Despite repeated and insistent orders, it was all the servants could do to restrain themselves.
The Man did not stir. He met Crow's piercing gaze without rancor. He smiled. "We are quite well, Jack. But I see you are injured." He indicated the bulky bandaging underneath Crow's corduroy jacket.
Crow felt his arm absently. "Oh, it ain't much, priest, considering. Everybody else is dead. Except for Cat and me. Everybody else, though. The Team is dead. All of 'em."
"Yes, Jack. We know."
The two locked eyes for several seconds. Then Crow turned abruptly away, flicking an ash onto the carpet and reaching for the decanter of wine. "All dead. Everyone of 'em slaughtered." He poured some more wine into his glass. Then he plopped back down into his chair and spoke with a voice blood-rich with bitterness. "So, tell me about your week."
Crow became increasingly more profane, more insulting. He referred to the man as "Your Assholiness." He put his cigarettes out on whatever was nearby, the plate, the glass, the tabletop. He was loud. He was vicious. He was disgusting.
The Man said little, his mournful sadness filling his end of the small chamber. He was becoming more and more concerned about the servants, who seemed frozen into a comalike state certain to erupt in violence.
"All of you," whispered the Man, his gaze taking in the four servants on both sides of the room. "Leave us now."
It took them several moments to react. But they did, moving stone-faced and dry-hinged to the exits. Luigi stopped briefly before the door and looked back.
The Man smiled reassuringly. "We will call you if we need you."
Luigi still stared.
"It will be all right, my friend," added the Man gently.
And then they were alone.
"Now that's more like it," cackled Crow. "Now we can get down to the serious drinkin'."
He reached over to grab a chair from the wall and slide it over next to the Man. But he had trouble, first with his balance, then with the weight of the massive chair on his right arm. It seemed to bring out something even darker than the bitterness and fury. Something deeper. Something worse.
He finally got the chair alongside the Man and banged down into it. Then he realized he was almost out of wine. He stared forlornly into the near-empty decanter in his lap.
The Man, still calm, still cool, said, "We have some, Jack," and reached for the carafe by his plate.
"Fuck, no!" roared Crow suddenly, inexplicably. He half-rose to his feet. He shot out one hand to intercept the wine and with the other, his right one, his injured one, slammed the pontiff back into his chair.
Dead silence. Each man stared, wide-eyed in shock at what had just happened. Crow dropped the decanter onto the table. It shattered. Red wine began to flow around the plate and toward the edge of the table.
Crow tried. He really tried. He lurched crazily forward to stem the flow. He cracked his forearm down on the edge to dam it up. But nothing could stop the scarlet stream from spattering across the Man's milk-white, snow-pure robes.
And for a moment each simply stared, not at each other but at this.
And then Crow exploded. He leapt to his feet and roared and screeched, splashing the wine from the table onto the robes over and over again, roaring and roaring louder and louder as he sprayed it, yelling at the top of his lungs: "Take it, goddammit! Take it, you papist motherfucker! It's about time you got some of the goddamned blood!" and the Man just sat there, frozen in his chair, his eyes closed to the spattering drops covering his robes, his head, his face, and above him Crow still raged and roared and then.
Then was utterly silent.
The Man opened his eyes to the vision of the giant trembling above him, his hands and face and clothes covered with wine and fury and...
And agony.
"My son," be whispered and his compassion was a thing alive. "Oh, my son."
Jack Crow's face, rock-taut with ferocity, cracked in two. Then it began to melt. Tears welled up in his eyes and began to rush down his cheeks. His cry of pain was irretrievable and lost.
Then he was falling to his knees and sobbing, his massive arms snaking out to wrap around the other man's waist as a child's for safety and comfort and the old man held him and rocked him as the great shoulders shook with the great sobs that simply would not