'Hell-fire' answered Kat. 'On three!'
Harmony and I agreed with nods and gulps. Unfortunately the bogs where closer than expected, and the choice of a countdown was removed by a flying hook, clattering into the back of Eddinray's head — knocking the screaming knight forward, and dragging us all head-first into a new nightmare…
20. Four More
I moved with purpose through vulgar lights and sounds. It was a minute before 8pm on a frosty November evening, but the fairground amusements caused those around me to forget the cold. I followed John Curtis to that dominating Ferris wheel; took my place in the cue behind him then set my gaze to the grass. The bastard hadn't seen me yet, perhaps he wouldn't remember my face.
The Ferris wheel was the star of the show here, standing nearly three-hundred feet with sixteen revolving gondolas around a blinking neon wheel, and peppered with smiling faces and hands waving from the heights. A young girl got on the first available ride with her boyfriend, John Curtis was due a spot next. When his gondola came round, I nudged past the stoned attendant and joined Curtis in our own private cage. The door shut behind with a satisfying lock, and the gondola rocked as we began to ascend the circle. Curtis sat opposite me taking in views of the night harbor. 'Mr. Fox,' he said, unsurprised. 'Have you come to kill me?'
I swallowed hard but kept my cool. His face hadn't changed; it was everything I remembered from the trial; disappointingly average. Ordinarily balding for a man in his late forties, ordinarily carrying a little more around the waist, and ordinarily unlike any murderer you can imagine. The only unusual thing about John Curtis tonight was his smart corduroy suit, a three piece. This was an educated, well to do man who didn't belong amongst the high school kids below us. A man who, at the start of the evening, never intended to find himself in this grubby fairground.'I've felt you on my back for the last hour,' he said, unhurried; 'and yesterday through the market, and the day before as I waved down a cab. Then there was Thursday, loitering outside my office, and there again Friday and the following Monday morning. A child could find better hiding places. You're my own little fan club.'
'Why then,' I asked, feeling the hand tremble inside my jacket pocket; 'didn't you say anything?'
'It was harmless enough for the first month,” he shrugged. 'To be honest I was flattered, amused. I mean all that fuss for little old me. Made me feel…important somehow. Notorious even.'
'And now?'
'Now it's past harassment, and people are beginning to talk. Look around you Fox, hardly up-scale this place but you are the only one who looks like a bum. How many nights have you slept in those clothes? Do you think about anything other than me nowadays? Shaving? A shower? No?'
I did look shabby in my jeans, scruffy shirt and jacket, but this recent hobby of mine made all that junk seem so worthless.
'Gone on long enough,' said Curtis, exasperated. 'Tonight I wanted to have it out — so I walked — you followed, and here we are.'
The wheel continued to creak on its revolution, and between the bars of our gondola, I could see the tacky merry go round, the young stuffing vending machines with coins and the bumper cars leaving trails of electric light.
John Curtis watched me watch him; he crossed his legs, lit a cigarette, and then offered me one from the pack. 'Suit yourself,' he said, on my refusal. 'But we will talk Fox, or you will. After all that's what all this boils down to, me listening to you, isn't that right? So go on, get it off your chest. Say what you have to say then we can both move on with our lives. You've got my attention.'
'There are two things I want from you,' I mumbled, feeling the hand sweat in my jacket pocket.
'The first?' he asked, while I hesitated. 'Well? Tell me!'
'Are…you sorry?'
Blowing smoke out his nose in a bored fashion, Curtis shook his head and smiled. 'I might have known. You were always hell-bent on the status of my remorse. Didn't you visit me in prison once to ask that same question? Am I sorry?'
'You didn't answer me in prison.'
'You weren't ready for the answer, Fox. You never will. Yes I am sorry,' he said, leaning forward. 'Sorry for you. Sorry you wasted your time. This sad obsession is taking over your life. It is your life!'
'Stop talking,' I said, through clenched teeth. 'Shut your fucking mouth.'
'It's funny,' he continued, unconcerned; 'the former detective who sees so much of people. You observe men but cannot understand them. Should I be sorry? I am certainly not proud of what I did, but neither am I sorry. I was careless yes, but I cannot be sorry for the lessons I learned, and paid for with years! My debt to society has been paid.'
'Not in full!' I growled, standing. 'You killed six people you son of a bitch, four of them children, yet you sit here wearing that shit kicker grin and call it carelessness? Don't you have a fucking soul inside you?'
He laughed again, a condescending titter. 'The soul is an invention to keep sheep in place, Fox. When I die there won't be any angel over me; just my rotting corpse with the worms and my mind enjoying everlasting peace from your footsteps.'
The wheel creaked to its very top, — 300 feet above anything else. I could only make out a smudge below and twinkle of stars above. 'What else?' he asked, taking a long drag from his cigarette. 'You said there were two things you wanted from me? The second? Ride's nearly over and I want this finished.'
I didn't keep him waiting. I removed the revolver from my jacket pocket, and still he didn't seem surprised. My hand quaked, but I wasn't afraid or morally torn in anyway. No, I was putting right a terrible wrong done to me and five other families; this was justice, a fate chosen for me a very long time ago, an action I was destined to take.
'My kid was 12 years old,' I said, numbly. 'She was shy and bright. Together we would swim, wash the dog or eat pizza, meaningless things that meant the world to me. You laugh through your smoke at me, but I haven't smiled once since the day I first heard your name. You took away everything I loved, and now that they've given you you're liberty back, I've got no choice but to take away the one thing you care about.'
I aimed the gun straight between his eyes, and cocked back the hammer. “That…is all I want from you,' I finished, squeezing the trigger.
***
This was the express chute to something more than an underground realm: it was a systematic examination of heart and soul; a prying, malevolent energy informing whoever it may concern that these particular individuals where now in Hell with the rest of them. Kat and Harmony received the most attention from this thorough investigation, a force glowing warm to have an exiled angel in its company, and a samurai's long awaited return.
Once this surveilling spirit had finished with us, it left us sliding down into a cold cave. We recovered on our backs from the fall, only for our noses to be assaulted by the stench of enduring excrement. 'Wasn't me,” said Eddinray, blowing a frosty breath.
Harsh winter blues illuminated this tight cave, like a beat from inside the very rock. Eddinray stood but black ice returned him to his backside. The rest of us took care with our footing. I assisted the delicate looking angel upright, and then introduced myself. 'Harmony,” she replied, smiling, but the unpleasant sight of my scabby eye turned her head.
Ashamed, I concealed that bloodied side of my face; but after composing herself, Harmony took my chin and examined the wound. 'It'll need a tight wrapping,' she said. 'Such a thing should kill a man, Daniel. Be glad you're still with us.'
Harmony proceeded to tare various lengths of material from the bottom of her gown and wrap them around my eye. 'The wound will heal sooner than you expect, but I'm afraid the eye itself will never return…'
Her pressing cloth was an uncomfortable sensation, but I was grateful as she secured it around my head with firm knots. 'Was not my intention to follow you down here,” she added, squinting back up at the butterfly inducing ice chute. 'Alas…'
'That makes the two of us dear,' added Eddinray, appearing gaunter than usual in this chilly glow. 'Are you
