Skillful Death
More by Ike - The Vivisectionist
More by Ike - Lies of the Prophet
More by Ike - The Hunting Tree
Skillful Death
B
Y
IKE HAMILL
Dedication:
To my friends and family.
Special Thanks:
Cover design by BelleDesign [BelleDesign.org]
Proofreader and Editor, Jill S. Weinstein [[email protected]]
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and events have been fabricated only to entertain. If they resemble any facts in any way, I’d be completely shocked. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of Ike Hamill. Unless, of course, you intend to quote a section of the book in order to illustrate how awesome it is. In that case, go ahead. Copyright
©
2014 by Ike Hamill. All rights reserved.
1 PREFACED
O
YOU
EVER
CATCH
something out of the corner of your eye and then spin your head to figure out what it was? When I was younger, it was always a falling leaf, or a passing car, or a cat jumping down off a garbage can. Now, it’s often nothing at all. Perhaps the corners of my eyes are giving out and firing off random signals. Whether it’s something mundane, or nothing—just a random signal—I’m always disappointed. I want it to be a pixie, or demon, or alien death ray. I want the conspiracy to be true. I want the real story to be so much more than I could have imagined. I’m sick of the rational explanation. I’m sick of Ockham’s razor. Unfortunately, I’m an accomplished skeptic with no capacity to suspend disbelief. I stand in the path of my own happiness.
You can’t trust rich people, so I had a couple of ground rules before I agreed to write/transcribe this. I refuse to document a murder without reporting it. I don’t want to be an accessory to a blubbery, half-baked confession and then be bound to confidentiality. I’m not sure you can be compelled to keep quiet about evidence of a murder, but rather than take the chance, I put it right into my contract. Second, I wanted the ability to inject any background or explanation into the story where I felt it necessary. The boss kept control of his chapters, but just so he couldn’t skew the story too much, I wanted to be able to throw in my own perspective. You’ll see it.
I guess that’s all the prep you need.
♣
♢
♡
♠
He seems calm enough talking to me. I’m less worried about the arsenal he’s amassed.
Bud: It’s roughly the same story.
Malcolm: Perhaps you should go ahead and tell me?
Bud: I can’t stress enough—it’s a long, long story.
Malcolm: I have time.
2 EARLY YEARSC
ONSTANTINE
WAS
BORN
TO
a respected couple on the Shylan Road, but was stolen away beneath the folds of the Midwife’s wrap before his rightful family ever laid eyes on him.
The Midwife took him home. He was tiny compared to his twin sister, and probably wouldn’t have lived if he’d been left with his birth mother. The vitality of his older sister would have hoarded all the energy and love of their mother just as it had while they were in the womb. But in the house of the Midwife, Constantine survived. Two months later, when he finally looked the size and weight of a normal newborn, the Midwife announced him as her own fresh child. With her generous build and loose clothing, nobody doubted that she could have been pregnant. They should have doubted her ability to conceive, given her long string of beaus and no other offspring throughout the years, but if those rumors existed, they never touched her ears.
Constantine was considered the bastard child of a Midwife, and was not suspected to be a “Midwife’s baby” until much later in his life. Growing up the bastard child of a laborer in Sokolsky County, Constantine had no right to public education or apprenticeship. He should have counted himself lucky to secure a position sweeping horse dung from between the cobblestones of the square, but Constantine proved more crafty, or perhaps more lucky, than that.
His home was on the Masty Road, in a tiny little cabin propped between three solid oaks. Constantine grew up under the negligent eye of the Midwife. She didn’t have the wherewithal to supervise him. Once he grew out of her arms, he couldn’t come along with her to do her midwifery, and he wasn’t welcome at the school. He was on his own from an early age. One day, a neighbor on the Yarrow road found two-year-old Constantine suckling at the teat of his old bitch. The boy had strangled three puppies in his ardor for the milk, but the bitch didn’t seem to mind. She had too many mouths to feed. The neighbor was incensed. He’d already promised each of the puppies to a different customer. He carried the young Romulus back to the Midwife’s shack upside down, by his heel, holding the youngster at arm’s length. Constantine never made a sound during the trip and only grunted when the neighbor dropped him on his head at the roots of one of the oaks. The neighbor never got a chance to complain directly to the Midwife. Coincidentally, he died in his sleep that same night. His widow followed the Yarrow road to its end and she wasn’t heard from again.
By three, Constantine spent most of his days under the bridge of Hyff Lane, where it crossed the Masty stream. Downstream from the bridge, the Masty stream followed the Masty Road, since they were both headed to the same place. However, up where the stream crossed under Hyff Lane, it was a free agent, winding a nonsense course through the woven roots of twisted maple trees. Constantine loved that he could walk down the shallows of the stream all the way home and not leave a single footprint in the soft forest floor.
♣
♢
♡
♠
Malcolm: Wait. At three years old, you were exploring the woods and hanging out under a bridge?
Constantine: Yes.
Malcolm: That seems a little far-fetched, even for you. Maybe you just snuck down there once or twice when you were a little older and you remember it wrong.
Constantine: I know I was there every day because the Midwife would kick me out of the house when she’d leave, like a dog whom you don’t trust with the furniture. I know I was three because I had three marks on my forearm when I found that bridge. The bridge had three supports in a triangle, and I had a triangle of marks on my arm. See?
He removes the cufflink from his left sleeve and raises the starched blue shirt high enough so I see his veined forearm. There, he has seven star-shaped marks. They’re raised like brands, and powdery blue. The ones near the center are blurry compared to the outer ones.
Constantine: Each year, near the end of spring, the Midwife would catch me and put another mark.
Malcolm: Why only seven?
Constantine: During my seventh summer, I ran away. She could never catch me a again to make her mark.
♣
♢
♡
♠
Constantine didn’t talk much and didn’t know anybody. When he heard or saw another person, he’d run away. Even the Midwife didn’t get to spend much time with him. When she got home from her rounds, she’d spot Constantine lurking around the back door and try to lure him inside with food, like a feral cat. His favorite was anything with ginger in it. She could get him to eat a whole plate of bloody liver as long as she shaved some fresh ginger into the frying pan when she seared it.
The first words the Midwife ever heard little Constantine say came when he was five. By then, the Midwife assumed he’d never talk. With his claw-like fingernails, stringy hair, and unwillingness to stay dressed, Constantine seemed like he’d never be tamed. The Midwife started to assume that he would always live with her, like her mute mascot. She was shocked to tears on the spring day when he spoke.
“Make fire,” he said.
The Midwife never spoke around the house. She didn’t see the point since Constantine never parroted back any of the things she said. Now, with those two words, the floodgates opened and the Midwife couldn’t stop talking.
“Fire? Do you want me to make a fire? Or, do
you
want to make a fire? Do you want me to show you how to make a fire?” she asked. Constantine didn’t respond. He crouched in the doorway, cracking acorns with a rock and then nibbling at the bitter nuts.
The Midwife moved over to the cold ashes of her fire pit.