Chapter Thirty-Four
Beauty of the Beast
The Old Farmhouse
November 7, 2059
10:05pm
BLAM!
The bullet shattered Gideon's knee. The ork screamed in pain as bits of bone from the wound splintered through his flesh. Shard knocked the barrel aside at the last moment. She had the Nightsky's wrist gripped in both hands, holding the lethal weapon away from her comrades.
"Don't do it!" She pleaded with him, trying to call the an arcane equation to mind that would put a stop to this insanity.
Nightsky sensed the mage's weakness. She was tired, exhausted from her healing efforts. Her mind was too fevered to pull together a spell without costing serious physical harm. He moved quickly, putting a foot aside her ankle and throwing his shoulder into her's. Physics and leverage did the rest. Shard was lifted off the ground, spinning around. Nightsky grabbed her arm, forced her to the floor, locked her wrist.
And applied just enough pressure to break it.
"You will not interfere."
He placed a leg across the elf's throat. Shard, dazed and in a sudden amount of pain, lost all focus on her spell. Nightsky twisted his own wrist in such an angle that it forced her to let go. He aimed the gun at Gideon again. Shard's eyes widened even as he covered them with his hand. It not only hid her view of his impending act of murder, but robbed her of the line of sight she would need to work her magic.
"I know about Imira!" She suddenly blurted.
Though she could not see it, Nightsky paused. Finger on the trigger, have squeezed.
"Gideon told me! Two days ago. Imira Folkstaff and Alona. He told me what he did in California. To your parents. Nightsky, he didn't know then. He couldn't have known. Just like any shadowrunner, we don't always know who we work for. Johnson's don't pay us to know. He was doing a job without any kowledge of what the consequences to another person's future would be. You've, we've, done the same thing! How many lives have we ruined because of a shadowrun?"
Nightsky flicked a glance at Alona, who was still holding Tart. Then back at Gideon who was only barely conscious, trying to summon any reserves of strength he had left. Even as his blood pumped onto the floor.
"He tried to make things right this summer. That was why he left after the ordeal with Abigail Starlight. He almost did the same thing again with her, but he saw things could be different. He said so himself! He just couldn't put it into words with you." Shard choked for a moment, Nightsky's leg was weighing down on her windpipe. "He's sorry, Nightsky. He tried to make things right, but was too embarrassed, too afraid, to talk about it. Could you have done it, talked to someone who's live you had ruined, if the roles were reversed?"
Nightsky shifted his weight, putting more pressure on Shard's throat. She gasped, struggled for a moment as her words were shut off.
Alona looked at him, mouthing his name, but somehow unable to move.
Nightsky's thoughts turned inwards. He thought about all the things he had done in his life. All the people he had murdered, all the actions he had taken, all the secrets he kept inside.
He remembered Findler. How he had begged and pleaded at the end of his life. He did what he did because of his brother. Someone had taken his brother way and ruined his life. Nightsky, in part, had taken Findler's. Even though he was the good man there. They had been the evil ones. The evil men murdered the good man.
No! A voice inside his head rang out. The concepts of good and evil are lines drawn in the sand. There is no good or evil. All beings are both! There is no right and wrong. These are artificial concepts. The wind covers up the line.
The only thing that exists is revenge! Revenge for the life that was taken from you! You were not meant to live like this! It is the creatures that feed on the souls of those you love that are to blame! They send their avatars into the shadows were you hide to bring you back to them! They will come for you so you must come for them!
Hate, rage, revenge for wrongs! These are the things by which you have dedicated your life! It is your purpose for falling into the cracks of the shadows. You would not have done this without your loss. Without it you are nothing. You are not you without your pain and hate.
Nightsky thought about Darrel, his friend, and the murderous doctor that had kidnaped Alona the day before. He remembered the sight of one boy's head exploded after taking an explosive 10mm shell from his Manhunter. He felt the tension on the edge of his sword as he drove it into the flesh of Darrel. He smelled the coppery scent of blood as it spilled from the insides of the doctor. Then the warmth inside at the acts. The satisfaction of their deaths. The greedy feed of their blood on the floor. It was a good kill. It brought pain to those who had brought pain to him. Pain from threatening the promise he had made on Alona's behalf.
The black tendrils dug deeper. The power to hand out death granted you revenge on those that sought to destroy what you wanted! Those that sought to break vows that you made! The hate and rage at their actions gives you the strength to hand out their divine punishment! It is not a question of who is right or wrong, good or evil. It's a matter of who has wronged you!
This has what made you what you are! You are a product of your environment, by who has wrong you.
His mind drifted among different faces. He remembered them so clearly. The nameless faces of the lives he had took for no reason other than his own survival. He remembered cutting down two guards inside an elevator at Mauss Chemical's Condoplex. The woman in the Mauss Security uniform whom he had shot in the neck with her partner's gun. A partner who stood before him, impaled at the end of his sword. The death of Jagger, the adept who's skull he had crushed with a lead pipe.
Did these people have families? Had he ruined their lives in the same way his had been ruined? There was no question of hate, revenge, or rage against them. It was business. His business of survival in the world of shadowrun.
He had murdered them.
"Nightsky...." Shard whimpered, straining for a breath.
"It's a'ight, Shard." Gideon struggles, lifting himself up to his shaky feet. Blood spewing from his shattered knee. His face a mass of cuts, dried blood, and bruises. "It's between him and me."
Nightsky met the ork's eyes, one of which was swollen shut.
"That's right, kid. You and me. You want to get even for what I did to your family. Once you go down that path, though, you won't stop. First it will be me. Then you'll go to California to kill Darvish. Even though neither of us could give a frag about it anymore." Gideon took in a painful breath of air. "Who's it going to be after us, huh? The rest of the bloodsuckers? The rest of the Johnson's that have screwed us over in the past? No, you won't stop till you've killed everyone."
Gideon huffed. "Well I don't give a frag anymore. If you can't let it go then that's fine with me. I'm tired of eating all the shit for the things I did. It was just biz. Biz is over." He held his hands out. "Here I am, kid. Go ahead. Shoot me. I'm sick of it. Sick of the biz. I should have got out of it a long time ago."
Nightsky curled his lower lip, chewing on it. He remembered the boy in the old school in Redmond. The one who's father had been turned into a ghoul. The look on the boy's face was a clear as the day he was there. Sad, afraid, wide with disbelief. Nightsky remembered the Roomsweeper and how he had fired it into the darkness. That child was dead because of him. He had relived this scene once before. During the summer Imira had shown him what he had done. The boy's spirit asked him if Nightsky had taken it all away from him. In the end, Nightsky admitted that he did. It took all the time from then till now to realize the truth in that one moment.
There is good and evil. People can beget either, but some people are destined to hold more evil in their lives than they should, to hold secrets that will eventually get out and harm the ones they love and the innocent. This is fate. This is the way the circle of karma works.
Nightsky looked at Alona. "I'm sorry. I will never harm you in anyway. I will never take anything from you. I will make sure of that I don't now."
Nightsky pulled the trigger. The bullet struck Gideon in the chest. The ork convulsed for a moment and fell to the floor. He shook briefly, staring up at the ceiling. His eyes rolled back in his head. Blood coughed from his mouth. He sputtered for a moment with the last words, "It was just biz." Then he died.
Nightsky heard the boy's voice in his ear, asking again, "Did you take it away from me?"
He took a breath as the voice echoed through him."Yes I did."
Nightsky turned the gun on himself. He felt the cold pressure of the barrel against his temple. The rough surface of the trigger. The calm sensation inside. Everything was so clear. Calm. He squeezed the trigger.
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