فصل 23

23

Nasty Little Requiem

Rowan could not find Citra, which meant he couldn’t help her.

He cursed himself for not pressuring High Blade Xenocrates into divulging her whereabouts. Rowan had been foolish, and perhaps arrogant enough to think he’d be able to track her down on his own. After all, he’d been able to track down the various scythes he had ended. But those scythes were all public figures who flaunted their position in the world. They existed smack in the middle of their own notoriety, like the center of a bull’s-eye. Citra, however, had gone off-grid with Scythe Curie—and finding an off-grid scythe was next to impossible. As much as he wanted to play a role in saving them from the plot against them, he couldn’t.

So instead, his thoughts kept coming back to the one thing he could do. . . .

Rowan had always prided himself on his restraint. Even when he gleaned, he manage to fold his anger away, gleaning the most despicable of scythes without malice, just as the second commandment required. Now, however, he could not fold away his fury at Scythe Brahms. Instead, it expanded like a sail in the wind.

Scythe Brahms was small-minded and provincial by nature. His own bull’s-eye was only about twenty miles in diameter. In other words, all his gleanings took place in and around his home in Omaha. When Rowan first had the man in his sights, he had tracked his movements, which were very predictable. Each morning he walked his yappy little dog to the same diner where he had breakfast every day. It was also the place where he gave out immunity to the families of whomever he had gleaned the day before. He never ever rose from his booth, merely extending his hand for the grieving families to kiss, then returning his attention to his omelet, as if those people were an annoying imposition on his day. Rowan couldn’t imagine a lazier scythe. The man must have felt incredibly put out to travel halfway across MidMerica to glean Rowan’s father.

On a Monday morning, while Brahms was at breakfast, Rowan made his way to the man’s home, for the first time wearing his black robe in daylight. Let people see him and spread rumors. Let the public finally know of the presence of Scythe Lucifer!

The many secret pockets of his robe were weighed down with more weapons than he needed. He wasn’t sure which one he would use to end the man’s life. Perhaps he’d use them all—each one incapacitating Brahms further so he’d have plenty of time to contemplate the approach of death.

Brahms’s house was impossible to miss. It was a well-kept storybook Victorian, painted peach with baby-blue trim—the same colors as Brahms’s robe. The plan was to break in from a side window and wait for Brahms to return, cornering him in his own home. Rowan’s fury peaked as he approached, and as it did, something Scythe Faraday once said came back to him.

“Never glean in anger,” Faraday had told him. “For while anger might heighten your senses, it clouds your judgment, and a scythe’s judgment should never be impaired.” Had Rowan heeded Scythe Faraday’s words, things might have turned out very differently.

• • •

Scythe Brahms let his Maltese do its business on whomever’s lawn it chose, and Brahms couldn’t be bothered to clean it up. Why should it be his problem? And besides, his neighbors never complained. On this day, however, the dog was being finicky and a bit retentive as they walked back from breakfast. They had to walk an extra block, until finally Requiem shat on the Thompsons’ snow-dusted lawn.

Then, after leaving that little gift for the Thompsons, Scythe Brahms found his own little gift waiting for him in his living room.

“We caught him climbing in through a window, Your Honor,” one of his domestic guards told him. “We knocked him out before he was even halfway in.” Rowan was on the ground, hog-tied and gagged—conscious once more, but dazed. He couldn’t believe his own stupidity. After his last encounter with Brahms, how could he not realize that Brahms would have guards? The knot on his head from where one of the guards had hit him was numb and beginning to shrink. He had his pain nanites set fairly low, but they were still releasing painkillers, making him feel druggy—or maybe it was a concussion from the blow to the head. And making it all worse was that miserable little Maltese that wouldn’t stop barking, and kept rushing toward him as if to attack, but then running away. Rowan loved dogs, but this one made him wish there were canine scythes.

“Oafs!” said Brahms. “Couldn’t you have put him on the kitchen floor instead of the living room? His blood is getting all over my white carpet!” “Sorry,  Your Honor.”

Rowan tried to struggle against his bonds, but they only got tighter.

Brahms went over to the dining room table, where Rowan’s weapons had been laid out. “Splendid,” he said. “I’ll add all these to my personal collection.” Then he pulled the scythe’s ring from Rowan’s hand. “And this was never even yours to begin with.” Rowan tried to curse at him, but of course couldn’t because of the gag in his mouth. He arched his back, which pulled the bonds tighter, which made him scream in frustration, which set the dog barking again. Rowan knew all this was giving Brahms precisely the show he wanted to see, but Rowan couldn’t stop himself. Finally, Brahms instructed the guards to sit him up in a chair, then Brahms himself removed the gag from his mouth.

“If you have something to say, then say it,” Brahms ordered.

Instead of talking, Rowan took the opportunity to spit in Brahms’s face, which brought forth a brutal backhanded slap from the man.

“I let you live!” yelled Rowan. “I could have gleaned you, but I let you live! And you repay me by gleaning my father?” “You humiliated me!” screamed Brahms.

“You deserved much worse!” Rowan yelled right back.

Brahms looked at the ring he had pulled from Rowan’s hand, then slipped it in his pocket. “I’ll admit that after your attack, I took a good look at myself, and reconsidered my actions,” Brahms said. “But then I decided I would not be bullied by a thug. I will not change who I am for the likes of you!” Rowan was not surprised. It was his mistake in thinking that a snake would choose to be anything but a snake.

“I could glean you and burn you, as you would have done to me,” said Brahms, “but you still have that ‘accidental’ immunity that Scythe Anastasia gave you—so I’d be punished for violating your immunity.” He shook his head bitterly “How our own rules do work against us.” “I suppose you’ll turn me over to the scythedom now.”

“I could,” said Brahms, “and I’m sure they’ll be happy to glean you once your immunity expires next month. . . .” Then he grinned. “But I’m not going to tell the scythedom that I’ve caught the elusive Scythe Lucifer. We have much more interesting plans for you.” “We?” said Rowan. “What do you mean ‘we’?”

But the conversation was over. Brahms put the gag back in Rowan’s mouth, and turned to his guards. “Beat him, but don’t kill him. And when his nanites heal him, beat him again.” Then he snapped his fingers at the dog. “Come, Requiem, come!” Brahms left his goons to put Rowan’s healing nanites to work, while outside, the heavens themselves seemed to rupture with a mournful deluge of rain.