“Nothing like fresh mountain air! Invigorating.” He turned to look at me, much as a crow would a mouse. “So, what would you have done if you found it. Silvina’s secret? If you were up here alone?”

“I have explosives in the car.” I’d booby-trapped the trunk. Maybe Hellmouth Jack would find out the hard way.

His face lit up, eyebrows raised. “A bomb to destroy a bomb. Smart.”

“It might make more sense than you know.”

Hellmouth Jack considered me with a kind of regret. “We would’ve made a good team.”

“You mean we’re not a good team now?”

“When I find it. When we find it…” But he trailed off, and he looked lost, confused. Lost some vital thread.

If only his head had dipped lower. If only he had fallen into drunk sleep.

But instead he went into a rage and took my bottle of rum away and stormed out into the rain.

I heard him arguing with himself. I heard the voice of a man who had only the vestiges of a plan left. And that was fraying.

The way the world does that to you.

[98]

At the end of the third day, Jack sat down heavily on the gravel. We were both utterly exhausted. My leg and shoulder burned and ached, and in all ways I wanted the weight of my self lifted from me. The sky above, as I collapsed, had a blue-tinged gray that mocked with that hint of normal. Soon enough, the hail. Soon enough, snow and sleet. It stiffened you. It brought you to a stop. Hands abraded from scrabbling in rubble. Chasing ghosts.

Hellmouth Jack began to weep. Hunched over, knees drawn up, he wept. Uncontrollably. Like a child. Like a breakdown. Like nothing I’d ever seen or wanted to see since leaving home.

“Total fucking waste of time. All of it. Total fucking waste of time.”

“Maybe not. What if you just like to kill people?” Because it had worked so well last time. So he’d stop fucking crying. It got his attention.

“Fuck you.”

“What if you just like playing games? Like some kind of child.”

“Silvina played games, not me,” Hellmouth Jack said. “Silvina was twisted in so many ways.”

His tone had gone flat, his face emotionless. How quickly it happened should have frightened me.

“At least she had a reason,” I said.

“You mean a ‘greater good’?” Lip all twisted up with contempt. “I’m a greater good. I’m a greater good. Me.”

I began to laugh. Laughed like it was the happiest day of my life.

Maybe because Hellmouth Jack was pathetic. Maybe because it was over. I was free, in a way. I had lost everything. Bet it all on nothing. I had nothing. But that was okay.