CHAPTER XXI – Epilogue

‘I figured I’d be seeing you again. Eventually.’

Red Wrath – no, Rollo warily watched Morgan approach the edge of the cell. He was thinner in his prison garb, less substantial than he was when they had fought, though he hadn’t sustained any lasting injuries. Like by having the demon drained out of him, he’d lost a piece of himself.

The prison made Morgan uneasy. He had been in a facility much like this one for almost a year, heavily drugged and starved and conditioned until the thought of blood no longer consumed him. The experience had left an impression; he still couldn’t enter places like this, full of solitary cells and reeking of cleaning products, without feeling ill.

He placed the stool he had requisitioned from one of the guards on the ground before the cell. ‘Yeah?’

‘You want some kind of confession? Tease out why I did it? You working on a novel or something? Advance your career?’ Rollo feigned a detached coolness he obviously didn’t feel; sweat glistened on his brow, and his thoughts – now clear to Morgan without the demon obscuring them – were a disoriented mess.

‘“Lieutenant” is about as far as someone like me is allowed to go, I think. They don’t want me in a position of power. Hell, even I don’t want that.’

Rollo’s eyes went flat with suppressed rage. ‘So, what’s the point of it all? Why even bother pretending you give a shit? A bureau officer? That makes me sick. Thinking that you, of all things, are out there “keeping the peace”. What a fucking joke.’

Morgan shrugged. ‘Either that or rotting away in Marl. They give you a choice like that, what would you pick?’

Rollo got to his feet and started pacing like a trapped animal. The sudden movement made Morgan’s predatory instincts flare. ‘They aren’t gonna’ give me a choice like that.’

‘You sound pretty sure.’

‘Oh, I am. I ain’t no immortal. Just a regular fucking human. Thirty, forty years down the line I’m useless to the bureau. They’re gonna’ just throw me in a hole and forget about me. Same crime as you. Butchered and burned those folks, didn’t we? And yet. Here I am, here you are. Life’s fucking funny that way, huh? Like, where’s the justice?’ Rollo stopped pacing and ventured closer to the bars. ‘Where’s the fucking fairness of it all, Takashima?’

Morgan matched his piercing gaze.

I did it to survive, he thought.

I did it to eat.

I did it because I had to.

I did it because they told me to.

I did it because I –

Because I –

‘Revenge?’ said Morgan through gritted teeth. ‘You burned those people alive. For what? For something so petty? Just to ruin my image?’

Rollo went to his knees so they were level. Barely a foot separated the pair of them; he could smell the adrenaline and rage wicking off Rollo’s skin. ‘You know what the kicker is?’ said Rollo. ‘You didn’t even eat my pa. You just left him to die. Tell me, asshole, where in that was an act of survival?’

Like he had read Morgan’s thoughts.

Morgan leaned closer. Bared his teeth. ‘Your “pa” was scum, Rollo,’ he said. ‘He trafficked children and women like they were cattle, and you want me to feel sorry for him? Come on, get real here, you weren’t that young. You knew what he was doing. How do you think he felt, passing around girls the same age as you were? Gotta’ wonder what proclivities the man had –’

‘Shut up.’

Morgan poured venom into his voice, lacing it with compulsion; he’d never used it this way before, as a tool to instil fear. ‘Hard to hear, right? We all got our heroes, I guess. Too bad yours is rotting in hell.’

‘Everyone.’ Rollo’s voice shook with emotion. ‘Not just him. You – it was everyone. Friends – fuck, some of ‘em were family. And without batting an eye. Some of ‘em were just feeding themselves. They had lives. And you – it makes no sense. How can you be out there? Like it was nothing? Like it meant nothing?”

Shalia had told him not to come here.

Had said no good could come of it.

Knowing her, if she were in his position, she’d do something like reconcile with Rollo over their shared grievances – no, who was he kidding?

She wouldn’t be in a position like this to begin with.

He wasn’t her.

He thought about it. Considered a way for them to see eye-to-eye, put their past differences aside. It wouldn’t bring the dead back to life, but it might console the living.

The idea turned his stomach.

No, he wasn’t the corporal. He wasn’t so saintly, or so forgiving, or so mature. Not as pure white as she was. He had no patience. He was petty. Angry. Incapable of forgiveness – even to himself. He was nothing –

But a monster.

And perhaps it was time he accepted it.

‘You want to hate me, go ahead,’ said Morgan. ‘It won’t change shit. You’re still in there, I’m still out here. Both of us mean nothing to the bureau, nothing to the people out there doing their daily bull. We’re worth about as much as the crap that gets on their shoes. There is no redeeming us, there is no revenge. We’re just gonna’ keep going in circles, like cats chasing their tails. No choice, it’s who we are and it isn’t an excuse, just the way it is. Neither one of us is right. Neither one is better than the other. We’re just two animals in a cage going for each other’s throats. So next time you’re out here, or I’m in there, you better hope you take me down for good.’

Coldly, ‘Next time, I won’t just ruin you. I’ll break you.’

Morgan flashed his fangs – a threat, not a smile.

And grabbed Rollo by the throat, pinning him against the bars. Rollo made a choking, gasping sound.

Sweetly, Morgan said, ‘And next time you better hope I don’t tear out your fucking throat.’ He released the other man; Rollo gasped for breath and massaged his neck, where imprints in the skin from Morgan’s nails wept red. Morgan licked the excess blood from a fingernail. ‘That’s the third time, by the way.’

Rollo pinned him with a piercing glare and croaked, ‘For what?’

‘The third time I saved your life.’

Shalia was waiting for him outside the detention centre.

‘I’m guessing,’ she said, ‘it didn’t go well.’

The sight of her free wings still made him pause. They fluttered lightly in the frigid winter chill against her back, golden light pulsing along their length. When he’d asked her why she now kept them free instead of pinned against her back, she’d said something along the lines of: Why should I have to hide the parts of myself that I was born with or had no choice in their creation? – that second part, obviously, she’d added for his benefit. Like he needed to be coddled.

Still.

He appreciated the sentiment.

‘Not gonna say “I told you so”?’ asked Morgan as he joined her and the pair drifted back toward the precinct, snow gently flurrying around them.

‘Do I really look so petty? Don’t answer that. Yes, I told you so. And did it help at all? Was it a cathartic experience?’ She drifted closer to him, gravitating toward his warmth despite the playful ribbing.

‘A little…illuminating, maybe? My conclusion was that life really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?’

‘Oh,’ said Shalia, ‘that just means you’ve grown up.’

‘Not without me, I hope?’ came a voice from behind them.

Jude clapped them both on the shoulders, inserted himself between them then twined his arms through theirs so that they walked in a merry group. To Morgan’s amazement, Shalia let it happen.

‘Who’s growing up?’ asked the exorcist.

Shalia side-eyed Morgan. ‘No one, yet. Not anyone I can see, anyway.’

‘Good, good,’ said Jude. ‘That would be terribly boring.’

Shalia, sullen: ‘And is there something you need at the precinct, Jude?’

‘Chin up, sweetheart! I’m getting paid today. Dinner’s on me.’

‘You mean –’

‘I did do a lot of work with ol’ Wrathy, didn’t I? Technically, it cost me my life! So, I think I’m due a ransom, just for the hazard fee alone. And your chief commissioner, what’s-her-name, said she has work for me.’ From the arm twined with Morgan’s, he put his thumb and index finger together in the universal sign for cash. ‘That sounds too good to pass up.’

‘Empress, help us,’ muttered Shalia under her breath.

‘Hmm, think she put you on voicemail, sweetheart,’ said Jude.

Morgan took a breath, the cold burning his nostrils and easing the tension he’d been feeling since visiting the detention centre, and laughed.