8

He figured he had a minute before Angel fully regained consciousness, so he went to the bathroom and grabbed a towel from the rack, wetting it down in the sink before returning to Angel’s office. He wiped the blood off his face, hands, and arms, and threw the wet, bloody towel in Angel’s garbage can. He’d buy him a new towel when he was back to normal.

And he wasn’t ready to qualify that with “if”, either. If he could accept vampires, he could accept all sorts of shit.

He sat on the edge of his desk as Angel regained consciousness, jerking at the restraints holding his arms behind his back. He was strong, but Logan made sure that the restraints would be incredibly difficult to break. “You really think you’re goin’ anywhere?”

He managed to roll over on his side and sit up, leaning back against the couch, and gave him an evil glare. “You can’t hold me forever.”

Logan shrugged. “Actually, I probably can. But I don’t have that kind of time, so I’d probably just hand you off to someone else. Giles mentioned that the Watchers council has reconvened in Australia; I wonder if they’d like you.”

Angel’s eyes were half yellow, and half-brown now. Not one eye one color, but each iris almost split clean in half. It was an odd look to say the least. “Are you trying to scare me?” he snarled.

This wasn’t Angel. He hadn’t met Angelus, but he’d heard about him, and this didn’t seem like him either. A third option? “If I was tryin’ to scare you, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

He sneered at him, his top lip pulling up over a very long canine tooth. Too long - it was definitely a fang. But the rest of his teeth were normal, which was actually a bit disconcerting. You’d think it would have been reassuring, but somehow it wasn’t. He was half transformed, half vampire and half man. Not only had he never seen it before, he’d never heard of it before. “You’re cattle, just like the rest of them. You think you’re special because you’re a freak, but you’re not; you’re just cattle. You bleed all the same.”

He crouched down, far enough to be out of kicking range, but low enough that he could meet Angel’s new odd eyed persona eye to eye. “Really? See, I was under the impression that you vamps thought I had special blood.” He popped a single claw, which Angel watched with intense interest, and pressed it against the thin skin of his opposite wrist, He turned his arm up so he could see it, and Angel was watching; he was riveted, just like he expected him to be. He was waiting for him to cut the skin, to cause the blood to well up, and he was almost salivating in anticipation. “Isn’t this what drove you crazy? Isn’t this what you wanted?”

He glanced up at him, Angel’s eyes almost totally yellow now, but he was unable to hold his gaze for long. “You’re toying with me.”

“Course I am. But if you can access Angel’s memories, you know that I’d give him my blood if I thought it would help.”

That made him snort and tear his eyes away, although that was clearly a fearsome effort on his part. “Like I’m diseased; like I need healing from some affliction.”

“You don‘t?” He was feigning ignorance. It was the best way to make people talk - well, some people.

His eyes snapped back, and caught him in a full yellow glare. “Idiot. I am the paragon of vampires - I am what we all should be. You should be cowering at my feet, mongrel.”

Logan sighed and retracted his claw. Oh, as if he hadn’t heard a variation on this theme a million times. “Wait, let me guess - you stole a page from the Magneto manifesto?” That confused him, so he just went on. “Look, I hate to shatter your delusion, but you’re just a vamp like any other vamp. Okay, there’s that whole soul thing, but from what I understand that’s not so special anymore.”

He grunted in annoyance. “Wrong, blood bag. I am the vampire I always should have been, finally. Those others are curs, pathetic little half-breeds.”

He didn’t miss being called “blood bag” - or “meat bag”. Different sides of the same coin really. But this arrogant beast was piquing his curiosity. Was Angel in fact just nuts? Had he finally gone over the edge? Logan couldn’t blame him if he did, and he certainly couldn’t talk, especially since he had several nervous breakdowns in his insanely long life. “And why exactly? What makes you so special?”

Angel - or whoever he was - glowered at him, his eyes lambent in the dim office. “I am Aurelian.”

He just stared at him, trying to figure out the joke. “You’re golden? Huh. You look pretty white to me.”

“Cretin!” He spat it with such venom, it sounded like the worst curse in the world. “We were the first! We are the alpha vampires, and we will be the omega! Once the race is resurrected, raised to its true glory, your bastard reign will end!”

Yep, he’d definitely stolen Magneto’s script. Where was that punk ass bitch? He should come in here and have Mystique kick Angel’s ass for plagiarism. “Yeah. If I overdosed on Prozac and let you drink my blood, will you get a good dose?”

Angel growled low in his throat, and continued staring at him, but Logan suddenly felt a strange sensation, like something was trying to prod his mind, trying to hold onto his eyes and thoughts with invisible hands. “Whoa - are you doing that? Neato trick, bub. Too weak to work on me - I’ve been mindfucked by the best; if I didn’t heal so fast, I’d have scar tissue three inches thick on my brain - but good try. What is it? It’s not quite telepathy …”

“You’re mind’s too small to hold,” he snarled, sounding almost more embarrassed than angry.

“Whatever. Is it mesmerism? Didn’t Dracula have that ability?”

“Don’t talk to me of that of that Judas!”

He wasn’t fictional? He would have sworn he was …

The inner office door opened, and Giles came in, cautiously looking towards them. “How’s it going?”

Angel snapped his head towards him, and he seemed a bit startled by his partial transformation. “You’re going to see your world die, Watcher! And there’s nothing you can do about! You’ll -”

Giles stepped forward, said something in a language Logan barely recognized - Aramaic? - and blew some kind of stinky dust from the palm of his hand and straight into Angel’s face. Logan expected a sneeze (even though he was pretty sure that vampires didn’t sneeze, as a general rule), but Angel stopped dead, and after a moment, his chin dropped to his chest, eyes closed.

“Sleeping spell,” Giles explained, wiping the palm of his hand on the leg of his pants. “After talking to Svetlana, I thought it might be necessary.”

Logan stood up, glad to be done with megalomaniac Angel-eto for the moment. “Svetlana? I take it she’s not your hot Russian girlfriend.”

It was a joke, but Giles just stared at him, frowning in disapproval. “Hardly. She’s a Watcher who’s specialty is the origin of demonic species, specifically vampires. I thought perhaps she might have some information that I didn’t.”

“And she did?”

He nodded. “ She has a very rare volume about the Master himself, water damaged and written in the difficult demon dialogue of Sklerran, but she’s managed to translate a good portion of the legible text. It seems there might be a way - a long shot, to be sure - to resurrect the Master through his immediate bloodline, the vampires he sired.”

Logan wasn’t sure what this had to do with Angel, until he made a logical leap. “He was sired by the Master?”

“No, he was sired by a woman sired by the Master, Darla.”

“So he’s once removed from him? He’s a pretty shitty resurrection target then, isn’t he?”

Giles looked briefly stricken, so no, he was wrong about that. “Actually, it’s more than possible that he’s the closest surviving member of the line. So if someone was going to do this, he’d be the best candidate. The only problem is, I’m not sure who did it, or how. Svetlana is working on translating what’s left of the text and extrapolating it, but not only would the ritual require a great deal of power, it would require some of Angel’s blood.”

That was a switch - a vampire needing to give blood instead of just taking it. “And how would someone do that without Angel giving his consent?”

Giles shrugged with his hands and grimaced abashedly. “It’s one of several details that still need sorting out. Did you learn anything useful?”

It was Logan’s turn to shrug. “He’s an egotistical prick now, better than your average vamp - or so he says. Called himself golden.”

“Golden?”

“Aurelian. Same damn thing.”

Giles pondered that, visibly confused. “Aurelian? Why would he …” Something like shocked revelation bloomed across his face, and he gasped, “As in from Aurelius; the order of Aurelius.”

“Which means what?”

“The order of Aurelius was a sect of warrior vampires … or so I thought it was a sect. Perhaps there was more to it than that; perhaps they’re a genuine sub-set of vampires related to the Master.”

He was sure he was missing a ton of back story, but honestly he had so much on his plate right now he didn’t care. “So he is some sort of uber vamp?”

Giles considered that long enough that he felt the answer in the silence: yes, yes, and holy shit yes. But when Giles spoke, he decided to equivocate a bit. “Well, perhaps. More likely the ability was somehow … dormant in him, a potentiality unreleased.”

“Until now.”

“It would seem.”

“And it brought out a new personality?”

Giles scowled down at the unconscious Angel, as if hoping he might volunteer an answer. He didn’t. “I don’t see how that could be possible. It could be it brought out a new aspect.”

“The megalomaniac aspect.”

Giles just shrugged. Well, it happened to everybody at some point or another. It was true that nearly everyone wanted to rule the world at some point - the good thing was so few people were capable of doing it. The bad part was the small percentage of people who could, and would, given the opportunity. Logan was just surprised, because he’d never put Angel in the latter camp.

Until now, of course.

****

Bren figured that all the weirdness of the day had sent his paranoia into overdrive. Maybe that would happen to anybody, especially if too much caffeine was making their heart race like a rabbit.

There was something about the client he didn’t quite trust, although he couldn’t put his finger on what or why. He seemed to be a relatively handsome man with high cheekbones and impressively neat driftwood brown hair, his clothes tasteful and nice but upper end chain store variety (Macy’s). His eyes were so pale blue they almost were grey, and they seemed strangely bright, like he was either constantly amused or constantly frightened. He had a good, firm handshake, though, which was another point for him.

Whatever alarm bells went off - if any ever did - faded as soon as he told his story, which was pretty creepy, and sounded believable (and not at all crazy). After going to a cousin’s funeral two weeks ago, he began noticing something like a shadow around his house at nights - and it was always at night - although he thought he caught a glimpse of the guy (and it was a guy) in the daytime for a little while. At first he thought it was just a strange looking man, one with a long face, but he got paler and more “decayed” every time he saw him, until he didn’t see him in the daytime anymore, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched. He’d occasionally find dead and mutilated birds and mice on the walk outside his house, but assumed it was a neighborhood cat, just like he made no connection between the “thing” and the disappearance of one of his co-workers. Until he came home the other night and found his dog - a pit bull - with its head ripped off and the body ! totally drained of blood. He still hadn’t found the head.

Bren glanced around for a silent poll, but if anyone disbelieved him they didn’t show it. And from the look on Xander’s face, this was a new one to him too.

The man, Miles Broom, worked at a local bank, and had only come in on his lunch hour, so he had to go back to work shortly after showing up. But Bren assure him they’d call him back, and look into the case. As soon as he was gone, he asked Xander, just for conformation, “Never heard of anything like that before?”

“Rotting guy killing pets? No. I mean, the zombies I’ve dealt with weren’t capable of stalking anyone. They were pure “crush-kill-destroy”. Oh, and eat.”

Naomi raised an eyebrow at him. “You’ve fought zombies?”

“Yep. With kitchen utensils.”

Naomi glanced at him, but all Bren could do was shrug. He had no idea if he was telling the truth or not. “You’ve had a very colorful life,” she finally replied.

Xander snorted. “That’s the nice way to put it.”

Giles came out then, looking tired but better than he had before. “How’s Angel?” Bren asked him. “Have you figured out what’s wrong with him?”

He hesitated just enough that he knew Giles wasn’t going to tell them the whole truth. He told them Angel was under a “sleeping spell” that should keep him down for a few hours, and he and Logan had a lead on Angel’s bizarre behavior, but for now they were all to stay away from Angel until they knew exactly what they were dealing with. That didn’t sound promising.

“But you trust Logan with him?” Xander asked, and he looked and sounded a bit offended. “Why? Just ‘cause he’s the mutant version of the Terminator?”

Naomi looked at him in disbelief. “Do you need a better reason?”

Giles cleared his throat, and gave Xander a look that suggested he should know better. “Angel attacked me, and had no fear of any of you. Faced with dealing with Logan, he ran away. Angel doesn’t want to fight Logan if he absolutely doesn’t have to, perhaps because he could decapitate and kill him with a single blow. Using his fear against him is a good idea.”

Xander looked like he wanted to argue, but didn’t, perhaps because he didn’t want to be treated to more of Giles’s withering looks. So Bren went ahead and told him about the client he just missed, and his rather grisly story of his ghoul stalker. About half way in, that line started to develop on Giles’s forehead, the one that appeared every time he knew something horrible that no one else knew; something so horrible that a regular person would probably scream and flee the room. Giles was too well trained - and too British - to ever actually do that. “It sounds like a Qutrub, but if it is … this man is in serious trouble.”

“I kinda think the pit bull with the head ripped off made that clear,” Xander snarked.

“So not just your run of the mill ghoul?” Bren prompted.

Giles shook his head, grimaced, and seemed to need a moment to gather his thoughts. “Qutrubs are very rare, and very vicious. They choose a victim at random, then spend some time insinuating themselves into their lives. Eventually they attack the victim and eat them from the inside out, a process that can take up to several months depending on the size of the victim. In that time, they wear the victim’s body and walk around in them. That’s why the man he saw seems to be rotting; he’s actually being consumed in pieces.”

Xander let out a low whistle. “I’m so glad to know that Sunnydale didn’t have a monopoly on gross.”

Yeah, that was fairly disgusting. Bren wanted to ask how long the victim was actually alive through the consumption process, but decided he was probably better off not knowing. “How do we kill it?”

Giles’s pause was long enough to be troubling. “It has to be chopped into small pieces and buried in salt. “

“Fun,” Naomi said, in a tone of voice that suggested the opposite. “So do you want to fire up the chainsaw while I go to the store and stock up on Morton’s?”

“I wish it was that simple. If threatened, they can jettison what’s left of their host.”

Bren knew he was going to regret asking, but went ahead and did it. “By jettison, you mean ..?”

“Discard it, sometimes in rotting pieces, at high velocity.”

“That’s disgusting,” Xander exclaimed. “Let me run home and get my video camera first, okay?”

“What do they look like in their natural form?” Bren asked, after everyone had a chance to throw an evil look Xander’s way.

Giles had to think about it for a moment. “Like a cross between a jellyfish and a centipede, only two and half feet long.”

“Eww,” Naomi said, speaking for all of them, wrinkling her nose at the same time.

Logan came out into the front office, hair damp, and wearing clean, intact clothes (just a generic navy blue t-shirt and black sweatpants, the spare clothes they had in abundance around here), and glanced around the room at Naomi’s comment. “I look that bad?”

Giles rubbed his forehead, a nervous gesture, and admitted, “We seem to have several problems going on at once.”

“Don’t we always?”

That was true, but it seemed unsporting to admit it. Logan was caught up on the Qutrub, but seemed nonchalant about it, as if nothing could faze him now (which was probably true). “Tell me when it shows, and I’ll chop it up. You guys get to shove it in the salt shaker,” he said, walking towards the door. He was leaving?

Bren got to his feet, trying not to seem too eager, and asked, “Logan, where are you going?”

He fixed him with a stern gaze, like he should have known better than to ask. “I gotta appointment, don’t I? The Matador’s looking for me, and he’s gotta find me.”

“If you get yourself kidnapped, you won’t be here when we need you,” Bren pointed out, wondering belatedly if he’d ever said anything quite so loopy in his life. Probably not, although he bet he’d gotten close.

Logan grunted in ill humor, turning away towards the door. “Like there’s a prison that can hold me,” he muttered. “I’ll ring ya when I’m done.” He walked out, shutting the door firmly behind him.

“He must need a separate trailer for his ego,” Xander said disparagingly.

“He’s just cocky, but he’s got a right,” Bren replied, wondering why he was defending him. Right now he was pretty pissed off at him, leaving them with a crazy Angel and a killer ghoul. “He really has escaped from almost every trap he’s ever been caught in. Of course, it sometimes took years, but the key to Logan is he never gives up.”

“But he didn’t know this friend of yours, right?” Naomi asked Xander. She looked as confused as Bren felt. “Nor does he know this so called Matador. So why is he so gung ho to get this guy?”

No one had an answer to that. Well, except Logan perhaps, but he wasn’t here to tell them. And for some reason, Bren didn’t think he would tell them even if he was here.

Was there any figuring that man out?

9

If something was too good to be true, it usually was. He knew this, it ate at him, but he also knew that beggars couldn’t really be choosers. And he was a beggar, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

The guy in the tweed coat was named Truman Johnson (sounded like a fake name, but it was just absurd enough that it could have been real), and he described himself as a businessman, one who was a little on the “extra-legal” side. He was a black marketeer, specializing in electronics and bootleg DVDs, or so he claimed - no drugs, no weapons, nothing that “dangerous”. He felt he was doing a service really, getting these things to remote areas of Alaska and Nunavut where these things had limited availability if they had any availability at all, and he only went black market to avoid the “ludicrous” red tape and taxes of the Canadian and American governments.

Did Logan believe this? Not really, no, but he figured he must have been a criminal - no one treated decent citizens like lab rats, did they? - and it was an easy job with a ludicrous paycheck. And that’s where his conscience nagged at him, because there was no way he was being paid enough to afford a new truck just by guarding stereo equipment. It was a fucking no-brainer. This was all wrong.

And yet, he needed the money. What the hell was he going to do for it now that the pipeline wasn’t taking on new workers - fight in illegal ultimate fighter cage matches like those pathetic ex-loggers? Fuck that; he had some dignity, even if that wasn’t immediately apparent. He knew something that constantly well off never knew, which was this: it was nice to have money. Not to buy yachts or people or anything like that, it was just nice to know you could eat wherever the hell you wanted, have as many drinks as you wanted, and not worry about whether you could actually afford it or not. There was simple freedom in having a decent wage that he was pretty sure guys like Truman didn’t actually understand.

Of course being the new guy, he didn’t actually “guard” anything. He was usually sent with two guys - a big Irish guy named Fitz, and some ‘roided out ex-soldier named Nelson who seemed to think he was a much badder ass than he actually was. Every time he talked about putting this guy or that in the hospital, Logan felt an almost undeniable urge to punch him until his face didn’t look like anything remotely Human anymore. But that would make him like him, wouldn’t it?

It was humiliating to think that Truman saw him as nothing but muscle, a strong and semi-belligerent guy who was perfect for his squad of goons. It was even more humiliating to realize that Truman was perfectly right.

While he hated Nelson, Fitz was all right. He was a former logger from Alberta who felt he had a common ally in him, as Logan had claimed to be from Alberta, even though he didn’t actually know where he was from; he just woke up there. He could be from Saskatchewan or the States or fucking Burma for all he knew, but he didn’t want to crush Fitz, so he kept the truth to himself.

Mainly the three of them were enforcers, basically reminding certain buyers and suppliers of Truman’s that they should make up accounts and quickly, or face them again, in a much darker mood. People generally paid, and he was glad.

They were also “protection” against mobsters who wanted to “horn in” on the business and take over, which Logan assumed was Truman bullshit until someone actually opened fire on them with a semi-machine gun. The three of them were pinned down behind a broken down car in a deserted garage, but Logan managed to put together an ad hoc Molotov cocktail with a gas can, and that pretty much turned the tide for them. He got shot in the arm heaving it over the car, but the others didn’t notice, and it was healed by the time it was all over, so he figured he’d gotten lucky there. If “getting lucky” could ever be defined as being pinned down with weapons fire.

He was supposed to carry a gun, but he claimed not to like guns. He got a large hunting knife instead, with a thick serrated blade, and sometimes he’d stare at it and wonder why his claws were almost twice its size. Who’d give a criminal such nasty weapons?

Days stretched to weeks and then to months, playing enforcer for a guy who could honestly be a loan shark for what little he knew about him, traveling between Alaska and British Columbia and back, although one trip took them to Toronto. Truman was starting to trust him more, and his pay was going up in increments. He got his truck fixed, got some more clothes, better blankets, got some non-perishable food to sock away; he knew he should quit now, but after that brief spate of violence, it seemed like such a cushy, easy job. He wasn’t hurting anyone, or at least anyone that wasn’t some kind of oily scumbag - what was the harm? At least he was out of the Yukon, and winter was nearly over.

Truman eventually trusted him enough that he asked him to guard his home in Vancouver while he was away “overseas” (he never learned where, although eventually he could guess), a nice home on the water that included his rather brittle looking trophy wife, Hannah. She was a cool blonde who probably didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, with the largest amount of body weight concentrated in her obviously surgically enhanced breasts. There was something about her eyes that he found deeply disturbing - it wasn’t that they were empty more than there was an obvious desire to be empty. Her eyes were tired, listless, almost dull, almost always at odds with the phony, pained smile on her face. Something about her suggested she had given up on life, that she was always on the verge of suicide, even though it was clear she lived pretty well.

He knew this was the tipping point; that if he tried to find out what made Truman’s wife so miserable, he would regret it for the rest of his life. And yet the night wore on in silence so complete that he could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the main foyer; the oppressiveness of it all made him talk to her.

He wasn’t good at small talk, but neither was she, so he was able to skip ahead to his point, asking her if she knew exactly what her husband did for a living. That elicited a very sad smile, and a strangely resigned, “Heavens no. I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is.”

Which was absolutely the answer he didn’t need to hear. Jesus Christ, what had he gotten himself into?

There wasn’t much to talk about beyond that, but she did drink a lot, and let him join her. The second night, she invited him upstairs with her.

She wasn’t attracted to him - desire had a scent, a shift in body chemistry he could easily detect, and even if a woman never acted on it or was quietly repelled by her own reaction, at least he had the satisfaction of knowing she had wanted him, however briefly - and he wasn’t attracted to her (she wasn’t his type; she was too blonde and too skinny), so it was a surprise. He thought he was misunderstanding her intentions until he watched her step out of her dress from the relative safety of the bedroom doorway. “Why?” he wondered, more than a little confused. She was even skinnier than he thought.

“You’re lonely too,” she said simply.

“How do you figure?” Not a denial; he really was curious how she knew. He didn’t actually think he was, but as soon as she said it, he knew she was right. He sometimes had a sneaking suspicion that women could see right through him, and now he wanted to know how they did it.

“You talked to me. Tru’s men never talk to me.”

It was that simple, was it? Maybe he was more obvious than he thought.

He shouldn’t have slept with her, but he did, because he wasn’t made of stone, and while he wasn’t exactly attracted to her, it ultimately didn’t matter. They were both lonely, and they were both willing to settle with each other. It was actually pretty nice; he’d forgotten how comforting the touch of a woman was. He was afraid he might have a nightmare and accidentally hurt her, but his subconscious must have realized he wasn’t sleeping alone, as he had no dreams that night at all. It was the best night’s sleep he’d had in a long time.

But with the pale light of morning, all those anxieties were back eating up his gut. Hannah had given up on life and started wasting away, she was so tired of being married to this man. But why didn’t she leave? He decided to ask after his shower, while he was getting dressed and she was sitting at her make up table, putting her face on. He didn’t think women in this day and age had make up tables anymore, but Hannah did, a small desk like table with three abutting mirrors with bright lights ringing them, allowing her to see every single flaw on her face in excruciating detail. He wondered if the vanity was her idea or his.

“Why leave?” she replied wearily, dusting blush across her cheeks. She didn’t seem as dissolute this morning; maybe she finally got a good night’s sleep too. “There’s no point. I live here comfortably, and while he may cheat on me on his “business trips”, at least I can as well. We both agreed we could stray, as long as we weren’t obvious about it. I’ll stay until he gets tired of me and asks me to go.”

He didn’t get this at all. She was clearly miserable, so what was she waiting for? “Why not leave now?”

She shrugged, barely glancing at him in the mirror. “What’s the point? I don’t really have anywhere to go anyways.”

Suddenly he felt like he’d stepped into some Bizarro world. Truman was slick and charming, but he seemed to wear his pseudo-amiability like mask, hiding his true feelings and intentions, making vague statements of what job he was really hiring his employees for, while his wife seemed so drained of life she sought comfort with the first stranger who showed a bit of interest in her. He wanted to run screaming out of this cold and barely inhabited place, but he knew he couldn’t.

“You should probably leave,” she said.

He sighed and nodded in agreement. “Yeah. I guess I oughta check in anyways -”

“I didn’t mean here,” she quickly replied. “I mean Truman’s business. You should get out while you can.”

He didn’t understand, and he was sure that showed on his face. “Why?”

“You have a conscience. You really don’t belong here, Logan. You’ll get killed.”

He had a conscience? Did he? He just slept with his boss’s wife - signs didn’t look good. “I’m tougher than I look.”

She turned to look at him, and there was something stark and haunting about her face, like she was a ghost looking out at him from the past. “There’s more than one way to get killed.” It took him a moment to realize she wasn’t talking about physically.

He went downstairs, trying to put the pieces together, and was unable to do so. Truman was a black marketeer; he knew going in he was no innocent. He knew the money he was earning so easily was tainted, but was it covered in blood? It must have been - when did people open fire on others for bootleg DVDs?

He knew. He knew all along, but he was such a greedy bastard and a coward that he didn’t want to see it. He should just leave, like Hannah told him, but he needed to know what he’d been a party to for so long, He needed to know what crimes he’d been abetting, what he’d been inadvertently helping along.

And then what? He honestly didn’t know. He supposed he’d just walk away and wash his hands of it all, be done with it. Would it be that easy though? Would Truman let him walk?

Yes, he would. He would have no choice in the matter. Truman would let him walk, or he’d walk straight through him; the choice was his.

He’d best choose wisely.