The attack was merciless. The man known as Lotus, in his methodical way, pounced on Balthazar, taking his gloves off to reveal sharpened nails that he dug into his victim's flesh for a lethal embrace, gripping Balthazar's arms. He opened his mouth and within there were equally fatal teeth, as if he were a vampire, though he wasn't. He was far worse. He found Balthazar's neck all the same, and began to syphon his very essence. This was his whole strategy, and Balthazar had never had a chance to defend himself. He was lost in Lotus's piercing eyes, entranced by them, as if there was no longer another concern in the whole world, not his plans, not his ambitions, and not Cotton Colinaude or any other personal attachment he might have longed for in these final moments. He realized that he had become attached to Colinaude, yes, if not to the man, because he'd never actually met him, then the idea of him, of what he was supposed to represent, what he was going to do for Balthazar, which Balthazar now realized would no longer concern himself. This was the end. He had to accept it, and what's more, he found he wanted to. He had lost the will to continue. This man named Lotus, he must have been the culmination of everything he had brought upon himself, everything he had denied and everything he had accepted and everything he had set into motion as he attempted to forge his legacy. Now there was no legacy; he had never gotten around to cementing it, and he understood why. He was just as selfish as Fred had been, just as greedy, just as manipulative, and just as bad at covering his own path of gratitude, because he thought that he hadn't created one. He had owed so much, but instead had been only concerned with what he thought he had been owed. Everything everyone had tried to tell him - Ashlee, Tekamthi, Fred, Hopper - was true. He should have known all along, but it was too late. Lotus, he knew, was Cutty Solomon's benefactor. Ashlee must have known as well, and probably had tried to warn him. Yes, yes she had, and he hadn't listened, like a fool, which was of course what he had always been. He told himself so many things, and hadn't listened to any of that, either. Why, oh why? There was always a price to pay, and this was his. He should have known. He did, and he thought he could avoid it. He couldn't, nobody could. And he had not prepared. That was the greatest tragedy of it. He had not prepared those he would be leaving behind. Lotus was too thorough. He stopped caring about them, too. He stopped caring about everything, and it was a sweet release. Lotus was better than he knew. Lotus was doing Balthazar the greatest favor. Why was he so generous? Why, oh why?
***
In that lurid embrace, Balthazar Romero met his end, and he was not the least concerned when it came. He welcomed it, while Lotus lingered. Still, no satiation. There could never be. No, never. He was aware that he was still not alone. Why was there still someone there? Had he not accomplished his task, eliminating one more trespasser? He should have, but it now seemed as if he hadn't. Lotus was not alone, as he'd hoped. Someone lurked in the shadows, and perhaps they thought they were not exposed because of it, but he could see them. Oh yes, he could, and he was not pleased, not pleased in the slightest. Who was it that invaded his triumph, threatened to nullify it? If he could see them, his problem would be solved, but he could not see anything. The blue eyes were dull, saw nothing, were in fact made of glass, though his true eyes had carried the same hue, when he still had them, could still see. Those days were long over, and he did not regret their passing. "My beauty would sea," he would often say, not because it made immediate sense or that he was in the habit of doing so, or talking at all, for that matter, but because it suggested what the only thing was that had ever been importent to him. His beauty, and the sea, neither of which he would ever know again. But he did not want pity. He had no time for it, and required it of no one, least of all his victims. There were many, but no one remembered them. And he still more work to accomplish before he was done.
Balthazar Romero? The latest in the long line, and nothing more, a mere pretender, as all the others had been and still were. But there was someone else in this garage, and they were playing his own game. They were cunning, calculating. What was it that they were waiting for? He would remain in place, defiant, until they decided. He had no reason for any other course. He was not afraid, no, not of anyone, or anything. He had no reason to be.
The full white leather of his attire, a gentleman's suit, stood out from the general gloom of the garage, which marked the absence of his antagonizer from his notice all the more. They thought they were toying with him, but they had no idea. This was what he did. They couldn't use his own tricks on him. If they thought they could, they were fools, he did not suffer fools. That would be a waste of time. Instead, he made them understand what they were, which was exactly what they deserved, what they craved, what they needed and wanted beyond everything else. He had ample supply of victims.
What the fool Romero had done to deserve this was among the more egregious. He had presumed a rightful place in the arena Lotus commanded, even to the point that he intended to undermine, further, his own benefactor, a man known as Boy Benjamin but born with the name Benjamin Russ, which somehow sounded more presumptuous. This rebellion had actually posed more of a threat than Benjamin himself, which was why Romero had become a target, especially after he's exposed himself in the media, making a public name for himself through a bar, of all things, which he should have known immediately as the worst compromise and the biggest mistake of his life. He probably had, and had probably made the same mistake as everyone else. He thought he could get away with it.
Now he lay dead, soon to be forgotten, and only a shadow to stand guard over him, a shadow that Lotus was not afraid of, could not be intimidated by; what memory there was, only Lotus himself would retain, before long, for he retained the memory of all his victims, not out of respect or guilt, but because he had absorbed it, and he could not get rid of it again. He was already very old, and had more of these memories than he could keep track of, stockpiled away within the deep recesses of his mind, which he had greatly developed, almost at cost but not one he could not handle. All that untapped potential others had no idea what it might represent. Well, Lotus did. Some might have called him accursed. He called them dead, whether by his own hand or time itself, which was his only true companion.
Except, at the moment, this shadow, this ghost. Romero's memory, he couldn't access it, and though it didn't trouble him, this failure, it did stand as remarkable. Perhaps Romero himself had been more remarkable than Lotus had suspected. It would at least be a pleasant surprise, once the memory surfaced and he could indulge it at his leisure, which he more than enough of. He was always accessing these memories, exploring them, sharing in mock conversations. Anyone else would hold this as a mark of psychoses, but he understood it as perfectly natural, what anyone else would have done with the same abilities. But no one else did, did they? No, he was not accursed, but he was alone, and he very well understood that, which left the memories all the more enticing, as well as the continued collecting of them. He embroiled himself in his own fantasy, just as anyone else, just as Romero had. But his was not a deadly one, just he himself was. He was an agent of death, and he'd found a good way to facilitate that: join those who'd fancied themselves such creatures, but never really had...the right tools for the job.
Speaking of the right tools, Lotus presently slipped his gloves back on. He would not need those particular tools again, certainly not with this ghost, which seemed so persistent in its game. Games were such childish things. He had never played them, not even when he was very young, and he had never once felt as if he'd missed something. All he really needed was amusement, and he gained that easily enough. On his payroll was Ted Geyer, reporter for the Traverse Tracks, who had interviewed Romero. He had also recently arranged for Hopper's parents to visit him, after Romero's own fashion. He had sat directly in their dust, and the fact that he never knew it did not diminish the fun for Lotus. The body of Fred Mueller, the so-called Ratbeard, had still had memory enough, so Lotus had ravaged it, in front of Ratbeard's grieving family. Yes, he had followed in Romero's footsteps for quite some time now, and it had all been very amusing. He had no problem mocking his victims, because he knew it would all be forgotten in time, by everyone but himself, or dismissed as legend. He'd had his own victims in that time, certainly. There were many rich ones, formidable ones, then. not as many now.
Certainly not the ghost who persisted in this garage, as Romero entered rigor mortis, the expression on his face betraying the fear he had always denied himself. Lotus towered over the body and held true to his vigil. Whatever game this ghost had, he was not entertaining it; the ghost was, rather, amusing him, and that was all, and it had better have hoped to maintain that amusement, because Lotus did not suffer fools, in whatever form. He had learned to expel memories, and in that form banish forever those souls. He knew no such thing as mercy. He had no use for it.
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