The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All - By Laird Barron Page 0,52

of not insubstantial celebrity, his value to science, and a claim of insanity as the result of an old coach accident that crushed his skull, in addition to the understandable anguish at discovering Mum’s betrayal. I can attest the attribution of insanity was correct, albeit nothing to do with the crash, as I seemed to have come by my moods and anxieties honestly. Blood will tell.”

“You drowned a boy at your school,” I said. “And before that, your stepsister vanished. Somewhat of a scoundrel as a lad, weren’t you?”

“So they say. What they say is far kinder than the truth. Especially for my adopted Mum and Da. My stepsister left evidence behind, which, predictably, the Paxtons obscured for reasons of propriety. They suspected the truth and those suspicions were confirmed when I killed that nit Abelard Fries in our dormitory. A much bolder act, that murder. And again, the truth was obfuscated by the authorities, by my family. No, word of what I’d really done could not be allowed to escape our circle. You see, for me, it had already begun. I was already on the path of enlightenment, seeker and sometimes keeper of Mysterium Tremendum et fascinans. Even at that tender age.”

“All of you kooky bastards in this county into black magic?” I’d let his insinuations regarding the fate of his sister slide from my mind, dismissing a host of ghastly speculative images as they manifested and hung between us like phantom smoke rings.

“Only the better class of people.”

“You sold your soul at age nine, or thereabouts. Is that it, man? Then daddy came home from the jungle one day and took you in because… because why?”

“Sold my soul? Hardly. I traded up. You didn’t come to me to speak of that. You’re an interesting person, John. Not interesting enough for this path of mine. Your evils are definitely, tragically lowercase.”

“Fine, let’s not dance. Word is, you did for my father. Frankly, I was attached to him. That means we’ve got business.”

“Farfetched, isn’t it? Didn’t he choke on a sandwich or something?”

“I’m beginning to wonder. More pressing: Why did you try to have me rubbed out? To keep me in the dark about you bopping my dad? That wasn’t neighborly.”

“I didn’t harm your father. Never met the man, although Eadweard spoke of him, wrote of him. Your old man made a whale of an impression on people he didn’t kill. Nor did I dispatch those hooligans who braced you in Seattle. Until you and your squad lumbered into Ransom Hollow, I had scant knowledge and exactly zero interest in your existence. Helios Augustus certainly engineered the whole charade. The old goat knew full well you’d respond unkindly to the ministrations of fellow Johnson Brothers, that you’d do for them, or they for you, and the winner, spurred by his wise counsel, would come seeking my scalp.”

“Ridiculous. Hand them a roll of bills and they’ll blip anyone you please, no skullduggery required.”

“This is as much a game as anything. Your father was responsible for Eadweard’s troubles with the law. Donald Cope is the one who put the idea of murder in his head, the one who mailed the gun that Eadweard eventually used on the retired officer who’d dallied with my mother. Eadweard wasn’t violent, but your father was the devil on his shoulder telling him to be a man, to smite his enemy. After pulling the trigger, my father went off the rails, disappeared into the world and when he returned, he had no use for Helios Augustus, or anyone. He was his own man, in a demented fashion. Meanwhile, Helios Augustus, who had spent many painstaking years cultivating and mentoring Eadweard, was beside himself. The magician was no simple cardsharp on a barge whom your father just happened to meet. One of his myriad disguises. His posturing as a magician, famous or not, is yet another. Helios Augustus is a servant of evil and he manipulates everyone, your father included. Donald Cope was meant to be a tool, a protector of Eadweard. A loyal dog. He wasn’t supposed to dispense wisdom, certainly not his own homespun brand of hooliganism. He ruined the magician’s plan. Ruined everything, it seems.”

I was accustomed to liars, bold-faced or wide-eyed, silver tongued or pleading, often with the barrel of my gun directed at them as they babbled their last prayers to an indifferent god, squirted their last tears into the indifferent earth. A man will utter any falsehood, commit any debasement, sell his