“So, I’ll do the teaching.” Butch stepped forward, getting tight with the guy. “You’re going to get deported back to where you came from if you keep this up.”
“I didn’t skin that man.”
“You don’t have any credibility.”
“So why are you here. Why bother talking to me at all?”
“Because I need things to be clear between you and me. Consider it a professional courtesy between soldiers.”
“Last thing I heard, Wrath was in charge. Why isn’t he here?”
“First of all, you’re not that special. And second, I’m the dumb fuck who’s in charge of dead bodies. Granted, it’s less of an official position and more of a calling leftover from my days as a homicide cop—but I think we can all agree that the last thing anyone needs to worry about is what you’re doing with a knife on your off-hours as we come down to the end of the war. We want the humans to chill and stay out of our business. So you’ve got to go if you can’t curb this shit.”
Syn finally looked at his cousin, his Mohawk turning to the side.
Balthazar spoke up. “Come on, Syn. You know this has been a problem. You’ve got to channel your talhman somewhere else. Or at least not do it so publicly.”
“And what about the other one?” Butch said. “The corpse they found twisted around that fire escape early this morning.”
“Fine.” Syn shrugged again. “I killed him. I killed the other one. I killed everybody.”
Butch ground his molars. “See, why you gotta do me like this? You could just be honest.”
“I am. You got me dead to rights. I skinned the one and then I beat the other senseless on a fire escape—because I was bored.”
Narrowing his eyes, Butch kept his voice level. “Guess you were really bored, cutting those legs off.”
“Both of them. Can we be done here?”
Butch glanced around the room. There were holes in the wallpaper where picture hangers had been taken out of the plaster, and he imagined the fact that things hadn’t been properly retouched drove Fritz insane.
He kept his curses to himself. “I’m trying to help you, Syn. You can choose to make this easier on yourself by cutting this out as of today. Right now? This is just me running it up the flagpole. If Wrath gets involved, there’s no wiggle room left for you. He’s going to get rid of you and you’ll be lucky if it’s only packing you off on a fucking boat. He won’t hesitate to put you in a coffin.”
“You’re assuming that would be a loss to me.”
“We do not need this complication. Don’t be something we have to solve.”
“Duly noted.”
Butch gave the guy a chance to say something else. “You’re not doing yourself any favors here.”
Syn pegged his cousin with hard eyes. “And everybody can stop talking about me anytime they’re fucking ready. Anytime.”
Balthazar crossed his arms over his chest. “The way you are is not your fault. But you need help—”
“Don’t tell me what I need.”
Now Butch was the one putting his body in between two males. “My guy, I don’t get the games you’re playing here, and considering the shit that’s on my plate right now, I really don’t have time to fuck around with you. Stay in your lane, or I’m going to make it so Wrath puts you back on your side of the highway. I’m really trying to be decent to you—although I’m wondering why in the fuck I bothered.”
On that note, Butch limped out, and when Balthazar came with him, he was surprised. He expected a heart-to-heart to happen between the cousins, but clearly that wasn’t on the menu. Then again, as the door clapped shut, there was the sound of glass shattering against the inside panels.
“Guess I won’t have to go back and get my empty,” Butch muttered as he headed down the hallway of the new wing that had been opened.
“You hurt your ankle?” Balthazar said.
“Wish it was that. You remember those protective bras people used to put on cars? Like, back in the late eighties?”
“Not with any great particularity, no.”
“Well, then you lucked out. But tonight, I saw fit to actually make a front grille need one. With my nuts.”
The Bastard was still making wincing noises of consolation as they entered the second-story sitting room. There was a bar cart off to one side, and Butch went right over to the liquor. No Lag in the truncated lineup of bottles, but he was thought up enough to settle for