Judgement had been executed.
Justice had been done.
So why did it feel so terrible?
Why did it feel like… like murder?
Terry shuffled up the stairway of the low-end hotel he called 'home' at the moment. The hotel could be in a Southern drama from the thirties; it was a dilapidated old mansion in the French Quarter of New Orleans run by the last scion of the Old Money family that once owned half the state. No matter how long he was there, he always felt like an intruder, and half-expected a butler to throw him out as 'vagrant trash'. As a hotel it was positively extravagant. Each suite of rooms contained a bathroom, a dressing room, a small lounge and a spacious bedroom. By all rights, rich people should have been fighting to secure reservations. But the place had a sorrowful feeling that no amount of cheery paintings could remove.
Reaching the second floor, where his suite was located, he smiled automatically at the girl in the room across from his. She was a pretty thing, he supposed. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, and the kind of figure that you normally associate with a fashion runway. All wrapped in simple clothes of the lowly trekker; one who considers an economy seat on a plane to be nearly decadent luxury, and for whom hitchhiking is par for the course. He supposed most men would kill for the possibilities she offered him with a wink and a nod. But Terry wasn't 'most men', and his libido went on permanent leave a long time back. Back when he'd first killed.
Back when he learned what it really meant to be Euthanatos.
Kinda hard to focus on sex when you've got so much blood on your hands.
Terry opened the door to his suite. Like all the others it had originally been an extremely elegant set of rooms, probably designed in the last century for long-term guests of the family. However, the current owner had redecorated when she turned her home into a hotel, and had ditched elegant for… god only knew what. The décor was a mix of resort style tacky and mausoleum style gloom. It as painted a gloomy shade, somewhere between off-white and grey. The huge bay windows, with their elegant floor length curtains, looked out over the less trendy sections of the French Quarter., and in the aftermath of Katrina that was hardly a cheery sight. The lighting was insufficient, giving the room an even more gloomy tone, particularly around twilight. Attempts to lighten the mood with art would have been more successful had the decorator not chosen paintings of sun drenched tropical beaches. They were in NEW ORLEANS for gods sake, not Florida! There wasn't a palm tree for a hundred miles! All in all, the room was a subtle reminder to the young Euthanatos that change wasn't ALWAYS a good thing.
As always, the old man was sitting in the huge patent leather armchair, reading the paper in front of the bay windows which overlooked the city. Terry always found the view a little too depressing. It was all too easy to see the damage caused by the hurricane, and too difficult to find those small pockets that have been fully repaired.
The old man. Terry didn't even know his name and that was one MORE thing he was unhappy about. His mentor, the woman who'd been teaching him ever since his Awakening two years ago, had dragged him to Calcutta and told him this was his new teacher. Then she left. The woman who'd taught him everything he knew about magic, weapons, martial arts, about modern surveillance and the power of the gods, had left him alone with this stranger. This tall black man in his weird African robes, never saying two words if he thought one will do.
"Its done?" he said, not even looking at Terry as he said it.
"Yeah" Terry replied, his voice neutral "its done"
'It' was the killing—no, the execution of a local mobster. About a year ago, he'd gotten his hands on a few 'young' vampires; apparently he'd heard that their blood had some very interesting properties. He'd incapacitated the leeches and begun mixing the blood into his narcotics; the result was an ever-widening circle of super-strong drug addicts who would do anything for the gang-leader, as he threatened the vampire. They had been his private army, tearing apart his rivals, often with nothing more than their hands and teeth. He had used them as whores, as enforcers, as thieves, and as smugglers. Terry had tracked him down to his home and killed him. Unfortunately he had been forced by circumstance to do so in front of the animals family.
The bottom line was that tonight, because of Terry, three young children had watched their father die.
"Good" came the old mans reply.
Suddenly, Terry couldn't take it anymore. All the pain, all the anger, all the sadness and guilt within him ignited at that one word. "Good? GOOD! I killed a man in front of his children! I scarred them for life and deprived them of a father! No matter what he'd done THEY were innocent!"
Suddenly his 'mentor' sprang from the chair and blurred across the room. Terry barely had time to blink before the old man, suddenly directly in front of him, shoved him back. Terry impacted against the wall behind him with enough force to rattle the windows and knock a painting off the wall.
"Do you doubt the necessity of what this man LeBeaux's death?" he asked, in a voice that was dangerously calm.
Terry didn't respond right away. He knew (or he thought he knew) what the old man wanted to hear. A quick denial, an affirmation of Terry's belief. But he couldn't do that. He had to look within himself. If he had doubts now, he would have them again later, and the whole episode would repeat itself. Better to deal with it now. He searched his heart, and found the answer surprising.
"I don't doubt that…exactly. But I still…" he trailed off. Though Terry knew what he felt, he found himself unable to put it into words.
"But still, you wonder if perhaps ending this man caused more suffering than his continued existence would have?"
"No, that isn't it" Terry said.
"hmm… perhaps you wonder who gave you the right to inflict trauma upon these innocents, even accidentally? Perhaps you wonder if it was truly your place to condemn this man to death? If there was not, perhaps, another way?"
"Yes! Exactly!" Terry hadn't expected anything from the old man besides a terse order to concentrate on his duty. But instead he seemed to understand the problem better than Terry did himself. "Its always been this way, every time I ended someone. But its so much stronger now. Did I make a mistake? Or am I just not cut out for this?" At that last Terry sagged, feeling that this must be the answer. He'd failed his mentor, and failed in his duty.
The old man chuckled, another first, and shook his head. "No. No not at all, Terrence. In fact, it would have been a most terribly bad thing if you DIDN'T have these feelings. It would mean you didn't truly understand what we Euthanatos are, and how serious our duty is. We are the physicians of last resort, as you know well. We release those who are being forced to live on, in the name of compassion, when their lives should be over. We also end those whose lives are themselves the source of pain and misery. Of all mages, we alone act not only to alleviate suffering but to eliminate its cause.
But we are also human beings, Terrence. We love, and laugh, and cry, and FEEL. And so it is natural for us to feel remorse when we are forced to end a life, even one as misspent as Mssr LeBeaux's was. That, in fact, is why Vedra brought you to me. You did not show any feeling for the people you killed, and she worried if she was training a monster. So, I was brought in to watch you. And to end you, if a monster you were."
"So" Terry said, trying to get his mind clear "what I'm feeling is normal? You- WE all feel it? Then how do we know we haven't made a mistake?"
The old man regarded Terry in silence for a moment, but Terry sensed none of his previous coldness. "Tell me Terrence, did you have any doubts BEFORE you ended Mssr. LeBeaux?"
"No, none"
"And can you think of anything you might have done differently? Something that might have dissuaded him from his path without ending him?"
"No, he had too much power to be threatened, and had the soul of a vampire. He'd never stop as long as it was profitable"
"One last question. Did you TRULY feel any pleasure or satisfaction in ending this man?"
Terry thought back. He had been in the No-Mind, as Vedra had taught him, and felt nothing at all during the actual execution. "No."
"Then you know. So long as you only have these feelings after the fact then be assured they are just hindsight and regret, rather than guilt and regret. You wish things could be different, and are sorry that you have to do what you do. That is the very core of the Euthanatos, and why we NEVER take pleasure in our duty. We understand the very existence of that duty is a sign that things are not as they should be. But if ever the day comes when you DON'T feel bad after giving the Good Death in a violent way, then throw your weapons away and ask the Leaders to give you another job, or you risk falling to jhor. Do you understand"
Terry nodded. Every word the old man had said rang true in his soul. He still felt bad, but now he understood that that was a good thing. He was still pure. Still human.
The old man broke into a smile. It was like watching the sun come out. It transformed his face and when he spoke it was with a slight Jamaican accent " Then I t'ink you got nothing to worry about Terrence. An' I can finally drop de 'silent mystic' act. Gods! I 'ated when my teacher did it to me! Vedra said you'd react better to dat than to a friend, though, so I did it. Feels good to be meself again."
Terry smiled, and for the first time in a long time it wasn't an act. "So what now?"
"Now? I say we alleviate de suffering of de local pub owner by givin' im some much needed business! An' we'll laugh, and we'll cry, and we'll wish mssr LeBeaux luck in his next life. An' I'll tell you a few stories Vedra probably never did. Like how when she was just starting an' one of the masters told her…"
It turned out to be a very different evening then Terry had anticipated. It was the night he knew he was truly Euthanatos.
END
A/N
Just something that flitted through my brain.
I guess it springs from the same thing that caused 'a redcap speaks'. Most of the stuff I see online shows Euthanatos as either soulless assassins or psycho killers. I just wanted to show a more human side to the death mages. After all, they're the only tradition that places duty to others before personal ascension.
AS for the setting…I admit I don't know thing one about New Orleans. For all I know they might have palm trees lining the sidewalks. And I really dislike the way its been overused in supernatural stories. I don't know why that is (personally I think Orlando is MUCH creepier. The Mouse is VENTRUE! Why cant anyone else see it! ) But when I was writing this, it just wasn't possible to imagine a more suitable backdrop. SomehowNew Orleans in the wake of Katrina seemed the RIGHT place for this.
Finally, this'll probably be the last you'll hear from me for a while. Work on my stories continues but I'm told drill sergeants can REALLY cut into your writing time. Oh well…