Page 97 of Of Flame and Fury
I turn the corner, noting how the details of each painting become less complex and the vulnerabilities more apparent. For all the work Johnny put in ahead of time, it wasn’t enough. We thinned the herds of his monsters, and he needed to make more quickly.
I shift slowly when I hear a sound at the opposite end. It’s then the man I’m looking for finally materializes.
The veil Johnny used to conceal himself wears thins, dimming in and out until it collapses. I stretch my fingers, the energy lighting the tips causing my knuckles to crack and my hands to tremble.
Very little distance separates us. Just enough for Johnny to run, not that he’ll make it far.
On either side of him wait two incensed and massive bulls, one a deep orange, the other fire engine red. Smoke drifts from their nostrils and flames burn in their eyes. I don’t have to guess what they can do. It’s clear enough he means for me to meet my match.
Johnny’s bare feet twist along the pavers, rubbing his deep callouses against the stones. Light blue jeans, splattered in paint, cover the lower half of his body. They’re not the expensive kind with holes strategically placed by a designer who believes he’s the next big thing. Those wardrobe pieces and indication of wealth are a thing of the past. These jeans are like the ones Johnny had no choice to wear growing up, tattered and too big for his gangly frame.
He stands in front of a large canvas, his hands moving fast as he paints a winged stallion covered with armor. This must be his grand escape plan. Except, like I mentioned, he won’t get far.
I was right about the muscles he flexed back in the realm. They were as phony as he is. Like a heroin addict, Johnny has survived by feeding on the only drug he craves, power. An empty wine jug lies on the floor beside him, the bits of clotting blood that remain barely skimming the base. Shifter blood, I presume. Too bad even that won’t help him now.
I glide forward, not bothering to be quiet. Skin clings to Johnny’s bones. That beautiful silky hair women beat each other to run their hands through lies in a greasy mess against his scalp. He no longer knows food or drink. He only knows his mission.
“Shit,” he says. He bends when his palette runs out of gray paint, quickly mixing drops of white and black paint from the small bottles lining a table.
“It’s hard to get the right color, you know?” He laughs. “Maybe you don’t know. I think you once told me even stick figures don’t come natural to you,” he tells me.
The orange bull scratches at the floor, singeing lines into the pavers. I stroke a strand of hair that falls against my cheek. “You have a good memory,” I reply. “Remember that time I called you an asshole?” He stiffens. “That was a hell of an understatement, don’t you think?”
He sticks his brush in his mouth and pulls up his jeans when they sag past his hips.
“I didn’t want to kill Celia,” he says. He lifts the brush and dilutes the blue color with some water from a Styrofoam cup. “Just like you don’t want to kill me.”
“No…” I disagree. “I do very much want to kill you.”
I motion around, sort of surprised at myself for not immediately acting on my rather truthful declaration. “Look at all this, Johnny. Look how you took a beautiful gift and fucked it up. Is your life worth all the lives you’ve cost?”
He glances over his shoulder and narrows his gaze. The hair on top of his head is almost black now, what remains of the blond hangs past his ears. The back has done a shit job growing out. It hangs in tiers, as if belonging on someone else.
“My life is all I have,” he says. “It’s all I ever had.”
“Cry me a river,” I tell him.
Hurt and insult war in his features, matching the chaos outside. Johnny stayed in the confines of this place, listening to ever cry, whimper, and tormented scream. He heard death, and he fed it into his art. Still, he makes this moment all about him. There are narcissists, and then there’s Johnny Fate.
He jerks to the side when something strikes the stable to his left. The tension tightening his frail shoulders lessens only when his bulls don’t react to the threat.
Johnny wipes his right eye with the back of his hand and resumes our conversation, annoyed by the interruption of another insignificant death. “I got sloppy with my work,” he says. He sniffs. “You saw the ones on your way in, right? They were nice.”
“You mean the ones who tore so many apart?” I shake my head. “I wouldn’t call them nice. More like abominations, just like their maker.”
The red bull spits on the floor like a llama, the lava it spews burning a hole through several pavers.
“Shut up,” I tell it. I don’t demonstrate fear. There’s none left to show.
It takes a second or two for Johnny to breathe again. “You’re not going to kill me.”
“Yeah, I am,” I correct. “And your latest creations won’t stop me. It’s over, Johnny.”
His eyes widen when his bulls rock back on their hind legs and prepare to attack. It’s not because of anything I say and do. They recognize me as a threat.
Snarls erupt as Gemini’s twin takes point to my right. His fur is soaking wet. He doesn’t bother shaking it out, his gaze keen ahead.
Gemini flanks my opposite side. Water drips from his hair, down his face, streaking lines down his chest.