She didn’t like being alone, but she didn’t like being without Finn even more.
Finn Derouen was a ******** parasite in her head, and no matter how many times she said to herself, He’s just a boy, just a stupid boy, you’ve known him for maybe six months, stop it, grow up, he wouldn’t just leave. Something in her head insisted, no it’s not supposed to be like this he’s yours he’s supposed to be yours yours yours yours you have to do something get him back. Hadn’t she been a good friend to him? She--she’d been having a hard time lately. Spinel. The failed attempt to capture Babylon. That ******** senshi in the alleyway. She didn’t know who it was but she’d almost had that squire’s starseed. The concussion had gone down eventually, but the humiliation stung. She had made this choice for power and safety and all that was fake, wasn’t it, a delusion, a lie she just really wanted to believe, she wanted--
She wanted her friend back.
So she had a goal. She wouldn’t try to get Finn to move back, because that seemed to be going backwards, having him there had been such a cause of stress because she’d never wanted to look less than perfect and when she did it killed her. She hated trying to rationalize to herself the things that she knew were over-reactions but she couldn’t imagine him liking it any better. You lost a chance to get Babylon back, so you broke every dish in the house?...
The solution was clear. She didn’t have to think very hard to come up with it. Vanya just needed to create a situation where he would feel as dependent on her as she did on him. It wouldn’t be hard, because she needed him for no discernable reason, and… Life would be ever so much easier if she could remember who she was, she thought, if she remembered anything other than being stupid useless Avalon. Maybe that’d explain the dependence on Finn. Maybe it’d excise Babylon from her brain, neatly pluck him out and put something better, more useful, in its place. An obsession with creating bigger, better youma would be nice. Or an obsession with job advancement, to be more useful. Even a more creative approach to fighting would be more useful than ******** pining for someone who would never corrupt--
(She hoped her ancestor was ******** choking on her stupid jokes and her taunts and that the bones were turning to ash and dust and nothingness under that always-rainy sky. She hoped the tower collapsed into the sea. She hoped the owl discovered a species of poisonous berry and died; she hoped a tree-blight came and devastated the forest; she hoped Avalon sank into the sea, like mythical Atlantis, that the next Page of Avalon could just-- just-- be Page of nothing but-- but.)
--that wasn’t right, that wasn’t right. She could just be a friend and eventually he’d want to be her friend again, wouldn’t he? That was how it worked. She taught that to the girls at Crystal, those stupid ungrateful whores--
She needed to do something. An easy fix, something fast… He’d have to come back if she just made herself… necessary.
Hadn’t he trusted her with his friend’s death? Or… parts of it. She hadn’t killed Tate (on the contrary, she thought she might be Tate: that the scratched-out names in the books Kess had given her might mean something. That Babylon was right) but he’d needed a shoulder then and she’d been one. They’d felt closer, for a while, before he started hanging out with a different group of people. Tallulah <********> Cowden--who probably thought that Avalon wasn’t going to check on her, but just because someone was busy didn’t mean they didn’t care--and that redheaded c**t and the little white-haired b***h and the tiny blonde. There were so many options to add just one more weight to Finn’s shoulders, one more chance to get her friend back…
But he’d mentioned to her how close he was with his dad. He’d expressed what she imagined was usual frustration, sometimes. They loved each other, though, she could tell by the way Finn would sometimes smile at a text from his dad. She could work with that. It was almost euthanasia, really. Finn had mentioned he had problems lately, with arthritis. So… why not just…
The change to Avalon came naturally, as easy as breathing. What she was going to do was wrong, but it felt necessary. It made sense to her: if nothing else, it made him only more ripe for corruption. He’d want power as much as she did… if he didn’t want Vanya, she’d make him need Avalon.
She teleported--the most useful skill ever!--to the Derouen residence. Into the Derouen residence, to be precise; and look at her luck, an old man who had to be Anthony Derouen was at the sink, rubbing a hand down his back and loading the dishwasher. “Hey,” she said, casually, as if she wasn’t standing there in an outlandish outfit with a long black sword of obsidian stone in her hand. His back went stiff, muscles at the back of his neck bulging out, and she stood very still as he turned to face her. She felt a stab of pity, a wash of reluctance--she didn’t want to do this, but Finn had forced her hand! Anthony was an old man, a fragile old man. Vanya liked him.
“If you make any sudden movements, I will run you through,” she said. He nodded, lifted his hands over his head with spread fingers, and she thought about this. The easiest thing to do would be to just run him through anyway, but she’d rather not leave a great big mess in the kitchen. “Is there anyone else in the house?” He shook his head, and she nodded. “Alright, good. Otherwise I’d have to kill them, too.”
What was the point of pretending anything otherwise? She’d appeared in his kitchen with a sword.
“How do you want to do this? You can take out your own phone, send your own text to your son, say whatever you want as long as you ask him to come over… or I can kill you and use your phone to tell him you’re dead. You can be comfortable and die in your own armchair, or you can die here and everyone who loves you will have to clean up your mess.” Avalon smiled at him, trying to be comforting, as he pulled out his phone from his pocket, eyes cautiously on her.
“Let’s go sit in the living room,” she said, and they did; he settled in an armchair that she could tell was his by habit, from the dents and from the way he settled in and arranged himself. She sat on the coffee table, crossed one leg over the other with her sword over her knees. As he typed, she said, “This isn’t anything personal, you know. You’re just convenient. I don’t want to have to kill someone I might know better than I know you.”
She frowned. “It does make me sad, though. I think I recognize you. Almost. But I don’t know where from, or where I might have met you. I only know where you live because he put it on the subletting agreement.”
Anthony looked up at her, and he said, “Vanya? The girl Finn was--”
“Yeah,” she said, and there was the swoosh of a sent message. She plucked the phone out of Anthony’s hands and checked the message he’d sent.
Quote:
I’m proud of you. Stop by the house sometime soon, okay?
“Yeah, that’ll do,” she said, pocketing his phone and getting to her feet. “I really am sorry. But I promise it’ll be fast. And I won’t even take your starseed, so you can go back to the Cauldron and try again.” She… her eyes were burning. Avalon swiped a gloved hand over them, hefted the sword into a ready position. “I…”
One last question, she promised herself.
“Do you know who Tate is,” she asked. “Tate Konstantin.” He opened his mouth to answer, and she said, “Wait. I don’t want to know,” and ran him through, sword straight through his throat. She leaned forward, pressed her fingertips to the pulse point in his throat.
Nothing.
She slid the sword out of the armchair, out of Anthony Derouen, and scrubbed her hands over her face again. I’m sorry, she thought, apropos of nothing at all. She didn’t know this man. She’d killed before. But this one…
This one…
Avalon vanished before she started to cry in earnest.
