Bits & Pieces (Benny Imura 5)

“No . . . you can’t know that. No one . . .” Saint John’s voice died in his throat.

The prisoner shook his head slowly. “Look . . . you and I aren’t as different as you might think. I did my own time in hell when I was a kid, and I have the scars to prove it. Inside and out. I know what it feels like to be turned from an innocent kid into a monster. Believe me . . . I know.”

“You don’t know my life,” murmured the saint. “No one knows what happened. . . .”

“Look at me,” said Iron Mike quietly, “and tell me if I’m like anyone you ever met.”

Saint John shook his head.

“Look at me and tell me if you ever saw anyone like me except in the mirror.”

“No.”

Saint John tried to stare the man down, but the longer he looked into those burning red eyes, the more he felt the ground beneath him begin to melt, to turn to quicksand.

“What are you?” he demanded.

“I’m like you,” said Mike Sweeney. “I’m a monster. We were both born in a furnace, raised by predators, and then vomited out into the world.”

“Monster . . . ,” echoed Saint John. His knees wanted to buckle.

“You call yourself a saint of god,” mocked Mike Sweeney. “It’s a front, it’s a paint job you slap over bare stone walls. I know all about that. I wanted to remake myself too. I wanted to whitewash my soul. I couldn’t do it before the world ended. Not really. But every day since, I’ve been trying to be a new person. Not the thing my father made me . . . no, I wanted to be the man I should have been if the old world had shown me even a splinter of grace.” He laughed, short and bitter, full of nails and broken glass. “But maybe people like us can’t really ever escape who we are. I was a monster before the Fall and I’m a monster now. A different kind of monster, sure, but then again it’s a different world.”

“I’m not a monster,” said Saint John in a low, tight voice that was filled with menace. “I am a saint of god.”

Iron Mike studied him for a long moment, then sighed and nodded. “Maybe you are. Maybe even heaven’s broken and the old gods are fighting over the scraps. One of them might need a man like you to be his garbage collector down here. What do I know? But if you’re a saint of your god, then maybe I’m a hound of mine.”

Saint John’s lips formed the words “hound of god.”

Mike grinned with red-streaked teeth and eyes the color of blood.

The saint said, “You speak of mysteries. You speak as if you know about me.”

“I do.”

“You can’t.”

Iron Mike shrugged as best he could—a lift of muscular shoulders and a smile that seemed unable to acknowledge fear or the presence of death. Saint John searched the man’s strange eyes, looking for a sliver of doubt, of fear, even of humanity. All he saw was something alien, something that did not fit into his world or his faith.

And that was an impossible thing.

That had never happened before.

Not once.

As if sensing his thoughts, Iron Mike gave a sad shake of his head. “You’re looking in the wrong direction.”

“What do you mean? We know the towns are in—”

“No,” said the prisoner. “That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about when you look at the world. All you can see is the world of machines and governments and science—all the things your kind hate; and when you look into the future, all you see is the end of all pain and the simplicity of your darkness. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“What else is there?”

Iron Mike flexed his hands and gave a playful tug on his bonds. “You seem like a smart guy, educated. Ever read Hamlet? Remember the scene in the graveyard, that line everybody quotes? ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy?”

Saint John said nothing.

The prisoner nodded, however, as if the saint had acknowledged the quote and its meaning. “You treasure the darkness, and who knows, maybe you’re really damaged enough to serve your version of the darkness with your whole heart, but—”