he cared about the actual laws.

 

“You didn’t like him breathing the same air as you? How did you know that you could even kill him here?”

 

“I figured I was injured here, this side of Styx and Acheron. I think the difficulty lies on the other side of one or both of those.” Before they encountered Malbourne, they had crossed the bridge of Styx again and Hornblende reminded Phileus that he might gain some privilege in life or some power over death if he touched the black, mysterious waters, but Phileus had refused to go near the strange river god, insisting that they continue on toward the realm of the living.

 

“You got blood and...other pieces of that asshole all over my face.” Phileus began to wipe off his face with his shirt.

 

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

 

“Why didn’t you question him? We know he was working with others. Don’t you want to catch them?”

 

“Malbourne was a slippery little weasel, and he certainly knew the law more than me. He might have gotten off. Besides, where would we keep him? There is presently no working law anywhere near us. The police department might as well be a ghost town, what could I do with him?”

 

“We could have kept him, interrogated him.”

 

“If we left him alive, he could have destroyed evidence, warned others that we were onto them. There’s a lot he could have done to get out of this. I guess I didn’t trust my ability to deal with a living Malbourne.”

 

“Too dangerous to be kept alive?”

 

“Too shitty to be left alive. I can probably go to his house and get evidence at my leisure. If he was around, he could have destroyed it.”

 

“What if it is all too well-hidden or doesn’t even exist?”

 

“It was a risk that I was willing to take. I believe the good outweighs the bad here, it was better to kill him. And I was very serious about what I said: I don’t like breathing the same air as him.”

 

“What should we do with the body?”

 

“Leave it here. No one is going to find it. This place is rarely accessible, right? Also, the world has gone to absolute shit. I imagine there is more than one body on the outskirts of town these days.” Hornblende did start searching the body, getting the man’s keys and wallet from the corpse.

 

They continued on, so very close to their own world that Hornblende actually felt himself getting eager to see it again, walking in silence for a time initially, the flashlights having power once more as they got closer to the world where the batteries were physically allowed to have power.

 

“So what are you going to do now?” asked Phileus.

 

“I’m going to find those other pieces of shit involved in the death of Matthew Nicastro and who knows how many other kids.”

 

“Yeah, I know, but after that what will you do?”

 

“I was thinking South Dakota for a time, but that was when the world was going to end. Now? Well, if the world is truly back on track, maybe I can help fix this place, help rebuild. It is my home after all. I should help rebuild, help make it back into what it once was. Why abandon it when it could be brought back to its former glory?”

 

“Glory?”

 

“Livable existence might have been a better thing to say. What about you? You going to go out and become a famous rock star now that Hades has told you that you can? Stay in your cover band?”

 

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I first want to see my wife again before anything. Figure some things out. See how things are going to be. Do you want some help tracking down those pedophiles?”

 

“That won’t be necessary. You’ll probably just get in the way. Do you really believe that you will see your wife again?”

 

“Yes,” was all that Phileus said about that.

 

The two exited the wash and only had a little farther to travel to get back to the cars. On the street, the men could see the stars again. It felt like they belonged, they were home.

 

“You know,” said Hornblende, “Maybe Charon will consider that payment for your buddy, Mark Nicastro.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“He asked for a life. We gave him Malbourne’s. That was a life, right? He didn’t say it had to be one of ours.”

 

“You’re right. Should we go back?”

 

“You know we can’t do that. The price is too high. Even if we found him, that would be another two lives. If we didn’t find him...”

 

“Yeah.” Oren Phileus sighed as they reached the cars.

 

Hornblende looked up and noticed what seemed like millions of stars, not a man-made light in sight to dim them. Often cynical or pessimistic and not particularly a nature lover, those stars, they filled him with hope.