“Let’s take a little walk, shall we - Johnny boy?”
Down to the train depot together: me with my hands in my pockets and eyes on the ground, sure - but acutely aware of Py nonetheless, grim and tireless, beside me.
Down to the track where Amelia killed one of her poor creations, remember? Some sorry old dude who couldn’t cope with his new re-existence, and tried tremulously to do as he was told. Poor bastard.
Down into the half-light of the night where the rail was still dark with old blood - and not far was another ragged circle I remembered very well, that had been mostly absorbed into the gravel and dirt now.
Py stopped.
“Here?”
I nodded calmly.
“How?”
I told him.
“What did you do with her?”
I explained – cracked an old lock and lifted her into the corner of an freight carriage. Figured she wouldn’t be found anywhere near here…
He drew in a slow breath – old habits die hard.
“So you don’t know where she is now? Is that it?”
I shrugged to indicate the irrelevance of the question, all the time wondering at the subdued and fucking inappropriate sense of exhilaration I was harboring.
He laid a hand on each of my shoulders, and looked close at my face.
“Johnny boy – what the hell makes you think she’s dead then?”
I kind of laughed, then coughed, then shuffled my feet a bit. And a teeny chilly shadow of doubt slid in – for just a moment.
Py released me, and smoothed his hair gently and impassively, and said simply, “Arrangements must be made”, and walked away.
I followed behind: sort of bemused, but still riotously and inexplicably excited. We walked back to my place again, and I spent the silence trying to work out the feeling.
It finally struck me.
Py. The only one whose words had been worth hanging on, whose presence had been worth hanging out for, who I’d bother hanging in there over. A un-living legend, an acquaintance to cultivate. For the first time ever, since first knowing him? - I didn’t even need to try. Holy shit. I was his centre of attention. Not eclipsed as usual by his fucking charisma and experience and relentless arrogance. But in focus – me. Me the villain, or the hero, or the – shit, it didn’t even matter. He was seeing me. I’d finally done something to make him pay real heed – and the bloody irony was I hadn’t even thought about it affecting him.
Fucking hell. Get this. Killing Amelia could well be the best fucking thing I’d ever done.
NEXT ENTRY…
