Author's Note: Since it's a pet peeve of mine I want it noted, for the record, that I do know the difference between 'jealousy' and 'envy'.
Whip, however, probably doesn't.
.
.
"Chanter on a Throne"
Morrisville – 1984
His head snapped up from his chest, slamming into the back of the dining chair. He blinked, slow to come out of his little nap. When he came to his senses he saw Whip standing before him, cock-legged and arms crossed, an unwelcoming scowl on her face.
"So," the boy said. "I've kind of been doing some thinking, lately..."
"There's a first time for everything," Whip mumbled. "Where is he?"
Penance noticed the girl had a jagged shard of dirty glass in one hand, gripped tight.
"He's gone," the boy said. "And he's not coming back."
The freckles on the girl's milk chocolate face contorted as she arched her brow; she looked around the dark room skeptically.
"You sure?"
He humored her with a little dip into that secret place in his head and a scan of the area around them. As he predicted there was nothing on his 'radar'. It wasn't that he thought Medici was gone, he knew it, to a certainty. And he also knew, to a certainty, that he would never see the man again.
How, exactly, he knew these things didn't seem that important to him, nor could he explain it if he tried.
"Think you could untie me?" Penance asked.
"Oh, I don't wanna interfere with the li'l 'master'." Whip mockingly wiggled her fingers. "And you made it clear you don't want my help, so..."
The boy scowled at her. After 10 seconds passed and she still hadn't lifted a finger to help him the scowl turned into a frown.
"You're seriously not gonna help me—"
"I seriously was," Whip grumbled. "Back at the bridge. 'member that?"
Penance rolled his eyes. He looked down at the knife in his lap and started trying to contort himself, seeing if he could pull a shoulder out of its socket, or manage some other leverage. His spirited struggling only managed to tip his chair too far to one side, and it balanced on two legs for at least four solid seconds before deciding on which way to go.
Unfortunately for him that way was down.
He crashed to the ground, his temple slamming against the hardwood floor with a mighty thud. For a second he thought he could smell strawberries. There was something familiar about that, but he couldn't quite remember what.
Whip shook her head and picked up his little knife from where it landed. She hefted the boy and his chair right-side up and wedged the knife between the ropes biding his neck to the chair.
"Don't move," she said. "Or do. Whatever. Like I care..."
Even with the help of the razor-sharp blade it took Whip a matter of minutes to completely free Penance. The boy got to his feet slowly, massaging his aching legs and twisting his neck around, popping his spine. He faced Whip with contrite eyes, giving her his best impression of a puppy-dog.
Or a kit. Whatever.
"Like I said, Whip: I've kind of been doing some thinking lately, and..."
Suddenly his eyes widened and the back of his teeth set to aching. He held up an urgent finger and dashed out of the small room, heading into the hallway. He found a bathroom and barely made it, not even bothering to close the door before going. He had to steady himself against the wall with one hand; the stream might've lasted a minute straight.
When he finally finished he felt better than he did at almost any other time in his life. Ten pounds lighter, too. He went back out into the hallway looking for Whip.
"Fire department should hire me on," he said. "I could put out a high-rise blaze with that kind of pressure."
He didn't laugh at that, but he hoped Whip might.
Only silence met his ears, of course.
He found the girl in what would pass as the combined kitchen and living room of the apartment. Even unfurnished it was on the small side, and the too-dark wallpaper lent a sense of claustrophobia to the place. Whip stood before a set of windows overlooking the 'backyard': an alley with a few scraggily trees butting up against the panes. She stood so close to the window that her nose might've touched the glass, as if deliberately shunning the boy. He deserved that, he supposed.
Penance approached her.
"Listen, Whip: I'm sorry—"
He figured a girl like Whip had never taken ballet in school, and he probably would be right about that, but the whirlwind speed of her pirouette made him doubt that. In any even she turned and slapped his face faster than he could register, and the force was enough to twist his head to one side.
When he reoriented himself he saw the tears flowing freely down Whip's face. Her eyes were swollen red, teeth grinding on edge. She flared her nostrils at him, giving an ugly snort before trying to say something, but she didn't speak.
Instead she let fly with another vicious slap to his face. Penance was ready for this one; he could easily brace himself and keep his head from moving an inch.
He didn't though.
Instead he allowed the force of her strike to twist his head to the side again, and after she connected he re-leveled his head and awaited the next one.
Whip hesitated, holding up her shaking palm and glaring at him with wet eyes. Penance stood much more composed, staring at her calmly.
"You can keep going," he whispered. "If it makes you feel better. Maybe I deserve it."
"Maybe you do!" She sneered, pulling back her hand to strike.
He closed his eyes. When no blow landed he opened them.
Whip dropped her hand, shaking her head.
"But I don't feel like it," she grumbled.
The girl moved past the boy, walking to the far wall of the room where she leaned against the drab wallpaper and crossed her arms.
"Besides: knowing you I'd just be helping to get your rocks off, wouldn't I? Well, sorry. If you wanna get your jollies from being 'punished' then I guess you're gonna have to go find your FBI friend."
Penance's composed façade fell away, replaced by a sour grimace. He looked away from Whip, and unlike both times he'd been slapped in the face this time he actually appeared wounded. He turned to face the window.
Whip got off the wall, sighing as she put her hands on her hips.
"I... I didn't mean that—"
"Yeah, you did," Penance said. "But it's okay."
He stared at her in the faint reflection of the window, and he didn't think she could tell that he was looking. She took a step forward, starting to reach out for his shoulder with a conciliatory hand. Her crestfallen face showed obvious regret. She stopped short of touching him, choosing to stare down at the floor instead.
"You hurt me, kid."
"I know," Penance said. "And at the time I thought I knew why I was doing it, too. But like I said: I've kind of been doing some thinking, lately, and I'm not so sure, anymore."
"What thinking?"
He turned around and faced the girl.
"You don't know why I call myself 'Cameron', do you?"
She shook her head.
"I once lived with a woman in Scotland who had that last name: Gilbarta Cameron. Stayed with her for a long time. It was an accident— us meeting— and I wasn't even going to stay a single night at her place. But another immortal tracked me down there, and I killed him. He had friends that showed up and got the drop on me, but Gilbarta saved me from them. There was one other trap ready for me that night: I learned that someone was hiding in a barn down the road from us in a place called Gairlochy."
"That's way more elaborate shit than the average immortal attacks you talk about," Whip said. "What the hell did he have waiting for you down there: a tank with a machine-gun?"
"Best we had back then was Gatling guns on rollers. But it wouldn't have mattered," Penance answered. "It was a threat to the woman who helped me, and I owed it to her to get rid of that threat, regardless.
"I went there right away and found the place— a red barn with a bright yellow fence-post— and I knew damn-well it was no lie: there was another immortal in that barn, waiting up in the rafters like a spider on a string. Well, there's lamplight coming in from under the barn's front door, so I slither through the tall grass around the outside, trying to be quiet as I can. Took at least 20 minutes to make my way around. Felt like hours. It was so quiet I could hear the rustle of each blade of grass as I bent it.
"I get to the back and find a way to slide under the rotted boards, but I make too much noise; the immortal above me gets spooked and stumbles in the rafters. She falls and slams into the dirt floor in the middle of the barn."
Whip smirked.
"Well, that's an easy kill for you at least, isn't it?"
Penance said nothing for a moment. Again he looked out the window, watching Whip in the reflection.
"She looked like she was about 10, or so. Maybe younger, or maybe it was just her scrawny build. Funny looking girl: she had these huge pale eyes— gray, like a fogbank— and a tiny button nose. The nose was too small for the face, but the eyes were way too large. Maybe she'd gr— maybe she would have grown into them. I don't know."
His words took the smirk from Whip's face. She stepped forward, clearly trying to muster the courage to ask the question she wanted to ask. When she failed three times, lips barely beginning to move at each attempt, Penance took pity on her.
"No," he said. "I didn't."
That much, at least, appeared to give Whip some relief.
"She gets into a fighting stance; her weapon is a sickle. I'm sure she hadn't taken it from the barn; it was definitely hers— polished to a shine and with a razor edge to it. She doesn't charge; she just looks at me with those massive gray eyes. I don't know what to do or what to say, so I just stand there on the other side of the barn, knife out and ready. I don't know how long it was before she said anything; I was still a little in shock, I think."
"What'd she say?" Whip asked.
Penance looked over his shoulder at her.
"She asks me 'who are you'? And I tell her that she knows who I am. I ask her what her name is and she tells me: 'Sparrowhawk'."
This made one of Whip's eyebrows rise with almost comical timing.
Penance turned to face Whip.
"The immortal I killed earlier that night was named 'Kingfisher'," he held one hand out to one side. "That's a kind of bird. And so, you know..." he held his second hand out to the opposite side "...he'd taken her under his..."
A sudden wave of discomfort crept up his stomach, rising like black bile; for a second he felt a lump in his throat but he banished it with an awkward cough.
"He kept her there, safe as a bird in a nest while he fought. She'd been waiting up for him. And if he died then his friends were supposed to capture me and bring me to Sparrowhawk so she could take my head. Thanks to Gilbarta none of that really worked out for 'em."
"What'd you do about the girl?" Whip asked.
Penance shook his head.
"Nothing. I still couldn't think of what to say, let alone do. She didn't expect me to be there like that, but I didn't expect her, you know? Anyway she eventually asks me: 'Is Kingfisher dead'? And I nod." Penance's eyes grew distant, as if he were looking past Whip. Through her. "And I could really see it in her, then."
"See what?"
"That 'poker face' immortals like us have to wear; we can't wear our hearts on our sleeves ever. The minute I nodded I could see those gray eyes get wide and nearly crack with tears. Her muscles almost gave out; she almost collapsed to the dirt right there. Almost. It's always an 'almost', if we want to keep our heads. It wasn't half-a-second later that her gray eyes turned back to iron and she steeled her stance.
"She took a little longer to get her breathing under control, and when she did she asked me if I wanted to take her head. I said 'no'. Well, she looks to the barn door and starts creeping over there, one hand pointing that silver sickle at me, the other reaching for the latch. I kind of remember wanting to say something else— something really stupid, like an apology, maybe, or anything, I guess— but at that moment I really don't think there's much I could've said. I don't think there's anything she would've listened to, anyway. She bolted through the door and went sprinting out into the darkness. I sat down in the hay for a little while after she left, following her in my mind, tracing each of her steps until my own vision of her went dark."
"What happened after that?"
"With the girl?" Penance shrugged. "I never saw her again. I don't know what happened to her. But that was what tipped the balance and convinced me to try staying with Gilbarta. I was already angry about a lot of things. Kingfisher and Sparrowhawk, though, they made me feel something else..."
He was about to say what it was when Whip interrupted him.
"Jealousy, right?"
The boy nodded.
"I've spent enough time wishing I could have what regular people can have, but to see other immortals that had it?" He shook his head. "I was done running, for the time being. I thought it was all very dramatic and 'rebellious' at the time, too. I had it out with God Himself, and I thought I was defying Him and that constant shit-storm He was pouring on me."
Whip at first put her hands on her hips, ready to scoff at the boy's self-important words. But then she nodded, remembering what he said.
"But," she said, "you've kind of been doing some thinking, lately, haven't you?"
Penance nodded.
"Any conclusions?"
The boy licked his lips, struggling to collect his words; he could've used a little more time.
And he got it.
A knock at the door startled both of them, making them crouch and brandish their respective blades in synch. When it repeated they exchanged glances.
"Hello?" A faint voice sounded from outside. "Delivery!"
Penance shrugged and motioned for Whip to query the knocker. He took up a position against the wall to one side, his little knife held in a tight overhand grip, hilt pressed to his breastbone and blade sticking out at the ready. It took a few silent cues for him to convince the girl to speak, including tapping his own skull and shaking his head: 'no immortals here'.
After another round of knocking the girl screwed up the courage to at least question the person through the door.
"Delivery of what?"
"Mario's. What else?"
Whip pursed her lips; she looked to Penance, who appeared just as baffled as she did.
"I got a pasta primavera, ziti, fettuccine alfredo and a triple order of breadsticks," the man said.
"We didn't order anything."
"Well someone did, and for this address. Prepaid, too."
"For who?"
"I only got the initials: Mister 'A.I.' And it's compliments of his bookkeeper, the note says."
Penance's suspicious frown slowly turned to a bemused smirk. He motioned for Whip to get the door. She responded by mouthing the words 'are you serious?'
He mouthed 'I could eat'.
Whip rolled her eyes, sighing. She mouthed 'of course you can'.
And then another quite rude word.
X
X
X
The guy seemed like a real delivery man and the food in the bags seemed like piping hot, fine Italian fare. All the same Whip let Penance devour his portion of the food first. Only after confirming no ill effects on his part did she deign to dip into her share.
By then the boy was stretched out on his back under the windows, one of them cracked open. Rays from the late afternoon sun fell across his face and a serpentine coil of smoke snaked up from the tip of a cigarette wedged in his mouth. After-dinner cigarettes were always the best cigarettes, bar none, and Penance so rarely got the chance to enjoy one. He lay in sated torpor, eyes hypnotically fixed on the thin snake of smoke dancing above him in the light.
"Trusssst in meeee..." he hissed around the cigarette.
Whip sat cross-legged on the floor at the room's center working her way through a carton of buttery pasta, a half-eaten breadstick on a napkin beside her.
"Fat chance of that," she managed through her food. "So who was he? This guy, I mean."
The boy turned his face in Whip's direction, head lulling with all the contentment of a crocodile sunning itself after scarfing down its prey.
"He was, well, kind of a 'fan', actually." The boy smirked.
"A what?"
He shook his head.
"Doesn't matter. He was just curious about some things, that's all." He patted his full stomach. "And he paid me for my time, so there's that."
Whip appeared unconvinced by this answer, but she let it slide for the time being.
Penance burned his cigarette down to nothing and then checked his supply: only one left. He toyed with it a bit, making it 'dance' across his fingers before finally deciding to save it for later.
"Pen: you should know there's more out there than just the fed, now. He's teamed up with someone else— another immortal—"
"'Carlin Gay'," Penance sat up on his elbows. "Yeah. Medici told me. How do you know?"
"Ran into some people in nice suits who were talking about the fed and you. Definitely not feds themselves. They mentioned the person they were working for. What'd they call 'em?" Whip stared down at her fettuccine and tapped her knee with a plastic fork. "Uh, it was like... I think it was the 'banshee', or something like that."
Penance blinked, looking off to one side.
"'Banshee'?" He said. "What kind of a name is that?"
"You do realize that your name is 'Penance', the psycho with a hard-on for you is 'Black Hat', and in the past you've made the acquaintance of people named 'Kingfisher' and 'Sparrowhawk', right?"
"Don't forget the odd whippoorwill," Penance pointed at the girl.
"Point is," Whip grumbled, "'Banshee' is a downright sensible name in comparison. And at least I think that's what it was; it might've been something even stranger."
Penance shrugged.
"Whatever it was it must just be another name for this 'Carlin Gay' person, whoever they are. And they've got friends, I guess."
"Sounded like a lot, from what I overheard. They're casing the whole area, trying to find you. Got some base of operations over in Trenton. And, for what it's worth, it sounds like this person is no friend of the fed; they don't trust each other at all."
"Black Hat's not the kind of guy that screams 'trustworthiness'." Penance rested his head back down on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. "Neither am I, mind you. And I am sorry, Whip, about everything. Not just the stuff on the bridge. You don't deserve to be mixed up in any of this, you know."
The girl had speared a nice fat vein of pasta, but at his words she set it back in the carton.
"Well," she said. "If not for you I'd just be shaking down other dumb kids wanderin' into alleys and getting the occasional beating for missing my quota. Getting beaten up by a little kid is a change of pace, at least."
She smiled at this, and when Penance returned it her smile widened.
"I'm just glad that Black Hat didn't find you after I left," he said. "I left you alone. Defenseless. He'd have killed you for sure."
Whip's smile fell. She looked down at her pasta, taking up the fork in a half-hearted gesture before again putting it down, clearing her throat and looking away.
"What is it?" Penance again got to his elbows as he noticed the change in her.
When Whip looked back at him her cinnamon eyes were cold.
"This 'thinking' you've been doing," she said. "What about it?"
The boy nodded, getting on his side and looking at her head-on.
"I'm thinking that I like to blame God and feel sorry for myself when things are bad. But then I remember times when things were good— when they are good— like when I lived with Gilbarta in Scotland. I figure that maybe it's a kind of vanity to blame God for all the bad— when you feel sorry for yourself— if you're gonna try to take all the credit for the good— when you fought hard to make things work out. Lots of people say you should thank God every time something works out and take the blame yourself for all the times it doesn't. I always thought that was stupid. Childish, kinda—"
"But you are a Catholic, right?" Whip arched her brow.
The boy smirked.
"I figure if that way of thinking isn't right, then me turning it around on its head isn't quite right either." He got to his haunches, clasping his hands on his kneecaps. His rusty eyes focused on Whip like lasers, unmoving and unblinking. "Here's the thing: I don't 'get off' on pain and punishment, Whip."
She acknowledged that much with a serious nod.
"But, all the same..." he looked away. "All the same I guess I've kinda thought that I'm important enough for God to have a special beef with me, and to think I'm 'outsmarting' Him whenever I can manage to live well. And that's a sin too, I suppose. Well, that's not true; it's like... a dozen sins rolled up into one, but you get my point."
"I don't think I do," she countered, "'cause I still haven't heard where you're going with all this, exactly."
"I'm not willing to say you're right about Black Hat— that he's not some kind of punishment hounding me— or that us immortals aren't cursed, but I have to admit that I've had my share of 'rewards', too. Sometimes...well... I've had my blessings, maybe, I guess."
"And you've had to fight to keep 'em." She pointed her fork at Penance, at first with an accusatory forcefulness, but then she lowered it, looking the boy up and down with a strange and distracted gaze, lips turned down into a glum frown. "You gotta fight to protect what's important to you, right? Do anything you can. We all do, in the end."
The boy noticed the odd change in her but chose to ignore it. Instead he rested his back against the wall and chuckled.
"What's so funny?" Whip demanded.
"Second time I've learned that lesson," he said. "And it's the second time that a bird was the one to teach it to me."
"They say the third time's the charm, but I figure we don't have enough time for you to have any more do-overs. So what's the bottom line, white bread?"
Penance locked eyes with Whip.
"Black Hat is gonna die," he said. "And we are going to kill him. Together. And whatever he might mean to me, well, it doesn't much matter anymore. 'Cause we're killing him for one reason, and it's the only reason that really matters."
"In the end? Yeah, it is." Whip nodded solemnly. "But what about this 'Carlin Gay' and all that muscle on the street?"
"Next to Black Hat?" Penance shook his head. "They're not important."
Somewhere down the nape of his neck a faint tingle tickled the boy's spine and a phantom cold settled into his bones, as if a piece of ice were pressed down over his skin. He dismissed it as soon as he felt it, especially when Whip picked up on the warm confidence in his eyes and gave him a reassuring smile in return.
His thinking had been backwards, he admitted. It had been turned the wrong way around. He had been acting foolishly. Now, however, his thoughts were clear. He was ready to face his true enemy— this time not to die fighting him, but to survive, and with a friend by his side no less.
"From here on out," Penance said, "I'm only focusing on what really matters."
He added a small smile to his warm, confident eyes.
And then he scratched the back of his neck.
