Chapter Twenty-Six - Ratbeard's Widow

Bessie Mueller never intended for it to happen. When she had made her pact with Lotus, it had been under the strict agreement that her husband be strictly off-limits, but that had not been with understanding on her part as to the wider implications of the times and conditions the pact were made under. She knew better now. All too much better. Freddy was dead.

The life he had led, the one he had made no effort to shield her from, because she’d had plenty of experience in it herself, had always threatened such an end, but both of them had believed they could escape it. The memory of Butler still haunted her. It had happened again, and once again she had been the cause. And in a way, Balthazar Romero as well. She and Balthazar had had an affair, Butler had found out, blackmailed Balthazar, and Butler found out how easily Balthazar could have his problems solved for him, by Boy Benjamin, who could always come up with a reason for Balthazar to get what he wanted while giving him an excuse for his conscience. Well, damn and his conscience. He was probably already burning. There had been no affair this time, just jealousy. Bessie had gotten what her sister never could, had given two husbands what Balthazar never got, and never would, with Ashlee dead. Bessie should have felt worse about that. She couldn’t bring herself to. She had her own pain.

She had regret. She was bringing her own calamity onto herself, and she couldn’t feel sorry for hurt she’d caused others because she couldn’t handle the pain she’d brought into her own home, when Lotus made it clear all deals were off, by violating her husband’s corpse in front of herself. In front of her kids. Hansen, twelve years old and as much a reflection of the suave loose-cannon Butler as wiry Freddy, had tried to get his revenge there on the spot, pouncing on Lotus as he sucked her husband dry. Hansen, who’d been thrown and broke his neck, dead. Rose, nine years old and a reflection of her mother, who did not realize her own strength, following suit with her brother’s retaliation. Rose, who broke her neck and died. Lotus was an animal. He did not even glance at Bessie when he was finished. He simply left the house behind.

She couldn’t call the cops. The cops would never believe her, would never trust her. She might even have been arrested on the spot. She just couldn’t take the chance. She left her family behind, left her home behind. All Lotus had wanted from her in the first place was reassurance, that he had her support. He had presumed it meant her family’s as well. He did not know the Solomons, and Bessie had not bothered to clarify the issue. She had not bothered to. She couldn’t believe it. She had wasted her entire life. Her own mother had warned her; she hadn’t listened. “Don’t embrace your father’s life,” she’d said. “It’s my own choice,” Bessie had replied.

Choice. She had made all the wrong choices. She had grown up assuming it was her destiny to have everything she ever wanted, and secretly she had coveted everything, had suspected that if she played her cards right, she could surpass her family, surpass her father, surpass everyone else in Traverse, surpass even the moguls of the world. She had been granted knowledge of how the whole system worked, and had decided she didn’t need it. She was content with her own ambition. Then she crossed the family, crossed her father, marrying Butler Epstein, a pawn of Rancor’s, a rival of the family, of her father. She had been assured that this would not affect her welcome. She should have known that wasn’t enough.

She should have known how naïve she really was. Butler had made her forget her concerns, had told her his only plans for the future were to retire, even though he was a rising star. He had told her he didn’t care. Well, someone did, and not just her. Why hadn’t she just listened to him? Why couldn’t she be content? After his death she seemed to have learned her lesson. Freddy made the same assurances, except his star was fading, his day in the limelight long gone. He was nothing but a snitch now. Again with the family’s disapproval, again with her father’s. Again with those who would like to see her husband dead. She’d made the pact with Lotus to spare him the same fate as Butler. She had been naïve.

Bessie was still a Solomon, still a member of one of the most-established clans in Traverse history. Ancestors had helped found the city, had decided to rein in their claim to it, had fought Sidewinder, had found William Tekamthi’s ambitions contrary to their own, had liked to see the Eidolon go away as well. In every instance they had prevailed. Had she known half the implications of her associations, she would have seen it coming. That Butler’s master, Rancor, had been assassinated in the move that withdrew Eidolon from the scene, that the Eidolon himself was married to her sister, that Lotus lay claim to Traverse because he had been there when the Solomons made their first assumption, that he never had any intention of moving on, let alone sparing Freddy Mueller, captain of a tugboat in the underworld sea of the city, Ratbeard himself. It should have been obvious. It was, too. Bessie had simply chosen to ignore it, all of it. She put herself above all of it, because she had thought it was her right, her destiny. Now she knew that she had been wrong. She had no such claim, no such birthright.

Did she have a future? She didn’t know where to turn. Grovel at the feet of her family, of her father? Her mother died trying to turn the tide of rationality. In a way, she had been Butler’s antecedent, Freddy’s as well. Bessie should have known, all the signs had been there, every way out marked for her, every indication of what was going to go wrong. She made the same mistakes time and again, and still hadn’t learned. What was so different about Lotus? That he had been so brazen, so unearthly, so alien, that he could not be ignored? For a man clouded in mystery, he stood in great relief.

It suddenly came to her, what she should do. She would need the watch that had killed her husband. Oh yes, she had know right away what had happened; she was no fool, certainly not to old tricks. She knew how to do it herself, too. She would spring the same trap. She would send this watch back to Boy Benjamin, and she would be there when it arrived. She didn’t even care if he would be able to recognize what was happening.

Her thought returned to the urn of ashes, of Butler’s father, which had been such a torment for them for so long, and for her after Butler’s death. They knew that Balthazar’s only interest was the torment, and that his father was still alive. When this urn arrived, however, Bessie also knew that it was real, and that it had been sent by Lotus. It had arrived before he did, and she should have understood then what was going to happen. Freddy was still alive, but he hadn’t been showed the urn. Bessie had not wanted to frighten him, had not yet accepted what it meant. She hadn’t been ready. The idea was absurd to her now; it mortified her. Hadn’t been ready?

Everyone in Traverse had known about Lotus, had heard the legends. But no one believed they were true, that such a man could exist, even with so many other fantastical figures about. Precedents did not always prepare people for something so shocking. If anything, they made such things harder to believe, as if they could not, should not be matched again, or excelled. That would truly have been unnatural. Yet Lotus was real. The idea had intoxicated Bessie the moment his existence was confirmed. He represented power, power she wanted a part of. She had believed that cutting a deal with him early would have granted her special privilege, even a piece of his power, more power than she could have ever imagined, because she could never have imagined Lotus himself.

Having arranged delivery of the package, Bessie tried to prepare herself mentally for the task ahead. She would be entering the dragon’s lair. This dragon was not her greatest menace, but he was the most accessible one, and she would settle for that. She no longer had the courage for great things. She despised herself for ever wanting them. They had cost her so much.

She found herself at a local watering hole, Tin Can, seated at the bar. There were very few patrons this evening. Besides herself and the bartender, there was someone playing pool and a professional-looking man on what appeared to be his third bottle. She asked the bartender what the man was drinking. “The Old VM,” he said. “If he keeps this up, he’ll drink us out of it.” She told him she’d have the same.

“Mind if I have a seat?” she said, bottle in hand.

“Why don’tchou?” he said in reply, keeping his hand, almost defensively, on the third bottle. “I’ve been looking this stuff up. It turns out this place getsit, and it’s the only place that getsit. I even found out who put in the original order. Somebody by the name of Locus or something. Sounded biblical. Like the end of the world.”

Bessie gave him a double-take, which he didn’t notice, and decided not to open her bottle, not out of fear, but instinct. “Is it any good?”

“You betcha!” the man said. “I can’t help but drink it, youknow? I haven’t been to work in days. The last article I wrote was about this place. Damn this place. Damn this liquor!”

Yet, Bessie noticed, he didn’t put it down. In fact, he ordered another. The bartender did not look amused, but it wasn’t about this man. Something else was bothering him, something far more personal, far worse than a bum on a bender. It was written in his eyes. He seemed to have lost a friend, and all he needed was confirmation, which was what he feared most of all. Bessie knew that look. She’d seen it on Butler’s face, Freddy’s, countless others’, countless times. She’d seen it in her own face, the day the urn arrived. She was sick and tired of that face. She left the bar immediately. The man would no doubt help himself to her beer.

All she could do was wait for the day the package arrived. She would beat it there, act like it was a social visit, so that Boy Benjamin, if he suspected a thing, would know immediately, like she had known after Lotus had stolen her family away, known that she had lost her unborn child.