Whatsoever I fought off became my life.
Just when every day seemed to greet me with a smile,
Sunspots have faded and now I'm doing time."
– SOUNDGARDEN, "Fell On Black Days"
The gunshot exploded hotly, seeming to turn the air itself red with its velocity. The crow's very nerve-strings twitched and sang, and the bird felt something deep within itself react to the vibrancy of a soul so abruptly expelled from its heavy mortal cradle of flesh. One down, it told itself.
Grantaire lowered the pistol and knelt down beside the corpse sprawled across the floor. Mardisoir's remaining eye stared off blankly at the wall, wide and opaque. The right side of his head had been almost completely obliterated.
"No need for you to journey on alone, damned soul," he whispered into the dead man's ear. "Wait a little while longer – your friends will be joining you soon enough. Wait and see if old Charon's ferry is strong enough to take you all at once."
He reached across Mardisoir's body and retrieved the sword. The golden hoop still hung on the fine point of the blade, slick with blood. He slipped the earring into one of his pockets, not quite knowing why, and examined the blade briefly. It was crafted with fine steel, and the sword felt slightly heavier in his hand than the practice single-sticks he had used when he trained, a thousand and one years ago.
The crow was still on the desk, but now it croaked a warning.
watch out
Grantaire was already on guard, one weapon in either hand.
The door to Mardisoir's "office" burst open and two men stumbled into the room, two of the three who had been sitting in the front room of the tavern when Grantaire had arrived. Their eyes reflected surprise and shock back at Grantaire as they took in the sight of their dead employer and his masked assassin standing over him.
Grantaire remained as still and silent as a coiled spring, unsurprised to discover that he was rather hoping that they would try to make a move against him. Behind him, the crow shifted restlessly.
you'll spill enough blood before this is over boy so just be careful
The largest of the two large men took a step towards him. Grantaire raised the pistol – he hadn't had time to re-load it, but the man didn't know that, did he? Obviously not, he stopped still once more.
"My quarrel isn't with you," he told the two men flatly. "I'm finished here. Let me pass."
The man, chagrined at being held at bay so easily, now bristled visibly. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded furiously.
"Who I am doesn't matter. My name won't be recognised."
The man glowered. He appeared ready to step forward again when the other man spoke.
"Tell us who you work for, then."
Grantaire shifted his attention to the second man. Just as heavily built, but a couple of inches shorter. His blunt-featured face was set off by two sharp and somewhat clever eyes.
"Someone who was done a great deal of harm."
"I gather." The man's eyes slid down to Mardisoir's body, then back up to Grantaire. "But do you –"
"Do you know who that man worked for?" the first man interrupted sneeringly. His heavy hands were clenched into fists as he too glanced down at Mardisoir. "He was with Montparnasse. That name sound familiar?"
Grantaire closed his eyes and saw a knife held in a sure and steady hand, bright with blood and malice. "It does."
When he opened his eyes again, the first man was grinning. "In that case, you should know that Montparnasse always finds out when someone makes a strike against one of his. And he acts."
Grantaire glanced over to the corner where he had found the sword. Without speaking, he walked over and picked up the belt and sheath, into which he slid the blade. Then he looked back at the two men who were standing their ground.
"I'm going to leave now," he said quietly. "Don't try to stop me, because I don't want to have to kill you. I want you to pass on a message to Montparnasse, and to Brujon, Gueulemer and Laveuve, should you know who and where they are."
The second man's gaze did not waver. "What's the message?"
I've always wondered what the going price for a soul is these days, Grantaire found himself thinking. And now I know. Five hundred francs.
He forced himself to focus and look back at the man who had spoken. "Tell them that their sins have been remembered and a debt collector approaches," he replied. "One whom all the hounds of Hell wouldn't be able to keep at bay."
"So you're making threats now," the first man snarled. But after receiving a quick glance from his companion, he grudgingly stepped away from the open door.
"Thank you." Grantaire nodded curtly at him and continued walking forward. The crow flew to his shoulder.
He stepped out into the low-ceilinged corridor and walked swiftly towards the doorway that opened into the front room of the tavern. He could hear the second man tell the first to look to the body and then hurry into the corridor, so he stopped and looked back.
The second man was gazing at him, his eyes narrowed.
"Do they know for whom this debt is being collected?" he asked.
Grantaire considered for a moment. "Tell them that Justin Enjolras sends his regards."
The man nodded, face grave. The crow stirred on Grantaire's shoulder.
come now leave this place
And he needed no second bidding.
The wind had picked up once more and Grantaire felt its cool familiar fingers brush roughly through his hair as he emerged into the street. The cobblestones glimmered dully up at him, reflecting everything and nothing. Despite the wind the air tasted flat and still, like stale water that has been left too long in a cup in a closed room. He thought of the dead man lying in the back room of the tavern and he thought of the dead man's soul, shrieking and howling its way down towards – what exactly?
His thoughts were interrupted by the crow, inquisitive.
that earring can't be worth much why did you take it
"Souvenir."
if you wanted a souvenir there was plenty else you could have taken six hundred francs for instance
Grantaire shook his head. "No. The man earned his blood money. He can keep it, for all the good it does him now. I took all I needed from him."
you're handy with a sword by the way
He shrugged as he buckled the belt around his waist. The sword hung comfortably at his right side concealed beneath his long coat. The gun he tucked into an inner coat pocket on the other side. "Handier as I used to be. What's that about, anyway?"
The crow ruffled its feathers.
you've been given the skills you'll need that's all
"How generous of . . ." Grantaire shrugged again as he began walking. "Of whoever's responsible for all of this."
glad you think so
"Would have been just as generous to stop it happening in the first place though." Grantaire's voice was hard and savage, and it bit into the crow far deeper than the wind. "If someone out there cared enough to bring a dead drunkard back to life so he could play fortune's fool for just a while longer, surely they could have cared enough to stop those monsters from . . ."
He pulled the mask from his face and rubbed at his watering eyes.
The crow remained silent, allowing the man to re-gather his thoughts as he strode onwards. It wondered whether its charge had any real understanding of what he had begun and of what would be asked of him.
A small ragged child hunched in a doorway, glancing disinterestedly at Grantaire as he passed. Before he knew what he was doing, Grantaire stopped, produced the earring and threw it down to the urchin. The boy squinted, assessing the piece of jewellery and smiling faintly.
"Won't fetch much," Grantaire said gruffly, "but it'll fetch something, eh?"
He continued on his way.
so much for a souvenir
Grantaire couldn't quite bring himself to smile. "I knew a boy, once. Showed a great deal more pluck than anybody in his situation should ever have been able to."
where is he
"Gone. Just like the rest of us."
not all
"What's that supposed to mean?" Grantaire asked dully. "But I supposed nothing's changed after all. He's still right here where he's always been – inside me and around me and a million miles away, and the very stones in the street seem to sing his name to me." He sucked in a chilly breath. "I want him back. I want him safe. That's all."
The damned match wouldn't light, or maybe that was his stupid clumsy fingers, trembling too much to hold the thing steady. Finally it did – a flash and a small orange flame quivering in the still air – and he threw the match into the stove, onto the blood-spattered pages he'd torn out of the book, onto the clothes he'd been wearing, torn and stained with even more blood. He didn't know what he was burning them all for, except that he no longer wanted to own these things, he didn't want to have to look at them ever again.
If I could tear my own skin off, I'd burn that too.
He hunched on the floor of a cold barren room, keeping his raw red eyes fixed on the little flames licking at paper and cloth, consuming fragments of pain and growing larger on them. The cat was mewling behind him but he didn't dare look around, because that meant he would have to see his home, his very life torn apart and the bloodstains on the carpet and the wooden floor, the pages . . .
One of the sheets lay a short distance away and forcing himself not to acknowledge the pain that ripped through him with every movement, he somehow summoned the energy to crawl over and reach for it. Torn and creased, irrevocably polluted, he could scarcely believe that was his own handwriting swimming up to meet him, neat lines in dark ink: Pride, strength, self-respect – how can these pre-requisites for greatness be obtained by a people subjected? In order to be great, man must have –
He threw that one into the fire as well.
As he watched it blaze fiercely, then shrivel and crumple and melt away into hot ash, he wondered how he could be this close to the heat and yet feel so completely frozen. The room was silent save for the fire and the cat and the ringing in his ears, but still he could hear their voices, feel their hands upon him. Everything hurt and he wasn't even sure if he could feel his heart beating.
Somehow he heard Combeferre, a voice of calm and reason. You're hurt. You know you should see a doctor. You need help. But the voice was thin and filtered and brittle in a way it had never been before. For what felt like the first time ever, there was nothing to be gained there. At the moment, the very idea of looking into those familiar grey eyes ever again seemed obscene. Unthinkable.
"I should have been there!" There was a raging sob in Grantaire's voice that he could hold back no longer. "That night, I should have been there with him. I'd intended to, I was going to follow him, I think in some way I knew that something would happen. I was going to follow him like I'd done before, and just wait in the alcove in that hall, keep watch over him. But I didn't, I sat there in the Musain and drank, almost hating him for what he does to me. If I'd been there, then I could have done something. I could have stopped this from happening!"
A passer-by glanced up at the wild man, startled, then hastily averted their eyes and hurried on by. Grantaire walked on, regardless. The crow could sense its charge's grief, the searing white heat of it. I'm so sorry, it thought. I'm sorry for everything that's already happened, and for everything that could well happen from here on in.
A clock somewhere struck three, rousing both bird and man from their separate thoughts.
"How time flies when you're having fun," Grantaire said bitterly.