The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [173]
When the deed was done, Scratch toyed with a restrained Ralston, by blade and with words, words such as “you’re telling me how I can’t be reborn?? Why don’t you think about what just happened to your pitiful little self, at how your groupie girlfriend slut Jessica bit the big one right before your oversized fathomless eyes. Your destiny is fucked my friend!”
Ralston had not been prepared for this news, even after reading a majority of his own book, even after his recently acquired enhanced mental intuition and insight. Scratch then had withdrawn from him, leaving him for the following moments emotionally raped and devastated.
The Dreg then commenced his approach towards Andrew and Mel with a bag-of-bones stature preceding his own confidence, a menacing alien grey tinker-toy man welding a straight razor and a bloodlust.
***
“Well, if I ain’t the man in charge about now,” Scratch mused aloud and with a damnable pride. Yet as he passed the first two wrought iron tables and then the next one, he slowed in mounting consternation. By the time he was beside the last row of tables and about six feet between himself and the uncanny duo of his Everborn brother and the estranged ufologist’s wife, he halted altogether.
Upon the table beside him, he set aside his razor deliberately but calmly, his eyes never leaving Andrew’s. It was difficult for Scratch to determine whether Andrew’s own eyes never left him in turn and likewise, for eyes lacking pupils could only scarcely reveal exactly what it was they were observing.
But Scratch was clearly purposeful in making notice to all eyes present that he was relinquishing his weapon, dragging a single bony finger along the surface of the blade as a stroke of farewell sentiment.
Scratch held his position six feet in front of Andrew and Mel, not far enough away from them nor from the razor on the table to make either one of them feel more at ease. He sighed, slackened from his bolder stature and into a listless slump in composure as if to impersonate surrender.
“Listen, Andrew....” came the attempt of Scratch to reason with him, taking full advantage of a face-to-face and brother-to-brother moment. “....firstly, now that we can share together a short social exchange, I must apologize for not having written any letters or sent any postcards, hadn’t kept in touch over the years. You see, circumstances being what they are and all...they’ve made what I am today and you who you are right now. And here we are, swimming like feeder fish in the waters of circumstance, as if higher powers have purchased us in water-filled sandwich bags tied with rubber bands, to bring us home as aquarium food for the pets of the gods!”
“Umm, Simon?” Andrew said to his Dreg twin brother, clearing his throat in introduction. “We’re all of us here pressed for time. For your information, Melony and I have been under the impression that you were about to kill me and Ralston, too. If you don’t, then your Magdalene Majesty surely will, unless she’s incapable. So if you truly have something to say, release Ralston and let us all free, and we can sit down and chat as soon as we get the hell away from here. Otherwise, get on with it and kill me now.”
Scratch hesitated, questioned himself and stretched an index finger to his chin to think.
Andrew, impatient and observing his brother’s pause as a waste of everyone’s valuable time, motioned a tug at Melony’s witches skirt and another at her arm, turning away and toward her.
“All right,” he resolved sternly to Mel, “let’s go. Come on...it’s okay to flee. Down the embankment, he’s letting us go...I’ll take care of you....”
It wasn’t clear to Melony whether Andrew’s assertions were serious or intentionally sarcastic as if to purposely invoke a response from Simon; hopefully, to invoke a quick resolution.
Melony would nevertheless refuse to budge; even though she did not know what to do at this point, she know what not to do, and that