Chapter 15: Fate
Dark clouds rumbled.
Black shoes and a suit scrambled over rooftops. Stumbled, slipped. Tumbled against a low chimney, breathing hard.
Peter Trousseau grunted in pain. He cursed the chimney, cursed the roof, the dark sky, his life, but mostly the stupid mask on his face. He tore it off.
Another rudely shoved its way into his vision. "Keep it on, you idiot!"
"I can't see a damned thing, Vélohr," he said.
"You answered the call, so you wear it!" said Verloc. "That's the way it works!" He looked about, swiftly, and checked the clip in his pistol. "They're coming this way: the targets."
"Targets," muttered Peter, strapping the mask in place. "They're not targets, they're our neighbours!"
"Do you think I'm happy about any of this?" hissed Verloc. "Think I'm happy that I had to order an assault on my own apartment?"
"Mama, Papa…my God…"
"We have our orders, and we follow them. That's how it works."
"Mad," whispered Peter, "this is all mad."
"They're the mad ones, Peter. They're the killers, the murderers, who hid right under our noses. They're the ones who killed Blanche and his team. And we're the ones who will stop them."
Lightning crashed amongst the clouds.
"You take that direction," said Verloc, gesturing east, "I'll take this one. And click it off, already!" He snatched the gun from Peter's hands, released the safety catch, and tossed it back. Peter fumbled it, then held it in shaking palms. "You're un Chevalier du Paris, a soldier of Justice! Act like one!"
"This is nuts," he said, to the gun. "This is crazy. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here!"
"You run," said Verloc, scanning the horizon, "and there is no place they won't find you, or your family."
"Your fault," he sobbed, "all your fault. All of this. You forced me into it."
"Forced? I did nothing but show you the inevitable truth. Now, get up! Be a man, for God's sake!"
"I was a constable, you were a captain. You forced me, all those years ago. Should never have come. Should never have listened. Never. Never. Should've run. Should've hid."
A hammer cocked. He froze, and looked up.
A masked man was aiming a gun at him.
"Shut. Up." Verloc steadied his aim. "And get on your feet. It was your choice to make, your word to give; you made it, and you gave it. Now live with it, or die a coward."
Behind the mask, Peter felt his cold terror melt at the touch of fury.
Verloc checked over his shoulder, and took cover behind the opposite chimney. "Get ready. They're coming."
Hesitantly, Peter peeked over the edge of his cover.
The roofs of Paris swarmed with masks and suits; he knew them all by name. Brun over to the right, Violet and Ripley three homes ahead. In the distance were at least twenty more; some he had worked with, others he drank with, a few he barely knew at all.
All were fighting, and dying, one by one. Two figures, one blue and white, the other red and black, barely visible in the gloom, danced across the rooftops, leaping from ambush to ambush, ravenous prey, on the hunt. Guns blazed, knives flashed, men fell, again and again. The red figure gunned down Ripley on the run. He shut his eyes, terrified. He heard two screams, which he knew were Violet and Brun.
A woman cried out in surprise.
He looked.
There, on the edge of the roof before and below them, a blonde haired woman hung precariously, having almost fallen onto the street. The target.
No…not just that, said a voice in his head. A good tenant. A neighbour. A thing of beauty. A friend to your parents. To you. Hanging there, defenceless. Helpless.
"My parents," he whispered. He envisioned them now, holding each other, trembling in the dark, too scared to move. Heard the terrible sounds that shattered their tranquil evening. Felt in his heart them calling, calling for their son to come home. "Their son…me…my parents…"
And then grief turned hot, and set his fear ablaze. He turned to his left, slowly. There, through the two slits of the accursed mask he was wearing, was him. The one who terrorized them, who gave the order, who watched three of his best friends storm armed into the very home he grew up in, and shed no tears when they didn't come out. The one behind it all: the man of Justice.
Verloc stood, and took careful aim at the distant figure. "Got you!" he said.
"Verloc!"
Guns blazed.
A wild shot grazed Verloc, distracting him. He missed, just. He whirled, eyes furious. "You!"
Peter breathed hard. The gun quaked in his hands, smoking.
Verloc swung about, pulled the —
Two shots, muted by distance, echoes, and the rumbling clouds, rang out.
Verloc's mask flew off in a shower of blood and shrapnel. He grunted, spun, flopped onto the roof tiles, and lay still.
The gun slipped from Peter's fingers, and skittered down the roof. He slid down the chimney onto his rear, stunned. His ears heard running steps, raised voices, the sounds of battle…he ignored them all. He struggled to breathe. His hands moved to cradle his head, and met mask. He tore it from his face in anger, and hurled it aside.
"His fault," he thought, as he cradled his knees. "His, not mine. He forced me. Should have let me out. Let me run. Their fault, too. My parents. Had a plan, had an escape. Held me back. All these years, held me back. Could've been somebody. Could've been big. Could've…"
Memories bubbled forth, unbidden. Of promotions, offered, and passed over; of desk jobs, sought, rather than avoided; of opportunities for adventure, for success, for glory, seen and shunned out for sake of his own skin. Of the man who came to him one day, offering him the power and glory he'd always wanted, but feared to take. Of how eagerly he took his hand.
"No," he whispered. "My fault. Mine. All mine. Always mine."
More thoughts: of his mother's lips on his forehead, every day before school; of his father on the side of his bed, spinning tales straight from his head, every night; of his father, stern with disapproval, paying his entrance to the police academy, nonetheless; of his mother's warm embrace on the day of his graduation; of their tired, worried faces on those nights he'd come home late; of their joy and open arms when he didn't. Countless bonds of love and affection, surrounding him, a web he'd always struggled to escape from, while secretly enjoying its soft warmth.
A sob wracked his body. "Mama…Papa…I'm sorry, so sorry…"
A thump on the roof tiles. He stirred from his grief, just.
There were two pink shoes on the leads before him.
He looked up, slowly.
A young girl, Asian, sharp, focused, determined, and merciless, had a gun to his head.
Their eyes met.
She blinked. Her eyes lost some of their edge. Her breathing quickened. Briefly, some sort of struggle seemed to play out over her face. The gun wavered.
A tear started from one of his eyes. He blinked it away.
She vanished.
In the distance, he heard, once more, the sounds of war. Clouds growled overhead.
Shaking, Peter Trousseau rose, and stood on his own two feet. He sniffled, wiped away his tears, and took stock of his world. All around him were the shapes of the fallen, barely distinguishable in the midnight black beneath the ominous clouds. Slowly, he turned, and, like a man condemned, shuffled off into the night.
There was a metallic 'click.'
Through his mental haze of grief and fear, Peter heard the laboured, obstreperous gasps of a dying man. His head rotated towards the sound, pulled by threads of fate.
Verloc lay on his heaving, bleeding chest, his left arm pinned beneath it. One of his eyes was a mass of blood, the other a twitching ball of hatred. With his free arm, he raised his weapon, clenched in a death-grip.
"Traitor!" he hissed.
Tears rolled down Peter's face. "Father," he whispered. "Forgive —"
Heaven let slip the thunderbolt, and Justice was served.