A crime of passion.
I've brought him down to my level.
The distance, a blockade of alienating space, is gone. Up close, a decision that was so clear, so singular a moment ago is becoming lost in a fog of conflicting thoughts and emotions.
There's a crack in the rhythm of bullets and blood.
And you can't help but stop and think.
This one's yours, Payne, you're the only one who can solve it.
Vlad's still recovering from the fall. The taunts and explosions are replaced by vacant, dead air.
Looks like he's ran out of lines.
Hell may be in the process of becoming snowball-friendly, but over here, the heat is threatening to reach blood boiling levels. The fire spreads its presence around us, consuming traces of humanity. Leaving bare, charred skeletons masquerading as concepts.
I slowly level the gun to his head.
My arm is weighted down by gravitational forces desperate to provide an antithesis. I keep it straight.
Mine?
He's mine alright.
But the solution?
Is just another part of the problem.
A bullet in the head.
There's steady warmth formed by the friction with the trigger, familiar and almost comforting in its way. Warmth that embellishes the gates to my personal hell.
The gun holds a dozen metal-coated answers, ready to erupt. Ready to end it all.
Eye for an eye.
The only philosophy I've been able to co-exist with for the last few years.
The only absolute truth in a sea of never-ending deception.
But something in this picture doesn't fit.
The killer's looking for an answer, but he's looking for it in the wrong place.
A key element is absent. Or perhaps warped in a way that places it beyond recognition.
Vlad's gaze is set on the gun, fixated with a deadly calm.
There's an emotion lurking behind his eyes, vague but distinguishable.
Acceptance?
Not his style.
No, it's something else. The one thing I don't have.
The missing detail.
He should be looking for it in his own head.
Longing.
I have no idea what's going on inside Vlad's head – I'm not sure he does.
But I know that there is no clarity in mine. No answers.
Not anymore.
Nothing but questions.
"Do you want to die?"
For an instant, confusion pays a visit to his face. He was expecting a bullet, not a question mark.
But I'm not in an expectation meeting mood.
"I'm not afraid of dying."
A sentiment of default defiance.
I don't need to be told that. It's as fundamental as wet rain and red blood. It's tied to who he is. Who we are.
For us, Death is an old friend, stopping by every Monday and Thursday for a chat and a cup of tea. Just waiting to hand out the final embrace.
Who fears the embrace of a friend?
Still, I'm not letting him get away with the easy answer.
"That's not what I asked."
"I-" he pauses, actually taking the time to think, for a change. "There are worse things than death."
A baby's cry abruptly cut short.
A kiss forever out of reach.
A life that's nothing but thin wrapping of survival covering a hollow, long-lost core.
"I know."
Silence again.
I keep watching him, trying to decipher a miniature piece of this twisted spectacle. To find sense where there is none.
A litany of emotions dance across his face, a treacherous flux trapped inside a single moment. Subtle and endlessly shifting in a manner that makes it impossible to follow or pinpoint, even by the most seasoned of detectives.
This leaves me with only my own to focus on.
They're nearly as evasive.
The first one I cross is a forced tissue of anger, a thin layer stretched out as a protective shell, blocking out everything else.
A pale imitation of that old familiar feeling.
It's surprisingly easy to remove. Like peeling away dead skin. It loosens and fades away.
The gun is beginning to feel cooler against my skin. A foreign object trying to pass as a desirable presence. Providing cold comfort and little else.
Vlad's face provides a battlefield for mercurial shadows and elusive lights, slowly revealing a pained turn in his expression. The sticky mess of adrenaline and psychosis, improvised superglue that has been holding him together so far, must be dissolving. This leaves room for sensation – reality – to catch up.
My own charge is also wearing off, leaving in its wake deadweight exhaustion and the throbbing of dull, distant ache.
Reality is an untamable beast neither of us is eager to face.
Reality forces you to peek outside the endless walls of your own pain.
To look into the face of the man in front of you.
And when you do, you can no longer see the abstract lines of good and evil, of clear-cut revenge.
You see a person.
A friend.
"Why?"
The eternal question. One I've been avoiding for as long as I can remember.
It has no answer. No purpose. No meaning.
I don't even know whether I intend it for Vlad, myself, or whatever sociopathic entity disguising itself as a higher power these days.
And yet, for some reason, it matters now.
"Fate."
It's the same old excuse. A cliché with a pleasant ring to it, fronting for a deeper truth.
Or a deeper lie.
There's something different this time, though. Shakiness invades it, turning it into a collection of vocalized letters hanging loosely in empty space, detached from their concept.
So much for fatalism.
It's a one-time opportunity, I realize. A loophole. With one bolt loosened, I might actually reach through.
Lift the prism of make-belief reality and see things for what they really are.
"You actually believe that?"
He sighs, the façade of bleak nonchalance dripping with tired irritation.
A façade that quakes and then drops as he utters the next words.
"I don't know."
The bare admission changes everything.
It means we're both stuck in the dark corridor of this misshapen labyrinth together. Equally trapped and blinded by it.
Fate.
The road of inevitability laid out for you, paving your life with tragedies and ironies. Smiling mockingly as you thrash about, attempting to break free from its constraints. The battle of a fly inside an upturned glass.
Merciless.
It has brought us to this point. Separated by the point of a gun. Balancing on the razor edge of sanity.
A balance that has long since tipped outside of humanity's borders.
But we were both wrong.
There's always a choice.
You can pretend that you don't have it. Keep following that imaginary straight line, never taking a single turn. Let kinetic energy mindlessly push you on.
You can even call it fate.
Another frozen moment passes between us, highlighted by the reflection of flames engraved onto the polished surface of the gun.
Fate can only take you so far.
In the end, you're bound to come across a fork in the road.
And then, the only thing you're left with is a choice.
There's only one question left.
How do you make it?
I search for insight in Vlad's eyes. Evidence, clues, signs pointing to the right answer.
He looks more lost than I feel.
Funny. He always seemed to have an impeccable sense of direction.
Yet somehow we ended up in a straight collision course, playing chicken at impossible odds. Without the benefits of fear and common sense.
It's game over now. The high score of destruction advertising itself in the scorched ruins of the manor; the sound of all-consuming flames, a pyromaniac's wet dream, becoming the background tune.
There are no winners.
Only causalities.
And the sole survivors, brothers left stranded on the opposite sides of an ancient, forgotten war.
Both still prisoners of it, facing a trial by fire in the court of chaos.
Vlad gave me his truth. Now I have to face some truths of my own.
I'm not a cop anymore.
Haven't been for a while now, no matter how hard I've tried to play pretend.
The badge never quite fit the same way since that blood soaked snowstorm - the miniature Armageddon that for a brief time, brought peace.
Maybe even before that.
Points of no return rarely come with a two-way ticket.
What am I, then?
A justice delivery boy?
If there ever was such a thing as justice, it has abandoned my world long ago.
There is no place for Hollywood-painted illusions amidst the wreckage.
I'm no different from Vlad.
We're both killers with a broken code.
There's no right or wrong here.
What it really comes down to is simple.
Another binary choice.
Revenge.
Or friendship.
Both concepts are interlaced, tied together in an uncompromising Gordian knot.
But only one is real.
I lower the gun.
Vlad's reaction is closer to that of a man who's just been shot. A flare of despair lights up, shooting his whole face into a wild grimace.
With the last barrier removed, there's nothing left to keep the show going.
"Max, I'm supposed to fall."
His plea rings through me, tearing through both collective and individual scar tissue.
At this moment, I couldn't be more tired if I spent an eternity dragging a rock up a mountain slope, or holding the sky in place.
Was a murder weapon what he wanted me to be?
My role in this little puppet theater?
I shake my head, trying to grasp at the notion and extinguish it at the same time.
I'm done playing along.
He was mocking my detective skills earlier, and right now, I'm not feeling so hot about them either.
When you're consumed by the melody of carnage, the sound of a million bullet shells hitting the floor, hushed by soft music coming from a baby's crib, by the distant cries of the woman you loved - you deafen yourself to everything else.
The clue hasn't ripped through my heart or blown up in my face, but it's here nonetheless.
I should've seen it. Whatever being of mutilated mythology eating away at him from the inside.
Then again, he's always been one hell of an actor.
His act is breaking apart now. Gaping holes blown right through it, shaped as nonexistent wounds. Exposing raw, unhinged pain that brightly contrasts the one twisted into my soul.
He emits a laugh – a sharp, shapeless sound brutally brushing against the hollows of the manor ruins, touched by an undercut of hysteria. An echo to itself.
The little Dutch boy has removed his finger from the dam, and the roar of a savage tide smashes against desperate defensive barriers.
The flood is just around the corner.
And a bit more literally than Vlad would've liked.
I can see tears beginning to form, inversing everything he's pretended to be, everything he's tried to be.
Welcome back to the human race, Vlad.
The fall must have hurt.
But at least it's the real deal.
He closes his eyes, still trying to hide from me. From himself.
It's not working anymore.
The role he'd adapted was nothing more than a do-it-yourself plastic surgery. A mask sewed in roughly at a skin-deep level, patched over by clichés.
The latest of a thousand disguises tailored to conceal one person. A person climbing to the end of the world just to avoid having to be himself.
Fire and water have formed an unsparing pact, a flaming tsunami washing it all away. Leaving him with no armor, no aces up his sleeve, and no way of fighting back.
I've never seen him cry. Never imagined I would.
If my tears hadn't dried up long ago, I might've joined him.
"What do you want from me, Max? What the fuck do you want?"
It's funny, how the answer to that question keeps eluding me. Like an illusionist's hat flying away at the last moment, as you reach out to grab it.
Only minutes ago, I had just one item on that list. To take him down.
New York minutes have a tendency of turning the world on its heels.
What do I want?
To draw the curtain on this bloodthirsty commedia dell'arte.
To try and salvage what I can from the wreckage.
To be the one thing he least expects me to be right now. His friend.
I put the gun away and make my way to him, crouching at his side and reaching out for his shirt.
He flinches at the touch, drawing back.
"What are you doing?"
I can feel his heart hammering, racing to catch up with some invisible, unattainable goal.
Or trying to escape it.
Not an unnatural reaction, when you have a madhouse built into your soul.
"Making sure you don't bleed out."
"Why?"
The eternal question. One I've been avoiding for as long as I can remember.
It has no answer. No purpose. No meaning.
"Guess it's not fate."
As I unbutton his shirt, I recall the first time he wore the suit, grinning ear-to-ear and showing it off like an overexcited kid with a new toy.
The toy is broken now; the white randomly splattered with abstract reds.
Maybe it's not his color.
"Am I burning, Max?"
I can't tell if he's being figurative, hallucinating, or over-dramatizing.
A little bit of all three, possibly.
Though in actuality, he's edging awfully close to hyperthermia. Maybe his body is trying to fight off the foreign vortex of unchecked emotion. Or slice out the pulsating, poisonous tumor that has enjoyed years of sheltered greenhouse growth.
"No, Vlad, you're not burning. You're just a little hot, that's all."
With the shirt out of the way, I inspect him for wounds.
What I find are deep scratches, scrapes and grazes. Nothing even remotely lethal. As if the bullets danced off him, leaving signatures of invisible ink.
Vlad may have lost interest in fate, but apparently, fate hasn't forgotten him.
Of course, it could have been good old dumb luck. My own guardian angel.
It seems to be attracted to our brand of people.
"It's not fair."
The declaration, sounding more like a hushed whimper, catches me off-guard.
Fair, last I heard,was spotted playing musical chairs with Barney and his happy family.
It seems that the whole world is rattled by the tantrums of overgrown children, unleashing hurt by raining down destruction on life-size sand castles.
"What isn't?"
"He told you he was sorry. The son of a bitch didn't even think of offering me an apology."
Only nothing is ever that simple.
Whatever had gone on between Vlad and Woden had obviously set its roots much deeper than any explosives can reach.
He's shaking now, breathe coming out in low whistles, like the sound of wind blowing through the hollow of a bullet shell.
The only support I can offer is physical, holding a hand to his shoulder. Something he could grasp on to. He shifts his head in its direction, desperate for some basic connection.
Serving time in a fortress of anguish I have no hope of breaching.
For several seconds of resurrected kinship, we hold on. A primal familial instinct clashing with a nearly extinguished survivor one.
There's nothing more I can do for him right now. And there's still the aftermath of this bloodbath to deal with.
The victim of his cataclysmic rebellion.
Mona.
A chill passes through me as I bring her name to my consciousness. A fresh wave of pain stinging against my reborn empathy.
But I have no room left for blame.
"You'll be okay." It's about as relative an assurance as it gets, but I have to give him something. "I have to go. I'll be back."
I turn to leave, then remember to add an obligatory word of caution.
Or perhaps a plea.
"Don't do anything stupid."
I'm not even sure he hears it.
And to be honest, the whole day has been a rabid string of one stupid succeeding another.
I trace my way back through the trail of corpses I'd left behind. Not as aesthetic as pebbles, but more effective than bread crumbs.
The manor, once a hall of kings, is now a cracked, crumbling shell. A house of cards being rapidly consumed by the fallout left over by a savage game of War. Expensive painting, antique furniture, marble floors - all splattered with blood, decorated by bullet holes.
Just another crime scene.
It's all the same in the end.
I finally reach the hallway that started this makeshift judgment day.
Ground zero.
It's empty.
I can't figure out whether I've just walked into an optical illusion, or stepped out of one.
There are no bodies. No blood. Not even the token courtesy of bullet shells.
I'm willing to bet that a paper moon can be found around here somewhere, if you look hard enough, but I see nothing but smoke filled air. The lone remainder from this impossible feat of sleight of hand.
Logic whispers that I should feel a bare minimum of surprise.
But logic and I have long since lost touch.
If there'd been a laugh track to my universe, this is where it might have gone off.
The princess is in another castle.
So is the one-eyed king.
And the joke is on me.
Personally, I don't know whether I should laugh or cry.
The repeat performance of the disappearing act casts a pale light on the last few days, dispelling fever daydreams.
She was supposed to fix everything.
Fix me.
Some things are just beyond fixing.
Maybe she'll re-emerge again two years from now. Deus ex machina. A celestial presence from a distant realm.
But I'm tired of waiting.
Tired of living in a bubble of phantom pain.
Of phantom love.
I've received my wake up call.
It's time I answered it.
Leaving the land of the blind, my sight readjusts itself.
A little less black, a little more color.
I climb back up, the stairway taking over the vacant antagonist slot.
As I practice what feels like alpinism with a 3-G pull, I make a mental inventory list that encompasses the leftovers of my reality.
A dead past that refuses to be buried.
The vapor trail of a woman I longed to love.
One hell of a headache.
And a broken gangster who needs me more right now than any of my old ghosts.
I get to the top of the burning tower - the first of three cards laid out for me two years ago.
For a second, I'm hit with a ridiculous uncertainty. What if he's gone too? Just another illusion to add to the mix?
But he's at the exact same spot where I left him, rooted into it with the stillness of a corpse.
The only thing to counter that impression is the slow rise and fall of his chest.
His shirt is still open, pale torso bared as if awaiting his heart to be ripped out for human sacrifice.
His face is blank, a vacant gaze turned to the ceiling. An exhibition of resigned apathy.
I near him, and he reacts belatedly, eyes traveling to meet mine. His lips part, voicing a soundproof emotion.
Psychotic break over, Vlad? Ready to come out and play with the other kids now?
"How're you doing?"
"Never better," his voice carries a minimalist edge, conveying an approximate nothing. "You?"
"Same old."
"Is Sax…" he trails off, waiting for me to fill the gap.
"Gone." Before a misinterpretation gets a chance to sneak in, I amend, "As in disappeared. She likes to do that."
He gives a slight frown.
"There goes your damsel in distress," a freshly formed dark smirk fails to conceal a certain amount of relief. "The mysteriously vanishing femme fatale. And they say I'm clichéd."
"Woden, too."
His eyes narrow, and he sends a perplexed glance to the large gun tacked into my belt.
The bullet lodged in my skull reacts unfavorably.
"Trust me, they weren't blanks."
He lifts an eyebrow, then turns back to study the glass-confined sky.
"I guess this puts a bit of a halt on both our fairy tales."
That's one way of looking at it.
I prefer the good old 'life sucks'.
"Guess so."
The second card was the Devil.
And I'm sticking to the devil I know.
None of us is a saint.
"Get off your ass, Big Bad. Let's blow this joint."
The wave of perplexity washing over his face makes it all the more worthwhile.
"Wouldn't want the police catching up," I clarify. "You're too pretty for prison."
I've always wondered how shock would look like on him.
A bit like a daisy chain tied around a crocodile's maw.
He's not the only one who can relish the element of surprise.
I extend my arm to him, and after a moment's hesitation, he grabs on to it.
An amusing thought flickers by.
This is love.
When someone drags you from the wreckage when you have given in, ready to just lie there and die.
There are different kinds of love.
I pull him up and he leans onto me, not placing any pressure on his left foot, which appears to be injured.
From this angle, his face is clearer. It's a mess. Dried tear tracks smudged in grime, with featured bruises.
It's not the most presentable I've seen him look.
But it is the most human.
There's a rare, all but extinct breed of openness in his eyes, and for a while, we just share a gaze.
Eventually, a smile comes into existence. Not his usual brand; this one couldn't compete in an international sparkle tournament, or star in an all-American commercial. It's hesitant, nearly fragile.
Then, it enters the familiar realm of Cheshire cats.
That was quick.
With his rebound ability, he should've considered taking up professional basketball.
As the ball.
Maybe he'd prefer the imagery of a phoenix rising from the ashes, though.
It's more dramatic.
But not as bouncy.
"You really are my hero, you know that?"
It's probably ridiculous, but I find the sentiment oddly touching, over-the-top as it is.
"It's not the easiest job in the world, Vlad," I exhale, awarding him with a vague trace of a smirk. "Maybe you should start paying me."
His face grows serious, intensely so. A naked emotion joins in, but before I even get the chance to decipher the meaning behind it, he leans in -
And kisses me.
Huh.
Well.
Not exactly the sort of payment I had in mind.
A murky realization flashes by, regarding certain statements made; statements which were perhaps intended more seriously than they were interpreted.
His lips continue to form a light pressure against my own, and the realization fades into the background of smoke and mirrors.
With the amount of strangeness I've dealt with tonight, this doesn't feel as alarming and out of place as it probably should. Actually, it feels almost...
Right.
My hand somehow finds its way to the back of his head – I can't recall willing it there, but it acts independently, driven by the moment. I trace a bump there - a mild memento from a graceless fall, coated with blood. I gently brush my fingers over it, and he tilts his head a bit, pressing in closer.
There isn't much of the physical realm of sensation to be found in this. Between the two of us, there's enough numbness and exhaustion to fill a chloroform container. Instead, there's a connection, almost serene, contrasting with the post-traumatic rubble around us. A closeness that for this odd little moment transcends the typical miscommunication that's essential to being human. To being us.
Things don't look so complicated.
They just are.
And then it's over.
He's the one to break it, shifting his head sideways so we're cheek to cheek; a touch that persists for a brief while before disconnecting as well.
There is no room for verbalization, and I doubt my unbaked thoughts are even capable of putting two and two together.
For a change, he accommodates the silence.
It's not strained or awkward. In fact, there's something soothing about it.
An understanding.
There's comfort to be found in mutual insanity.
Once the air of fatigue clears out, though, we'll probably need to start piecing this peculiarly shaped puzzle together.
For now, we just leave it at that.
Speaking of which, it's time to make our exit. Probably not the 'beautiful' one Vlad had in mind, but you can't have everything.
Before we go, there's a loose end that needs tying.
I take out my badge; run my thumb over the letters that were once a second nature to me.
Now they're hieroglyphs on a cold surface.
I give it a last caress.
The third card was death.
At the time, I thought it was me.
But death means letting go.
I toss the badge into the infernal pit – it's not as bottomless as one would've wanted, and the dim sound of metal connecting with stone reaches me from afar.
Vlad follows the descent with his gaze, but says nothing.
Then we take off, traveling side by side in a combined limp.
The silence has overreached its welcome limit, and for once, I'm the one to remove it.
"What exactly were you planning on doing, once you took over?"
A one-shouldered shrug and a mildly puzzled expression come into existence before he replies. "I wasn't really thinking that far ahead. This was supposed to be the climax."
"Let me get this straight, Vlad. You orchestrated this whole thing, this massive conspiracy, only to get to this point... then wing it?"
"When you put it like that, it almost sounds like a bad plan," he pauses, furrowing his brow for a moment, then serves his usual grin, "I have great winging skills."
If there hadn't already been a bullet lodged in my brain to take care of that particular angle, this statement alone would've served for terrific migraine fodder.
"Winging skills?" I echo, unable to stifle a smirk. "Just throw in a halo and you'll be a regular angel. You've already got the color scheme down."
As I speak, a mental image forms against my will - a fallen angel, wings melted, halo torn and bloody. Luminous glow terminated with extreme prejudice by a fire extinguisher. I try to attach it to Vlad, but he returns a slightly puzzled gaze, and the image dies away.
"I'm thinking of switching it, actually. It's a little -" he glances down, eyes traveling across several dark red stains, "- impractical."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Maybe I'll go back to black," he muses out loud. "It never gets old."
"It's slimming, too," I point out.
A narrow-eyed gaze meets mine half-way, "What are you implying?"
"Nothing, Vlad. Did anyone ever tell you you're a little paranoid?"
A short pause hangs in the air.
"I think Gognitti might be haunting me," he mutters then, half to himself, the note being one of awkward confession more than anything. He shifts his head in my direction, revealing an uneasy frown. "That's not normal, is it?"
I return a slight headshake.
Although pinpointing Vlad is a task even Freud reincarnate would have trouble with, I'd say that 'normal' is one definition that he can safely escape.
A Study In Wildly Abnormal Psychology, Lesson 1 – Vladimir Lem.
I wonder if that's a test I'll ever have a chance of passing.
"You're anything but normal, Vlad," I assure him. "Phenomenal, if anything."
"Why, thank you, Max," he turns on a shiny, sarcasm-immune grin, pressing his hand warmly into my shoulder. "I love you too."
I snort.
Then I notice the strangely earnest glint in his eyes.
Great.
Just then you thought the headache might be receding.
Vlad has a real talent for those.
Exiting the burning graveyard that was once a manor, we're greeted by a gust of wind untouched by suffocating entropy. It may not be fresh air, but it's as good as it gets. The contrast is dizzying, almost violent. We stop awhile to drink it in.
It is almost morning, waking up from the American Dream.
But nothing clicks into place, or makes sudden sense.
No easy, magical solutions. For either of us. I doubt we'll be finding our answers anytime soon.
But at least the questions are there.
The questions, the debris and now a newborn will to climb out of it.
Maybe, in time, make it habitable again.
Finally, we reach my car. Fate has switched our places. I take the driver's seat this time.
I slide the key in – a puzzle piece that actually fits, for once.
There is no final gunshot.
The place where the exclamation mark should go is now filled by a question mark just as big.
The engine comes alive, and in this moment, so do I.
Considering the present company, this is probably as far from heaven as it gets.
But maybe it's time to start thinking in human terms.
We drive away. The manor is becoming a mere dot in the rear view mirror. The police sirens are a distant echo to a past life.
The sun is coming up. The light is so foreign. Blinding.
I catch a hint of a smile forming on Vlad's lips, and for reasons unknown to me, I return it.
Some endings, I decide, are better left open.