Eric Malone didn't celebrate his birthday anymore. He kept track of the years, the months, the days, but life to him was one long timeline, with a beginning, middle and end, and none of that timeline was worth worshipping with greater grandeur than any other section of it. He had lived over sixty years, and in that time, he had seen the best and worst of humanity, in both youth and adults. Witnessing the acts of humans, he had come to learn that some people were simply born without the capability to sympathize. Of all of the cases he had seen, many assumed the types of people that could commit such horrid acts were "disturbed," that they had grown up in bad environments, that they were psychologically scarred. As a detective, Eric learned much more about the human condition than the common rabble, and he could say, without a doubt, that sometimes people surprised him.

The common man was so easily influenced. He didn't know a good guy from a bad guy until a movie taught him so. Most people were accomplished at hiding guilt, as they've practiced it since lying as a child. Eric had certainly developed skilled acting lessons over the years. Sure, he hated Dolly and Greenly, as they were small-minded fools that couldn't find a piece of gum if it was stuck to their shoe, but with everyone else, he could say he was rather on the "normal" side. A common man couldn't tell whether he was "good" or "evil." He was simply Eric.

Even Connor and Murphy were fooled into believing he was the sensitive type. Bringing down criminals via murder? What kind of nonsense was that? Still, they took to it like fish to worms, as though they had been waiting years for an excuse to kill. Eric didn't feel the least bit guilty about luring them in and giving them that excuse. They wanted to do it; he could see it in their eyes. They were killers, through and through.

As he sat in his office, writing down notes in a journal he usually kept locked away in a drawer, he thought of them. Were they out there on the water now, telling each other stories, spending their final moments reminiscing about their lives, whether or not they had wasted them? Did they think of him as much as he thought of them? He wondered then what he would do if he were stranded and left for dead with his own brother. What would he do? Apologize to him; tell him that all along he loved him, despite all he had done? Could he even say such things to Marshall without losing the emotional shield he generated over himself?

While writing down in his journal, he felt a compelling desire to think back on the events of his life, as though it would end that very evening. The biggest regret, as he once told Connor, was never having a family of his own. His final chance at one rested with Connor and Murphy, who he might have subconsciously freed from his clutches in the very sympathy he thought he lacked. They were good men that deserved a good life, and even he knew that. He wished he could start over with them, nurture them in a gentler manner, and perhaps even give them more than he had. Every chance to let them grow into his shoes, he ruined with his arrogant expertise. It could have been great. Even Connor agreed with him on that.

Though he did regret that, he didn't regret much else. He tried to love, and in short, it didn't work out. Whether people were men or women, he couldn't imagine loving them. He tried learning new skills, only to attribute them to his primary skill of killing. And yet, life went on, as usual, and he still sat in his office, alone. While alone was a comfortable feeling, it wasn't the right one.

On the other hand, he was happy with how he carried things out. If he was to relive his life, he'd do it all over again and wouldn't change a damn thing. He'd hit every mark, travel each of the same roads, and he'd be just as satisfied with his accomplishments. It was true that he had taken innocent lives. It was also true that helped innocent lives. No one person was worse or better than the other, nor were they more special.

He supposed that Connor and Murphy might have been the wrong people to recruit. They had a blood thirst, but they were his polar opposites. They were the light to his dark. What he taught them was not to stop feeling, but to feel even stronger about what they did. He was right about them in many ways, and yet, terribly wrong in others. If Eric could not, in fact, feel sorry, then he wondered what this feeling he had now in regards to the lives he took for granted. Sympathy, it was not. It couldn't have been.

For now, he shut his journal and got ready to turn in for the night. He went to the corner of the room where he kept his safe, kneeling down and cranking the dial, twisting the handle. The door moaned as he heaved it open, and he began to stockpile the cash from his recent hit on top of notes and photographs.

That night, he would finish off a bottle of whiskey, as it would be the only way he would get to sleep.

Both of the MacManus brothers were cold and stoic that evening, and they couldn't bring themselves to speak much to each other. However, they didn't need to. Over the years they had lived together, they had become adept at sensing each other's thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Murphy knew that Connor was going through with this as a duty to civilization, as Connor knew Murphy's reasons were more personal. Though they had their differing views on their task, they both agreed that it needed to be done, and they would do it together, as they did everything.

Murphy worried for Connor. Of the two of them, this ordeal weighed heaviest on his shoulders. He reassured him with pats and hugs when he could, and was glad to see that he'd smile at him, even if it wasn't in his heart to do so. Murphy was the first to pull his black coat on, and Connor followed suit. The next thing to come on was the leather gloves provided to them on their first hit, then a checking of the clips of their handguns came afterward. Connor twisted a silencer onto the end of his Beretta, and Murphy did the same to his own.

An aura of darkness followed them as they left the apartment, tucking their guns away behind their waistbands, hiding them behind the tails of their shirts and coats to avoid Rocco seeing them. When they got into the backset of Rocco's car, they lit up simultaneous cigarettes and smoked them with each other in disturbed silence. Despite the cold demeanor the brothers acted in, Rocco said nothing to them. They evidently were not in much of a talking mood. Whatever it was they planned to do, it was not something to be cheerful about.

Rocco followed the directions they gave him the previous day, taking the eerie, shadowed route through the woods as he followed the driveway up to Eric's house. He parked several feet back from the house as they had asked him to, and they patted him on the back to thank him. The rancid flavor in Rocco's mouth could have ranged from old coffee to poorly-rolled cigarettes, but if he were to choose one, balls-to-the-wall fear would have been the best way to describe it.

Before moving toward the house, Connor and Murphy looked each other in the eye to determine if one another were ready. Following a serious stare into each other's pupils, Connor nodded to his brother. Murphy returned the motion, and they disappeared into the darkness, following the dirt drive all the way up to the front door. Using a flashlight, Connor traced the side of the house, looking for any kind of entrance to the basement. When he found a small window they could slip through, he waved Murphy over. Like they were chained with a telepathic link, Murphy came to his side despite not being able to see him very well in the darkness.

Connor kneeled down to the window and kicked at it to shove it open. Murphy got down and helped him, until the force of their blows broke the inner latch, and it swung open with ease. Connor was the first to slip through, landing on the basement floor, and he aided Murphy down next. Right away, Connor shone his light around the room to scope for any trace of Eric at the bar or in the arsenal, but he wasn't anywhere to be found. Thinking they had lucked out on that point, he went to work.

Guiding his way with the flashlight, Connor scanned the walls until he found the fuse box, which he pried open. He wasn't familiar with the functionality of a fuse box, so all he could think to do was flip every switch until it got the results he wanted. He knew he had achieved what he wanted when the lights in the basement went out. Murphy's flashlight beam landed on him, waiting for further instructions. Connor nodded toward the staircase, and ascended them to the upper floor, followed by his brother.

The stubborn floor groaned beneath their weight, creaking at their every step, and no matter how they tried, it was something they couldn't control. It seemed intent on giving away their position as they shuffled down the hall. By now, they had withdrawn their handguns, the very ones Eric gifted them with, and held them along with their flashlights. Wherever Eric was now, they weren't sure, but they knew if they wanted to find him, they had to use every one of their natural instincts.

In the moment the lights snapped off, Eric had been in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. He had forgotten a lot of things his mother taught him over the years, but good dental hygiene was a rule he followed since she nagged at him during childhood.

The darkness didn't concern Eric from the start, but when it the power didn't flicker back on, he knew something was wrong. He crept out of the bathroom and into the hall, slinking toward his bedroom on the edges of his toes, feeling along the walls to find his way there. If he could reach his bedroom, he could reach the gun he kept stored in his bedside table.

His first step into the room croaked, and he winced at its volume. Of all of the houses he skulked through, it just had to be his own with the weakest foundations. He supposed, like everything else, that was how it was meant to be. He quickened his speed, bumping into a table and the edges of his bed as he scrambled for the table, digging blindly around in the drawer for his gun. Feeling the cold steel in his palm, he clasped his hand around it and yanked it out, then felt his way back into the hall.

Footsteps. He knew the sound of those quite well; and they were emanating from the floor below. Sneaking out of his room, he dragged his hand along the wall to follow it to the staircase, which he climbed down, following the sound of the very steps that had invaded his home.

Connor was the first of the two of them to halt, as well as shut off his flashlight. Murphy didn't ask why he did, only repeated the process. That's when he knew why his brother stopped moving, because he too had heard it—the sound of someone approaching. He could barely see Connor, let alone the room they had hid in, but when his twin clamped a hand over his mouth to indicate he wanted him to remain silent, he threw his head up and down.

Eric was closer to them than he thought he was. The two of them had slipped into his office and stood idle, perking their ears to the sound of his steps and breathing. Connor, as gently and quietly as he could, pulled back the handgun's hammer, wrapping his finger around the trigger as he pointed the barrel toward the hallway.

Knowing that they'd be screwed if he missed the shot, he also realized that he couldn't take the chance. He needed to be able to see where he was shooting. The flashlight would give them away, but if he got the shot off before they were caught, it'd be smooth sailing from there on out.

A floorboard creaked at the perfect— or in Eric's case, worst— moment as he passed the office. Just as he had stepped on it, a stinging beacon stabbed his eyes with white hot light. Blinded, he began to raise his hand to block the beam, only to hear the sharp sound of a pop, and felt the familiar, awful heat of a bullet piercing the flesh of his arm. His gun fell from his hand in the recoil, and while distracted by the flashlight in his eyes and fiery pain moving through his veins, there was no option to go diving for it.

With a deep groan, Eric clutched his fresh, bleeding wound as a strong hand grappled the collar of his shirt and shoved him down the hallway. The main question on his mind now was: who was his attacker? It could have been anyone. It could have been a spouse of a target who had discovered who he was. It could have been a fellow detective or officer. It could have been one of his previous clients. Of all of the people he expected, the very ones pushing him toward the living room to his doom were not on that list.

Now that they were in his living room (from what he could tell of his dark surroundings), he realized that he had two attackers. Their footsteps were almost in sync as they walked at the same tempo, and from the sounds of them, they had to have been of similar weight.

No, dreaded Eric. It can't be them.

Cold steel pressed against the back of his head as one of the figures paced around to his front, and Eric followed the golden light as it illuminated the face of what he thought was a ghost.

"Hello, Eric," said that thick Irish accent. "Good to see ya again."

Eric's mind, as well as his eyes, boggled. Sure, he had whiskey for dinner, but he couldn't recall the last time alcohol made him hallucinate like this. "Connor," he replied with a hush.

"Aye. Connor."

"Shall I guess that your brother is the one pressing iron against the back of my head?" Connor nodded to show he was correct. Eric's eyes closed, and a grin of epic proportions stretched over his teeth. Then, he began to laugh. Of course Connor and Murphy made it back. What weren't they capable of? "Fishing boat?"

Connor shook his head back and forth, and Eric's smile dipped. "Swam."

"Swam," repeated Eric, now in fascination. "Well. Evidently, I've made a very critical error. Didn't take such heavy smokers for sufficient swimmers."

Showing Eric the barrel of his weapon, Connor took a step closer. Eric's smile came back. The irony was a lot more painful than his bullet wound. "Ya know why we're here… don't ya?"

With a sigh, he answered, "I've come to the proper conclusions, yes."

"Murph's here fer revenge. I won't deny it. M'sure he won't ei'ter. But dere are t'ings I wanna know."

"Of course. What more would I expect of a seeker of truth?"

"De people you were gonna have us kill… dey weren't criminals."

Eric hissed as the pain from his wound persisted, and he clenched it with his working hand. "Genius isn't required to figure that one out." He flinched when Connor raised the gun's silencer to his head, aiming it at his eyeball.

"How many in yer lifetime have ya killed?" His hand wanted to shake, but he kept it steady.

"Oh, dear boy, you can't possibly ask me such a thing. That's like asking how many orgasms a man has had in his whole life. It's not possible to calculate if you haven't been keeping track from the very beginning." He shrugged his good shoulder. "Too many. Let's put it that way. I may have single-handedly wiped out half the population of Boston underneath everyone's nose."

"And? Now dat yer gonna die… how does it make ya feel?"

Taking a moment to think it over, Eric glanced up at Connor, or what he could see of him, and his lips clicked open. "You don't want to know how I feel about it, Connor. You want to know how you'll feel about it once it's over. You want solace that once you pull that trigger, you'll be able to sleep at night. I can't compare my thoughts and feelings to those of another man, killer or not. All I can tell you is… for the past thirty years or so… I've slept like a baby. Can't say the same for you. Alas, you'll have time to make amends with your Lord. And it appears… whether I like it or not… my time has run out."

Connor's wrist quaked, as did the gun in his hand. "I want to say dat I wish I had never met ya. But… if I did, I'd be lyin'."

Hearing the sadness in his voice, Eric used the kindest tone he could muster. "I had already figured that you'd be the one to take my life. If that's the way fate will have it, I'll accept it. I suppose it's rather fitting, isn't it? I wanted you to carry on my legacy, and here you are… doing it by killing me. I could say I'm even… proud. Perhaps you're more ready for this than I assumed."

Reaching down his shirt, Connor fished for the beads of the rosary around his neck, then pulled them free, letting the rosary drop loose down his chest and toward his stomach, where it dangled. At the sight of it, Eric was speechless, and yet, pleased. In spite of the circumstances, he had to chuckle, and as Connor stepped behind him, his laughter had filled the halls.

Connor looked to his brother, who continued to press his gun against Eric's head. At his hesitation, Murphy made a suggestion: "Toge'ter. At de same time."

To this, Connor nodded, then brought the barrel upward and pressed it on the other side of Eric's skull. Then, he froze. What was the next step after putting a gun to someone's head?

That's when Murphy shocked him with the very words he never thought he'd hear him utter. "And shepherds we shall be."

Drawing in a careful breath, Connor spoke the next line with concurrent fervor and bereavement. "For Thee, my Lord, for Thee."

"Power hath descended forth from Thy hand."

"That our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command."

"And we shall flow a river forth to Thee."

"And teeming with souls shall it ever be."

For the final line of their inherited mantra, their voices became one. "In Nomine Patris, Et Filii, Et Spiritus Sancti."

Over the resonating click of both guns cocking, Eric no longer heard his own cackles, but what he did hear was his own voice in the back of his dark mind. And so, the Devil awaits me.

Both brothers squeezed their triggers at the same moment in time, firing criss-crossing bullets through the brain of their former friend, sending him collapsing to the floor, just as he had to the many hundreds of lives he had smote. As he lie before them, bleeding from his freshly-eradicated eyes, the two of them drifted into a respectful silence, dotting their fingers in a cross pattern over their chests.

Kneeling beside Eric's body, Connor reached into his pocket for the handful of change he carried with him, taking two quarters out of the pile and resting one on each of his eyelids.

"Should be more den enough to get ya dere," Connor whispered to him before folding his hands over his chest.

Upon standing, he leaned against Murphy for moral and emotional support, and he felt doting arm slip around his shoulders. Connor wished there was more he could do for Eric's soul, though it had been a corrupt one, for he knew that Heaven would never take him, even after their ritual. Subsequent to everything, Eric still meant something to him, and he was someone he would never be able to forget.

Aided by his flashlight, he made his way back to the basement, where he switched the power back on. Murphy gawked at him when he came back up and asked, "What'd ya do dat for?"

"He has a video feed room. I saw it. Let's just go grab de tapes."

Murphy turned his hands up and pressed his brow downward. "Why didn't we just fuckin' do dat in de first place instead of stumblin' around in de dark?!"

"Shut de hell up, all 'ight? I didn't know before now dat he had a room wit' tapes in it! How was I supposed to know how his shit works?! Besides, bein' in de dark worked out fer us, didn't it?!" He brushed past Murphy, muttering to himself about Murphy getting on his case.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Murphy followed his brother down the hallway to the security room, where they searched through a stack of tapes labeled with dates and security footage. Connor grabbed one tape in particular that had a memorable date on it.

"Dis one belongs to us," he confirmed with Murphy, who wore a cocksure smirk. In addition to their "adult video," Connor removed the tape currently in the recorder, and with both tapes in hand, wandered out of the room, and then out of the house.

There was no telling how long Eric Malone's body would remain there undiscovered, or if anyone would bother to come looking for them. However it ended up, the matter was no longer in their hands. They had already carried out what they felt was the best jurisdiction.

Arriving together at Rocco's car, they kept their greeting casual, and didn't let on at all that they had just blown a guy away less than thirty minutes ago. Rocco didn't ask questions, but he was dying to have answers. Regardless, he drove them home as he promised, and they in turn promised him that they'd spend time together that weekend.

In their apartment, they didn't speak to each other for a while. Connor sat down on his bed and rested his hands upon his jaw, thinking on what they had just done. Murphy sat across from him, looking him in the eye.

"Dat guy I killed…" he mentioned to his grieving twin, who only stared back. "He didn't do any'tin' wrong. I t'ought dat if we killed Malone, I'd stop feelin' guilty about it. I… I just feel worse. I feel like ya shoulda shot me dere beside 'im."

He reached his hand forward, and Murphy took it, feeling a scrunch around his fingers, which curled around the palm that clasped him. "It doesn't matter what you've done," Connor voiced with absolute certainty. "Yer still a saint to meh." Murphy's hand limped to his side and he fell forward into Connor's warm, brotherly arms, which tightened around his torso. Connor never tired of hugging him, and he hoped they'd have more to share in the future. In his heart, he knew that their dark paths didn't end with Eric's death. He didn't wish to admit it, but their lives had a course that they would soon feel obligated to follow.

When Murphy had calmed, he asked Connor, with a touch of his usual wit: "What do we do wit' de tape? Ya know… de one? Of us?"

Connor had already come up with an idea. "Let's re-label it and leave it at Rocco's." He couldn't even finish that sentence without laughing. Murphy's chortling and clapping told him that he agreed with this wondrous plan.

Thus, their evening ended just like any other. In two weeks, they'd reach their twenty-seventh birthday, and just as they had for every other, they'd drink, sing, chat, and celebrate, tossing all cares out the window and forgetting all that made them what they were.