Chapter XXXI:

Walking with Angels


Gideon


Truth be told, I had no idea that Arcanum would show up. While I know why he does and typically when, he still had something of an unreliable track record. I can name on one hand the times I've been nearly killed in the past week and he hasn't shown. Hell, last night when Pacer had me and Raul at gunpoint and completely at his mercy would've been the perfect time for him to show up and save my blown-up ass. But he didn't. I don't know why, and I have a feeling I don't want to.

In either case, he is here. Here in all his noir glory, taking the bait.

"Hello, Ms. Russell," he says, his grip on the Ghoul gunslingers arm appearing tight like an iron vice, "we meet again… unfortunately."

"You're damn right, unfortunately," Beatrix curses at him, trying desperately to wrench her arm clear of his grip but failing to, "let me the hell go!"

"As you wish," and he tightens his grip just enough to make her drop her revolver before sending her away. Raul plucks her from the ground, his usual shit-eating grin on his face. But I see his eyes, and I see the fear and anger in them.

"Well hola, Clarence! How have you been, eh?"

"The same as always, Raul," he nods begrudgingly, "work's unforgiving, and the reward's piss-poor. See you haven't changed much, either."

"Great," Russell curses as she massages her arm, "just what we need. An uptight holier-than-thou with a stick up the tuckus just looking to bring more trouble down on our heads."

"I don't bring trouble, Ms. Russell," he replies, and for the first time I actually see anger in that blank expression of his, "I react to trouble."

"Bull-fucking-shit," she snarls up at him, rising to her full height and towering over the angel by a few inches, "my damn life was already complicated up to the yahzoo before you yokels jumped in and turned the whole matter upside down."

"With all due respect, Ms. Russell, your life was complicated the moment you fell for our mustached friend over there."

"You know," Raul chuckles, "you seem to forget that I'm still here, escuchándote insultándome!"

With a flutter of wings, he appears behind Raul. Wait, is he smirking?

"You forget you happen to be on our permanent watch list, Mr. Tejada. Especially mine. So, all things considered, I haven't forgotten that you're standing there, taking my insults."

"You're just a real charm, you know?" Raul smiled sarcastically, "Especially with your whole tax-collection look. What? You a fan of Judas?"

"I'm going to forget that you said that. Otherwise, I might potentially lay you to waste."

"Oh-kay," Veronica steps in, saying what I've been thinking since this whole thing started, "so, I'm assuming you all know each other?"

"Si, you could say that," Raul answers with a smirk, "as mi amor as said, he has greatly complicated both of our lives."

"No more complicated than they already were," he replies mirthlessly, before turning back to Veronica and adding with a smile, "yes, we three have had… business, with each other in the past."

"Well," I shake my head, "that figures. Got anything else you wanna share, old man?"

"No, not really," Raul replies.

Veronica chuckles and smiles gleefully at Raul, "I suppose that's another thrilling talltale you're going to enlighten us with on another of our inevitable car rides?"

Arcanum chuckles at this and cracks a quick smile. I wouldn't be so surprised at this if it wasn't so damn rare with this guy.

"With his habit of embellishing the truth to inflate his particular pride, Ms. Santangelo, you'd be better off learning the truth from someone else," he then turns to me, and something changes in his eyes, "I know why you're doing this, Mr. Maddox."

I nod, "All-seeing, right?"

He shrugs.

"So, are you gonna help, or am I gonna have to convince you, Arcanum?"

He doesn't answer, and the look he has is… strange. It reminds me of Veronica in a way… and Boone. A mask crumbling away. However, before I have the chance to figure what it is exactly, Beatrix takes the opportunity to scoff.

"Oh well that's just damn typical, ain't it? Y'all's so picky 'bout your damn rules till you gots to deal with a problem you damn well can't ignore, and then all pretenses of caring about us meek folk go out the window!"

"I'm not ignoring the problem!" he growls suddenly, anger flashing so hot in his eyes they almost look like they're on fire. I've never seen him angry before, and it scares me. I take a step back, and so does Veronica. In fact, the only one who doesn't is Beatrix. He glowers at her, cursing, "I wouldn't be here if I wasn't!"

Beatrix doesn't move, doesn't even flinch. She just glares at Arcanum, sending his anger right back at him. And me? All I can wonder is how it got so personal between them. My eye finds the answer to that question, and Raul face's pales like a ghost.

"Mi rosa blanca de Texas," Raul grabs Beatrix by the shoulder and pulls her away, his voice hollow in fright, "please step away from the angry Angel before he turns you into a pillar of salt or something worse."

"Yeah? Well, I'd like to see this sanctimonious feather-bag just try!"

"Enough!" I growl, forcing the audience into silence. I turn to Veronica and gesture to the Ghouls, "Watch them. If they try to leave... well, don't rough them up too bad."

She shoots me a grim expression but nods, "I'll try."

I turn back to my occasional protector. I grab him by the arm and I start moving him towards the door, "Let's take a-"

The world suddenly changes around me. A moment before, I was standing in Beatrix's flat, and the next? I am outside, standing in front of a desperate mob trying to force their way into the Mormon Fort.

"-walk," I finish my sentence, my arm going numb and dropping to my side. I look over at Arcanum and I see very much human eyes staring right back.

"This is what you wanted me to see?" He shakes his head, "Don't bother trying to play Christmas Carol with an angel, Mr. Maddox."

My eye bores into him for a moment before I sigh, "Can you blame me for trying?"

"To guilt me? No. I probably would have done the same."

"So... what happens now?"

His eyes droop and he turns back to what's in front of me. The noise draws me, an onrushing sea of panic and dread washing over me. All around me are the signs of what's to come. I see the frenzy of a desperate people preparing for their last fight. Kings going door by door and collecting men and boys old enough to handle weapons. I see fathers and sons saying goodbye to their children, their loved ones, as they are rushed away to their deaths. I see all, and I feel a sudden chill in my heart.

I don't know these people, but I know what's coming for them. I know.

"Can they see us?" I ask rather stupidly.

"No. Not unless I wish them to."

More screams draw my head, and I'm brought back to the Fort. Where the women had shuffled the old, the young and the sick to the one place they knew the soldiers of the NCR wouldn't use them for target practice. Considering the woman who's at the head of this, and what little I know about her operations in the past, I have no doubt it will come exactly to that.

I watch in silent agony as they plead for their lives. The doctors pitifully try to shoo them away, explaining that they didn't have any more room and that the walls weren't built for that capacity. That with so many wounded and dying filling their field hospitals that it would be impossible to house them, too.

Long before I see it, I feel it. The dread turning violent as panicked hands touch leather and cold steel. My instincts kick in, and I move to draw my own. It's stupid. There are at least close to a hundred there and I'm expecting me in my lonesome to stop the powder keg from exploding? But I move to try before Arcanum grabs my arm and stops me.

"Let go," I growl.

"Wait," he says before he points ahead. I see why. Arcade Gannon is at the front, shooting off a few rounds from his plasma pistol into the air that stuns the crowd the moment he needs to shout something I can't hear. But the meaning is enough for me to understand. The crowd parts, the old and young staying while the rest start working their way sheepishly away somewhere else. I see Arcade at the head of white coat men and women with a handful of grizzled mercenaries slowly shepherding their way in, Arcade himself taking a little girl by the crook of his arm and trying to calm her tears.

I close my eye, and I feel the world shifting around me again.

" Maaaybe... you'll think of me when yooouuu are all alone! "

I open my eye to the world. A world of bedraggled folk, grim and shallow like skeletons huddled in the rain wept cobblestone ruins of the Town Square. Hundreds, maybe more huddled around in restless grim certainty that I feel saturating me. Here, the badly stretched Kings were reinforced by a few gunslingers. Most of them though look like they retired decades ago. I even see a small squad of long gunners, their patchwork farmer-johns and leather patches signaling them out from the rest of the Kings. All of them wore red bands of their arms, the center adorned with a black rose thorn.

The Thorne thanks you, stranger, a sultry voice rings in my mind. My eye traces their movements, and somehow their presence makes it worse for me.

"You know how this is gonna end, don't you?" I ask, my voice feeling distant.

"Yes," he says, his voice sounding... human.

"Why did you bring me here?" I ask again, and he turns to me, wearing his pain on his sleeves.

"Because I want you to understand," he turns his hand to the Square around us, "this? All of this? This is all I see. This... broken excuse of a world we live in. It's all I've seen for the past two hundred years... and I can't do anything about it."

I sigh, defeat heavy in my chest like an iron weight. And somehow... I start laughing.

"Yeah?" I fix him with a look, "I don't believe you."

He frowns at me, "Believe what you want to believe, Mr. Maddox. We should be on our way-"

"Oh no you fucking don't!" I grab his arm, "We ain't done."

He looks me square in the eye and growls, "I've indulged you long enough. I have a job to do and-"

"Yeah, sure. Your job. You know what?" I grin, "I get it now. I get why she hates you so much."

"You know nothing," he replies, his voice dropping dangerous low, "don't pretend you do."

"Yeah? Well, you know what I think? I think you're a goddamn hypocrite."

His eyes go wide, and I just keep pushing. This is stupid, I know. But I gotta try.

"I don't know why you saved me, and at this point, I don't fucking care. Nah, what's important is that you did save me. I should be dead. I was shot point blank in the face and all I get is fuzzy memory. So, you tell me. What gives you the right to save me, but not these people, huh?"

Without warning, his face turns wild like an animal. I don't even see the punch, and I hit the ground hard. He stands over me, fuming like a mad brahmin ready to pancake me.

"You don't know a thing about me," he growls, "what I've seen. What I've done."

I fix him with a look and I lift myself up.

"I don't need to. You mebbe an angel, but I can read you as well as any human."

"That's because I used to be human," he sighs, his face going from rage to guilt in a heartbeat, "you misunderstand me, Gideon," somehow, my own name catches me off guard, "I want to save these people. I know what you're going to do, and I have the power to do it."

"So why don't you?"

He sighs again, and finds a bench to collapse into, "Orders, Gideon. The same orders that saved you."

"Why me?" I ask again, my tone getting harder to control, "Look at me. I'm not some superhero or anything like that. I'm just a mailman with issues!"

"You know there's more to that than you think."

"But you're not going to say?"

"...no."

"Well, that's just great," and I find myself sitting right next to him, chuckling softly as I do, "but why do I get the feeling that you have a habit of disregarding orders?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"C'mon. You're saying I'm special enough to have you and fricking Lady Luck guarding me? I saw the way she acted when she talked about you. She isn't here to watch me, is she?"

He doesn't answer, but he might as well have. I see the opportunity, my breach, and I start pushing again, "What did you do, hmm? Did you try to save someone? Did you try and play God?"

His eyes flashes dangerously, and I fight down the urge to shiver or cower. I can't do either. I can't afford to compromise. If I do, then… then all this is going to burn. He looks at me for a while, I start to realize he isn't looking at me, per say. No, it felt more like he was looking past me at someone or something else.

After a moment, though, his face breaks into a sigh, and he slumps over in his seat, his hands crossed together in front of him. He looks at the floor, his voice sounding hollow.

"You're not my first charge, Gideon. Not the first human I've had to guard, to… guide."

I don't say anything. I just look at him, waiting for him to continue. After a moment, he does, "There was another like you. A lot like you, actually."

"An ugly bastard with a bullet magnet attached to my head?" I ask, and he chuckles.

"Yes, and no. He was uglier by far, but that's not the point. He was… driven, so to speak. He was a man of his own unwavering principles. Of unwavering conviction. He had a way of getting people to listen, even from people who didn't agree with him. Getting them to follow his vision, his quest."

"Quest?"

"He saw the world as I saw it: broken. I was born before the bombs, and I got to see it before it became… this."

Obvious questions run through my mind, but I leave them there. He continues, "He wanted to fix it. He believed he could, and I… I jumped at the opportunity to help him. I saw that he had the means and the drive to do it. He just needed a guiding hand, so to speak. I could never outright tell him what he should do, but I thought that my presence alone would be enough to get him on the right path. I'd seen it work with the Vault Dweller and his grandson, the Chosen One."

My eye goes a little wide, but in the end I'm not all that surprised, to be honest. I think back to what Neil said on Black Mountain, and I… I don't really know what to think.

"I thought I could do the same. I thought this man could do what they did, but better. Build a better world, a world for good. But I… I was wrong."

"He went the other way?"

He nodded, "It took a long while for it to happen, but it did."

"How'd it happen?"

"The same way it always does, Gideon. Give a man too much power, and he becomes a tyrant. The ends justify the ends and all that other cliché crap."

"You tried to stop him?"

"I tried to kill him," his voice momentarily flares with anger before it dies down again, "had I been faster, thousands… maybe even millions of lives would have been spared," he sighs, "I created a monster, Gideon. I went too far, hoped for too much, and in trying to craft a savior, I instead made the Devil. That is why we angels are not supposed to interfere. Because our actions have consequences."

"Buddy… this guy was going to do what he was going to do. It didn't matter if did anything or not. You can't change human nature. You can only deal with it when it comes."

"But what if that is not enough?"

"Sometimes it has to be. I don't have the power to see the future like you can—"

"I see possible futures," he corrects me, "short-term, never more than that."

"But still. Sometimes… you just have to do the best you can, and pray the best comes from it. And this, these people? I don't know 'em, probably never will. But they still got the right to make the best of their life as they can, and I'm going to be damned if I'm going to let some jackasses with an ego trip take that away from them."

"You do realize the consequences that might occur if you do go through with your plan?"

"Yeah, I do. It scares me. But that's a problem for tomorrow that I will deal with somehow. Right now? I have to do what I have to do, and I can't do that without you. So, I'm asking you, I'm begging you. Help me."

He looks at me, he looks at the world around, and he nods once.

"Give me an hour. I need to think on this."

"Thank—"

And the world changes again, and I'm standing in Beatrix's apartment.

"—you."

"Well?" Veronica asks, and I shrug.

"We wait."


The Atomic Wrangler


It was a cold winter night that Christmas Eve. The wind howling with the flurries of snow, ice raining from high above like the tears of angels; the streets of Boston becoming a silent note of cobblestone. All around, not a voice spoke. Not a foot tread, and none yet disturb the silence above. Not with chorus, or joy. Only the cold, like the laughter of the devil below.

" Crazy! "

The voice was like the velvet of purest light stretching across the frozen souls locked in purgatory. The aged detective found his eyes rising from the cold scotch held in tired hands, up to the stage of neon reds and amber yellows.

" For thinking my love could hold yooouuu! "

The hips hidden by the red satin dress swayed with the moves of the vocals. The soft clamor of heels to the synthetic wood, the chattering of musical instruments drumming in the background all played heed to the softness of her highest sopranos and lowest contraltos.

" I'm crazy for trying… and crazy for crying! "

The sparkles in the satin glistened, playing contrast to the silkiness of her smooth and snowy skin. His weathered eyes followed the picture-perfect form from satin to flesh, hands playing their tunes in the air with the vocals of her wonders neck and chest.

" And I'm crazy for loving yooouuu! "

Lips as red as cherry, delicious in their splendor. A face as perfect as beating heart, and eyes that radiated in blues so deep he thought he was looking into her soul. Indeed, perhaps he was. For he was sure she was looking into his.

" I knew you'd love me as long as you wanted… and then someday you'd leave me for somebody neeew! "

Jeering and lustful voices echoed from all around the club. Eyes of many men, and yet hers were only for him, and him alone. A smile as sweet as cider, a loving gaze sure to melt even the devil's own black heart. A hop, a skip, his glass now resting on the counter and his eyes ever so focused on her every breath, every step, every look.

" Worry, why do I let myself worry? Wond'ring what in the world did I do? "

He felt his hear race for her. Felt it beat to the rumbling of a drum, ready to burst from his chest. Felt the longing so deep he fought down the urge to leap to the stage and take her in his arms. He found his eyes closing from the effort. Found the darkness a soothing balm to his own raging fires burning deep in the gloom.

"Nick?" he felt her voice so soft as a whisper on his cheek.

"Jenny?" he replied, a small smile passing over his cold and ragged face. He opened his eyes to the most beautiful woman he'd ever lain eyes on.

" How lucky can one guy be? " the sultry voice of Sinatra asked in the background, and Nick couldn't answer. At least, not with a word, but with a kiss. A soft exchange that delved into depths he wished beyond all else that he could stay and reside.

I don't know about Heaven, he thought, but I do believe in angels.

For he found one, and as they separated with only the passing sigh between them, she radiated like a star. As messy as her hair was, the unorthodox eroticness of the leather she wore, or the ragged tiredness that stared down at him like a mirror to his own weariness, she was sanguine. She was his, and he was hers. He wrapped her hands tighter around her middle as adjusted a moment in his lap, and an eternity blurred between them.

But it was not to be.

"Nick, I want to go back to Chicago."

His eyes opened. Opened to a world as cold as the Devil's heart, and hymn of his treacherous music playing a round through his mind and heart and making him as tired as the pharaohs residing in their tombs on Harvard. His face felt ragged, he hadn't shaved in weeks. With a shaking hand, he set the file down on the desk with a loud flap and took a sip of the terrible excuse for coffee that almost made him gag.

"Jenny," he sighed without turning around, "I can't. The job is still here. Winter's is still here. And so long as both are still here, I can't leave."

Winter, he mused softly, kingpin of Boston, Al Capone reborn… and his worst crime? For bringing Jenny out here to this place. For taking away my nights with her. For… bringing us to this.

He felt her soft hands reach around him, through his open and stained shirt. They caressed his chest, feeling where his heart lay beating a steady orchestra in his cold body.

"Nick… this job is killing you. It's killing us. Please," her voice broke to a soft beg, "come with me. Back to Chicago, to our home."

"This is home."

She turned him around so that he could see her eyes; filled to brim with pleading tears.

"No, it isn't. This will never be my home, nor yours. Please," she caressed his cheek, "let's get married at Saint Johns, like we planned."

"Jenny," his hand fell on hers and he felt them tremble, "I can't. My place is here."

Her tears fell, and she collapsed in his arms. She shook within his warm grasped, and she moaned:

"We're both going to die here, you know that?"

He closed his eyes to say something to her. Anything. He didn't care what. Then he heard a gunshot. His eyes snapped open.

"Jenny!"

He wasn't in the Red Lounge, or his apartment. He was in the streets, Scollay Square. Gordon's Olympia Theatre blazed in soft neon reds behind him. The streets were a buzz; people running and coming, lights flickering everywhere. It was raining, and he was running.

"No no no no!" he screamed as his legs worked without thought. It didn't feel real, and yet it did. All of it came shattering to pieces like a broken mirror when he crossed the threshold, when he rounded the corner, when he… saw her there. He fell to his knees, her body cradled in his arms. Her beautiful, lifeless eyes staring up at him; her blood pooling through him that fresco.

He had no words. Only tears. Only guilt. He trembled as the world dissolved into black, detail evaporating until he was left only with her and her red dress in his hands… and the trails of crimson silk lead him to this moment from a thousand directions.

"Valentine," a heartless, emotionless voice echoed in the gloom like the ferry of a dead man, "Nicholas J.," he looked up at the precinct captain as he read out the orders transferred to him from on high, "you are herby suspended from active duty and are to be transferred back to Chicago for the interference," attempted murder, but they would never admit that, "of a BADTFL operation regarding of Edward Winter, who has been placed into witness protection in exchange for testimonies against…" the voice drifted away into silence as did the rest of the world, leaving him alone again in the darkness.

"I don't blame you."

His eyes opened, the memories drifting away with the Mojave sun. The noise of the Atomic Wrangler drifted into his senses, the smell of booze and intimacy becoming a fragrant distraction as his shaking hands placed the glass of Killdevil Irish Whiskey on the counter.

"Maybe you should," he said as he turned around, expecting to see the same erotic leather outfit she'd always worn. And when he saw her, he wished she had. The silken red of her dress was a terrible spite to his heart, and he cursed her softly for it.

"But I don't," she said, sitting down next to him despite the ogling eyes and whistles sent her way, "no matter how much you want to blame yourself, I will never blame you."

He shook his head, removing his fedora to brush away at his unkempt chestnut hair. Francine Garret, one of twins who owned the bar, shot him a lustful smile. He grumbled at her, and she replaced his shot. The sin radiating from her was a revolting intoxication and looking at her was like looking at a judge report of her every crime and vice. He shook his head though and looked at his former fiancée's graceful face.

"Well, I do. You were right."

"No," she soothed, "you made the choice you did based on what you knew was right."

"Right?" he scoffed, "What's right about what I did? You died. Winter still walked. And I cooked up with the rest of the world. Where were my proper moral sensibilities then, hmm? What did they get me? Nothing. Nothing but this deadend job."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"How is being a human detective and Angel of the Lord any different?"

"They're not," he replied, taking a shot down in one gulp, "they both got the same bullshit."

"You know you can't be intoxicated."

"Don't care," and he ordered another, "the placebo helps."

"Helps with what?"

"Staying out of this."

"This?"

He downed the shot and waved his hand to the world around, "This. All of this, and everything that's about to happen."

"Arca…" she bit her lip and shook her head, "Nick, we've had this talk before."

"Sure," he snorted as he flipped a cap over to the bartender and stormed out. Before he could leave though, Advena appeared quite suddenly in front of him. He sighed, "Guess we're having it again."

"I know what's going to happen," she said sternly, "and I know what you're going to do."

"And?"

"I won't let you."

"Get out my way, Advena."

She stood her ground, and he growled, "I said, get out of my way."

"If you think I'm going to let you throw away your wings for this—"

"This!?" he shouted, catching quite a few bewildered looks from around them. He didn't care, and he jutted a finger her way, "You say that like none of this matters! Like we should just sit back and let it happen!"

"Yes," she stepped closer, "because it is not our duty. You said so yourself."

"Don't talk to me about duty."

"Oh, I will. When are you going to understand? It is not our place to interfere. It is not our place to determine the fate of every single soul. We are not God."

"I never said we were," he sighed, "but right now, I have the power to save these people. For once, I'm going to use it."

"At what expense?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course, it does!" she shouted at him, "If we tried to correct every single mistake made by every single person, then that makes us no better than tyrants. That is not why we were chosen to be given wings, Nicholas."

"No, we were chosen because we were suckers and could put up with even more crap. And you know what? I'm through with it," and with that, he barged past her. He didn't quite know why he was walking away when he could simply vanish from sight, but it was something he did out of some instinct. Advena laughed behind him, and he froze.

"When are you going to come full circle, Nick?"

He turned around, "What are you talking about?"

She shook her head and started walking towards him, "You said that being a detective and an Angel are one in the same. But that's not it, is it?"

Arcanum… Nick, they were one and the same, really. He glared at her for a moment, knowing full well he didn't need to hear this. That with a single thought he could disappear and even she wouldn't be able to follow him… but he didn't. She continued walking forward, speaking as she did.

"It's not the job you hate, Nick. It never was. As much as you loved me, you also loved the work. You liked being a cop, but it was never for selfish reasons. You used to say that being kicked around on Rush Street gave you an appreciation for the unfortunate. That was why you became a cop in the first place, was it not?"

"Look where that got me," he murmured, but she shook her head.

"You're even doing it now, Nick. You're sticking your neck out for people, but it's not for the reasons you think. Not for the right reasons."

"And what reasons are those, then?"

"The same reasons you went after Winter just before the bombs fell. The same reasons you asked for that assignment with—"

"Don't say his name," he snarled, "don't you ever."

"Nick, you knew full well what you were getting in for, but you went anyway. I know why you went, but it doesn't work that way."

"What doesn't?"

She then touched his heart with her delicate fingers.

"The pain you carry will always be with you."

"I don't want it."

"That's too bad, because you're stuck with it," she then walked past him, staring out into the world, "you could have chosen any number of places at any number of years to do this, but you chose this one. You've chosen now to do it. You're not doing this for selfless reasons I know you for," she turned back to him, staring up into his eyes with saddened intent, "you're running away again."

"What's the point of this?" he sighed, staring down at nothing in particular, "Of any of this?" he shook his head a moment before he asked, "Why did you save me, Advena?"

"Because I believed you were worth saving."

"You were wrong, Advena."

"Am I?"

He didn't answer. He just hung his head, and she sighed, "You're always going to be tearing away at yourself until you come to terms with what you are, and what you've done or haven't," her voice broke into a pained whisper, "until you come full circle."

He nodded once and gave her a last kiss on her cheek. Then, with the sound of birds flying away in the distance, he was gone. She touched her cheek, caressing the spot.

"Good bye, my love," she whispered. With these words, she too vanished from sight, those around assuming it to be little more than a desert mirage.


Gideon


I watched the clock on my Pip-boy, the ticking seconds becoming maddening. Then, with fifteen seconds left to go, we all heard the sudden ruffle of bird wings.

"You're early!" Veronica says cheerfully, and Arcanum chuckles.

"Better three hours too soon than one minute too late."

Veronica laughs so hard she falls out of her chair, "Oh, you are such a cheese!"

"Well…"

"So," I interrupt as I rise from my chair, "are you in?"

"I am," he nods, "I was in the moment I left. I… I had arrangements to make."

"Oh," I say, my blood suddenly turning cold.

"Don't worry about me," Arcanum responds, "I've lived for too many years, anyway. Now, shall we begin?"