Chương 289: Moralizing After The Fact

There are downsides to having such an incredibly dramatic murder method. Don't get me wrong, I love having a unique weapon that is so fantastically lethal that it defies the core mechanics of the game. It's been a huge advantage for me. My cheat code, my golden touch. But maybe sometimes I wistfully daydream about having an ult attack that consumes the dead body and doesn't give it back. Or at least that leaves a corpse that is in a manageable number of pieces.

So don't get me wrong, I'm not begrudging the void affinity and its propensity for point-blank annihilation. But it would be nice if I didn't have to spend a half-hour squeegeeing human remains off the walls when I was done. And the ceiling, the floor, the curtains... That's one of the reasons I chose the bathhouse. Much easier to clean up than most spaces.

My first step was to pull all the water out of the baths, and swoosh it around the walls and ceiling and tiles and sweep up every drop and dram of Yheta's plasma. Then I opened the drains, and separated pure water from adulterated water, and poured out every contaminant. What poured out was a lot more than just one human corpse, which makes me really glad that I did not actually rent this place out to enjoy its amenities.

Water can get pretty nasty without looking nasty, if it's surrounded with enough ivory-white tile. With all the filth and evidence poured down a drain and washed away, I moved the water back where it belonged, topped up a bit, strained out the curtains and robes, and then took a fresh shower for myself. There's something about clean water that helps create a clean conscience. I set my robe back in its cubby, and put on my own clothes.

Bruce does not have waterbending or clothesbending or any of my other well-earned advantages, so he took longer, and I waited patiently for him.

"It's like nothing ever happened," he said, glancing through the archway at the main space of the bathhouse.

"It better be, I want my deposit back," I quipped.

"Hey, do a walkthrough with me and make sure I didn't miss anything. I could use another pair of eyes on this, it's important." After all, this was the daylight murder of the man who is currently the de facto leader of a Lesser House. Not that he knew it, he had not found out about Lewot's death yet. I had managed that easily enough, with Yheta on the road all the time he was hard to reach with messengers, especially the sort of expensive messengers that you use to bring fast messages across great distances.

This place does not have a signal-based communications network and it's a huge shift in how the world works. So Yheta was out and about with no idea that all of Snairlin House is resting on his shoulders, just taking care of his side project with the railroad teams. But soon, there's going to be investigators trying to find him and bring him back to Daropp to take over the family business. I had only lured him into a trap because he was still thinking of himself as a free agent and not as an institution.

Because he was not aware that for over a week he was Snairlin House. With the wreckage at the Daropp stronghold and no Yheta to help pick up the pieces, that whole House would be paralyzed for months. Nobody would even notice that a particular piece of their smuggling operation had been carefully sliced away and repurposed, people would assume it was just normal attrition, contractors going independent.

Bruce and I walked the area, checking the back sides of curtain rods and windowsills, the inside of spigots and the edges of the air vents, anywhere that aerosolized human remains might have landed when propelled by a shockwave. I had done an exemplary job of separating myself from this location. Now I also needed to separate Yheta's murder from this place. But while we worked, he was not quiet.

"So, he killed Wendy." The echoes were gone, stilled. I had dampened the echoes, just in case someone had heard the detonation. I didn't want anyone wandering close and hearing our conversation echoed out and away.

"Yes he did."

"Because he was trying to kill me."

"Yes."

"Because he was trying to kill Nathan."

"That's right," I said.

"So why?" Bruce asked. He hunched down, looking at crevices for traces of blood.

"That's what's been missing. You told me last year that you had information, that all that was just a twisted and incompetent attempt to kill your twin brother. So now- I mean, this guy? I remember this guy. I don't keep up with viscounts from someone else's cadet houses, but this guy, Yedder or whatever, he was always close to you. Escorted you a few times in the past year. He's not some stranger and he's not on my list of suspects anywhere. He's not even a Dominionist!"

"His family is a pivotal part of the trade war in Meadowtam right now," I said. I checked the curtain rings to make sure they were clean.

"It has been, since the very beginning. He was trying to use that back when I was a kid, to try to extort me into agreeing to marry him. And, they had been doing a lot of the heavy lifting back when Aumerje was trying to bribe the whole city into selling me out. But mostly it was personal. He knew that Nathan had been causing me trouble, and he thought that if he killed my brother I'd owe him a favor and fall in love with him." Bruce stood straight, his face warped by disgust.

"Wait, my sister died because this sick stupid chump thought it would get you to make kissyface for him?" I made a face of my own, shaking my head.

"Let's not paint this to be as innocent as 'kissyface'. If I was not as lethally capable as I am, his manhandling would have crossed the line years ago." And even knowing that I could pop him like a balloon, Yheta had still needed to be physically shoved to a polite distance more than a few times.

"Answer the question there, please," he said, face flushing. I gave him my full attention, eye contact.

"Yes. This sociopath may have had other reasons for wanting the Harigold family weakened, distracted or diminished, and he probably used those reasons to justify himself, as if this was a strategic move in the wars of houses. But ultimately this was just the same vapid unreasoning crush that he's had on me since I was a toddler. There could never have been a good reason for Wendy to die. There was never a way to justify it. But instead, we got something so much more meaningless than I ever could have guessed.

It's just... stupid."

"Yeah," he said, deflating now. He slumped against a wall, his walking-stick dangling from his hand.

"I guess in the end it really would have to be something stupid, right?" He glanced around at the pristine bathhouse, without even echoes now.

"Well, there's the good news. I feel quite confident that he could not have survived what you did. He may not have suffered, but he did not survive. And that's what I really want. Him, gone." I for one would have preferred a little suffering. For Bruce, this is just a person he vaguely knew and a detached knowledge that this was related to Wendy's death. His closure here was something that happened on an intellectual level.

But to me, this was the kid who had ruined several parties for me with his possessive obsession. The man who had intruded into my friend groups, interrupted my conversations, dragged me off my feet, demeaned me over and over, and always tried to fit me into a box small enough for him to carry without straining. The one who killed Wendy and tried to cover it up, and when I caught him out and called him on it, he insulted me by demanding that I try to see his side of the story.

For me this is not an intellectual exercise in forgiveness, closure, and moving on. This is me losing my last chance to punish a total douchebag that has been haunting me for my entire life. He is now beyond pain. But I will never, ever see his face again. He's not necessarily done causing me trouble- somehow none of the people I kill ever really stop being a problem for me- but at least he's done causing me new trouble. Bruce tapped his cane against the ground.

"Well, I suppose that's it. All the loose ends tied up. Is there anything else? Paperwork, payments, what have you?" I shook my head.

"Just a bit. I want an inspection that the place is undamaged, I did sink some collateral into this. And it's gonna take a little more effort to have the security deposit refunded to a different account, so that the invoices and money don't point to my accounts. It's a lot easier to hide payments out than refunds coming back, I want the refund to dump into- well, it's complicated.

To answer your question, I have a little cleaning up to do here, but I can drop you back in Hearstcliff to rest up while I finish, and I'll meet you there."

"Or I could walk the streets a little, get some fresh air, and meet you when you're done," he said. My cousin is probably in a state of emotional shock right now; he is coming off a grieving period, just saw a man explode for the first time. That's a very complicated emotional landscape. He's also an impulsive drinker, has a history of saying things that get him into trouble, doubly so when he's around people he doesn't know.

In a strange city, unsupervised, full of incriminating details about a recent murder that is going to be very high-profile the minute anyone realizes that Yheta's dead. Nah, letting Bruce stroll around the grounds until he feels at home is going to be a terrible idea.

"I wouldn't want Petunia to worry," I said.

"Ah, yeah," he acknowledged, and the sardonic smile slipped back across his features.

"Very well. Send me back and I shall regale her with tales of the miscreant exploding like a tick on an artery."

"That's gross, Bruce. Don't say that, it's really gross." I got my security deposit back and referred it into Pynut's bank accounts, since he's the one that actually has a money-laundering operation active in this region. He could make that money disappear. I probably won't ever see it again, but if I vanished without asking for the collateral back, it would raise interest.

Anything out of the ordinary raises interest, makes people ask questions, makes them mentally put a pin in these events so they will remember it later. Because "that time someone spent enough money to buy a house to rent this business out for a day and then never came back for their deposit" is a story that can spread. It's a date that people circle on the calendar, a newspaper clipping on a corkboard.

The owner might be scrupulous or paranoid enough to start trying to track me down to return my money, either to salve his conscience or to make sure I'm not going to scam him with a lawsuit. I'm not a spy, no matter what Bruce might suggest. But the events of my past several years have taught me lots of individual lessons about how to step outside of the law and not get caught. My fond dream is that soon I won't have to mess with this kind of thing.

Sneaking around, creating dummy accounts, backtracking and dead drops. By the time things get really bad, I want to be in a position where I can point at someone and say 'you, this is your problem now, fix it and come back when you're done'. Or just snap my own damn fingers, fix shit the obvious way, and never need to hide what I've done, never need to apologize. I'm not there yet. But I am so much closer than I used to be. And, gods bless, I'm so much better than I used to be.

With what I know now, I really could kill Kudder, Kralcit and the Curmudgeon and never see a day of jail time. As long as I pay attention and do it right, I can kill pretty much whoever I need to, when I need to. Mostly I get held back by the need to do things in the right order, like certain villains that I need to leave alive until they've fulfilled their necessary role in the story. Or, because I'm not sure what role someone serves in the story and killing them might kick off a whole chain of events.

As I've pointed out, killing people hardly ever really solves my problems. I don't go around just slaying people for the fun of it, not by a long shot. I'm not a sociopath and I'm not inhuman, but I do share a world with people who are vicious murderous monsters who poison everything they touch, and who will never see justice unless I take matters into my own hands. And frankly, I've already worked my way through most of my list. Only a handful to go.

A lich, a gangster, two monarchs, and maybe a Casser Swamman, that's all that's left. All in their own due time. Plus a fuckton of monsters. By the time I get back to the Hearstcliff residence, I've got a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head. Should I be trying harder to make a case that I'm not a sociopath? If I try too hard to justify my murders does that just make me seem like more of a sociopath? How much is the right amount to be worried about becoming a sociopath? Lots of conundrums.

It almost would have been easier to not start killing people in the first place.

"Copper for your thoughts," Petunia said.

"I just walked in," I protested, as the door swung shut behind me.

"What's with the ambush?"

"I was going to thank you for helping Bruce but then I saw your face and I decided I should get the lay of the land before I commit to gratitude," she said.

"You spend too much time around Bruce," I accused.

"I can hear him in your words." I dispelled my hat, glasses and dyes; I had reapplied them when I went to deal with the managers back in Claster city.

"It's true, I do," she said, leading me back to a sitting room. I felt like a duckling tagging along after her. I can blow up major geographical features but there's nothing as imposing as just being tall and strongly-built. I sat in a wingback and she sat across from me, near the fireplace. I warmed the room up as an afterthought, and neither of us reached for the lap blankets. Despite this conversation starting with her asking my opinions, she took the lead here.

"I spend a lot of time with Bruce, because he needs someone," she said.

"It used to be me and Wendy to balance him out, but without his sister he needs more watching than ever, and it's just me. I hope that getting some closure here is going to settle him down. That's what I came to thank you for. Instead, you came through the door looking like you regretted what you've done today."

"Not... specifically," I said.

"It's just general moralizing. I just can't get all of my useless musings to be quiet." Petunia's handbag was on the end table next to her chair, and she opened its clasp, reached inside for her coin purse, and then unclasped that. I noticed that they matched, quilted fabric off the same bolt. She pulled out a copper coin, and set it on the coffee table between us. She sat back, and tilted her chin up, a slightly challenging expression. I did my part. Ball's in your court.

"Yeah," I sighed.

"All right, it's... well, I killed that guy today, and I didn't mind it. He's not just a right and proper bastard that killed Wendy and sent Bruce spiraling. He's also been a genuine pain in the ass for me for a long damn time. I'm really glad to see him go. And that's terrible, obviously. But earlier in this week I killed someone else and-""What?!"

"I really don't do it that often, but for some reason it's never just one at a time," I sighed. I don't think I've killed anyone since the sorceress in Byeview, right? I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, hands steepled under my chin.

"The other one, that was ruled self-defense, the guy was openly shopping for assassins to kill me-""Ervhsez," Petunia nodded, she confirmed she understood.

"Yeah, Lydpel. Anyway, I felt bad about Lydpel. Somewhat. Not as much as I should. I didn't really know him closely, and everything I did know about him is painting a very negative picture. And, he was going to try to kill me. Actually, the plot itself was a trap, he lured me to an ambush and did actually try to have me killed. And then there was this first-year girl that I threatened, and then I got her sick so she'd drop out of school... like, there's always a reason, always a justification.

There's always something going on that compels me to take action. But I find that I'm just not tied up in knots about it like maybe I should be." I waved my hands out, helpless. What do you do with something like this?

"You think your conscience is getting jaded?"

"That's one worry," I said.

"I also worry that maybe I'm losing perspective. Am I getting to the point that I stop looking for solutions that aren't violence? Am I losing the ability to take less decisive measures? Am I taking violence for granted?" Petunia nodded.

"These are very valuable questions, and important to ask. So, I follow it up with some questions of my own."

"Shoot," I told her, slumping back. Force of habit, I twisted the ring off my finger.

"Do you think that there was anything wrong with what you did today?"

"Not even a little bit," I sighed. I glanced through the ring, saw the spinning coin, and frowned, before I started putting the ring back on.

"Do you think that you would feel differently if you were the soft-hearted person you clearly wish you were?" Okay, that's a hell of a lot for me to unpack but I'll set that aside for later.

"No."

"And Ervhsez Lydpel? Did you do anything that you did not have to do?"

"No," I admitted.

"And the girl you sickened? Was that a tragedy?"

"It was uncomfortable for her, but at most it made her transfer to a different school," I admitted.

"She was only under the weather for a couple days. So it's not a tragedy, but it was pretty mean." Petunia nodded.

"So, you're dealing with unusual circumstances because you have an unusual life, Natalie. If you start having moral dilemmas because your bizarre and unique lifestyle is putting you in situations that normal people don't deal with, I'm going to tell Bruce exactly that and let him mock you." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. I gasped.

"Not fair! You and I are supposed to gang up on Bruce! You're not supposed to use him against me!"

"Even Cousin Bruce can be made a force for positive change," Petunia said.

"Maybe that's today's lesson."

"I heard that!" Bruce's voice called out from an adjacent room.

"Hah! I knew you would see things my way someday!" Utterly deadpan, Petunia gave me a look.

"Now look what you've done," she accused.