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Idouble-check the list before I enter the building. Mr. Warrenthal. He deserted the Exodus three years ago, and they’ve been waiting for the Reckoning so that I can take him out.
The problem is, Mr. Warrenthal is very aware of the impending crime-free night and, to prepare, he has booked a ticket out of Vail. He’s supposed to leave this morning. When the Elders got wind of it—they seem to have connections everywhere—they sent me to intercept him. I had no choice but to throw on clothes before the sun rose and head over to the mansion at the base of the mountain.
I put on gloves before I head inside. He shouldn’t be expecting me, but he has to know this is coming. No one leavesthe Exodus. You can’t just decide you’re bored with your rich, privileged life and quit the society that made you who you are.
I should know. They made me who I am now.
“Surprise,” I say as I find him in bed. His packed suitcases stand beside the ornate footboard. The elders’ intel was right.
With eyes so wide that I can see every bit of white, the man sits up in bed. “No, no, no!” he pleads. “The Bishop gave me grace to leave the society!”
“You and I both know that’s not true.”
“It is!”
“I wouldn’t be here if it was.”
“I have money!”
“Of course you do. You all do.”
But I do not. Wallowing in vast riches wasn’t part of the contract I entered into almost ten years ago. Having beenbroughtto the Exodus instead ofborn intothe Exodus, I was granted my life and nothing more.
The man’s plea falls on deaf ears. The targets always offer huge sums of cash, but I don’t waver from my mission. I have a job to do, and if I fail, my name will go on a list, and someone will visit me next. Someone just like me.
A hitman.
Their pawn.
The worker bee in their intricate hive.
Because I’m theirs.
I’ve sold my soul to the devil, and now I’m his watcher. His henchman. A pawn in a system I wasn’t born into. I was taken and given a choice. I could be the executioner or the sacrifice. Since I’m not a farm animal who’s destined to be bled and rendered for their use, I chose to join them.
But I didn’t get to become one of them. Not really. I was allowed to keep my life, but the life I live no longer belongs to me.
Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to have bled out in their glamorous cabin in the woods. At least the blood soaking their fancy hardwood floors would be my own. At least I would have died free.
A crowbar hangs by my side, and one quick smack of it against the side of the man’s skull stops his annoying begging. I fasten a thick rope around his limp wrists and ankles, then drag him out of bed. I don’t like to kill them in bed, preferring to position them in their luxurious living rooms instead. It’s so ironic to die in the room in which you should live.
I drop his heavy body onto a leather chair and hit a button to make it recline. At least he can be comfortable as he dies, reclining in a room littered with original artworks and first printings and the perfume of expensive cigars.
Three remotes lie on the table beside us, and I pick them up and play with them until stereo speakers drop from the ceiling. I sway and spin around the chair as I work a knife from my hip to the opening of “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. I sing every word as I wait for him to wake up.
As if it had been scripted, his eyes pop open just as the song ascends into greatness, and my blade sinks into the side of his neck. In and out, the knife plunges in and pulls back with the beat. A remote gurgle precedes a spurt of blood from his neck, which fountains out in a ferocious spray of red. The walls drip with the stuff. I rip the metal from his skin a final time and put my fingers beneath his chin, lowering his lax jaw so that it looks as if he’s singing the lyrics with his mouth. My bloody puppet.
The song climaxes, and then the endnote makes way for silence. Blood paints the walls of his gaudy mansion like some kind of abstract art installation. Too bad I can’t slap a high-dollar price tag on it and sell it to the rich and bored.
The blood slows to a trickle and travels down his stained shirt. I pull the list from my pocket and dip my gloved finger intothe crimson puddle beneath him. After spreading the paper on my thigh, I find his name and brush red across it.
One down. As many as they need to go.
I head outside and hear a meow in the bushes beside the door. I squat on the sidewalk and meow back like a lunatic. A little gray cat pokes its head from beneath the thick foliage. I hold my hand toward it, and it takes a perfunctory sniff before brushing a warm, furry cheek against my curled fingers. A pinprick of regret stabs my chest as I wonder if I’ve just killed this cat’s only source of care.
“I hope I didn’t just murder your dad,” I say, giving it another pat. I didn’t see any signs of a cat inside, though. No food. No toys lying around.
I fucking love animals and would take this guy with me if I didn’t already have a menu item hopping around at home. Even though Petey would probably wipe the floor with the biggest cat, I can’t chance it.
