several blocks. Sooner or later we were bound to catch him, either
on the streets or on the rooftops. But we had two concerns. First, we
did not want to take many casualties. If we flooded the rooftops with
men, the maniac would almost certainly be able to kill several of
them. Perhaps more. He would leap upon them from some dark cranny and
rip them apart or throw them off the roof. We would have to be very
cautious. Yet at the same time speed was of the essence, for we
believed that if we did not catch him soon, he would succeed in
breaking into one of the apartments and wreak havoc upon those
dwelling there. Naturally we were attempting to evacuate the
buildings, but at that time of night it was a slow and laborious
process. The chances of our completing it before the maniac decided
to effect entry were negligible, indeed.
“A
compelling problem, don’t you agree? Seemingly one without a
happy solution.” Beheim nudged Mikolas with the mace. “I
wonder how you would have solved it. You would have burned the whole
damned area down, I’d imagine. You see, men like you are not
accustomed to operating under constraints. They believe that such
constraints are enfeebling, that men like me who suffer them are
witlings, easy prey. But they’re wrong to believe that. Those
constraints breed a certain type of canny strength that is often the
downfall of men like you, men who put their faith in willfulness and
brute force.”
He noticed
Alexandra staring at him and, annoyed, said, “What is it? Where
are the children?”
“Both the
boys are dead,” she said tonelessly. “The girl . . .
perhaps she will live. I’ve sent her on an errand. She’ll
be in good hands.”
He glanced at
the two blond, still forms seated beneath the window. Their deaths
seemed almost irrelevant to the loathing he felt for Mikolas, to add
no more than a thin wash of color to his emotions, and he thought now
that this was because he had long since given up on them. And yet
knowing that they were dead changed him in one way, making him less
interested in confiding in Mikolas, more eager to get on with things.
“I’m
not going to tell you the rest of my story,” he said to
Mikolas. “Though perhaps I should tell you how it ended. We did
not lose a single man, and ten minutes after I went alone onto the
rooftops, the maniac took his own life.” He bent close to
Mikolas, keeping his head still with the mace. “I’m not
afraid of you,” he whispered. “I want you to come after
me. That is, if you’re man enough. If you think you can face me
without running to your brother for assistance. I’m sure you’ll
be tempted to turn what is essentially a personal matter into a feud
with the Agenors, but consider what that says about the caliber of
your manhood. Frankly I don’t think it’s in you to engage
in a conflict that you’re not absolutely certain of winning.
You’re a coward, a bully. And not such a formidable bully at
that. You couldn’t kill me here, on your own ground, and
anywhere else it’s going to be easy for me. I’ll be
waiting.”
He pushed
himself up to his feet and sent the mace skittering across the floor
into a far corner, and with Alexandra in tow, he left Mikolas to his
hatred and his pain.
As they walked
along a corridor that led away from the gray room, Alexandra kept
looking expectantly at him, and finally she said, “Aren’t
you going to tell me?”
“Tell you
what?”
“What
happened on the rooftops of Montparnasse. With you and the maniac.
I’m curious how you managed it.”
In one of the
rooms nearby a clock was tolling midnight; from the distance came
terrified shouts, wild laughter, then a tinny clangor, and the
convergence of these sounds, their hollow resonance and dark
specificity, reawakened Beheim to the alien immensity of his
environment. Alexandra’s face, despite its loveliness, its
openness, struck him as being a devious contrivance, as threatening
and perplexing as the blank wooden
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