“I can’t take you seriously, Fletch, you have a dollop of ice cream on your nose. Besides, we can have this conversation a thousand times – it’s not going to stop me going out there and doing what I do.”
Fletcher finished off the cone and wiped the ice cream from his face.
“Are you so determined to be the hero?” he asked softly.
She kissed him, and didn’t answer. He was wrong, of course. It wasn’t about her being the hero – not any more. It was just about her trying not to be the villain.
Solomon Wreath was confident that he could be just such a destabilising influence. Leaving many of his decisions open to chance, he had approached the tattoo parlour three times already, and by the toss of a coin he had walked on by. The fourth toss of the coin, however, brought him to the door, and had him climbing the narrow stairs, black bag in one hand, cane in the other. No sound coming from above him. No whine of the tattooist’s needle. No chat, laughter or yelp. He could practically sense the trap waiting for him, but this didn’t slow his step.
At the top of the stairs he turned and walked through the doorway, and that was when the skinny man with the Pogues T-shirt came at him with a cushion. Not being the world’s deadliest weapon, the cushion bounced softly off Wreath’s shoulder, and the skinny man did his best to run by. Wreath dropped his cane, caught the man and threw him against a chair that looked like it belonged in a dental surgery. The skinny man fell awkwardly over it.
“Finbar Wrong,” Wreath said, putting the black bag on a nearby table. “May I call you Finbar? I assume you know who I am.”
Finbar sprang to his feet, hands held out in front of him, fingers rigid. “I do,” he said, “and I feel I have to warn you, man, you can’t beat me. I’ve seen this fight already, and I know every move you’re gonna make.”
Shadows curled around Wreath’s cane, and brought it up off the floor and into his waiting hand.
Finbar nodded. “I knew you were gonna do that.”
Wreath went to walk around the chair. Finbar moved in the opposite direction. Wreath turned, went the other way, and so did Finbar.
Wreath sighed. “This is ridicul—”
“Ridiculous!” Finbar interrupted quickly. “See? I’ve already lived through this encounter. You’d better walk away now, dude, save yourself a whole lot of pain.”
“If you have seen this fight, if you knew precisely when I would arrive, then why did you attack me with a cushion?”
Finbar hesitated. “I’m … I’m toying with you, is what I’m doing. Hitting you with a cushion instead of my fists of fury is gonna, like, take longer, draw out your agony. Kinda like water torture, with cushions. Cushion torture.”
“It doesn’t sound very painful.”
“Well, I haven’t really settled on a name for it …”
“You’re a trained fighter, I take it?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You’re a bit thin, aren’t you? You’re practically malnourished.”
“Looks can be deceiving, man. After all, the strongest muscle in the human body is the brain.”
“Well then, as along as you don’t hit me with your brain, I should be OK.”
Finbar suddenly broke for the door. Wreath came up behind him, whacked the cane into the back of his legs. Finbar crashed into the wall.
“Ow,” he moaned.
Wreath took a hold of him and dragged him back, threw him into the dentist’s chair. “When did you first have a vision that I would be paying you a visit?”
“Last night,” he moaned.
“And what did you do?”
“I sent Sharon and my kid away. I was gonna join them, but the vision changed, and you weren’t gonna come.”
“But then a few minutes ago …”
He nodded. “Had another one. Told me you were about to climb the stairs. Only weapon I had was the cushion.”
“Which is not technically considered a weapon.”
Finbar glared. “A true master can make anything into a weapon.”
“But you’re not a true master, Finbar.” Wreath prodded him with the cane, forcing him to sit back. “Did your vision tell you why I was coming to see you?”
“I didn’t really get that far.”
“I need you to do me a favour. I want you to look into Valkyrie Cain’s future, and tell me what you see.”
“Why don’t you just ask her?”
“I need something more than what you’ve already seen. I need you to look harder.”
“Can’t do it,” Finbar said, shaking his head. “I won’t do it. Val’s a friend of mine. You can torture me all you want.”
“Can I?”
He paled. “Metaphorically speaking.”
Wreath smiled, and shadows crept up the chair, wrapping themselves around Finbar’s arms and legs before he could even struggle. Wreath went to the black bag on the table. “It’s OK. I know it would probably take a lot for you to betray a friend like that. So I’m taking the option away from you.”
From the bag, Wreath took a glass sphere, encased in a stone shell.
Quickly realising that he couldn’t break his bonds, Finbar settled back into the chair. “You’re bribing me with a snow globe?” he asked. “That’s a bit … insulting, don’t you think?”
“This isn’t for you.”
Now Finbar could see the darkness swirling in the sphere, and his face slackened and his voice cracked. “That’s a Soul Catcher.”
“Yes, it is. And its occupant is the Remnant who caused everyone so much trouble a few months ago. This is the little guy who possessed Kenspeckle Grouse, who went on to repair the Desolation Engine that destroyed the Sanctuary. This is not a very nice Remnant.”
Finbar licked his lips nervously. “You can’t put it in me. You just can’t, man. No, listen, that thing is, it’s evil, right? Once it’s in me, it’ll lie to you, tell you whatever it thinks you wanna hear.”
“It will tell me whatever I want to know, Finbar, which is not quite the same thing.”
“Aw, please, don’t do this.” The man was almost crying.
“I’ll take it out of you immediately after,” Wreath assured him. “You’ll black out; you won’t remember a thing.”
“I don’t want it in me. It’ll change me.”