Friends Down Low (ONC2022)

Chapter 10 - Not Enough Kindness to Waste

"You want to tell me who they were?" I sipped root beer with McGavin as we sat on Simon's front porch.

"Cultists. Fanatics. Saint super fans. I thought it was obvious."

"No. The photo you looked at."

"Ah." He paused and for a moment I thought he'd dodge the question. "My wife and kid. I lost them long ago."

I'd assumed as much. "I'm sorry."

"I had tried to retire. Go straight. Old enemies tried to blow up my car. But the day they did it my wife just happened to be using it to take my daughter to school."

"Damn."

"Yeah. So, I did what most men would do. Made a deal with a demon to get revenge and got screwed." He tapped his sunglasses. I had no condolences to fit that one.

Clancy and Sil joined us, with the former handing me a stupidly large glass of whiskey. I took a sip and winced. My nerves were shot, and my stomach was doing flip-flops. Straight booze would probably make me puke, so I cut it with my root beer, and swirled it around. The giant man glared at me disapprovingly. "What? Lots of people mix soda with their whiskey."

"Lots of assholes do." He carried the bottle and leaned against the railing.

We sat there in silence, enjoying the calm weather and view. Finally, McGavin asked, "So, what's the plan?"

"After your shoot-up at the diner, the Saint will come tonight with as many followers as she can muster or convert from town. She has no time to waste," Sil said. She glanced at the sun. "That gives us only a few hours."

"What would Uncle Simon want us to do?" I asked.

"Simon wasn't the kind of man to do this dirty work. It was his goodness that kept the evil at bay for so long. And that was a fine strategy for as long as he lived. Hell, he was even able to teach the three of us to be better people." Clancy shook his head. "But as powerful in his kindness as he was, he wasn't able to see how the road eventually had to end. His light held Saint Shadow at bay, but to truly defeat her we have to do it the old-fashioned way."

I felt like I knew what he meant but asked anyway. "What's the old-fashioned way?"

"Each side lines up its killers. We face off. Maybe talk some trash. Then we tear into each other. Last one standing wins."

"Ah. I had a fifth-grade gym teacher that described our dodgeball games that way."

A low tiger-like growl vibrated through the burly man. "You're really not cut out for this kind of life."

I slapped the arm of the chair. "That has been my damn point from the start of this mess."

"Maybe you'll live long enough to move on," Sil said. "Your uncle would have not approved of the bloodshed, but we have to accept there is no other way."

Bloodshed. The word echoed surreally in my mind.

"It does seem odd that Simon saved the three of us, only for us to return to our killing ways on his behalf," McGavin lamented.

"That's just how it goes sometimes. I wonder more why he bothered helping us in the first place," Clancy said. "There's not enough kindness in this world. Why waste it on three lost causes like us?"

"That's the point of kindness. That's how it works," Sil replied.

"Were we worth the effort? Did we somehow manage to right our wrongs? Or did we just stop being assholes?" McGavin wondered

"I didn't stop being one. I just wandered out to the middle of nowhere so that my asshole-ness didn't bother anyone. But I can't say I made the world a better place."

"Well, now's your chance," Sil told him.

As if on cue, a pickup truck pulled up the driveway. A lone man emerged and I recognized him from the roadblock earlier. He approached the house, his hands in the air.

"A messenger," Sil said. "So it begins."

"Want to me to tear him a new one or should we hear him out?" Clancy asked.

They all turned to me for the answer. Stunned, I didn't reply at first. I didn't want any de facto mantle of leadership. Not at all. But I also wasn't ready to order a man's death. "Let's hear him out."

The man stopped at the foot of the porch stairs. "The Saint of Shadows sends her regards." He presented a rolled sheet of paper, tied with string. It looked very much like a spell scroll one might see in a fantasy movie. "This is a list of all the generous offerings the Saint will bequeath upon you should you surrender the premises. All you have to do is give her what she wants."

I figured it couldn't hurt to look at the offer, so I took it from his hand.

Clancy immediately snatched it from me, crumpled it into a ball, and bounced it off the envoy's forehead. "Tell your saint the only thing she'll get here is a fight. Bloody and to the death."

"That's right," McGavin chimed in. "Our good Finnigan here..." He swung a hand as if to place it reassuringly on my shoulder, but misjudged my position and swiped empty air. I stepped closer and nudged him so he could repeat the gesture. With hand firmly now on my shoulder, he repeated, "Our good Finnigan here has no interest at all in those fabulous riches. A life free from woe or care holds no meaning for him. He is perfectly content to never experience any of the finer things in this life."

It ran through my head that it didn't sound like he was describing me at all. I wondered that if my trio of guardians wasn't here, would I have taken the offer? Probably. At least for a few of the finer things. Maybe.

"You have your answer, messenger. Go back to your saint."

"We'll kill you all," the man sneered and turned to walk away.

Sil went over the railing in a bizarre combination of leaping and floating. She landed on his back, the pincers on her fingers driving into his neck. It was as quick as a scorpion's sting and when she released him, he staggered for a few steps, hands clutching the wound, eyes bulging, neck swelling. His death took less than a minute, but it proved an agonizing length of time to watch him flop about. When he finally lay still, Sil returned to the porch.

"I figured we may as well trim their numbers while we had the chance," she said, and we all sat back to wait for dark. 

Chapter Words - 1113

Total Word Count - 18,533